Analect 2.495x

13 May 2009. Early crows, sometime around dawn...

First memories, always in question. A glass partition facing the bay, California Street, overlooking Convair plant, or the red-brick kelp works--was it that? Cervezería...

Addictions to the present as well. Carlos Santana in the Argentine grade schooler's essay on Don Atahaulpa Yupanqui, where knowledge is power. The Coyas--or Kollas--or Qolla... "Desde la Puna Qolla de Abra Pampa..." A territory called Argentina...

Names and picturings. Florencio Molina Campos, his goofy gauchos--by me that is. But hidden within, something true, perhaps? A resonance...

Analect2.494x

13 May 2009. Mild, some sun, somewhat warm...

The challenges of indecision. Especially when guided by the need for conclusiveness. As opposed to simply indecision.

A small round wooden platform, worn red pillow on top. For sitting, next to wide table, also worn--marked and gouged from years of use. Formica, an old acquanitance, worn down in pillows of brown cloud. Rewarding to the touch...

Youree's yes's and no's, slight movement of her head, either up an down, or subtly downward and to the right. Economies of feeling, expressed with gentle concision.

Marks on stone...

Analect 2.493x

12 May 2009. Like yesterday, like tomorrow. Sun, very light breeze.

Three cement contractors at work across the way. Their over-size white truck pulled up close, air-compressor, jack-hammer. Intermittent racket. Hand tools--a pick, a worn shovel and a wide broom (stiff orange polyester fiber). One of them standing now at side of pit, hands shoved in pockets, testing edge of hole with his boot. Dusty faces, white Portland lime.

Wheel barrow with long sloping red handle...

Analect 2.492x

11 May 2009. Mild sun, milky light.

Reading El Canto del Viento, late.

"Un criollo santiagueño, en Salavina, canta con áspera voz su copla. Pero tiene en su auxilio, para lujo de su decir, su paisaje, su jumial, su arena, el aire de su pago, las candelas que los abuelos encendieron en su sangre..." (Atahualpa Yupanqui)

* * *

("A criollo from Santiago del Estero, in Salavina, sings his copla with a rough voice. But he has in his assistance, bringing a kind of luxury to his speech, his landscape, his Jumial, his sandy earth, the air of his home place, and the candles that his grandparents set burning in his blood...")

Analect 2.491x

8 May 2009. Sun, quiet filtered May light...

Late into the evening…or was it night…or was it? Raucous double song—both ends of the table—merging at times into one emphatic wave. “…from redwood forests…" Greg’s clarinet obligatos, musical observations, as of a landscape. Anthony and Steph, side by side, Nicole, smiling. Glimpses of faces, engaged, from so many beginnings. Origins, as in the touch of a pencil on soft paper...

A piece-work quilt, admitting all impossibility. Affections, too, also impossible... Or perhaps not. Gerrel and Mildred, almost dancing. Aimee's shoulders, moving like the hills...

Songs, and Places...

Analect 2.490x

7 May 2009. Sun all of a sudden. Blue sky, one puffy pink-white cloud, tucked in behind new 7-eleven roof.

The claims of the ancient accordeoniste. Or not so ancient, perhaps. Fields of Salta, Jujuy, or somewhere in the litoral. A man in a chair in an open field. Button box with single strap, pushed into closed position. The second figure, Carlos Vega, doyen of Argentine musical folklore, who leans over the chair. Trim and precisely dressed--the starched shirt, flaired bow tie. Shape of his head like that of some particularly curious little boy--now grown, wandering the countryside, the mountains, the fields, in search of song.

Zorzal...

Analect 2.489x

6 May 2009. From salamanca to concert stage, decked out in gaucho gear, inevitably. The music, however, holds... In the tradition of the blind harp player (as with the Ukrainian bandura--from the Greek pandora--the instrument used by ancient Zaparozhian Cossack bards to accompany the dumy, their national epic poems).

"Nostalgia Indígena," one of Chazarreta's pieces--but what precisely is the meaning here?

