So What'd You Think of An object of Beauty....?

I’ve been twice to the International Basel Art Show which takes place every June in Switzerland and have witnessed dapper gentleman in houndstooth buying paintings by Hans Arp for $20,000 and overheard many an avant-guard nabob negotiate superior sums on their cell phones. I’d wondered who these people were, what kinds of lives they lived. In Steve Martin’s latest novel, An Object of Beauty I was given some insight into this world of art that fascinates.


The book’s main character is Lacey as described by a nerdy and likable narrator, a writer for ARTnews. She is an enviable femme fatale type: attractive, witty, appreciator of and surrounded by the finest of worldly things, driven by intense amition to succeed, ensnaring millionaire art dealers in her charms, moving free of self-doubt or timidity. I think Lacey’s complexities reveal Martin’s understanding of women in general.


When Lacey sells her Grandmother’s Maxfield Parrish painting in a dubious way in order to stay in New York and pursue her dream, readers see just how unscrupulous, almost immoral she is. Especially when said Parrish painting depicts her own grandmother as an enchanting youth, a dear testament to an ongoing familial link to art, artists, and to beauty. This ambitious move renders her shallow, vacuous, as the New York art scene seems after the terrorist attacts of September 11.


I found the book to be a fun and rollicking read while maintaining an intelligent tone. I think it would adapt well to film. It is also, most importantly, powerful in conveying art’s inherent value to humanity. This was aided by the twenty-two reproductions of various artworks found throughout and especially felt from one effectual scene in which Lacey hangs a painting by Milton Avery on her apartment wall. Readers witness the Avery catalyzing an almost spiritual transformation of her apartment, turning it from a student-like, juevenile space to a harmonious, exquisite, mature abode. She has a revelation at this moment, understanding why people collect art, value it, invest in it.


It would be hard not to come away unaffected by An Object of Beauty. It seems likely that readers of every kind will have a new or refreshed understanding of art, even be stirred to collect or investigate it further.


It’s impassioned author said shortly after buying a painting by William Michael Harnett, a 19th century still-life painting (from New York Times article November, 2010): “It’s absolutely great to live with. It’s better than television. There’s not a day I don’t look at or spend some amount of time with an artwork.”

Bordering Paranoia

Have you actually read your passport?  I know, I hadn't either.
Here's what it states:
'The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection.'
Without delay or hindrance, huh.  Well, here's what one has to deal with when entering back into the the U.S. these days.
My personal experience:
Arrive from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Detroit, November 22, 2010.  I was in a long long line with fellow American travelers snaking around belted partitions as a squat black woman barked orders at us like a military officer.  There were four customs officers perched in bullet proof glass cages processing everyone.  I was at the line of discretion, uneasy, and met the testosterone filled eyes of a bulky, shaved-head customs guard.  I didn't say hi and get all deferential like I normally do.  This time I wanted to feel like he was serving me, not the other way around.
He asked me if I was traveling alone, what I was doing abroad, what I was doing home, where I was living, who I would be staying with in the United States.  My answers were satisfactory and he gave my passport a stamp and I was on to pick up my baggage.
Everyone must pick up their baggage and re-check it now, even if one has a connecting flight.  So, I got my suitcase and got in line at yet another custom officer's checkpoint station.  As we all waited patiently in line, a woman holding a nervous German shepherd on a leash looped her way around, urging the dog to sniff us, our possessions, bags and suitcases.  The dog lingered, snuffling on a woman's rolling suitcase and the woman officer screamed, 'Are you carrying any food items with you today, Ma'am?'  The woman said no.  The dog continued.  My stomach turned to liquid with fear.  I was smuggling in stinky, runny, raw milk French cheese and a bag of butter cookies.  Thankfully the dog didn't catch on.  Then, it was finally my turn to stand before the second customs officer who looked just like the first.  He asked me again if I was traveling alone, what I was doing in France.  As I answered, he half listened, looking at my passport photo, then me, my photo, then me again, then said, 'you look familiar, that's why I keep staring at you.'  Then he asked if my husband was planning on coming to the United States at a future date.  Then he asked me if I was bringing any food items into the U.S.
He wrote something on my customs card and kept it and let me go.  There was another barricade of officers who were choosing people at random to enter into a small room called, 'Baggage Search' where our bags would be gone through extensively by a man wearing rubber gloves.  I was glad to go by unpicked.  I rechecked my baggage and had to go through another security checkpoint even though we had all just come from Paris where we had all passed through the x-rays and scans and into this secure customs area and we had to go through it all......again...?
A fellow American behind me was disgruntled, 'Why do we have to do this all again?  This is just ridiculous, do we really have to take our shoes off again?'
The security guard sang out, 'yes, take off your shoes, take off your belts, put your keys, coats, bags, electronic devises in the trays.'
So, we walked one by one over the filthy, cold floors in stocking feet through the scanner to get yet another dose of radiation.  Some of my traveling companions were chosen at random to enter the glass alien pod puffer machine, others got a pat down, others a purse pillage.  Finally, I was able to enter the Detroit airport proper.
I passed, but with hindrance and delay. Don't get me wrong, I think some security is necessary, but I feel the 'terrorists' have won if the nation is terrorizing it's own citizens.  Does grandma really need a pat down or a full body x-ray?  Come on!

