While I did find the recent note from Werner Herzog to his cleaning lady up on Sabotage Times to be really quite hilarious, I think I’d be at fault if I didn’t extrapolate on the obvious lesson learned: We should all be cleaning ladies. How many times have I attempted—in vain—to invade other people’s houses? There’s so much to learn! So much to explore! Do you have any idea what you can learn from people’s objects? Have you stolen this information and put it in a story? Maybe it’s time.

While my cleaning lady credentials really aren’t up to snuff—the last time I cleaned anyone’s toilet, it was 1994 and occurred in the previous residence of Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner (he wasn’t living there anymore, but he totally pooped there!)—I have had a vast amount of experience dog-sitting, which grants you a similar type of access to people's private lives. Sure, there is a bunch of actual work involved, but you need to focus on what can be gleamed from your physical surround.

First off, there’s no need for snooping. Secret drawers and hidden cabinets don’t need your attention. That’s for perverts. You are a writer. Presumably. And anyhow, there are too many details out in the open that you need to pay attention to in order to reconstruct the proper environs for your next American novella. Here’s a run-through of the most important rooms and what you’ll need to consider.

The Bathroom. How I love bathrooms. What kind of soap do they use? How many of the items are purely aesthetic flourishes, e.g. is that loofah there for a calm bath or to insert personality?  Do perfumes or a rusty razor grace the counter? An overflow of cosmetic devices or a pristine assortment of decided upkeep? Remember: you are not here to judge, but to learn.

Kitchen. A whole book could be written about what’s left in the sink. Do your hosts require the most advanced of gadgetry or is it difficult to even locate a working can opener? Is there a smell? What have they left in their cupboards and fridge? Capers and produce? Perhaps a can of soup and something sour with packaging from the 1980s? Feed on this! For information. There should be take-out menus in the left hand drawer.  

Bedroom. And how do they sleep? Is that shit a pillow-top? Does a television sit alone in the corner? Is there any reading to be had at night or do your absent hosts sleep fast to chillwave performed by whales?

Having made these rounds, you'll have all you need to reconstruct your unwitting clients. A house, even a one-bedroom apartment, as long as it’s not yours, should provide years of fiction fodder. Screw your corporate longings with the health insurance and dependable pay; what you need are some rubber gloves and a vacuum.

But please, please, be careful. Just in case you end up with a client like Mr. Herzog. "The situation regarding spoons remains unchanged. If I see one, I will kill it."

image: theadventuresofmothertucker.blogspot.com

I’m quitting my job today. I’m quitting because of an inappropriate text message my manager sent to me on Valentine’s Day. This is not the first time my manager has conducted himself in an inappropriate manner. This is not even the first time I have left a restaurant job because of a manager conducting him or herself inappropriately.

On Valentine's Day, Gothamist posted a report on gender inequity in the service industry. Reading through it was not a comfort to me. It has been my experience that working at a restaurant entails taking a lot of shit. It is highly conducive to, and rife with, sexual harassment. There is close contact, touching, lewd gestures. Much of this is entirely welcome and fun and a way to release stress. Some of this is unwelcome but innocuous enough to put up with. And then there are the moments when a line is crossed, when taking shit is no longer an option.

The day before Valentine’s Day, Roxane Gay posted a great piece in the Rumpus directed toward women who had tweeted their willingness to be beaten by Chris Brown. The day before that, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta made several highly offensive remarks on the air, regarding the increase in sexual assaults on women in the military. Also on Sunday was the arrest of Marston Hefner for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, PlayboyPlaymate of the Year Claire Sinclair. This has not been a good week.

I worked at a Denny’s when I was in high school. One day one of our bussers pressed his palm against the grill and held it there. He told me later that he did this "porque no me quiero," or, because I didn’t want him. I was seventeen. I was reminded of this incident while reading about a 19th-century Taiwanese custom: suitors would present potential partners with severed heads.

Part of me wants a severed head. There is a part of me that wants to seek out male protection in the form of violent retribution and physical intimidation. I understand that in no way should I have to be the one to quit my job because of someone else’s behavior. But I am choosing to leave.

It is perhaps this decision to leave instead of fighting that is prompting me to write this post. I get to be in control of how I personally deal with this situation, and I find it too stupid for me to make a stink about. I’m drawing the line. That’s what I can do. However, there are too many people taking too much shit. Too many people are taking too much shit every day. What I’ve read this week makes me feel as though there might be a whole lot of people who don’t know where the line is. Please be advised.

Image: blogcatalog.com

“Robyn F. turned to face Brown and he punched her in the eye with his right hand. He then drove away in the vehicle and continued to punch her in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand. The assault caused Robyn F.’s mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle….After Robyn F. faked [a] call, Brown looked at her and stated You just did the stupidest thing ever! Now I’m really going to kill you! Brown resumed punching Robyn F. and she interlocked her fingers behind her head and brought her elbows forward to protect her face. She then bent over at the waist, placing her elbows and face near her lap in attempt to protect her face and head from the barrage of punches being levied upon her by Brown...Brown pulled Robyn F. close to him and bit her on her left ear...Brown bit her left ring and middle fingers.”

– Detective De Shon Andrews’s Affidavit from the LAPD’s Search Warrant following the February 8, 2009 assault of Rihanna (Robyn F.) by then-boyfriend Chris Brown

“Compassionate Justine is robbed by a beggar. Pious, she is raped by a monk. Honest, she is fleeced by a usurer…And so it goes with her throughout…to whomever abuses her, she brings good fortune, and the monsters who torment her become a minister, surgeon to His Majesty, a millionaire. Here’s a novel which bears every resemblance to those edifying works in which vice is seen punished every time, and virtue rewarded. Except that in Justine it’s the other way around; but this novel’s failing, strictly from the view-point of the novel…remains the same: the reader always knows how things are going to end.”

– Jean Paulhan reflects on Sade’s novel Justine (1791) in his 1946 essay The Marquis de Sade and His Accomplice (IV: The Surprises of Love)

“In essence, woman has to take it upon herself over and over again, regardless of circumstances, to bury this corpse that man becomes in his pure state…Thus woman takes this dead being into her own place…Shielding him from the dishonoring operation of unconscious desires and natural negativeness—preserving him from her desire, perhaps?—she places this kinsman back in the womb of the earth and thus reunites him with undying, elemental individuality.”

–Luce Irigaray, “The Eternal Irony of the Community,” an essay on Antigone and death in Feminist Interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel (emphasis in the original)

[R]: Don’t try to hide it / Imma make you my bitch / Cake cake cake cake / You wanna put your name on it / I know you wanna bite this / It’s so enticing / Nothing else like this

[CB]: Legggoooo / Girl I wanna fuck you right now / Been a long time / I’ve been missing your body

–Rihanna feat. Chris Brown, "Birthday Cake (Remix)," released two days ago

Let Me Recite What History Teaches (LMRWHT) is a weekly column that flashes the lavalamp, gaslight, candlelight, campfire, torch, sometimes even the starlight of the past on something that is happening now. The form of the column strives to recover what might be best about the “wide-eyed presentation of mere facts.” Each week you will find here some citational constellation, offered with astonishment and without comment, that can serve as an end in itself, dinner party fodder, or an occasion for further thought or writing. The title is taken from the last line of Stein’s poem “If I Told Him (A Completed Portrait of Picasso)."

Image: The Insider