I was taught that Whitman was so much better than Ginsberg that Allen’s poetry made him apish to a degree that indicted him for irrelevance. I was encouraged to dismiss him on that basis. It was kind of an agreement of what was at the top and a sneer to what was considered below.

I resisted because Ginsberg’s poetry touched me. I learned to play with his mockers and find ways to twist their judgment back on them. They were decidedly not in favor of this approach.

But the snobbery had left seed that had taken root. I wasn’t interested in James Michener or Leon Uris. They were just story tellers although there was that similarity to Charles Dickens, to Homer, to Shakespeare. I allowed my snobbery to sweep the newcomers aside. I felt affirmed and erect. Then, I began to read Michener and Uris. Funny how that changes things, isn’t it? It is so much easier to dismiss the unfamiliar.

Michener is magic. He is fathered by a blend of some Neanderthal with those instinctual memories, who has mated with one of the new people. The ability to adapt and still have the instinctual memories. Jane Auel came close to describing it, but we never truly learn what became of Ayla’s son. Ayla had a son with a Neanderthal, but she was forced to give him up and accepts the loss. I know that her books are considered cultish, but I like what she has to teach.

A person wishing to learn about Hawaii would profit from reading Michener’s novel.  And The Source reveals the pagan foundations of Judaism.  Some people say that they would not read a work of fiction to find out about a place. Wouldn’t a travel book be for more useful? But would someone interested in exploring the Asian cultures of Japan and Hong Kong not profit from reading James Clavell? Would they not also learn something about how environment shapes people over a time? What travel book provides that glimpse of the relationship between people and place the way that Michener and Clavell do?

It saddens me that they aren’t read anymore. Maybe it’s the pacing. They wrote long books. We seem to like to have our books more resemble a quick snack now. But maybe that’s just another form of snobbery.

I understand that any form of snobbery is meant to maintain a standard. It is a form of natural selection that discards things of lesser value. However, the value is measured by the constraints of the snobbery.  That almost sounds like a belief system, a religion.

The proponents of such a belief system will contend that they believe in veritas or perhaps gravitas, but what they finally adhere to is the comfort of their code.  Does it close or open their eyes?

I have a friend who believes that strings on a popular song relegates it to schmaltz. I found a recording of Mark Knopfler playing “Brothers in Arms” at a benefit concert after the volcanic eruption in Monserrat. I played a cut of Frank Sinatra’s saloon version of “One for My Baby and One More for the Road” and he told me that the exceptions proved the rule. Strings are schmaltz.

There is a time when hairs stand up on the back of your neck. My less sophisticated friends call this the “shit detector” and of course snobbery accused that vernacular as being vulgar and limited.  Perhaps it is just too scatological.  Unless snobbery morphs into fetish, that is unacceptable.

Michael Crichton and John Grisham and Thomas Harris were a triumvirate of popular success authors who were viewed and still viewed as pandering. But before the creation of Harris’ Hannibal, the name signified a barbarian who managed to cross the Alps on elephants, but now- Hannibal the Cannibal. Forever changed. But perhaps the change isn’t for the better. Who is interested in the inner workings of a sociopathic serial killer who ingests his trophies? I wonder if Poe would have found him of interest.

One can trace the path of a mind in Creighton. It is a mind that sought answers and questions and loved them both. But although popular in his lifetime, he failed to toe the correct party line. Then the ultimate silence of dying.  Technology marches on and Creighton was all about technology. Would Jules Verne agree?

John Grisham’s writing evolves. He tries to come to an understanding of the world, although pieces like An Unpainted House and Bleachers, and the non-fiction effort, An Innocent Man are largely ignored. After all, he is rich off of his writing.  What could he possibly have to say? Would Faulkner have the same opinion?

Some fiction is passed through the gate of literary snobbery under the guise of a guilty pleasure. This places it in a realm that is akin to intellectual pornography- it’s not really good but we are somehow drawn to it. But is it not from those things to which we are drawn that we learn the most about ourselves?

