Better


“The deeds were done and done again as my life is done in Watermelon Sugar.”
—Richard Brautigan

The Better Theory maintains that every experience presents one with an opportunity for personal growth. Crisis teaches you cool; pain teaches you pleasure; love teaches you loss. Every large and small and good and bad thing that comes at you, then, has the potential to propel you forward into, well, something better. All we have is now, and nothing else exists except that, so anything right now is always better than even one second before now. And now. And now. Get it?

All you’ve got to do is climb aboard, hang on tight, and push yourself forward into the abyss.

It’s a tricky theory to keep up with—try having “better” be the first thing out of your mouth next time you stub your toe or hear terrible news. But the truth is, Better works.

The Better Theory, the story goes, is your ticket out of all the things that bind you. It’s a reminder that you can turn even your worst misery into your most enlightened teacher. Heed the Better Theory, and those things entering your life of which you are most afraid become your free pass to your next level of understanding and calm. Watch how Better makes you kinder, more patient, more peaceful. Try saying “Better” the next time you feel yourself slipping. Test drive it as your safe word or code.

The man who taught me Better isn’t here anymore—at least, not in the way he always was. I’m heartbroken. But more than heartbreak, frustration, anger, longing, and fear, there’s something else. There’s a word I remember; one I climb inside of and wrap around me and suddenly everything slows down enough for my knees to stop their incessant shaking.

Better.

Vulcan Principles of Thought

A diminutive woman in a pixie ’do stands in an old saloon next to a red wall littered with antique signs and strings of Christmas lights. She opens a shaky mouth and out comes a voice channeling Edith Piaf exactly. The trombone, clarinet, and violin join in; followed by the upright bass, steel guitar, dusty piano, and drums. Time stops. We could be anywhere, at anytime, but we’re most likely ghosts right now; haunting a strange place in Manhattan while caught between worlds.

The woman hums and sucks air through her teeth so it sounds like a whisper before returning to the lyrics: “And then there suddenly appeared before me the only one my arms will hold,” she warbles. “I heard somebody whisper ‘Please adore me’—and when I looked to the moon, it turned to gold.” Her eyes cloud and she wipes at them quickly, smiling shyly.

I sit at a high table in the front row sipping my fifth PBR of the evening and racking my brain for answers. I lament: We are always sabotaging that which we believe on an intellectual level with these pesky hearts of ours. There’s a lot to be said for this condition in moments of extreme empathy, compassion, falling (hard) for someone, tender interactions. But in other instances, it is a service to oneself to maintain a Vulcan attitude, a Vulcan philosophical posture, and a Vulcan way of holding normative judgment next to godliness.

The major difference between Vulcans and humans (besides the ears) is the Vulcan principle of applying logic to the same scenarios humans apply emotion to. Spock was so valuable as a captain and commander because he could look at a problem without getting “muddled,” for lack of a better term.

Silly, silly humans.

The phone rings with an unlisted number for the sixth time. I take another swallow of beer, and put the phone face-down on the tabletop. It buzzes and vibrates across the table. I am trying to reject the compulsory impulse I have to take the call, whatever it may do to me. Now I look at the singer. Now I close my eyes. Now I exhale. Now the phone is ringing again. Now I am Vulcan. Paging Mr. Spock.

But I’m wrong. I’ve applied the principles incorrectly and missed the call from a desert hospital, and now I’m outside, and now I’m upset (sorry Spock), and now I’m saying “I love you’s” into the ear of a sleeping, maybe dying, man who will wake up and ask for me. Now I’m asking how I got here. Now I’m wishing for something unrealistic.

I sleep and I don’t dream. And today I wonder what a Vulcan might say from his or her outsider’s perspective about this particular human condition of mine.

Hovering Awe


We are in an existential freefall.

He lay in murky half-sleep as I stood by his bedside, rubbing lotion into his twisted, sleeping feet. My eyes kept vigil on the readouts of the ventilator, the heart monitor, the oxygen levels of lungs. Maintaining the appearance of someone but drifting through a number of strong realities, I find I am quite a few someones lost in one body. The day before I was a worker bee. Subways, winter chills, the darkness that fell so early every day, the daily grind, the forever feeling of being tired. I was a friend and a lover, a daughter and sister, and a million other things in between.

