Sometimes I watch TV, and sometimes I watch things different from The Simpsons, Family Guy or Malcolm in the middle (great shows). Sometimes you find interesting things: once I was watching a show of the sort of… a kind of News, but it isn’t news, it’s about people, and curious news, and injusticies that didn’t find their place in any other news show; and here they introduced a new invention called Kalzatines. A retired spanish gentleman (or his wife) had problems to put on his socks, it gets harder when you are older; so he invented this device, which in essence is just a metal figure in which you hang the sock, and then you can easily put on your socks with a cool movement that makes unnecessary bringing up your leg to a hand reach or bringing down your hands to your feet. Curious. Unfortunately I didn’t find any image on the Internet.

If I’m not watching TV, I’m probably reading, surfing, writing, or doing everlasting paperwork. Two days ago I finished reading The Great Gatsby. I gave up Gravity’s Rainbow, because after a long pause I was a little bit lost, didn’t know who’s who, what were these characters talking about, etc. So I’ll start reading it again in a remote future. As related to The Great Gatsby, I liked it. It’s the story about a dead dream, and about a lively dreamer. Throughout the story, we find through the eyes of the narrator Nick Carraway, a depiction of a cynic and superficial society guided by the lights of two stars: money and alcohol.

The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo
and introductions forgotten on the spot, enthusiastic meeting between women who never knew each other’s names.

Nick is new in the neighbourhood, he guy living next to him is a mysterious character, everybody talks about him, rumours circulating get weird legends linked to his name. This guy with no face gives parties at his house, but no-one sees him, and most of the people doesn’t even know him. Nick is invited to his party once:

As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table – the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.

He’ll find him. And he would dislike him and like him, he’ll learn him and he’ll learn from him. But probably he will be too late to save him from the vacuum that glitters… Vacuum that glitters? yes, well said, because in this world beauty is an appearance, something rotten inside. A further example of the society that Fitzgerald masterly depicts, a hilarious fragment:

‘What do you think?’ he demanded impetuously.
‘About what?’
He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.
‘About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They’re real.’
‘The books?’
He nodded.
‘Absolutely real – have pages and everything. I I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real. Pages and – Here! Lemme show you.’

Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the Stoddard Lectures.

‘See!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too–didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?’

He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse

But for god’s sake, who’s Gatsby? where does he come from? what does he do? Is he a bootlegger? – Who cares? I want party time!

‘Anyhow, he gives large parties,’ said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. ‘And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.’

And now, I’m going to stop writing, and we’ll meet again in the next post. I know what you feeling, but don’t you worry, it’s OK, there’ll be more posts. This is not an end, this is just a see-ya-when-i-see-ya. I know how you feeling, I know it’s not easy, and as an example of my sympathy for your pain, here a last fragment from The Great Gatsby that’ll make you understand your pain:

The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.
‘Whenever he sees I’m having a good time he wants to go home.’
‘Never heard anything so selfish in my life.’
‘We’re always the first ones to leave.’
‘So are we.’
‘Well, we’re almost the last to-night,’ said one of the men sheepishly. ‘The orchestra left half an hour ago.’
In spite of the wives’ agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night.