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.

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.

  So what was wrong with secrets?

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

adventure in fanciful speculations.

Just as in that underlying case, of

a glance knocked sideways by an un-

discovered cause, we encounter the

aviator under duress again, and pon-

der his vulnerability to this fate.

Jean Renoir, eat your heart out.

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

machetes on my monitor, mutilating

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