Itinerantdaughter's Blog

A ruler once had an astronomically expensive horse and kept a close watch on it at all times. One day, he rode to another city and led it into the stable. At the stable entrance he posted a guard to make sure it wouldn’t be stolen. So that guard would not doze off, the ruler advised him to busy himself in thought over various things. In the middle of the night, the ruler rose and went to the guard, finding him deep in thought.

“What are you thinking about?” the ruler asked.

“I am contemplating the question of where the wood goes when one hammers a nail into it.”

“Great,” said the ruler. You’re doing good thinking.”

A few hours later the ruler approached the guard again.

“What are you thinking about now?”

“I’m thinking about where the hole goes when you eat a bagel.”

“Wonderful,” said the ruler, and he went back to sleep.

In the early morning the ruler again found the guard lost in contemplation.

“What are you thinking about now?” the ruler asked him.

“I’m thinking about how it could be that with the stable closed and me sitting at the entrance with my thoughts, the horse could just disappear?”

When a person is caught up in their unnecessary ruminations, the evil inclination comes and steals their common sense.

–A Hasidic story, from a weekly parashah collection by Aaron Goldscheider

DL: So what kind of stuff were you writing before that movie came out?

DFW: Let’s see, I can remember exactly. Tch tcho tcho tcho thch tcho. I had written––I was taking Old English, and I’d written a story about a village in England, that was all in Old English. And I’d written a long novella that actually ended up coming out in magazine, about a WASP who passes himself off as Jewish. Even with his wife––and is exposed when his wife gets terminal cancer. But both things were basically vehicles for me to show off in various technical ways. Like to do really good, a kind of really good kitschy Jewish voice and dialogue. And it was more like that’s what I want to do, now how can I structure a story so that I can?

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky

From a book I love, by Erving Goffman:

“Also, it seems possible for an individual to fail to live up to what we effectively demand of him, and yet be relatively untouched by this failure; insulated by his alienation, protected by identity beliefs of his own, he feels that he is a full-fledged normal human being, and that we are the ones who are not quite human. He bears a stigma but does not seem to be impressed or repentant about doing so. This possibility is celebrated in exemplary tales about Mennonites, Gypsies, shameless scoundrels, and very Orthodox Jews.”

I think “shameless scoundrels” is my favorite.

When Amish youth hit sixteen, they typically begin “running around.” This is the famous Rumspringa period, during which they can do almost whatever they please, because they are no longer under the rule of their parents, but nor have they been baptized officially into the church. I didn’t know before that they don’t do this alone; they join “gangs.” According to Donald Kraybill:

About twenty-seven youth groups, called “gangs,” ranging in size from fifty to a hundred and fifty members, crisscross the Lancaster settlement. By the age of ten, an Amish child will be able to name some of the groups––Bluebirds, Canaries, Pine Cones, Drifters, Shotguns, Rockys, and Quakers––and even describe some of their activities. Youth are free to join the gang of their choice. Young people from the same church district or family may join different groups. The gangs become the primary social world for teens before they marry, but the groups vary considerably in their conformity to traditional Amish values.

What, no Jets or Sharks?