Atahualpa Yupanqui: La Corpachada--mountain ceremony among the Cuyos, coca, horse mane, bull's hide, threads from a poncho--offerings, early evening, deposited in a pit dug in center of a corral high in the Andean foothills...

Que la Pachamama los reciba,
regalitos de la tierra...
Que la Pacha nos ampare,
que multiplique la hacienda...
Aunque se agrande el corral,
que se güelva cielo y tierra...

* * *

(May the Pachamama receive them,
these little gifts of the earth...
May the Pacha protect us
and multiply the flock...
Even as the corral is made large,
may heaven and earth be returned...)

Analect 2.488x

5 May 2009. Gray dawn, rain in the night. Sound of gulls up on the avenue--Javed's aviary breakfast program.

Or Domingo Aguirre, whose mysterious and beautiful harp illuminates "La Atamisqueña" on an early folkloric recording. A santiagueño, like Andrés Chazarreta-- but received with great enthusiasm in Buenos Aires, where in 1925 a distinguished visitor had occasion to hear Chazarreta's musicians in the Teatro 25 de Mayo:

"Entre los espectadores se destacaba el profesor Albert Einstein, quien se encontraba dictando conferencias en la capital. Este declaró «que la música le produjo una honda impresión por su misticismo, su originalidad y la intensidad de su expresión ... ». Einstein se acercó a saludar al grupo y éste le retribuyó realizando una función en su honor. El cronista de un diario de Buenos Aires reconoció en su columna que ni él ni muchos autorizados en temas artísticos podían explicar a Einstein «el significado mítico» de las obras sin el programa donde daban a conocer lo que se representaba como por ejemplo «Nostalgia indígena», «La Telesita», y la «Cacharpaya»." (fundacióncultural.org, Santiago del Estero)

("Among the spectators there stood out Professor Albert Einstein, who happened to be giving conferences in the capital. According to Einstein, 'the music produced in him a deep impression, because of its mysticism, its originality and the intensity of its expression...' Einstein came up to greet the group (of Chazarreta's musicians), who responded by presenting an event in his honor. A journalist in one of the Buenos Aires newspapers noted in his column that neither he himself nor those authorized on artistic themes were able to explain to Einstein 'the mythic significance' of the musical works without a program that made clear what was being represented, as for example, "Nostalgia indigena," "La Telesita," and "La Carchapaya.")

Analect 2.487x

4 May 2009. Late spring rain, gray skies. Lila in red woolen coat, standing in shadow doorway. Nepal...

Reading late: El Canto del Viento. "Por más que la dicha busco..."

Andrés Chazarreta... Santiagueño...

Analect 2.486x

1 May 2009. Light gray sky, wet streets, rain.

Miss Argentina from 1967. A magazine cover, interior with pale green. Bit of desk or side table to the left, stoneware bowl, small furled glass plate, set against pale green wall--a color more insitutional than domestic, but recall, we are in someone else's world. Striped top, gray-gray-bluish-pink, and a robin's egg skirt verging on the mauve. Modest, in some knowing way, the red field above and to the left, announcing...

Gente y la Actualidad...

Analect 2.485x

30 April 2009. Small clouds floating high above, packed close, off the River Plate... El pato anteojillo--speculana specularis--the spectacled duck to us. Pathetic fallacy at work, even here, in Bariloche, the remote foothills of the Andes. Whose range includes southern Chile and west-central Argentina, nesting "by fast flowing rivers...and nearby standing waters..."

Juncos, juncales...

Analect 2.484x

29 April 2009. Sunny pale sky, coldish breeze.

Late at night, Jeszcze Polska nie Zginela... Faces of Polish soccer players in a Berlin sports ring. They stand side by side, with a row of children just in front. Individual movements of their faces, each one's voice...

YouTube screen grab of Oceanside wave. Gray water, gray sky...as always...

This morning, by the big window on Solano, pc earphones tucked under hat, cords twisting to harddrive tower. Voice of Atilio Reynoso... Domingo Pampeano, also a song...

Analect2.483x

28 April 2009. Blue times blue...

Estilo Viejo, as played by Atilio Reynoso. La música de la pampa...

