Analect 2.811x

30 November 2010. Winter branch and bird...

Willow trees by the water's edge. Kokoshnik and sarafan...

* * *

Anna Pavlova, at the very end of life, holding her costume for The Dying Swan. "Play the last measure very softly..."--her last words. The performance was held as scheduled--but following an old ballet tradition, a single spotlight circled an empty stage where she would have danced...

Analect 2.810x

29 November 2010. Pouring sunshine, morning chill.

Expanse of water and reeds...tidal marsh on the upland shores of Tomales Bay. Dawn light--breaking over Marin hills. Lift of fog in some more distant valley, for the rest, clear and cold. Layer of frost on boards and rails of long, narrow walkway out to birder's shack at far end--a simple affair, open to the east, board bench likewise dulled with cold. White egret in nearby shallows--the property manager, it seems. Grebes and plover beyond, taking off now in one flock.

Memories of friends here...time untouched, some now gone...

Analect 2.809x

22 November 2010. Sun and clouds, intermittent. Rain in the night..

Natasha at top of kitchen stairs--a tortoise shell fur ball--hoping for a clear shot to the back yard...

The other Natasha, by the bedside of Prince Andrei, who "...had once said to her that no one made such a good sick-nurse as an old nurse who knitted stockings..." The ball of yarn slips from her knees, she bends quickly to pick it up...

"He gazed at her without stirring, and saw that after her quick movements she wanted to draw a deep breath, but did not dare to, and breathed with careful restraint..."

* * *

(Constance Garnett translation. The Russian for nurse is nyanya.)

Analect 2.808x

19 November 2010. Gray skies, impending rain. Dark-browed workman with strong features, earphone arc...soiled hands and three brown-orange cups lined up in a row on steel counter of 7-eleven. Knee-pads over worn trousers.

"I'm lookin' for a job at honest pay..." Woody Guthrie, for Moe Asch, New York, in March of 1940. Lonesome Road Blues...

Last night: Image of a whale--the arching shape, on brown-tinted paper--delicate scrim of masts and sails.

Immigrants all...

Analect 2.807x

18 November 2010. Weather--sunny but colder. A weatherman's cap--does a weatherman wear a cap?

In the drawing--botas de potro. A kind of rustic footwear from the interior of Argentina. Formed directly from the skin of the foreleg a colt. Terrible image--but at the same time true... A distant truth--historical...

Is it wrong to draw? The line will follow anywhere...

And the heart...?

* * *

("The silhouette of a man who, his arms half raised at different levels, confronts the thick mist in order to enter it..." Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1913)

Analect 2.806x

17 November 2010. Sun, workmen across the street, covering 7-eleven lot with layer of black asphalt oil. Long-handled spreaders, push-brooms, graceful movements... Working in unison. Some sound of machinery as well...

Last night-- Amber, for just a few minutes, at my office door. Many paths. Christine, her bright smile. And Sara Rose, drawing of a man from the country...

Later--Michelle, listening to Jorge Cafrune... "No quiero ver el sol..."

* * *

(Bobby, George, Yu Chung, and Mike... Andrew. Kristy and Anna. Molly. Eric missing. Jack, now at home... Jaimie...)

Analect 2.805x

16 November 2010. Warm November sun. Slightest breeze over the bay--dark green waters with touch of gold, smooth, with parallel ripples...

A local bird. Depending on one's locale. The house finch, propped brightly on feeder top. A greeting--his own particular call...

Analect 2.804x

11 November 2010. Misty sun. Pool with regulars in autumn light, warm and dappled, chill breeze...

Contradictions. Return of the hoopoe, for one. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, so the story goes. An emmissary, on wing. And Leonard as well--a bird shared in an equal run of crazy views--his El Monte cartoon blurbs--ca. 1940--whereas my own asides have more to do with Tremont Street and the Santa Fe. Oceanside, to be precise--those oddly high curbs, houses close to the ground, always a certain blankness. Edges worn, but no sense of the past...

So, you invent your own. Pierre, wandering the streets of Moscow, the city in flames. (Pozhar--it even sounds that way.) Dashes into the burning house--in search of a child...

Jack...

Analect2.803x.jpg

10 November 2010. Autumn sun. Man on street in dungarees, early hour, strumming small guitar, calling out lines of song. "It's been a hard time..." Old hat with stained brim, workshirt jacket, heavy black shoes. Guitar case open on the sidewalk, worn American flag on small stick, vinyl-bound book of scripture (?), copy of drawing on plain white paper--the singer's face--plus two or three unidentified cds. My dollar added, his thank you...

But there's no need, the word is built in, "I need you, Mama," and all the rest. Verses from a lifetime, acquired and borrowed, nabbed, stolen, purloined... An insistent amalgam, set to the up-and-down rhythm of a worn pick...

Blues...

Analect2.802x

9 November 2010. Again, beautiful sunny morning...

Natasha and Prince Andrei, tallow candle (sal'naya svechka), middle of the night. Aftermath of Borodino--wounded, seven days, between sleep and delerium--and yet his thoughts, when he does awaken--extremely clear. Love, for one, over all. And forgiveness...

Moscow in flames...

Analect 2.801x

8 November 2010. Brilliant sun after day of rain.

7-eleven. Young man on aluminum crutches, reaching awkardly into pocket for coffee change. Tan face, gray sweats. Somewhere over the counter--men's voices, understated, en español...

Dark studio in the evening. Light falling fast outside. Brown leaves on wet gray ground...

Apple tree and sycamore...

Analect 2.800x

5 November 2010. Somber sky, high layer of gray. Middle fall...

Music last night--Catherine Rose and Colm and Sara G. Colm's stories of Ireland, and of the Irish pubs in London--where he would go when he was living there as an architecture student, and feeling all alone--to hear the sound of Irish...

His beautiful and serious face, sitting in a room at Berkeley, again filled with architecture students--now separated by more than a generation. The Irish aires--"songs always with a certain slowness--from living with the sounds of the wind, the sea..."