A moon nailed fast

Tonight I sat thinking for a bit and realized I had been reading ‘This Solitude of Cataracts’ all wrong, and searched my shelf for a copy of the poem I hadn’t read in years. Sure enough, I had it all wrong. There is the tendency to view it as a ‘disease of the week’ poem, to perceive it as depicting someone who suffered from a disease of clouding of the eye and wanted to maintain a sensory relationship to the natural world, seeing. It struck my memory that I had been denying the metaphor its full force.

What I never saw was the disease of cataracts being a metaphor for the protagonist's longing for a clouded vision. That Stevens chose this metaphor indicates his perception of the desire for blindness to be a common disease that comes naturally and not through persuasion and socialization. The imagery used near the end of the poem elaborates on the capricious, frivolous, and vain nature of this natural folly, "To be a bronze man breathing under archaic lapis." How much we seek out blindness like our lives depended on it! And stepping back Stevens is making a commentary on poetry itself, that it must be a prologue rather than a tableau, that to fix it in the time-image is to submit to the machinery of blindness.

Strategy gets lucky

Love this series. The media conglomerates hate it. But most of all, with all due respect to A’s GM Billy Beane and Mets Manager Willie Randolph, I like to see intelligence prevail over stupidity. The Mets almost spent enough to cover for all the personnel mistakes they made, but money can’t cover for all that idiocy. On the other hand, Cards GM Walt Jocketty has aced almost all his trades with a much smaller budget and LaRussa revolutionizes his craft.

But after watching my beloved Phils pass over Jim Leyland for Charlie Manuel, an organization shill who still doesn’t understand the double switch, after well-publicized interviews with Leyland, clearly because of the irrational fear that Leyland may quit at some point taking public issue at longstanding organizational problems, and after watching my beloved Baseball Prospectus say that the hiatus would keep Leyland from being effective, I have enjoyed watching Leyland and Dombrowski make a winner out of the parts they had to start with. I’m one who believes that taking time out to think makes you better.

As much as two posts here were about St. Louis and another mentioned Pujols and Rolen (I was afraid there was a Piri Miri Muli jinx after Rolen’s error and Pujols’ injury-induced slump), I’m rooting for Detroit of course: ‘Detroit’ being the text of the poem below Ken Mikolowski’s title ‘Homage to Frank O’Hara: Why I Am Not A New York School Poet.’ Didn’t drive by the lakes but in the Midwestern cities I rotated back and forth between the brief ‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye and the more extended ‘Donuts’ by recently deceased J. Dilla, which is a great before and after the game selection as it is a capsule of the modern history of Detroit music and it has the Tigers logo on the disc.

Rolen said after the game that ‘a lot of people sold us short’ or something to that effect, like, the guy who types the regular season win loss records really doesn’t build up this ballclub. If the media would let baseball do away with the divisional and league championships and let the top teams of each league’s regular season play, they’d have their Subway Series, but as often happens they got greedy.

Autumn tropicália

It is a worthwhile jaunt to the Bronx to see a contemporary rendering of the Hélio Oiticica installation that gave birth to the Tropicália movement in ‘60s Brazil. As it was one of those ‘had to be there’ movements, ‘there’ is reconstructed: you take your shoes off and traverse through wet walking areas, loud parrots, minimalism, and pulp novels -- you don’t think so much about where it came from and what it inspired people to do because you are so busy forgetting where you came from. The show, spread out over five rooms and a few hallways, presents a little of the political context of the movement but seems to err on the side of understatement here.

In town on Sunday this allowed me to avoid weekend crowds in the Manhattan places (and since galleries are closed) but the Bronx Museum could benefit from hanging additional shows or a permanent collection since there is nothing else to do within walking distance. Two blocks west of the 149th street stop there’s a good West African market in an abandoned warehouse if you are driving or can bear to walk around with a sack of fu fu paste in your bag.

Unknown

Where I work (NJ not the Texas job) we have a storage building for construction materials which I store books in (generally less valuable ones or ones I’m not into now), and today in my absence while the bathroom was being sheet rocked a Latino drywall contractor used the john and took one of the books with him. When he got out he was passionately attached to the book and insisted on purchasing it. They said that it belonged to someone not present. He insisted on taking the book home and they suggested five dollars but the drywall worker insisted it was worth nine (twice the internet value) and emptied his wallet of the nine dollars inside. He is finished the job and is unlikely to return.