Si usted no conoce el sur
y piensa que es el desierto
no sabe lo que es La Pampa
porque ignora su secreto
La Pampa es un viejo mar
donde navega el silencio...

(La Pampa es un Viejo Mar, Juan Ricardo Nervi)


* * *


(If you are not familiar with the south
and believe it to be a desert
then you don't understand what is Pampa
because you ignore its secret
La Pampa is an ancient sea
and what plies there is silence...

La Pampa Is an Ancient Sea, Juan Ricardo Nervi)

Analect 2.482x

27 April 2009. Gray skies.

La Huella: Santiago del Estero. "Aprendí, como en una universidad salvaje y abierta, silente y misteriosa como una salamanca, las músicas más hermosas y representativas de la región. Muchas las reuerdo aún. Otras han quedado en una zona oscura de mi espíritu, como un secreto que jamás se podrá develar, pero que alienta el pulso de la sangre."

(La Huella: Santiago del Estero: "I learned there, as if in a wild and open university, silent and mysterious as a Salamanca, the most beautiful and representative songs of the region. Many of them I still remember. Others have remained in a dark zone of my spirit, like a secret that never could be revealed, but that nourishes the pulse of the blood.")

Atahualpa Yupanqui, Este Largo Camino



Note: The Salamanca myth has to do with the underworld--in this case, a cave open only to adepts, who are severely tested in its rites. Derives perhaps from Arab brujería (witchcraft) in the caves around Salamanca, Spain--and may be related to the Faust legend. In any case, the name struck a chord with the country people of Santiago del Estero (and elsewhere in the Argentine northwest). The folkloric musicians associated the Salamanca--and its trials--as a (mythical?) source of their musical prowess. Don Atahaulpa clearly connects with this tradition in his final sentence...

Analect 2.481x

24 April 2009. Sharp yellow band of sun on Honda glass...

Cuadros de la Ciudad. Fray Mocho y Cnia, barrios del Sur, Buenos Aires, los años pasados. Un mozo viejito, vida de payaso--o sea payador... Calles sombreadas, de la tarde, otra vez...

A Media Luz...

Analect 2.480x

23 April 2009. Gray morning cloud, cold. Burlap bags on bed of truck, pile of damp brown sand. Two stucco workmen in worn jeans, hands jammed in their pockets, heads thrown back, following the movements of a compatriot on scaffold high above.

New shingles pretty much like the old--minus the variations of time. Guarantees of interestingness, now gone wanting.

As with a song--Atilio Reynoso, his "Estilo Viejo"--much to recommend. Or W.H. Hudson, Far Away and Long Ago...

Analect 2.479x

22 April 2009. Silhoutte of green ladder against expanse of blue. Small jet slips away to the left. Soft explosive report of roofer's pneumatic nailer... Calls back and forth, Korean voices...

Or others, in turn. The carpincho, for example. Almost unheard. Montes y juncales, siempre cerca del agua. Nose and tiny round ears held just above the surface--the capybara--a Tupi word, Guaraní. The mother with ten nipples, nursing two to eight young...

Analect2.478x

21 April 2009. Naked roof on milky blue sky. Scaffolding and cigarettes, language unknown...

As with the chiripá, or the rama, or the bird... Holding in space against a milky page...

Allá le voy a mostrar
mi mancarrón, mis dos perros,
unas espuelas de fierro,
y un montón de cosas más.
Si es entendido, verá:
un poncho de fina trama,
y el retrato de mi Mama,
que es ande rezo pensando
mientras lo voy adornando
con florecitas de retama.

(milonga)

Analect 2.477x

20 April 2009. Ojalá...

Analect 2.476x

17 April 2009. Without and within... Richard's new book, Great Basin Poems, on earth-colored stock. Working cattle in the 1950s. An opening into a world...

