Nolan laughing...

Nolan's mother Brittany wrote:

A few years ago Nolan was laughing hysterically on the couch and I couldn't help but think I better catch this on video. What if he looses his ability to laugh one day? I found it today. With tears streaming down I just listened to it over and over… I miss the sweet sound of his voice.
Brain tumors can take away your ability to walk, talk, eat, show emotions, smile, laugh and the list goes on…

Nolan is not doing well, so laugh for him today, send a good thought, send a prayer.  He and Brayden Martin are good buddies.

Nolan Blake, April 27, 2014

Brayden Martin and Nolan Blake
April 2014

as i crawl beneath the rug, and retune my piano...

I've been avoiding you, Dear Reader.  That's something of a compliment, as the avoidance is based on my assessment of your acumen.

It is no secret, my modus operandi in writing most blog posts.  There are a few topics whose past treatment requires continued treatment:

• CRPS breakthroughs
• CRPS in daily life (including humorous leitmotifs about do-it-yourself amputation and the joy of suicide) 
• Any findings in the case of lost child Lindsey Baum 
• The reliable turdification of José Ochoa (lately, I've investigated the immense amount of money wasted on him by government grants, but gastrointestinal responses have precluded publication of this research) 
• The scam CRPS / neuropathy treatment CALMARE / ScramblerTherapy (again, I've a half-written post on the hilarious background of its inventor and his woo-science, dedicated to the creation of a machine that spews electricity like a Fountain of Youth -- never mind the obvious idiocy of mixing water and electricity) 
• Oh, and should my nausea subside, I am overdue in checking in on where the good Dr. Scott Reuben is malpracticing, and in what way

For a bit, I would regularly rag on Phil McGraw and some of his weirder acolytes, and while that was a gratifying release for simmering undercurrents of sadism, I'm trying to stop feeding that easy-peasy awful part of myself.  Now I just follow their shenanigans when late night efforts at mindfulness and distraction via YouTube cat videos fail.  Besides, one day my vision cleared, and I discovered my gratitude for the Unweird friends made while cavorting with McGraw's Chronic Pain Support Group.

By the way, Dear Reader, you've no need to feign shock at my admission of sadism.  On a good day, it makes me something of a Juvenalian satirist.  On a bad day, okay, I get a slight titillation from asshats getting their due... but not to the extent of paraphilia, or a personality disorder. Ignorance drives me batty and I am daily thankful for my innate, unfailing superiority.

It's also no secret that my navel-gazing can get in the way of what might be decently mediocre pseudo-journalism.  I write more about suffering due to CRPS, osteomyelitis, lupus, and osteonecrosis -- all hilariously related -- than I do my ardent political leanings, or other areas of ardor.  Do I wish my knees were worn from kneeling at some other altar than that of the personal?  Oh, yes!

Referring to your acumen, again, Dear Reader, it's clear that this blog is an attempt at therapy, written in as lively a way as I can pull off so that no one will wander the side halls of detritus.  I am writing my way through the remains of a life, deeply sorry for having wasted it so, and therefore frequently embarrassed by my strung together words, the over-estimation of serendipitous thought caressing circumstance.

There are circumstantial caresses that became blessings -- some fleeting benedictions, some amazingly enduring beatific guffaws. People I've met online, mostly.  Writings I'd never thought to have read had not some virtual friend made of them succulent, enticing fare.

One of those blessings is my friend "Peaches," an actual author, a man of the world, familiar enough with life to inflict suggestions as if it were his prerogative (by virtue of being so old, I tell him.. or dream of telling him, one day... one sadistic, wonderrful day!).

Yes, that's right.  I want to meet Peaches.  As much as I want to meet TW, Carol, Diana, Joyce, Benita, Tom, Betty, Fresca, T, and even some who have wished me ill, but in an inspirational way.

