Mathias B. Freese's Blog, page 12

What I Did for My Summer Vacation?

Jane and I went to Cedar City, Utah for a short working vacation. I wanted to see if I could buy into a vacation home away from Henderson, Nevada, a respite from the blandness of that community. I wanted a place that had seasons, rain, snow, mist, fog, as varietal as wines. I am writing this in the hotel lobby of the Crystal Inn late at night, restless, anxious, can’t sleep and the air conditioning hum in our room is driving me batty.

In the morning, on  Sunday, we will drive out to Cedar Breaks, a national park that is said to be geologically beautiful and from there out to Brian Head, looking for a condo, a recreational area that gets an abundance of snow which makes me associate to The Shining. I can’t ski, and at 73 in a few weeks who needs that lunacy; this trip perhaps is a fantasy, no, it is a fantasy, but it serves to get me away from the blandness of Nevada.  Odd, but years ago I would be writing these night notes on foolscap and a pen but here I am composing on a monitor. Have I lived much too long?

The night is making me woozy, although I had two cups of coffee and I can’t sleep as well.Our first evening in Cedar City had its moments and I was introduced to what I term a Mormon Martini in the Depot Grill on Main Street whose food was good. Jane ordered her favorite, a Grey Goose martini with an olive. Here we both quickly noticed that the drink was not quite up to standards. The glass was not brimming with hooch and appeared malnourished. Asking the waitress who had the face of a fat Grace Kelly why the drink seemed to lack in force, for Jane had sampled it and found it wanting, we were informed that the booze was measured out exactly, that the alcohol was dispensed to a set amount. She further told us that here in Mormon country that was prescribed by the restaurant, at least in this one; in other words we paid the full amount for the drink although it did not measure up as a drink.

So we came to understand as we fled the North Korean mind control police that our drinks were monitored and prescribed; we later heard this night from a restaurant manager that here in Cedar City if you want beer with a shot of whiskey you must first drink one or the other before getting more from mommy. You are not allowed to serve two drinks at the same time to a customer before the customer finishes one, or you can only have desert if you finish your supper. Ah, conditions.

Besides digesting our meal we had to digest what had happened to our minds. At least I thought that the menu should have a disclaimer about all this for the tourist or newcomer to cult land. And then we searched the town for a decent cup of coffee, for this same waitress informed us that coffee was served in her restaurant in what amounted to be expresso cups.  We both assumed that this is part of Mormon doctrine as they are not allowed to drink coffee, which means that you are not allowed to drink coffee, ah, there’s the rub. Like all religions we must hear their evangelical message whether we like it or not. Curious, why do repressive regimes seem always to be in beautiful country, like Germany or Utah? Is there some kind of twisted relationship?

Like addicts searching for a fix we found coffee and pastry in our own hotel where we struck up a conversation with the restaurant manager who had left Las Vegas about eleven years ago for his own reasons, but had experienced for himself the Mormon quirks. He disabused our notion that we were being alcoholically Mormonized. He felt that they were just scrimping on booze, which also made sense as well. It depends on how you see it, for it could be a blend of both. He shared how he came to Cedar City and came across the disavowal of coffee as a stimulant in a local convenience store. When ordering a  container of joe the manager refused to serve him that. Stand back and consider. No coffee because it is part of our cult and here in cultland you must heed our belief systems. I  told the manager that substantiates my belief why Romney sucks in bed.

All through this charade Jane and I were laughing at the lunacy of it all, and I  mentioned to her that the Stepford Grace Kelly had no idea she was a conditioned slave and then I had the chilling feeling of what it must be like to “live” in a repressive regime anywhere in the world. I would die off quickly, given my personality and high blood pressure. I don’t eat shit. However, it is compelling, is it not? to travel 187 miles from Nevada and to come upon this state of Mormon mind. All through history men have tried to tell other men how to live. Mormonism was the wet dream of the charlatan Joseph Smith and what a load of crap it is. Unfortunately if you enter crapland hold your nose while you get out as soon as possible.

Joke: what do you get if you cross a Mormon with a Scientologist? Answer: a Mengele martini.

 

Heaven’s Gate

I have just watched Heaven’s Gate  as an act of curiosity, having it praised as a kind of masterpiece even with its tattered history of a fiasco by a friend. Lots of movies did not get their just due until years after their making — The Magnificent Ambersons comes to mind as well as The Touch of Evil. Some movies I have seen I did not “get” or appreciate until I saw them two or three times, such as La Dolce Vita ( first viewed in 1960) as well Jarmusch’s Dead Man (a masterpiece of deconstruction of the west).With this in mind I was quite open to Heaven’s Gate. I was disappointed upon viewing it for the very first time, the original director’s cut. It was a bomb.

