Part 30 - the end of a marathon and a decaying foot

Sea,

It was strange digging into my box of manuscripts and taking the second-to-the-last one out to read. It finally feels like we're going to make it. This rivals my first marathon in terms of the sense of accomplishment. Holy shit, I just saw a mouse and almost had a heart attack. That's the first mouse I've ever seen in my studio. I think he or she came out when I turned the radio off to write, thinking it was safe to come nibble on some tubes of Prussian blue paint. Because both my parents leaped onto furniture whenever they saw a mouse, I'm forever scarred...and scared. I've never been able to shake my fear. Seeing your brawny father nearly wet his pants at the sight of a helpless golf ball-size rodent will change a man, you know?

So Rowan is cowering in the putrid mushroom bed when her foot slips out from under her. Trying to free herself she digs into the muck and finds a badly decayed human foot. So that's macabre. This causes Rowan to scream, which gives her location away. Within seconds she's surrounded by flashlights. The thugs drag her, still retching, into a room where Cater is being held captive. He has welts on his head and cigarette burns up his arm. For such a stylized and generally inert buildup, the details of torture and death have been quite convincing. Maybe Ms. Lamb has a sadistic side that she needed to let loose.

Apparently the jellied body parts are Ah Sing's, the "laid-off" greenhouse employee. I'll say. I wonder if he qualifies for unemployment. They are Communists after all. He should at least get a state funeral. The group then conducts what played out in my head as a clichéd prisoner/captor exchange, where a pointed gun and an inexcusably long explanation of the crook's motive lasts just long enough for the captors to escape...Cater suddenly looked like harmonica-era Bruce Willis to me. Only, our captors haven't escaped...yet. Wow, though, the blood thirst of Lucy. She seems REALLY anti-social now. All the words wasted by Lamb on her inner-psyche are now out the window; she's turned from disturbed, complex, reluctant crime syndicate leader to Jeff Daumer. I think she might make a pate out of Sing's foot. I'm surprised she doesn't have cats; people that crazy HAVE to have cats. Anyway, as she's waxing sadistic with Rowan and Matt, she admits to shooting and killing Reshevksy...so that's official. Our first real loss so far. I kinda liked that guy.

In an attempt to extract information from Matt, Lucy approaches Rowan to start the torture session. It seems they don't actually believe Rowan knows anything, but are using the couple's mutual love as leverage. This actually redeems the story a bit, because there was really no good reason for the network to be hatin' on Rowan.

Just as Lucy is about to tee off on Rowan, my section ends. I don't know if it was seeing the mouse or reading the story, but my blood's flowing.

Tell me more, Cee.

Part 14 - unemployment, Russian Tzars and grammar

Yo, Cee
So, today is my first official day of unemployment and it feels a bit odd. I've been working more than full-time for six years now, and, suddenly, here I am waking up to Regis and Kelly. Last time I watched this show there was a different woman on. Kind of sad to be reminded of passing time...cue the intro to Taxi or a Supertramp song.


Funny I just got a call from Caren, and thought "I can't believe this, my first day of unemployment, I'm looking for jobs and here's my old boss calling to resolve something I've put way behind me." It turns out that it was an accident; seems she and Peter are mountain biking or hiking somewhere. I could hear crunching rocks and her shouting directions.

The Tibetan museum would actually be a nice excursion. We should do it. Only problem is, I called the Dept. of Labor and asked them about what would happen if I were to sell any art while on unemployment. To my amazement, anything I sell that was made before unemployment doesn't affect my claim. However, any work I do in the studio counts as labor to be deducted from my check, as I would be working on "salable commodities." After I found this out, I asked the agent if I could make "practice work," to which he offered me a tentative "I don't think so."

"So what about a sketch book?"

"No."

"Can I imagine art?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Can I open my eyes in the morning or should I keep closed all day?"

"Sir?!"

"Can I make love, because post-coital relaxation is really the crucible for all good thought; it's honestly more important than studio time...."

"(silence)"

Point is, I may not be ALLOWED to go to the Tibetan Museum, as determined by the NY State Dept. of Labor, but let's throw caution to the wind and go next week...if I have to claim it as a day of employment, so be it.

So Reshevsky's on the prowl. You can definitely sense that he wants to pin Rowan to a tree even though those details have been stricken from the narrative record. Rowan agrees to hit Grant's Tomb and the Tibetan Museum with him the next day. Reshevsky finally feels gratified, but he obviously doesn't know about the secret meeting with Cater.

An aside here: two days ago Heidi came home and said she had words with her intern for making a bunch of grammatical mistakes on a really important grant application. Defensively, the young intern defended herself over the use of "Grants Tomb," without the possessive..and apparently they went to the mat over it. Heidi is very passive and congenial except for some reason when it comes to style and grammar..and then she's a bobcat. I had to send her a copy of the usage to show her intern. Funny, huh?
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

On her way to breakfast, Rowan sees Mrs. Chow crying. She finds out from Lucy that this is because Ah Sing was fired. Lucy holds that he will be fine because of his pension and because "the Chinese are very big on family duty." Is this true my resident Chinese sociologist? Are you "big on family?" Or is it 'Orientals' in general??

Lucy says his removal was because he was beginning to "dodder." Lucy and Rowan then exchange glances before Rowan departs telling herself that she wishes the meeting with Cater would be over so she could make some decisions and go home.

