Refrigerator magnet; Anne Taintor Inc.
click on image to enlarge
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
solo concert
solitude starts off
a wounded bird, chirping
a hurt melody,
slinking away to die, unfinished;
an oxygen-deficit-driven
Czerny scale; the
practice room; a school
of velocity with no
metronome to tick off
the lost moments
sunnily sleeping,
napping near dark in summer,
curled up
on the bed that was
your most personal lost chord,
the very last things, the very last notes,
all private to you as though
the universe's secret algorithm
were speaking to you alone,
were speaking like you alone,
you alone,
making gerunds by the sea
da da da the things
that come in threes are
tonic, harmonic; in four
they are regular, square; in two
there is perfect communion; but
all alone?
Solitude: You are tethered
to Nobody---and also
on rare
occasions, when it matters,
drowisly dropping, or intense, afire:
Everyone. You take your
time to do
the work of the world, unseen.
The audience
is all yours, breathless and
eternal. You could walk
down a sunny street, forever.
a wounded bird, chirping
a hurt melody,
slinking away to die, unfinished;
an oxygen-deficit-driven
Czerny scale; the
practice room; a school
of velocity with no
metronome to tick off
the lost moments
sunnily sleeping,
napping near dark in summer,
curled up
on the bed that was
your most personal lost chord,
the very last things, the very last notes,
all private to you as though
the universe's secret algorithm
were speaking to you alone,
were speaking like you alone,
you alone,
making gerunds by the sea
da da da the things
that come in threes are
tonic, harmonic; in four
they are regular, square; in two
there is perfect communion; but
all alone?
Solitude: You are tethered
to Nobody---and also
on rare
occasions, when it matters,
drowisly dropping, or intense, afire:
Everyone. You take your
time to do
the work of the world, unseen.
The audience
is all yours, breathless and
eternal. You could walk
down a sunny street, forever.
Monday, July 30, 2007
The double self
Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007
“I was very much in love with my mother,” he told Alan Riding of The New York Times in a 1995 interview. “She was a very warm and a very cold woman. When she was warm, I tried to come close to her. But she could be very cold and rejecting.”
Throughout his career, Mr. Bergman often talked about what he considered the dual nature of his creative and private personalities. “I am very much aware of my own double self,” he once said. “The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work — he is in touch with the child. He is not rational, he is impulsive and extremely emotional.”
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Athena
Things they say of her
when she's away: stand-alone
stunning; full of grace;
sapientia et doctrina; as
the most-favored Olympian,
Athena γλαυκώπις
gleaming-eyed,
the shrewd companion
even this day
giving to heroes
sognando di fiori,
gallant as Italy.
buon compleanno dienna!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Writer
Saw her here four years ago; remember her well. Even recall she was reading The Power of Now. Picked it up myself; self-helpy, not impressed. Still, women who read: so much more memorable!
[Wrote of her somewhere: in truth, have been writing strangers for a long time. They're less painful than friends; also, far easier to sell out.]
This time: streaked straight flaxen hair, halfway down the back, black roots, bangs on forehead artfully dropping asymetrically, sweeping all around. Pale but sunned, medium build, maybe 5'8. Powerbook and a paper notebook. Mandorla two-bedroom+ eyes; squints often. Tawny eyebrows, trimmed and lined. Long nose: looks more complicated in profile, until she smiles. Dangling pendant necklace, bottom stone maybe an amythest. Watch looks like Cartier from here. Lovely arms and shoulders.
Fire engine halter dress, solid, long in back, slit in front. Darts on breasts, broad straps that meet around back of neck. Legs uncrossed. Turquoise Hard Candy toenails. Beach thongs with a half-inch platform. Now crosses legs: intuitive!
Small mouth, sexy lip dimple, smile lines approaching depth. Working the whole time. Saves best smile for a toddler. (Kids lend us excuses to see how we all smile.) Small coffee and a pastry.
[Wrote of her somewhere: in truth, have been writing strangers for a long time. They're less painful than friends; also, far easier to sell out.]
This time: streaked straight flaxen hair, halfway down the back, black roots, bangs on forehead artfully dropping asymetrically, sweeping all around. Pale but sunned, medium build, maybe 5'8. Powerbook and a paper notebook. Mandorla two-bedroom+ eyes; squints often. Tawny eyebrows, trimmed and lined. Long nose: looks more complicated in profile, until she smiles. Dangling pendant necklace, bottom stone maybe an amythest. Watch looks like Cartier from here. Lovely arms and shoulders.
Fire engine halter dress, solid, long in back, slit in front. Darts on breasts, broad straps that meet around back of neck. Legs uncrossed. Turquoise Hard Candy toenails. Beach thongs with a half-inch platform. Now crosses legs: intuitive!
Small mouth, sexy lip dimple, smile lines approaching depth. Working the whole time. Saves best smile for a toddler. (Kids lend us excuses to see how we all smile.) Small coffee and a pastry.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Writer
Arched eyebrows, round nose, freckles---freckles on arms but not on legs. Print dress, vegetal on a black ground, hem at mid-thigh. Scraps of frills around neckline and arm vents: sleeveless of course. Ordinary blue Bic pen with cap situated on end. Writing in a paperback journal, the color of newsprint. Orderly vertical handwriting.
Chestunt hair, curls, tawny skin. Single string of a bracelet with single faux-topaz. Sunglasses on head parked on bundle of hair, held by a clip. Single S curl hanging down, all the way to mid-neck. Toes painted chestnut, color of hair but glossy. Cappucino and a water back.
Writing intensely, now vertically up the edge of the page. Touches face, stares, sudden pounce on page. Gray handbag of crushed felt squares. Has a baggie full of pens.
Chestunt hair, curls, tawny skin. Single string of a bracelet with single faux-topaz. Sunglasses on head parked on bundle of hair, held by a clip. Single S curl hanging down, all the way to mid-neck. Toes painted chestnut, color of hair but glossy. Cappucino and a water back.
Writing intensely, now vertically up the edge of the page. Touches face, stares, sudden pounce on page. Gray handbag of crushed felt squares. Has a baggie full of pens.
unwritten meridian poem
.
everything an emergency kit:
the weapons-grade petulance
the trunk of unsolved mysteries
the gin in the glove compartment
the hoary pasts crumpled, tossed into
backseat emotional wastebaskets
(later, these are recycle bins:
fiction! poetry! art!)
everything an emergency kit, for when
we veer across the meridian:
"Look, it was never any double-line
that we painted..."
~o
everything an emergency kit:
the weapons-grade petulance
the trunk of unsolved mysteries
the gin in the glove compartment
the hoary pasts crumpled, tossed into
backseat emotional wastebaskets
(later, these are recycle bins:
fiction! poetry! art!)
everything an emergency kit, for when
we veer across the meridian:
"Look, it was never any double-line
that we painted..."
~o
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Healer
El Anatsui, Healer, aluminum bottlewraps and copper wire, 2006
click image to enlarge
El Anatsui show Gawu at the Fowler Museum, UCLA, now through August 26
sans plomb, s'il vous plait
.
Tour de France this year: leader expelled, depressing, syringes, doping scandals.
Major League Baseball this year: home run record to fall, depressing, syringes, doping scandals.
