In Which We Find There Are Two Types of Guys

Good At Something

by ALMIE ROSE

I have two types of guys. The first guy is very easy to describe; he's a tall, skinny, rocker type (but a rocker more in the vein of Pulp than Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers).

The other type has been harder for me to describe. He's a nerdier type of man — but not the kind who is into World of Warcraft or any of that weird digital hocus pocus shit. I ain't into that. He's also not so nerdy that his social life consists of him watching films about other nerdy guys all weekend. He's the kind of guy who's cute, dresses well but not so well that you'd mistake him for a GQ model (or stylist), and is creative and good at...something.

In short, as I discovered today, he is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character in (500) Days of Summer.

I have never been aboard the JG-L train. I see the appeal, I'm just not going to buy a ticket. Maybe this is because I'm bummed that I missed out on my chance to ask him to prom (and this story isn't as juicy as it sounds, trust me. He was best friends with a relative of mine whose mom suggested that I ask him, but he was in Harvard or whever really smart good looking actors spend their time when they're not working.

Also how was he to know I would turn into a total babe? I mean, this is what my mom tells me.)

But like the sudden 90s revival, it's all starting to come together. Spoiler alert for (500) Days of Summer: JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT'S CHARACTER IS ADORABLE!!!! THERE IS NOT ONE PART IN THE FILM IN WHICH HE IS NOT ADORABLE!!! IF THERE WAS A SCENE OF HIM TAKING A DUMP IT WOULD BE THE MOST TOUCHING DUMP SCENE IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA!!! THERE IS NO SCENE LIKE THAT AT ALL, I DON'T KNOW WHY MY MIND WENT THERE, I'M REALLY SORRY EVERYBODY!!! LET'S JUST ALL WALK QUIETLY BACK TO OUR CARS, DRIVE HOME, AND PRETEND THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENED! WHY SHOULD THE POLICE COME? NOBODY'S CALLED THEM.

The thing is, ladies, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character exists in the real world; he just doesn't look like Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

In fact I have a guy friend who basically is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character. But he's like 8 feet tall, kind of chubby, and doesn't wear argyle sweaters. So he's basically screwed. Because all around him his female friends are bemoaning the lack of men as sweet and understanding as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character when he wants to shout, "BITCHES I'M RIGHT HERE" but he never would, exactly BECAUSE he is as sweet and understated as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character.

So what the fuck is he supposed to do? What is any of us supposed to do? What is Joseph Gordon-Levitt supposed to do? Now he's got straight-up Lloyd Dobler syndrome where every woman he meets is going to think that he's his character. But wait, fuck him, it's 20-something adorably nerdy men types who should be pissed because now we, 20-something future Annie Halls, are going to superimpose his character on every adorably nerdy man we meet, and be totally bummed out when we realize that he's not him, even though we know he won't be, because it's all fiction anyway.

In short, we need to never EVER see movies again. WE NEED TO BURN THE MOVIES BEFORE THEY BURN US.

That or just stick to skinny rockers.

Almie Rose is a contributor to This Recording. She blogs here.

"Under No Enchantment (But My Own)" — Alasdair Roberts (mp3)

"Hazel Forks" — Alasdair Roberts (mp3)

"The Book of Doves" — Alasdair Roberts (mp3)

In Which You Can Shelter Me And I Will Shelter You

from Journal

by LEONARD MICHAELS

The distance between us is neither long nor short, merely imperishable, like the sentiment in an old song.

My neighbor is building his patio, laying bricks meticulously. The sun beats on him. Heats rises off the bricks into his face. I'm in here writing. He'll have built a patio. I'll be punished.

Deborah wants to have her eyes fixed so they'll look like white eyes and she hates her landlady who gave her the Etna Street apartment, choosing her over 157 other applicants. Her landlady assumed Deborah is a good girl, clean and quiet. "A Japanese angel," says Deborah with a sneer. I was shocked by her racism. I hadn't imagined she thought of herself as Japanese. She showed me photos of her family. Mother, father, brothers, sister — all Japanese, but I hadn't supposed she thought she was, too. What the hell did I imagine? Never to have to think of yourself as white is a luxury that makes you deeply stupid.

Evelyn told me that Sally, her dearest friend — "Don't ever repeat this!" — came down with the worst case of herpes she'd ever seen.

Feelings swarm in Eddie's face, innumerable nameless nuances, like lights on the ocean beneath a sky of racing clouds. Eddie could have been a novelist or poet. He has emotional abundance, fluency of self. He's shameless. "Believe me, I'm not a faithful type. I've slept with a hundred women. More. But it's no use. She hits me, curses me. She says 'I don't want to be touched. I don't want to be turned on.' No matter. It begins to happen. She relaxes, lets me disgrace myself. She tells me, 'Lick the insides of my legs while I make this phone call.' My father slaves six days a week, year after year, just to put me through medical school. For me to do this, to lick this woman, he went to an early grave."

Margaret tells me her lover is wonderful. "He makes me feel like a woman," she says, "without degrading me." I don't know what she means, but can't ask. What is it to feel like a woman? or to be made to feel that way?

