A Ramble About SomethingOrOther

My always divided attention has turned to books. 

Even though my last post landed in this verdant little internet hillside over a year ago, poems and short fictions have bled from my pen as well. (I've been sharpening the nib to catch the most of its dark reserve and I'm finding bits of me along the way like clumps in the salve, like flies in the ointment. I've put a handful of them into a small collection (which may be soon, but it may be late), and there will be more on that later.)

Where was my much divided attention again? Oh yes! On books. 

Much of what I read goes unattended on this blog--most of it is fluff. I do enjoy good literature and some precariously balanced poetry, but most of what I get lost in are fantastical bits of Never Could Happen. You know, the wonderful, whimsical nonsense that is an easy pleasure to devour. (Neil Gaiman, I'm looking at you.)

A few weeks ago, I ventured to the local used bookstore with a friend from Austin. I usually beeline to the science fiction and fantasy aisles. (And I have an uncanny knack for finding them, though that's gotten easier these days with its resurgence in popular culture. Neil Gaiman, I'm still looking at you.) But my pal steers me into an alcove just before I hit my target. He tugs at my sleeve, leading the way, until we are in the middle of the music shelves. 

My friend is a musician. He plays the drums. 

If you know any musicians, you know that music colours their whole world, as if its patina of rhythm softens the blow of their reality. My friend is like that. It makes up most of our conversations, and he's the only reason I know of bands like "Folk Uke" and "The Hold Steady". So he reaches for a book and hands it to me. I look at the cover, and The Soloist, by Steve Lopez looks back. "Wondered what you'd think of that," he says. His eyebrows raise. I read the back cover, which informs me it is a true story about a schizophrenic and his journey through "the redemptive power of music" (or somesuch). My interest is piqued, and I take it home and read it.

I have to congratulate Steve Lopez on sticking to the point in his narrative (because I can't), even though his point is self-aggrandizing and misguided. It's not really a book about healing through music. It's about the author "rescuing" a man who did not ask to be rescued...with some music thrown in. Mr. Lopez doesn't take much time to question his friend with schizophrenia about what he really wants, or what would make him happy. He just plows over whatever is actually making his friend happy and substitutes those things with what Mr. Lopez ASSUMES everyone must surely want: a house, friends, money. You know, The American Dream. What he does ask himself about his friend's situation revolves around how Mr. Lopez can make himself feel better about this planet Earth we live on, where mental illness and poverty are rampant. The book is a long-winded and irritating pat on the back from the author, to the author.

See, the book claims to be about Mr. Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a musical prodigy whose life at Julliard was interrupted by the onset of a severe mental illness. But no. The book is all about Mr. Steve Lopez, The Man Who Saved  Someone At Great Cost To Himself.

And don't worry about that last part getting by you. He reminds the reader at least once a chapter that his investment in Nathaniel Ayers has put oh so many strains on his home and business life. Here's the problem: he is the one who approaches Nathaniel Ayers; he is the one with an unhealthy need to "fix" Mr. Ayers's situation; he is the one who lets himself get upset when things don't go his way.  Sure, the mentally ill are stigmatized and thrown out of society, with the added burden of carrying around a separate reality no one can relate to, but does it really help--in light of accepting that this reality is very different--to pigeonhole others into what we believe is best for them without asking, or pausing to consider that not everyone needs that "Normal" label?

I have schizophrenia, and I can tell you for damn certain that the things that make me happiest are not considered "Normal", or even "Sane". Happiness is specific to each person, and who are we to judge?

Nathaniel Anthony Ayers loved living outside, with no walls to contain him. He enjoyed possessing nothing anyone would consider taking from him. He just wanted to play music, out in the open air, but not for you or me or us or Mr. Lopez. He wanted that patina of rhythm that softens the blow of reality, and he wanted it only for himself.

If you choose to read this Steaming Pile of Steve Lopez, please do, but ask yourself just who he thinks he is to enforce his idea of happy onto someone else. Ask yourself who you think you are. Ask why we (Americans, mostly) feel everyone should conform to our consensus reality of what makes Happy in the first place.

And then ask yourself what makes you happy.
And then follow that.