Also, this:
~o
Tour de France this year: leader expelled, depressing, syringes, doping scandals.
Major League Baseball this year: home run record to fall, depressing, syringes, doping scandals.
Also, this:
The first Tour: 1903Noted.
The first World Series: 1903.
~o
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Lending structure to the day
Morning, summer, coffee. Madamina talking to her mother. Talking about the recent taggings around here. Sure enough, this: "Mom, don't go there!"
Noon, Italian soda, passionfruit. One to sit by: a blonde, lanky, legs crossed, twentysixy, listening to a more talkative girlfriend in more real shoes.
Sit down, cross legs. Glance. Open Justine. The Arnauti passages on Justine.
Put down Justine. Entry in writer's notebook. Usually fiction goes in here; but this page, today, nothing but the blonde is on it. The entry:
Taggings on the block this week, rattling many neighbors. Except Raffi: "I hope it's...a...phase."
Late afternoon, concrete, yoga mat: sunbathing in the backyard.
Evening, Madamina, cellphone. Pops in behind me. "You're writing about my skin!"
~o
° ° ° ° °
Noon, Italian soda, passionfruit. One to sit by: a blonde, lanky, legs crossed, twentysixy, listening to a more talkative girlfriend in more real shoes.
Sit down, cross legs. Glance. Open Justine. The Arnauti passages on Justine.
Put down Justine. Entry in writer's notebook. Usually fiction goes in here; but this page, today, nothing but the blonde is on it. The entry:
"Three layers, all contradictory: beautiful but young but complicated too. You usually only get two of three, you rarely get all three. Cutoff blue jean shorts, gold hoop bracelets on left arm. White chemise that drops dramatically...sunglasses hanging from bottom of neckline...large-bead drooping ethnic necklace...black leather purse with studs. Black vest, open, over the chemise. Black beach thongs on slender feet. Multicolored plastic cuffs assemblage on right forearm. Damn! caught me not just looking at her grey eyes, but at her eyelashes, brushed black for depth. Downy barely-there golden hair on arms. Heavier thighs than you expect. Gets up; not nearly as tall as I supposed."Afternoon, rug, in between things: forty situps.° ° ° ° °
° ° ° ° °
Taggings on the block this week, rattling many neighbors. Except Raffi: "I hope it's...a...phase."
° ° ° ° °
Late afternoon, concrete, yoga mat: sunbathing in the backyard.
° ° ° ° °
Evening, Madamina, cellphone. Pops in behind me. "You're writing about my skin!"
~o
Foreign Follies
Friend of mainbrace Doug Bandow gets great notice for his latest book Foreign Follies---in unlikely quarter.
People have been very critical of social engineering at home and of big-government programs at home. Now, we're trying to social engineer in other countries," Mr. Bandow says, mentioning Iraq, Haiti and Kosovo as examples. "We've lost the central tenet, which is to protect our own society. Now we're trying to reorganize the globe."Like to read Foreign Follies? Order here.
Mr. Bandow's latest book, "Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire," compiles a collection of articles he wrote on foreign affairs, terrorism, and military and humanitarian intervention to spark debate while promoting a more restrained, noninterventionist policy.
Opus 34
"When Brahms ambled into his favorite Viennese café one evening, so the story goes, a friend asked him how he had spent his day. "I was working on my symphony," he said. "In the morning I added an eighth note. In the afternoon I took it out." The anecdote may be apocryphal, but its intent faithfully reflects Brahms' painstaking process of creation, which is seen better perhaps nowhere in his works than with the F minor Piano Quintet.
"Brahms began work on the Quintet during 1862, the year in which he decided to leave his hometown of Hamburg, where he was frustrated by the slow advances in his professional life, to settle in Vienna."
Note: "F minor is a key often associated with passion. Two famous pieces in the key of F minor are Beethoven's Appasionata Sonata, and Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, La Passione."
If you are in a car, at home, or near a radio at noon today, and reception permits, flip to 88.5 fm for an hour well spent.
"Brahms began work on the Quintet during 1862, the year in which he decided to leave his hometown of Hamburg, where he was frustrated by the slow advances in his professional life, to settle in Vienna."
° ° ° ° °
"The work began life as a string quintet (completed in 1862 and scored for two violins, viola and two cellos), later evolved into a sonata for two pianos (in which form Brahms and Carl Tausig performed it) before taking its final form. The outer movements are more adventurous than usual in terms of harmony and are unsettling in effect. The introduction to the finale, with its rising figure in semitones, is especially remarkable. Both piano and strings play an equally important role throughout this work."
--wikipedia, Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor
° ° ° ° °
Note: "F minor is a key often associated with passion. Two famous pieces in the key of F minor are Beethoven's Appasionata Sonata, and Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, La Passione."
° ° ° ° °
If you are in a car, at home, or near a radio at noon today, and reception permits, flip to 88.5 fm for an hour well spent.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
cinq par Eugène
Eugène Delacroix:
“What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”
“If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.”
“We work not only to produce but to give value to time.”
“To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty: to be a poet at forty is to be a poet.”
“Talent does whatever it wants to do.... Genius does only what it can.”
Note: "Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (April 26, 1798 – August 13, 1863) was the most important of the French Romantic painters."
~o
“What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”
“If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.”
“We work not only to produce but to give value to time.”
“To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty: to be a poet at forty is to be a poet.”
“Talent does whatever it wants to do.... Genius does only what it can.”
Note: "Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (April 26, 1798 – August 13, 1863) was the most important of the French Romantic painters."
~o
Monday, July 23, 2007
A Summer Solo
Tallis---in the choir, shyly, the
woman shifts before the organist
lets out a releasing stop; the text
made sunnier than necessary, like this
summer, a summer in
musical thirds, a place where living
is met with sly looks, where half-steps
are far better than none at all---
She reaches for the text, tamed down,
and for a moment luxuriates
in the temptation of one summery moment
to think of something else.
--JM, 7.23.07
Note: "Thomas Tallis (circa 1505-23 November 1585) was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician during the often stormy 16th century in England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of its earliest composers."
!@#d
woman shifts before the organist
lets out a releasing stop; the text
made sunnier than necessary, like this
summer, a summer in
musical thirds, a place where living
is met with sly looks, where half-steps
are far better than none at all---
She reaches for the text, tamed down,
and for a moment luxuriates
in the temptation of one summery moment
to think of something else.
--JM, 7.23.07
Note: "Thomas Tallis (circa 1505-23 November 1585) was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician during the often stormy 16th century in England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of its earliest composers."
!@#d
The superstitious class
The first job of a critic is to describe what he has read. This is a lot more difficult than one might suspect. I have often thought that one of the reasons why there have been so few good American literary critics is that those Americans who do read books tend to be obsessed with the personality of the author under review. The politics, sex, class of the author are all-important while the book at hand is simply an excuse to discuss, say, the anti-Semitism of Pound, the homosexuality of Whitman, the social climbing of James. Since the American character is especially tendentious and sectarian, the American critic must decide in advance whether or not the writer he is writing about is a Good Person; that is, one who accepts implicitly all the going superstitions (a.k.a values [sic]) of the middle class of the day. If the writer is a Good Person, then what he writes is apt to be good. If he is a Bad Person, forget it.