Reshevsky and Rowan head into Manhattan, where he surprises her with a sidetrip to his bachelor pad at 111th and Riverside Drive. Rowan remarks that the digs are a little meager for a count. Interestingly, Reshevsky provides us with some personal history, which is initiated by Rowan's interest in a portrait of the Count's father.This historical sidebar is really coincidental because I woke up today and decided that I wanted to read more about the days leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution through the Stalinist blackout. This impulse came about after re-reading a Peter Schjeldahl review of the 2003 Malevich show at the Guggenheim and thought how amazing the fight for geometric abstraction has been through the years. For some it was a revolution; for others it signified bourgeois decadence. It's weird how they've been marshaled by various interests to fit their agendas.

So, it seems Reshevsky's parents were probably Tzarists from the old guard. His father was "eased from this world with the aid of several pounds of lead" in 1921. His mother died in 1917 when their estate was burned. After these details are revealed, Reshevsky goes into a short philosophical flourish which is actually quite well done.

Reshevsky says basically that he does not want pity and that deprivation and bereavement have made him less vulnerable. As a result he seeks pleasure and comfort only. Rowan protests claiming that, on the contrary, Reshevsky is not cold and uncaring, to which he responds "lack of pain, my dear girl, is not necessarily pleasure."

Well done! I do like Reshevsky's character. I think Ms. Lamb might have actually known a Reshevsky...or maybe he's based on some Noel Coward character. But, whatever, he's tighter than the rest.

Back atcha Cee,
Shane

Part 11.5 - candles and fireworks, and lost geraniums

What a wonderful surprise bumping into you at TBD in Greenpoint. I'd never been there before, and we were only there because we had just left the concert at the Williamsburg waterfront. And the world is still intact - we didn't implode (see below)

nor did the world stop turning... apparently the cosmic universe doesn't care if we communicate with one another outside the established boundaries of Rowan and the Greenhouse. I actually had a very pleasant, almost picture perfect New York weekend - biking, a picnic on Governor's Island on Saturday, and Sunday brunch followed by a great free show by the Dirty Projectors in Williamsburg.

So it appears there was a mistake when distributing our pages - I in fact had two sections in a row, so part 12, which you just emailed me, takes place after what I read tonight! ah ha! we face our first test... is this really section 11.5? What if I had deliberately witheld this portion from you? did you even notice? was your section more disjointed than normal?

My portion continues directly along from part 11 ; as you may remember, Rowan had to go to the greenhouse to find a new pot and soil for her geraniums, and Kee was taking her (remember this is the middle of the night and our Rowan has a case of the heebie-jeebies). At the greenhouse they find Ah Sing, hanging out and reading a newspaper for which he is admonished for by Kee, for slacking on his guard duties. 'What on earth could he be guarding?' Rowan wonders...

Ah Sing leads her through a maze of locked doors, piles equipment, tubs of soil, and the occasional strange-looking plant. Rowan tries to get Ah Sing to explain what all the locked doors and chicken wire are for - what on earth could be so precious that requires a night guard? But he resists her questioning. And here we get to the second (at least in my mind) climax of the novel so far; the first being the death of the monk. As Ah Sing makes his way out of the room where Rowan found her pot, his flashlight passes over a figure, and it is ... dum dum de dum... Matthew Cater! Ah Sing doesn't notice though, and Rowan says nothing, in fact distracts Ah Sing so as to protect Matt. My portion ends with Rowan finding a very glum Aunt Lucy at her desk...

Part 7 - 12 hour time difference, the greenhouse and poison

Dear Shane,

Occasionally one of your emails to me reads uncannily similar to as if you were sitting in that beloved Aeron chair, in front of your sparkingly clean desk, with nary a speck nor paper towel to be seen, having a ten minute ramble before going about our whatever it is that we used to do in that office. Your last email was one of those, made even more odd by the fact that we're seperated by a continent and an ocean, rather than 3 feet. That and the 12 hour time difference makes this this project wonderfully disjunctive at times.

And you're right - i have an interesting 5 pages. What i've noticed is how uncomfortable I become at having to read something mid-sentence. Like I've walked into a party that I'm not invited to, or barged into a conversation (but perhaps I'm one of the few people who care about such things... cough cough). I've also found fingerprints! I have no idea what this makes me so excited - it's not like the presence of a set of grubby fingerprints will allow us to find the author easier. But it's a great side note to any conversation one could have about the indexical trace etc. It also came on a page that was riddled with scribbles by both parties (red ink, blue ink, and pencil!).

Anyway, I'm subjected to a long meandering description of this gigantic greenhouse, which is larger than the house itself. Our Rowan wonders through the hallways herself, unaccompanied by James Kee, and comes across a variety of exotic looking plants, all tended to by my peeps. And when I say my peeps, I mean my forebearers who were all gardeners. I must admit it's very odd to see the term "Orientals" bandied about when not referring to carpets. Its neither offensive nor funny; I seriously do mean I expect to see the word 'carpet' after it.

Her aunt is somewhere in the greenhouse and Rowan goes in search of her, passing by a wooden shack that has a door marked ' Keep Out', which of course our protaganist tried to open, to no avail. In the left wing of the greenhouse, Rowan comes across a number of plants she doesn't recognize, and is startled by an old Chinese gardener brandishing a pair of sharp garden shears, who yells at her to not touch them, frightening the crap out of Rowan, who proceeds to yell for her aunt. Apparently, Ah Sing (the old gardener) was just being protective; the plants being his babies, as well as being poisonous (ah hah!! the plot thickens). One of the particularly innocent looking ones, an oleander, is apparently 'nerium indicum', which can cause something resembling a heart attack.

And I admit, i have no idea what oleander looks like but apparently it's quite common, and varieties can be deadly when ingested. check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleander

So! We have poisonous plants in a gigantic greenhouse, a locked door, a secretary who apparently chases way tourists when they come too close to the house, a potential love affair, and hoards of chinese gardeners. Dum dum dum dum..... back to you...,