The Architecture of Snow

The "architecture of snow" seems to be first iterated by Emerson in a poem called "The Snow-Storm." I later ran into this imagery in a set of poems by Chris Banks, The Cold Panes of Surfaces. He quotes a line from a Wallace Stevens' poem:

"... Can all men, together, avenge
One of the leaves that have fallen in autumn?
But the wise man avenges by building his city in snow.''
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

For Chris Banks, city in snow becomes the foundation for his poem "Winter Is The Only Afterlife" as he borrows Emerson 's line in "The Snow-Storm" to begin his own elaborate metaphor.

Chris Banks : Winter is the Only Afterlife
The wise man avenges by building his city in snow.
-Wallace Stevens

The architecture of snow was quietly rebuilding January
when a young woman arrived, seeming to float down
the white sidewalks while the rest of us huddled inside
our mortgaged houses. I had been staring out my windows
watching snow fall from the invisible eaves. Passing cars
were churning up a slurry in the streets, a wet papier mâché
of burnt-out stars. She wore a red scarf and had carefully
cinched her wings beneath a cashmere navy waistcoat.
When she turned to look at me, the world was all whirlwind
and white ash, and the words, Winter is the only afterlife.
It gives back everything it takes from us, blazed for a moment
across my brain, like a lantern shining out in all directions,
which is when I knew for certain it was her, and only
for that moment, the white light of snow falling across
her shoulders, itself, a kind of blessing, as she stepped
lightly between this world and the hereafter, one minute
smiling at me and the next vanishing into an apocalypse
of snow, each flake's white galaxy, her grace her own.

Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that snow is almost an obsession with me, which is why this poem bears so much meaning for me. This is a complex poem, full of a richness that explores the universal metaphor as winter as the end of life, and snow as the apocalypse that is an exquisite and grand demise of the beauty we have known and celebrated throughout life, dissolving into the flakes of snow swirling like some distant galaxy of oblivion.

Nabeyaki Udon at Zen on 31 St. Mark's Place

What many of my friends don't realize is that I am something of a connoisseur of Nabeyaki Udon. There is one other area in which my culinary connoisseurship shines and that is the Peach Melba. For years I would sample and keep notes on Peach Melbas around the world. I noted the cultural variances in the presentation and savored every object of my research of this dessert art-form. Actually I became very well-known for this research in an informal way and was consulted by many friends. I notice that this delicacy is really rare these days, and I have wondered if my dwindling interest in Peach Melbas contributed to the demise of its popularity.

About 20 years ago I was introduced to Nabeyaki Udon by a Korean friend. Although the dish has Japanese origins, I was told that the addition of a raw egg into the mix was a Korean variation which apparently became popular. In the area that I lived in at that time, I could find Nabeyaki Udon in a number of Asian restaurants, and I began to compare the texture, the ingredients, the care of preparation, the taste, the longevity (the amount of time the brew can last on the table and continue to accrue deliciousness and spicy presence), and the serving utensil, essential in maintaining a good temperature and allowing the mixture to continue to mature in taste and texture after it is served. A really good Nabeyaki Udon is consumed as though you are performing a musical work. There is an introduction, thematic ideas, and adding of nuances (dynamics) through the ground red pepper, which melds with the dish to create incredible variations of taste as you perform the act of consuming the various items. A good serving bowl extends the life of this dish so that you as the performer of this consumptive act can have an extended coda. This is an especially appropriate dish for the winter... really great in a major storm as you watch the blizzard rage outside and bask in the aroma of your Nabeyaki Udon.

But as the years progressed, I noticed fewer restaurants carrying this dish. Worse still, I would find instead Nabe Udon (often without the egg!) as I find at Choga, or a misplaced zeal for all sorts of Ramen, which although I like, I find do not deserved to be mentioned in the same sentence with a masterpiece like Nabeyaki Udon.

On some Saturdays I am given to exploring and was wandering around the East Village researching aspects as I prepare my new MoviOp, A Song for Second Avenue. I was checking all the little restaurants on St. Marks Place that are nested beneath the stairs of almost every building. This time I was reading their menus and trying to decide which one I might try. The menus were all pretty much the same. I was moving from Third Avenue toward Second Avenue on the north side of the street. Then, a little past midway, I came upon Zen Restaurant, and the first thing that caught my eye was Nabeyaki Udon.

The Nabeyaki Udon more than lived up to my expectations. It was a masterful concoction that was in the best of settings. The atmosphere inside was friendly, convivial, and outside, a light snow was punctuating the afternoon. Before me was the main attraction in a beautiful bowl that was also functional, designed to keep the broth nice and hot for quite some time. I began with a light sprinkling of the ground red pepper which is not spicy but adds several layers of taste as the broth marinates. Let it marinate and savor the moment.