--Gore Vidal, "VS Pritchett as 'Critic'", United States: Essays 1952-1992, p. 359
~!g
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Leisure time
--Early Sunday, tried to call an insensible but flirtatious cat, thanking her for a recent card. She wasn't home, but her guardian told me she'd pass things along. Also told me Eric Burden was playing Hermosa Pier for free tonight; couldn't go, but wonder how that worked out.
--Heard Brahms piano quintet in F-minor rehearsed in entirety. Peter: "There are those I can't figure out who don't warm to Brahms." Sheepishly to self: I used to be among those, but there was a sudden reversal, as there are with so many things past forty.
--Sat down with Cokes with a homeless guy occupying my meditation space on Monon for the past few days. Greg. Heard his story. He needs to get to a Social Security office. A lucid fellow, definitely not schizo. Looks like a Texas blues guy. Beard and hair well kept. Needs a second pair of shoes, as almost all homeless do. Says his pack gets ripped off if he leaves it anywhere.
--Chatted up three generation of Brits at LACMA. Intriguing to me: grandmother lives in London, one daughter in Tokyo, so they meet here. All (except the children) embarrassed by the new "proime minster"; too much of the stiff, cold barrister in him, they say; wife is a judge too, they tell me. Want the war to end yesterday.
--Washed the car. Personally. Towel dried it under a tree on Cove in Silver Lake; a good spot with nice reservoir feng shui. House there just sold---guessing---a million five?
--Thirty-five situps, thirty-five pushups. Workouts employing the usual ancient American formulae of late. Shying away from yoga; life is mystical enough already; but may be ready to add it to the regimen.
--A smattering of pea sprouts and other things, still delicious.
--Heard Brahms piano quintet in F-minor rehearsed in entirety. Peter: "There are those I can't figure out who don't warm to Brahms." Sheepishly to self: I used to be among those, but there was a sudden reversal, as there are with so many things past forty.
--Sat down with Cokes with a homeless guy occupying my meditation space on Monon for the past few days. Greg. Heard his story. He needs to get to a Social Security office. A lucid fellow, definitely not schizo. Looks like a Texas blues guy. Beard and hair well kept. Needs a second pair of shoes, as almost all homeless do. Says his pack gets ripped off if he leaves it anywhere.
--Chatted up three generation of Brits at LACMA. Intriguing to me: grandmother lives in London, one daughter in Tokyo, so they meet here. All (except the children) embarrassed by the new "proime minster"; too much of the stiff, cold barrister in him, they say; wife is a judge too, they tell me. Want the war to end yesterday.
--Washed the car. Personally. Towel dried it under a tree on Cove in Silver Lake; a good spot with nice reservoir feng shui. House there just sold---guessing---a million five?
--Thirty-five situps, thirty-five pushups. Workouts employing the usual ancient American formulae of late. Shying away from yoga; life is mystical enough already; but may be ready to add it to the regimen.
--A smattering of pea sprouts and other things, still delicious.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Things we drop
Lisa L, (drop), paper, toner, fuser, 7.11.07
background: Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Verizon Utterly Wireless
LL: "I'm in a driveway! I might get hit! I have to hang up!"
JM: "Wait, don't hang up!"
LL: "Why not?"
JM: "It's the best connection we've had in half an hour!"
MADAMINA: "You called seven times? Of course I'm OK! In fact, I'm coming home! Make some fish tacos."
JM: "She was in important businesswoman meetings all afternoon. So I finally get her after six hours and she just tells me to make fish tacos."
VS: "Well, it was your fault for calling her."
JM: "She was in important businesswoman meetings all afternoon. So I finally get her after six hours and she just tells me to make fish tacos."
LL: "Well, I guess you'd better go."
[off cell] "So, what do you put psd files on to make sure you can open them on both a Mac and a PC? Is a hard drive going to be OK?"
JM: "I have no idea. No clue. Really. Not one damn concept. Maybe the hard drives are partitioned differently for each. In 2007 who knows?"
MADAMINA [back on cell] "OK, I talked to Joseph, here's the answer....[off cell] Sweetheart, will you water the front after dinner? Don't use the nozzle. Do you know why? It sprays too much. [back to cell] No, if you work for her, you learn everything. She's tough."
JM: "Wait, don't hang up!"
LL: "Why not?"
JM: "It's the best connection we've had in half an hour!"
° ° ° ° °
MADAMINA: "You called seven times? Of course I'm OK! In fact, I'm coming home! Make some fish tacos."
° ° ° ° °
JM: "She was in important businesswoman meetings all afternoon. So I finally get her after six hours and she just tells me to make fish tacos."
VS: "Well, it was your fault for calling her."
° ° ° ° °
JM: "She was in important businesswoman meetings all afternoon. So I finally get her after six hours and she just tells me to make fish tacos."
LL: "Well, I guess you'd better go."
° ° ° ° °
MADAMINA, coming down the steps: "No, wait a minute. Wait wait wait. It's not because of the color. They just say that, all the time, when something's wrong with the design, it's easier to send back color than to say what's really wrong. Joseph has fish tacos ready. No, it's no problem. Go ahead. I'll ask him."[off cell] "So, what do you put psd files on to make sure you can open them on both a Mac and a PC? Is a hard drive going to be OK?"
JM: "I have no idea. No clue. Really. Not one damn concept. Maybe the hard drives are partitioned differently for each. In 2007 who knows?"
MADAMINA [back on cell] "OK, I talked to Joseph, here's the answer....[off cell] Sweetheart, will you water the front after dinner? Don't use the nozzle. Do you know why? It sprays too much. [back to cell] No, if you work for her, you learn everything. She's tough."
Unsteadily by the window
WOMAN: I will receive a check in the mail every week that I can count on. The little old lady will cash the checks for me and get me books from a library and pick up -- laundry ... I'll always have clean things! -- I'll dress in white. I'll never be very strong or have much energy left, but have enough after a while to walk on the -- esplanade -- to walk on the beach without effort ... In the evening I'll walk on the esplanade along the beach. I'll have a certain beach where I go to sit, a little way from the pavillion where the band plays Victor Herberg selections while it gets dark ... I'll have a big room with shutters on the windows. There will be a season of rain, rain, rain. And I will be so exhausted after my life in the city that I won't mind just listening to the rain. I'll be so quiet. The lines will disappear from my face. My eyes won't be inflamed at all any more. I'll have no friends. I'll have no acquaintances even. When I get sleepy, I'll walk slowly back to the little hotel. The clerk will say, Good evening, Miss Jones, and I'll just barely smile and take my key. I won't ever look at a newspaper or hear a radio; I won't have any idea what's going on in the world. I will not be conscious of time passing at all ... One day I will look in the mirror and I will see that my hair is beginning to turn grey and for the first time I will realize that I have been living in this little hotel under a made-up name without any friends or acquaintances or any kind of connections for twenty-five years. It will surprise me a little bit but it won't bother me any. I will be glad that time has passed as easily as that. Once in a while I may go out to the movies. I will sit in the back row with all that darkness around me and figures sitting motionless on each side not conscious of me. Watching the screen. Imaginary people. People in stories. I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won't have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I'll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I'll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain. I'll wake up and hear the rain and go back to sleep. A season of rain, rain, rain ... Then one day, when I have closed a book or come home alone from the movies at eleven o'clock at night -- I will look in the mirror and see that my hair has turned white. White, absolutely white. As white as the foam on the waves. [She gets up and moves about the room as she continues] I'll run my hands down my body and feel how amazingly light and thin I have grown. Oh, my, how thin I will be. Almost transparent. Not hardly real any more. Then I will realize, I will know, sort of dimly, that I have been staying on here in this little hotel, without any -- social connections, responsibilities, anxieties or disturbances of any kind -- for just about fifty years. Half a century. Practically a lifetime. I won't even remember the names of the people I knew before I came here nor how it feels to be someone waiting for someone that -- may not come ... Then I will know -- looking in the mirror -- the first time has come for me to walk out alone once more on the esplanade with the strong wind beating on me, the white clean wind that blows from the edge of the world, from even further than that, from the cool outer edges of space, from even beyond whatever there is beyond the edges of space ... [She sits down again unsteadily by the window] -- Then I'll go out and walk on the esplanade. I'll walk alone and be blown thinner and thinner.
