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Last night I woke up at 2:30 am, fully fully awake. So I made a cup of tea and read for a few hours under a quilt in the lamplight in my living room. I finished reading Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm, a slim book (that’s been made thicker by my reading, a phenomenon that never tires me–how the book becomes thicker after having been read). The thread running through the book is a series of interviews Malcolm is conducting with “Aaron Green,” an analyst living in New York, an orthodox Freudian analyst with strong opinions and strong insecurities (it seems the opinions are his antidote to the insecurities). The book was published first in 1981, and contains many rather boring excerpts from psychoanalytic papers. Repeatedly Malcolm pushes back at the Freudian comparison of psychoanalysis to surgery. She doesn’t say too much about herself during the book (mirroring, perhaps, the conventional role of the analyst) but by what she chooses to write, what she chooses to notice, and what she chooses to ask, we get a sense of her. Her descriptions of the analysts she interviews and their rooms are the most fantastic part of the book, and remind me of the work of our incredible Scene Setting workshop with Leslie Pietrzyk last week at the Torpedo Factory Art Center.

“The room had the harsh and anguished modernity of the rooms in the paintings of Francis Bacon; in its motel-like detachment form the things of this world, it was like analytic abstinence itself. The couch was a narrow foam-rubber slab covered with an indifferently chosen gold fabric; over its foot, where the patient’s shoes rested, a piece of ugly black plastic stretched. The room was an iconoclast’s raised fist; this analyst’s patients didn’t come here to pass the time of day, it told you. Cross himself looked like the gnarled, tormented stubs of men that Bacon paints. You felt that he didn’t sit down to meals but furtively gulped his food, like a stray animal; you fancied that his wife had left him years ago, and that for several days he hadn’t noticed she was gone. He was a man without charm, without ease, without conceit or vanity, and with a kind of excruciating, prodding, twitching honesty that was like an intractable disorder.” (81)

Right? So good. I mean, a bit mean, but that’s kind of what’s so good about it. Her subjectivity layered as a lens over her observation. Your prompt is a pair prompt, grab a partner (preferably someone you feel safe enough to close your eyes around). Think of a room you’ve been in recently, for at least an hour. Shouldn’t be your own room. Then have your partner read this list of questions to you, and try to remember the room. Then read the questions to your partner. Now both of you: write. 20 minutes is all. Quit bitching.

1. Does the door open easily? Does it make a noise? Does it have a handle or a knob?
2. Is the room carpeted? Tile? Wood floor? Describe the floor of the room. How did it feel beneath your feet?
3. Windows? How many? What kind? Any window coverings?
4. What kind of lights were in the room? Overhead, lamps etc. What color was the light?
5. What did the room smell like?
6. What hangs on the walls of the room?
7. What is the shape of the room?
8. How many chairs? How many tables? Other furniture?

A few housekeeping/announcement sort of things:

• Next Monday, a group of writer friends (and perhaps a few musician friends) are planning on heading to the open mic at the Shirlington Busboys and Poets. If you’ve been thinking about it, if you just want to eat a burger and be a hype crew, if you just want to check out this open mic thing–join us. Link for Tickets is open and it’s here. The doors open at 7:30 and the list opens at 7:45 pm, so be on time!
• March 14th we have our first writing workshop at the Strathmore Mansion, a writing workshop with the phenomenal Grace Cavalieri. Please join us! Tickets here.
• Have you taken the past participant survey yet? Take it here. It really is a great help.