The Shear of a New Page

the new year is sweeping the globe... already passing though our friends in japan, korea, beijing, australia, taiwan, hong kong, singapore... about seven hours from new york...

the new year is such a great metaphor, a dance of renewal, a cleansing... our Singapore poet provides a striking glimpse into our emerging from the jumble of the past into a newness:

whatever pop culture. whatever loose impressions and unshackled listlessness. contrition and what's worth it. but. faye wong and rain. afternoon stills of grey. the shear of a new page, and it's whiteness that stings or cleanses.

Ismene, Saturday, December 31, 2005

it has been a day of unshackled listlessness, and now the shear of a new page, torn from the advancing momentum of our relentless plummeting through the milky way... the future weaving in and out of galaxies and constellations that still glimmer even though they vanished eons ago...

New Year's, Black-Eye Peas, & Corned Beef

As New Year's Eve approaches, we gear up for what has been a tradition in our family: black-eyed peas and pork, along with corned beef and all the trimmings. This appears to be a mixture of southern celebrations and Irish traditions, and it is so special that we don't have this combination any other time of the year.

The trick is in the timing, as the food needs to be prepared very slowly so that it is ready to eat precisely at midnight. Having the black-eyed peas as the year turns insures good luck throughout the new year.

The black-eyed peas are soaked overnight. Pieces of pork with pork bone are added. The peas and pork are bought to a boil and then the heat is immediately reduced to the lowest flame possible. After about 45 minutes sliced onions are added and the dish is cooked vey slowly. It is usually ready in about two hours.

The corned beef is started at the same time, and is also cooked on a very low flame after first bringing the stew pot with water covering the corned beef to a boil. After about an hour, whole red potatoes, and whole carrots are added, and after about one-half hour, half a head of cabbage is placed on top of the corned beef. The pot is covered, brought to a boil, and then cooked on as low a flame as possible until the cabbage is tender.

This is not a stew. All the ingredients are removed and served on separate dishes. Serve with corn bread, plenty of butter, and mustard, of course. The combination of the cabbage and vegetables slowly cooked with the corned beef creates a wonderful taste.

This is how Dad prepared our New Year's Eve/New Year's celebration for decades, and we have kept the tradition alive. "Scuse me, I've gotta run to the store. I forgot the cabbage!

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

i am haunted by Beck's cover of "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime"/ the defining theme of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind/ keeps playing over and over in my head/ i am so obsessed i am trying to reconstruct it with garageband to import to logic pro/ tricky/ jon brion is brilliant/ yet it is all so simple/ distortion is the essence of Eternal Sunshine/ forget the narrative device of erasing memory/ just a metaphor for how the mind works/ music flows in and out of distortions/ gives an older tintype feeling/ borrowing a photoshop type of filter converted to soundfiles/ a magical, surreal touch that places the visual narrative deep imside our spotless mind...

i've watched the film over and over and always find something new/ jim carrey & kate winslet create authentic characters that capture every nook and cranny of a relationship/ i first misheard the lyrics as "everybody's gotta love sometime"/ the music carried through the lyric, but if that had been correct, it would have been out of place and exceptionally pedestrian/ given the metaphor of the mind/ our ongoing extinction of memories/ the use of learn is a brilliant inspiration/ we are perpetually learning/ struggling and yearning/ and everybody's gotta learn sometime/ no matter what/ but through it all comes some awareness that Hemingway called "A Clean Well-lighted Room"/ that sanctuary, that eternal sunshine/ enduring unblemished at the center of our knowing...

An Elusive Illusion?

even when there's nothing, there's something/ spent most of the day reading, thinking, procrastinating/ some things must be done/ i purposely glide by without a glance/ the internet is a great diversion/ a bottomless pit/ google anything/ more than a million hits/ follow them all until your eyes begin to tear/ in my outer world the disarray asserts itself/ but there's order in following the links/ in reading the text/ in seeing the images/ in hearing the music/ in commentimg, selecting, learning, growing...

this new medium acquaints us beyond the usual dimensions/ we are merging with, creating a new reality/ extending beyond boundaries and restraints/ dangerous pursuits/ too much freedom/ awesome power/ fresh eloquence is called for/ an expressive elegance may seek an undisclosed ecology of media/ discovery is ripening in the gathering energy/ an elusive illusion to disillusion...

Such Incandescent Intelligence!

Having only recently discovered the world of blogging, I have been following links to blogs of such authenticity and intelligence that I am awed by the ideas bursting from these webbites. Onigiri writes of books, of teas, of foods, and cooking with such devotion, appreciation, and skill that you are captured by her intensity, her energy and insight. She describes blog addiction, and I am discovering that the pathway to such a habit is swift and unshakeable.