Last night: cowboys and la frontera. Nuevo Lareto, Sinaloa, LA, Sleepy Lagoon. Pachucos and the Repatriation Act. Kat and Mildred take us back through time, down Mexico way--but not quite. The borderlands, rather, and an entire culture so engendered. Braceros--in the lilting and effortless voice of Pedro Infante, while film clips reveal a darker truth... Lydia Mendoza and her sister, their impossibly close harmonies, Freddy Fender, and Lila Downs. Richie Havens, too. Vision from 1958, the gym floor, Oceanside High... "Para bailar la bamba..."

Kat: "She was pregnant when they crossed the border..."

Then: Chalino Sánchez and his son, Adán, both lost. Mildred's mom: "They shouldn't of gone back..." Her own growing up in the Salinas Valley, ancestors all...

La Llorona...always by waters...

Analect 2.475x

16 April 2009. Springtime now. Restored roof in morning sun, tradesmen done.

Argentina, Provincia de Buenos Aires, en la década de 1880. Jacinto Duva (de barba espesa) da un cigarillo a su hermano Mauricio Duva... The founding of San Mauricio...

Zanja Alsina, a kind of of the Wall of China--but carved into the earth...

(Lugar Historico)
ZANJA DE ALSINA (1876-1877)
EXTENSION 374 Km.
Paralelo a la misma se originó, casi una rastrillada mas,
el "Camino de Zanja", el que Ud. está ubicado
catorce eran los fortines en el partido de Rivadavia

Analect 2.474x

15 April 2009. Chill wind, endless blue. Woman in long black wool coat standing alongside light green car with curvy roof. Seen for an an instant...

Then, the good doctor, in queu at 7-eleven with white poly bag of ripe bananas, dark yellow with fine brown lines. Ripple of color on the label... Workcrew continues on roof as well: Jerome Blank's green-rated shingles, installed by veteran tradesman with white hair, in perfect rows. The younger ones attend...

Calle Florida, reseen. Porteños all...

Analect 2.474x

14 April 2009. Blue all the way across. Two workmen high up on Navigator Escrow--now the Jerome Blank Building. New shingles on an old mansard roof. Sound of hammer from a distance--reassuring... Water bottle balanced on wooden batten...

Thoughts of repair. As in a note from across time. "I have been reading Analects for about a year now..." Where we left off--the small house on California Street, upstairs. Melville's Pierre...or, the Ambiguities... The affinities, too... A sailmaker's loft in BC...

"...on Prince Edward Island..."

Analect 2.473x

13 April 2009. Sunny with fluffy clouds to the south, filtered light. As it should be.

Long blue pipes stacked to side of street--heavy PVC with steel tubes at the ends, rusted, to join. Metaphors of emplacement. Runs and flanges...

Late in the night: a discussion of what's been written about the design of parks, following Adrián's Castellano text... Andrew Jackson Downing, Olmsted and all the rest. A move to corral the maximalization of capital--those long New York blocks with street-front galore. Sarmiento's visit--to a cemetary in Brooklyn, the Green-Wood, hyphen likewise rusted, a golden red...

Analects 2.472x

10 April 2009. Yellow push from the east, embroidered pockets of blue... Nicola asleep, curled, just under the piano...a new place...

Conversation out of early Joyce, currently being conducted in copyshop aisle... Ivy Day in the Committee Room...

"I've been very fortunate, I've had the most amazing clients, ever since July..."

"I was that way, I took five jobs..."

"It will turn around..."

Analect 2.471x

9 April 2009. Passover morning, nice spring rain. Gentle and unexpected...

Slowness of the seder, word by word, rabi Eliezer, rabi Tarfon...rabi Elazar ben Azarya... they're back, camped out again in B'nei Brak, holding forth of an evening, long ago...

We rehearse their words--a sequence of questions, really--as to what is true...

And the students arrive, only at dawn...

Analect 2.470x

8 April. Erev pesach...locomotive skies, a rumbly gray with dashes of light. Hamid on front walk of 7-eleven, under the eves, having a smoke...

