pfannkuchea

ALS Diary (part forty-three): Nietzsche’s Cartoonish Contemplation of Death

Several of Nietzsche’s most beautiful poems can be read as contemplations of death. As such they can be both unsettlingly strange and grotesquely funny (not unlike the Mexican artist Jose Posada’s crazy strutting and partying skeletons, though Nietzsche is deeper and more layered). For someone facing off with our cartoonish Grim Reaper, this sort ofContinue reading “ALS Diary (part forty-three): Nietzsche’s Cartoonish Contemplation of Death”

ALS Diary (part forty-two): Looking Backward, Forward, and Summing Up; The Death of Ivan Ilych

It’s been almost five months since I was diagnosed with ALS and more than a year and a half since I began noticing my symptoms. Two years ago, neither I nor anyone observing me noticed the plodding gait that I would soon exhibit. Since then my walking, my strength and balance, have gotten steadily worseContinue reading “ALS Diary (part forty-two): Looking Backward, Forward, and Summing Up; The Death of Ivan Ilych”

ALS Diary (part forty-one): How the Novel Ends and What it Makes me Think About

Frank Bascombe’s ALS-afflicted 47-year-old son Paul in Be Mine is not autistic, but in his relationship with his father he is tactlessly out of synch, tone-deaf, and entitled. His father rents a camper mid-winter and takes him, caviling and complaining, to see the World’s Only Corn Palace and the stone presidents of Mount Rushmore. UponContinue reading “ALS Diary (part forty-one): How the Novel Ends and What it Makes me Think About”

ALS Diary (part forty): More Literature of the Moribund – Bascombe, Zorn, Ivan Ilych, Everyman

After finishing Fritz Zorn’s Mars, I’ve started another book in the same vein: Richard Ford’s Be Mine. It’s not cancer-themed like Mars, but specifically ALS-themed, narrated by a father whose 47-year-old son Paul is dying of a faster-acting variant of what I have. That’s what motivated me to mention it to my wife who boughtContinue reading “ALS Diary (part forty): More Literature of the Moribund – Bascombe, Zorn, Ivan Ilych, Everyman”

ALS Diary (part thirty-nine): Plain Words about an Exit Strategy

I’m grateful that my wife went with me to my neurological appointment in Peoria. I’m grateful that she not only took part in the conversation with Dr. Zallek but even stayed with me (I asked her if she preferred to go outside) when I brought up the matter of what I call my “exit strategy”.Continue reading “ALS Diary (part thirty-nine): Plain Words about an Exit Strategy”

ALS Diary (part thirty-eight): Narratives of Death and Revelation

It’s an old genre, the tale of the blasé protagonist who only faces ultimate reality in a confrontation with death. First of all, there are the many iterations of the late medieval, early modern Everyman-plays. Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych shares the lightening simplicity of those dramatic treatments. But I want to consider aContinue reading “ALS Diary (part thirty-eight): Narratives of Death and Revelation”

ALS Diary (part thirty-seven): An ALS Webinar on Palliative Medicine

Last night, I took part in a webinar on palliative medicine designed for ALS patients. I learned some things that my doctors hadn’t mentioned (such as that ALS can affect cognitive functions). One possible ALS symptom has the effect that the patient cries when something is funny and laughs when something is sad. By theContinue reading “ALS Diary (part thirty-seven): An ALS Webinar on Palliative Medicine”

ALS Diary (part thirty-six): The Invisible Brother- and Sisterhood of the Initiates of Death

Now it’s becoming clear to me that my friends and acquaintances can be divided into two distinct groups. There are those who are on familiar terms with death. They talk about my condition with matter-of-fact sympathy but without much ceremony. And there are those who shy away from me because the looming Grim Reaper makesContinue reading “ALS Diary (part thirty-six): The Invisible Brother- and Sisterhood of the Initiates of Death”

ALS Diary (part thirty-five): A Secret Brotherhood

On Saturday I had lunch with a friend named Tony (she is close to Jim and Nancy) and with another lady my age or a little younger from the same circle. The Indian buffet is a place that I once loved to patronize on Saturdays midday. Now the spices have gotten too potent for myContinue reading “ALS Diary (part thirty-five): A Secret Brotherhood”

ALS Diary (part thirty-four): The Palliative Power of Love

Last night, I happened to read a promising, but in the end rather disappointing, New Yorker article on “transference in the classroom” (essentially this is about the student or teacher seeking from the other the love or approval missing in family or conjugal relationships). The effect of stale Freudian concepts addressed to current pedagogical issuesContinue reading “ALS Diary (part thirty-four): The Palliative Power of Love”