The Correspondence Artist (22 page)

Once, when she started going off about her discomfort at the thought of death, I told her that my prediction was that she would live to be one hundred and two. Longevity runs in her family. I told Tzipi that this was good, because that way, if we really did fall in love when I was sixty and she was eighty-three, we wouldn't be in a hurry. There would still be plenty of time.

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n 1996, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos issued a stirring communiqué which has since been widely quoted by his followers: “The face that hides itself to be seen. The name that hides itself to be named. Behind our unnamable name, behind us, whom you see, behind us, we are you. Behind, we are the same simple, ordinary men and women, we are repeated in all races, painted in all colors, speak in all languages, and live in
all places… Behind us, you are us. Behind our mask is the face of all excluded women, of all the forgotten indigenous, of all the persecuted homosexuals, of all the despised youth, of all the immigrants, of all those imprisoned for their words and votes, of all the humiliated workers, of all those dead from neglect, of all the simple and ordinary men and women who don't count, who aren't seen. We who are nameless.”

Perhaps you will chafe at the suggestion that the masking of my lover's identity has anything at all to do with politics. And you're right. In fact, the ugly truth is that it probably has more to do with celebrity. El Sup would be appalled. Sandro was just telling me that he was watching El Sup on YouTube, and that he said something brilliant about how in the capitalist West we all care more about movie stars and whom they've been fucking and what they've been eating than we care about the struggles of the common man. Some starlet screwed her bodyguard and ate a cheeseburger last night: fascinating. El Sup said that the only time we speak of the suffering of the peasants, it's when there's some huge natural catastrophe. It's true, right after the enormous earthquake in China a couple of weeks ago people looked up and said, oh, wow, 40,000 people just died.

Take a look at the Yahoo! homepage.

I realize this is all very self-indulgent. But you know, even Simone de Beauvoir got tired sometimes of thinking about politics. Her correspondence with Algren is full of these kinds of admissions. She'll say, “I feel it is very silly to give so much importance to one's own feelings when the world is so big and so many things happen: cholera in Egypt, de Gaulle in France, to say nothing about USA.” But she says what she really wants to be thinking about is lying down again with Algren: “When I'll shut my eyes, you'll come. Take me in your arms, give me your mouth…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I attached a picture of a pink morning glory from my balcony, and another of my nipple.

A year before the famous communiqué of the “nameless,” El Sup wrote another called “Death Has Paid a Visit.” It begins comically, noting that little pieces of his body keep falling off (chip off his shoulder, piece of thigh – will his nose be next? At least then the ski mask would lay flat…). But following his best sense of “guerrilla anatomy,” he's been sticking them back on. This is his way of saying that he senses his own mortality. After some more surreal, politically trenchant and hysterical poetry, he modestly suggests that the government withdraw its arrest order against him, because since it was issued, “the Sup has been insufferable. And I don't just refer to his obsession with death.” He's constantly looking over his shoulder. He's also started spouting weird pseudo-religious prophecies to his comrades, and sharing his plans for degenerate sex acts when he next encounters “a certain Monica or such-and-such Aimée.” Everybody would be better off, surely, if he could get the murderous government soldiers off his tail. He signs his message, “THE SUBDELINQUENT TRANSGRESSOR OF THE LAW, FLEEING THROUGH THE HILLS, SUB MARCOS.”

 

 

 

Last fall Santutxo and I started debating intellectual property rights. Given his politics, you might think that he would be a big open source enthusiast. Or maybe you would think the opposite. Surprise: he argues both for and against the fierce protection of copyright. Although he expresses strong opinions, he feels a little under-informed on the topic, so I was trying to bring him up to speed. I ended up reflecting a little on the patterns of our political discussions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although Sandro went through that period of hanging out with a whole gaggle of girls who wanted to feed him, he ended up getting a particular girlfriend whom everybody referred to as “Janis Joplin.” They just broke up. She was a pretty tough customer. She was grumpy about several things, including Sandro's support of Obama. She prefers Hillary. She told Sandro she thought Hillary had a better position on gay marriage than Obama. Joplin, like Sandro, claims to be a lesbian at heart. But she had very little patience for his poses. She told Sandro, “You hide behind your Mayakovsky.” By this, she apparently meant that he pretentiously trots out his list of avant-garde and left-wing enthusiasms, but fails to research the basic issues. Of course, she's right, but it's the kind of flaw a person could find either irritating or charming. Before they got in the fight, Sandro took this picture of himself kissing Joplin at National Pillow Fight Day in Union Square. I thought it was so beautiful, I sent it to Santutxo. I think he was also profoundly moved.