it's been more than two months since Jim Carroll died, and over the weekend i read The Basketball Diaries for the first time. the journals are remarkable, especially for a 12-15 year old, and i spent some time on the beach remembering my teenage confusion surrounding Leonardo DiCaprio:
"Leo" (actually a Scorpio) is a little more than two years my elder, better looking, and substantially wealthier. the same was true in 1995 when the film version of The Basketball Diaries was released, and his casting left me utterly baffled. the crux of my dilemma revolved around trying to comprehend how a skinny white boy could possibly be a blue chip basketball recruit. eventually i learned that these diaries were written in the early Sixties by an eighth grader, and with it came the implicit realization of the perils of projected my own historical moment onto the art and lives of others. case in point:
Jim Carroll played basketball in a Manhattan without a World Trade Center, a world with two Germanies and two Vietnams, an America wrestling with the delusion of "separate but equal," a New York with Rockefeller Laws as well as a Rockefeller Center, and a Times Square closer to Burroughs' than Disney. i could have told you all of these things when i was 18, but i knew none of them. they were only facts, hollowed of the truth by my immaturity and hubris.
i walked through the park after dark, hallowed by the truth of contemplation and experience. i walked through the park, thinking about the immensity of life and the passing of poets. i walked:
thinking of Jache, thinking of adolescence, thinking of the romantic lies we tell ourselves when we are young and inexperienced.
i thought of how often the abyss is mistaken for the void and how one can ever know the difference without looking. i thought of a misspent youth spent searching for a bottom that isn't there and the wellspring of possibility that dwells within our lack of sophistication. i thought of the beauty and danger living inside our naiveté.
a voice in the dark interrupted my reverie:
i walked in the park after dark, thinking of one Germany, one Vietnam, and a Manhattan without a World Trade Center. i thought of wrestling with the ghosts of our delusions. i smiled to myself:
"Leo" (actually a Scorpio) is a little more than two years my elder, better looking, and substantially wealthier. the same was true in 1995 when the film version of The Basketball Diaries was released, and his casting left me utterly baffled. the crux of my dilemma revolved around trying to comprehend how a skinny white boy could possibly be a blue chip basketball recruit. eventually i learned that these diaries were written in the early Sixties by an eighth grader, and with it came the implicit realization of the perils of projected my own historical moment onto the art and lives of others. case in point:
Jim Carroll played basketball in a Manhattan without a World Trade Center, a world with two Germanies and two Vietnams, an America wrestling with the delusion of "separate but equal," a New York with Rockefeller Laws as well as a Rockefeller Center, and a Times Square closer to Burroughs' than Disney. i could have told you all of these things when i was 18, but i knew none of them. they were only facts, hollowed of the truth by my immaturity and hubris.
(but last night)
i walked through the park after dark, hallowed by the truth of contemplation and experience. i walked through the park, thinking about the immensity of life and the passing of poets. i walked:
thinking of Jache, thinking of adolescence, thinking of the romantic lies we tell ourselves when we are young and inexperienced.
i thought of how often the abyss is mistaken for the void and how one can ever know the difference without looking. i thought of a misspent youth spent searching for a bottom that isn't there and the wellspring of possibility that dwells within our lack of sophistication. i thought of the beauty and danger living inside our naiveté.
a voice in the dark interrupted my reverie:
(hey man, you straight?)
i walked in the park after dark, thinking of one Germany, one Vietnam, and a Manhattan without a World Trade Center. i thought of wrestling with the ghosts of our delusions. i smiled to myself:
you can still smell the Jim Carroll on me.
"Little kids shooting marbles
where branches break out into the sun
into graceful shafts of light...
I just want to be pure."
(August 1, 1949 - September 11, 2009)
where branches break out into the sun
into graceful shafts of light...
I just want to be pure."
(August 1, 1949 - September 11, 2009)
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