Pop culture is an easy target for the snob’s disdain. There goes that Tom Wolfe.  Even though A Man in Full and Back to Blood hold a Voltaire-like mirror up to the culture of the times, we are told that Wolfe has stopped writing true fiction and decided on culture assassination. No chance that he was redefining fiction is truly allowed. Not in the world of the literary snob.

I remember an apartment in lower Manhattan. In a small bedroom was a poster of a man sitting surrounded by piles of books.  He was an older man. The caption read, “I only have time for the best books because I may not have time to read them all.” He sat alone in the room and seemed very sure of his convictions. I used to admire that caption, but I do not any longer because I think the word “best” is more than a little subjective and more than a little condescending.

My own snobbery extends to Stephan King. I cannot deny his creativity but I feel more used by his formulas than for example a Michener whose formula was a vehicle for exploration. King’s seems more to be a way of resolving questions. That is a bit boring and ultimately brings a sigh of disappointment rather than the shimmer of a dancing question. But I know that this expression of my snobbery tells me more about myself than it reveals about King.

I believe that there must also be a snobbery of economics, of politics, of law and even of geography. There is surely historical snobbery. I am not a fan of seeing things and people explode, but I am drawn to the explosion of ideas and the ways that those explosions reconfigure things.

The origin of the word snobbery applied to someone who imitated people of a higher social class. Is it ironic that those same people eventually adopted it as faith?

I became a true student when I was able to say with sincerity, “I don’t know but I want to know.” I became a teacher when I was able to help those who asked the same question.  Is a snob able to express sincerity of interest and admit not knowing or is it required that it be hidden for purposes of appearance, or perhaps a belief that it would go unappreciated?

How is snobbery different from taste? Does the cultivation of one result in the development of the other? Is it all about finding that system of belief that provides reassurance and therefore comfort?

Jackson Browne wrote and sang, “Now there’s a world of illusion and fantasy in the place where the real world belongs…” I find that line applying to me in that I cry for movies. I am touched by song. Words can move me to tears but not events so much. I can witness with compassionate detachment. Unless I am crying over a movie.

Horror doesn’t move me to tears. I prefer not to witness it and yet feel drawn with George Carlin’s admonishment about tragedy porn throbbing in my mind. So, sometimes I watch, but not for long and not obsessively.

I cry for fiction. That is what moves me the strongest and I do not understand why. A song that does this is Vonda Shepherd’s I Know Him by Heart. The singer had never met her perfect love but kept that ideal alive inside of her, like fragile hope.

I know that I yearn for the existence of that idea in the world, but why does it move me to tears? Do I not think it possible, or possibly requited? What makes me cry this way? I need to understand. Is it the sadness that accompanies the hope? Is it the futility of a romantic view of the world, where forces and nature are alive and do have a consciousness.

How is a person who is not moved by the imaginary different from one who is? Do the imaginary believers perhaps see fantasy as reality: doesn’t that have an allure? I know that I have walked that path and that I will walk it again. Sometimes imagining is immature? Is the ironic twist of that attitude of those who stop believing that keeps their imaginations infantile? That voice says, “Be careful of what you wish for,” and then the dark forms of insanity flash.

People tell me that crying is catharsis. I agree but want to know where the catharsis comes from. Does it come with a clear or even a riddled message?  Why is it a riddle? Is it me that makes what is clear into a mystery? Is the mystery expressing itself through me? What kinds of combinations of those things might possibly exist?

Understanding why I cry for fiction is part of understanding the nature of my consciousness. What hasn’t been moves me more than what has occurred so far. After my mother died, I played a nonstop barrage of Frank Sinatra. My mom didn’t particularly worship him. She thought he was good. But for some reason he became a vehicle to my tears for her. I wanted to cry for her, but I needed music and words and images to help me.

Understanding why I don’t cry for reality is a different matter. Something about spilt milk and the milk that is just about to spill, but may not.

