vr
a novel
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
June 1999
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
From: Murder
Date: 1 June 1999
Subject: The agony of Defeat
"How's Dan?" "Oh, we broke up." The matter-of-fact tone of her voice instantly
radiated sweet thrill and regret through my body, from the top down, like
the first gulp of that cheap Southern Comfort whiskey Nichelle and I drank
together that one time. "Oh." Silence. The intoxication was instantaneous.
"So, uh, what happened?" Sophia is the only woman I would probably have
sex with behind Erin's back, as it were, if given the opportunity. We took
long afternoon jogs, walked on the beach, and danced and partied the nights
away last summer at Domaine Forget in Quebec. I traveled ninety minutes
each way on the train with a bottle of syrup to have breakfast at her upper-west-side
Manhattan apartment. After an evening of Mahler and French fries, I slept
in her bed with her since I had missed the last train to New Brunswick.
I even attended her Carnegie Hall debut recital. She's single, Erin's in
Oregon, and temptation abounds. I distract myself by reading Kafka and a
translation of Alain Finkielkraut's The Defeat of the Mind. A truly inspiring
performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis last night at the Philharmonic
reminded me why I still want to be a professional musician. Tomorrow, tennis,
teaching, trepidation.
Murder
From: SAGReiss
Date: 1 June 1999
Subject: Meltdown
The 'puter is in a coma. I'll have to take it to Jerusalem for CPR. I'll
be off- and online, more off than on. I'm learning to read and watch TV
and bide my time, no money to go to the bar. I'm reading Faulkner and Proust,
watching news and sports. I hate this shit.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 1 June 1999
Subject: So spake the Goddess who was
Some days it seems to help to wear my lucky underware, even when there's
but a dirty bath tub and an overflowing drain and no towels 'cause I've
sent mine to the laundry so I dried my head with a clean wife beater. The
grocery store stocks bottles of Berger anisette which I remember from the
Midi though mostly unknown in the North of France, so I won't have to bear
your vodka envy any longer. My life is writ on burning hard drives, paper
copies locked in forgotten cellers, lost forever, words gone up in smoke.
I get on a roll, get lucky for a few days or weeks or months or years, then
vanish and begin anew in a new land speaking a new tongue whose alphabet
I haven't even been able to learn yet. I begin Hebrew lessons tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow. The heat and dust are unbearable. I'm suffering badly
from lack-of-alcohol poisoning. I really need to find work, but I don't
think I can muster the moral strength necessary to go to Berlitz and beg
for a job. My mind feels strong and lithe and clear, ready to attack this
ancient language with all the fury and rage and wrath of which I am capable
in the intermezzi of my sloth and deadening apathy. I'm hoping to learn
enough in two months to land a busboy's job at the Crown Plaza or adjacent
conference center near the casbah in East Jerusalem. Five pages on the Odyssee
is an odd topic, to indulge my scorn of the university no more than that.
I would choose a short passage, between five and fifteen verses, preferably
from the Sirens' chapter, since half of you, Nichelle, Murder, Joy and Lauren,
so far as I know, are musicians, and I am not. It might be interesting to
see how the poet represents in words beauty of another order, as Proust
does his Sonate.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 2 June 1999
Subject: Josephine
"Do we need a cat?" "My dog has flees. My wife has flees. Do you know a
cat that we might need?" "No. Just checking." I blamed it on his wife, and
she's blaming it on me, but we've got a cat, a tiny six-month-old kitten called
Josephine. She was living under a phone box in front of the house. I gave
her some dog food. We became friends. I took her to the veterinarian. He
said she's OK, worms and signs of a recent eye infection, nothing to worry
about. He didn't say anything about flees. She is very hostile towards Ding.
When she saw him for the first time she hissed and spat and shat on my white
shirt. I've got her a litter box, but she doesn't seem too interested for
the moment. The dog seems aloof, but he's known to hate cats he doesn't
know, Marmelade notwithstanding. Josephine is far too young and small for
unsupervised contact yet. They'll have to get used to one another.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 2 June 1999
Subject: Color
Oops. I forgot. She's gray and white with big blue eyes.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 3 June 1999
Subject: Fore and Aft
Murder, you dog. You make puns and crack jokes while pulling high-school
tricks: "I'm sorry. I missed the bus. I guess I'll have to sleep here."
