Saturday, June 24, 2017

Saturday commute cxliii: To the inland station





Do I close my eyes to listen as
a host plays the Impromptus dur-
ing cocktails; or while I am in
love, to hear Barbirolli in the 
Adagietto of the Mahler 5th? Do 
I go somewhere else because I'd
be protected; or do I claim the 
sun's impartiality for shelter.


























Friday, June 23, 2017

Sharing secrets






  The tourist season doesn't end,
  it only gets pre-empted.

  A friend just forwarded a re-
  view copy of a pretty splashy
  superbook of his, due in Novem-
  ber, which naturally has the
  unsociable effect of making one
  squirm to discuss it too soon.

  Now by e-mail, can you stand it,
  another friend announces he and
  his wife expect a child in Nov-
  ember, which pretty well margin-
  alizes news of lesser exploits,
  and just as Summer is beginning.















Sunday, June 18, 2017

Take a likely aviator






The natural solicitude of mankind,
for the health and happy-headedness
of the aviator, has been manifested
here before, not so much as a pay-
ing of dues or prayer for safe pas-
sage, as a recklessly ill-concealed

Just as in that underlying case, of
discovered cause, we encounter the
aviator under duress again, and pon-
der his vulnerability to this fate.

Take a demonstrably credible aviat-
or, and make an utter hazard of
his haircut, belch fumes from his
face, while bleaching out its tex-
tures and concealing its ornaments.
And still men clamor to go flying.


















Josef Krovina x Ivan Kassa




Donny Thump-Thump warms his flock





The other day, exploiting this illus-
tration, the theory of the well-reg-
slated militia was discussed, to keep
tabs on the new government. That gov-
ernment's neglect of this phrase, in
its rapture to bear arms, need not in-
hibit rational people from collaborat-
ing in their defense, as a bucket brig-
ade of evidence carriers. Last evening,
over a modest salad of cold chicken,
frisée, and the usual binding and dec-
orative elements of a late Spring gar-
den in the mid-Atlantic, I undertook
my share of this chore by watching a
dvd unfurling Felipe Cazals' Canoa
(1976), inspired by the facts of a
small town's descent in the state of
Puebla, into a night of ill-regulated
militancy. I could have been at a rally
of Donny Thump-Thump's, but as I say,
I was detained by chicken salad.

I could have heard the rally's prefig-
urement, in a season of broadcasts and
postings from alt Right Hell; I could
have witnessed the inventions of one
great, revolting lie about a President's
birth, or catalogued the depredations
of a strip mall pizza parlor against
the faithful and the innocent. I don't
know; don't such lambs of god ever con-
sider chicken salad?




I could have thrilled to the snarl-
ing orator, his orange-tinted self,
exhorting acts of violence he dared
not name too often in one place, but
left no doubt of in his wake. I might
have steadied myself to look chanting
hordes right in the face, beneath his
nodding, beaming countenance, and its
louchely bloated grin. I had chicken
salad to get through, and agrarian
travelers as itinerant terrorists.
All of modern Mexico knows exactly
what I might not have learned, had
I gone to Donny Thump-Thump's rally.
I had to see what he means, to know
what he says. I had to see what he
meant that day he descended by his
gaudy escalator, to save our souls.




























Felipe Cazals
  director
Tomás Pérez Turrent
  screenplay
Alex Phillips. Jr.
  cinematography
Canoa
  A Shameful Memory
Conacine/STPC, 1976©

ii  Andrei Tarkovsky
      Polaroid print, undated