Who would have thought that knitters would be such a tight-knit group of bloggers, but a blogger like Yarn Harlot spins fascinating prose that illumines and inspires (read "The Trumpet Thing" 12/24/05) while clarifying dropped stitches and the quality of yarn.

Deadpoet's Cave is a resource for all bloggers; he brings ideas together in ways that your perception of the possibilities of the Internet is constantly magnified.

3 Zins Later has just begun blogging, but she is a natural talent whose open stance promises a world of wine fantasies transcending the wine evening to tales of friendships and love.

The Tragedienne's pictures on the Internet led me to her blog (which was the first blog I ever read) and to the blogs of her Singapore friends. Reading their blogs was like discovering a new world, the openness of sharing and an authentic delight in life. Among them is Ismene, who prose is pure poetry. Her imagery and use of language is astonishingly fresh and genuine. Her refreshing style inspired me to explore my own ideas through bloggimg.

Ice Cache is a poet of images. Don't be fooled by the modest number of images he has posted thus far. He has a magical eye and has posted in more private venues almost 30,000 images. He began to blog two weeks ago. and his work will be worth regular visits.

And today as I was reading through blogs, I came upon Wicked Rice, a blogger whose writing is explosively original, poetic, humorous, intuitive, disarming, and intensely aware. She takes blogging to a new realm, full of narrative and philosophical inquiry, naturally at home in the interactive, digital world inhabited by her blog. She uses del.icio.us for tagging and categorizing her entries, and it is worth exploring her writing through this special lens. (By the way, there are some features on her blog that do not work well in Safari, Explorer didn't fare much better. The best experience was with Firefox. Well worth the free download. Time to ween yourself from Microsoft.)

Time To Create

The week after Christmas always seems such a luxury of Time. I always overplan these few days and never achieve all I had hoped to do. I suppose I am only answeraable to myself during this time, but there are so many impediments that have accumulated over the months and now clamor for attention. Never have time for leisurely breakfasts...Now eggs over easy with sausage at Silver Spurs...then to Angelika to peoplewatch and maybe take in a film... need this break in the action...still plenty of time to create. Not really. Studio is a mess. New equipment and applications to install...but now I see how it fits together...even sitting in the lounge of the Angelika, I catch a subdued rhythm of energy dissipated by the holidays. Stop trying to control tbe time, just appreciate the disclosure of time as a gift of becoming...It is what it is. No more. no less, and it's been quite a ride.

Spur of the Moment

christmas waning/ gifts opened/ poppimg out to rockefeller center to see tree/ starving---take chance on restaurant/ probably won't be able to find a taxi/ miraculously cab appears just as we hit the street/ at rockefeller center in minutes/ in the concourse a large line of people waitimg at the rock center cafe/ go inside to inquire how long a wait/ how many in your party?... two/ we can seat two immediately/ ushered to a spectacular table where we can see the tree and skaters outside/ organic chicken and prime rib/ merlot and chardonnay/chocolate mousse and key lime pie/ a perfect moment unfolding as though it had been planned for months/ truth is this was an especially difficult time/ unorganized and grueling/ yet i'll remember this christmas because a special resonance has attached itself and enhances the evening, the ambience, the talk/ people around us all engaged in a special moment/merging with other memories of christmas/our passion persists and then fades in such priceless beauty...

An Essence Revealed

outside the window the empire state building glows red amd green/ an ornament of almost epic proportions/ there are presents to wrap/ all sorts of goodies to prepare/ strudel and raspberry and mint cookies/ candies and cider/ holly and ivy/ in the silent crisp air the tolling church bells harken to a past remembered/ terrace christmas lights twinkle across the garden/ such simplicity reveals a vivid essence of being alive...

Song of Silence

i am not afraid of silence, but i know many who are/ fleeing the silence as though it were some beast about to devour them/ a symptom of a deeper malady/ perhaps silence is the outer edge of chaos/ an icy crust that might shatter/ releasing annihilation and destruction/ engulfing all in disorder and aleatoric eruptions of nothingness...

keep the beat going/ the illusion of control/ chase the silence with our rhymes and riffs/ sounds bursting from speakers in cascading avalanches...

i love the silence/ it is a soothing emptiness/ neutral and vast/ waiting to be filled with imagination/ emerging from the shadows of emptiness/ advancing on the edge of reality disclosing itself/ all miracles are born of silence...

Winter Solstice and the Mystery of the Trees

passing so fast/ the days of christmas celebrate the winter solstice/ yet long ago the darkness seemed so agonizingly slow to yield its power/ at the center of the celebration there are trees/ their secret lay with the ancient druids/ the knowers of the wisdom of the oak/ dark and mysterious/ the tree as the universe extends into our world from an invisible realm/ lights and ornaments adorn the tree like stars and planets/ robert graves awakened us to the mystery of the trees and the origin of poetry/ a calendar of trees/ the birch tree for the month stretching from December 24th to January 20th/ birch means bright or shining/ guiding us through the endless night/ our christmas tree stands as a metaphor for the cosmos/ for the origin and destiny of life/ sittimg in the dark and looking at the miniature universe/ looking into the depths of the tree/ seeing the mystery of the darkness unrevealed/ a joyful and perpetual yearning for a renaissance of light and life...

