Friday, May 30, 2008

Analect 2.282x



30 May 2008. Gray to gray. The neighbors' house, empty--dark shrubbery surround, single porchlight announces... absence. Image in dream--a farewell.

Rose Ader in her role as Mimi. Later--in a photograph, sitting somewhere outside--Trieste, Palermo--with Puccini. Dark stockings, worn shoes, undarned. History's fist...

"...we lived in Palermo through the war, until 1948, when I decided to go to Argentina. My mother, being separated from my father, followed me there some months later and concertized and taught until 1955..."

"With a voice of exceptional beauty, one would have hoped for more than two sides to have been released. Those two arias from La Bohème are supplemented with unissued Parlophone titles, test pressings and a few late broadcast recordings..."

The port of Buenos Aires, docks and piers, constructed by the British. River Plate. An alternative to the Spanish Empire in Peru. Mercantilism, how-to, railroads to the south and the west, loads of cattle and grain...

"Si, mi chiamano Mimi..."

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Analect 2.281x



29 May 2008. Hombros de nieve. Pale May sun on quiet street, later morning. Whitish van in glowing light. Woman with straw bag, brown leather over the shoulder of pale green. For an instant only...

Ensayos, contando. Los manos del reloj, hierro negro, lo resto de madera, en la mitad de la noche. Hijos del barrio, juegos, contando, cancha de futbol con tres casas, la viuda, otra familia, y lo de nosotros...

Baile Porteño. Bonaerense, dance. Bandoneon, polished wood, with blunt squarish ends, unlikely. From Alemania, somewhere, um-pa-pa, polka...or even a march. Bending under the southern sun into something less expected--lo impredecible, aun caprichoso--a kind of gliding motion, a setting aside of (what might be seen as) Protestant responsibility... éxstasis, de los católicos (que se yo)...

Krefeld, Duisberg, Dortmund...Bochum und Wuppertal...

El Riachuelo, aguas tibias, lo del corazón...

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Analect 2.280x



28 May 2008. Gray skies over gray streets. The River Plate. Gray stones of an old city wall. Creaky sound of the bandoneon, a single line on a violin. Earl's Court, Sofia, Boul San Mich, Śródmieście. Warszawa. Also shadows, hidden in walls. A niche, with flowers, tiny glass vase, crystal, delicate petals of French ultramarine. Staszek, Marian, Witkatcy...

***

Caminito que el tiempo ha borrado
que juntos un día nos viste pasar
he venido por última vez
he venido a contarte mi mal.

Caminito que entonces estabas
bordeado de trébol y juncos en flor
una sombra ya pronto serás
una sombra lo mismo que yo.

Desde que se fue
triste vivo yo
caminito amigo
yo también me voy.

Desde que se fue
nunca más volvió
seguiré sus pasos
caminito, adiós.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Analect 2.279x



27 May 2008. Tempranito. Sounds of the doves under the eaves. First light in the east, scattered over the hills. Gentle line of eucalyptus, Albany, fur on schist. A lamellar mineral--your micas, chlorites, hornblendes and talcs. Houses, trees, sky--all upwards.

Juan del Gastor, a fiestero. Tradición de Morón. "Se dice que su tío era tocaor 'pa' escuchar'... Y en este se queda la herencia más pura..."

La herencia mas pura...

Wide rivers flowing to the see. Headwaters and sources--a lake somewhere in upper Minnesota. Having no idea just where--a moist spot in the ground, a spring, perhaps, pouring forth. The Missouri and the Mississippi, lights at dusk, along the shore. River towns, like Rosario, like Santa Fé...

No seas triste...

Friday, May 23, 2008

Analect 2.278x



23 May 2008. Pale sun, chill breeze. Narrow cellophane straw wrapper lodged in spout of recycling bin, trembling slightly. Two red Chinese dots--marks unknown.

Two men, then a third. Caballito, Boedo, San Cristóbal. Esquina Bolivar y Alsina, la Capital Federal. "...ambos de adobe y techos de junco, nació bajo la advocación de Nuestra Señora del Loreto, pero en 1610, un año después de la beatificación de San Ignacio, tomó su nombre..." Tomó su nombre, as in "espacio" or "divertido" o "relación." Relaciones internacionales--pathways and connections--sendas, that is--barter and burse, moneda nacional...

Image of the peso--dos, diez, viente, cincuenta...counting...

"Pero, che..."

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Analect 2.277x



21 May 2008. Dark green Tacoma, tight against curb. Morning sun. Blue shadows on an empty street, occasional voices: "Thank you so much." Rustle and rumble of copier, Greg's face, vacant for a moment, staring into the distance...