On an old IQ test I was asked if I could interpret this quotation or it put it into my own words: “One swallow does not a summer make.” I can say it aptly applies to Cimino’s movie. All the glorious shots of western vistas, pastures and plains, of recreated towns, the staged mise en scene cannot substitute nor support the lack of a coherent story line. Forster said we need to connect, here Cimino is in a state of directorial disconnect. Watching this movie was watching paint dry, that old cliche. Wait — it does apply; here we have the latest Benjamin Moore palette of colors but not applied with purpose, design or coherence.

Details in damascene application cannot make a movie. My rule is simple: Do I feel? My wife’s rule is: Do I care for these people? On both accounts no. Definitely not. There is an unheralded movie by Kevin Costner, Open Range, with Robert Duvall, Annette Bening and Costner that deals with a similar theme, range wars, the ins, the outs, the native sons and the immigrants, but in half the showing time depicts all these issues with  Eastwoodian clarity. And we care about these people. A shootout that lasts about 20 minutes is brilliantly staged by Costner, and often I will watch the picture again and again just for that superior sequence, far better than any shootout in Heaven’s Gate, or the staged, stilted and overly theatrical High Noon. Costner’s shootout is the new standard.

Cimino ran way over budget and that is another story, but he is no Welles who produced a superior product only to have it chopped to pieces. In fact there are four editors for 216 minutes of this film and obviously they were not of one mind. While watching the flic Jane and I would turn to one another and say why did he linger so long on that, because we got it, and secondly, why was that necessary in terms of advancing the story? So we began to verbally edit the picture. We distanced ourselves from what we were watching, so uninvolving was the story. Cut here, cut that, that isn’t necessary and so on. When you do that to a picture and Jane walked away several times only to return to see if my patience was still holding out, you know you have a dead mackerel here.

I read the enclosed pamphlet with an essay by an European who praised Cimino’s use of space, the theme of loss and so on (academic rubbish) and then I read Cimino’s interview in the 80s about the movie and what I got was a rationalization that was immense, aptly suited for a film that was impressive for its failure to make us care one whit. I returned to my original feelings which are that Cimino got carried away with set pieces, environmental beauty, staged dances, and lost his characters in the flora and fauna. What we have here is cinematic elephantiasis

As to the actors:  Isabelle Huppert steals the show; Christopher Walken is so young here that in close-ups his face takes on the mask of a Tatar warrior, long before he introduced his quirkiness; Sam Waterston is very good, so good that I was waiting for him to get killed. I like actors that make you despise them. And we have Kris Kristofferson who is the equivalent of an animated ironing board, oh is he dreadful. His acting range runs the gamut from A to B. Walken would have been much better in his role. John Hurt is wasted as some kind of Greek chorus. Jeff bridges is Jeff Bridges here, no intimation of what he could do later on. The American West in all its National Geographic wonderment is the star here.

 

Comments on Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts

Todd Tarbox, grandson of Roger Hill, headmaster of the famous Todd School for Boys, Woodstock, Illinois, along the progressive approach of A.S. Neill’s Summerhill, and the son of Hascy Tarbox, younger classmate and perhaps rival to Orson Welles contacted me after seeing some reference to Welles by me. Over the years, hear and there, I have written about Welles and Citizen Kane. I devote one chapter in my recent book to Welles. And what is that attraction?

I am appalled by what this culture, other cultures, do to the artist. The average Joe may or may not be emotionally impoverished; however, the real artist is never poor. That is a line from Babette’s Feast. Throughout his career critics faulted Welles for his incomplete and unfinished films. I ask you: what human being is not a mess of unfinished business when he comes to die? Why this envy of Welles and the need to tear him down. The appealing aspect for me is how Welles fought this off all his life and elements of that resistance are in this book.

Of course, Tarbox’s book is the kind of book we cinephiles read while chewing Jujyfruits; it is absorbing, illuminative, informative, often provocative and with all the minutiae that fans want to know about Welles’s life, this man with an IQ of 185. So I read it straight through the night; it was not an analysis of the relationship between Roger Hill, the mentor, and Welles, the mentored; it was beyond that. What we have here is a delicious artifact, tapes that Hill-Welles kept of their conversations over the years, knowing full well that each was an important part of the other’s history. They both had a mastery of Shakespeare and often one would begin a quotation from the Bard only to have the other complete it; both their memories are astonishing.

