FLAKED, WAFERED

This is merely to say hello. As if a hello were mere. One can forget that a recognition and kind greeting can be more than a small thing. A flicker of consciousness? A nod at being?

The Kermit Place Readers are on to Moby Dick. Again, I had some reluctance to take on such a long work for the second time. But with the rewarding memories of a re-read of Middlemarch still fresh, I press on. With that, I was rewarded with this at the outset.

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong and moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball."

And that is in the first paragraph, baby. You thought "Call me Ishmael." was grand.

The next day. 

Janet and I seem to be having pyjama days. I can hear the umpteenth episode of Fixer Upper playing down the hall. It is soothing. 

I watched the ending of Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge, which I recommend. I still have some old copies outside that I should perhaps try to sell instead of letting them rot. When I was at UCSC, I found that they had bound copies of the magazine. I wasted some good studying time looking through them. If only I had known there was such a thing as American studies, I do believe my life would have taken a different turn.

So, I will go back to my reading. I am almost finished with this Please Look After Mom, a huge bestseller in Korea. Kind of a sentimental tear-jerker, yet not without merit and insight.

A house is such a strange thing. Everything else gets more worn when people handle it, and sometimes you can feel a person's poison if you get too close to him, but that's not what happens to a house. Even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody stops by. A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it.

— Kyung-Sook Shin

Between hearing Fixer-Upper and thinking about the moving sale my friends are having at a beloved second home in Woodstock, I suppose this is particularly resonant. Knowing that I will never spatchcock or roast another chicken, huddle outside near the fire pit, laugh ourselves silly, or crack 
wise through a mutual terrible hangover at that house saddens me.

I knew—one day I wouldn't remember anything. And before that happened, I wanted to take care of everything I'd ever used. I didn't want to leave anything behind. All the bottom cupboards are empty, too. I broke every that was breakable and buried it.

— Kyung-Sook Shin

Well, it's 4:30 and I am still sitting here in an unmade bed in my pyjamas. Butterscotch is still sleeping in her favorite corner. The piles of undone things and unfinished tasks are before me. Do I watch more tv? Read Moby Dick? Roast a chicken? Or fold the laundry? I will not get to all of these tasks. Shall I blame the lethargy on the cool, grey day? Now, that I think of it, I am just grateful I don't have a hangover from drinking wine with the cousins last night.

FULL MEASURE

You will get your full measure.
But, as when asking fairies for favors,
there is a trick: it comes in a block.
And of course one block is not
like another. Some respond to water,
giving everything wet a little flavor.
Some succumb to heat, like butter.
Others give in to steady pressure.
Others shatter at a tap. But
some resist; nothing in nature softens up
their bulk and no personal attack works.
People whose gift will not break
live by it all their lives; it shadows
every empty act they undertake.



COMPOSITION
Language is a diluted aspect of matter.
— Joseph Brodsky

No. Not diluted.
Flaked; wafered;
but not watered.
Language is matter
leafing like a book
with the good taste
of rust and exposure
the way ironwork
petals near the coast.
But so many more
colors than rust:
or, argent, others—
a vast heraldic shield
of beautiful readable
fragments revealed
as Earth delaminates:
how the metals scatter,
how matter turns
animate.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It, New York, Grove Press, 2010