How it always began. La familia Torricelliano, Buenos Aires, sometime before the First World War. "Esa sencilla historia..." A village in Calabria, olive groves, rooted stone. Vineyard and wine press--torqued metal disk on canted barrel, angled staves, bolts and gears, set against the fine return.

Abandoned. Spume. Atlantic crossing on an English steamer, below decks, bundles of clothes, bedding, shoes, tied in heavy black cloth. Farm implements, seeds--a scattering... La Choza, Lujan, Gral. Rodriguez... Melchor Romero, Alejandro Korn. San Vicento.

Then: Avelleneda, a single room. The Riachuelo.

Gold-green waters, al amanecer...

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Analect 2.276x



21 May 2008. Avenida Corrientes, winter. Light snow--una nieve ligera--loose white patches against gray River Plate sky. El Río de la Plata, evening, silver and bronze, expanse of small waves, invisible into the distance. Uruguay. On the near shore: etched branches of the sauce colorado. Sauzal--willow.

A stand of willows, loving water...

"It was down by the Salley Gardens..."

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Analect 2.275x



20 May 2008. Gray gray gray, endless gray. But not entirely. The deep maroon Zephyr Express, for example, moored just across the way, filled with worn wooden crates of Andalucian wine--unlikely--as the driver ducks into the 7-eleven for a cup of java--or some giant front-end iced wonder on a would-be summer morning.

Last night: Lorca, otra vez. His gacelas--the late poems, on Moorish forms. Two by three by two by three by two. Aljeciras, Lebrija, the gardens of Granada. Albarocas--pools, fountains, from one courtyard to the next... La puerta de la calle...

Yo quiero que el agua se quede sin cauce.
Yo quiero que el viento se quede sin valles.

Quiero que la noche se quede sin ojos
y mi corazón sin la flor de oro...

Monday, May 19, 2008

Analect 2.274x



19 May 2008. Gray morning, even-toned light, one white gull with dihedral wings, illuminated against expanding sky... Claims of patience, claims of experience. Borges fragment: "Y tu, Bruto" becoming "Pero, Che..." History repeating itself as it must needs, in the heart of a seeming wild. En el sur de la provincia de Buenos Aires, un equipo de gauchos...

Lo Argentino. Land of silver--color of the river Plate, "tonos del desierto," a wide expanse of water bordering on nothing...a few miscellaneous grasses, lapping the shore, miles and miles of modest undulation. River boat with captain's chair--a figure, heavily built, in alpargatas and a hat of straw. Eyes on the slow waters, mid-day heat--un horno de humedad. El Tigre--rivulets and riachuelos, moving in and out, amidst the reeds...

What a place for a civilization. Lo Europeo, de alguna manera. Teatro Colón, chorizo y morcilla...

Ateneo, adentro...

Friday, May 16, 2008

Analect 2.273x



16 May 2008. Golden light on gold-green hedge. Topiary tonsure. Lee's face at glass, engaging crooked smile in wide-brimmed straw hat--the morning's gleanings, bottles and bags from neighborly bins--up and down the avenue with her Safeway pushcart, refuse sample...heightened repair. Now in front: a limping trashman with big white truck. Lee's professional double, mauve rag on the scooper lever, exclamation point--danger, clean city program hotline, rolling off into morning light. Quiet returns.

Hum of machine, just behind. Curiously silent Larry. Don't push him.

Original peoples. John Berger's claim: that America lacks a peasant class. French country folk, as in Pig Earth. Lucie Cabrol. Having lived on that land "forever." The slaughter scene--early winter. Meat and fat for a season's wheel. Necessity leads to art. Expression of attachment--love, continuity, tenderness, compassion. All of these...

Leonard Peltier--his prison letters...

Al justo aquel por piadoso y sincero
La humanidad lo clavó de un madero
No quiero ser res para ese matadero
Al justo aquel por piadoso y sincero...

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Analect 2.272x



15 May 2008. Warm already at dawn, puffy bus trundles on down the road. Asian man in pink shirt, with cell phone to ear, strolling under the 7-eleven eves. Door open on dark green Camry--two legs emerge from shaded interior.

Shaded interiors. Of language, of love. An overhang, a lean-to--shingles and thatch--narrow saplings bent just so, gathered together at their tops in a kind of primitive wikiup--Paiutes and Pomos, in what's now called Willets, a fish-fillet of a town, fresh in the skillet of Highway 101, man's ribbon, heading north...

Autumn rains, can they be far behind...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Analect 2.271x



14 May 2008. Pearl sky eucalyptus, yellow mist over morning hills, run of trees along ridgetop. Home. Larry, unfortunately--endless facts and postulations, knowledge of the physical way in which things work. Gears and insertions. Reach for song.

