i wrote an email to the famous art personality Phoebe Gloeckner. first up i really am crazy about her comics, they are indubitably some of the best stuff i have ever read prose/poetry/comix whatever. these stories are about her life and one can tell that she has had a tough yet exciting life. now i don't like to idolize, i realize that even she takes a crap now and then, but being human beings we need heroes. we need people who can serve as inspirations for our own pathetic shoddy lives. so i sent her an email basically saying how much i admired her and was all ga-ga over her. to me phoebe existed in my own head as a fantasy, a goddess whom i dreamed of meeting and charming with my own sophistication.
so i was totally thrown off my rocker when she actually replied to my email. i was so happy that i immediately printed it and took it outside my workplace so that i could reread it over and over again. all i could imagine was phoebe sitting at her computer, her brilliant mind having considered my email typing out an adequate emotional and no doubt intellectual response to it. but, just think about it, this is one of the few people in the world who i really respect. say out of the blue nicole kidman writes me an email asking me out to lunch at Spago's, would i be excited? you bet, but i wouldn't be convulsing with joy like i did on getting phoebe's email. nicole while smart, artistic and good looking... well whatever, i kinda dig nicole kidman also.
so i'm flying around in stratosphere on receiving phoebe's very kind email. in fact here it is verbatim:
Dear Ranjit!!!!! I was glad to get your note, of course, and so glad you liked my book. And you've made me curious about this group you mention, Air. If you really want to do something for me, you can tell me who you are! E-mail is so anonymous- when I get a note, I find myself wondering, who is this person? Where are they writing from? What does their handwriting look like? Tha's all. Ph. G.
i thought she came off feminine, cute and thoughtful. anyway i had this email and i was all excited and i wanted to respond to it in a meaningful way. now i don't really care if i get to know phoebe or not. i know that sounds fucked up, but i don't really care about people in real life. the subtle dynamics of human interaction puts a spin on people which is totally different to literature. phoebe is so enticing because the picture of her that i have is in my head. it is a picture which is composed of her comix and my own deep feelings. odd's are meeting her is not going to generate anything as strong. don't get me wrong, i would love to meet her and hang around with her, but it's not something which motivates me highly. interaction between two people to me always boils down to two situations. both are either trying to dominate each other which is one reason i don't like people. or two people genuinely fall in love with each other, which is something very special and consequently happens very rarely.
the point being i had no idea what i could write to make my email special. she wanted to know about me, yet there was nothing to say and in a way she didn't care. the most unique thing i was doing at that time was writing stories and putting them up on my website, where very few if any people were reading them. so i wrote phoebe a little email detailing some of the things i like and giving her the address of my web site. it was pathetic, but i really agonized over the email i wrote her. i must have written some of those sentences ten times or more, trying to get the perfect nuance of feelings down. i also worked over the weekend on my website. since all the stories posted there at that time sucked, and i didn't want her to have that bad an opinion of me, i cleaned it up and added more of my stories, arranging them so the best were at the top. Not like it would matter. you have only to read the titles (SHIT, DREAD, CONFUSION) to realize you are not reading a potential Nobel prize winner. finally i was set and i sent off my precious reply email.
it's been two weeks now. hope has still not died in my heart. i still check my email feverishly hoping for anything, disdain, contempt, indifference. i haven't gotten anything as of yet. it's probably just as well, i don't know if i could have handled another email. i probably would have ended up inviting her to DC and to be frank, with her genius and my crazy, nihilistic attitude, God only knows what would have happened. If i was any kind of artist, i would draw me reading her comix, while ms. gloeckner lifts me slowly above the mass of twinkling lights that is Washington, DC.