Today I was simpler. Quieter. Just a girl, keeping watch over a stubborn man stuck painfully inside a broken body. He and I were joined somewhere between each other, outside of ourselves.

His eyes snapped open. He looked around frantically, searching, the touch of my hands on his feet unfelt. I walked around the bed and took hold of his right hand, kneading the dry skin there that barely covered brittle bones beneath.

We locked eyes. He smiled his familiar smile, awkwardly stretching that goofy grin over tubes rising up out of his throat. He closed his eyes and squeezed my hand. His nails dug into me: the urgency of a frightened man. It was impossible to tell if he was falling down, flying up, or floating.

“We’re all dying,” he wrote a few minutes later.

“But not right now,” I answered out loud.

The Road to NowHere


“Everything is blooming most recklessly.”—Rilke

Creative destruction: the act of dismantling a symbol representing what one will no longer settle for; getting rid of something incapable of driving one to where he or she needs to go. Sort of like a cicada crawling out of that weird tan shell and fluttering away without it. They say in order to live free and happily, you have to give up boredom [and clutter, and safety nets]; and that can be the most difficult sacrifice of all. I’m not sure what heaps of old-car parts and random gears and gadgets in my brain are causing the clutter and crying out for dismantling and removal. But one thing’s for sure: It’s pre-spring-cleaning time. Static fuzz, take a walk.

“You live in a place between the sound and the fury,” he told her. “It bears no resemblance to anything else and yet feels like home.” And this: "I was struck when I caught a glimpse of our reflection in the window while we rode the subway. We look good together. And I worried that you're going to break my heart."

The essayist Logan Perssall Smith said: “There are two things to aim at in life. First to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.” His words loop through my head as seasonably sunny, cold winds kiss my cheeks. There’s a lot to feel hopeful for; one need only trust herself enough to find a creative way through the bog.

“Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be…Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go.” – Mark Helpin

I had a dream recently without vision. It was only my voice, trying to determine whether when people die they stop being able to answer our questions; or if we stop being able to ask them. I waked. I smiled.

Today's another day, and we're all still here.

Editor Mourns End of Playgirl Magazine

Last Updated: Thursday, December 4, 2008 4:16 PM ET Comments6Recommend15
CBC News

The demise of Playgirl leaves a void in the North American magazine landscape for women's erotica, says the title's final editor in chief.

After a 35-year run, Playgirl will continue in an online version only. The last print issue, completed in early October, is now available on newsstands.

Since its launch in 1973, the magazine has struggled with new publishers, changing editors and a shifting readership over the years.

Though there was "an element of surprise" when staff learned of the print edition's demise in July, "we weren't terribly surprised to hear it was all going online," editor in chief Nicole Caldwell told CBC Radio's cultural affairs show Q on Thursday.

"We did find it pretty unfortunate, because we had been enjoying higher numbers in the last year and a half or so. We were feeling quite confident in the direction we were taking it," she said.

By the end, the magazine was completed with just Caldwell and two staffers, bolstered by "a team of unpaid interns and a lot of freelancers."

Established in a completely different era, Playgirl originally mixed its sexy shots of men with articles exploring topics like abortion, drug addiction, birth control and other female health issues, as well as writing by the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou and Tennessee Williams.

It was also born during a time when feminists had the mentality that "what's good for the guys is good for the women," said Globe and Mail columnist and cultural commentator Karen von Hahn.

"Now it seems to be very much about a recognition that men and women are fundamentally different," said the Toronto writer. "I don't think [the magazine] was ever what women wanted. I think they tried on the pantsuit and they tried being the guy and looking at sexuality and experiencing sexuality that same way, but it never really fit."

Read the rest of this article here.

Former Playgirl Editor Schools Fox News On What Women Want

Last night, Nicole Caldwell, former Playgirl editor-in-chief, was interviewed on Fox News' Red Eye about the demise of her former home away from home. In between a bunch of dick jokes, Caldwell discussed the fact that — despite Playgirl's reputation of being more for gay men than women — it was part of her job to provide content that appealed to women. (It was, after all, originally founded as a feminist response to Playboy.) Caldwell chastised host Greg Gutfeld after he insisted that Playgirl's demise was due to the fact that men are more visually stimulated than women, telling him, "I'm not going to accuse you of having no emotional component just because women are perceived as being more emotional."

[Originally posted at Jezebel.com]