Peaches calls me Irene.  I call him "Peaches" because of a phrase that someone stuck into mine head years ago, in a late afternoon patio conversation at a Telegraph Avenue trattoria.  My memory is muddled, but I believe we trampled over Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot before someone declared someone else, glass raised, "a prince, a peach, a pear."

Since that chilly afternoon, spent over perfect antipasto and ignored obligations, I've found no higher praise to offer other beings than that they were "a prince, a peach, a pear." Roasted peppers and marinated artichoke hearts, spiced meats and bursting tomatoes, there was neither peach nor pear in the offing on our rickety cast iron table, rocking the red wine.  So the phrase is of even more value, its provenance being so wondrously lost.  Sadly, it casts its own restrictions -- I never use it to praise, or shower with abundant love, women deserving such approbation.  It has become a sort of obscure pillow talk, the pillow partners more in tune with its vast smooch galore than with its elusive ancestry or culinary provenance.  The role of the house red, delivered in a series of carafes, probably merits further investigation.

I remember the walk home, to a brand new private apartment on one of Oakland's first streets to cross Telegraph, leaving behind Sather Gate, crossing Bancroft and the cafés, book stores, tables of dangling earrings, poseurs, beggars, travelling to home, paper trash swirling, our awareness of danger waking, coffee our first plan before grading.  Funny, but the guy walking with me never was candidate for prince, or peach, or pear.  A good writer and sometimes great poet, he was a fraud, and the essence of the laudatory phrase lies in the genuine.

So.
Right.
Ahem.

Peaches lives in New York City, the old fart.  He is a faithful friend, but that means, of course, frustration at my "here today, gone tomorrow" nature, a nature unaltered even by friendship or blood relation.  I've been under the radar, or, believe it or not, quite concise, these past few weeks.  Still, Peaches fires off an email every few days.

Like today:

Irene...........
Hi.............

In the dark here.... How're you doing?

P.

Bless his heart, Peaches reached out at a moment when I was navel-gazing, seriously lost, seeing no way out from neurological jokes and jerks, pain bad enough to create tears in a body seriously dehydrated from constant fever.  He just wanted an answer.  I wanted a rescue buoy, garrish orange against the cresting teal.

beware, peaches, i've been avoiding writing anyone.  why?  the proof is in my outdated packets of yeast, my bread that will not rise.  i am in a baguette phase.  i'm also heavily medicated at the moment, which means you should stop reading NOW, content to know that i remain irene. i've been promoted from 100 mcg of fentanyl to 150 mcg patches. the joke is that the pain is stronger but there's just no point in making that known.

but, to answer your concision explicitly:

hey, i am DOIN'.  i am DOIN' (that's southern) the best i can.  

very briefly, last week, fred and i concluded that it was up to each of us whether our respective day would be good or bad.  we crowed and strutted, convinced that no circumstance has the power to inflict a "bad" day.  harrumph -- we don't even know what a bad day IS. complain?  whimper?  moan or groan?  ha!  not us!

that lasted three days and then we took a break.

i'm fine, peaches.  frustrated, sad, guilty, tired -- all of which i shall put aside once the fredster rises from his eight layers of covers to take on the day.  yes, fred is a layer fanatic, something he said he learned about in both brooklyn winters and in the huge temperature variations of the ethiopian desert.

well, there is one thing that sucks.  my eyes are going bad again!  and not in any polite subtle way, either.  i had a brief period of being able to read again and was enjoying the literary send off into sleep, no matter how tedious the novel. we are both working our way through minette walters, a very hit and miss affair. i find her interesting when she lets her inner sociologist sing. when she aims at popular success, she's tedious.