I suppose she doesn't have a couch? "It always gets hard after dark. Please
don't take offense." I notice you don't mention what instrument she plays
when she's not playing yours. Are you embarrassed? What could be worse than
the oboe? The tuba? The triangle? Bongo drums? Cow bell? I need to know
these things.
From: Solaris
Date: 3 June 1999
Subject: Re: Meltdown
Actually...don't both the Mosque and the Synagogue offer free lessons in
their respective languages? Why don't you try for some lessons? That would
give you something interesting to do, and I know you could pick up on it
very quickly. Most everything in Jerusalem is in walking distance of anything
else... I'm sure you could find something to do that's exceptionally cheap
(maybe even easy).
-Cyanne
From: SAGReiss
Date: 3 June 1999
Subject: More heat than light
Some mornings my mind feels white hot. I can recognize about half of the
alphabet in script. I can say: "I say that she is learning Hebrew in school
in Bet Shemesh." That's pretty good for a beginning, almost as good as looking
at Oxana's tits. She's a Russian girl in my Hebrew class. (Lauren, Hebrew
lessons are free from the government for everyone. I attend classes Sunday
through Thursday morning eight to twelve within walking distance of home.)
There's nothing more exciting than learning a new language, except maybe
getting a new piece of ass. Once I get the 'puter back, I'll comb the internet
for resources. I haven't even got a book. I still haven't figured out how
to write silly Hebrew things in my e-mail. It would be a lot easier if it
were Spanish. Then I could say: "Let the fuckers figure it out or use babblefish."
That doesn't seem like a constructive attitude transliterating shit from
Hebrew. What I think we're learning is the present tense, possibly indicative,
but it's declined rather than conjugated. (In other words it's m/f s/pl rather
than 1st/2nd/3rd person s/pl, as Columbine knows. (I've missed a couple
of your columns for the first time. I'll catch up later and criticize them,
so you won't feel unloved.) Maybe what they're calling the binyan is not
really a verb but some kind of participle.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 4 June 1999
Subject: My first pun
> > As soon as I learn to say it, I'll walk around and ask women
on the street:
> > "Wanna shag?" Maybe I'll get lucky with one of the Russian girls
at school.
>
>it's "rotza le'hizdayen". but if you go around asking women on the
>street they might arrest you, and then you'll have to move
>elsewhere. z.y.n. is a good root word to learn:
>lezayen - to fuck
>zona - whore, zonot - whores
>lehizdayen - to fuck (passive, perhaps a better translation is to get
>fucked)
>zayin - penis (or the 7th letter of the aleph-bet)
>mezuyan - fucked up
>go ask you ulpan teacher what those words mean. i bet it would be funny.
Morphemics are obviously the most interesting bit in Hebrew. I guess that's
why Chomsky wrote his master's thesis on it. There are seven principal parts
of the verb, as compared to eight (if memory serves) in ancient Greek, four
in Latin, three in French, English and German. I don't think that all seven
are in common usage. They are based on a three-letter root, mostly consonants,
excepting a few vowels that Hebrew-speakers don't seem to recognize as such.
The differences seem to be semantic at least as much as grammatical, indicative,
reflexive, intensive, intensive-passive, causative, causative-passive, reflexive-passive.
Most of the shit seems to be governed by infixes, with a lot of silly assimilation
to deal with. There's a dot (dagesh) they put in the middle (usually) of
a consonant which they claim makes a "soft" sound "hard". Actually it just
moves the point of articulation slightly back in the mouth, except for the
s/sh distinction which turns a sibilant into a fricative (I think). Anyway,
as if any of you cared about this shit, scaredycat was teaching me slang, so
I wrote back a letter entitled: "ZYN, as in Zionism".
From: Solaris
Date: 5 June 1999
Subject: Re: My first pun
Heh, thanks for the information there Scott. :) I probably /will/ use it.