What is salient here is the connection between a 70 year old and a 90 year old, the sustaining intellectual and emotional content of their conversations, the vigor in which they are expressed. Although the remembrance of things past is richly embroidered — that actor, that school play, that show, it really reveals how Roger Hill viewed Welles as a foster son if you will and loved him for his very being! That is Hill’s contribution, as I see it. Welles did not have to meet any expectations as the boy wonder; the world would sordidly go after him for decades on that hobbyhorse. The book is about love, the reciprocal exchange of love. Todd Tarbox should follow up with a book about his own father who is also an intriguing presence; he chose to stay close to the hearth of Hill, even marrying his daughter, while Welles flew the coop, but not entirely.  He chose to maintain a friendship over decades — how many of us can say that? or have the staying power for such a relationship? or the opportunity?

In psychoanalytic lore, if I remember the rubrics, it’s been some time since I practiced; there is the concept of the “hold.” Think of the therapist presenting the client with a giant trampoline, encouraging him to bounce and cavort all he wants, knowing full well that he is safe and secure, that no judgment will be made; to know what it is to be enjoyed as a human being unconditionally. Roger Hill gave Welles that support. Often he ends a phone conversation with words of love, of encouragement; often his words are nurturing and admiring without being a sycophant. He enjoyed Welles’s genius without extolling it; he admired the boy who grew into a great artist and man. Although his works won Hill’s admiration, the thrust of the book is that Welles as a person was his best accomplishment. That is why Welles went back and back to Hill, for he was loved.

I must say here that there is dissenting material, lots of it, about Welles as a man; genius can be insufferable and often we need to cover our eyes before it, think of Salieri and Mozart. Nevertheless, Welles is revealed here as open, greatly liberal, free of racism, and tender. I recall this man who chose not to go to college telling his daughter (Chris Welles Feder) that the world was her curriculum and go forth and taste of it; she recalls how one day he took her through Rome explaining what this building or that statue meant historically, enriching her from his own vast treasury of experiences (he is rumored to have read one or two books a day).

Roger Hill was an inner-directed stoic, whose appeal as I sense it, was his capacity to deal with life moment to moment, as we discover Welles and he periodically threading their talks with the denial of death, the breakdown of the body from ageing, of living, of dying, of what is and is not important in the world. Welles is a fountainhead of information which he shares with Hill who takes it in and often asks for more, or clarification; Hill is not threatened by Welles knowledge which may have been one of the emotional ties that Welles appreciated. Welles detested cant of any kind.

I can sum it up, for it is not hard to do: Hill, as depicted in the book, was a free and liberated human being and was not threatened by that same blessing in any other human being. Hill, in fact, encouraged that in his students, to be free, not to be disciples, for that is deadly and Welles drank deeply from that. At the same I must caution that all is not simple between human beings and not all of the complexities of both men are revealed here, or can be.

The New Novel Died Aborning

As usual I dated the first page (April 1,2013), an historical thing with me as I have always dated new work since I began writing more than four decades ago. I wrote in spurts with several days between new writing and this was not my usual way which is to pour it out in blasts and then go back and revise. It was also the first work I did directly onto the computer as opposed to my usual yellow pads and pen. So everything was different to begin with. Within one month I had written about 25,000 words, figuring I’d go to about 125 to 150 pages as a book.

The theme and content of the book was volatile for it dealt with a fsmily member, my estranged daughter, who l disguised as best as I could do so. This was a mistake, for as I look back now it bespoke of character assassination.Too much leaked out, too much was sniping and concealed venom or not so concealed venom; it was not a novel but really an interior inspection of what I felt about a whole host of things and althought the writing was good it gave off a bad odor, one of resentment and anger. I gave it to Jane to read and she felt it best be laid aside and not see the light of day. After a few days removing the thorn from my paw, I agreed it was too dark, too nasty and unfair to the parties concerned. It was a black valentine, and worse than that.

So I “saved” it to Documents and there it resides. I doubt I will ever go back to it, but never say never I have learned. I have other books completed that remain as kinds of archaelogical writing ruins, unable to be restored, some capable of reconstruction. I suppose every writer has works he just chucks into the dustbin because they just don’t work out. I realize now my new effort was not working on one level in that my creative juices seemed to jam up now and then, too much so. Often I just write full speed ahead after I sense what I have to write. It did not occur here as my feelings were stymied. Ironically the working title was “Opaque.”