                  

being able to read also meant a complementary tub of plain lowfat yogurt with frozen strawberries. it's become impossible for me to read well without the creamy tang of yogurt and the icy comfort of frozen fruit.

when reading goes, it's a musical bedtime, the lullaby a string of rolling stones' songs -- or, these days, the decemberists and early, easy-breezy, very cheesy brett dennen.  

last night was kind of wonderful, drifting off to phil ochs' "the party," which actually made me think of you... and a few other upper crust sorts, and the cocktail parties you must have both enjoyed and endured.

there's a funny aspect to last night's nocturne, the evocation of monastic hours --  in a completely messed up, annoying way -- beyond the cheapo-cheapo piano, designed to set the teeth on edge.  and then there's phil's voice.  hmm, best i move on, eh? 

some time ago, in asking around about phil ochs' "the party," one of my american lit professors recommended i read... tom wolfe's radical chic & mau-mauing the flak catchers.  

unlike my literati betters -- and that means everyone around me -- i suffered mental origami, a conflation of tom and thomas.  flashes of "golden moments," and so, i have to ask, have you read much tom wolfe?  i realize that the scales tip in favor of look-homeward-ish-ness than anything by the journalist author, who saw himself as a brutally honest zola.  and how many occasions have you had to smile politely at some idjit such as myself, mixing wolfe & wolfe, a heathen playing at americana?

so much happens so quickly in the brain, even a brain seeking sleep.

see? i'm DOIN'.  and while i admire concision, i live for word play... 

"And my shoulders had to shrug

As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano..."

all my best to you and yours, and apologies for ruminating all over your email. it should blot up easily with a paper towel. my last sentence ought to be the first:  how are YOU (and yours), sweet peaches?  

irene

(One hint to how the piano was made even more schmaltzy?  it was a series of plastic toy pianos...)

The Party

The fire-breathing rebels arrive at the party early
Their khaki coats are hung in the closet near the fur
Asking handouts from the ladies, while they criticize the Lords
Boasting of the murder of the very hands that pour
And the victims learn to giggle, for at least they are not bored

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The hostess is enormous, she fills the room with perfume
She meets the guests and smothers them with greetings.
And she asks, "How are you" and she offers them a drink
The countess of the social grace, who never seems to blink
And she promises to talk to you if you promise not to think

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The beauty of the hour is blazing in the present
She surrounds herself with those who would surrender
Floating in her flattery, she's a trophy-prize, caressed
Protected by a pretty face, sometimes cursed, sometimes blessed
And she's staring down their desires
While they're staring down her dress

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The egos shine like light bulbs, so bright you cannot see them
Blind each other blinder than a sandbox
All the fury of an argument, holding back their yawns
A challenge shakes the chandeliers, the selfish swords are drawn
To the loser go the hangups, to the victor go the hangers on

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

They travel to the table, the host is served for supper
And they pass each other down for salt and pepper
And the conversation sparkles as their wits are dipped in wine
Dinosaurs on a diet, on each other they will dine
Then they pick their teeth and they squelch a belch saying
"Darling, you tasted divine"

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The wallflower is waiting, she hides behind composure, composure
She'd love to dance and prays that no one asks her
Then she steals a glance at lovers while her fingers tease her hair
And she marvels at the confidence of those who hide their fears
Then her eyes are closed as she rides away with a foreign legionnaire

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

Romeo is reeling, counting notches on his thighbone
Searching for one hundred and eleven
And he's charming as a child as he leads you to his web
Seducing queens and gypsy girls in the boudoir of his head
Then he wraps himself with a tablecloth and pretends he is a bed

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

Oh, the party must be over, even the losers are leaving
But just one doubt is nagging at my caustic mind
So I snuck up close behind me and I gave myself a kiss
And I led myself to the mirror to expose what I had missed
There I saw a laughing maniac who was writing songs like this

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

-- Phil Ochs




Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Rice Paddies Behind the Perimeter Fence

When I checked in on TW's blog this afternoon, his usually successful tripartite construction failed.  I always appreciate his efforts to make the parts speak to one another, but today they stood alone.

Yes, I know.  I am projecting.

The first two black-and-whites took my breath away, and I still, even now, refuse to accept their provenance.  I could give a royal crap that Tumbleweed is so delusional as to think he knows where they were taken (still, I'd love to have "Poin'dexter's view west" explained!).  Tanner Trail yadda yadda yadda.
Likely story, dude.