After School Job

I used to mow lawns: ours, and Chester's rental place.
I was pushing the mower over some spindly albino grass clumps between our side yard pines when Chester scared me by tapped me on the shoulder.  I had in earplugs.
He was a white-haired man, wearing an eggplant-colored button down shirt and a turquoise bolo.  I could see his 4 X 4 idling in the street over his shoulder.
He explained that he needed someone to tend the yard of a property he'd just bought in the neighborhood, on Tingly Street.
'Twenty dollars an hour,' he said, as he handed me his business card.  My dad at the time was giving me fifteen.
My parents were happy that I was happy to take on this after school job.  I was saving every cent I earned for a video camera.
I knew exactly where Chester's property was, passing it every morning and every afternoon on the school bus.  Its windows were boarded, except for two small square attic ones.  Victorian in aspect, its white paint was flaking away from the wooden siding and it had a wide wrap-around porch.  In the small yard was a garage collapsed to the right and a couple of old deciduous trees.  In the wild lawn grew amaranth and milkweed.

The first day I mowed there, it was right after school.  The house looked as soulless and vacant as ever it had. It was a gray day and I felt ill-at-ease on the property with my senses muffled by the sound of the mower.   My eyes drifted up to the attic windows from time to time to observe what looked like a wispy woman's shadow swaying back and forth, back and forth.
I told myself it was just the reflection of the oscillating tree branches.
It looked as if it might begin to rain and I had a shuddering sensation that I was being watched.  I pushed and pulled the mower over the long grass and weeds in nervous haste.
Removing some branches from my path, I started to toss them next to the dilapidated garage when I was surprised to find a small old woman sitting there instead, hands around her knees, calmly watching me.  She motioned with her finger for me to come closer to her.  I cut the motor,  relieved that the source of my uneasiness was only this humble staring crone.   She asked me if I was ready as she stood up, revealing a voice rich in kindness.
'Ready for what?' I asked.
'Ready for your Tollhouse cookies,' she said, 'come along inside.'
I followed her white chignon and long, black, victorian skirt hanging from her thin body toward the house.
Stepping over a door lying on the porch,  she told me to watch my step, the place was quite a hovel.
I could barely see a thing.  Once my eyes adjusted somewhat, I understood that she'd lit some candles in the kitchen and we were following their glow.  I nearly fell on dusty boards and papers, rotting throw rugs, rusted metal tools, and what looked like canine jaw bones.  My lungs suffered with each stale breathe I took in and finally sat down at an old kitchen table.
Pulling my t-shirt away from my mouth and nose, I asked her if she was sure she was supposed to be moved in yet.
'You know, it's funny,' she said while she scurried around the kitchen,'there's no electricity here, and you wanna know what else?  I found a dead cat behind the stairs.'
She presented me with a plate of cookies.
Thankfully, I heard the hush of rain starting to fall and a distant rumble of thunder.
I excused myself, bounded out of the maze of debris and ran home pushing the mower in front of me.

Chester called the following week.  He wanted to know why I had left his lawn half-mowed.
'You gotta finish it soon,' he insisted, 'There's a family movin' in next week.'
'You mean an old woman who's moving in?'  I asked.
'No, it's a family.'
'Well, Chester, there's an old lady living in there now!'
'Impossible.'
'I'm telling you!  She made me Tollhouse cookies!'
He was confused.  I was too.  I finally had to admit to myself that I had interacted with an apparition, it being the only explanation.

I watched the new family move in.  There was a fat mom and dad, a neglected mutt tied to a tree, a daughter with a mass of tangled black hair,  and a Kool-aid stained son.
I asked them if they'd seen a hag around, described her, but they didn't know what I was talking about.

Of course, I stopped mowing there.  Even the idea that while I mowed, the new girl would be braiding her Barbie's hair on the porch steps,  her idiot brother spinning in the yard didn't console me.

It was two years later that I was at the state fair with my boyfriend.  It was a warm night and the floodlights gave the vulgar crowd a haloed outline.  We were shooting hoops to win a ridiculously creepy synthetic plush toy when I noticed under a tent across the dusty alley, the face of that old woman.  I shot the basketball askew and walked over to the individuals obscured under the tent shadows.  It was indeed the old woman whom I had met before.  It was evident that she was with a group of lunatics on their annual outing to the state fair.

It Didn't Seem That He Had Anyone

So, now what?  The man freshly retired from his 30 years as a factory inspector asked his mewing cat.  He had the whole day ahead of him.  He looked to noon as the day's pivot point.  What should he do with himself in these morning hours?  He watched his cat arch around his legs, its hair becoming tousled from his corduroy trousers.  He turned off the kitchen light, the sun now streamed into the kitchen, hit the rainbow maker he just put up with string and he watched colors on his terra cotta floor.  Maybe he should call Graham.  No, it was too early.  He saw the stray cats on his back porch hissing at each other and he thought he might like another cup of tea.  The sound of water coming to a boil was comforting.  He turned on the radio and listened to his favorite public radio classical music station, sat down and put his elbows on the table, chin in his hands, and felt the muscles of his back slump.  The clock chimed half past eight.  He thought maybe he'd call his daughters, or maybe his brother.  He wanted to thank him again for helping him out after his second story had caught fire the previous winter.  He didn't know his sister-in-law would be so accommodating.  He slept in that small pink room where a framed prayer of Saint Francis hung by the light switch.   Funny how one phrase still stuck in his head: '...grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand...'  He felt so dusty and pathetic that first night eating dinner with them, a blond child at each end of the table, staring at him, whose names he didn't remember.  Then the kids went to bed and so did he, a pathetic adult-child.  He hated being there.
But, he thought with a chuckle, that fire was actually an answer to a prayer.  For he no longer collapsed in his bathroom, holding onto the metal towel rack, face contorting, eyes lifted upwards through tears, pleading: 'why?...why..?  Please help me...'  Nor did he whisper those incantations anymore to the full moon when she icily spot-lit his cheek as he lie in bed.   Yes, he was feeling less lonely now.  The kettle began to whistle.