As far as the principle parts for Greek...I think it depends on which text
you study out of... I studied 5 (with various offshoots, like the pluperfect,
optative, future optative, etc.) which were the present indicative, future
indicative, aorist, perfect and aorist passive....there's WAY too many forms
though, especially when you get to imperfect optatives and duals, Oh yeah,
and subjunctives... God, now you're boggling my brain. I had a final in
Greek yesterday....that was IT! Damnit, now I"m thinking about it again....:P
-Cyanne
From: SAGReiss
Date: 5 June 1999
Subject: Dagesh
Actually I got that backwards with this stupid fucking Netscape 2.0 and
Hotmail. There's no margin when I type, so I get one huge line of text and
can't read what I've written. I'm going to get the 'puter today. I think it
will be fine. I just hope the monitor doesn't burn up next. The dagesh (little
diacritical dot) seems to move the point of articulation forward as:
v (voiceless labio-dental fricative) becomes b (voiced bilabial stop)
kh (voiceless ulvular fricative) becomes k (voiceless palatal stop)
f (voiceless labio-dental fricative) becomes p (voiceless bilabial stop)
The s (voiceless dental sibilant)/sh (voiceless dental fricative) distinction
is perhaps not a dagesh. They both have dots, to the left or right. Who
cares?
From: Nichelle
Date: 5 June 1999
Subject: Re: Dagesh
>Who cares?
Are you asking for a show of hands?
From: SAGReiss
Date: 8 June 1999
Subject: Struggling
Well, friends, this is my new e-mail account. Please update your address
book. I'll have my own phone line on Thursday. I can't write too much. I'm
feeling a little sad and alone and helpless. I need a fucking job. I just
hope I can get one without needing too much Hebrew. Progress is slow.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 8 June 1999
Subject: Address
Something weird is going on. My e-mail address should be as follows:
sagreiss@mail
I can't figure out why it says "main" on that last letter. Something must
be misconfigured. I'll let you know.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 10 June 1999
Subject: Phone lines
Nichelle and I spoke briefly this morning. Israel is ten hours later than
PDT (or seven hours later than EDT) so I'm not exactly using prime MOOtime.
It remains to be seen how outrageously expensive it is to abuse the internet
without unlimited local calling. I'm a little nervous about it, but I won't
know until I get a bill. As I was just telling Joy, there are two alphabets
in Hebrew. Actually there are a few more, but those look more like different
fonts from other time/places. The main ones are print in books and script
which people write. I'm learning the script in class and in the workbook,
but the textbook, dictionary and verb conjugation book are in print, which
is so far an unyielding struggle. One thing to remember is that this is
a very old language, far older even than ancient Greek. Here's an example.
The names of the letters are also either homonyms or polysemes of words.
In English, for example, "I" is a letter and the first person singular pronoun.
Among the Hebrew consonants we find such once important but no longer very
useful words as: ox, tent, camel, snake, cattle goad and fish hook. I think
punning must run rampant here. My favorite word, ZYN, as well as meaning
penis, the letter z and the number seven, also means weapon and the abreviation
of the masculine gender. It looks as if there isn't so much pressure on me
to get a job immediately and without knowing the language as I had thought.
Apparently the government will give me some kind of stipend for at least
six months, and possibly re-imburse my airfare, though I'll believe that
when I see it. Commuting to a hotel job in Jerusalem would be difficult at
best, impossible when I attend school every day for four hours. I think I'll
concentrate on getting my papers in order and applying for benefits, at least
for a few months so I can learn to talk and write a little. scaredycat is not
much help. I'm still trying to figure her out. She used to be very MOOparanoid,
but has lightened up in the last couple of years. On the other hand, her
first reaction when I told her I might be moving to Jerusalem was somewhere
between discomfort and outright fear. When I told her I was leaving the next
day, she wrote: "Good-bye. Good luck." I've managed to calm her down a little.
Obviously there has been no talk of meeting. At school they are all Russians,
well some are from Belaruss, Ukrania or Armenia. There is one brother whose
wife is Korean. I have no idea how he managed to convince them he's Jewish,
but he is an expert money gatherer, which is an important skill in a Socialist
country. As soon as I get my paperwork done, he'll help me exploit the subsidies
and such. He's from Chicago. He translates everything into English, which
is basically useless. That's why he's been here for a year and a half and
is still enrolled in the beginner's Hebrew class. He knows the alphabets
pretty well, though. The bartender at the only pub in Bet Shemesh is a restaurant
pro. He worked the Hotels in Tel Aviv and has now opened his own place.