I refuse his specificity because I've substituted my own -- and not just my own place names, but time of place, as well:  The view from our back yard, 1968.




TW:  Poin'dexter's view west
Retired Educator:  View from our backyard, 1968



TW: Tanner Trail vista
Retired Educator:  View from our backyard, 1968

No, I'm not gonna tell you where we had our backyard that year (that incredible year for all of us on the planet).

And maybe it wasn't quite as spectacular, and maybe our conscribed point of view made such a view actually impossible, and, okay, there was no river, now that I think about it, but still, I imagined rivers, or maybe more standing water, yes, standing water, for there was water in the heavy air, which makes for incredible greens and blacks, and I remember strange silence, too.

My Brother-Unit named the whole entry: Below Is The Green Water Billowing On -- which comes from the Li Bai poem he featured below the photos (along with a video of David Oistrakh performing Debussy's Clair de Lune in Paris, 1962).

There's a third photo but it doesn't fit the fantasy of my memory, so you will have to just up and take your lazy self on over to American Idyll and see it for yourself.  TW claims it's of Mencius and Confucius Temple from Whites Butte but you cannot always trust him.

I am not such a Debussy fan, either, and Clair de lune is just wrong for these photos of my backyard, back then.  In 1968.

The grasshoppers weave

their autumn song by the

golden railing of the well.

Frost coalesces

on my bamboo mat,

changing its colour with cold.

My lonely lamp is not bright,

I’d like to end these thoughts.

I roll back the hanging,

gaze at the moon,

and sigh long in vain.

The beautiful person

is like a flower beyond

the edge of the clouds.

Above is the black night

of heaven's height.

Below is the green water billowing on.

The sky is long. The road is far. Bitter flies my spirit.

The spirit I dream can't get through.

The mountain pass is hard.

Long yearning breaks my heart.

--Li Bai

For TW on the Occasion of His Birthday

Thanks, Fresca, for encouraging me to pursue giving to TW in the rich spirit of his own recent gifts.

I put it all in action, anyway, by asking my Brother-Units last year to consider packing boxes of Important Stuff From Their Lives in lieu of shrink-wrapped, brand-spanking new orders from Amazon.

Send only used items, I said. Send things that have mattered to you, at different times, over the years, I urged.

Grader Boob, ever difficult, sent me a $300 gift certificate to Amazon.com -- 'nuff said.

TW took me at my word and sent me a box of music, books, videos, prayer flags -- I held my breath, I am still holding my breath.

I understood the enormity of the gift, and my appreciation knows no bounds (He sent me another box for my birthday in January.).

But I did not understand the risk; I did not understand the fear. (TW subsequently joked that he was sure he would never hear from me again.)

Both need to be transcended, of course, for the gift to be given. Hell, for the gift to make it to the car for the trip to the Post Office, one has to be at a kind of peace.

I know this because the contents of my box for TW -- he shares Hitler's birthday, the one piece of trivia I always remembered about my lost older brother -- how he lamented that coincidence! I know this because the contents of my box for TW lie before me on a faded patchwork quilt. I cannot find a box big enough to hide everything in, so it is all there, mocking me.

But I am at a kind of peace.

I have resisted the urge to enclose a "blank sheet of paper... by way of explanation."

Do you remember that line? From Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters? I always felt (pretty much like every Perpetually Misunderstood Perpetual Adolescent when left alone with Salinger) that my brothers and I were Franny, Zooey, Buddy, and Seymour, that we were capable of every fey bit of wit, and might have authored each slight, or unwieldy, whimsy.

That line figures among the choice few to which my mind clings with relative accuracy. Funny, but while there's nothing of Holden Caulfield in my memory, there are a dozen or so references from the Glass Family series, and Nine Stories. (Haven't you chuckled to yourself, then hummed, just before crowing to your love, busy pulling a tee shirt over his wet-haired, curly head: "It's a fine day for banana fish, darling!"? Of course, if you were as sharp as you like to think you are, you would have chirped "This is a perfect day for bananafish." But who would say such a thing?)

