Jack of Hearts
06-11-2011, 04:02 AM
Jim in Pieces
The repetition is just so nauseating. We’re talking about a deeply troubled man here- a man whose morals were not inscrutable, to say the least. But, being his leading biographer (at one point, anyways- I’m retired now. I could take no more when interest renewed ) there’s kind of a social duty I’ve got to fulfill.
Just please don’t ask me about the sex letters.
The interesting bit that most people don’t know (but they soon will, Christ I get asked to tell the story so much) is that he did all of his significant writing between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. Then, like some Supergiant star collapsing in on itself, he folded altogether. Even though he lived to be seventy-three years old MacCradle never wrote so much as half of a short story for the rest of his life.
You might be wondering how we know all of this. Well, Nira Zimmer. Ms. Zimmer kept a diary. That’s one of the primary sources of this man’s history. There’s even some photographs of them together clipped to the pages. He was nearly six feet tall, flat-footed and sort of resembled a dying tree. She was about five-two, a classically trained dancer- she kind of looks like a deer, I always thought. No two people belonged further apart (especially considering MacCradle’s horrifically anti-semitic ancestry).
Ok, the story of how James MacCradle and his work nearly went unnoticed. To start at the beginning, Nira was still something of a starving artist (she was a working actress but Tell Me Lies hadn’t opened yet). MacCradle was trying to write poetry, which surprised even me at first. Nira’s records, which are quite well-written in themselves, offer the only extant fragments of his poems.
Here’s the gist of an entry in her diary.
*****
A pen found its way between her teeth and as she read she chewed slightly. She had brown eyes. They flicked over the lines like an old-fashioned type-writer. He watched the pen lull between her lips, watched it caress the moist, gentle folds…
It started as something of a cough, or the gesture of clearing a throat. Moments later came a sneaky giggle. Finally she couldn’t help herself and Nira started laughing.
“I’m sorry...” Nira propped her elbows on the table and hid her face behind the paper, “but it’s just so… like, I can’t believe you would show this to anybody.”
“What?”
“Seriously, though, what are you doing? Have you ever read a poem in your life?”
“Yeah, a couple in school…” he mumbled.
She adjusted her thick-framed glasses. “ Well it’s not very good, James. “
“What’s wrong with it?’
“You just don’t seem like a poet to me.”
“… well what do I seem like to you?”
She peered at him over her rims. “Mmmmm... I mean this,” she looked at the paper and started laughing again, “… this is bad. I mean, what is this? I can’t even-“
“Jesus, is it really that-“
“Seriously, though!” she giggled a little more and a brunette strand fell down over her forehead. He felt his pulse quicken. “Go home, write some prose,” Nira offered as she began to tidy herself. MacCradle watched her smooth her hands over her skirt , the curves underneath… watched her flick her tongue while she adjusted her hair…
He shifted himself and cleared his throat, “Hey…”
“Yeah?”
In undertone, like a secret, “… wanna screw?”
She drew in a breath between her teeth; a wincing hiss escaped. “Like, with you? I mean, I would but… well, maybe if you were a little more in shape. And your face wasn’t so… much like it is. And you weren’t so insecure.” She fluttered her eyelashes as a final thought came to her. “No I do not.”
“Oh.” MacCradle’s facial features drooped a bit. Then he looked up, an eager spark in his eyes, “ Hey, if I write something will you read it?”
“Not if it’s more poetry.”
She got up and picked up the pages from the table, “I’m just gonna put these away.” It was a vague movement, a moment of absent mindedness; Nira walked across the kitchen to the trash can and thrust the papers under the lid. In an airy tone she said, “That’s better. All clean now.”
*****
Seems the entry was written maybe hours after he had left. Based on the penmanship (which is normally ornate, she had fabulous handwriting) one might guess that while she was reflecting upon his poetry Nira was still laughing.
Ah, here’s a picture… as you can see, James wasn’t a hideous man. Perhaps a little too pointy in the features, but almost anybody who sees this picture (from when he was about 26) seems to have the same visceral reaction. They cannot place it until I help them to articulate. MacCradle, for lack of a better word, was flabby. Not so obese that one might be repelled, but just fluffy enough to make the onlooker offended, make a person have the thought, “Why don’t you take care of that, you flabby bastard.” Indeed, MacCradle looked like what my father would describe as a rope with a knot tied in the middle. We tend to be less disgusted with his chunkiness and moreso with the lack of initiative it sprang from.
But I digress. It was an important turning point in an important career. From this point on, he began to write prose. As he wrote alone, you might be wondering how much insight we have into his process. There’s still a lot of secrets surrounding the saga, but one of the biggest is this: MacCradle kept records of his own. Not consistently, mind you, and most of them look like a bottle of scotch spilled everywhere and was left to soak (indeed, many are illegible)… but some of what we can read is… well, if not entirely informative then curiously disturbing; James MacCradle was a lecherous drunk who, in in the pursuit of tail, managed to produce literature as intricate and beautiful as catherdral windows.
