{"id":374,"date":"2009-01-08T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/01\/escalators-and-perforation-the-dharma-of-nicholson-baker.html"},"modified":"2009-01-08T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2009-01-08T16:00:03","slug":"escalators-and-perforation-the-dharma-of-nicholson-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/escalators-and-perforation-the-dharma-of-nicholson-baker.html","title":{"rendered":"Escalators and Perforation: The Dharma of Nicholson Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my greatest pleasures over the holiday break I recently enjoyed, long and luxurious due to the placement of Christmas on a Thursday, (although I think when I was in elementary school I calculated the longest break occurs when Christmas falls on a Wednesday) was to read my effing face off.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t much in the world I enjoy more than ducking under a plushy comforter with a strong cup of coffee and reading an absorbing book, undisturbed, for three or four hours on a lazy, midwinter afternoon.\u00a0
\nIn the course of some of these sessions I gleefully consumed, on recommendation, The Mezzanine<\/em>, by Nicholson Baker, aka the most ardent fictional love song to mindfulness I\u2019ve ever read.\u00a0 Buddhism mentioned?\u00a0 Not a once.
\n
\n\"the-mezzanine\"
\nThe Mezzanine<\/em>, written in 1983, is the story of the ascending escalator ride, partaken by a young man returning to his corporate office from his lunch hour.\u00a0 Nothing happens on the escalator, excepting standard escalator activity.\u00a0 In the course of the ride, the protagonist makes no stunning realizations about his life or The Way We Live Now.\u00a0 Yes, we learn the context of his lunch hour (he bought shoelaces at CVS) but nothing dramatic occurs in the retelling of said context, or in any of the additional minute anecdotes Baker provides.\u00a0 So, Alfie, what’s it all\u00a0about?\u00a0
\nFrom the Buddhist perspective, it\u2019s about paying attention.\u00a0
\nWith a perspicacity that would make the most skillful mindfulness practitioner envious, the novel\u2019s protagonist plays a blithe Virgil leading us through infinite circles of pedestrianism.\u00a0 Topics covered in the first chapter include, among others, placing a hand on the escalator rail, the unmoving light reflections on moving objects (footnote), the sound of a paper bag rattling, the evolution of, pros and cons of plastic drinking straws (footnote), the desire to have one hand free at all times, the automatic manual arrangement of objects to accommodate this, and how when we have realizations, it\u2019s usually due to more incremental accumulation of thoughts than we accredit it to.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always agreed with the classic Woody Allen wisdom, \u201cSeventy percent of success in life is showing up.\u201d\u00a0 Never neurotic, Baker demonstrates over and over the overspill of joyful insight when one fully \u201cshows up\u201d to their experience.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pleasure.
\nHere\u2019s a confession: I\u2019m not fond of the dishes example.\u00a0 (By that I mean the classic, \u201ctry being mindful while you\u2019re washing the dishes\u201d suggestion used to describe mindfulness ad nauseum in sangha discourse).\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, it\u2019s a good, universal example, but it\u2019s so overused I can\u2019t even hear it anymore.\u00a0 Instead of being mindful while I\u2019m washing the dishes, at this point I mostly hear the various voices in my head from various different teachers telling me to be mindful as I\u2019m washing the dishes.\u00a0 I also probably don\u2019t like it because I\u2019m kinda karmically conditioned towards wanting to figure things out on my own, to inventively find moments of mindfulness outside of the standard dharmic tropes.\u00a0
\nThat\u2019s why I found The Mezzanine<\/em> so frigging inspiring.\u00a0 It was like a pay-attention-creatively call to arms.\u00a0 The character of Howie is a mindfulness machine not because he\u2019s constantly reminding himself to be present and take note of his experience.\u00a0 He\u2019s mindful because he\u2019s tapped into the quiet joy of curiosity.\u00a0 And not curiosity in the daunting, \u201cI should be curious about what\u2019s happening in the Cote D\u2019Ivoire,\u201d because from my own experience that\u2019s less curiosity than self-judgment and throws an anchor over the hull of your good-vibe ship before you can even set sail.\u00a0 Rather the book presents a character who is quiet and confident enough to notice his experience in delightfully patient and obsessive detail without an ounce of, \u201cI should be thinking about other things\u201d or \u201chow can I make life different right now\u201d and therefore presents a wondrous and enviable appreciation for our multitudinous daily grind.
\nI recommend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my greatest pleasures over the holiday break I recently enjoyed, long and luxurious due to the placement of Christmas on a Thursday, (although I think when I was in elementary school I calculated the longest break occurs when Christmas falls on a Wednesday) was to read my effing face off.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t much…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nEscalators and Perforation: The Dharma of Nicholson Baker - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/01\/escalators-and-perforation-the-dharma-of-nicholson-baker.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Escalators and Perforation: The Dharma of Nicholson Baker - 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