Cletus & Marta

A large sonic boom is heard, shakes the dining room where Cletus and Marta,  Appalachian peasants, are eating boiled peanuts and potatoes by candle light.
Cletus looks at Marta with big eyes and Marta shrugs as if to say she doesn't know what that boom could have been.  Cletus takes his rifle and axe off the mantlepiece, face shadowed and flickering in the candlelight, and opens the front door and exits.
Marta swallows hard and puts down her spork.  She yells for Cletus.  A gunshot is heard and Marta throws her plate at the door, suggesting that she doesn't like Cletus being an axe and gun owner.
Cletus opens the door and steps in, breathing hard, letting the axe and rifle fall to the floor, and proudly holds out the small head of a pygmy tribesman for Marta to see.
Marta looks at it with a disgusted frown.
A thunderstorm starts outside.
Cletus hurls the head onto the wooden table with the satisfied look of someone who killed an evil gnome alien creeping around the forest.
Marta's arms fly up in disbelief and goes stage right and tears a flyer from the cork board and throws it at him.
Cletus looks at the flyer.  He can't read, but his eyes devour pictures of a circus tent, an elephant vs. mouse show, a man-voiced woman operetta, a crab-filled wheel barrow race and .... pygmy tribesmen baring all!
Cletus looks at the head on the table and then at Marta.  Marta explains with her eyes that the circus managers would notice the missing pygmy and consequently investigate, and did he know how much it cost to transport a pygmy to Appalachia?
Cletus closes his eyes, wondering why people just didn't stay where they were born.
Grumbling, he goes back outside in the rain to retrieve the small body and throws it to his goat while Marta pokes the pygmy head with Cletus's spork.
Marta's eyes lock onto the window opposite her.  She thinks she sees something.   The pine trees are moving in the rain and wind.   Then she jumps up, hand to heart, for she sees a spritely pygmy dart past.  She screams for Cletus.  She runs like an ape to the door and bolts it.  
Cletus bangs on the door, crying.
Marta opens it quickly and he enters, an arrow piercing his heart.  Cletus falls on the floor with a heaping thud.  Marta pulls out the arrow as Cletus mumbles something about being such a rotten husband all those years and he begged her for forgiveness as he becomes motionless after a whole body twitch.  
Marta closes his eyes with a solemn hand,  then swings open the door and calls out joyously 'TIM KTAK!'
A pygmy enters, eyes darting around for danger, and she picks him up, draping him over her shoulder like a bride.  Marta exits, the pygmy's face beaming and giggly the final and parting visual.
It is implied that they live happily ever after with the traveling circus.

Prison Walls by Kippy 'Troubles' Treble

Remember all them silver rings?

And all them perdy, flashy thangs?

And all them strings of telephone rings?

And endless nights with him and them?

Was cursin' loud such a sin?

And losin' my temper in a drunken night din?

Ugly prison walls

Barren prison tall

Ain't nothin' like havin' no one at all....

To see all the laughter comin' to an end

Not even a dog to call friend

Tell me honey baby, is it ever gonna end?

Now I see myself so bright

It's only me, myself and I

Searchin' for distraction from my cotton-pickin' plight

Ugly prison walls 

Barren prison tall

Ain't nothin' like havin' no one at all....

Years in prison life I wonder:

How'd I go so far asunder?

All that junk I pillaged and plundered!

All my sass is done and gone

But, Lord!  Now something's come!

I know myself now, honky tonk honey bun.

