Friday, February 27, 2009

Analect 2.446x



27 February 2009. Morning sun, pouring through corner windows...

Bombachas, mate galleta, y un gorro salteño... Parece este tipo de campo--algo del norte, donde los cerros secos contienen toda manera de recuerdo...

A life made almost possible--the slow byways of Tucumán, cane fields and hills--la chacra, cosecha de caña dulce... La familia Fereira, de raices y ramas... The first letter, from Raúl, "It is hard for me to explain about my being dead...", and the image of Nélida--la más bella de la provincia...

Unvisited, still unknown...

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Analect 2.445x


26 February 2009. Rain wet steps, gray clouds. Chill pool air.

Café Strada, the morning crew. Dark haired girl with large eyes, una lenta paciencia, preguntas...

Y los músicos en Corrientes--Puente Pesoa, rasguido doble... Nostalgias de mi litoral... Beginning with the guitar, to set the compás, slow and even, como el río mismo, to be enjoyed. Of three ages, the youngest on bandoneón, sitting quietly, without affect, until the moment of entry.

Muchas veces cantado, sobre los años...

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Analect 2.444x



25 February 2009. Unexpected shower, clearing to blue. Seabirds over inland hills...

Chubasco. Rain storm on the pampas, clouds gather at the horizon, first drops...

Como a pesar de la hora temprana sintiéramos calor, fue más bien un goce aquel tamborineo fresco. Algunos empezaron a acomodar sus ponchos; yo esperé.
Mirando el cielo colegimos que aquelo era preludio de algo más serio.
La tierra se había puesto a despedir perfumes intensamente. El pasto y los cardos esperaban con pasíon segura. El campo entero escuchaba...

(Don Segundo Sombra)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Analect 2.443x



24 February 2009. Wet streets, sun. Smiling faces at bus bench await G ride into town. All-weather vehicles, as with PG&E Terex truck across the way--the folded white ladder. For a moment: Deepak's youngest daughter, with her grandmother in sari, climbing carefully into back seat of the family's small gold-bronze SUV...

River life...

Monday, February 23, 2009

Analect 2.442x



23 February 2009. Warm gray sky, hovering rain. Pooled water on 7-eleven lot, yellow curb stripes prominent in the half-light. Glowing morning neon--same day, open, alterations...

The stuff of trade, as with Walters, years ago. Credit Clothiers, Style Center for Men, where $5 a payday guaranteed layaway rights for emblems, knives, forage caps, dress blues. A Marine Corps town, season by season--the Nehru jacket, the short-sleeve suit. Ned Fink, veteran of them all, working the floor from 10 to 10, taking the young men in arm--under his saleman's wing--fitting them out with purple shirts and greenish pants--all manner of the impossible...

Buzz cuts and basic training, use of the M-1, the bayonet. The G string from the guitar--disappearing too quickly--a garrotte. Wooden rifle shanks, shape of the hand, the tree. Full-grained red walnut, steel bolt, lug.

Military lore, Oceanside...

Friday, February 20, 2009

Analect 2.441x



20 February 2009. Late night, early dawn. Natasha's curled heap in white wicker chair, Nicola the sphinx impassive at end of bed...

Girl's figure in pool, flailing--where grace becomes will...

O al revés--as in Spain, again--Federico García Lorca. Los Cuatro Muleros. Sueños de la guitarra--pathways to a kind of truth...

* * *

De los cuatro muleros
que van al campo,
el de la mula torda,
moreno y alto.

De los cuatro muleros
que van al agua,
el de la mula torda
me roba el alma.

De los cuatro muleros
que van al río,
el de la mula torda
es mi marío.

¿A qué buscas la lumbre
la calle arriba,
si de tu cara sale
la brasa viva?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Analec t 2.440x



19 February 2009. Dark dawn, eighteen crows heading east. Ripply blue-green pool, marble walls, wavery line of black... Guard on lone metal stand, orange cloak, her head dipping down...

The plutocrats will out--we live by their largesse. Or call it gen-e-ros-ity. A neo-classical marvel on lowish slope, with urns and columns, long halls, where more windows to the north, factory style, milky glass in hovering light, one clear pane with view to Sather Tower--the Campanile--a touch of Venice reborn on western hills...

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Analect 2.439x



18 February 2009. Moments of sunshine follow days of rain...

Rumbling approach through layers of cloud, windows sprayed with diagonals of rain, port channel with gantry cranes and gray water, flooded fields...

Pedro Infante in "Los Pobres," standing forthright, with his señorita, on a street in the perennial Mexico pueblo, this time in the clothes of a young workingman, overalls, snug t-shirt featuring his upper arms. The peacefulness of the camera eye--framed just so--as in the YouTube clip in which he sings Cucurrucucu Paloma, battery of tender mariachi lined up like a Greek chorus in romantic overdrive, his momentarily petulant girl in the casa above, stirred from her bed by this public performance--for her alone--in the street just below...

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Analect 2.438x



12 February 2009. Cold, with sun. Damp streets, yellowish cat tucked under nearby car...darting out, runs ahead...

En route from the cancha de fútbol, La Plata, 1961--dusk--a wild parade. Hincha de Boca celebrating victory, rampage through city streets, buses commandeered, figures in sleeveless t-shirts and dungarees, perched on running boards, hanging from open windows, fifty-five gallon drums aflame along the way--all included--something borrowed, misshapen even--from carnaval--a grotesque twist if not the love...