Compadritos of Parque Patricios, barrio reo, del tiempo anterior... Walk of the porteño, somewhere in the shoulders, slightly raised, a quizzical but definite anticipation. As if a question should follow--something philosophical, but still earthy. The remnants of a Europe lost--Seurat's trees, or those of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot--wirey branches, finely limbed, taut curves with a mind of their own...

Rousseau, Proudhon, Babeuf...

Analect 2.469x

7 April 2009. Fishtail clouds, dark aire, fuming smoke against gray sky... Beeping sound of beer truck backing--Red something-or-other Jamaican lager. Jamaica? Lager? Young man in brown hood pulls up slatted door...

The girls of Quilmes, projected back a bit in time. Colegio Nacional in 1961--when the first handful of visitors from the liceo appeared, in starched white smocks, a tentative presence, distributed evenly amongst 500 boys... Regrouping instantly at every break...

Analect 2.468x

6 April 2008. Butter sky, cool.

Names of birds: chingolo-- zonotrichia, sparrow family. Here with crest. Ycancho en el norte aregntino, cachilo en el este, chuschiú en Córdoba, vichi en Tucumán; marumbé en idioma guaraní...

Peter's birthday...

Analect 2.467x

3 April 2009. Mellow morning. Young girl, tiny hands, riding on her father's shoulders, looking this way and that... His heavy leather coat, brown courderoy trousers, emblems of masculinity...

Or Little Richard, at his baby grand, in the potched-up bathtub seat, holding first a miniature fluff towell, then a bar of soap, and finally, with a quick double squeeze, the pièce de résistance, a small inert yellow rubber ducky...

Leaning in...

Analect 2.466x

2 April 2009. A sunny morning...

Humberto 1º y La Rioja--o si fuera San Ignacio, esquina del café Margot. Libros temática ciudadana--y cositas distintas. Una papusa tomando café, sin duda, con los tipos del barrio. Buenos Aires sur, una fábula de cuentos, de escenas particulares, temblando...de buen humor...

"o tu voz, donde está..."

Analect 2.465x

1 April 2009. Weather master says it's a go. Early morning tv, scratchy noise at dawn, test pattern and a table of booze. The Jim Beam bottle on it's side, bar smells, late night crowd...

But wait, that's Nicola's fine head, with the impossibly soft ears, leaping onto window end of bed, making her way up past calf and thigh and hip, tentatively eager for a caress...

Two otters, side-by-side, their more-than-human hands joined in furry embrace, parted for a few moments--the exigencies of the tide, then regained...

Analect 2.464x

31 March 2009. Sun. Bud Light truck, silver blue on white, verging on gold in the sun, then cooler when turned away...

Time cover: "The end of excess, and why that's good for America." Aimee Semple McPherson in corporate dress, preaching from an orange box stand.

A narrow Asian girl in black and gray, fabrics from afar, with tennish shoes whose heels ride on springs. Cushion ride, like the emblem on the railroad car--goods and services, rolling on...

Analect 2.463x

30 March 2009. Wind at windows, night. Sun in the morning. Genteel young man from Pakistan, behind 7-eleven counter. Announcing change in precise, understated voice. Three Brazilian bolds, including one for Lolita, from copier repair. "A little sugar, a little cream..."

With Mansilla again, onset of dawn...

Analect 2.462x

27 March 2009. Jump start sun, flood of light, as befits spring. Glints and gleams...

Waters of Buenos Aires, un río sin fin. Figure of Quinquela Martín, abandoned as an infant in an immigrants' orphanage, note attesting to his baptism. Adopted at the age of six by Manuel and Justina Molina de Chinchella. At 14 attended "a modest night school of drawing," working by day in the family's coal yard. Stessini Piazetti Conservatory at 17...

The life of La Boca--paintings of the port. Zeneize...

"Vigor," "activity," "roughness"--the characterization. A subject and a treatment, taken almost for granted. The allure of daily life, even when reinvented entirely...

Lo pintoresco...

Analect 2.461x

26 March 2009. Blue to blue, sun. Blurred contrails to the south, low over 7-eleven roof, crossing in shallow X like an ethereal flag of the Confederacy.