Warrior Daughter

My dad wanted me to be a warrior. I wanted to see his smile after a footrace more than any ribbon or trophy. When it was cold, or a Saturday, when my body was in recuperation mode, my finish line frown always matched his own. For training, he would lift me up to the pull-up bar in our garage. I remember seeing the bald gym teacher's eyes light up when I pulled my shaking chin over the bar for the ninth time, sure my face was red for all my classmates to see sitting Indian style on the lacquered gym floor below.  He would pat me on the back for beating all the boys and tell us all to run laps and I pretended to be as out of breathe as the other girls so they wouldn't hate me so much.  My dad also taught me how to lift weights in our concrete basement. We ran a half marathon once with one day of training and I wore my toe bruises as victorious warrior paint. Sometimes we'd ride bikes together and I'd cry on the homestretch when the wind was a bear and there were hills and my water bottle was empty. After those day-long rides, we felt like we'd earned the right to make popcorn and watch an old Hollywood classic in an exhausted stupor.
One summer day, my dad and I participated in one of the Breakaway Bike Club's long distant rides. We were trailing a little behind the other fifteen or so spandexed bodies and somehow we took a wrong turn and got lost. We arrived at the parking lot finishing much later, the gang all stood around, squirting Cytomax into their sweaty mouths, clicking around in their florescent clip shoes. My dad then said something I didn't comprehend: that we'd fallen behind so bad on account of me being slow; a girl. It was then and there that I learned to lie.
I started getting lazy and didn't care if my dad smiled or frowned anymore. So when he asked me why I didn't push myself in a 5K, I told him being mediocre felt good. When he asked me why I was gaining weight, I told him I wanted to try new foods and needed to stretch out my stomach. My Spartan, on-the-ready body took the brunt of my flabby adolescent rebellion.
As for our athletic relationship all these years later, let's just say that all that energy is still spinning somewhere in the ethers. We don't live in the same town anymore, but sometimes when I call him up, he tells me he had a dream we were doing yoga together. And I always think of him when I go for a soft and long bike ride alone.

eXplained

This X is so tempted to hate the words DISCOURAGE, HOPELESS, and DISCORD, but knows better, for without them, their opposites couldn't exist.
She thinks she can do better than I'LL TRY so has omitted it.
She's nixed IT/HE/SHE MADE ME FEEL, taking full responsibility for feeling good all the time.
The word GOSSIP makes her shaky and she'll never utter BUSYWORK because she thinks it's a crime.
Because her Grandmother didn't approve, she doesn't say BELLY when referring to the abdominal area.
The most distasteful words she can think of are DIVORCE and ACNE because they destruct, disorder, and scar.
X doesn't really care what you're AGAINST, but is curious to know what you're for.

CINEMA TODAY interviews Lazare Leersørn

I sit uneasily in a shabby bistro across from former lead singer of the Finnish new wave band 'The Coppertubs' and producer of the British television series, 'Wee Lil' Fontelroy,' Lazare Leersørn.
I pretend it's Spring allergies and not his cigarette smoke that's bothering my eyes. I'm curious to know what attracted him to experimental filmmaking and how he felt having become the visionary pacesetter, avant-garde golden boy director of the cultish underground film world.
CT: Why experimental films?
LL: Why not? (laughs) No, split the word experimental up, experi-mental, and you've got your answer.
CT: Your first film "Papa Caught a Cottontail" breaks one of those old rules of filmmaking: 'don't work with animals.' Did you find this to be true?
LL: Well, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to tell you it was easy working with over 200 female cottontail rabbits besides Papa, the shaved male, running this way and that. And if you've seen it, you know its over two hours of Papa trying to catch cottontails in a fenced-in meadow, much more difficult than it seemed on paper. But in the end it was all well worth it, especially with lapin à la moutarde à la cocotte every night of the week! (smacks his lips) Did you see it?
CT: Yes, I did, but not the whole thing (laughs). It was your next film that really brought you international attention. Could you tell us about it?
LL: (clears throat) Yeah, it's "Hedgetrimmer's Daughter." It's the tale of a piano tuner who watches his work dwindle away to nothing and so turns to trimming hedges for more income. And he thinks, if someone's going to hire me to trim their hedges, my own had better look damn good, so it becomes an obsession for him, really. It's three hours of him trimming his hedges through the four seasons as seen by his daughter through her bedroom window. Funny how people tell me that they saw images in the hedges that I'd thrown in digitally or whatever, but, they don't know that in fact, it was their own minds trying to keep them entertained during the more tedious trimming scenes.
CT: Like what kinds of things have people 'seen?'
LL: Well, I've had gaggles of art school girls send me existentialist texts with highlighted Sartre quotes, I've gotten e-mails from potheads who've seen Marley in the hedge shadows, other hippies have seen nature spirits, I've received hedge inspired paintings and poetry. Oh, and some politicians have seen it as a commentary on the bad economy, and God, maybe all these elements are in there, but I didn't do it consciously . But that was kind of my point, you know, that's why I made this film.
CT: And the sound track?
LL: Well, yeah, an untuned piano played by a marvelous elephant in India named Nero. (laughs) Which, by the way, is not available on iTunes.
CT: And what are you working on now?
LL: I'm working on a documentary based on the cookbook I've just published called, "Pressure Cooker." It's about experimental cooking with pressure cookers under pressure. The idea was sparked when I invited a whole gang of friends over one Saturday night and found I'd totally forgotten about it. So I was sweating bullets, with nothing but a few odd left overs, near expired kitchen staples, and a brand new pressure cooker still in the box that I was planning on regifting. But it turned out to be a brilliant meal. So I tried to make all the recipes in the book include back of the pantry type of ingredients. And I give clues as how to simulate that sense-heightening pressure-terror I find necessary to throw together an unforgettable meal for a hungry crowd. I really can't say enough good about my book because there are vintage photos of pressure cookers, the history of this appliance that I've just really discovered, and also interviews with people around the globe who love and use them. Look out also for our PG-13 issue of "Pressure Cooker" that will be released in conjunction with the film.
CT: PG-13 issue?
LL: Yeah, doing all this research on pressure cookers, I found loads of deaths and accidents due to them exploding. As well as loads of weak-hearted chefs who died when the pressure got too great in the kitchen. The documentary is less about recipes and more about the stories, the people. I'm also working with an Italian manufacturer to eventually develop my own line of designer pressure cookers in really bold colors. The Leersørn.
CT: To the many people who think that this sort of experimental filmmaking approach died with Andy Warhol's 'The 24 Hour Movie,' for example, what do you say?
LL: Get a life! (laughs) No, really, I know experimental films aren't everyone's cup of tea. The public wants diversions, you get home from work, turn on the t.v., watch a Hollywood exploder, get lost in a romance, you know, do what you can to wind down and forget about the humdrum doldrums or tensions of the day. Anyone can tell you that, there'll always be a market for it. There's an audience out there, though, that is young, or young at heart, that doesn't have anything to escape from, they don't have to cope with a hard reality, they want to learn more about it, to connect with something sacred within it and I like to think I can provide them with a viewing option B. Or C, rather. Maybe they'll feel something new if I prod them visually into a state of confusion, or extreme boredom that turns into hilarity, a searching for meaning that turns into revelation or discomfort I'm not sure...