After extended interrogation, I established that the book is most probably Jean Cocteau’s Diary of an Unknown.

What I found, wandering

Poetry is the world through the prism of self; prose is self through the prism of the world.

Review: Eats

My longest period of vegetarianism came after I ate cuy in a Peruvian joint in Paterson and ended with a trip South. The subject of cuy came up with my 4 year old nephew Owen recently....

Owen: Which guinea pig in my book do you like?
Me: I ate a guinea pig once.
Owen: Ate one?! Eating guinea pigs is not in my book! Eating guinea pigs is not nice to guinea pigs!

This in mind here is my ranking of BBQ places I visited during my drive to Texas and back (ranking of art museums to follow when I get the chance):

1. Smitty’s Market, Lockhart, TX. Had a lot of great BBQ on this trip but it’s not difficult to decide on my favorite. Meat is the emphasis here, beef brisket and sausage, which you buy by the pound in a room set aside just for meat-sales. Beans good, potato salad average, but carnivores won’t notice.
2. RO’s Outpost, Spicewood, TX. Rustic, family-run favorite of the West of Austin ranch set not known to travel writers or many Austiners, I didn’t go to two successive lunches there by choice but by others’ wishes, but the merits came to dawn on me. Green beans here were great, turkey and pork perfect. Deep fried corn on the cob. Even ordered dessert, chocolate merenge pie.
3. BBQ Heaven, Indianapolis, IN. Situated on MLK Blvd between the Art Museum and the Western Art Museum, this take out place was started long ago but the bullet proof glass came a bit later. This was my first BBQ on the trip and was as good a place to start as any. Potato salad best on trip. Neon pig-related tableau on building facade.
4. BBQ Hut, St. Louis, MO. Got peckish in the Art Museum and a Reubenesque female guard sent me way into the ‘hood for this stuff, which I ate in the City Museum parking lot (like Heaven, a bullet-proof take-out). Nine napkins, straight to the City Museum rest room to clean up. Potato salad what I’d call ‘home style,’ like a large, glorified egg salad, but it’s all about the glory.
5. Rudy’s BBQ, Round Rock, TX. My first Texas brisket ever, and not a bad chain for this. Not to be confused with Ruby’s.
6. Riscky’s BBQ, Fort Worth, TX Cheap sandwich, and the staff was very friendly and gave me directions out of town despite the waitress having ‘just moved in from Denton.’
7. Ron’s BBQ, Austin, TX. South of river neighborhood place, beans were cold at 5:45 but it was cheap and friendly.

Other eating highlights:
Hoover’s, Austin, TX. Best turnip greens I’ve had.
Threadgill’s, Austin, TX. Best collard greens I’ve had. 'Texas caviar' black eyed peas on a par with RO's, which is a rare feat of seasoning, and lima beans were the perfect texture.
Skyline Chili, Cincinnati OH. Was trying to drive out of town but came upon the center city location, which since the closing of the original has become the de facto Mecca of Cinci-style chili spaghetti. Didn’t know what to expect, got it ‘four way’ sans fromage (chili, beans, onions, pasta), small size, $3.75. One bite and I was hooked: great stuff, but I don’t know what it has to do with Greek cuisine.
Cooking for people at the hostel after a long kayak trip: one guest said it make all the difference of her week and a Houston air conditioning saleswoman had the meal of her life even tho ‘dis here Taa-heany stuff makes my mouth stick tagether,’ approving of my fenugreek curry because ‘them Hindus are taeking ahr side on the wahr.’
Mexican: Hit Mi Tierra again in San Antonio, which was a highlight of my trip as I love the decor and the crowd there. In Okmulgee, OK found a great place owned and staffed by Guanajuato émigrés called El Charro that gave me so many perfectly cooked carnitas (pork) that there were ten pieces left over to take home.

Critical jargon

If the poetry blogosphere were for want of more binaries, I would add: ‘fashion victims/ ennui victims.’