Of course, at 72 other parallel feelings come to mind. Perhaps I am tapped out, that there is no more “there” there; that it is time to cash out; that I have said everything I have to say (I doubt that). I am not sure. I will have written four books by 2015 (one is at a publisher) but I am hoping to write five. Why five? I don’t know — the five books of Moses? I just feel five books would give a good sense of what I had struggled to say all these years, often unknown to me. Good or great writing is latent, not manifest; I think I have nibbled well into the latent cookie.

In a recent phone call with my son, Jordan, I shared with him that I want to write five books for him to put on his shelves after I am gone, a remembrance of things past, of a father he knew, or thought he knew; that it is a gift from me to him, scratching my name into the ground, Kilroy was here. Who knows how diligently he will reread them when I am gone? And what does it matter, after all. I think of Epicurus’ epitaph which I keep on a slip of yellow paper on my desk as a reminder: “I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.” And we call the ancients pagans!

For a few days I stopped writing this particular blog because I had come to a stand still. What is it I want to say to myself? And then to you, the reader? It just won’t come. Ideas seem to have ceased, just puddles after a rain. I cannot see what I have to say, although knowing that Mr. Bigmouth always has something to say. So I think about going back and working on manuscripts now decades old, like a necrophiliac. I associate to Dr. Frankenstein who screams in delight, “He lives…He lives.” I have a manuscript written by a younger self and that is reflected in the book as well. I am thinking of going back to it with what writerly astringent I can after having lived more than thirty years afterwards. I would bring a darker self. But is that fair? Thinking about it.

Again I think of poets who go back to short poetic works and reedit them decades later. I don’t want to waste my time: either create new efforts or go back to an older manuscript and resurrect it. Torn on that. I think the fear is that I have nothing more to say so that I return to what I know and what has been written. Writer as weak coward. I also have self-observed that I have historically written in heated spasms, over days and weeks, in white heat often. That is my method. Unfortunately I can’t get into that mode again and I weary of waiting for it to hit. This creates anxiety, and what would I be without my friend.

 

 

 

 

Memory Traces

I went to Starbucks Sunday because I had an attack of spilkes. I ordered a cappacino grande and a piece of cinnamon cake most of which I threw away because I had to begin fasting for a blood test tomorrow, my semi-annual anxiety trip. In addition to which my physician retired with very short notice to all his patients, without a letter, just employing a nurse to  inform me that the doctor was “tired” (he’s in his seventies). It was a very sloppy way of ending a medical relationship, but this is Nevada, a third world country, especially in terms of medicine. This is a time in which professionalism is absent, rotten manners are prevalent, and Presidents gather tribally  like maggots to praise George Bush and his new library. Only in America do we praise and honor a war criminal, after all, we rehired  Nazi scientists to help us against the Russkies (check out Werner von Braun and his use of slave labor at Peenemunde).

So I had to scramble about to get another doctor, of unknown attributes, and one recommended by my cardiologist. (You know you are ageing when you have a cardiologist.) All of this backstory to amble into what has been mesmerizing me of late. Probably a reflection of being 72, cherishing each day as if it was my last which it really could be. I am not entertaining a bucket list, which is American jargon for not having lived. Americans, most people, would not know what it is to live if it was a suppository shoved up their asses. Bucket lists are for conditioned schmucks, the last and intensive advertisement to be “meaningful” in life, using life rather than living it.

What goes through my mind are memories, remembances and regrets. And there is nothing to do about these reminiscences except to tear up a little, gag, suck on the lollipop of ruefulness, feel sad for oneself. Here are a few snippets:

I recall my now deceased daughter, Caryn, at the age of four. She had her hair closely cropped by her mother and it took me a moment to begin to adjust to that when I picked her up for a day with her father. I wish I had told her how sweet, adorable and how she was important to me. However, that is me now as an old man; then I was a stupid man, self-involved and needy. Mindful of that wise adage that says we grow old too soon and smart too late.

I recall when my now estranged daughter, Brett, now 41, was in her crib and I picked up one of her pudgy hands and examined each of her fingers. I placed one finger against one of my mine and realized how dwarfed her baby’s hand was in comparison. I savor that memory because it is time now in which she will not extend her hand to me as a father. Oh, insupportable loss.

The list goes on and on, of lost opportunites, but what ravishes like hail gainst a field of wheat is the immense rush of time and the accumulative weight of years “lived” (were they ever, truly lived?) and how I have this tsunami coming at me from the past, all kinds of tender recollections, especially bittersweet, of hands I could have clasped, of embraces of my children made and not made, of running my hand through their hair, of telling them how dear they are to me. I am part of a very stupid species. And I have been very stupid in life.