Sonny was six years old when she went up on a roof with a boy. He pulled down his pants. She pulled down hers. They looked. Years later she still worried about what she'd done, thinking she could never be famous because the boy would tell everybody she'd pulled her pants down. She was a success in school and had innumerable boyfriends. None of that changed anything for her. At the age of six, in a thoughtless moment, she ruined her life.

It was cold, beginning to rain. Deborah was afraid she wouldn't find a taxi. She'd have to walk for blocks in the rain. She didn't want to go, but her psychotherapist wasn't charging her anything. A few months back, she told him she couldn't afford to continue. He lowered the rate to half. Even that became too much for her, so he lowered it to nothing. She stood, collected her things, and pulled on her coat like a kid taking orders from her mother, then fussed with her purse, her scarf, trying to be efficient but making dozens of extra little moves, rebuttoning, untying and retying her scarf, and then reopening her purse to be sure there was enough money for a taxi if she could find one. She wanted to stay, to talk more, but couldn't not go to her psychotherapist. She felt he really needed her.

I told Sonny I love her. She said, "I'm a sucker for love."

Leonard Michaels is the senior contributor to This Recording. He died in 2003. You can find the first four entries in Leonard Michaels' Journal here, here, and here, and here.

"Left Bank" - Air (mp3)

"Night Sight" - Air (mp3) highly recommended

"Space Maker" - Air (mp3)

art by Jake Longstreth

In Which We're Up Early And Moving Like Leonard

from Journal

by LEONARD MICHAELS

We made love all afternoon. Sonny asked, "Was it good?" I said, "Never in my life" etc. The irrelevance of words, the happiness of being free of all such clothing. I lie on my back. Dumb. Savoring dumbness. My mother said she found my father on his back on the bedroom floor, staring up at her with a dumb little smile on his face, as if it weren't bad being dead. He'd gone like himself, a sweet gentleman with fine nervous hands, not wanting her to feel distressed. It's a mystery how one learns to speak, the great achievement of life. But when the soul speaks -- alas it is no longer the soul that speaks.

Billy says, "Why don't you let me do it? Afraid you might like it?"

A huge fellow with the face of a powerful dullard stood behind the counter. He turned for items on the shelf and I saw that his pants had slipped below his hips, where he was chopped sheer from lower back to legs. No ass to hold up his pants. His bulk pushed forward and heaved up into his chest. He had a hanging mouth and little eyes with a birdlike shine. I bought salami and oranges from him, thought I no longer felt any desire to eat.

We made love all afternoon. Sonny asked, "Was it good?" I said, "Never in my life" etc. She said, "I should be compensated."

Alone, you hear yourself chewing and swallowing. You sound like an animal. With company everyone eats, talk obscures the noises in your head, and nobody looks at what your mouth is doing, or listens to it. In this high blindness and deafness lives freedom. Would I think so if I hadn't left her?

She pressed my leg with hers under the table. Conversation stopped. She continued pressing, then pulled away abruptly. She did it to excite herself, that's all. Her makeup was sloppy, her clothes were stylish. She'd start to say something, then laugh and say, "No." I'd never seen anyone more depressed. She said, "Driving to work I brush my teeth. I'm the invisible woman." I said, "I locked myself out of my office and my car. I don't even exist." She said, "I lost my checkbook and sunglasses. Nobody needs them." "I forgot my appointment. Nobody wants to meet me." She frowned. "You're trying and that's sweet. But I don't care."

Deborah's dentist, a little Jewish man, talks incessantly and she can't say a word because her mouth is pried open, under investigation by steel instruments, and also hooked like a fish by a suction tube. Nevertheless her dentist says things that require an answer, so she grunts and moans to say, yes, no, really, how nice, too bad. Last time she saw him he carried on about Buddhism, which he studies with monks in a temple. He said, incidentally, that he'd learned to levitate. She asked him if he meant "meditate" rather than "levitate." He said, "No, I mean levitate." She asked him to show her. He said, "No, no." She pleaded with him. He refused. She refused to leave. He said, "Just once." He turned his back to her, crouched slightly, and lifted off the floor. I waited for Deborah to continue, but hat was the end. She had no more to say. I snapped at her, "He did not levitate." She said, truly astonished, "He didn't?"

Sonny was my best friend. Then she says, "I met a man last night." My heart grew heavy. I couldn't count on her anymore for dinner, long talks on the telephone, serious attention to my problems, and she'll no longer tell me about herself, how well or ill she slept last night, and whether she dreamed, and what she did yesterday, and what people told her and she them. She said, "I don't know why, but I feel guilty towards you." I said, "What's he like?"

She said he is some kind of psychotherapist, divorced, lives in Mill Valley. His former wife is Korean, a fashion model. She made him install a plate-glass window in their living room so birds would fly into it and break their necks. She had them stuffed.

"Oh, I know the guy," I said. "Women find him attractive."

"How do men find him?" I was conscious of the danger.

"He dresses well. He likes classical music, and hiking. He goes sailing. He's a good cook. Doesn't smoke."

"You think he's a prick."

You can find the first three entries in Leonard Michaels' Journal here, here, and here.

"Your Moon" - Sun Airway (mp3)

"Waiting on You" - Sun Airway (mp3)

"Swallowed by the Night" - Sun Airway (mp3)