Another Insane Devotion (33 page)
Read Another Insane Devotion Online
Authors: Peter Trachtenberg
I stood like this for what felt like a very long time, savoring the perfection of the moment, for as moments go, it was perfect. Then, very slowly, I sidled to the door and leaned inside. F. was sitting at the dining table. She looked exactly like herself, that woman and no other. I motioned to her; she came to me. Keeping my voice low, I told her, “Come and see,” and I pointed out the door to where the cat crouched watching the rabbits and the rabbits stood watching the cat.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK HAD FOUR EARLY READERS, WHO WERE GENEROUS enough to look at its chapters virtually as I wrote them and tell me what they thought: Rebecca Chace, Erin Clermont, Sheila Keenan, and Corinne Manning. If not for them, I might have abandoned this project. I also thank Jo Ann Beard, Annie Bellerose, Clyde Edgerton, Mark Irwin, Tracy O'Neill, and Carmen Rodriguez, Michael White, and Marci Vogel for reading portions of the work at different times. My gratitude to Renee Sedliar, my editor at Da Capo, and my agent Gillian Mackenzie and her assistant Adriann Ranta for their faith and well-placed doubts. Thanks also to Cisca Schreefel, Jennifer Kelland, Linda Mark, and Jonathan Sainsbury for turning the manuscript into a book, and to Lissa Warren and Sean Maher for publicizing it. Special acknowledgments go to Chris Noland of the Black Cat Fireworks Company, Christina Campbell, and the magnificent Martha Ciattei for furnishing photographs and artwork. Extraordinary thanks to Jesse McCloskey for his original drawings. You can see his paintings at the Claire Oliver Gallery.
Jeanne-Marie Laskas, Donald Bialostosky, and my new colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh offered me an intellectual and professional home after many years of nomadism. I'm also grateful to my teaching cohorts at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Bard College, the City College of New York, St. Mary's College of California, the Iowa Summer Writers' Festival, and Ashland University, especially Marilyn Abildskov, Karen Bender, Sladja Blazan, David Buuck, Peter Campion, Stephen Cope, Philip Gerard, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Kythe Heller, Rebecca Lee, Joe Mackall, Amy Margolis, Miranda Melis, Marie Regan, Joan Retallack, Robert Siegel, Eleni Stecopoulos, Frederic Tuten, Michael White, and David Wolach.
My gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Richard D. and Mary Jane Edwards Endowed Publication Fund for their support, as well as to the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bellagio Center.
I thank the people who at different times cared for my cats: Jo Ann Beard and Scott Spencer, Heather Dini, Carolina Gonzalez Hutton, Litia Perta, Sheri Sceroler, and the doctors and staff of Rhinebeck Animal Hospital.
My final thanks go to Ellen Trachtenberg and Mary Gaitskill, for reasons they know.
Peter Trachtenberg
May 22, 2012
May 22, 2012
NOTES
Chapter 18
A “prey-like” moving dummy:
Patrick Bateson, “Behavioural Development in the Cat,” in
The Domestic Cat: The Biology of Its Behaviour,
ed. Dennis C. Turner and Patrick Bateson, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 17.
A “prey-like” moving dummy:
Patrick Bateson, “Behavioural Development in the Cat,” in
The Domestic Cat: The Biology of Its Behaviour,
ed. Dennis C. Turner and Patrick Bateson, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 17.
12
And Juan was mad about her
:
James Salter,
Light Years
(San Francisco: North Point Press, 1982), 87.
And Juan was mad about her
:
James Salter,
Light Years
(San Francisco: North Point Press, 1982), 87.
14 “
They were so miserable”:
Ibid., 125.
They were so miserable”:
Ibid., 125.
15 “
Like a master or an illness”:
Marcel Proust,
Swann's Way,
trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin (New York: Random House, 1981), 249â250.
Like a master or an illness”:
Marcel Proust,
Swann's Way,
trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin (New York: Random House, 1981), 249â250.
27 “
To approach the soul”:
Marcel Proust,
Within a Budding Grove,
trans. C. K. Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin (New York: Random House, 1981), 1009.
To approach the soul”:
Marcel Proust,
Within a Budding Grove,
trans. C. K. Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin (New York: Random House, 1981), 1009.
31
Versus 80 for nonbreeding “subordinates”:
Olof Liberg et al., “Density, Spatial Organization and Reproductive
Tactics in the Domestic Cat and Other Felids,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
126.
Versus 80 for nonbreeding “subordinates”:
Olof Liberg et al., “Density, Spatial Organization and Reproductive
Tactics in the Domestic Cat and Other Felids,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
126.
33
“Out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh”:
Augustine of Hippo,
Confessions,
trans. Albert Cook Outler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), bk. II, ch. 2.