My genes force me to go on. My mind says no. I lose out.

I am living with a kind of amazement at how much time has flowed by, of how I am an old man and when did that happen? of how to spend each day as if it is my last, of how to suck out the marrow of each day without going bananas or becoming American frenetic. I am sensing an immense need to return or give back, either as a teacher or in a relationship; for there is much in returning what one knows as a sharing of what wisdoms or smarts obtained over the decades. Erickson labeled it “generativity.” Whether or not it has an impact on another, really is not the issue for me. It is in the giving that there is some kind of last meaning as I taper off like a jet vapor trail.

Ironically I responded to an ad from the University of Las Vegas in its summer 2013 catalog asking if they might be interested in my teaching a course on memoir. Making a contact via the phone I forwarded a resume and other pertinent materials and now I’ll wait. I have absolutely no expectations at all, not in this state. However, using my own book as a text would give me some pleasure, even fun, but we shall see. Meanwhile as I drift into deep old age in which I will be cultivating a patient expectancy, to quote Chesterton, about death and dying I will pick up my Louisville Slugger bat and take a few hard swings at the incoming misfortunes heading my way.

All this brings me back to reminiscences. The memory traces of my life are unfolding in my mind, the movies of my mind, 24/7, and I lack, I admit so, the ability, the skill and the knowledge to make heads or tails what it was all about – that still eludes me. I hear the plaintive notes of “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

 

 

Lara’s Book Club Review

Review of “This Mobius Strip of Ifs” at Lara’s Book Club

Recap: In our younger years, we are lost, with the hope that as we grow older, we’ll better understand ourselves, others, and the world as a whole. That’s what Mathias B. Freese attempts to do in his collection of personal essays This Mobius Strip of Ifs. But over and over again, he explains that “knowledge is death” and the idea of full enlightenment or “de-conditioning” as he calls it is impossible to achieve.

Though it’s not one coherent tale, Mobius does share a story about its author and the difficult cards he’s been dealt in his life. The essays were written over decades, and share anecdotes about his family, childhood, years as a teacher, and his time spent working as a psychotherapist. The first section of the book is more philosophical, whereas the second section deals with specific people — famous people — and the things they have contributed to society, and the third section is far more personal.

Throughout this collection, Freese explains what his training, studies, upbringing, interests, and “random happenstances” have taught him. He preaches what he has learned in an upfront and often shocking way.

Analysis: Often times, Freese shares a negative or cynical point of view. One could argue this is just because of the terrible things he’s had to deal with — the loss of his mother at a young age, his daughter’s suicide, his wife’s sudden death. But I don’t believe that’s the case here. It becomes clear that his point of view has been molded not only by what’s happened to him but also by what he’s studied and read over the years.

Freese is blunt and fiercely logical about the world and the way it works, often distressingly so. As an eternal optimist who believes in things like “everything happens for a reason” and “God only gives you that which you can handle,” I often found myself disagreeing with the points made in Freese’s essays. That being said, his points were almost always made with the utmost logic and realism. Whether I agree or not, I could not ignore his valid, well-explained thoughts.

This book is not a memoir. Or rather, I don’t think it’s meant to be one. After all, this is a book full of essays about what his life has taught him about life in general. But ultimately, it feels like a memoir. Upon finishing the book, I felt like I got to know Mathias B. Freese. I understand his world, his inner thoughts, and his life. I may not agree with many of his beliefs, but I’d sure love to grab a coffee with him.

Review by Udita Banerjee

This Mobius Strip of Ifs …a review

POSTED ON APRIL 5, 2013 BY UDITA BANERJEE

on http://cupandchaucer.wordpress.com

I usually read fiction. So when Mathias B. Freese wrote to me asking if I would like to review his book, I agreed because of two words that he used to describe his book, ‘memoir’ and ‘psychotherapist’. What’s not be intrigued about!? I wasn’t disappointed. This book is a collection of essays, a wide variety of topics, from relationships to blogging, from Holocaust to Freud… each essay was a bit of a jolt really…

It is a harsh read. There are works like those of Freud’s, scientific and calculating, cautious even. There are works like Paulo Coelho’s, which give you deep mantras in sugar coated easy to read stories. And then there is this man, who calls a spade a spade, and gives you facts and truth to your face. He is critical of people, of habits, of the system, of the world around him. Above all, he is critical of himself. He was a therapist; therapists have issues too!

