Analect 2.336x

29 August 2008. Same van, same place, same sun. Woman on bicycle with covered baby trailer, yellow pennant flying high, streaming into view... Complexion of the day...

The Governor of Alaska who shot a moose--a badge of distinction. Not by the moose, however. But suffrage in our realm remains incomplete. So let's get on with it--give the vote to insects--the katydid and the firefly. Things will be decided in no time: mind the bushes, furnish the fields. Food for all, leaf by leaf...from each according to his ability, to each according to his need...

Oh yes, and keep the darkness dark as well...

Analect 2.335x

28 August 2008. Glare of sun on Plymouth hood. Lee's hat appears--straw with tiny knockouts, as she bends over green recycling bin to rescue this or that. Over-sized dark glasses to shield the gleaner...

Gleaning--to gather remnants, the stubble after the harvest. Poignant because...

Story of Ruth, in the fields of Boaz. The harvesters’ disdain, unconscionable to us, who read in reverse. A social order, in recapitulation--top down. But still the bending--as if over a game of cards. Fast-forward to Le Nain, 1612 or so, with his solemn gathering of boys. A barrel table, rough hands. Truco, mahjong--slights-of hand...

"Un patio ancho como una luna llena..."

Analect 2.334x

26 August 2008. Late summer sun, glowing red on long side of Cola truck. Flash of chartreuse, cyclist en route downhill, tiny rear-view mirror at her temple.

Temple--sien in Castellano, perhaps from the German, influenced by sentir--to feel.

Story from Atahualpa Yupanqui. In the quebradas of Salta--the arid backcountry slopes of the Andes Cordillera . A German mining engineer, rough sort, living out of a tent--in which he has installed an old upright piano. Enjoys inviting up the locals for an evening of food, comraderie--in which he launches into vintage renditions of Wagner. Then Don Atahualpa, with his zambas and vidalitas--todo lo criollo. A Salteño, worked up by spirit of the latter, and having downed a fair amount of Argentine wine, appears suddenly with a large revolver, pointing the barrel directly at the German's head--at his temple... No one moves. But slowly an older criollo appoaches, "Pelao, toda musica tiene su valor..."

Analect 2.333x

25 August 2008. Light just at dawn, treeline of hills, tiny filigree sentinels etched against sky. Quattrocento.

But guarding what? The new day will mind itself. Voices from pool steps--the early crew, locked out--no one's showed to open up. Gear bags over shoulders, towels, hunched and leaning--bluster and indifference, on and on, leaving finally one by one...

Seabirds over the North Pacific Gyre, a giant green swirl, twice the size of Texas (whatever can this mean?) Where polycarbonates find their home. Dunkin' Donuts, Matel, Park and Shop--our favored conveniences brought to rest, tidy and half-dissolved on miles and miles and miles of sea...

Better sing...

Analect 2.332x

22 August 2008. Sparkling sun. Islander mom with two daughters in hair salon, their dark locks courtesy of Roratanga, Makatea, Gauguin. The Society Islands--as they should be, in something approaching a mumu, here on Solano, her heavy contraposto frame, bare arms, holding up a catalogue or magazine with brightly-colored haircut samples... "Like this..."

Middle of the night: red tail light gliding slowly down the street, great ship in search of a mooring. The guests from afar--Brooklyn, Las Vegas, LA--tired but radiant after long meander up the coast. Stopping somewhere for a picnic--tables outside, in Santa Barbara, by the sea...

Whirl of time, older and newer...and older again. Shegiyot mi yavin...

Love of the world...

Analect 2.331x

21 August 2008. Milky gray, skirting the hills, revelling in blue. Thinking of Stillwater, where mists give way to cliff and sky... Forms of clarity, almost harsh were they not so grand...

Balzac, too, with the strength of his neck embedded in a fine linen blouse--white on white, small moustache, precisely placed, in the manner of the French, and the wild, precise pompadour...

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny--is that not the phrase--where the eye of the lizard, or the mouse, reaffirms itself 'neath our own. What chance then, when Nicola, her morning meows outside the door, would in...? Open wide, scamper and rush...salvation...

Analect 2.330x

20 August 2009. Gray doves at dawn, and before, first instance of light. Flickering speckles on windshield. Jin: "Is it raining?"

Questions and ponderings--middle-of-the-night kinds of questions--spaces and times--unanswerable there in the dark...

The family in Tucumán, Chugo's daughters, and Deborah, their mother. The d'Onofrio girls, waiting with patient anticipation in a plain but gemütlich pizza joint, each a little tired from their long hours in the small white car. Vagabonds--no, explorers rather--with dad in the lead, standing now, smiling, his arms spread wide, before yet another vast and arid landscape of the quebrada...

Here, in the foreground--the matted lambswool collar of Chugo's coat, draped carefully over the back of a chair...

Analect2.329x

19 August 2008. Gray light before dawn. Muffled sounds of on the roof--not the scamper of a squirrel, but something more substantial--raccoon steps, maybe, swinging over from birch tree limb.

Five seagulls aligned on mansard edge, faces to the east. Chilly wind, signs of fall.