--Tennessee Williams, Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen
--Tennessee Williams, Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Hollywood koan
Madamina, dinner on the westside. Michael and I out for a stroll, luxurious weather. Not really talking about anything new: women, movies. Old lines from movies we saw together thirty years ago, even longer ago. Silver Lake Reservoir brings back a couple of fragments of Chinatown. People we've talked about forever, in the biz forever, lives appear to be very twisted, caricatures of younger lives.
Stretching it just a bit down Rowena. Someone looks like someone else from way back when; two people think so. A three mile walk. Crystalline sunset, barely balmy.
No need for it, but at last, a conclusion around Griffith Park Boulevard anyway:
"You don't know anything when you're young. Nothing."
Stretching it just a bit down Rowena. Someone looks like someone else from way back when; two people think so. A three mile walk. Crystalline sunset, barely balmy.
No need for it, but at last, a conclusion around Griffith Park Boulevard anyway:
"You don't know anything when you're young. Nothing."
Periods and ellipses
ms. arquette
being excerpts from a prolegomenon to nothing we know
Brogan: Through the pain I've always loved the pics.
° ° ° ° °
Lisa: i am more parsley than sage...a bitter bite than aromatic...
° ° ° ° °
Moi: The last two nights, Lynn fell asleep with Justine in her hands.
° ° ° ° °
Kathleen: Give me your brand of crazy any time, dear friend.° ° ° ° °
Denise: Nobody knows three like an only child.~
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
A favorite
| WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep | |
| And nodding by the fire, take down this book, | |
| And slowly read, and dream of the soft look | |
| Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; | |
| How many loved your moments of glad grace, | 5 |
| And loved your beauty with love false or true; | |
| But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, | |
| And loved the sorrows of your changing face. | |
| And bending down beside the glowing bars, | |
| Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled | 10 |
| And paced upon the mountains overhead, | |
| And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. |
--Yeats
Lines of flight
L. Durrell, Justine, p. 128:
Death in Venice, p. 4: "It was an urge to escape, he admitted it to himself, that longing for the distant and new, this desire for liberation, for unburdening and oblivion---an urge to leave behind his work and the everyday venue of a rigid, cold and passionate servitude."
Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus, p. 277: "Good people say that we must not flee, that to escape is not good, that it isn't effective, and that one must work for reforms. But the revolutionary knows that escape is revolutionary---withdrawal, freaks---provided one sweeps away the social cover on leaving, or causes a piece of the system to get lost in the shuffle."
The woodpecker, this morning, in the walnut: "You love my noise, my clinging, my hard-headed insistence, but that's only me eating, nothing special. That is not it at all, in fact. Watch how readily, how swiftly, how easily, how naturally I fly wherever I want to."
She [Clea] lives in modest though not miserly style, inhabiting a comfortable attic-studio furnished with little beyond an iron bed and a few ragged beach chairs which in the summer are transferred bodily to her little bathing cabin at Sidi Bishr. Her only luxury is a glittering tiled bathroom in the corner of which she has installed a minute stove to cope with whatever cooking she feels inclined to do for herself; and a bookcase whose crowded shelves indicate that she denies it nothing.
She lives without lovers or family ties, without malices or pets, concentrating with single-mindedness upon her painting which she takes seriously, but not too seriously. In her work, too, she is lucky; for these bold yet elegant canvases radiate clemency and humour. They are full of a sense of play---like children much-beloved.
° ° ° ° °
Death in Venice, p. 4: "It was an urge to escape, he admitted it to himself, that longing for the distant and new, this desire for liberation, for unburdening and oblivion---an urge to leave behind his work and the everyday venue of a rigid, cold and passionate servitude."
° ° ° ° °
Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus, p. 277: "Good people say that we must not flee, that to escape is not good, that it isn't effective, and that one must work for reforms. But the revolutionary knows that escape is revolutionary---withdrawal, freaks---provided one sweeps away the social cover on leaving, or causes a piece of the system to get lost in the shuffle."
° ° ° ° °
The woodpecker, this morning, in the walnut: "You love my noise, my clinging, my hard-headed insistence, but that's only me eating, nothing special. That is not it at all, in fact. Watch how readily, how swiftly, how easily, how naturally I fly wherever I want to."
Monday, July 16, 2007
Quixotic siesta
From Spain, Konfell once wrote: For a true siesta, there must be pajamas, mosquito netting, and nightmares.
Konfell was a good friend, and I miss him. He was looking for Angelika Konfell; he had turned her into Dulcinea; it was hard to tell if she was real or, even better, was a bit of magical realism. He is now in his seventies; I haven't heard from him for a long time.
Madamina and I yesterday took an afternoon nap together. Both of us had nightmares. The diaphanous bedroom drapes blew over us like mosquito netting. My apricot shirt and her short blue boxers are summer night apparel.
It was about four in the afternoon. The sunshine from the northwest windows was more yellow than white; because of the mirrors and other tricks, the bedroom is the brightest and hottest room of a bright hot house. There is a painting by another lost old friend on one wall; our lives are cluttered with lost old friends; I am a hard person to know.
Her nightmare involved sex and death---a liebestod---but it had humor too, humor she recognized through the trauma. Later she claimed she was never asleep at all. She strayed from the word hallucination, but this is what siesta nightmares really are; see Goya.
Mine involved architecture. It was far more traumatic than hers. In my nightmare, I was writing. I was writing that surface is for church, for priests and lawyers and witch doctors, for the people with faux secrets they never seem to share. I saw lives ruined, people going hungry and homeless, while bankers hired day laborers to polish the surfaces of their buildings; one was even cleaning the brass hookups for the fire department.
You wake up from a nightmare more refreshed than you do from a dream. Judgment is clear; you could play a strong Benko Gambit or do some heroic weaving or toss out the right pages. Konfell's best piece of wisdom of all: don't fear nightmares, take advantage of them.
Konfell was a good friend, and I miss him. He was looking for Angelika Konfell; he had turned her into Dulcinea; it was hard to tell if she was real or, even better, was a bit of magical realism. He is now in his seventies; I haven't heard from him for a long time.