A book that begins with a quote by Hemingway can hardly go wrong in my eyes! I once read Freud, a lot of him, I liked frequent references to his work. On the other hand, I didn’t enjoy the references to other things as much, ones I did not know about… “How will I ever read so much!?” reads my note to self on the margin.

Reading a lot of the essays made me feel like I was encroaching into really personal territory. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read on. Did I really wish to know? I don’t know how much courage and general faith it takes to bare to the world… Also, the essay on bloggers made me ask questions as to my own purpose… Why do I blog? Why about books? Am I a true critic? Am I needy? If so, aren’t we all? A book  that makes you introspect is, in my opinion, a brilliant read, challenging and scary, but worthwhile.

It’s the kind of book one can come back to. It is not a cheery happy read, but I like them that way. It is like an old friend, who was a cynic a long time ago, but now is just an old friend…

Quotes: “Like the sad genius of the schizophrenic, allow me to find a nether place, to rest in sweet shadow, to come away from what I plainly see.”

“The task of each one of us is to be free of the other and ultimately free of one’s own inner constraints. All else follows.”

“I self-publish to announce I am here, for I will soon be gone.”

 

Krishnamurti Redux

I finished reading Vernon’s Star in the East, probably the best survey in recent years of the life of the religious philosopher Krishnamurti. As you may or may not know, I’ve been reading books by and about Krishnamurti since 1975. I retreat to the “master” every now and then to replenish myself, for often the well goes dry. especially now, as I move toward deeper old age. And what have I learned. Nothing! I am as obtuse and dense as I have always been. And yet I read him, probably to see through a glass darkly what I might be if I chose to free myself.

I have been fortunate to have come across him many decades ago. At first I read him with interest, then with vigor, and then I began to wrestle with him and what he offered which went against many personal things in my moral and ethical thinking process. He upset my apple cart quite severely; yet I persevered for he was a remarkable man with brilliant and illuminating insights about human behavior. I did not cast him out. And then I got angry with his “perfection,” trying to find something impure about him so that, very humanly, I could attack his weaknesses, not an uncommon human failing. Finally I arrived at a a resolution which meant that I would take from him what I could manage and use and put off those things I could not abide; when I allowed him his humanity I became more accessible to his teachings.

The nub of his teachings for me was that man self-conditions himself, that culture considers that its first priority and rather than helping each individual to become free from interior and exterior systems, beliefs and creeds, it continues to indoctrinate. Consequently to see all this, to work on deconditioning yourself is a self-deliverance. By the way, that is my definition of education. I need no messiah, for I have redeemed myself, and forever grateful for that. And as the years passed and I wrote about Krishnamurti and worked on myself, the filters that covered my inner self sloughed off and I began to consider the world in a different way. In short, I know better now, Knowing better does not mean I  do better. I often fail. At least, the fog has mostly evanesced. I see the shoreline.

When you see, when I came to see, society often becomes an enemy, an enemy of the people. I chose to become a psychotherapist to help individuals lift the veils that were imposed upon themselves when young, that they continue to self-impose upon themselves. To know they self is to be free, free of others, free of society. And Socrates drank hemlock for that.

The older I get the more stupid I am, making mistakes here and there like sowing seed. Krishnamurti once said that in essence he didn’t think he made a difference after fifty years of teaching across the world. I don’t believe this species, my species, is capable of “getting it.” There is despair here. When I observe that 1.5 billion men and women, Catholics, in one way or another believe that a mortal man who probably never existed rose after being crucified, I just slump into my chair and draw a deep breath. Until such groups  get past the dragon at the gate, we will not mature sufficiently to become part of the human race. Two thousand years of religious masturbation has brought us to nothing.

Krishnamurti argues that this malady is a product of conditioning. And for that I read him over and over, for it is an axiomatic truth. A neighbor of mine sends her children off to Catholic school, costing her about 25 to 30 thousand a year. And she has helped them become slaves. What was the old Jesuit saying so rich in truth say, “Give me your child until seven, mother, and I will return him to you, but for all time after he will be mine.” Unfortunately true. Jews wandered for forty years in the desert and the subtle and latent genius of that is that they had the minds of slaves and until a new generation came about could they then enter Canaan, for they had lost the memory of being slaves.

There used to be an old theory among psychotherapists that most people walking the streets are psychotic.I feel there is much truth to that. What does a disturbed species, if it can only see itself objectively, somewhat, do about that? On a recent  TV show a prison inmate said something tellingly. He said that he was not normal and that is why he is imprisoned. He knows it to be true, unconditionally so. Bless his heart, what an insight. Those outside think they are normal — no such thing.

