{"id":14734,"date":"2018-08-01T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T05:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=14734"},"modified":"2018-08-01T09:13:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T14:13:09","slug":"the-funny-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/14734","title":{"rendered":"The Funny Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re watching Hitchcock\u2019s The Birds<\/em>, and you complain about the plot: birds don\u2019t attack for no reason like that.<\/p>\n

I say, \u201cWhat makes you so sure they don\u2019t have a reason?\u201d<\/p>\n

You squint at me as if you\u2019ve just woken from a nap and I am a strange room you don\u2019t recognize.<\/p>\n

Always we hang out at your house because my house is depressing, what with my mother hibernating like a vampire in her dark bedroom. Your mom, on the other hand, buys peach wine coolers and lets us drink them. Also your house has all the premium stations and so many pets that there\u2019s always something alive to press against.<\/p>\n

Only lately you\u2019re not so lonely. Every few minutes you glance down at your phone and grin.<\/p>\n

The funny thing about you and Ethan Costa: he didn\u2019t notice you until Gus Mather burst so many blood vessels in your neck that you took to wearing turtlenecks to conceal the wounds. You are still wearing them. Those hickeys are like rocket boosters spewing out spent fuel, the way they propel you, give you momentum.<\/p>\n

The funny thing about you and Gus Mather: he asked me out first, but I thought he wasn\u2019t good enough for me.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t understand then that most boys\u2019 number one criterion in selecting a girlfriend is that her desirability first be demonstrated by her being another boy\u2019s girlfriend.<\/p>\n

You take a swig of your peach wine cooler, say Ethan texted that he\u2019s coming over later. A blush rises from your green turtleneck: mercury in a thermometer.<\/p>\n

I pop a powdered-sugar donut hole into my mouth. Always we suck the powdered sugar off before we eat the cakey centers, but now the sugar tastes chalky and I long to spit the hole out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever thought about how donut holes are named for the empty space their departure leaves in something else?\u201d I say, the hole a hard lump inside my cheek like the balled-up socks we used to stuff inside our training bras during sleepovers.<\/p>\n

You ignore me. Punch letters into that phone.<\/p>\n

My stepdad Guinotte says that all of life is dukkha. Dukkha comes from Sanskrit, literally means to have a poor axle hole. In other words: life is a rickety, ass-bruising ride.<\/p>\n

Guinotte says desire is what makes it so. Desire clogs, clutters, makes us sick. Desire is why my mother won\u2019t drag herself out of bed\u2014she\u2019s filled with the stuff, Guinotte said the other day while stirring pork and beans on the stove. \u201cFilled with\u2014we use that phrasing in conjunction with so many negative emotions: envy, hatred, anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd love,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Guinotte said, \u201cYes, love is dukkha too.\u201d<\/p>\n

To end your suffering, you must empty yourself, he said. Like shaking out the contents of a purse is how I imagine it, only then what good is the purse?<\/p>\n

When I told you this, you said, \u201cYour mother\u2019s depressed because she\u2019s married to an ass who shits on love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now your cat\u2019s claws draw blood as she kneads my leg, creating a scatterplot of pinpricks, and you say, \u201cI don\u2019t know why you let Cleo do that to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The funny thing about you and me: I love you more than you love me. I\u2019ve always been your satellite. Still, when you say, \u201cYou don\u2019t mind, right? We can watch Marnie<\/em> next weekend,\u201d I conjure the shower scene from Psycho<\/em>. The stab, stab, stab of the knife sounded by discordant strings.<\/p>\n

Marnie<\/em> is the second and last film Tippi Hedren made with Alfred Hitchcock. Because she broke her contract. Because Hitchcock tormented her. The key to understanding the plot of The Birds<\/em>: Hitchcock\u2019s plot to get his hands on Tippi. He wanted her. She rejected him. So he plotted revenge via hundreds of live birds.<\/p>\n

When Tippi\u2019s character walks upstairs alone for no discernable reason, despite the birds jabbing holes in the house\u2019s shutters, perforating the wood as easily as paper, you say, \u201cThis makes no frigging sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what Tippi said,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

In Astronomy, Ms. Gutti\u00e9rrez taught us that contrary to popular belief, stars are not stationary objects around which planets revolve. Stars and planets orbit together around their joint center of mass. Only the greater the discrepancy in their masses, the closer that center of mass is to the more massive object. Thus, most stars appear fixed in space, their only movement their spinning in place. But here\u2019s the funny thing: if a planet is close enough to its star and massive enough, the star\u2019s revolution around their joint center of mass is<\/em> visible. The planet makes the star tremble.<\/p>\n

Hitchcock filmed that iconic attic scene\u2014or bedroom scene, as Hitchcock referred to it\u2014over the course of five days. Even if the birds\u2019 legs hadn\u2019t been tied to Tippi\u2019s dress with elastics, the birds would have pecked and clawed. They\u2019d been trained to attack.<\/p>\n

As Tippi Hedron flails her arms and gasps and moans\u2014if it weren\u2019t for the wing flaps, the audio could pass for a sex scene\u2014I wonder aloud how long Hitchcock would have insisted on shooting that scene if it hadn\u2019t been for Tippi\u2019s nervous breakdown. If her doctor hadn\u2019t insisted that she be given a week off to recover, that the scene be wrapped up.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if he loved her,\u201d you say.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much you don\u2019t get.<\/p>\n

In the ballerina jewelry box I\u2019ve had since I was a girl, there\u2019s half a broken heart dangling from a tarnished chain: \u201cST NDS.\u201d I once complained that you had all the vowels, and you said, \u201cWhat\u2019s so special about vowels?\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Rod Taylor character carries the stunned Tippi down the stairs\u2014her eyes vacant, her body limp\u2014I consider what I couldn\u2019t quite put into words back then: vowels are the breath of a word, the beating heart, what give it life. Until the teeth, tongue, or lips snuff the life out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

michelle Ross<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re watching Hitchcock\u2019s The Birds, and you complain about the plot: birds don\u2019t attack for no reason like that. I say, \u201cWhat makes you so sure they don\u2019t have a reason?\u201d You squint at me as if you\u2019ve just woken from a nap and I am a strange room you don\u2019t recognize. Always we hang […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[57],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3PE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14734"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14739,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14734\/revisions\/14739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}