Colectivo...

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Analect 2.437x



11 February 2009. Chill at dawn, blankets in a heap, Natasha's pearly curl in wicker chair...

Artifacts of existence. And their parallels. A sleek cell phone, for instance--something nice, from Finland--or was it Malaysia? The Bristish grip, fanning out from Kuala Lumpur...

A leafy park in the spring, Palermo, perhaps. Constructed on the ruins of a tyrant's retreat--a master of bookkeeping who could handle the gaucho tongue. Modismos--figures of speech, moving slowly into town, where the langorous Paso Doble of the estancia assumed a louche slide, witness the arrabal--lugares sueltos, a media luz, opportunities unknown...

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Analect 2.436x



10 February 2008. Quiet sun, Nicola pausing at back door...

Images of the Riachuelo--looking again at old book from Buenos Aires, from 1962, creamy yellow stock with small inexpert color plates tipped in... Painters of La Boca, Quinquela Martín and all the others. A blocky picturesqueness...the world simplified, made innocent. As if the local dockworkers and fisherman would be forever at their mild toils, seen against green waters and dappled sun. The bridges of the river likewise--their iron hulks becoming pennants of connection...

Mixed in throughout--the mountains of Salta and Mendoza, a balancing "imaginario..."

Monday, February 09, 2009

Analect 2.435x



9 February 2009. A day's progress, milky sun, cloud or two, with bank of gray to the west...

Adrián Gorelik, from Buenos Aires...the Riachuelo revisited, a social document embedded in the landscape of the past... The Genovese, los zeneizes, playing tonight en la Bonbonera...while Adrián's tall form bends forward over sleek screen in a small Berkeley room high on the eighth floor, each click revealing "una atmósfera de fracaso..." The history a failed dream. Smoky waters in a thousand tones of gray, the forged iron bridges, derelict, set against a weighted sky...

Mataderos, Parque Patricios--the dark remnants of la barbarie, balancing Palermo, the legacy of Rosas to the north. City unfolding, as encouraged by Torquato de Alvear, el turismo, viente por ciento, with the canvasses of Cunsolo and Quinquela Martín... "Lo pintoresco y la modernidad..."

He gets up on a trick knee, stumbling slightly en route to the screen, to point out a detail with his hand--his antiochos, that is--a narrow and well-thought-out pair, held precisely in the scholar's hand--sudden golden orb on white expanse of light....

To show the world. "Siempre podía caminar por alla; ahora no..." Caminar. Must needs change...

Friday, February 06, 2009

Analect 2.434x



6 February 2009. Rain, blue-gray skies, green umbrella passing... Two cars, side by side in forlorn lot--a sedan and van, origins unknown. Girl with pale skin and dark dark hair, bending forward with folded laundry held close, reaching with her other hand to unlock door...

As in a dance. The zamba, perhaps. Una vuelta entera, arresto, medio vuelta. El campo de baile--an arena of meanings...

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Analect 2.433x



5 February 2009. Rain in the night--a smattering. Streets damp, whirling gulls. Layers of gray cloud spread wide.

Folclore in the supper club, "Recuredos de Salta," a zamba, filmed in maybe 1962. Louche figures seen at table, from behind, while in the aisle, an impeccably done-up pair of dancers appear, in local dress. Man's hand reaching behind his back to adjust the ceremonial facon--unfelt before, a kind of fumbly prop--while the meal progresses, under ceiling fans. Back of room, leaning against hallway wall, two figures--a man and a woman--kitchen help, pausing to watch...

In some sense real, if only because of time...

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Analect 2.432x



4 February 2009. Milky light, sun. Man with with checked coat and widow's peak, walking a sheepdog on long leather leash, just behind pale blue of PG&E truck. Laundry and crows to the rear.

Abysinnia--the good doctor's farewell as he steps through the portal. German folksongs on occasion--when in the mood, or two-part carols, pulled from a bank of sometimes fading lore. All seems to fade--what we take in, what we forget. A vehicle with goods sliding out the back...

But not Alice--her every jot intact. A telephone number from 1932, for instance--ready at the go--or the recipe for fatiman, folded diamonds with the ends tucked back in, dusted in powdered sugar... at Christmastime...

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Analect 2.431x



3 February 2009. Sun over low roofs, avenue sounds. Doritos van charging up the hill... Three gulls alert on 7-eleven eve... Everywhere...

Re-reading Mansilla, beyond Aillancó-una parada en route to Leubucó, the place where the horses were stolen. Si perdieron unos caballos? Always the same question--befitting these plains, where a horse is a ship, an eagle, a saving grace. Cloud of darkening gray-brown dust on the horizon, whipping this way and that, now larger, now smaller, re-emerging. The scout: Indios, mi colonel...boleando, guanaco...

"Si no ha perdido caballos..."

Monday, February 02, 2009

Analect 2.430x



2 February 2009. Sudden shadow of green bus, now rumbling off down the street. Yellow sun on faded blue sky...

One creature and another. Encounter and detente. "A young bull elephant," although no elephants are truly young. You can look this up anywhere--absolute age: Pleistocene, as shown in Smithsonian-style gouache, trunk raised in defiance (even then), while a Bert Lahr lion paces angrily just in front. Concocted, of course, the scene--our presence more in the form of a late-model tondeau pickup, or the small copper-brown SUV, oversized off-road tires, in which Lina and her daughter arrive, smiling, smiling, in delicate sari, almost from Nepal...