He got a dreamy look in his eye as he press-twisted his cigarette butt into the ashtray and after ordering a coffee for us both, told me about a dream he'd had, but it was so long and detailed that I found my mind falling to other things....

THE SIZES OF PAST LIVES' INSIDES....

What's death like? I image it being a lot like when I wasn't born yet. I don't remember it. But I'm here. Hey, maybe I'll take another form after this body expires. And maybe I took a different form prior to this one. Can dreams give me glimpses of my past forms? I have no idea. But I have had two dreams where I was in another body different from the one I'm in right now (and this one keeps changing, too!) Here, I'll tell you briefly about them.
I had this dream when I was a teen vacationing with my family in Bathe, England: I'm a buff Roman soldier with crested headgear and all the regalia. I'm with my dad who is also a soldier. He looks pretty similar to how he looks today and we're best friends. We're super tan. I woke up and said, 'Hey dad, I had a dream that we were both Roman soldiers.' He said we probably really were. When all my girlfriends were pretty much into drooling over Donnie from The New Kids on the Block, I was into sketching Ancient Roman ruins.
I had the second dream also when I was a teenager. I am seated before a gilded mirror, staring at myself. And yikes, I'm a really, really old French woman. I am so old that I look faded, like I have white powder all over me. The worst part is that I'm super stale with boredom and so lonely that I'm ready to die. My apartment is small, dusty, with tall windows, and the little dog on my lap doesn't even give me relief from the minutes ticking away with numbing slowness. I think I have dementia.
Was I a really a Roman soldier or a senile senior? I don't know.
In fact, I don't know if conjuring up these possible past life dreams is of any value to someone living a rich and full life. Ready to drop the past and be bold in the now with me?

Enjoy

To get through self-doubting kinds of struggles, I've found two techniques that help.
I'll tell how I recently put them to use when I took a job teaching English to French professionals. The idea of it scared the crap out of me.
So knowing I'd be the leader of an unknown group, with unknown levels, and unknown goals, I kept myself together using Wayne Dyer's phrase, "I want to feel good." I love this phrase. Anytime I had one tinge of nervous stomach, it was nullified when I said it. And also with meditation. Daily, I softly chant a mantra and visually create a self who gets answers to all of her questions and cares. And the answers come, too. This time in the form of a sunny card from a friend that read, "He gives us richly all things to enjoy. Timothy 6:17." Just when I thought I couldn't muster the strength to tell adults to 'not be late again' and doubting my answers to another grammar question 'but there are exceptions,' I got this note that helped trigger real enjoyment of it all.
Even a colleague, a woman who has taught for over twenty years, asked me how I could possibly remain so calm? I told her it was because I did yoga. It was a half truth. Although I do yoga, I think it was these two techniques that helped the most. All that remained to do really was just show up, and enjoy.

The Inspired Monk

He dreamt about home again last night. He was walking down a puddled path, in shorts, holding a stick, rain turning his blond hair brown: his childhood in Cornwall.
His stomach was so round that he rolled out of bed like a sea lion. He splashed his face with water from a white chipped enamel basin and wished he hadn't drunk so much after dinner. Ciders, beers, ales, meads and hydromels (when there was honey)were all brewed at the abbey. Some of it was sold to the two local dingy pubs in town, the money going to grounds maintenance. But most of it was consumed by him and his holy brothers. There wasn't a well at the secluded abbey.
He rubbed his eyes and then put his hands on either side of his navel and thought about what Father Phillipa said the night before, "Beekeepers are the happiest men on earth." And he did notice that ever since taking over the responsibility (with regret at first, he preferred studying) of over-seeing the seven hives on the grounds, that there was more blood flowing to his head and he really was happier.
He rocked back and forth on his heels, looking down at his rotund stomach quite content with it. He remembered seeing his brother for the first time five years after joining the clergy, when his mother was ill, and finding him looking so thin and poor. His chin came to a point from taut jaw bones and he thought he looked absolutely frail and poverty stricken. His eyes had grown accustomed to filled-out bodies, faces as round as melons. His brother poked his stomach with a finger and a wink, "As the soul expands, so does the body."
He wondered how he would have been had he married and taken over the family wool textile business. Studying, ideas, understanding things were just so much more important to him than making garments that would wear away with time. He couldn't afford school, so he became a monk.
In the beginning, he'd dream of the sheep in Cornwall, the craggy bald cliffs, the sea, long walks with Glippy his dog.
He had many nightmares as a child. In a recurring horror, he'd sink into the sea in slow motion as a caped man threw all around him mewing kittens trapped in bags made of woven human hair. The water was black and the sky was swirling muddy and the caped man walked away leaving him stuck to the earth, just his torso above water. He couldn't move and he cried and howled and his mom came in to his bedroom at this point, confused as to why he just wanted to see and touch his feet and legs.
He hadn't had a nightmare in years, he thought, as he put on his robes hung on a hook on the door. He went through the courtyard and into the chapel for morning vespers.
He remembered when he first first arrived at the abbey as a twenty year old. He heard the other holy men talking about hearing "the call" and it had worried him that he'd never remembered being called by God. But he didn't think about that anymore. He looked down at the floor in front of the pew in front of him and saw a dead moth, powdery gray with wings outstretched. He closed his eyes.
He strode out buoyantly out of the chapel, crossed the sunny grounds, past the medicinal herb garden, and approached the elderberry grove where his seven hives were placed and smiled.

