Tuesday, December 05, 2006
It Was the Sad Story, The Origin of Love
I don’t know what’s happening to me, I’m not even sure if I can accurately say “lately” because sentimentality isn’t a new quality, but I seem to be weeping at everything.
It came as a surprise at first, the full tightness of the throat and the deep shuddering sigh, before I copiously wept at the finale of Stephen Elliott’s book My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up. I tore through this book in maybe a couple of hours. It wasn’t the emotionally or mentally wrenching aspects of his life, but the beautiful and loving conclusion he brings the reader to (even as he’s describing his girlfriend’s name being carved into his side).
e.e. cummings wrote, “and the reason i do not fall out of this window is love” and that seems to be Elliott’s reason too.
Big, big shuddering sigh, complete with blubbery tears from me. Imagine reading a book with this cover on the subway and saying, “Oh my god it’s so beautiful.” You get looks.
Not so shocking, except maybe for how soon the book got me (page 8) is a very different story about a story. Many stories… lives, all of which are touched by the book that this book is named after, “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss. It’s very much about loneliness and lost love in a universal sense, with a million plotlines and timelines that overlap and touch in a way that defines a successful author. Some of my favorite excerpts from this book come from the author’s use of quotations from The History of Love itself, which is written in chapters such as “The Age of Silence” where everyone spoke completely in gestures and “The Age of Glass” where everyone believed that one part of their body (different for everyone) was made of glass, and lived in constant fear of it being broken.
It’s a loose connection, but if the opening song and animation in The Origin of Love sequence in Hedwig and the Angry Inch touched you, these fable-like excerpts probably will too.
Now that I mention it, sometimes I cry when I listen to Rufus Wainwright’s version (because it rocks much harder) of The Origin of Love, and I’ve heard that song a million times (because it just rocks so good and hard). The lyrics... lightening, like scissors, I tell you.
I cried from last week’s episode of Battlestar Gallactica, when Kara bates Lee into literally fighting her… at the end, when they’re both beaten to a bloody pulp, exhausted, holding each other and saying “I missed you.” I think Kara’s an idiot, and has major issues. I felt terrible for their spouses, but just felt so damn much for their obvious retarded love that I wanted to bang their heads together myself. Hard to watch, even harder to watch once the waterworks kicked in.
Last night, I wept for a good five minutes watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, all because of old love, new love, virtue, New Orleans, and Christmas!
Either I need to switch to a different birth control pill, or I’ve finally found entertainment that’s written or performed perfectly, and very successful at hitting its mark.
Bullseye on my heart, people. You win. I give up. Now, can I please have a tissue?
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