a few weeks ago i had a yen for pork hocks, pattes de cochon, and i went all the way over to the big supermarket to buy some - and they had none! but later on in the day when i was in my local i was surprised to see that they had some, and i said as much to the girl who works behind the meat counter, and she nodded and smiled, and away i went with my pork hocks, and made soup and so on ...
and i have not seen them there since, so today i asked when they might have some more and i am sorry i did, she has no idea what a pork hock is, doesn't understand the word, after a few minutes we got as far as 'pork chop' and then she made me ask the other girl, who had no more idea, so then i had to repeat it a third time to some man who was there, and he said, just a minute i'll go get the manager
and i walked quickly away.
this could be a Gogol story, except instead of turning into a nose i have turned into Maxwell Smart's Cone of Silence!
and it all reminded me of something i had read in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age so i thought i would go and see, but a half hour in the index and eventually going through my sidebar markings one-by-one and i got nowhere, eventually i did, he was talking about what he calls Subtler Languages (which is in the index, what i did was to just read the index, being as i was unbeknownst looking for 'S' i nearly read the whole thing and when i catch my breath i will scan a few pages, maybe enough to make it clear
clear? no idea what that even means anymore ... none,
it struck me the other evening as well, i was listening to music for organ and saxophone, Northern Landscapes (2006) by Derek Healey (b. 1936) - A Suite inspired by "Group of Seven" paintings, i don't know anything, it seemed very modern to me and i could not get a handle on any of it, once in a while there would be a thing recognizable as a phrase of music, i sat through it because i did not want to offend the performers, the piece was in 6 sections, each 'inspired' by a Group of Seven image, and there was one image which touched me, Lawren Harris' Grey Day in Town, 
although now that i have a copy i see that it was only because the room was dark and i mistook what turns out to be a fence for an earth bank, it all reminded me strongly of Great Paradise where there was a similar configuration of houses when i was living there, and in the fog and as dusk approached on certain nights in early spring when snow had been melting it looked like that, had that 'mood' or maybe that crookedness and the resemblance of the gable-end of the house to a face, but a twisted face speaking out of the side of its mouth ... but so what? when i trolled the image up today with Google, it turned out to be something else altogether, and even look at the differences between these two images, doh!seems to me there has to be some vernacular overlap at least, the music can be a chore to listen to, alright, but there has to be some kind of payoff, no? some hook into consciousness beyond mere cartesian symmetry?
here, look at this smile, is it seraphic? to me it is, subtle, a subtle mysterious smile containing all possibilities like wazzerface ... right, Leonardo Da Vinci's La Gioconda, Mona Lisa, but someone else i know looked at it and said it's a teenager, an adolescent, unformed ... who can fucking well say!?Stories:
Herbert de Souza, O Betinho: I am doing my part.
Amos Oz: the Order of the Teaspoon.
Somerset Maugham: Mr. Know All.
John Galsworthy: Quality.
Rudyard Kipling: The Butterfly that Stamped.
Jay Williams: Everybody Knows What Dragons Look Like.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: Briar Rose.
Hans Christian Andersen: The Snow Queen.
Rudyard Kipling: How The Whale Got His Throat.
Thomas Pynchon: Entropy.
1 Kings 1: Abishag the Shunammite
Luke 10, 29-35: The Good Samaritan.
Franz Kafka: Before the Law.
Oscar Wilde: The Doer of Good.
Teddy Bear's Picnic
If you go out in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.
Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily dance about.
They love to play and shout.
And never have any cares.
At six o'clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they're tired little teddy bears.
If you go out in the woods today,
You'd better not go alone.
It's lovely out in the woods today,
But safer to stay at home.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic
Every teddy bear, that's been good
Is sure of a treat today
There's lots of wonderful things to eat
And wonderful games to play
Beneath the trees, where nobody sees
They'll hide and seek as long as they please
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic
the day began thinking about Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and another of hers, Reflections in a Golden Eye, i wish it would end with a tired little teddy bear getting tucked into bed, but in fact the song always frightened me as a child.
half-pack yesterday but already working on #2 here now ...
wasted words, proves to warn that he not busy being born is busy dyin'
but it's all right ma, if I can't please them
Down.
No comments:
Post a Comment