Stalks

The wind is torn.

In the field behind my house, flowers not on stems but stalks.

As a child driving at night with my parents and uncle, so foggy my uncle threatened to get out and walk, and threw the door open on the highway.

Why has ‘debauch’ been usurped by ‘debauchery?’ ‘Debauch’ being one instance?

Most people have to invent their own pain, but I lived not far from the factory.

Some cut flowers can be revived by submerging in cool water. Warm makes the wilt worse.

As a child I was a fervent devotee of prayer. I had a looming divorce to pray against, and dreaded going to bed, knowing how long it was going to take to bless everyone I loved, or who deserved my love.

A horse is prized for beauty and strength, and to hell with its inner qualities.

“Children go through divorce in single file,” said Judith Wallerstein. It doesn’t matter if their friends got there first.

A gentleman is not an implement, Confucius said.

And the flophouse is no place for a lady.

Vermicelli Piano Piano

I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair today, publishers' annual bash for buying and selling foreign rights to titles. Of course it’s more than that. It’s also a showplace for trends, a marketing extravaganza, lectures and awards, and a book feast. On the last days many publishers sell the books they’ve brought along, rather than schlepping them halfway around the world on airplanes. 

There’s plenty of book fetishism to go around - the righteous adoration of das Ding an sich. It’s exemplified in this gorgeous Phaidon book, Cookbook Book, which as you’d guess is a book about cookbooks, with pictures of various cookbooks from various countries. Phaidon, like most publishers, cuts prices the last day but even so I thought it too pricey and useless to justify buying. Now, at 9 pm, I have the melancholy opposite of buyer’s remorse. 

Looking the book over at the fair, I thought of my favorite aphorist, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who said in 1773, “Nowadays we already have books about books and descriptions of descriptions.”

He also said, “If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing press.”

And, “If, as Leibniz has prophesied, libraries one day become cities, there will still be dark and dismal streets and alleyways as there are now.” 

I left with one book for myself on collage, and bought my daughter most of what her heart desired, and even found a graphic novel for my reluctant-reader son, because that’s what money is for.

The week in hindsight

Learned: the Italian word for ‘rodent’ is ‘roditore,’ which sounds very grand, and means “he who gnaws"

Saw: Albrecht Dürer exhibition at the Städel 

Disliked: what the smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken at the airport at 7 am did to my headache and stomachache 

Read: obituaries online

Ate: Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes)

Bought: chunky candles

Skipped: dessert (tiramisu - who can eat the equivalent of 2 dinners after dinner?)

Drank: Primitivo (Puglia)

Received: 2 rejections (Ninth Letter & Tin House)

Watched: Sherlock Holmes episode “The Illustrious Client” 

Rolled my eyes at: Horn honkers in gridlock. You built it, you suffer it. 

Ordered: The Brontes and Mr. Peanut 

Cried over: People greeting their loved ones at the airport. Yeah, I suck at airports. 

Listened to: pages turning, ambulances, people talking with their mouths full 

Pithiness of the week: "To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent."-Baroness De Stael-Holstein 

A Week's Hindsight

Learned: the word lalochezia, the use of foul language to relieve stress

Saw: Phèdre (decent acting, horrible play)

Heard: Anita O’Day sing You Came a Long Way from St. Louis

Ate: Coq au Vin

Made a (birthday) wish: can’t say what, but it wasn’t for me

Bought: wrinkle cream (see above)

Read: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Skipped: the office Christmas party

Drank: Rioja

Received: the muscular blooms pictured 

Resolved: sit-ups!

Honored: with a Pushcart Prize nomination for my poem ‘Gacela of Ash’

Watched: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (umpteenth time)

Rolled my eyes at: person who followed a limping old man into the supermarket shouting at him for parking in a handicap spot without a sticker

Laughed: about these truths

Cried: yup

Pithiness of the week: Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise (La Rochefaucauld)

I stole this roundup idea from philoku, a German design blog. Resolve to learn German! 

swords & dagrrrls

The earth is not round; it is a geoid, larger around the equator than from pole to pole. As it should be.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance, said Socrates. 

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes, said Czeslaw Milosz. 

Your ignorance is more scandalous than my promiscuity, said the Riot Grrrls. 

In the morning, for what it’s worth, I open my eyes.

The sword looks foolish beside the dagger. 

Asymmetry, too, has its own gorgeous order. 

(Not writing, but typing.)