Madamina and I yesterday took an afternoon nap together. Both of us had nightmares. The diaphanous bedroom drapes blew over us like mosquito netting. My apricot shirt and her short blue boxers are summer night apparel.
It was about four in the afternoon. The sunshine from the northwest windows was more yellow than white; because of the mirrors and other tricks, the bedroom is the brightest and hottest room of a bright hot house. There is a painting by another lost old friend on one wall; our lives are cluttered with lost old friends; I am a hard person to know.
Her nightmare involved sex and death---a liebestod---but it had humor too, humor she recognized through the trauma. Later she claimed she was never asleep at all. She strayed from the word hallucination, but this is what siesta nightmares really are; see Goya.
Mine involved architecture. It was far more traumatic than hers. In my nightmare, I was writing. I was writing that surface is for church, for priests and lawyers and witch doctors, for the people with faux secrets they never seem to share. I saw lives ruined, people going hungry and homeless, while bankers hired day laborers to polish the surfaces of their buildings; one was even cleaning the brass hookups for the fire department.
You wake up from a nightmare more refreshed than you do from a dream. Judgment is clear; you could play a strong Benko Gambit or do some heroic weaving or toss out the right pages. Konfell's best piece of wisdom of all: don't fear nightmares, take advantage of them.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Smiles of a summer drive
Highland Park to Pasadena across the old surface streets. The slide of the streets through a world of flux. Arco de Iris too loud, an immense party, maybe twenty, in the middle of the restaurant. Yahaira is next choice.
Stephanie is over the cupcake craze. As a matter of fact, she was over it before it even began. Not happy that her cooking class is devoting a whole session to it.
I know. Earlier, in the short walk from our car to the museum downtown, we must have passed 500 units under construction. In all new neighborhoods everywhere, abundant congestion. Yet---
---yet later, York, Fair Oaks, California---it feels like the 70's---the streets are empty at dusk. Every now and then, an insistent SUV pulls out of a driveway, but that's the only complaint. Whoever is here these days is not using enough imagination engaging the surface streets. There is more than one way to Pasadena, and nobody seems to know it.
"God you know where everything is." "Yes, and it's becoming increasingly more useless to know as much." But this is a merely ironic statement.
Six tables in the small space. We're seated right away.
"I love Spanish guitar," Stephanie says. "O, d'accordo"---Madamina in her lingua franca again. It's so soft you can whisper over it. The old man---we have seen him in there every time we've been there, for years---not playing so much as coaxing. He looks like a cubist painting with his instrument; you see blurs, angles, fragments---time. The songs are like Lorca poems. Does anyone else see the privilege he provides the room?
Madamina, far later, probably prompted by the thought of a cupcakes class: "Will you find a recipe for red devil's food cake? I want to make one tomorrow." Never resting. Stephanie delivered to her car, then following us down York and Eagle Rock to the 2, good night.
° ° °
Stephanie is over the cupcake craze. As a matter of fact, she was over it before it even began. Not happy that her cooking class is devoting a whole session to it.
° ° °
I know. Earlier, in the short walk from our car to the museum downtown, we must have passed 500 units under construction. In all new neighborhoods everywhere, abundant congestion. Yet---
---yet later, York, Fair Oaks, California---it feels like the 70's---the streets are empty at dusk. Every now and then, an insistent SUV pulls out of a driveway, but that's the only complaint. Whoever is here these days is not using enough imagination engaging the surface streets. There is more than one way to Pasadena, and nobody seems to know it.
° ° °
"God you know where everything is." "Yes, and it's becoming increasingly more useless to know as much." But this is a merely ironic statement.
° ° °
Six tables in the small space. We're seated right away.
"I love Spanish guitar," Stephanie says. "O, d'accordo"---Madamina in her lingua franca again. It's so soft you can whisper over it. The old man---we have seen him in there every time we've been there, for years---not playing so much as coaxing. He looks like a cubist painting with his instrument; you see blurs, angles, fragments---time. The songs are like Lorca poems. Does anyone else see the privilege he provides the room?
° ° °
Madamina, far later, probably prompted by the thought of a cupcakes class: "Will you find a recipe for red devil's food cake? I want to make one tomorrow." Never resting. Stephanie delivered to her car, then following us down York and Eagle Rock to the 2, good night.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Below Vermont
Latina on the Metro, and I can't get a handle on her: she's about twenty-five, thin and pretty, beautiful teeth but a little loud and a little crass. Bangs like teeth hanging down on the forehead; enormous smile. Dressed sexy as so many are on the Metro, short white skirt and a fresh white top with a sharp plunge.
She's got two kids on very loose leashes, and she is letting them run ragged on the train, spinning around a pole---a pole I was hanging onto until they made it their Maypole. The kids are four and three. The younger kid is shirtless.
"What are you doing?" mama shrieks. "Oh my God, I don't know you."
Now one's crying; the older one.
"Hey, what are you crying for---you baby!"
"Mama said she doesn't know me."
Such a literalist! I'm impressed; he knows how to work it.
Mama knows how to work it back.
"What the hell are you talking about, Gabriel? Like hell I don't know you! Look at this!"
She's got a tattoo on her left ankle, a large one: it says "Gabriel"; she's pointing to it. The leg is raised on the seat so she can point; the short skirt isn't working. I'm the only guy at this end of the car.
I smile, convinced of something, but I don't even know what. "See, this says Gabriel, and that says Johnny." Sure enough, there's a tattoo on the other ankle; it says "Johnny." Both feet are now perched on the seat, both legs up now; she's pointing to Johnny.
"So don't say I don't know you! I know you!"
The boys go back to their determined spinning. They're impervious to everything; they're whacking themselves, any passenger at any stop, even another baby stroller that passes by. Mama is letting them go. At one point, Gabriel runs right under my arm between me and the side of the car, and just about knocks my book out of my hand. He gets screamed at, but I grimace a "Don't worry, I'm fine with that!"
Then Gabriel bumps Johnny and Johnny cries. Now Johnny works it, running to mama. Mama screams at Gabriel:
"I told you you were going to hurt someone!"
If she did, it was before I got there.
Gabriel isn't buying.
"You're a bad mother!" he says.
Whoa! Yet mama is unphased.
"You're laughing but you're not funny," mama says. Gabriel doesn't care; he's still spinning, a little more slowly without a brother to beat.
Finally she looks at my library book.
"Death in Venice. Is that a good book?" she asks me.
"Yes. It's mercifully short," I say.
"Cool!" she says.
Twenty feet above us, I'm sure, on the surface street, is someone driving a Saturn. The cup ring is pulled out, and there's a paper cup with a triple latte parked in it. They're listening to radio, something political, and imagining that what they listen to helps them engage the world more fully.
She's got two kids on very loose leashes, and she is letting them run ragged on the train, spinning around a pole---a pole I was hanging onto until they made it their Maypole. The kids are four and three. The younger kid is shirtless.
"What are you doing?" mama shrieks. "Oh my God, I don't know you."
Now one's crying; the older one.
"Hey, what are you crying for---you baby!"
"Mama said she doesn't know me."
Such a literalist! I'm impressed; he knows how to work it.
Mama knows how to work it back.
"What the hell are you talking about, Gabriel? Like hell I don't know you! Look at this!"
