Everything makes my students sad. Songs, movies, 
boyfriends, girlfriends: me, too, probably, with my downer diet of quality
	literature, almost all of which ends with maiming, 
death, abandonment, failed love, sexual betrayal, someone throwing 
	herself off a parapet, someone else walking into one 
body of water or another and never walking out. So whose fault is it, 

	mine or someone else’s? One girl came crying to me 
after reading Revolutionary Road and said, does everyone have affairs? 
	Only in books and movies, I replied. You don’t 
have to have affairs in real life; a lot of people don’t.  Besides, there are
	worse things in life than affairs, like death. But who 
wants to see a movie about a woman making breakfast and getting dressed

	and driving to an office building or a man who jogs every day 
and plays the occasional round of golf and whose most questionable act 
	is to sip a second glass of Scotch as he sorts nails
in the garage instead of stopping at one? Look, I say: you know what 
	the blues are? No, the blues are not a bunch of old 
toothless guys singing about hard work, low pay, the evils of dope,

	and that little old gal’s treachery. All art is the blues. 
Or at least the best art is. Art showcases pain, perfidy, the breakdown 
	of the body: art does all that for you so you don’t 
have to do it yourself. Take a Puccini opera. You don’t have to die 
	spitting blood into a handkerchief—let Mimi 
cough her lungs up instead. Or a country song. You don’t have 

	to go to jail. Johnny Cash went to jail for you, 
for us all. Dante went to hell for us, and if that doesn’t make you
	feel better, I don’t know what will. Dante was 
almost killed at the Battle of Campaldino, but when he wasn’t, 
	he said, “I had great fear, and at last great joy.” 
That’s the difference between the beautiful and the sublime,


	says top English philosopher Edmund Burke: 
the beautiful is small, smooth, delicate, whereas the sublime is vast, 
	rugged, massive. It’s beautiful to paddle your 
canoe in the river, sublime to go over a waterfall. If someone 
	said, “There’s a kitty in the other room,” 
you’d say, “Aw! A kitty!” whereas if they said, “There’s a tiger,” 

	you’d say, “Oh, help, a tiger! Run, everybody—
don’t let it get the baby!” Or maybe “don’t let it get my baby!”
	or “don’t let it get me!” Why do we call the people 
we love “baby”? I don’t mean “babe,” as in “she’s a total babe,” 
	but “baby,” as in helpless newborn.
I know, it’s because when we call somebody baby, we’re saying 

	they’re innocent, that they’ve never known 
anyone before us. And they haven’t! Our love washes them clean.
	You promise someone you’ll walk with them 
always, that should a hand slip free, you’ll wait, and if you are 
	the one who falls behind, then the other will wait 
for you. What do you mean, you have to say goodbye—didn’t we 

	just set out? It’s as though the earth itself were
breathing, and the spray rolls up like smoke from a burning city. 
	Where are you? I love you to death, also 
to pieces. You can’t leave me! Think about how much we love 
	each other. And remember, Puccini loves 
you, too, and so does Johnny Cash. Why else would they write 

	those masterpieces? Those masterpieces 
didn’t write themselves, you know. And Arthur Conan Doyle
	and the Brontë sisters and Keats and Jane 
Austen: they’ll be with you always. Marcel Proust. Allen Ginsberg!
	Langston Hughes, Virginia Woolf. Come on in, 
everybody. Look, the whole world is shaking with love. It won’t stop.