Marianne Hauser Changed Tense

Email from Raymond Federman:

marianne hauser changed tense yesterday - have you read The Talking Room - if not order it imediately --

it came out from FC at the same time as TIOLI and Marianne and I became friends immediately -- she was a fabulous writer -- she was 93 yesterday when she changed tense [and still smoking pot which we did together regularly once upon a time -- she had an antique silver cigarette box full of joints and she would offer them to her friends or even to strangers -- she was quite a woman -she was from Alsace had traveled all over the world -- she had married some mediocre orchestra conductor who conducted the kirkville municipal orchestra in nebraska -- she dumped him -- but not her son michael whom she loved and still loves -- and became an outrageous lesbian -- at 80 she was more gorgeous and seductive than those young broads [excuse the term] who walk around with their jeans exposing the crack of their asses and they boobs falling out of their blouses --

I swear the world is full of such exposed young ladies -- and too many of them are fat around the hips

but marianne hauser she was something else

when she published that marvelous little book called ME & MY MOM I wrote her to tell her that Erica and I had just gone through that with Trude [E's mother] -- if you have not read ME & MY MOM -- drop everything -- it's explain to you your relationship with mother or your mother in-law --

I am sad that marianne is gone and at the same time happy to think that she hung in there and still wrote a couple more fabulous books before she decided that she was fed ufp with this fucking world of ours --- if you want to read about the demolition of the father read SHOOT OU WITH FATHER by Marianne Hauser -- it's as great as the letter Kafka wrote to his father --

she was complaining one day to me after ME & MY MOM came out that no one payed attention to her work -- maybe we were complaining because my work was also being ignored --

and so I wrote a little piece for Marianne

you may have seen it before - but here it is again

ETERNAL RETURN

For Marianne Hauser

As we old bums [you & me & your mom & the other bum in peeoria] contemplate what appears to others to be l'âge [vieillesse ou vieilles fesses] as we admire [with a touch of disdain] our own amazing present mental agility [and virility too] as we delight in the fact that we are becoming so good [so dexterous] so much better with words as we get older [perhaps even wiser in spite of the cliché] as we listen [especially at night] to those protracted echoes of the void [excuse the terminal lyricism] but without asking [as in days of youth] whence the original sound [I almost said original sin) came [sometimes unwanted] as we contemplate the landscape of words we designed and left behind us [not without pain] yes as we contemplate the not too distant moment when we will have to change tense [inevitably so] we wonder [often aloud] how the hell have we managed to come this far [to do that much] with words [words words our whole life was but a pell mell babel of words] and look oh look how they fall in place now so easily so quietly our words as they say [or fail to say] what they want to say before crumbling into the great void [excuse the romantic agony] alright crumbling into the motherfucking abyss of forgetfulness [le grand abîme de l’oubli]