She's got a tattoo on her left ankle, a large one: it says "Gabriel"; she's pointing to it. The leg is raised on the seat so she can point; the short skirt isn't working. I'm the only guy at this end of the car.
I smile, convinced of something, but I don't even know what. "See, this says Gabriel, and that says Johnny." Sure enough, there's a tattoo on the other ankle; it says "Johnny." Both feet are now perched on the seat, both legs up now; she's pointing to Johnny.
"So don't say I don't know you! I know you!"
The boys go back to their determined spinning. They're impervious to everything; they're whacking themselves, any passenger at any stop, even another baby stroller that passes by. Mama is letting them go. At one point, Gabriel runs right under my arm between me and the side of the car, and just about knocks my book out of my hand. He gets screamed at, but I grimace a "Don't worry, I'm fine with that!"
Then Gabriel bumps Johnny and Johnny cries. Now Johnny works it, running to mama. Mama screams at Gabriel:
"I told you you were going to hurt someone!"
If she did, it was before I got there.
Gabriel isn't buying.
"You're a bad mother!" he says.
Whoa! Yet mama is unphased.
"You're laughing but you're not funny," mama says. Gabriel doesn't care; he's still spinning, a little more slowly without a brother to beat.
Finally she looks at my library book.
"Death in Venice. Is that a good book?" she asks me.
"Yes. It's mercifully short," I say.
"Cool!" she says.
Twenty feet above us, I'm sure, on the surface street, is someone driving a Saturn. The cup ring is pulled out, and there's a paper cup with a triple latte parked in it. They're listening to radio, something political, and imagining that what they listen to helps them engage the world more fully.
Table 33
--Not making a reservation, but a reservation for a certain table at the place. Knowing it: table 33.
--Coming home to change into something she designed. Not wanting me to tell anyone.
--The usual pattern: gruff, insistent, outraged, but really only to gain some leverage.
--Riverside, not Sunset, adding drama, movement. Everyone should have a back way to a favored restaurant.
--"This car is making more noise all the time." "I don't hear anything at all."
--It's the one table in LA that has its own private window. It's a frame for her. It's an auto-portrait. The background tile and leather and empty bustle of Union Station.
--The waiter---Latin, gay, muscular, stunning, locks from antiquity---at first exasperated, then getting her, she must draw everyone in, then he can't let her go, then thinking in terms of a potential profit center, finally telling her about his favorite wines, his favorite places to eat in the neighborhood. Sometimes he just stands staring at her, smiling.
--"Those aren't the best photos of me." "Yes they are. It's your hands that matter most. Your hands are the most expressive things about you. They are who you are."
--Three calls before she finally shuts the damn thing off.
--"Do you consider me your muse?"
-- [...]
--"I've even dedicated a book to you...so...what makes you ask?"
--Coming home to change into something she designed. Not wanting me to tell anyone.
--The usual pattern: gruff, insistent, outraged, but really only to gain some leverage.
--Riverside, not Sunset, adding drama, movement. Everyone should have a back way to a favored restaurant.
--"This car is making more noise all the time." "I don't hear anything at all."
--It's the one table in LA that has its own private window. It's a frame for her. It's an auto-portrait. The background tile and leather and empty bustle of Union Station.
--The waiter---Latin, gay, muscular, stunning, locks from antiquity---at first exasperated, then getting her, she must draw everyone in, then he can't let her go, then thinking in terms of a potential profit center, finally telling her about his favorite wines, his favorite places to eat in the neighborhood. Sometimes he just stands staring at her, smiling.
--"Those aren't the best photos of me." "Yes they are. It's your hands that matter most. Your hands are the most expressive things about you. They are who you are."
--Three calls before she finally shuts the damn thing off.
--"Do you consider me your muse?"
-- [...]
--"I've even dedicated a book to you...so...what makes you ask?"
Thursday, July 12, 2007
dix ans plus tard
your slightest look can easily unclose me
though I close myself as fingers
you always open, petal by petal, myself
as spring opens
touching skillfully, mysteriously, her first rose
...
i do not know what it is about you
that closes and opens
only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
--cummings
click montage to enlarge
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Page 63
Brogan, Terrence; Where the bad things have already happened; 2005
Rue Bab-el-Mandeb, Rue Abou-el-Dardar, Minet-el-Bassal (streets slippery with discarded fluff from the cotton marts) Nouzha (the rose-garden, some remembered kisses) or bus stops with haunted names like Saba Pacha, Mazloum, Zizinia, Bacos, Schutz, Gianaclis. A city becomes a world when one loves one of its inhabitants.
--L. Durrell, Justine
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Engaging the homeless
My friend and Mayoral candidate Walter Moore will be on KABC again tomorrow, at 11. This time, I think he's going to be talking a little about affordable housing in town.
Walter's more moderate-right on some issues than a lot of people in LA; I'm a liberal Pedestrian. But on the topic of affordable housing, we agree far more than disagree, and here's the kind of thinking you can expect from him:
If Walter doesn't get to it, here's my idea fleshed out: We take advantage of this climate and build the 1,000 yurts in the area near the river south of downtown (where there is already a very large shantytown---you just don't see it, although a photo of it was on the cover of the Catholic weekly The Tidings about a year ago), and to trolley the inhabitants to the social services downtown throughout the day. After the first hundred days, we see where we are, how much of a dent we put into the problem, and decide if we should make more.
I also think that we could follow the example of Chile and after we house a decent percentage of the homeless start substituting pre-fab cinder-block structures for the yurts. Don't be afraid of those either; one of Frank Lloyd Wright's last buildings was a cinderblock home, and the ones in Chile look better than most of our faux-Tuscan condos.
Here's the reason minimal yurt-styled housing may be transformational for the lives of the homeless: when you're homeless, you don't think about much of anything all day long beyond where you are going to sleep. Once you establish that, you don't move around much, because your feet are the first thing to go, and because you need to retain the territory. The simple baseline provision of a roof will lend many many more hours and much more security and health to a formerly completely dispossessed life.
I've worked a little in politics but I'm not a politician. I would really like to see one single politician in this town pick up this idea and try, just try to run with it to see where it may go. Conservative, liberal, it makes no difference; if Walter's the guy, go for it, Walt. Joel John Roberts at PATH is at least aware of it and wouldn't mind hearing more about it. The discussion I think would be fruitful, and we might even see a Council motion that was sincerely debated, rather than developer subsidies sailing through 15-0 as they all seem to these days.
If any politician currently outside of Council were to require help drafting an Ordinance or ballot measure, I would gladly find people to lend support to that cause. But really, we could easily pay for the project out of the City's Affordable Housing Trust right now, today, instantly. Let's help the homeless concretely now, not abstractly four years from now, by which time it will be too late for so many.
Walter's more moderate-right on some issues than a lot of people in LA; I'm a liberal Pedestrian. But on the topic of affordable housing, we agree far more than disagree, and here's the kind of thinking you can expect from him:
Walter may also even talk about my idea for the homeless: instead of costly affordable housing projects, let's put up 10 yurts a day for a hundred days, and then see where we are after that. The City's Homeless Industrial Complex typically denounces this idea as stripping the homeless of dignity: yes, they'd rather keep them without any shelter at all for four more years, and turn homeless housing into a nearly unwinnable lottery after that, than start housing more people right away.
