A friend writes:
there are times when i hold things sacred, or at least precious. i feel like raskolnikov, on the verge of being vacant. i feel capable of noble sentiments but lack noble actions. modern life is empty. why does the past seem so rich? the present mundane and the future impossibly empty?
It is a rhetorical questioning, I am certain. Art and artifice are the answers, of course. We are all memory artists if nothing else. Everyone can remember something better than this.
We had a birthday party for a ten year old this weekend. It was a dinner party for kids. They had to solve a mystery (and they did). Then they watched Sherlock Holmes in "The Hounds of the Baskervilles" starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I entertained the parents with wine and whiskey and other sorts of mysteries. I tried to make memories on the one hand and obliterate memories on the other. It worked out well, I think. We all stayed up too late and felt like hell the next morning. But the kids had a time. What remains? I think they will remember the scented candles and the yellow light and the tinkling of glasses, of being close and watching something black and white with fog and danger and of parent hugs that smelled lightly of merlot and scotch and drunken goat cheese. There were presents, but those will be forgotten. They'll remember, though, that their parents' voices changed when they came into the room, that there are some things that are not for kids, mysteries that are eternal. And they will be glad that they were kids and that they were cared for and that there were safe places they could count on, especially a bedroom with pillows and blankets and an old t.v.
My friend also told me:
i am too lazy to read your blog, and too selfish. if you would only write more favorably about me then you would have one more reader than you currently do, etc.
He is reading Dostoievski's "Crime and Punishment." What can I tell you about a fellow like that?
Go figure.
I recently wrote a poem called
ReplyDeletemémoire involontaire -- it has something to do with childhood memories and crystal glasses. The formatting never really works here.
"I would like to get away somewhere to re-read Proust"
"Have you ever even read Proust?"
In the 19th C dining room hangs
an unframed canvas, a modern abstract.
"The green of El Greco's Toledo," the guest brings the crystal goblet
to his lips, "when the woman moved past me in the Met, she opened a slit in Time. It was Pennsylvania and the farmhouse where my brothers
and I shot slippery frogs in the side-yard pond from the emerald slope with our BB guns...
only I heard our sister's quiet cry
in our shared room at night,
her grief at the guts we spilled on that most vert of banks."
Sounds like a smashing evening! Good for you and the birthday child.
Sounds like a great party for all. One of my students' favorite books (and they are all around 10 years old) is about a little girl who was going to have her birthday party at a concert but when the concert was cancelled her uncle arranges an archaelogical dig at his farm, with riddles and mysteries. I'm so glad to see adults doing parties other than Mickey D's, cartoon characters and game arcades. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYour friend has some great insights...'on the verge of being vacant' I love that line...it fits so well.
I still think the picture is of a girl.
Is this a picture of the birthday girl? She is very cute.
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ReplyDeleteHello. I am tattypan. This my first post in our blog.
ReplyDeleteI've never understood why some people have to approve comments on a blog, but suddenly, I have been getting a lot of anonymous posts that advertise or link to other sites. I don't know if they are legit or viral, so I've been taking them off. The number of visitors to the blog has increased, so perhaps it is a backhanded compliment. But if you come here and have to do a security check, you'll know why.
ReplyDeleteL, Proust. Who can read him? I've tried several times. I am suspicious, too, of people who say they have. Oh, and I am in trouble for submitting "unframed canvases."
R, I wish I knew how to post my own videos. I'd show you the Treasure Hunt I did for the boy. It is something beautiful, I think.
Roxio Creator 9...it's easy. Then post to Vimeo...I approve my comments because I get quite a bit of spam even with the small amount of traffic I get.
ReplyDelete