An old man, compact, tiny, an old deaf-mute man, affixed with a cigar and mute eloquence, this old man gloms onto Buddy as he dashes around town the day of Seymour's wedding. It's hot to the point of melting good will, notes are being left in lipstick on mirrors, ice is melting in gin, lightly clinking, and the Matron of Honor brays like a donkey, she is that mad. The old and tiny deaf-mute, impeccable in his wedding duds -- Muriel's uncle, if it matters -- nods and smiles at whatever he imagines is going on, and, clearly, the goings-on have morphed into something downright congenial and civilized for the dear man.

It's a lot to load on the shoulders of a fictive game piece (He's always figured in my head as one of the Monopoly game piece do-dads -- but now that I have seen them, I see that he is not all there, not at all.

He is adequately depicted by the Top Hat, I suppose. Or is that a Bowler?

No, it's always been: dog, top hat, wheel barrow, race car, boot, iron, ship, and thimble. Not Lincoln's stern stovepipe, but not a squat close-fitting bowler either.


Well, obviously, I have the whole thing confused in my extra-leaky sieve-of-a-noodle -- confused, maybe, with the Monopoly Man?



It's hard, dealing with resounding meanings, seeking to rely on memory, cultural memories and personal ones, too. It's confusing. [A remembered image of GW Bush springs up, unbidden, unwanted, and there he is, shaking his large head and cartoon face above some podium, somewhere, lamenting "It's hard work..." over and over and over again.



Anyway, I've resisted the urge to explain to Tumbleweed the rationale driving the choice of items in his birthday box. How to say that seven times, already, in the course of my years, I have gotten rid of what mattered the most to me, materially. A few times, it was after heartbreak. A few more times, the culling harvest came on the heels of deep depression (once this involved a good Beaujolais and burning things in a crackling fire). A couple of instances simply reflected the need for money, and so my treasures were sold off, piece by piece. Several years ago, I realized that Fred had hoarding tendencies. I always knew this, I guess, but it reached a crisis point when my pain and disability began to dictate some real physical limitations. I was his defense against chaos -- not just my harpy's tongue, but my inbred need for cleanliness and order. I had always at least set the boundaries for his mess -- his office, his workroom, and so on.


But one day, his books were piled on my shelves. His collection of fine backscratchers were piled on top of my sundries, things much more genteel, Gregorian Chant and seashells.



Somewhere along the way, through the many moves, the incessant cleaning and sorting, stuff had lost its importance. I was filled with an urgency, a growing need to get rid of things. And so, I did. The difference between this latter instance and the times before? I did not reacquire. After I sent my favorite novel to the thrift store, along with a fine assemblage of American fiction, I did not reorder it six months later, desperate to reread what had once been so important.



Believe it or not, I did not finger meaningfully each besotten Memory Charm. I didn't sit with it, second-guessing, sighing. I remember tearing up one of two pictures I had of my paternal grandfather, disposing of several chapters from my thesis, preparing some fine Irish linens for donation -- all without a hint of a muscle twitch in my face.



It was, simply, time. I had enough, more than enough, and my gathering of things no longer represented me.



In other words, I was sure that there was nothing here for me to send to Tumbleweed, nothing that meant anything to me, nothing that met the requirements I had set last year for The Gifting. Any music I might choose was already music he would have, for I was instructed in things musical by our brother Grader Boob, who had been schooled, early on and most lastingly, by TW, himself.


Besides, he had given me the gift of his DeadHead days -- I had not tramped around the country making recordings, living large. No, I had it easy. And maybe I am a bit of what TW most derides -- maybe I am of the bourgeoisie, maybe I am a bit "pop" instead of "cool." His bookcases are full of resplendent nonfiction works of revolutionary ideology. I have all the Harry Potter, and I like Maeve Benchy.