The Inspired Tailor

Folded piles of cashmere lined the shelves of Nino's workshop, absorbing the sounds of his humming as he sewed buttons onto a green raw silk baby booty. He enjoyed this detailed handwork almost as much as negotiating a good price for his exquisite fabrics.
"I hope I'm not bothering you, Sir?"
"No, no, come in." It was a young lady holding some linen in her arms. Her dark hair was in two braids wrapped around her head.
"I need to have nightshirts made for my sons."
Nino wasn't accustomed to commissions from peasants. They all knew the basics of fabric construction, no matter how grotesque the results. He didn't know if she noticed his tariffs posted on the door and that he served a mostly privileged clientele.
"My boys are just growing so fast and I don't have time to make them myself. Just something basic, it shouldn't take too long on your part." she added.
"Good lady, I have a going rate of (and here he explained his rate plus commission on the final pieces.) He expected her to walk away but instead she set the linen on the low wooden table.
"Yes, fine."
"Have your boys come by for measurements."
She left with a small wave.
He set down the baby booty and touched the linen. It had been a while since he'd worked with something so coarse and he found himself looking forward to using it to create something so basic.
So the three boys came in the next afternoon, bringing in with them the smell of hay. The stitching on their leather shoes was frayed and their hair was mousy. When taking measurements around their torsos, "lift your arms," he smelled acrid perspiration. They carried on in free-spirited, bordering on witty conversation and he liked them. He pinned the scrawled measurements to the linen and put it into a compartment on a shelving unit, the last in a row of fifteen other folded fabrics, each with pinned dimensions on them.
"Angora petticoat,lime green satin brocade, velor piping: Donna Stolfino 120/90/130" he read on the fabric next in line.
He thought back to his visit to her villa where she stood proudly on an overstuffed ottoman as he measured her. The women he worked for were cloistered, neglected by their husbands, and called on him for something new to wear, to ask his advice and more than that, just to be looked at and listened to by a handsome man with good taste. He gave them what they needed, it was just good business sense. Donna Stolfino had a huge blubbery blob on her neck from goiter and horrendously bad breathe from what she believed was an interior tumor. She had never married although she inherited a fortune and put all of her love onto 'Pipsi' her black dog. She would fan herself when Nino arrived, always saying, "Oh, if you wanted to get this close to me, you should have just asked!" as he measured her.
He couldn't seem to muster the enthusiasm needed to begin her petticoat. What he did feel like doing, however, was making those boxy boyish nightshirts even though they were at the back of the line. He unfolded the linen, made some lines and realized that there would only be enough fabric for two.
He sent for a messenger to deliver a note to the mother of the three boys, asking her for more fabric, or suggesting they use white silk he had on hand for sleeves and hems, for an extra fee. The following evening, he got the return note:
"I have an old linen bed sheet that I will have Romano, my youngest, bring to you on his way home from helping with the hops harvest."
And the following day, an ironed bed sheet was brought by Romano who slinked in and out without a word, looking affected by an afternoon of inhaling hops odors. Nino opened the sheet on his work table and noticed some stains, all of which he could work around. Catching his eye also were some small embroidered letters in red in one corner. He put on his glasses to read the initials "F de'M.'
"de' Medici!" he said to himself. "The de' Medici family!"
He ran out into the street to see if Romano was still in sight and there he was, just exiting the bakery across the square. He waved to him, "Romano! Come!"
He sauntered over holding a honey bun.
"Are you a de' Medici?" he asked.
"No, sir, I'm a Lupino."
"But, there is is an initial on the sheet, 'F de' M', who is this?"
"Oh, that's my mother Flavia, who was a de' Medici, but then she married my father Lupino, a pirate turned peasant farmer."
Even though Nino understood that Flavia had fallen out of favor with her powerful relations by marrying a simple pirate-cum-peasant, he still saw his chance to open the doors to this admirable and influential family of Florence.
He threw the sheet away (after putting the initials clipping into his pocket) and got out his bolts of finest satin and set out to make the three boys the most beautiful and luxurious night shirts he could imagine.
He worked almost all night long in a wave of focused energy and he hung them up each on a wooden hanger after steaming them straight. All three were light blue satin, trimmed with ermine with embroidered egrets in flight around the ruffled necklines, tied around the waists with white velvet sashes.
He sent a messenger to the Lupino farm with a declaration that the commission had been fulfilled.
Two days later Flavia came in removing a coin purse from a beige crocheted shawl and put her hands to her open mouth when she saw a tired Nino standing proudly in front of the three shirts fit for princes.
She walked away without paying a single lira for the clothes carefully wrapped and placed in paper boxes.
Things happened quickly after that. Flavia wrote a most enthusiastic letter interspersed with little sketches of the night shirts to her brother Lorenzo with whom she was still very close. He in turn wanted something made for his wife Clarice for their summer solstice celebration. Nino produced an ethereal cobalt blue and turquoise ensemble that brought tears to Clarice's eyes. He was brought into the service of this dynamic couple, replacing the former tailor, a very old uninspired man just wanting to spend his last days in peace.
Nino felt like his 54 years of life were all a crescendo to this moment when the de' Medici's opened their life to him. He already belonged to this family, it was a natural merging. They were simple people living by an extraordinary code of ethics who loved to laugh. And they desired uncomplicated yet beautiful textiles for home and for wear that he created with joy. He, in time, was cordially introduced to philosophers, artists, scientists, astrologers, and soon understood why they had that age-old Greek saying engraved in the mantle of their library doorway: "know thyself." He thought this perhaps was the key to personal utopia.

