Ficciones

My father was a great dancer.  He had athletic grace and the kind of poise and balance that made him a good tennis player.  The legend was that before the war, he'd worked upstate at the upscale resorts-- rolling out courts, teaching tennis... while at night he'd be paid tips to dance with the widows and spinsters.  Growing up, he and my Mom shone at weddings, events, and holidays... whenever there was live music they'd be demonstrating all the traditional 1940's and 50's ensemble routines. Graced with that extra marital intimacy vibe, stepping and spinning like young professionals, they looked to us like movie stars, not parents.

When my mother had dementia late in life and the television became her companion, she loved Dancing with the Stars, although the anticipation was way more engaging than the actual show.  I think she liked the music, and repeating the show title. She had always had a predilection for songs about stars-- When You Wish Upon a Star, Catch a Falling Star and Put it in Your Pocket, Starlight... she'd play and sing with the sheet music in her funny little voice.  She used to read to us at night-- a book where there was a girl named Star and that was her favorite.

My first experience with altered realities was following my BFF's instructions on holding deep breaths until we fainted. It was like inhaling glue; we put on a Hendrix album and passed out... the record was on the last track when we came to, in a sort of musical backward swirl.  It was a dangerous little experiment but I literally saw stars.  I guess I was about 13/14.  It stayed with me. It also scared me.

This week I was trying to distract myself from the depressing political news, and turned on the TV.  In my mother's honor I tried Dancing with the Stars.  It was shockingly lame.  Just a stageful of B and C level celebrities, most of whom I barely recognized, trying desperately to invent themselves as some sort of ballroom contestant. Literally unwatchable.  Also embarrassing, graceless, mortifying, pathetic.  I mean-- I felt sorry for them all, for different reasons.  Flipping around network television, the game shows, the convoluted reality shows-- it was like the downfall of culture, right there onscreen.  Sad excuses for plots and contests--- who is watching this stuff?  Back to my Indie films and documentary channels.  Break for the republican candidate debate which was equally or more ridiculous.  

I've been re-reading Borges-- always a treat.  The story-telling, the humor- the plots and gaucho/macho heroes-- the sheer Arabian-Nights-variety of characters is entertainment.  And then we have Borges himself.  His autobiographical assessment is candid and humble.  His accomplishments are dazzling, especially considering the genetic blindness that did not eclipse his trajectory; the poise and philosophical grace with which he adjusted... well, it's inspirational. 

What struck me this round is his brutal assessment of his own early work. As opposed to our culture where everyone is shouting out on instagram, he had the taste and intelligence to self-criticize.  He grew, and made sure that his work opened accordingly.  He edited, translated, understood.  The breadth of his literacy is overwhelming. He even cleverly uses Mark Twain to give his opinion of Jane Austen, and pokes fun at his own poetry.  Hungering for the stars-- I remembered that line, from an early poem.  Anyway, I was entertained... only disheartened by the sheer limit of his output, and my failure to grasp much besides English these days. 

I tried to see the really terrible television fare as Borgesian characters... but it was impossible.  Everyone seems to be tarted up, costumed and squeezed into some invented version of themselves. Where are the editors, where is honesty? People who aspire to become president of my country are petty and visionless.  I doubt anyone was listening, and there wasn't much to listen to.  There's this new standard of arguing and word-batting.  Childishness and lack of poise.  I think of my parents dancing as a couple, without the jerking and twerking and graceless posing.  For that matter, any garden-variety strip club has better dancing.  Why is America encouraging these shows?  

It's kind of an irony that we call celebrities 'stars'... in fact it's rather absurd. When we were little we had Winky Dink, an animated little star who spoke to us.  We drew with him on our television screens. My mother loved him, too... or her or them.  I know little of star-gender.

Today would have been Marc Bolan's birthday. Another awesome talent gone too soon. Over and over in my head today 'you got a hubcap diamond star halo.'  A lyric worthy of Hendrix.. . something that transported me, when I was a teenager-- it felt sexy and original.  Dead at 29.  These people took what they had and created things.  Surely he's out there tonight, pushing celestial envelopes and stepping over astral swirls, while my parents perform a quiet tango of forgiveness and we here labor on, praying for some extra-planetary relief.