He seems to think I can get by on little Hebrew in a big hotel or conference
centre. That might be true in banquets, which is the best place for a hard-bitten
misanthrope to work. The truth is I'm just confused. Oh, well. I guess this
is more fun than waiting tables at the Tennis Club in Seattle. I'd rather
look at a classroom full of Russian girls than a dining room full of Americans.
I just have to concentrate on learning Hebrew, and the rest will take care
of itself.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 12 June 1999
Subject: Old pass-times
The not-unlimited local calling is playing with my mind, forcing me to
change my internet usage. scaredycat is sending my a list of rates, as the
Bezeq (Israeli telephone) site is only in Hebrew. It seems that on Saturday
I can pretty much MOO with impunity. Some things are easy, getting in the
habit of writing e-mail offline, then connecting to send it. Ultimately
the solution is finding a decent job so I won't have as much time nor as
many money woes. In the meantime I've rediscovered two old pleasures, reading
and watching television. (I don't have money to go to the bar.) I find that
I can concentrate and read. The local library has books in English and in
French, so I can amuse myself that way. I read a play by Jean Giraudoux yesterday.
Today I'm reading the novel Therese Raquin d'Emile Zola. Last night I watched
a French film. I really enjoyed it. A bald-spotted man moves back to Paris
after an eight-year absence. He renews contact with an ex-gf and her circle
of friends, husband, sister, sister's two bfs, all of whom seem to meet
up and get involved with one another by coincidence. There is kind of a
story line or plot, a few of them, rather complexly interwoven, but there
is no beginning, middle and end. One sees, soap-opera-style, bits of one
story, here a middle, there a beginning, nothing is ever resolved. What makes
the movie extraordinary is that every five or ten minutes one or two of the
characters erupt in song, crudely lip-synching while these horrible French
pop songs play, from Serge Gainsbourg to Johnny Halliday. The words are sort
of vaguely appropriate to the situation, as with an aria in an opera or a
duet in a musical comedy. I can actually watch television. This is new to
me. News is always interesting, sports, often, and movies sometimes. Between
reading and TV, I can amuse myself while cutting down on the 'net. I want
to find work anyway. I've been cooped up at home for five months now. It's
high time I got out. If I can't wait tables, maybe I can work in the bakery.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 18 June 1999
Subject: Ofira
"Are you a religious man?" It's an odd question for a cocktail waitress
to ask, but she had asked me yesterday how old I was, and she was still to
ask whether I was married. Perhaps these questions do not seem odd in Israel,
or maybe they just seem odd to me. (Religion seems to be more serious here.
In the States people brandish their faith the way they proclaim allegiance
to a baseball club: "God has forgiven me for raping and killing my daughter.
Let's go Mets.") Without asking, I can guess her age. She told me she had
just been "released" from the army. She also told me she was religious,
and not married. "What do you do to be Jewish?" "I gave the Ministry a letter
saying that my mother is Jewish." "Did your mother give you a [...]?" She
said something in Hebrew, but I thought I knew what she meant. I feigned
ignorance. She said: "I can't explain it." Too bad. I wanted to hear her
define circumcision. I made a gesture with my index and middle fingers, imitating
a scissors, and clipped the end of my nose. She understood that I understood.
Anyway, I answered: "If I were religious, I'd have a big beard." Not so,
said she: "I am a religious woman, but I don't have a..." "You don't have
a beard?" I guess she was refering to something else. She explained to me
that only married men must grow a beard, and only married women must cover
their head. And one mustn't light a fire on the Sabbath day. Since people
smoke everywhere here, I guess the rule doesn't cover cigarettes. Of course
everyone seems to bend and break the rules at will, with limited justification,
even the boys in the black gabardine suits in thirty-five degree weather.
It has probably always been so. The best line of the recent election campaign
went to the jailed leader of one of the Saphardic religious parties: "My
opponents fornicate with unclean women." You might think that he was refering
to ladies other than legitimate wives, but this is not so. He was refering
to menstruating women who had not taken the special bath prescribed by religious
law. Or maybe religious law proscribes fucking menstruating women altogether.