“Out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh”:
Augustine of Hippo,
Confessions,
trans. Albert Cook Outler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), bk. II, ch. 2.
37
“You are emptying the world so we can be alone”:
Frank O'Hara, “Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think,”
The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara
(New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 174â175.
“You are emptying the world so we can be alone”:
Frank O'Hara, “Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think,”
The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara
(New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 174â175.
42
“Because it was forbidden”:
Augustine of Hippo,
Confessions,
trans. J. G. Pilkington (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1876), bk. II, ch. 4, 30.
“Because it was forbidden”:
Augustine of Hippo,
Confessions,
trans. J. G. Pilkington (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1876), bk. II, ch. 4, 30.
62 “
Under the same terms”:
Theodore Evergates, ed. and trans.,
Feudal Society in Medieval France: Documents from the County of Champagne
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 41â42.
Under the same terms”:
Theodore Evergates, ed. and trans.,
Feudal Society in Medieval France: Documents from the County of Champagne
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 41â42.
63
“To the day of my death”:
Philippe Ariès, “The Indissoluble Marriage,” in
Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times,
ed. Philippe Ariès and André Béjin (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 151â152.
“To the day of my death”:
Philippe Ariès, “The Indissoluble Marriage,” in
Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times,
ed. Philippe Ariès and André Béjin (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 151â152.
63 “
Marriage is established”:
Cited in Conor McCarthy,
Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice
(Melton, UK: Boydell Press, 2004), 22.
Marriage is established”:
Cited in Conor McCarthy,
Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice
(Melton, UK: Boydell Press, 2004), 22.
64
Fourteen out of seventeen theologians said she could:
Jean-Louis Flandrin, “Sex in Married Life in the Early Middle Ages: The Church's Teaching and Behavioural Reality,” in Ariès and Béjin,
Western Sexuality,
119.
Fourteen out of seventeen theologians said she could:
Jean-Louis Flandrin, “Sex in Married Life in the Early Middle Ages: The Church's Teaching and Behavioural Reality,” in Ariès and Béjin,
Western Sexuality,
119.
72 “
When he is thrown from a high place”:
Dorothy Hartley,
trans.,
Lost Country Life
(New York: Pantheon, 1979). Available online at
http://www.godecookery.com/mtales/mtales07.htm
.
When he is thrown from a high place”:
Dorothy Hartley,
trans.,
Lost Country Life
(New York: Pantheon, 1979). Available online at
http://www.godecookery.com/mtales/mtales07.htm
.
73
“As patient as a cat whose paws are being grilled”:
Robert Darnton,
The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
(New York: Basic Books, 1984), 83, 90â91.
“As patient as a cat whose paws are being grilled”:
Robert Darnton,
The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
(New York: Basic Books, 1984), 83, 90â91.
75
A “deputy kitten”:
Cited in B. Mike Fitzgerald and Dennis C. Turner, “Hunting Behavior of Domestic Cats and Their Impact on Prey Populations,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
155.
A “deputy kitten”:
Cited in B. Mike Fitzgerald and Dennis C. Turner, “Hunting Behavior of Domestic Cats and Their Impact on Prey Populations,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
155.
81
“To draw attention to it”:
Augustine of Hippo,
Confessions,
trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), bk. I, ch. viii, 11.
“To draw attention to it”:
Augustine of Hippo,
Confessions,
trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), bk. I, ch. viii, 11.
81
John Bradshaw and Charlotte Cameron-Beaumont identify some of these below:
John Bradshaw and Charlotte Cameron-Beaumont, “The Signalling Repertoire of the Domestic Cat and Its Undomesticated Relatives,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
71 (simplified by the author).
John Bradshaw and Charlotte Cameron-Beaumont identify some of these below:
John Bradshaw and Charlotte Cameron-Beaumont, “The Signalling Repertoire of the Domestic Cat and Its Undomesticated Relatives,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
71 (simplified by the author).
92
Cats performed worse than pigeons:
Patrick Bateson and Dennis C. Turner, “Postscript: Questions About Cats,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
236.
Cats performed worse than pigeons:
Patrick Bateson and Dennis C. Turner, “Postscript: Questions About Cats,” in Turner and Bateson,
The Domestic Cat,
236.
94
“The impulse leading to the successful movement”:
E. L. Thorndike, “Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals,”
Psychological Review
2, no. 4
,
Monograph Supplements No. 8 (New York: MacMillan, 1898).
“The impulse leading to the successful movement”:
E. L. Thorndike, “Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals,”
Psychological Review
2, no. 4
,
Monograph Supplements No. 8 (New York: MacMillan, 1898).
95
They began staying longer:
Carlos A. Driscoll et al., “The Near Eastern Origin of the Desert Cat,”
Science
(July 27, 2007): 317, 519â522.