He photographs, religiously, the Grand Canyon. I snap pictures of pink azaleas.



Yes, I almost defeated myself before beginning. He's my big brother and I want him to think well of me.



So I took the me out of it, in order to represent me, truly. I began to play a question game and let the answers commandeer the choices. Then I employed some common sense and returned those items beyond the pale of personal to their proper places in my home. TW does not have the right to everything meaningful, particularly when -- without that "blank sheet of paper... by way of explanation" -- the defining context for the thing is left out, left aside, or best left unsaid.





Beyond the pale. Yes, that's it, richly.



From Gary Martin's website, The Phrasefinder, the origins of beyond the pale:

Meaning: Unacceptable; outside agreed standards of decency.

Origin: Firstly, let's get get clear what word we are talking about here. It's pale, and certainly not pail, - the phrase has nothing to do with buckets. The everyday use of the word pale is as the adjective meaning whitish and light in colour (and used to that effect by Procol Harum and countless paint adverts). This pale is the noun meaning 'a stake or pointed piece of wood'. It is virtually obsolete now except in this phrase, but is still in use in the associated words paling (as in paling fence) and impale (as in Dracula movies).

The paling fence is significant as the term pale became to mean the area enclosed by such a fence and later just the figurative meaning of 'the area that is enclosed and safe'. So, to be 'beyond the pale' was to be outside the area accepted as 'home'.

Catherine the Great created a 'Pale of Settlement' in Russia in 1791. This was a western border region of the country in which Jews were allowed to live. The motivation behind this was to restrict trade between Jews and native Russians. Some Jews were allowed to live, as a concession, beyond the pale.

Pales were enforced in various other European countries for similar political reasons, notably in Ireland (the Pale of Dublin) and France (the Pale of Calais, which was formed as early as 1360).

The phrase itself comes later than that. The first printed reference comes from 1657 in John Harington's lyric poem The History of Polindor and Flostella.

In that work, the character Ortheris withdraws with his beloved to a country lodge for 'quiet, calm and ease', but later venture further - 'Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk'. Such recklessness rarely meets with a good end in 17th century verse and before long they are attacked by armed men with 'many a dire killing thrust'. The message is clearly, 'if there is a pale, you should stay inside it', which conveys exactly the meaning of the phrase as it is used today.

(Besides, I have to save some things for Future Boxes.)

This is what I am sending TW:

A hand-loomed weaving from Nicaragua, the details of which tell the story of a farmer, a scarecrow, haystacks, and the crows, themselves. I wrote a short story based on this weaving. Maybe next box, I'll send the story along, to complete the gesture. It was a mystery, a real who-done-it, and took place in Texas. The background color is a deep purple. Somehow, the bright primary colors on top of that manage to be pretty instead of garish.

A Mercedes Sosa CD, just because of Gracias A La Vida:



A CD/DVD combo of Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris: Real Live RoadRunning. Okay, so this is not important to me... but it's something from Grader Boob to me, and I would like TW to have it. The same goes for the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection. Yes, I re-gifted.

A cassette of people (Gabriel Byrne, Minnie Driver, Colm Meaney...) reading The Poetry of William Butler Yeats.

The Definitive Collection: Nina Simone. 1959-74.

Neil Young: Live at Massey Hall, 1971.

A documentary on Townes Van Zandt -- Be here to love me. (I don't think I've ever before mentioned my total, total, total love of Townes Van Zandt on this blog before. I kind of liked the guy.)

Old Friends Live On Stage: Simon and Garfunkel. From the Old Friends tour -- "Their first and quite possibly last Second Coming for the Twenty-First Century..."
I very much appreciate how Simon chose to explain the thorny relationship between himself and Garfunkel -- "I don't think of Art Garfunkel as my friend. I think of him as family."