Striking at the Heart of the City

New York City is once again like a war zone, and although we walk around and greet each other and commiserate over our shared hardships which extend way beyond our difficulties of moving through this metropolis, we all have a sense of the terrorist threat that is always lurking in the background since 9/11. The TWU has shown us where we are most vulnerable...something like a primer for terrorists. Want to bring the city to its knees? Cut off its life blood: take away its freedom of movement.

The subways lie like empty, twisted carcasses, an eerie silent pallor hanging the air. Businesses are dying. Many less fortunate are suddenly out of work and starving. This torturous thrust stifles larger businesses depending on this season, and despite our cheerful disguises, we are confronting an anguish of dismal holidays. There is a reason why it is illegal for public servants to strike against its constituency, and although the TWU seems to remember the eleven day strike in 1980 as a cakewalk, we are living in a different time and a different sensibility. TWU's action in a time of war is despicable. It puts new meaning to Pogo's declaration, "We have seen the enemy, and he is us!"

Some Are For You

Once in a while, making a new friend is like discovering someone you have always known. There is a deep connection that cuts through the normal defenses we erect as protection. This is not a frequent happening, and perhaps we have to maintain a certain openness for it to happen at all. When I encounter such people (although it is a rare and special event), it is more like seeing an old friend who has just returned from obscurity. There is a certain immediacy that leaps between us, a level of understanding that eliminates the need for explanations. Perhaps this is what the painter/mentor Robert Henri meant in The Art Spirit when he observed that "you see people on the street, some are for you, some are not." It is a source of fascination to me how this miracle of deep friendship actually occurs. And when you are separated from such friends, the next time you meet, you resume as though there was no interval of separation...time and distance have no impact on the intimacy of shared perception and understanding. Such friendships can take us to deeper levels of conscious awareness and awaken energies and ideas that take us beyond ourselves.

Bruno's and the Holidays

bruno's bakery has been a fixture in greenwich village for decades/ a destination to meet friends/ have coffee/ indulge in pastries that taste even better than they look/ and while away the hours in idle and not-so-idle conversations/ stealing glances at celebrities and village types/ sitting there with rick and oksana with cappuccinos steaming while winter approaches with all the trappings of christmas cheer/ solving all the dilemmas of careers/ out of place musicals with improbable performers/ pop albums from a renowned opera star with a Sarah Bernhardt flair/ breaking through the inertia of songs trapped inside a computer/ the village is peppered with coffee houses/ the birthplace of coffeehouses long before starbucks franchised the idea to the world/ a last meeting of the year at our most familiar and comfortable hangout/ Bruno's somehow catches the essence of the holidays/ each person sitting here feels a certain ownership in this institution that endures like a long lasting friendship/ perhaps this endurance is how Bruno's underscores the casual and intense relationships that linger there/ ideas, feelings, and observations hang in the air like the steam floating up from the coffee cups and evaporating into the night...

Bloggin' Great

somewhere on a planet far away there is the perfect blogger bloggin' away/ not caring if anyone reads the blog/ this blogger blogs for the sake of blogging/ text flies off the fingers in lightning flashes/ no one knows who this blogger is/ and each day the blogger adds to the weight of world-wide blogs in decipherable increments/ on several occasions the meaning of life has been revealed/ but no one realized what lay hidden in such episodes/ no one took the blogger seriously because no one knew who the blogger was/ symbols of meaning collect as the sum total of the big blog/ new tablets of truth from binary sinai/ thou shalt have no other blogs before me/ truth separated from its source is meaningless...

Mute and Inglorious

I once edited a newspaper and was in charge of a weekly column where I could explore anything I found interesting. At the time it seemed like a brilliant, but intricate, opportunity: the column would be typed, then edited and proofread, then laid out for the printer on a "dummy," set on a linotype by a typographer, then these lead type slugs were locked into galleys, proofed again, loaded onto the printing press, and finally thousands of copies were printed and distributed to subscribers and the public. I remember that as I approached the first column, I was stymied as to what I should write about. The possibilities were so extensive that the whole process seemed overwhelming.

Decades have passed, and now the process has been streamlined. In minutes I can complete tasks that once would take days, and suddenly be published to a world-wide audience. Now it is not the process that is overwhelming, it is the enormity of the opportunity. It is the vast and vacant moment waiting for eloquence, waiting for inspiration, waiting for the words to emerge that somehow would answer the call of a free and vital press...

Yet, here I am, as mute and inglorious as in those original days when the thrill of the written word was captured in the smell of ink on newsprint.