They began staying longer:
Carlos A. Driscoll et al., “The Near Eastern Origin of the Desert Cat,”
Science
(July 27, 2007): 317, 519â522.
95 “
Escapes by his dallying”:
Christopher Smart, “Jubilate Agno.” Available online at
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15798
.
Escapes by his dallying”:
Christopher Smart, “Jubilate Agno.” Available online at
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15798
.
96
Five feline Eves:
Driscoll et al., “The Near Eastern Origin of the Desert Cat.”
Five feline Eves:
Driscoll et al., “The Near Eastern Origin of the Desert Cat.”
98
Called attention to it as an individual:
J. D. Vigne et al. “Early Taming of the Cat in Cyprus,”
Science
(April 9, 2004): 304.
Called attention to it as an individual:
J. D. Vigne et al. “Early Taming of the Cat in Cyprus,”
Science
(April 9, 2004): 304.
100 “
Our mental photographs of it are always blurred”:
Proust,
Within a Budding Grove
, 528.
Our mental photographs of it are always blurred”:
Proust,
Within a Budding Grove
, 528.
107 “
As having originated in ourselves”:
Ibid., 655.
As having originated in ourselves”:
Ibid., 655.
111
“Or lover of wisdom”:
Plato,
Symposium,
trans. Benjamin Jowett, The Internet Classics Archive,
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
.
“Or lover of wisdom”:
Plato,
Symposium,
trans. Benjamin Jowett, The Internet Classics Archive,
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
.
111
“Even for a moment”:
Ibid.
“Even for a moment”:
Ibid.
112
“Is called love”:
Plato,
Phaedrus,
trans. Benjamin Jowett,
Greece.com
,
http://www.greece.com/library/plato/phaedrus_01.html
.
“Is called love”:
Plato,
Phaedrus,
trans. Benjamin Jowett,
Greece.com
,
http://www.greece.com/library/plato/phaedrus_01.html
.
113
“But was afraid to be free of it”:
Augustine,
Confessions,
trans., Henry Chadwick, 107.
“But was afraid to be free of it”:
Augustine,
Confessions,
trans., Henry Chadwick, 107.
113 “
With the bodily senses”:
Ibid., 62.
With the bodily senses”:
Ibid., 62.
113
Is mere indigence:
Ibid., 278.
Is mere indigence:
Ibid., 278.
115 “
As unstable as a dream”:
Proust,
Within a Budding Grove,
631.
As unstable as a dream”:
Proust,
Within a Budding Grove,
631.
143
“After the rest of it had gone”:
Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, ch. VI, Carnegie Mellon School
of Computer Science,
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-VI.html
.
“After the rest of it had gone”:
Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, ch. VI, Carnegie Mellon School
of Computer Science,
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-VI.html
.
151
He feels ashamed:
Jacques Derrida,
The Animal That Therefore I Am
, ed. Marie-Louise Mallet, trans. David Wills (New York: Fordham, 2008), 3â11.37.
He feels ashamed:
Jacques Derrida,
The Animal That Therefore I Am
, ed. Marie-Louise Mallet, trans. David Wills (New York: Fordham, 2008), 3â11.37.
163
“But the indenture of a man”:
Plato,
Symposium.
“But the indenture of a man”:
Plato,
Symposium.
174
“They are mourning the dead”:
Peter Metcalfe and Richard Huntington,
Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual
, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 55.
“They are mourning the dead”:
Peter Metcalfe and Richard Huntington,
Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual
, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 55.
175
“Because at this point the Maestro died”:
John Rizzo, “Why Didn't Puccini Finish
Turandot?,
” Italian Opera Company of Chicago,
http://italianoperachicago.com/interior/Articles/Verdi/Why%20didn%27t%20Puccini%20finish%20Turandot.htm
.
“Because at this point the Maestro died”:
John Rizzo, “Why Didn't Puccini Finish
Turandot?,
” Italian Opera Company of Chicago,
http://italianoperachicago.com/interior/Articles/Verdi/Why%20didn%27t%20Puccini%20finish%20Turandot.htm
.
194
“Paler than / dry grass”:
Sappho, “Fragment,” in
Sappho: A New Translation
, trans. Mary Barnard (1958; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 39.
“Paler than / dry grass”:
Sappho, “Fragment,” in
Sappho: A New Translation
, trans. Mary Barnard (1958; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 39.
195
We never met again:
Gerald Stern, “Another Insane Devotion,” in
Early Collected Poems: 1965â1992
(New York: Norton, 2010), 386.
We never met again:
Gerald Stern, “Another Insane Devotion,” in
Early Collected Poems: 1965â1992
(New York: Norton, 2010), 386.
217
“That crowd around it”:
John Ruskin,
Modern Painters
,
Part III (1856; rpt. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005), 151.