Day books and the best of intentions. Row of children's faces, enlarged in grainy black-and-white--Camp Cazadero banner on copyshop floor. Young boy's visage, hint of a smile, next to baroque cello scroll with ebony pegs, stand of trees just above.

Juan José Saer, from the town of Serodino, Santa Fe. La Universidad del Litoral--where he studied philosophy and law. Banks of the river, wide to the point of disappearance. "Sin orillas..."

Analect 2.460x

19 March 2009. Olu Kai sky, here on Solano--pink tinges to the blue, cool wind down from the hills. Stocky woman at teller box, rubbing the back of her head while awaiting digital okay. Then an illegal diagonal in the direction of Starbucks, while I head for Peets--beans--no hard feelings, really, to the gang at El Cerrito--names slipping now, it's been more than a year, my daily trek to java line, with all the locals. Hong Kong gal at neighboring table, chewing the fat with older man in sport coat and tennis shoes...

Photo of Kitaj, appearing suddenly--daunting. En route to the Hammer, in 2007. His mop of hair, pure white, bent forward a little, walking with wooden cane. The cane hardest to fathom. Not the over-sized Vans--an Angelino, after all--but that long straight piece of wood--another contact with the earth.

With the students--his arm outstretched, lying on a Cuban daybed, young woman alongside, her miniscule skirt. An explorer...

Analect 2.459x

18 March 2009. Insistent sun, no other choice, save for petals of pinkish-gray to the west. Sound of small car, old VW, caught in a glance, then a single call from a gull. La gaviota. Now again, also insistent, in her own way.

In her own way, mothering the world, leaning in to take his side--for the banquet meal. Settings arranged, well into the distance, against a wall draped in murky gold. All hotels the same--the porcelain, the heavy glass. A napkin folded just so--signature of the establishment...

Borrowed for an instant, like the breakfasts with Dad, at the Biltmore, before the clothing shows. Finnan haddie and other unexpected offerings, delivered on wide plates or silver trays. Covered, then revealed...

Mornings...

Analect 2.458x

17 March 2009. Pale gray skies. White van bouncing slightly as it pulls out of 7-eleven lot. Quiet moon-faced woman preparing coffee--small blue individual container of artificial cream, then another. Her attitude one of care...

A market in Buenos Aires, somewhere near Constitución. 1961. Cobblestone streets and patches of earth, produce in fulsome array, stacked in wobbly wooden crates, leaves poking through into morning air. Onions and such, remembered only en masse. Hot morning sun illuminating the stones, the occasional dark puddle, pungent market smells, moldering scraps of this and that, returning to the earth in an appealing disarray...

Analect 2.457x

16 March 2009. Drizzle gray rain--mist of white against roan sky...

Buenos Aires. Embankment along a river--El Tigre, or the park above Nuñez, summer. Dark trees, quiet--something out of Antonioni, or old Rome herself. An ancient scene, in black tights and stretch tops--small hand held close to mother's waist, the other free, testing...

Reflections in gold-gray-green...

Analect 2.456x

13 March 2009. Wavering gray clouds, moments of sun, an insistent golden light from the east...

La Tempesta, Giorgione's standing figure, in attendence always, their lives intertwined in some unknowable way...

Her billowing hair, pre-Raphaelite frizz, long fingers, poise.

Oh don't you remember in yonder town
when we were at the tavern
I raised a health to the ladies round,
gave my heart to Barbara Allen...

Analect 2.455x

12 March2009. Milky sky, hint of sun. Woman with wavy gray hair and soft brown leather bag slides into driver's seat of gray-green van. A Previa? But here I'm guessing...

Economy slides as well, stocks and bonds in their own brown leather, not so creamy smooth. Smell of cash, as when the register slides open and you see all the 20's. Abandoned chart of national expenditure: Pentagon and Iraq, more than half the pie...

Green, apples, as on the hillsides of Tennessee. Mountain City, that is. Worn cabin walls, a set of wooden steps that don't quite meet the ground. Clarence Ashley, bending in the breeze. Doc Watson alongside, young, solid, attentive. Gaither Carlton on fiddle--in his own world...

