When I was a young lad and my family would pile into the car for a long trip, my sister and I would – as children do – be quite loud and obnoxious in the backseat throughout the journey, deprived as we were of any of the usual stimulations and attention required by those of that age. (This was long before we even dreamed of having a portable DVD player to calm us.) In what was to be at once a successful and beautiful stroke of genius, my parents told us how to play “The Quiet Game” which was a very simple game to play in that whoever made any sound first lost.

Determined to be winners, my sister and I shut up for long stretches at a time, much to our parents’ delight, though we weren’t beyond trying to trick each other into laughing or screaming. Naturally, the rules were modified a little to prohibit any touching or prodding of the other contestant.

I’ve never been the quickest bullet out of the gun, but years passed before I realized the true purpose of that game, presented as it was in the spirit of fun. Both of my parents acted in the local theatre, so I’m sure that didn’t dampen their persuasive skills….

Well, fast forward to now and I realize the importance of imposing my own Quiet Game upon myself. The world is too much with us, this is true. As fun as that can be, there come times when I need to let the world not be with me for a while so I can soak in the stuff behind the clatter and pull the magic back into my life (and hopefully spread it around a little bit). It seems increasingly necessary now that they put High Fructose Corn Syrup in just about anything you could possibly want to eat.

Anyway, one of the things that stayed with me from Haruki Murakami’s book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was the magic achieved by the protagonist during his imaginative time spent sitting at the bottom of a deep, dark, quiet well. A place of silence and sensory depravation, where he was able to, if not unravel the mysteries of his life, at least journey through them toward some resolution.

A one-minute audio experiment from this quiet, rainy Jersey Shore day is at the top of this blog for your consideration….

It’s been a while since I read Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, but one interesting thing that stuck with me – if I remember it correctly…and so many times I don’t – was that when the characters would “jaunte” (or teleport) from one place to another, it was important that they have an image of the place they would be landing set firmly in their mind’s eye or else things could go horribly wrong.

As Dr. Mystic and I have discussed, there’s a plethora of theories out there about making your life what it should be, and most of them hold to the belief that it’s important to see oneself vividly being where one wants to be in order to…be there. That’s oversimplified, of course. Basically, thoughts precede action and all that. Wanna be a fireman? See yourself fighting those fires, complete with coat, axe, badge, and boots, and see it often. Rock Star? Tighten up those pants, lad, and strap on a six-string in your mind.

Anyway, our cat Cosmo brings this down to earth. When he’s about to leap onto something unfamiliar, he stares at it intensely, vibrates for a moment, and then jumps successfully to his destination. Kate and I call this the See It…Be It configuration. He sees where he wants to be, and then he is there.

With this in mind, I hope this simple song will provide some nourishing entertainment along your path.

THEORETICALLY BEING THERE

You can’t be anywhere
If you’re not already there

You’ve got to see where you want to be
If you want to be where you want to be
Coz

You can’t be anywhere
If you’re not already there

If I had to choose, I’d say that my favorite Harry Crews book is probably A Feast of Snakes (though that Gypsy’s Curse story from the Classic Crews collection ranks about as high as anything). Grotesque more often than not, his tales expose the slithering underbelly of rural Southern culture in sharp contrast to those of greats such as Capote and O’Connor. It can be vile and depraved, but it’s sure good for your eyes.

Martha’s snakes aren’t quite as real, and therefore aren’t quite so frightening. With the change of a word or two, it might make a nicely disturbing children’s song.