First Snow

I was sitting at the bar of a smartly dressed Italian restaurant when it began to snow. There were little pale Christmas lights strung in the windows. The fake green garland, dotted with red and green velvet bows, twisted itself around doorways, window frames and table legs. Near the entry a pair of smiling fat-faced Santas guarded the candy bowl.  Each table was cheerfully tended by a single flickering tea light. Someone had taken time to light each one, even for the lunch customers. The place feels remarkably sincere and in the time between my arrival and first bowl of soup I become convinced the snow descended to impart upon the scene an extraordinary sense of earnestness.

How could this story not be about you? I look over my left shoulder, out the lighted window and then past the window.  My gaze transports me out onto the snowy street. Out into the starry sky. I suppose my gaze was the willingness to see what is not there. Is that not the condition of all fantasy?

This is a story about a queer girl and her queer boy lover. The snow is thick now and whites out the street.  The bartender, Mary Anne, is tending me like I’m her own son. She hovers as I eat and wants to know how I like the soup.  She doesn’t need to know I can barely swallow, that the soup slides down thick as it chokes me.  It’s not her fault. It’s not even about the soup. My mind flashes to an image of her old hands lighting each little tea light on the tables. I try on a thin smile, “I like it. It’s nice.”

“Paul!” she hollers, “He likes the soup!” When Paul comes out to check I’m startled by his uncanny resemblance to my father. He plunks down to my right and slowly shifts his gaze left. “You know what’s wrong with kids these days, Mary Anne? The girls, they sometimes go out with two, three boys at a time.” His accent is thick.  I wish he would talk about anything else but this. Mary Anne agrees with Paul emphatically. He looks at me, or through me, or perhaps even through the window. Perhaps past the window; onto the snowy street; into the starry sky.

“Ah! Fuck it!” he says after a few awkward minutes, and ambles back into the kitchen.

The snow is starting to melt and its slushy sound on the street mimics rain. The place suddenly seems a bit gaudy. Mary Anne whirls on her heels to fetch my check. Time feels more like a week after Christmas than a week after Thanksgiving–when life feels all warmed over and traumatized from bearing the impossible weight of everyone’s crazed holiday fantasies.

I pay my bill and leave with an irrational desire to take you here for dinner.

The Charleston To Daft Punk.swf (music video)

The Charleston To Daft Punk.swf (music video).

How I wish I could embed this video. Love it. Love the early strains of Old Way voguing. What a cool temporal mash-up.

Halley’s comet

depressing_small.jpg (JPEG Image, 722×451 pixels).

The title of this comic is “depressing,” but I don’t think it is at all. This is a lovely, nostalgic sentiment.

Nostalgia (OED):

[< post-classical Latin nostalgia (J. Hofer Dissertatio Medica de Nostalgia, oder Heimwehe (1688)) < ancient Greek

return home (see NOSTOS n.) + - -ALGIA comb. form, after German Heimweh HEIMWEH n. Compare French nostalgie (1759), Italian nostalgia (1764).]

1. Acute longing for familiar surroundings, esp. regarded as a medical condition; homesickness. Also in extended use.

The beauty lies in the sense that this human has “returned home,” as represented by his absence in the third frame. The astral reference emphasizes this, which, according to this anonymous poster, is “depressing.” Nostalgia is such an utterly human experience. The more intense sentiment in the third frame clearly is the comet’s ambivalence. This man’s homecoming, as it were, is a temporal fleck. The comet, on the other hand, flaunts the immortality we humans find depressing the man lacks.

Day 35: Giving voice

Often we read about marginalized communities who struggle for voice-who struggle to be heard or whose voices have been silenced by others. This group, the members of the Transcendence Gospel Choir, use their embodied voices to give material presence to their truths. No metaphor can do that. The following clip is from the movie The Believers and is sheer pleasure to watch. These folks are the realness behind the essay I’m writing.

Day 34: Sensemayá

A poem by Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén:

Sensemayá

Canto para matar a una culebra

¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!

La culebra tiene los ojos de vidrio;
la culebra viene y se enreda en un palo;
con sus ojos de vidrio, en un palo,
con sus ojos de vidrio.

La culebra camina sin patas;
la culebra se esconde en la yerba;
caminando se esconde en la yerba,
caminando sin patas.

¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!

Tú le das con el hacha y se muere:
¡dale ya!
¡No le des con el pie, que te muerde,
no le des con el pie, que se va!

Sensemayá, la culebra,
sensemayá.
Sensemayá, con sus ojos,
sensemayá.
Sensemayá, con su lengua,
sensemayá.
Sensemayá, con su boca,
sensemayá.

La culebra muerta no puede comer,
la culebra muerta no puede silbar,
no puede caminar,
no puede correr.
La culebra muerta no puede mirar,
la culebra muerta no puede beber,
no puede respirar,
no puede morder.

¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
Sensemayá, la culebra…
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
Sensemayá, no se mueve…
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
Sensemayá, la culebra…
¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé!
Sensemayá, se murió.

And the 1937 orchestral adaptation written by Silvestre Resvueltas. This is the breathless 1963 recording of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I’ve played this piece myself (1st trumpet) and can only imagine witnessing this trombone section’s ecstatic fit. In fact, I think if I had seen Bernstein conduct this I would have gone into fits myself

Day 33: “A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”

See also: http://home.exetel.com.au/bmgoau/space/008_1561b2.html

I stumbled upon both websites within 15 mins of each other.

Day 32: A love affair