{"id":76191,"date":"2014-09-02T14:59:56","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T18:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=76191"},"modified":"2014-09-02T15:25:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T19:25:04","slug":"loomings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/02\/loomings\/","title":{"rendered":"Loomings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"1211_PENNSYLVANIA_AVENUE,_SECOND_FLOOR_APARTMENT,_BATHROOM_-_Miami_Beach_Art_Deco_Historic_District,_Miami,_Miami-Dade_County,_FL_HABS_FLA,13-MIAM,5-57\"<\/a>

Photo: Walter Smalling Jr., 1980<\/p><\/div>\n

Late this morning, the pipes of my toilet began to make a noise that I can only describe as haunting<\/em>. How to explain it? Loud, very loud. Sad, very sad. A sort of melancholy lowing, a primal moan expressing things seen and unseen. One could imagine ancient peoples hearing such things and looking to the supernatural for answers. If they had plumbing, I mean.<\/p>\n

It went on and on. It was beautiful. I had been distracted, blue, depressed by the unrelenting humidity of an urban Tuesday on the day after a long weekend. And then I heard the mysterious sound and it calmed me. For the first time, I began to understand the New Agey penchant for whale songs.<\/p>\n

I thought I had better look up \u201ctoilet groaning\u201d on the Internet and see if it was something I could manage myself. I\u2019m no plumber, but I grew up in a house with very uncertain old pipes, and in such cases you learn to do what you can. It\u2019s very satisfying when you learn to do these things yourself, if you do. And I know an air vent malfunction when I hear it.<\/p>\n

But somehow on my way to the computer, I found myself going to the bookshelf, and picking up Moby-Dick<\/em>, and paging through it, and then, twenty minutes later, there I was, sitting on the floor, reading.<\/p>\n

\n

Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It was at this point that things started gurgling, and of course then the toilet overflowed. I turned off the water source, mopped up, and notified the super.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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