One worn copy of Thomas Savage's The Power of the Dog, with an afterword by Annie Proulx. The inside front cover, unfortunately, bears my scribbles about various mutual funds that I apparently was considering as investments. Trust me, if any of them were great picks, I'd pass them on.

T. H. White's The Book of Merlyn. A talisman, that book. Improbably, it is the book I have discarded and then replaced maintes fois. My folksy bible? I dunno. But I actually remember the very moment I first read the passage about Arthur's final meeting with Mordred, when he had almost brokered, hammered, hobbled together, and achieved -- a bit of truce, a peace -- when one of Mordred's officers saw a snake in the grass -- real, not proverbial -- and drew his "bright sword" to slay it:

The waiting armies, taking it for treachery, raised their shout of rage. The lances on both sides bowed to rest. And, as King Arthur ran towards his own array, an old man with white hair trying to stem the endless tide, holding out the knuckled hands in a gesture of pressing them back, struggling to the last against the flood of Might which had burst out all his life at a new place whenever he had dammed it, so the tumult rose, the war-yell sounded, and the meeting waters closed above his head.

Lancelot arrived too late.

Vasari's Lives of the Artists. I am having a hard time letting it go... but it will go.

The Thurber Carnival -- I am having a hard time letting it go, too, but only because it is a superb help when I am sick. It will go, too, but I am not sure that is the height of wisdom.

Despite TW's deep and abiding atheism, Thomas Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander -- because this is about what has been meaningful and important to me, and something must represent the considerable amount of time I have spent forcing myself on various fine monks at various fine monasteries -- my ideal vacation for many years! Odd that the dozen or so passages I marked up (at least I used a pencil) now leave me cold. But Merton stole my heart when I discovered he also read Oppen. [There is no need to send TW any copies of Oppen's poetry, as that is something I did within weeks of first finding him two years ago. If you are dear to me? You will, in short order, possess two books: George Oppen's Selected Poems and Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. The latter is pure self-indulgence but I have tired of pretending to care. I like it, that's all. If you are especially beloved, there is much more to the Reading List, but also a greater likelihood that I will make you listen to Important Book Passages during Extended Late Night Readings. It's part of my secret plan to keep that group very, very small.]

A slim volume, also something I have discarded and repurchased a few times, but out of need and not want: A Tomb for Anatole by Stéphane Mallarmé, with daring translations by Paul Auster. [Uh-oh! In looking up that link to Amazon, I happened to see that there is a new version out, For Anatole's Tomb, Patrick McGuinness (Translator). I do not DARE scratch that itch in the face of my declarations about divestment, above!] I have little love for Mallarmé, in general, but abiding love of this project of his, to which I have returned each time the death of a child has joltingly brought the world to an end.

Except for a small clay figurine of a bonsai master, a malleable brooch in the shape and color of an autumn leaf, and a sample of my astounding collection of islamic prayer beads (I use them as Worry Beads), there remains only one more item for TW's box, this go-round:

The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh Volumes I-III bound by the New York Graphic Society. These are my most prized of tomes, and I am happy to be sending them to my big brother, for I know that he will read and treasure them, in his turn. ["This collection requires, and rewards, a devoted reader."] These are the entire texts of every extant letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, with beautifully reproduced facsimiles interspersed throughout. Bought from an English professor at the University of Virginia who auctioned them on eBay, I opened his heavy box to find he had enclosed what amounts to a formal Letter of Introduction:

I am so pleased that these books have found an appreciative home.
I know that I enjoyed them and I am sure you will. I trust that you and
Vincent will have many enjoyable hours together.

If I can manage to find it, I plan to include a picture of Sleepy John Estes' hands. It is beautiful, a gift from many years back. It was an image from a CD liner that a photographer friend enlarged for Fred, who then had it framed for me. My best recollection is that I broke the frame, Fred was gonna repair it... and at that point, Sleepy John's hands are lost.

Maybe I will take on the search in time for Christmas. Someone should have those beautiful, bowed hands to look at.