Analect 2.454x

11 March 2009. Clear with lots of sun. Nicola's curled form at end of bed, head tucked in. 

Next to me now--Luca and his mom, energetic little boy with pale, questioning eyes. Photo prints of a house near the sea, white bench on rippled sand. Long shadows, late afternoon. 

Suchostaw, from an earlier time. Purim spiel, with Bessarabian gowns, their neatly folded sleeves in white, turbans and tunics to match. Elaborate strands of bead around a young girl's neck, bows at her ankles, gathered just so. Reflective pose--folded hands...

Always...

Analect 2.453x

Sun this morning, just won't quit. After long night...

Figure in a field, with trees just behind. Early. Poncho, mate galleta, sombrero santefesino... Blackened kettle on a small fire, boiling. Each element useful, known. Carried and true...

Analect 2.452x

9 March 2009. Cold wind gonna blow, clear morning sky.

Large girl in 7-eleven line, blondish, tailored brown polyester waist, sleepy eyes. Narrow faced man alonside, dark brow, fumbling with lips for coffee straw. Lotto cards and caffeine.

Yesterday, evening: grasses alongside a karst-built lagoon, to the south and east of Buenos Aires. Chascomús. A ring of juncales--marsh reeds--against slow waters, wider plains... Photo of young couple pressed close--their modern faces merged. Wrapped against the cold.

El Ombú...

Analect 2.451x

6 March 2009. Sunny and almost warm. A meteorological change of heart. Or respite, perhaps, storms for now dispersed.

To other climes? Barracas, Boedo, Constitución--where a langorous señora considers the day--the shifting light--a neo-realist swoon, Rosselini del sur (Roma città abierta, or maybe Paisà), the actors unquestionably non-professional--us that is--denizens of sidewalk and café. Pensive, porteños. Where a morning's paper can last well into the afternoon...

Al atardecer...

Analect 2.450x

5 March 2009. Sun and gray, as always lately...

La gaviota--a gull from Armenia, portrayed in a Russian engraving from long ago. The penman's Cyrillic script--narrow and flowing. Long dress, with floral print, increasing in size as each blossom moves down. The boy alongside, also with flowers, in a small vase, held in his right hand. Feet tucked close in oversize shoes... Necessities...

"The Abbot Pafnuty put his hand thereto..."

Analect 2.449x

4 March 2009. Sun peeking around flurries of rain, cold streets won't give up the storm... It's an attitude thing, like Wally Shawn on Brecht--"raw and ribald" says the playbill. His recent translation. "Let's say there's a word in German that is like "dourknop" that sounds like doorknob. Actually, it means betrayal. And it was a beautiful little idea of Brecht's that was trampled on by my mistake..."

Betrayals and mistakes--accidents, inadvertencies. A crow with a piece of bread--the crust, or rind--an orange rind, painted orange, in an act of solidarity--or was it identification? These things happen...

Attempting to get things right--the great hope. As if grace and elision could work their magic always.

Dark afternoon... Maybe just song...

Analect 2.448x

3 March 2009. Lluvia sobre el mar. Lee, in three tones of violet, hood over hood, bending forward over dark green metal bin, crushing red can with booted foot...

Noticings. As with gruff plumber's face, stubble of shave, nodding ever so slightly as he pushes through the 7-eleven door. Or Pearl, with her endlessly picky requests--tone of voice--every question a minor-league challenge...

And so the day, as clouds roll in, sheets of rain, gray sky, white smoke...

Hope...

Analect 2.447x

2 March 2009. Low clouds over East Bay shores--looking down Fairmount into veils of oncoming storm. Gutters brimming, steady sheets at night...

Cangrejal, Güiraldes' vision, the Argentine, bleak lands nearing the sea, their marshy threat, described in full. Read in the middle of the night, rain...

Better Javed's face, over the counter early this morning, lined and tired after those same eight hours. Two coffees--French Vanilla or some such, black, with flimsy black lids--polypropylene, a modern muse.

Move on, move on, to higher ground...