Brave and courageous is the atheist! for he  or she has been emmancipated from the worst kind of human slavery, the belief in a god.

 

 

The Most Significant Thing

Having signed a contract with Dzanc Publishing a few months ago, things have now moved along. By this June three ebook versions of The i Tetralogy, Down to a Sunless Sea and This Mobius Strip of Ifs will be published as ebooks, whatever that really is. I am still unclear of many features of this process but I am going along with it. However, I Truly Lament — Working Through the Holocaust, a collection of short fiction, will be published in paperback by Dzanc and that book will not come out until 2015, or so, which is disheartening for I may well as be dead by that time. So, as I look back over 2012, given a painful illness and a sober diagnosis for another malady, it has been a good year in terms of my finally being accepted for publication by a reputable and well-known press. At age 72. Give me a break!

I have spent several days of this past week collecting reviews of all three books, interviews, one podcast and filling out extensive responses to questions for the marketing aspect of this venture. As I went through all the reviews, it felt good to feel the resonances so many of my books brought about in reviewers. It is always pleasurable, is it not? to hear good things about one’s creative efforts. The publisher urged me to be expansive and not stingy with all the biographical and literary data I could supply, the more the better. I gladly acquiesced. And when it was all done, it felt good to email it back to Dzanc. There was enough for the media marketeers to choke on.

While all this was going on somewhere in my mind another and almost omnipresent thought made itself known. Before I say ta ta to this world, I would like to have written five books. Why five? I don’t know why. Just five. So, in fantasy, a reader could reach up to his bookshelf and grab all five with both hands and bring down my collected works. I have a novel, a book of short stories, and a book of essays and another book of short fiction to come. And so I am thinking and thinking about what will be next. Believing in the idea that the next book is essentially written in the unconscious,I am waiting to be notified about it by just feeling its pressure. And for some hours last night as I lay restless and sleepless, I think it crept into my mind. In fact, the title came to me — Opaque.   I really like it because it is both specific and general and not a little mysterious as well as symbolic.

And it also came to me that the last word would be opaque as well. So there is the new work, I have only to fill in the pages between. Oh, Yeah!

In fact I generally try to get the opening sentence in mind which I enjoy to do; I have many opening sentences for books I will never write. In The i Tetralogy, after much careful revision, it became: “I am rectum.” And then I try to get the last line of the book as well. It was: “Amen!” And so the writing process, without being rigid, and with constant revision, I try to go from the first sentence to the last with a minimum of wavering — it is as if I shoot an arrow into the air and follow its trajectory until it hits its desired target. It works for me. None of my books or short stories were ever plotted. I just evolve with the characters. I resist a straight line. And since I go my own way and I am not driven by market pressures, I write for myself. It is delicious to be free of the marketplace.

I know the content of this new effort and what I will try to do is torturous, painful and personally heartbreaking for me. It will be a fiction based upon fact, and most if not all the facts are known to me in crude form, for it is about a family member. The additional approach has been chosen by my unconscious as well; it will be in first person so that immediacy will be obtained. It will be in your face. The task is daunting and I may ultimately do away with the story , mostly out of fear, out of what it might cost me in terms of feelings, like a deer having its antlers captured in briar.

In a few days when my unconscious calls out now I will sit down and compose what comes. What I have now is a swarm of gnats beating themselves against the screen door of my mind. I’ll swoop my hand into this buzzing mentation and see if I shag, to mix my metaphoras, some flies.

 

 

 

Review by Sophie Dusting for VerdictBookReviews.Blogspot.co.uk

Book Review: This Mobius Strip of Ifs by Mathias B. Freese

Book: This Mobius Strip of Ifs

Author: Mathias B. Freese

Published by: Wheatmark

Date published: 2012

Format: Paperback

Length: 164 pages

ISBN: 9781604947236

Genres: Memoirs, Essays, Collection, American culture, Psychology

http://verdictbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/book-review-this-mobius-strip-of-ifs-by.html

The Synopsis: In this impressive and varied collection of creative essays, Mathias B. Freese jousts with American culture. A mixture of the author’s reminiscences, insights, observations, and criticism, This Mobius Strip of Ifs examines the use and misuse of psychotherapy, childhood trauma, complicated family relationships, his frustration as a teacher, and the enduring value of tenaciously writing through it all.