November Novel Excerpt.....

He had his back to her. She looked at his coarse flannel shirt tucked into his overalls that were snug around his flat, square bottom. She wondered how she could stay with him for another minute. He turned around after flipping an egg, the wooden spatula in his hand, and smiled and her. Cigarette stained teeth. Or maybe it was just the putty-like plaque on top of them that was stained. If only he'd brush them, she could really know.
The eggs smelled burnt and her stomach turned. It smelled like her childhood neighbor's house where she'd pass every morning before school to fetch her classmate Veronushka who was never outside waiting for her as she ought to have been.
She wondered if being with Benji was actually better than living back in Russia. Yes, she'd married Benji. "Benji," she said to herself,"my husband's name is Benji!" The whole situation suddenly seemed ridiculous. She pulled off her heels and put her feet up on a wicker kitchen chair.
She'd lost her true love anyway years ago. Life after that had been one large joke. Oh yes, a real man's love was glorious and golden, mythic and silent. She had been enmeshed in a scintillating net of warps of love from him, love for him, love for herself, and wafts of love from the world, love for the world. But then he left her. But he was still with her. He still walked beside her, she felt his gallant stride. She asked him in whispers for his advice and he blew warm truth in her ears. There was a thick cord connecting his heart to hers, pumping a constant halo around them both. But, he wasn't for her, anyway, she thought. Men like that belong to no woman but to all women.
She stared at Benji, the eggs hissing, as he let salt fall on them from his dirty fingernails and she threw her head back and laughed.

The Soldier and the Gypsy

He grew up with the unpolished marble bust of the Emperor in his family's red veranda. He saw him on every coin and in every city square, hand on orb, divinely proportioned, a balanced stare. He'd never met him or saw him, but he loved his leader so honest, intelligent and spiritual.
One day when he grew very tall, very fast, his father told him his time had come to serve his military duty. He placed in his son's hands a small bronze pin of a flame he himself had worn during his own service. The boy cried, vulnerable under his father's gaze, knowing this was initiation.
After two years of training in weaponry, stamina, and strategy, he was sent to the Empire's mutable Eastern borders and in time, he found that he liked the life of a soldier. He felt elemental and strong. He knew war had always been and always would be and he formed an idea that he and the other soldiers were conduits for the gods, and he was to allow the inevitable, warring passions of Earth to work through him for the greatest outcome of all. Whenever he felt like he couldn't take another step, or felt dizzy with hunger, he'd say: Stay empty, empty, its an honor to host this transfiguring force.
The troupe reached their oriental destination on a windy starry night. They were greeted by a camp guard who related an atrocity that took place several days back with a soldier and a gnarled gang of rabid wolves that trailed in behind the wheels of the gypsy caravans that had just set up camp.
The boy unfastened the flame pin from his pocket and slept with it in his hands.
The soldiers started to work right away on building a proper encampment wall and spent their days hauling stone in from a half-demolished mosque to the north.
Days passed, working hard, eating little, idle evenings, and one particular night, a song.
They boy heard it because the wind was blowing just right and his curiosity led him to the source. He saw in a grassy clearing just next to the gypsy camp a fire, tickling the tiered skirts of a black haired woman twirling and singing. Her voice was an incantation and her many golden bangles flicked sparks from her limbs. He felt a chill of something chaotic in his blood, like when he first saw a hyena, that bristly, muscled opportunist, devour a carcass.
The following two nights he heard her out in the field again, along with two male voices. The third night, his head throbbing, he tramped over to the firelight and met her glossy black, kohl-lined eyes. Two men in leather pants held bottles in the shadows behind her. He asked her to please let Morpheus do his work.
She told him to leave in a series of shouts in her language and said she had always done exactly what she felt like doing.
And it was true. She once lived for four years in a cave alone, learning the secrets of mushrooms. She slept during the day and lived poetry at night. She had six children (she thought) and while others gathered around the table to eat, she scoured the earth for bird's feathers. She concocted hallucinogenic elixirs and she never took time to reflect or get too serious about anything.
He concluded that this gypsy was an incarnation of all that his dear temperate Emperor was against and prayed the gods would show her the virtues of duty and civility.
At daybreak as the men wiped the morning dew from their faces, the Sassanids struck, slayed them all, destroying their stone wall and reopening the border.
The gypsy woman traipsed through the military camp, stepping over bodies, still steaming with warmth, collecting whatever she felt like she wanted, things the Sassanids missed. She left with an urn of oil, a sac of flour and two stained woolen coats, all loaded into the bed of a shield that she pulled like a sled behind her, humming a Vedic melody.