I can remember the first visual image that made me cry. It was Lassie. The face of a TV dog in a cameo while credits rolled and music played. I didn’t want Lassie to go. I was so young and my needs so immediate.

Much later, it was The Parent Trap and I sat in a theater, by myself in the dark and watched these twins struggle, sometimes humorously, to reunite their family. I remember feeling weak and stupid and wishing that I had a twin. Later, I learned that Haley Mills had played both parts. And I dreamed that I could be in two places at once and be my own twin.

There is a distance that creates intimacy. There is the open portal of imagery. There is a language beyond words. There is a beauty to words and to all languages and it makes me cry sometimes.

I think that I have learned to live with the tears and to accept them, but I also think that a distanced part of myself sees this as a necessary bargain. Sometimes I fear that this is the real me, accepting necessary bargains but to achieve what?

Depth is not meaning.

I know the Randall Jerrell poem 90 North, but I never believed that pain equaled wisdom. I did think that depth did.

There is this little know Kevin Costner film, A Perfect World. Its conclusion made me cry uncontrollably. I don’t know why, but I want to know. Is it the wanting to know that assigns me to this circular progression? Is it unknowable?

I cry for animals. My friend, my puppy Keats’ death caused an absolute eruption in my being. Warhorse made me cry. Is this a weakness in my character or an opportunity? Or does weakness sometimes bestow opportunity? Is it what comes next that matters?

If depth does not lead to knowledge, what is its purpose? It cannot be an end in and of itself. Depth inspires more weight than light.

When I first returned to that experience in a dream, it was horrifying. I could feel the stone pressed against my body. I was trapped. As it has returned again though, the space has gotten a little wider and I can see that there is a way out, just one that I didn’t understand because of my fear and the panic that caused me to swell up until I was immobile.

This falls under the category of the “being trapped” dream. It is supposed indicate that I am in some kind of rut or life circumstance which will not let me go. It appears on the list of categories for most common types of recurring dreams, along with falling, being chased, having your teeth pulled out or fall out, flying, being submerged in water, being publically exposed in some humiliating fashion, wandering in a house that keeps changing, or having something stolen from you. Checking over the list again, I see nothing about being shot.

My most frightening nightmare was discovering that I had a consciousness that was eternal but that after death it was alone in a complete void forever. I still shudder when I recall that one. Thankfully, it did not return.

The film Ground Hog Day is a recurring dream brought to fictional life. Happening over and over again, until Phil figures out what he needs to do to make it stop. But suppose you didn’t want your recurring dream to stop? Suppose it became like a song that you wished to play and then replay? Would your dreaming self just give up trying to communicate the message? Maybe the experience is the message. Or maybe, like Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, the dream would bring you comfort before and after struggle.

Sometimes my dreams are very silly and happy. These are the ones where waking up can make you want to go back. They reveal us in ways that often expose places where we hold on to childhood dreams. A few years ago, Jackson Browne offered an item up for auction. It was studio time with him to work on a song of your own creation. I bid on it but got shut out at the end. A few weeks later, I dreamt that I met Jackson and that we became friends. That was the strangest recurring dream because it was like a mini-series with installments. But as soon as I told anyone about them, they stopped. Are some dreams meant to be kept secrets?

Shakespeare wrote, “we are such stuff that dreams are made on.” I wonder if he meant nightmares and recurring dreams too.

Finally there is that wonderful line from Bob Dylan, “At dawn my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams with no attempt to shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means.”

The most recent catalyst was a documentary about New York City by Ric Burns. As the photography depicted the rise of buildings, I could not help but envision myself going off of them, unwillingly. I find the feeling both recurrent and unpleasant.

I never wished to go to the top of the Empire State Building. There was that scene from Sleepless in Seattle that I enjoyed, but it didn’t display the sense of vulnerable height. I guess that I didn’t feel that when I climbed over rooftops.

