Analect 2.429x

30 January 30. Beauty day, sun...

And this morning--accident, inadvertancy, mistake. That old conundrum--redressed here in white-on-white--the paper's edge another world, following Bill Midgette-- "a whole other kind of space," where the realm of imagination runs chock-a-block into the contingencies of the ding-an-zich...

Or do I overstate the case? A poorly drawn horse, rather--and a misplaced bird... But can a bird ever find itself misplaced? More perhaps a sense of doubt--the alignment of the host, paralax and lines of sight--getting a bead, the perfect view...

For we don't shoot here, no, long live Ni Tzan...

Analect 2.428x

30 January 2009. Warm wind at night, dry, blue skies, sun...

Choroshie otnosheniya...good relations, entre Indios, digamos--or simpy between each other. And how to begin? An open boat on a narrow sea, the worn wood, each strake bent just so around the forms of ribs, also formed, according to their pattern--the breathing, as it were, where chest and lungs expand to fill with air, holding, releasing, then holding again. Curves will follow, a matter of delight, each one tender, necessary...

As with a hand or an arm--caress...

Analect 2.427x

28 January 2009. White smoke, vapor trail, blue sky. A trifecta of sorts--choosing the first three finishers in just that order. So often in threes--the possibility of choice, a fork in the road, paths not taken...

Late afternoon in the fall, smallish room, high windows. Song from somewhere on the plains, Texarcana to Wyoming, cattle on the trail, and a request...

I ride an old paint...
I lead an old dam
I'm goin' to Montana
Just to throw the houlihan...

Analect 2.426x

27 January 2009. Heliotrope, blue sky, and flash of cyclist's cobalt sleeve, his polycarbonate helmet wedge, streamlined white...

Just before: Beeping bleat of golden bus, empty now, parked askance in 7-eleven lot. Children all in or all out, somewhere along the run, a curving lane in Kensington, uphill slope, redwoods and firs, mockingbird in a crooked branch--or hint of the phainopepla, Leonard's bird, "silky robe", hidden in marsh mist, and diving now for something small and on the wing...

Analect 2.425x

26 January 2009. Sun this morning, bright like spring. Quiet air in the palm branches...

A teacher in Buenos Aires, seen for an instant, Spanish girl within the matronly form. Maybe the shoulders, or the boyish hair, pulled in close to the sides of her head, flowing below...

"El pelo, sí. Cada vez distinto..." Ringlets maintained like an exotic crop--an orchid in the arctic...

Olavarría, otra vez...

Analect 2.424x

23 January 2009. Rain on street. Older woman in dark shoes, dark coat, looks up slightly as she walks by. Tim in hair salon--pointing emphatically through window--then once again, followed by gesture of lifting a cup to drink. Coffee jar balanced on gray Honda roof...

Re-animation, all the rivulets and streams. Mississippi John Hurt, his beautiful knobby hands, left thumb loose as he slides the chords up and down the neck. Story of how he learned--his mother's beau--the fellow with the guitar. Approached in the middle of the night, trying the notes--almost in silence...

Resistance and deluge, a conversation re-begun. Somewhere in between... Maybe more a song...

Analect 2.423x

22 January 2009. Gray rain. Wet pools on dark street. Black car nosing along. Cloud shapes of Huang Zhou...

Words of Po Chü-i, a thousand years: Midnight lamp I sit by the south window...

And this one, our own...

Analect 2.422x

21 January 2009. Gray layers of cloud, warm air. Late in the evening: golden interior of sardine tin, three small fish, crosswise. A caper and an artichoke heart. Something right...

The Hypnerotomachia Polyphili--rediscovering Antiquity through dream, Poliphilus, his narrow column of type ending in the characteristic wedge--meaning and it's disappearance--or, at the least, it's dissolution into form. The word divagate--something of the same--to wander or digress--from the river's truth. But does not the stream itself wander?

Steps for a dance--something definite. "Cada figura se iniciará con pie derecho."

And then...?

Analect 2.421x

20 January 2009. Ooooooooooooooooh....

Red truck in morning light, white swirl of American ingenuity...hope, opportunity...

Maybe even grace...

Analect 2.420x

19 January 2008. Seemingly unending sunshine. Natasha on threshhold this morning, her pearly dark face, questioning eyes, looking back for a few moments before she scampers across the yard...

Tiny creature moving in the evening. Plump field mouse, but indoors. Studio surprise--the miniature roundness, also poised for a moment, then darting back to safety under the shelves...

Movements towards feedom. La Pasto Verde. A song named for a woman named for a field of green grass...

Brava gaucha en los fortines, sureños
bella flor del jarillal,
mil soldados te quisieron
pero la tierra te quiso más...

Analect 2.419x

15 January 2009. Sun, no question about it. And peek of distant hills, seen against the sky, wedged between blank beige bank wall and empty escrow concern. Shadow shape of the Navigator escutcheon still present on slumpstone facade, its curved top, four bolt points, unmanned...