Curmudgeon

Grandpa seemed to have the richest vocabulary in all the world. His love of words added a richness to his conversations and he created the world's best puns. He talked about places with sylvan glades and fruits called kumquats and referred to himself as an old curmudgeon. I believe the word 'curmudgeon' is in need of saving and it was brought to mind when I was at market. There was an old man with a green apron selling potatoes. His body reminded me of a big bean. Two teens walking lightly in white sneakers filed by his stand holding cans of coke. He yelled, "Coca Cola is not good! Coca Cola is not good!" I had some pieces of candied ginger in my pocket and I offered him one after he talked a long while to me about his 500 acres of land and his asparagus/potato farm. He'd never tried ginger before and he asked me what it was and I told him it was a root. Someone corrected me: no, it's a rhizome. (I still think its a root.) Somehow the conversation turned to Nepal and the old man didn't know where that country was and he complained about his plastic bags being too chintzy for the price he paid. When he opened the sliding door of his white van there was a tumble down pile of small waxy potatoes, dusty red potatoes, and buttery oblong potatoes in blue mesh bags. He told me that happily potatoes store up for one year. I watched him break the steady stream of customers to waddle over to the pastry shop and come back with a huge profiterole with chocolate icing in his mouth. The people just kept lining up to buy his potatoes. Was it because he'd been selling potatoes (and asparagus in spring) for thirty years? Or was it that twinkle in his eye? He brought to mind the word curmudgeon, a word on it's way out and which officially means: a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.

A Curious Acquaintance

As I was drifting off to sleep, somewhere in between scattered lightness and keen perception, I heard my mother say to my father:
"James, why that'd be like trying to find a needle in a haystack!"
I was in my straw stuffed trundle bed. The fire was popping below and the gray floorboards creaked when my mother got up from her darning to get something.
"Needle in a haystack...." I repeated as I melded with sleep.

I felt in the night something cold and metallic next to me. It felt like a fishing rod at first. Then, more like a fencing sword. I found this odd, but was so lazy that I put my arms around it and fell right back into a most comfortable sleep.

In the morning, my father called me to rise. I pulled the covers away from myself and put my feet on the floorboards where lay a very large needle, as long as my bed. I could have put my arm through the eye of this needle and its point was so large it seemed to be rounded.
"What are you doing on the floor?" I wondered.
The needle stood upright, curiously, eye towards the floor, and made me know that I was to help him come to the aid of frustrated people who used the discouraging phrase, "Like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

I took on my new duty at once without really having time to reflect on it. We honed in on people searching in vain for things and were transported to these situations like magnets, traveling outside the laws of space and time.

The first mission involved a young farmer who lost his wedding band in his field of beets. He was scouring the soil for hours, worried the crows would spot the golden glimmer before he did.
"This is like trying to find a needle in a haystack!" he said, defeated.
We appeared. We stood before him and he stared at us. The needle said, "You could find me in a haystack!" In agreeing, the farmer acquired a reaffirmed vigor to find his ring and with a little game of 'hot and cold' with the needle, his ring was found.
In his glee, he forgot all about our meeting and we disappeared.

Over the years I joined the needle on countless missions that were always varied and unique. I don't really know the part I played during these experiences, all I know is that I agreed to show up.

When I became an adult, my desire to participate in these adventures waned. The needle felt this also and threw himself on the floor of another sleeping boy or girl I am sure.

Happy Anniversary DP!

Luke, over at the Latent Chestnut has just posted something that blew me away: Ditalini Press is one year old today! Happy anniversary everyone and more happy writing...

Dear DP

Hi. I'm a Buddhist monk and my Master has just died. We've completed the cremation ceremony and I am very sad. He's been with me since I was thirteen, always there to tell me what to do and how. I feel lost. I met with the Dalai Lama yesterday who examined the cremation ceremonial ashes and all the signs were there that Master has already been reincarnated: cremation pearls, swirls in the cinders, and a footprint under a stone with the big toe pointing east. The Dalai Lama, despite my pleas that I am under qualified, thinks that I am the one who can properly identify him again in his new physical form. Frankly, I'm scared and don't know where to start. I need advice.
Cordially yours,
Buddhist in a Bind

If I Had to Name a Tomato...

I would call a small flavorful cherry tomato 'The Bombshell' because it would explode in your mouth.
I would call a tomato perfect for making sauce with 'The Ditalini Press' for obvious reasons.