What would happen if, instead of handing the money to developers, we gave it to the elderly and disabled who now live in run-down, rent-controlled apartments, where they’re trapped because they can’t afford anything better? Glad you asked!
If we spent the same amount of money over the same period of time, we could send a check for $1733 per month, every month for two years, to 1069 elderly and disabled people so they could afford to rent really nice apartments.
Which do you think would help people more: Building 1069 new units, without any money left over to help anyone pay the rent for those units? Or giving 1069 elderly and disabled people $1733 per month, every month for two years, to give them the power to live where they want. As law school professors often say, “To ask that question is to answer it!"
If Walter doesn't get to it, here's my idea fleshed out: We take advantage of this climate and build the 1,000 yurts in the area near the river south of downtown (where there is already a very large shantytown---you just don't see it, although a photo of it was on the cover of the Catholic weekly The Tidings about a year ago), and to trolley the inhabitants to the social services downtown throughout the day. After the first hundred days, we see where we are, how much of a dent we put into the problem, and decide if we should make more.
I also think that we could follow the example of Chile and after we house a decent percentage of the homeless start substituting pre-fab cinder-block structures for the yurts. Don't be afraid of those either; one of Frank Lloyd Wright's last buildings was a cinderblock home, and the ones in Chile look better than most of our faux-Tuscan condos.
Here's the reason minimal yurt-styled housing may be transformational for the lives of the homeless: when you're homeless, you don't think about much of anything all day long beyond where you are going to sleep. Once you establish that, you don't move around much, because your feet are the first thing to go, and because you need to retain the territory. The simple baseline provision of a roof will lend many many more hours and much more security and health to a formerly completely dispossessed life.
I've worked a little in politics but I'm not a politician. I would really like to see one single politician in this town pick up this idea and try, just try to run with it to see where it may go. Conservative, liberal, it makes no difference; if Walter's the guy, go for it, Walt. Joel John Roberts at PATH is at least aware of it and wouldn't mind hearing more about it. The discussion I think would be fruitful, and we might even see a Council motion that was sincerely debated, rather than developer subsidies sailing through 15-0 as they all seem to these days.
If any politician currently outside of Council were to require help drafting an Ordinance or ballot measure, I would gladly find people to lend support to that cause. But really, we could easily pay for the project out of the City's Affordable Housing Trust right now, today, instantly. Let's help the homeless concretely now, not abstractly four years from now, by which time it will be too late for so many.
Yet Closer
DAN: I apologize. If you love her, you'll let her go, so she can be happy.
LARRY: She doesn't want to be happy.
DAN: Everybody wants to be happy.
LARRY: Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm their depression. If they were happy, they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live, which can be depressing.
DAN: Anna's not a depressive.
LARRY: Isn't she?
DAN: I love her.
LARRY: Boo hoo. So do I.
DAN: She's gone back to you because she can't bear your suffering. You don't know who she is! You love her like a dog loves the owner.
LARRY: And the owner loves the dog for so doing.
DAN: You'll hurt her. You'll never forgive her.
LARRY: Of course I'll forgive her. I have forgiven her. Without forgiveness, we're savages. You're drowning.
DAN: You only met her because of me.
LARRY: Yeah. Thanks.
DAN: It's a joke. Your marriage is a joke!
LARRY: There's a good one. She never sent the divorce papers to her lawyer. Now, to a towering romatic hero like you, I don't doubt I am somewhat common, but I am nevertheless what she has chosen, and we must respect what the woman wants.
LARRY: If you go near her again, I swear, I will kill you.
screenplay, Closer, Patrick Marber, adapted from his play; 2004
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Partita
Before mass, a woman prostrating herself before a statue of the BVM, even kissing the ground; a woman perhaps but half a generation out of the rain forest. The faith must somehow be elastic enough to contain both she with her totems and superstitions and me with my books and suspicions---she, a woman to whom even the word "Magnificat" might be a surprise; me, a guy with so much recombinant Catholicism in him that back in old country there is even an age-old family church in the background.
The rain-forest woman is up off the floor, and I too, though I don't want to admit it even to myself, have wishes in pocket. But first I look over the petition book and see the pleas that make my petitions look pale. In the end I scribble something I hope makes sense to anyone: "Please treat all women as you would treat Mary."
The rain-forest woman is up off the floor, and I too, though I don't want to admit it even to myself, have wishes in pocket. But first I look over the petition book and see the pleas that make my petitions look pale. In the end I scribble something I hope makes sense to anyone: "Please treat all women as you would treat Mary."
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Ite, Missa est
Someone congratulates me on the Latin Mass pronouncement. But The Guardian calls it "a blow to Jews." And in my opinion: it is. Not the Latin Mass in general, but the fact that some very old masses have been permitted as well. Not that I go to mass a lot these days anyway, but I certainly won't be attending one that includes the older Tridentine forms.
But most Latin Masses do not include the prayer for conversion of Jews. Here is the version most pre-Vatican II Catholics remember, and it's free of such snipes.
And here's something you don't see every day: an editorial in Latin. Re supra.
After Cathy Seipp's funeral, Luke Ford, who gave me a ride home, asked me if I favored the Latin Mass. I said I like it but it's hard to tell because nobody seems to pronounce Latin very well anymore---so it's typically a tough sit anyway. In Latin, the consonant v's should sound like our w's, and great attention should be paid to scansion, which must be learned while Latin itself is learned. In my adult life, I haven't heard a priest pronounce Latin the way it was taught to us in high school.
Mass tomorrow for me: American Martyrs, Manhattan Beach. I was christened there. I don't believe I've been to a mass there in my life; certainly not one since.
Picked up today: three rocks between Manhattan Pier and Hermosa Pier. Coloration: one suggests earth, one water, and one sky.
Sharkeez: still out of commission. The fire damage still looks as fresh (and as oddly reassuring) as it did the first week; it almost smoulders, still. It must be, what, a year since this fire? [ed.: longer.] I'm surprised that the demolition hasn't been taken care of yet; but I'm also pleased it hasn't. It's the South Bay's new Dominator.
(That Dominator story: my earliest television memory. We were living here in Hermosa at the time, and it seemed shocking to us that a ship could run aground right around the bend out there).
I saw another early childhood memory today: the white firetrucks of the Hermosa fire station. Acquired in the same year as the Dominator: 1961.
Last add Hermosa: I remember talking to Hermosa's City historian in the eighties. The name: Sandy Day.
But most Latin Masses do not include the prayer for conversion of Jews. Here is the version most pre-Vatican II Catholics remember, and it's free of such snipes.
And here's something you don't see every day: an editorial in Latin. Re supra.
° ° °
After Cathy Seipp's funeral, Luke Ford, who gave me a ride home, asked me if I favored the Latin Mass. I said I like it but it's hard to tell because nobody seems to pronounce Latin very well anymore---so it's typically a tough sit anyway. In Latin, the consonant v's should sound like our w's, and great attention should be paid to scansion, which must be learned while Latin itself is learned. In my adult life, I haven't heard a priest pronounce Latin the way it was taught to us in high school.
° ° °
Mass tomorrow for me: American Martyrs, Manhattan Beach. I was christened there. I don't believe I've been to a mass there in my life; certainly not one since.