I do not enjoy the thought of balconies, but I venture out onto them, always. At first I gaze to the horizon, then I look down. I feel the dizziness, that queasy, weak feeling of collapse and what that might mean. It is at that point that I find a grip on myself. I set about the process of affirming that I will live.

I prefer the window seat on an airplane. I don’t feel vertigo then. I don’t think that some emotion will sweep me over the edge. Or propel me through the skin of the plane. I am at relative peace, considering my circumstances.

I think it is that the wind rails at the walls but does not get in. I think it is the wind that has a sense of fate, sometimes. I can only smile as scientific data organizes itself in my mind about what the wind is. Friction and attraction in orbit. Turning in space.

But then I’m up high and the turning is sending me uncontrollably over the edge. What is that? Why does that happen?

I tend to prefer the upper level crossing when I drive over the George Washington Bridge, but I choose an inside lane. I have always smiled when I crossed the Tappan Zee, even when the wind created chaos. What is waiting over the edge? Haven’t I been there before? Do we mingle with over the edge for all of our lives?

It’s not a welcome acquaintance, but we all felt it necessary sometimes.
I like to dive deep. Under the water, where you need an extreme sense of focus. I passed those tests. I am certified to dive deep.

There is a reef in Grand Cayman.  My dive instructor said, “One hundred and twenty feet down and you establish neutral buoyancy, and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Neutral buoyancy is the equivalent of being weightless. One piles on a certain amount of baggage for this dive. It is proportional to the equation of body weight and the differences between salt and fresh water. It is regulated by an air jacket that can be inflated appropriately. The basic idea is to cause you to sink and then have your jacket balance you.

My instructor continued. “Over your shoulder is the most beautiful blue that you have ever seen. It is inviting. It will seduce you. It is six hundred feet deep and then you will die.”

When I dropped down, there was something that he hadn’t mentioned. I could feel the blue and the way that it pulled at me. I focused on my instruments and on the passing panorama of the wall. Was it the absence of wind? Or was current now the wind?

The brain coral has a design symmetry that elicits a kinship. I floated, weightless, neutral buoyancy achieved. Is it a different kind of epiphany when your body resonates in conjunction with your mind?

Floating but not falling over the edge and falling, which is where this began.   Swept over the edge. Struggling against it. Knowing it will come. Wanting to step back into some cocoon. Discovering an alternative.

Sometimes I turn my face from the screen. I feel the images whirling. It’s just heady and my body feels it differently, than I did when floating along that wall.

Astrologically, my sun sign is in Gemini. I’m predestined to fall in love with a breeze. Under the water, I am sometimes transformed. But that recurring, helpless feeling of being swept over the edge… The seductive blue so far under the surface… The current is a breeze in a different world.

I am frightened by height and attracted by depth. What we jettison to fly we use to help us submerge when we dive. The saying among divers is that any dive from which you surface alive was a good one. I question that application to height. The wind in my hair and at my back shouldn’t make me need to hold on tighter. I was not born to fly but I seem to have a tendency for diving.

Perhaps I am just afraid to truly fly. Maybe a leap is so different from a dive, maybe they are both the same. I know more about how to surface than I do about how to pull up. Swimming to the light is like flying. But if I am blown over the edge I won’t be able to fly upward because of what holds me here.

I’ve seen the sea turtle and the moray eel up close and wild. The birds have not been as accessible. The frantic nature of captured flight is so different from the powerful smooth strokes of airborne freedom. A bird in a building is never at rest until it has found a way out. But I’d just get pulled over the side. When you cannot fly, the final way out is to collide. I feel that plunging fear, and I fear how it influences my life.

The ride back from a dive is the sweetest of all rides. The sun and the air are like angels at your side. Skimming the waves and balancing a smile. It was a great ride and you’re still alive.

I remember the opening scenes from the film version of West Side Story and how they excited me. That must have been before. I feel vividly queasy when Al Pacino plays the Devil on a rooftop ledge. I try not to go to the ledges any more. But they still find me in my dreams.