Freese scathingly describes the conditioning society imposes upon artists and awakened souls. Whether writing about the spiritual teacher Krishnamurti, poet and novelist Nikos Kazantzakis, or film giants such as Orson Welles and Buster Keaton, the author skewers where he can and applauds those who refuse to compromise and conform.



The profound visceral truths in this book will speak to anyone who endeavors to be completely alive and aware.



The Review
I didn’t really know what to expect from This Mobius Strip of Ifs when I was first approached to review the collection of essays. Having read few non-fiction pieces and not having a keen interest in the genre, I was quite hesitant when turning the first few pages. What a relief then, that I was blown away by a simply stunning assortment of essay which were insightful, entertaining and quite moving in their content.

The forward is excellent; succinct and concise, it brings together all the works in a short summary which almost reads as a short biography to Mathius Freeses’ life. It was extremely useful to have, for if you wanted to dip in and out of the collection and read the essays in whatever order you fancied, you could go back and remind yourself how each fitted in to the ‘wider picture’.The collection is split into three groups. The first of the essays are under the collective banner “knowledge is death”. As described in the forward, “to know who we are required that we ‘die’ to many ideas we have of ourselves. Paradoxically, this ‘death’ quickens awareness, makes us more alive and sensitive.” The essays are short extracts of Freeses’ journey to decondition himself; they explore everything from the labels society places on people to how his own awareness grew and developed. This may sound heavy but it is told with wit and intelligence, making what could be quite a difficult subjects accessible and comparatively not too difficult to understand.When I review any piece of work I carry with me a pen and a load of post-it notes to jot the odd thought down, to act as a prompt for when I come to write my final review. I had hundreds of post-it notes scattered all over this first group of essays and you know what many of them said? ”I loved that sentence” or ”I loved that quote”. In the end there are just to many to list but here are some of my favourites:

“Answers are expired prescriptions.” (Pg. 6)

“…we own the slave mentality.” (Pg. 16)
“Why so you seek books, schools, teachers to inform you what is?” (Pg. 19)
“Organise your life financially and it becomes an attribute, and no more than that.” (Pg. 21)

“To not be asleep in life.” (Pg. 36)

“I self-publish to announce I am here, for I will soon be gone.” (Pg. 49)

Having gone through therapy myself and having come out the ‘other side’ unscathed, I really connected with the first group of essays, particularly one entitled Ten Canon. I feel the essay is almost a play on the ‘Ten Commandments’ but in this case, it is the ten principals for achieving healing awareness. I came to find that I myself had attained almost all of these through my own therapy. This is what this first group does best; it connects with the reader. It almost offers a free course of therapy right in your hands. There are many points for which to start a discussion (and hence this would make a great book club read) and offers much food for thought long after you’ve read them.

The second group were collectively entitled “Metaphorical Noodles”. I must admit I didn’t like the essays as much as the first selection. The essays discussed various actors, films, producers, directors and so forth and for some it read like a biography of their screen career. Ironically, these actually read like ‘essays’ where as the first group didn’t seem as formal. This may also be partly due to the fact I connected with the first group so strongly; to go from quite personal topics to those I knew little about or had a deep interest in, was probably the reason why I didn’t enjoy them as much.

“The Seawall” was the title for the final group of essays. For me these were the most moving set of essays as the author describes the relationships with his family. About Caryn describe Freeses’ love and changing relationship with his daughter, Caryn. This essay was poignant and so touching, it moved me to the point of tears.

“Our relationship was one of orbiting moons, still and silent as they did their turns, in a vacuum.” (Pg. 124)

This sentence is a perfect example of how articulate Freese is and how powerful his words can be. His writing throughout all of the essays is superb; it’s difficult to see how it could have been worded any differently.

Perhaps my only couple of criticisms would be that the tone of the essays can sometimes be depressing and if read in one sitting, I could imagine the essays would be quite over-whelming.

Out of all of the essays, if I could only recommend my top five, it would have to be:

Ten Canon
Introductory Remarks on Retirement from a Therapist
About Caryn
I Really Don’t Know Me and I Really Don’t Know You
Reflections on Rummaging


…oh and A Spousal Interview…and – you see it’s really pointless me even trying to narrow it down!

The Verdict - A stunning assortment of essays and possibly the best work by an Indie author I have ever read. Freese is incredibly articulate and manages to turn difficult subjects into something accessible and attractive to readers. In the essay ‘At 67′ Freese writes, “long after I am gone they can point to a grandfather or great-grandfather and say that that at least one Freese got out of the rubble of that family and made something of his life, left something of value.”This is that something! 5 Stars.