August 04, 2003
James Lileks' Bleats
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I wrote the bulk of this encomium several days ago. I was going to hyperlink several spots with specific Bleats, but James' site has been been skreweled for the last 24 hours. At first visiting the URL just hijacked the visitor and suggested installing an unsigned, untrusted certificate. Right.
Now, James appears to be back in control somewhat (with humor). What you get is:
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I like James Lileks’ blog, The Bleat. He is the Jerry Seinfeld of bloggers: he makes nothing entertaining. Do you remember the syllogism:
Nothing is better than divine happiness.
A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
Ergo: A ham sandwich is better than divine happiness.
Makes sense to me.
To many other bloggers, and I’m sure many unseen lurkers, The Bleat is a true delight to read. It’s an indulgent bowl of ice cream before bed. And it’s not what he writes about. It’s the immense talent with which he writes. Off the cuff. With no editor or proofreader. Every day.
He writes about nothing. Oh, of course he writes about Gnat, and mortgages, and matchbooks, and job quibbles, and all the other trappings of a day in the life. But the Bleats are crafted to be beautiful, not to be of use. They are art.
I often think about the question, “What do you do for a living?”, or even more simply, “What do you do?”. They are so taken for granted that people just answer back with their vocation, as if what they do for money defines them as a human being. Does it? I’ve thought about, “Who are you?”, but I actually think that is too hard a question to answer. How about, “What is your art?” What is the thing you do for which you seek no reward, other than the satisfaction of having done it? What are the things you create that are meant to be ends in themselves, and not means to something else. No, I don’t go around asking people that at cocktail parties, but I still like the notion, and it’s a question I do ask myself.
This sleeping archive of Bleats. I just don’t know how to express this. There will be a day when Gnat asks about her childhood. Or, perhaps it is more appropriate to say, there will be day when Gnat needs to know about her childhood. An urge that may not be expressible in words, and an urge that I suspect won’t come until well into adulthood. I don’t know why I think that. But it absolutely, positively sends shivers down my spine to imagine the awe and the love and maybe even the fright she will feel when she starts to read about her childhood in the Bleats. Literally every day documented, days of fatherly love and juice boxes, worldly humor and diapers. Describing 9/11/01:
Some friends have described their day as a series of numb rote gestures, as if drugged by the news; I’ve talked to some people whose voices betray an indescribable sadness that consumes every breath and the space in between. Reasonable responses. Normal. There’s a third: fury. I am furious - clench-jawed white-knuckle wide staring anger. I was putting up a picture tonight, and I heard my daughter laughing in the bathtub, a simple joyful baby giggle - I stopped, spun the hammer around in my hand, felt its heft, and knew without question that if I had before me a man who had blown her to atoms, I would be able to beat him to death without a second thought.
I hold on to the anger; I turn it on the lathe, hold it up to the light, test its point. Because the moment I put it down I will lose all composure, and there will be no end to the tears.
I stand corrected. This is surely not nothing. Please pause with me for a moment.
To pretty much everyone else, picking up the dry cleaning is nothing. Washing the car is nothing. Defrosting hamburger? Nothing! If you don’t record it, it is nothing. But every once in a while, you will snap a photo of your mother basting a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, and right when the shutter is depressed dad gives mom a little goose on the beehind which makes mom shriek and there it is, your favorite picture of all time, reminding you every time you look at that picture that your now-deceased mother lived her life with bliss. No picture, and nothing creeps in and erases that moment of bliss in fifteen seconds.
Wash your hands, and turn off that damn football game!
In one of his Bleats, James once said simply, take pictures. Inspired, I'd like to think that a word may be worth a thousand pictures. Thank you James Lileks. For making nothing special.