Mancave Envy

I’m seeing all these mancaves and it makes me super envious. Freud would say my house and I are not physically equipped to have a mancave, but we want one, and the power it represents. I’m going to indulge my boyish nature, appropriate some hormones and rename my little studio. I’ve got some of the accoutrements already.

My mancave has a chair named Bernhard because that’s a man’s name. 

My mancave has a manual typewriter because it’s bromantic.

My mancave has a Native American blanket because bold, masculine graphic.

My mancave has a picture of a beautiful woman, because beautiful women.

My mancave has genuine spiderwebs because Spidermancave.

My mancave has a dog because man’s best friend.

My mancave has an X-Acto knife in it because get off my lawn.

I understand every mancave needs a sign on the door, and you’ll be glad to know mine does have a sign on the door. My daughter (the beautiful woman whose picture graces the cave) gave it to me. It says “Mom,” in honor of Thoreau's mom, who washed his clothes for him. 

Dear Goatee

Preparing to do Found Poetry's scouting project next month, I dug up this poem I did two years ago when I took part in their Pulitzer project, in which each participant chose a Pulitzer prize-winning book as a source text for found poetry. Mine was Independence Day by Richard Ford. "Dear Goatee" was written using words on p. 186 of the novel. It was a challenge to find a new poem every day of April, and you certainly got intimate with the book. To keep from going insane, I usually limited myself to one page per poem. With the scouting project, we'll use a variety of texts, and I'm looking forward to trying something new. 

Had the Day off

Pruned the roses and cut back the ropey, dead clematis
Kissed the Rome-bound husband & son goodbye
Delivered wonderdog to her vacation
Took a stab at some found poems before PoMoSco
Went grocery shopping
Read Emily Dickinson’s #420 (There are two Ripenings)
Ate a salad of rucola, tomatoes & mozzarella, like an Italian flag
Bought a song on iTunes
Basked in the sunshine on the terrace
Shook three men’s hands
Posted a Throwback Thursday photo
Learned a childhood friend’s sad fate

i taste a liquor never brewed

Anne Sexton will be played by Lindsay Lohan.
Robert Frost will be played by Christoph Waltz.

ee cummings will be played by Jeff Goldblum.
Sappho will be played by Cate Blanchett.

Emily Dickinson will be played by Mia Wasikowska.
Guillaume Apollinaire will be played by Jack Nicholson. 

Derek Walcott will be played by George Clooney.
Sylvia Plath will be played by Sissy Spacek.

Ai will be played by Eartha Kitt.
John Donne will be played by Clint Eastwood.

Wallace Stevens will be played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

Sharon Olds will be played by Catherine Keener.

Bergmanesque

Last night at a concert I discovered one of my most longstanding misreadings. A countertenor was singing a raft of French songs, including Claude Debussy’s Prelude and Clair de Lune, two of his best known pieces.

The concert program included the lyrics and I was reading the actually kind of lame melodramatic texts of various songs (o my heart) and it was slowly revealed to me that the two Debussy songs were not from what I’ve long been reading as Suite Bergmanesque, but from Suite Bergamasque. 

In other words, the songs weren’t a homage to the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman as I’ve been unconsciously assuming for about 25 years, but to a clownish dance from the Italian town of Bergamo. Since I never thought about the inspiration for the songs, or dwelled on any associations I made with them, I’d never corrected this abiding trick of the eye. 

You’d think it would have occurred to me that Bergman and Debussy didn't have overlapping lifetimes. In fact they missed each other by four months - Debussy died in March 1918 while Bergman was born in July of that year - meaning the composer never had the opportunity to see Wild Strawberries, or The Seventh Seal, or even the first movie Bergman directed, To Joy.

Well, dear 25 years, it’s been lovely having Debussy’s Prelude evoke all those Swedish walks on the beach, and letting Clair de Lune call forth the light in the foghorn scene from Persona. In fact, I think I’ll continue to let it. It’s much more pleasing than an awkward Italian dance from a town best known these days for its rinky-dink airport, served primarily by Ryanair.

The week that was

On a 1-10 scale, the past week gets a weak 5. No one died or anything. Nor did a tree fall on my car, but I don’t drive. The week didn’t win an award for leading actress, or screenplay, or original score. And I banged my elbow. 

Listened to: Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro
Reading: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust

Saw: Birdman. I wasn’t crazy about it. And the popcorn sucked. 

Learned: To properly pronounce sangfroid 

Laughed: My own joke at work, which involved an English nursery rhyme peppered with German. That’s how desperate I was for humor.
Cursed: Being 5 minutes late for yoga, meaning I was locked out.

Failed: The moths are back.
Succeeded: Drafted a poem; received an acceptance

Regretted: My desk calendar. Every day there’s a new photo, and 55% of the time it seems to be a selfie, and god knows we’ve had enough of that.
Dreamed: My father was taking a bath in a shed in a rural setting. He got all contorted and was shouting for help. Luisa and I were nearby but I said he was just making noise and didn’t need help but Luisa went and helped him get out of the tub, exasperated with me.

Acquired: A rose-scented candle
Discarded: A purple poncho

Ate: Risotto Milanese
Ingested: A mouthful of exhaust smoke

Word of the week: Flummox, a well-built verb with an unconventional ending. 

Pithiness: "We spend our time envying people we wouldn’t like to be." - Jean Rostand