Here, a drawing of Ayelen, Chugo's daughter, sitting at a table, breakfastime, somewhere in San Miguel de Tucumán. Glass of white milk against her dark hair, dark blouse, run of weathered cornice just outside--gray--techos de la ciudad colonial, siempre mirando al norte--the old views--Humahuaca, Cuzco, Potosí...

Each morning a beginning...

Analect 2.328x

18 August 2008. Gray mist over gray hills, lapping at the edges. White cotton shift, tossed and rumpled, sleepworn...

A group of boys, gathered together in a field, el Campo Don Oreste, somewhere beyond Santa Rosa, Provincia de la Pampa. Life of the campesino--each intent on manhood--scrub trees and dust, wide wide blue skies over baked earth. Argentina, meaning silver--from the intricate metalwork of the Guaraní. But that was in the north, where fragile Spanish ships on an immense brown stream...

Un mundo entero...

Analect 2.327x

15 August 2008. Gray hills at dawn, misty beard. Single black crow, wings wide, dipping. Ying at pool, wide smile, "It's Friday..."

But Friday? Sounds of bus and truck continuity, up and down the hill. Lee in straw hat, sprightly, pushing her remnants cart, bumpy roll. Resolute figure on old bike, lower lip pushed forward, curly hair with gray... An urban algebra...

Opening to the sea...

Analect 2.326x

14 August 2008. Morning sun. Shiny Dodge pickup lurching slowly into 7-eleven lot, cab rocking side to side as small dark-haired driver negotiates white asphalt speed bump.

Long lines of off-shore break. Glassy waves, darkening towards the center, curling outwards, cutting on the diagonal. Low-flying ocean birds, clusters of five or six or seven, their smooth meandering lineup just along the crest. The gray pelican.

Return.

Analect 2.325x

7 August 2008. Gray morning light, four crows, the nearest with ragged wings, but dipping fiercely nonetheless. Woman alongside in the blue-green pool, small reddish fins, churning. Color and light.

And song. As in a screen-flash message from the middle of a continent: "Greetings from Olavarria, Buenos Aires, Argentina!" That would be Chugo, his Ibanez (or was it a Stratocaster?) leaning against the edge of the varnished plywood worktable, worn bass right alongside--the nicks and dings from half a lifetime of playing, somewhere out there on the pampas, city of concrete, beaming in the licks of a grungy bare-topped Eddie Van Halen... A generation of students as well--their letters of hommage on a black-ground blog, penned in hope...

Thanks and aspiration. To what more can we aspire? Maybe a few good waves...

Analect 2.324x

6 August 2008. Calm gray morning sky, woman on wide green field bending over bouncy black dog. All else still.

Note from Andrea. Sameer Makarius--his book of photographs--Buenos Aires y Su Gente--all from the 1950s. A recent immigrant from Cairo, Laica in hand, the city revealing itself to him in all ways--de nuevo--grainy black and white rotogravure street vendors, an awkward billboard, truco by the docks. Smell of an impromptu parilla--chorizo, morsilla--on stone-curbed side street. Figure in slouch hat, wide belt--los tipos viejos--del pasado...

Medio-porteño, dices. Posible, boludo. Pero medio-criollo también...

Analect 2.323x

5 August 2008. Gray morning, white truck. Girl just alongside, subtly arched nose, dark hair. She leans into monitor, fluttery yellow note pad akimbo, checking one or another piece of information: times for morning meditation, Craig's List cars (?)... Movement of her hand on mouse, then pen, then mouse again. Touches side of her face. Quiet. Bath soap, too...soft, of some kind...

A field in the north, near Tucumán... Alazán, a sorrel. Reddish coat, high withers, narrow legs. The lure of horses. White patch on forehead, a smallish triangle, flat side at the top...

Many years back: Language, truth, and logic.

Beauty, too...

Analect 2.322x

4 August 2008. Cool gray sky, woman in beige pants suit, adroit, reaching for door of Navigator Escrow. Distant trees--a poplar and a birch. Ocean waves on broken coast.

La Quebrada. In the far northwest--almost Bolivia. The Altiplano. Two Indian boys in dark capes, woolen hats, walking to the mines. Spirit of the mountain--nor to be feared, but instead respected.

My friend Chugo, family in tow--his wife, his three daughters, posing here in the town square of Humahuaca, to the north of Tilcara and Tumbaya. Indian names, embedded--as if the hills themselves were a form of speech, un idioma de piedra...

"Y en el misterio de las quebradas, vaga la sombra de mis abuelos..."




(And in the mystery of the highlands wanders the shadow of my ancestors... Atahualpa Yupanqui)

Analect 2.321x

1 August 2008. Sun behind hills. Rafts of mist--gold and rose--just over the ridge. Two crows, one swooping down like a stone, wings spread in the last instant.

Pierwszy Sierpnia, Warszawa. The first of August, Gabryela's birthday. Fine birch trees in a grove, garden with patio stones, this way and that. We sit outside the old sloping country house, its high windows, white curtains billowing in the breeze. Just inside, someone at a piano, hidden--a Mazurka, or a Polonaise. Country dances from long ago...time of sadness, time of joy...

"If the bird above is flying towards you..."