Some day, I know there is a poem that will come of this rendezvous with Nabeyaki Udon. In the meantime, if food be the music of love, eat on!

Favela Cubana

Out the window
Last week's snow
Sleeps a fitful winter nap
As leafless trees watch and wait.
Inside, infectious Brazilian rhythms
Punctuate Latin brass and vocals
From another world.
In spite of this,
There is a quietness in my mind
Listening for another song.
Words sound and then fall silent,
Waiting for the enchantment
Of discovery...
Life is too beautiful
To ever let a moment
Go unnoticed...
And yet, we do.
Slivers of Time
Slip into forgotten corridors
In the relentless push of the present...
Even when we pause
In the envelop of Now,
The past eludes us.
But this moment resonates
Because of all that was
And all that might have been.

Glenn Gould and My Own Retreat

In a recent recording session at NYU Dolan Studio, one of the artists brought up a description of Glenn Gould "playing" the recorded sound at the mixing console with the same detail that he brought to his performance at the keyboard. This was the first time I had thought about Glenn Gould for quite some time. By chance, I had picked up a book of poems, Everything Else in the World, by Stephen Dunn. To my surprise, I came upon a poem about Gould, "The Unrecorded Conversation" in this wonderful volume of poems. Surprising, because it came on the heels of our discussion about Gould and made me realize that elements of Gould's temperament resonated with my own experience. At the beginning of the poem, as an epitaph of sorts, Gould is quoted: "Isolation is the indispensable component of human happiness." Having made it this far in life as a loner, I find it something of a revelation to discover that my loneliness is the source of my satisfaction.

Of course I do not possess the genius of Gould, but I do understand the self imposed quarantine that may be necessary for contemplation and sustained fulfillment. Stephen Dunn creates a golden glimpse of Glenn Gould who disappeared into his private world of art and thrived in that secret, sequestered habitat:

Maybe genius is its own nourishment,
I wouldn't know.
Gould didn't need much more than Bach
whom he devoured
and so beautifully gave back
we forgave him his withdrawal from us.

...Gould retreated to his studio
at thirty-one, keeping his distance
from microphones and their germs.
He needed to control sound, edit out
imperfection. His were the only hands
that touched the keys, turned the dials.
(Stephen Dunn, "The Unrecorded Conversation" from Everything Else in the World)

The studio inside my head seems connected to some interior world that illuminates my muse. Retreating to my studio has been a refuge in time of doubt and when I have needed inspiration and spiritual sustenance. Somehow things have changed from the journey begun this past year that has taken me to this new place. There was no reason to believe things would continue on the same miraculous trajectory that launched this new adventure. Sometimes retreat represents a falling back. But a retreat is also a place of solitude for working through a dilemma. Somewhere in the isolation of this personal pause, is the spark of renewal.

An Astonishing Poet: Stephen Dunn

In a bookstore of forgotten books, I came across a book of poems, Everything Else in the World by Stephen Dunn, a poet that I didn't recognize but who has won a Pulitzer prize. I feel that in general we don't read enough poems. Poets have a way of noticing the world that enables us to calibrate our awareness of reality. Sometimes when I feel things spinning out of control I like to enter the world of some poet, preferably someone I have never read. I picked up Dunn's book with about five other volumes of poems.

I finally submersed myself in his poems this weekend and was astonished to discover that this poet was someone who seemed in tune with my own work. The very first poem was something I have thought and written about, but done with such elegance that I was energized and inspired. The first poem struck home:

A SMALL PART

The summer I discovered my heart
is at best an instrument of approximation
And the mind is asked to ratify
every blood rush sent its way

was the same summer I stared
at the slate gray sea well beyond dusk,
learning how exquisitely
I could feel sorry for myself.

It was personal---the receding tide,
the absent, arbitrary wind.
I had a small part in the great comedy,
and hardly knew it. No excuse,

but I was so young I believed
Ayn Rand had a handle on truth---
secular, heroically severe. Be a man
of unwavering principle, I told others,

and what happens to the poor
is entirely their fault. No wonder
that girl left me in August, a stillness
in the air. I was one of those lunatics

of a single idea, or maybe even worse---
I kissed wrong, or wasn't brave enough
to admit I was confused
Many summers later I learned to love

the shadows illumination creates.
But experience always occurs too late
to undo what's been done. The hint
of moon above an unperturbable sea,

and that young man, that poor me,
staring ahead---everything is as it was.
And of course has been changed.
I got over it. I've never been the same.

The only difference is that I never got over it.