“That crowd around it”:
John Ruskin,
Modern Painters
,
Part III (1856; rpt. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005), 151.
217 “
Where men fall and rise not again”:
Quoted by Phyllis Rose,
Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 54.
Where men fall and rise not again”:
Quoted by Phyllis Rose,
Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 54.
218 “
Not formed to excite passion”:
Ibid., 55.
Not formed to excite passion”:
Ibid., 55.
218
“He was disgusted with my person”:
Vanessa Thorpe, “What Was John Ruskin Thinking on His Unhappy Wedding Night?,”
The Observer,
March 13, 2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/14/john-ruskin-wedding-effie-gray
.
“He was disgusted with my person”:
Vanessa Thorpe, “What Was John Ruskin Thinking on His Unhappy Wedding Night?,”
The Observer,
March 13, 2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/14/john-ruskin-wedding-effie-gray
.
231
“Smeared out in equal parts”:
Erwin Schrödinger, “Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik [The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics],”
Naturwissenschaften
(November 1935). Cited at
http://www.phobe.com/s_cat/s_cat.html
.
“Smeared out in equal parts”:
Erwin Schrödinger, “Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik [The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics],”
Naturwissenschaften
(November 1935). Cited at
http://www.phobe.com/s_cat/s_cat.html
.
232
“That makes one cling to a woman”:
Salter,
Light Years,
205.
“That makes one cling to a woman”:
Salter,
Light Years,
205.
232
“It cannot be regained”:
Ibid., 205.
“It cannot be regained”:
Ibid., 205.
239
How did she know it would work?:
The extent to which cats consciously manipulate their owners calls for further research. In 2009, scientists at the University of Sussex discovered that cats use different purrs to solicit food and express pleasure: the former contain a high-frequency component similar to that found in the cry of a human baby. Humans who listened to recordings described the solicitation purrs as more urgent than the other kind and less pleasant. Karen McComb et al., “The Cry Embedded
How did she know it would work?:
The extent to which cats consciously manipulate their owners calls for further research. In 2009, scientists at the University of Sussex discovered that cats use different purrs to solicit food and express pleasure: the former contain a high-frequency component similar to that found in the cry of a human baby. Humans who listened to recordings described the solicitation purrs as more urgent than the other kind and less pleasant. Karen McComb et al., “The Cry Embedded
Within the Purr,”
Current Biology
19, no. 13 (July 14, 2009): 507â508.
Current Biology
19, no. 13 (July 14, 2009): 507â508.
241
“That belongs to the rat family”:
Mauny de Mornay,
Livre d'eleveur et du proprietaire d'animaux domestiques
(Paris: A. L. Pagnerre etc., Editeurs, 1837), 287. Facsimile edition available at
http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:%22animaux+domestiques%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1880&cd=36&pg=PA287&id=tBkGwxXqxpgC&num=100&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
.
“That belongs to the rat family”:
Mauny de Mornay,
Livre d'eleveur et du proprietaire d'animaux domestiques
(Paris: A. L. Pagnerre etc., Editeurs, 1837), 287. Facsimile edition available at
http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:%22animaux+domestiques%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1880&cd=36&pg=PA287&id=tBkGwxXqxpgC&num=100&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
.
255 “
But people / stop anyway”:
Ishmael Reed, “Untitled,” in
New and Collected Poems
, 1964â2007 (New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2007), 131.
But people / stop anyway”:
Ishmael Reed, “Untitled,” in
New and Collected Poems
, 1964â2007 (New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2007), 131.
255
“And apparently abandoned”:
Washington Irving,
Rip Van Winkle and Other Selected Stories
(New York: Tor, 1993), 7
.
Available at
http://www.bartleby.com/195/4.html
.
“And apparently abandoned”:
Washington Irving,
Rip Van Winkle and Other Selected Stories
(New York: Tor, 1993), 7
.
Available at
http://www.bartleby.com/195/4.html
.
256
“Whether he was himself or another man”:
Ibid., 8.
“Whether he was himself or another man”:
Ibid., 8.
256
“I can't tell what's my name, or who I am!”:
Ibid., 8.
“I can't tell what's my name, or who I am!”:
Ibid., 8.
264
“The density blinds one”:
Salter,
Light Years
, 23.
“The density blinds one”:
Salter,
Light Years
, 23.
PHOTO CREDITS
Photos courtesy of Media Bakery (pages 13, 97, and 189), the Granger Collection (pages 27, 139, 142, and 219), the Black Cat Fireworks Company (page 133), Art Resources (page 138), Martha Ciattei (page 152), the Bridgeman Art Library (page 169), the Museum of Mourning Photography (page 239), Christina Campbell (page 246), and Pete Garceau (rabbit, page 272). All other photos courtesy of the author.
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