Federico García Lorca--leaps and premonitions. Cante del pueblo. What would he have called them? Orange groves and mint. Albahaca--basil. Alberca--a moorish pool. "It is a song without landscape, withdrawn into itself and terrible in the dark. Deep song (cante jondo) shoots its arrows of gold right into our heart. In the dark it is a terrifying blue archer whose quiver is never empty."

Subí a la muralla.
Me respondió el viento:
¿para qué tantos suspiritos
si ya no hay remedio?

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Analect 2.270x



13 May 2008. Bright sun gleam off tinted window of Ford Windstar, parked on the bias across Solano. Tokens of home. Yesterday: Garcia Lorca at 37,000 feet. En busca del duende. Duende. Afternoons in Oceanside, early 1960s, Ponzi and Yvette. Stories of Barnaby Conrad--the bullring--and the guitars of Eddie Freeman. Lo flamenco. Tuned concert pianos, in Dallas, transcribed jazz off the shortwave during World War II. There wasn't a Spanish dance troupe touring the states that didn't make a pass through his Texas home, long suburban road in late winter, icy wind off the plains, stark branches of the sycamores. A compound--courtyard rooms to the inside, feeling of great warmth. The Oklahoma doctor who drove down every weekend--for the spirit, the comraderie. Crooning masculine voice, the first notes begun with incredible patience--a slowness to life, el descanso. "Relaxed," we might say--but it's not the absence of labour. Rather the way one lifts a glass of wine, holding the liquid steady--igual...

Dicen que por las noches nomas
se le iba en puro llorar...

Friday, May 09, 2008

Analect 2.269x



9 May 2008. Pale sky, pale sun, cold wind off the bay. Javed careening out of 7-eleven lot on handles-up bicycle, oversized earphones in place. Beethoven? The Upanishads? Dr. Israr Ahmed's complete tafseer (in Urdu) of the Holy Qur'an. Possibilities.

Wind in branches of the birch tree, late at night, ends brushing against upstairs glass. Stories, doubts, more stories. Robert, Gabryela, Moshe in Amsterdam. A glass of Jack Daniels. The 'Snoga, Nieuwe Kerkstraat Shul... het Plantage. White birds on placid dark waters. The Nieuwe Prinsengracht, Zwanenburgwal. Meanings of names, their resonance. Amsterdam tower: the Oude Schans. Stonework and brick from the time of Brueghel, smokey shapes disappearing in the mist. Low clouds from the sea, rushing over rooftops, rushing over...

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Analect 2.268x



8 May 2008. Gray May morning, evenly lit, one white gull dipping low over long mansard roof--a bonnet for commerce. Covering of gray-brown shingles, dissipated lines, lot of cars, nose in. Go figure...

Small bird on arked wreath, announcing the dawn. La madrugada. Fields of grasses, Laguna Alegre. Mil raíces--water birds from an entire continent, covering the lagoon. Places visited, forgotten, known again. Loping gait of the horses--una tropilla. Algo de potras, que no se comen... Potra y matungo... Lo matucho... Así dicen...

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Analect 2.267x



6 May 2008. "Me gusta el sol, Alicia, y las palomas..." Fragments of song, milky morning light--Jorge Cafrune, his unexpected accents, unanticipated. Lo Argentino, as if always on horseback--the rhythms following each change in gait... A kind of longing, anticipation, all before the beat--with the urgency of a downstroke countertime-- Tosco, dicen...pero con ternura...

De nuevo estoy de vuelta
después de larga ausencia
Igual a la calandria
Que azota el vendaval

Y tengo mil canciones
Como leñita seca
Recuerdo de fogones
Que invitan a matear...

Y tengo mil canciones
Como leñita seca
Recuerdo de fogones
Que invitan a matear...

Friday, May 02, 2008

Analect 2.266x



2 May 2008. Medium gray sky with hint of sun, light from the east. Two brothers at middle monitor, narrow spreadsheet for one or another business application. Low-pitched rapid-fire Misrachi Hebrew, syllables purring back and forth, intense cologne. Mixture of hesitance and insistance...

Yesterday: Pierwszy Maj--the First of May. International Day of the Worker, Warszawa, 1969. Lenin's effigy writ large, red on white on giant wall, posterized treatment of all shapes--as if this reductive flatness might clarify and convince. Instead: a screen for cynicism, curtain for doubt.

Doubt. What is architecture? Dietrich Neumann: a patient willingness to consider all... In the details, someone or another. And how do we care for a door? For the past? The place of knowledge, slow, hard-won. We move to sit on courtyard stone, to make one circle. Day of the Worker, Moscow, München, Berlin... Alvin Boyarsky, years back: Ask yourself--what are the problems that architectecture cannot solve? Two bricks, placed side by side...

Imagination...ojalá...