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...

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...

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...

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)

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...

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...

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?

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...

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...

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...

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...

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..."

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...

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...

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...

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...

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..."

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...

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...