The Code is on the Street
by Ann Bogle
The couple who moved in next door—attractive in a way I try to figure out—smoke outside their front and side doors, as I do. The man's voice is distinctive and carries. For their first month there, my life evolved in non-stop monologue. They may have heard parts of it, the memoir in me. Then I took a trip—to New York, though they wouldn't have known where—and when I returned, I was entirely mum unless I had the phone with me. On the phone, we talked of publishing and poetry. I interjected only enough so the caller would know he hadn't lost or started to bore me.
It occurred to me that the couple next door, he or she, or together, they, may have believed that I had gone away to be treated medically for the talking.
Then I read a quote from Noam Chomsky in an article about his linguistics in Discover: "It takes a strong act of will to try not to talk to yourself when you're walking down the street."
It occurred to me that the couple next door, he or she, or together, they, may have believed that I had gone away to be treated medically for the talking.
Then I read a quote from Noam Chomsky in an article about his linguistics in Discover: "It takes a strong act of will to try not to talk to yourself when you're walking down the street."
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Author's Note
This was my response to m.'s feeling captive to eavesdropping by a woman's speaking at a nearby restaurant table.
Published in somewhat other form in _Altered Scale_ (2012):
https://sites.google.com/site/alteredschale/-john-colburn
Printed in its original form by _Altered Scale_ as a broadside along with my photo "Grey Nuns," 2012, and revised here:
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this is so close to the tone of the voice inside my head that it's almost freaking me out. this sounds all wrong: what i mean is that it sounds perfectly natural to me, spoken into the wind rather than written for the purpose of reading. well, except the chomsky at the end perhaps. i don't carry chomsky around with me. or maybe it was the way you use point of view here. whatever, i love it.
Between you and me, Marcus, it's because of Auden that I saw it, something he wrote in an essay.
Don't we all hold intense internal, yet loud conversations.
Mum is better. No memoirs. Stay in the now. Verrrry interrresting.
*
"it is an act of the will to keep from talking to ourselves out loud on the street."
I love this Ann! I have a teenage daughter so I know that if I didn't sit next to her politely pretending to listen to the lates HS gossip she'd just talk to herself.
Fave.
"For the first month at least I was involved in non-stop monologue. They may have heard parts of it, the memoir in me."
Really like this, Ann. Great way to close. *
Thanks, Marcus, Matt, Jack, Roberto, and Sam.
The circularity of this, the thinking of the effect one is having on those who eavesdrop, their identies a kind of ghostly projection of the conversation she has with herself.
Thanks, David.
Slight revisions in phrasing, Dec. 5, 7:49 a.m., and I changed font size and margins.
Replaced paraphrase of Chomsky with exact quotation.
the words: "the memoir in me" is so key for me in this piece. it jumps out from the text. it is what we are constantly doing whether we are speaking out loud to ourselves or silently to ourselves--talking to ourselves, creating a living memoir, is what we do. we conceptualize our life and have a running internal dialogue which sometimes comes to the surface.
the eavesdropping is interesting and double-edged--narrator trying to figure out why the couple is attractive--then the observations, worrying about observations of others / knowing they can't know about new york--this short piece mirrors the way partial relationships are but the "memoir in me" is what strikes me--there is also a sense that we know why there is no more talking out loud though we may not be able to find words for it---compelling piece *
Bobbi, I like your comment. I rewrote several of these lines. The phrase "the memoir in me" is not as I had originally described it. I am glad it's different now, and you could relate to it and the issues of the piece.
I loved this.
Thanks, Isabell.
lately I hear myself talking to myself, when the fools cut in front of my car too close.
Estelle, thanks.
I read in an interview with Marguerite Duras that she wrote certain stories over and over but in different ways. (The interview was somewhere on the net at a website with low production values. Duras is not in the four-volume set of The Paris Review interviews so not there.) What she meant hadn't occurred to me until then. A story's repetition had seemed like excess or weakness or flaw. Take it out. Assume the reader can recall details.
"Every story has more than one side" had meant that each person remembers the same event differently. Three people, three stories. Suddenly it meant stories have sides, angles that are caught or missed in any given version. One person's version has multiple sides, not one.
This story is a variation on a theme I've sketched before in other stories. It may not be exhaustible since as a story it lasted years. I'm learning from comments that to make asides is universal.
Good one - I've only recently begun work on perfecting the habit. Enjoyed.
Love this writing, the power of the last quote, the way it stays with me. So rich, Ann. *
Evocative, and powerful writing, Ann. Has you all over it! And I love and admire that.
Fave.
Larry, Foster, and Robert, thanks for reading and fav'ing this one!
Love the Chomsky quote Ann! The truth of it made me smile. Made me realize I talk to myself constantly. Powerful images and ideas in a small package here!
Thanks, Michael.
You're the coolest writer, Ann. Love the voice of this, ending on the Chomsky quote. Great work only you could write.
Kathy, you turn my head, enlarge it!
The voice just slips into my head and it could be me talking out loud. Or.....
On the literal plane, when I monologue alone around the yard or apartment (eccentricity), something I didn't start until 1999, I feel a strange ebullience interrupted by social shame if there is a chance I might be caught (overheard). Talking to oneself seems crazy, yet it isn't a sign for diagnosis in itself. Yakking, I do not perceive an inner voice. Quiet, my mind is clear of stream of thought. In case there are long-distance mind readers out there, not d'x'd, I guard my inner thoughts, more inner than my speech, by yakking. Or so I have fleetingly thought. I thought I heard my brother's voice inside my mind the other night, just before sleep, resting on my pillow, and shut it out.
Marked changes to the story, yet summarized as somehow minor after all is said, April 24, 2013, 8:19 a.m.
Bobbi's comment (above) seems most substantive and remains unaffected by the changes to the text I added today.