° ° °
Picked up today: three rocks between Manhattan Pier and Hermosa Pier. Coloration: one suggests earth, one water, and one sky.
° ° °
Sharkeez: still out of commission. The fire damage still looks as fresh (and as oddly reassuring) as it did the first week; it almost smoulders, still. It must be, what, a year since this fire? [ed.: longer.] I'm surprised that the demolition hasn't been taken care of yet; but I'm also pleased it hasn't. It's the South Bay's new Dominator.
(That Dominator story: my earliest television memory. We were living here in Hermosa at the time, and it seemed shocking to us that a ship could run aground right around the bend out there).
° ° °
I saw another early childhood memory today: the white firetrucks of the Hermosa fire station. Acquired in the same year as the Dominator: 1961.
° ° °
Last add Hermosa: I remember talking to Hermosa's City historian in the eighties. The name: Sandy Day.
Even Closer
DAN: Am I a stranger?screenplay, Closer, Patrick Marber, adapted from his play; 2004
ANNA: No. You're a job, and you're a sloucher. Sit up.
DAN: You didn't find it obscene?
ANNA: What?
DAN: The book.
ANNA: I thought it was... accurate.
DAN: About what?
ANNA: About sex. About love.
DAN: In what way?
ANNA: You wrote it.
DAN: You read it... 'till 4.
ANNA: Don't raise your eyebrows, it makes you look smug.
DAN: But you did like it?
ANNA: Yes, but I could go off it.
ANNA: Stand up.
DAN: Any criticisms?
ANNA: I'm not sure about the title.
~
Friday, July 6, 2007
Mezzotint
In the fishbowl, there is a plastic mermaid, a cocktail amenity. Her fin ordinarily spears olives or fruit wedges, and she hangs onto the rim of a cocktail glass. They use these at The Mermaid, at the Hermosa Pier and the strand. But in the fishbowl here, she hangs onto a vertebrate.
The fish's name is sushi; for some reason, with such a taunting name that suggests such a bad ending, I am unwilling to capitalize it. It does not have much room in the glass vase, and I suspect it is mostly there to taunt Isabella. The vertebrate affords sushi's sole hiding spot should Izzy get ambitious.
As the plastic mermaid, the weedy mezzotint in the bathroom, of a Portuguese park, is now a long-standing personal icon. It takes an hour to find coffee; I still haven't found an iron. I forgot a razor of all things. There is so much breezy, effortless, billowing order here that everything takes time to find. Even the kitchen sponges have an airy bamboo home.
Everything takes time: which I have. I will walk somewhere, anywhere; it will take me forever but I won't care. I will feel good about writing twenty words, about buying forty business size envelopes, about being out. Being away: time is my life; my life is time.
The fish's name is sushi; for some reason, with such a taunting name that suggests such a bad ending, I am unwilling to capitalize it. It does not have much room in the glass vase, and I suspect it is mostly there to taunt Isabella. The vertebrate affords sushi's sole hiding spot should Izzy get ambitious.
As the plastic mermaid, the weedy mezzotint in the bathroom, of a Portuguese park, is now a long-standing personal icon. It takes an hour to find coffee; I still haven't found an iron. I forgot a razor of all things. There is so much breezy, effortless, billowing order here that everything takes time to find. Even the kitchen sponges have an airy bamboo home.
Everything takes time: which I have. I will walk somewhere, anywhere; it will take me forever but I won't care. I will feel good about writing twenty words, about buying forty business size envelopes, about being out. Being away: time is my life; my life is time.
Closer Still
Anna and the Doc are sitting at a table.
LARRY: I hate this place.
ANNA: At least it's central.
LARRY: I hate central. Central London's a theme park. I hate retro. I hate the future. Where does that leave me?
LARRY: Come back.
ANNA: You promised you wouldn't.
LARRY: Come back.
ANNA: How's work?
LARRY: Oh, Jesus. Work's shit, okay?
LARRY: Do they have waiters here?
LARRY: I love you. Please, come back.
ANNA: I'm not coming back.
screenplay, Closer, Patrick Marber, adapted from his play; 2004
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Even Closer
Go ask Alice
LARRY: So Anna tells me your bloke wrote a book. Any good?screenplay, Closer, Patrick Marber, adapted from his play; 2004
ALICE: Of course.
LARRY: It's about you, isn't it?
ALICE: Some of me.
LARRY: Oh? What did he leave out?
ALICE: The truth.
Further reading: Patrick Marber. He has spent much of his career writing texts that interanimate with previous classic texts.
For discussion on interanimation as opposed to interpretation, see George Steiner, After Babel.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
And so it is
Lisbon
From Denmark to Portugal.
° ° °
Memorable words yesterday, spoken from the ravenous seat, a little after noon: "Do you think this summer feels different than last summer?"
° ° °
Auden: poetry is language made memorable.
° ° °
Reminding me: I received a writing entitled "One's own private Overnighter" a few days ago. The job was admirable. And I saw a painting with a red curb today.° ° °
Too memorable: next door, at Cruz's, pop oldies, most of the afternoon. I turned on the air and shut the windows just to drown them out. But she is such a good soul and her dog never barks.
° ° °
You may have watched fireworks; we watched Closer again---two straight hours of awesome pyrotechnics. Even better when you're not numbing yourself. Not to mention The Blower's Daughter, a redeeming pop tune.
° ° °
"Why did you feel vulnerable watching Closer?" Madamina asks.
`
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Two or three things I know about her
Madamina once threw a pair of blue jeans at my dry cleaner of ten years, after he had washed the pair rather than drycleaned them.
° ° °
Denise once went out en masque as Devil in a Blue Dress.
° ° °
Last year, Bev called police on a neighbor whose windchimes she found too loud.
° ° °
Viv keeps a white, flawless '61 Continental with suicide doors in storage.
° ° °
Before Madamina threw the jeans, she beat them over the countertop a few times.
`
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Workpoints
No bets on the course of July. I thought June was insane, unpredictable, and fragile enough. But July is already all that, and memorable on top of it.
Saturday at Bev's: both steak and lamb, very thick and honestly American. Candlelight dinner outdoors, and a superb bottle of wine for the bibbers, all mostly without pain. But sometimes when Brett's away it can seem like about six people are missing.
From out on the Silver Strand, the phrase sails in: "safe as houses." I first read that in Pritchett. But its earliest known appearance is in 1859.
Nobody comes to mind as a current architectural champion of the dispossessed the way Samuel Mockbee was.
`
° ° °
Saturday at Bev's: both steak and lamb, very thick and honestly American. Candlelight dinner outdoors, and a superb bottle of wine for the bibbers, all mostly without pain. But sometimes when Brett's away it can seem like about six people are missing.
° ° °
From out on the Silver Strand, the phrase sails in: "safe as houses." I first read that in Pritchett. But its earliest known appearance is in 1859.
° ° °
Nobody comes to mind as a current architectural champion of the dispossessed the way Samuel Mockbee was.
° ° °
What happened to a future where we were all supposed to work less and be more productive anyway?`
Madamina
Photo: Lynn Astarte, Lisa L., June 2007
click to enlarge
Foreground: Madamina
Background: Lisa L. hanging sculpture
Astarte: a Phoenician goddess
~
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