El zorro gris--that was the phrase, learned in large gray car of the Kraiselburd clan, en route from Ezeiza to La Plata, maybe 1961. YPF--yacimientos petrolíferos, how the words attach themselves to consciousness--with constant pale flame pale against even more pale sky. The clouds, too, smallish and ruminant--sweeping in from off the Argentine planes...

Carlos Romaní, singing with Juan Carlos Barragan--the Jockey Club, porteños all...

Today--Alicia as well...

Analect 2.418x

14 January 2008. Clear sky, bay to hills. Lee in woolen huntman's hat, at dawn, pushing her cart of salvaged odds and ends...

Or Beatriz Ponce, here in the wee hours of the Argentine--Arrebalera--another song...

Analect 2.417x

13 January 2009. Warm wind in the night, branches flying, with gusts from the northeast... Safron light at dawn, pouring through curtain into downstairs room...

The Jockey Club, Buenos Aires once more, with Tinita, una anciana...more so than I'd remembered. Her fragile outward form--long dress, pale blue scarf (la Argentinita), rings on several of her fingers. Eyebrows arched over veiled gaze...

Then: standing, seen from farther back. Long dress all the way to floor, just her face and forearms and hands...

Was she famous once? Only the sparrow knows...

Analect 2.416x

12 January 2008. Gusting winds from the east, sun, cirrus clouds and blue sky.

The Jockey Club, Bs. As., where on Friday nights, late, the microphone is open--Tango...y algo más--and the porteños sing out their hearts--for each other, and for themselves alone. The songs are old--and deeply known. Francisco Rizzi, a distinguished man in a gray suit, No veremos más (the words still true). Or Titina, Nada más, her flowered blouse and fine pearl-gray hair. Carlos Romaní as well--the master of ceremonies--who joins in with his own modestly insistent bit of mitteleuropean theatre--Agitando pañuelos...

Amar y callar, El amor desolado, Yo no sé que han hecho tus ojos, Ventanita de arrabal...

O Marité, cantando, Nostalgias...

Analect 2.415x

9 January 2009. Cold winter sun, frosty wet on garden window, Nicola curled at end of bed.

Cuchi Leguizamon, su música-- folklore del norte--hasta Erik Satie ("este viejo hermoso a quien tanto queremos un grupo de salteños.") Trained as a lawer, but the practice didn't suit him. As his son Juan Martín explains, "terminaba defendiendo gente que nunca pudo pagar nada, como algún indio del Chaco salteño, algún cuatrero del Pilcomayo."

Instead, they became a part of his songs...

Almost no recordings--he had no use for the industry. "Y él tenía una idea de la musica como un producto artístico que provocara la sensibilidad del oyente, estaba por fuera de cualquier relación mercantíl."

Very late: a tour of Europe in 1991, "el clima casi hipnótico que iba construyendo solo con su voz y su piano, entretejiando relatos y canciones y capturando la atención casi religiosa de una audiencia que--al menos en parte--seguramente no entenddía sus palabras."

Juan del Monte...una chacarera...

Analect 2.414x

8 January 2009. Pale yellow morning sun, pushing through the gray...

Mapa de las cumbres de Aconquija. Los Varela, Huaycama, Andagalá, El Manchao, Rosario de Colona, Cumbicha...

Unos viejos on a quiet bench, Casa de Abuela Celia, Colpes, emblems of eternity, or our nearest route thereto. Kelly and Pablo, running everywhere, his tiny rambunctious smile. Thank you for apple slice. Un mundo entero...

Analect 2.413x

7 January 2009. Gray winter's air, white smoke puffs against pewter sky...

Un zorzal--su gran habilidad para el canto. Lo argentino--the pampas thrush. And a figure seated at a table, hands raised slightly, in thought, or in a moment of conversation. Jaime Dávalos. As in the café in Córdoba, decades ago, with Atahualpa Yupanqui and the others. Las canciones, winding their way through the hills...

Ahora que estás ausente
mi canto en la noche te lleva.
Tu pelo tiene el aroma
de la lluvia sobre la tierra...

Analect 2.411x

5 January 2009. Gray skies--furrowed clouds. Surcado, as in fields--the dark plow lines on loam.

Figure on horseback, Cafrune perhaps. A man of the people--del campo--chambergo folded back, his long reins. A vial of earth from Boulogne-sur-Mer, he was carrying to Yapeyú...

Zamba, de mi esperanza
amanecida como un querer
Sueño, sueño del alma
que a veces muere sin florecer...

Analect 2.410x

2 January 2009. Sad gray rain. Muted reds across the way--open, same-day service, Marlboro sign... And a man in green slicker walking small fine-boned dog. West Coast sounds...

Natasha at top of steps to back-door--her puffy pearl-gray luxury--looking back over shoulder--the door, the door...

Brooke, somewhere in the East, winter's cold...