The repetition is just so nauseating. We’re talking about a deeply troubled man here- a man whose morals were not inscrutable, to say the least. But, being his leading biographer (at one point, anyways- I’m retired now. I could take no more when interest renewed ) there’s kind of a social duty I’ve got to fulfill.
Just please don’t ask me about the sex letters.
The interesting bit that most people don’t know (but they soon will, Christ I get asked to tell the story so much) is that he did all of his significant writing between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. Then, like some Supergiant star collapsing in on itself, he folded altogether. Even though he lived to be seventy-three years old MacCradle never wrote so much as half of a short story for the rest of his life.
You might be wondering how we know all of this. Well, Nira Zimmer. Ms. Zimmer kept a diary. That’s one of the primary sources of this man’s history. There’s even some photographs of them together clipped to the pages. He was nearly six feet tall, flat-footed and sort of resembled a dying tree. She was about five-two, a classically trained dancer- she kind of looks like a deer, I always thought. No two people belonged further apart (especially considering MacCradle’s horrifically anti-semitic ancestry).
Ok, the story of how James MacCradle and his work nearly went unnoticed. To start at the beginning, Nira was still something of a starving artist (she was a working actress but Tell Me Lies hadn’t opened yet). MacCradle was trying to write poetry, which surprised even me at first. Nira’s records, which are quite well-written in themselves, offer the only extant fragments of his poems.
Here’s the gist of an entry in her diary.
*****
A pen found its way between her teeth and as she read she chewed slightly. She had brown eyes. They flicked over the lines like an old-fashioned type-writer. He watched the pen lull between her lips, watched it caress the moist, gentle folds…
It started as something of a cough, or the gesture of clearing a throat. Moments later came a sneaky giggle. Finally she couldn’t help herself and Nira started laughing.
“I’m sorry...” Nira propped her elbows on the table and hid her face behind the paper, “but it’s just so… like, I can’t believe you would show this to anybody.”
“What?”
“Seriously, though, what are you doing? Have you ever read a poem in your life?”
“Yeah, a couple in school…” he mumbled.
She adjusted her thick-framed glasses. “ Well it’s not very good, James. “
“What’s wrong with it?’
“You just don’t seem like a poet to me.”
“… well what do I seem like to you?”
She peered at him over her rims. “Mmmmm... I mean this,” she looked at the paper and started laughing again, “… this is bad. I mean, what is this? I can’t even-“
“Jesus, is it really that-“
“Seriously, though!” she giggled a little more and a brunette strand fell down over her forehead. He felt his pulse quicken. “Go home, write some prose,” Nira offered as she began to tidy herself. MacCradle watched her smooth her hands over her skirt , the curves underneath… watched her flick her tongue while she adjusted her hair…
He shifted himself and cleared his throat, “Hey…”
“Yeah?”
In undertone, like a secret, “… wanna screw?”
She drew in a breath between her teeth; a wincing hiss escaped. “Like, with you? I mean, I would but… well, maybe if you were a little more in shape. And your face wasn’t so… much like it is. And you weren’t so insecure.” She fluttered her eyelashes as a final thought came to her. “No I do not.”
“Oh.” MacCradle’s facial features drooped a bit. Then he looked up, an eager spark in his eyes, “ Hey, if I write something will you read it?”
“Not if it’s more poetry.”
She got up and picked up the pages from the table, “I’m just gonna put these away.” It was a vague movement, a moment of absent mindedness; Nira walked across the kitchen to the trash can and thrust the papers under the lid. In an airy tone she said, “That’s better. All clean now.”
*****
Seems the entry was written maybe hours after he had left. Based on the penmanship (which is normally ornate, she had fabulous handwriting) one might guess that while she was reflecting upon his poetry Nira was still laughing.
Ah, here’s a picture… as you can see, James wasn’t a hideous man. Perhaps a little too pointy in the features, but almost anybody who sees this picture (from when he was about 26) seems to have the same visceral reaction. They cannot place it until I help them to articulate. MacCradle, for lack of a better word, was flabby. Not so obese that one might be repelled, but just fluffy enough to make the onlooker offended, make a person have the thought, “Why don’t you take care of that, you flabby bastard.” Indeed, MacCradle looked like what my father would describe as a rope with a knot tied in the middle. We tend to be less disgusted with his chunkiness and moreso with the lack of initiative it sprang from.
But I digress. It was an important turning point in an important career. From this point on, he began to write prose. As he wrote alone, you might be wondering how much insight we have into his process. There’s still a lot of secrets surrounding the saga, but one of the biggest is this: MacCradle kept records of his own. Not consistently, mind you, and most of them look like a bottle of scotch spilled everywhere and was left to soak (indeed, many are illegible)… but some of what we can read is… well, if not entirely informative then curiously disturbing; James MacCradle was a lecherous drunk who, in in the pursuit of tail, managed to produce literature as intricate and beautiful as catherdral windows.