A Brief History of Alfred Jarry

        This is Neither Alfred Jarry Nor a Pipe*

    

                (Figure 2)

    

                (Figure 2)

Author of "Ubu Roi" (Ubu The King), a masterpiece that prefigured the Dadaist and later Surrealistic movements,  he was also the father of Pataphysics, the science of exceptions or imaginary solutions.   This was Alfred Jarry.  "Ubu Roi" is still still produced,  but not nearly enough.  In its time, it was considered a vicious, even dangerous, political satire, its street language scandalized theater critics and it closed after a single performance. 

On occasion Jarry,  all 5' 1" of him, rode his bicycle through the streets of Paris with two, fully loaded, pearl-handled pistols holstered at his side.  He is known to have fired one or both of the pistols several times.  Witnesses differ on the number of shots fired but on one point there was unanimity, Jarry never pointed at anything but sky.  Jarry was also a prolific inventor.  He designed and built a time machine masw of brass, wood, ivory and as many dials an gauges as an atomic submarine.  Several artists saw the time machine,  but never sat in it, as far as anyone knows.  Still considering his fame or infamy, it seems peculiar that nobody (not even Picasso) had any idea what became of it.  I failed to locate it in the possession of any museum or private art collection.  It may well have not survived.  The time machine would, however explain Jarrry's sudden disappearance at the age of 34, on the night of November 1, 1907.  Newspapers the next day said that Jarry had died.  There was a funeral several days later.   But after so many years, it is difficult to separate what is true from speculation.  Born on September 8, 1847, he became, with Picasso, a major influence on the arts and letters of the time.  Jarry foresaw "Theater of The Absurd" as well as the Dada and Surrealistic movements.   At the same point in time, Picasso was creating Cubsism.

* The caption over the above picture of Alfred Jarry is, of course, borrowed from 

Marcel Duchamp's 

Surrealistic 

masterpiece called, ""This is not a pipe." (See figure 2*) 

It hangs in the Louve

                      

                                                                                                    

                                                                                    

                                                                             

                                                                       

What's It All About?

I have decided to make these writings tell my story as it has evolved to this moment.   It is the story of a man, in late middle age, who must start over again and make his life finally make sense.  This is not an easy story for me to tell.  Secrets will be revealed, feelings and thoughts I thought I had buried long ago will have to surface if I am to tell the entire truth.

It begins, skipping over my early childhood, when I am seventeen.  Off I go to college in the midwest, not really wanting to go, but feeling I had no choice.  Needless to say, from the first day, I brought difficulties and stresses into my life that I was entirely unprepared to cope with, but under the bright lights of student court my mis-deeds were simply more than I could bear.   After being caught in another county in Iowa, with an underage girl (I had no idea, honestly), I got to do something most other students never do in four years of college.

I met the dean.  In fact, it was the dean who personally bailed me out of the Ottomwa County Jail.  It was not a happy scene and after talking the police out of prosecuting me, I was told I'd have to go before student court, who would meet out my sentence.  Student court is a holdover from the Nazi era.  I never had a chance to defend myself and was given a sentence of ninety (90) work hours on the commons. During my shift, the temperature often dipped to 25 below zero. My job involved the use of a long piece of wood with a nail sticking out over the bottom end.  It was my job to pick up the wrappers and other garbage through the use of this pointed stick.   (MORE TOMORROW)

It Boils Down to This

For those few of you who may be following what I write here, it comes down to this question:  Can a person of my history and age come ever lead a life that doesn't hurt somebody, especially me?   What will I do to put food on the table and pay the rent(s).

No one will ever hire me again.  Not in my former occupation.  My name sends shivers through head hunters and HR people from coast to coast.   It always surprises me that they actually know the general stories.   I guess I was pretty noisy about it all.   Poor me.

The Squeeze

It's all hitting me at once.   Bills are due.  Taxes must be paid.  There's a $500 deductible on the car.  The car.  It was damaged when it was towed by the private towing company on Friday afternoon.  We still owe a fairly tidy sum on the Mini Cooper for damage sustained during the three years I had it.  The phone bill is through the roof.  The mortgage is due.  We owe for life and health insurance.  Behind on both. We do have a small amount of savings.  I guess we'll be dipping into it (again).  There doesn't seem to be another way.  I can't borrow money.  I don't know how to ask.  In any event I really hate it, so I resist even considering it.

Bitch bitch bitch.  Everybody's got problems.  I need to count my blessings, of which there are many.  I've got what money can't buy.  A woman who loves me ... I've even got a wife!   Just kidding.  I live in a beautiful home, in a beautiful neighborhood, shouting distance from the beach.  I'm a very lucky guy in another way too.  Most people who've with my proclivities are either hospitalized or dead.  And I'm neither.  I'm the wonder of the age.  Well, at least I must be  the most hard headed guy in the world.

From bed + iPhone

I'm about to turn off the light. I like the idea that I can blog from a prone position. I'm more prone to blog from here.

"Everybody's got a story and if they don't have a story,their story is just around the corner"

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

My Car Was Towed (Again)

I parked it down the street, near, but not blocking the driveway of a private house.  Well, maybe I was one inch into their driveway.  But all week they drove their two cars in and out of their garage without needing to take any action.  Until today.  Today, they called a private towing company and had my car towed to a private car pound that is now closed.  Obviously this makes it impossible to drive out to our house tonight as we had planned and looked forward to all week.   They told us this was a safe neighborhood.  Nobody said the people were hateful and looking for trouble.

Thursday Night, Just Past Eight

I just got back from meeting with a group of friends.  I was dressed a little funny.  In 1994 I was, for the month of January, an inmate of the Silkworth Unit at Hazelden.   Tonight,  running out of comfortable t-shirts, I found a collarless shirt I had bought back then, at the Hazelden gift shop.  It has a fairly prominent Hazelden logo on the left hand side.   I'm told Hazelden doesn't have the gift shop anymore.  It never seemed right, that a suburb of hell should have key chains, t-shirts, hats and sweatshirts with the Hazelden logo.   I mean, it isn't Yale, is it.  And when I think of the real cost of the t-shirt, it makes me shudder.   You could go to Yale ten or eleven times for what that t-shirt cost me.