I'm not really sure. It's been a while since I've had the opportunity, so
it doesn't seem too relevant to me right now.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: Lauren
Date: 18 June 1999
Subject: Re: Ofira
A friend of mine from Israel once told me that women had to be housed in
a separate place from the entire household while menstruating. She also
said that sex was forbidden until 7 days after the woman had finished menstruating.
Yeah, that is pretty weird to me, but my own religion has quirks like that
as well...
-Cyanne
From: Hillary
Subject: unlovely
Date: 26 June 1999
(apologies if my references are outdated...i began this letter weeks ago)
Ah, the joys of cohabitation.
[Here I interrupt my typically self-involved narrative to say something
extraordinarily self-involved. Murder, for God's sake break up with your girlfriend
before you fuck someone else. I went to Oregon over the winter holidays and
my New Yorker boyfriend fucked a woman in his poker group, so your anecdote
struck a little close to home. There's just no point in pretending to be
committed if you aren't.]
Ah, the joys of cohabitation. I drip with jealousy at any woman who has
breasts, a job, a car, a dog, or calls herself an artist. One would think
that because he asked me to move in with him, I'd be more secure in his feelings
for me. One would be wrong. But I love him hard. You can take that any way
you like. I have a hangover. Some poor misinformed college student once told
me that you can't get a hangover from vodka because it doesn't have tannins.
Wrong. (It was Absolut, Lauren, and horribly expensive. You would approve,
though I did drink it with lemonade, which you might find shockingly weak.)
Speaking of vodka, I went to a great wedding last weekend. His sister.
Very traditional and very Jewish. I'd met the rabbi before. He remembered
me. I wonder if he thinks I'm Jewish, since we keep meeting at Jewish weddings.
My nose is large enough to superficially pass as a Jew. I don't mean that
all Jews have big noses, I just mean that I'm not some pert-nosed WASPy
looking person.
I'm never sure whether or not SAGR & I are on the same planet. Intellectualizing
an experience is one thing, but desconstructing every moment takes even
more moments which must be deconstructed and suddenly one's life becomes
meta-this and meta-that and really isn't it much nicer to just sit in the
sun and watch the leafshadows move to reveal decades of pigeonshit caked
between the cobblestones? The poesy is killing me.
Actually, I'm very angry right now. I set out to spend a perfectly reasonable
couple of hours writing in the park. I'm there for maybe twenty minutes
when I become aware of a presence two benches down. (please fake a gravelly
puerto rican accent while reading the part of Tejano, and a bland, girlish
monotone while reading the part of 'me'.)
Tejano: I see you are writing a letter.
(five minutes pass)
Tejano: Are you writing a novel?
(I shake my head. Tejano considers this enough encouragement to move one
bench closer. I can smell him.)
Tejano: My name is Tejano.
(several minutes pass.)
Tejano: Are you doing something special tonight?
(I nod. Please note that I have completely avoided eye contact.)
Tejano: What about tomorrow? Are you busy tomorrow?
(I nod.)
Tejano: What are you doing tomorrow?
Me: I'm going to church.
(this is a lie.)
Tejano: Oh, can I come to church with you? I like to go to church. I go
to church every Sunday.
Me: No.
Tejano: Why not? What church do you go to?
Me: I'm not going to church. That was a lie.
Tejano: I don't have to go to church. I like to go to church but I am a
saint. I am blessed; I don't have to go to church as long as I keep my body
and spirit clean, you know?
(I do not know, and his body is not clean. I hope that if I ignore him
long enough he will go away.)
Tejano: I am looking for a wife to take back with me to Puerto Rico. Do
you think you might be interested in something like that?
Me: No.
Tejano: May I please know why not?
Me: I like New York.
Tejano: Oh.
(Loud sirens pass. Tejano begins speaking. I can't understand what he is
saying but the few words I catch sound very vulgar, so I pick up my bag
and leave. Enough with the parenthetical statements.)
So where does this greasy guy get off ruining my evening, especially when
I clearly did not want to speak with him? He ran me out of the park, so
I walked around the village until I was sweaty and calm. Maybe I'm being
irrational, but it seemed utterly uncalled for.
apoplexy becomes her:
hillary
May 1999
July 1999
vr: 1999
