The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
~ Francis Bacon
Felt like what I wanted today was a cheerful reminder that the Ozymandiases of the world end up headless in the desert, while the poets are revered forever.
And then I think of this. Read More
I tend to think of the East Village as being sensible, fairly immune to conspiracy. Why would that be the case? We have every stripe of nut here, just like anywhere. It's only my optimism that people can be led to their senses that makes me believe my chosen town is above average. Lately I've heard any number of people declare that it's impossible to know what's going on, who's right, the predicted course of illness—& without missing a beat proceed to declare what's going on, who's right, & what's going to happen. I try not to be discouraged. What are my own stubbornnesses & blind spots?
Giving my neighbors more credit than they deserve, for starters.
Happy birthday, Johnny! Sunset Strip today. Happy birthday, Johnny Jr - Lefty is a year old today. Two crazy kids. My life would be more serene but less thrilling without them.
It must be hard to have a private tragedy when you're just one among many. The distractions of the pandemic mean people can't circle around—there's too many deaths to mourn. Not to the mourner but to the community.
I've been taking walks very early in the morning, usually out the door around 6:30, no later than 7. My favorite direction is south & east, where the Lower East Side still has a bit of grit. Very few people & we look at each other in wonder. The last survivors. Yesterday (in SoHo) a well-dressed & non-masked older woman veered towards me, but usually the women notice their surroundings, while the men—like always—expect everyone else to get out of their way. I may be restricted, you can sense them feeling, but I still deserve more room than YOU. One NYC pleasure is meeting one's neighbors when there's a crisis—a blackout, a blizzard. This time around we are largely deprived of that, though I did have a brief conversation just now with a young woman with a laundry cart about open laundromats. Someone else from the neighborhood that I've known by sight for ages jumped in, & for a minute it was my New York—friendly, funny, helpful, with all the time in the world to chat.
At first I thought, I have to watch these films—excuse me, digitally kinetic paintings—again when I'm high. And then I realized I didn't need to, they transported me on their own.
Julian Semilian is a filmmaker, poet, & translater who teaches in North Carolina, one of the many Romanian artists I've met through Andrei Codrescu, all of whom are brilliant.
I don't have the language to talk about these so I say: watch & feel the magic.
The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.
~ Raymond Chandler
Balance, observation, fairness.
The truth of restriction keeps us from sleeping, & the truth of sleep keeps us from going round the bend.
What can I say? This photo is from a couple years ago. Instead of cleaning my house, I've been deleting photos from my phone.
TGIF!
September 9
"In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities." —Rimbaud
Purgatory wasn't cooked up until the 12th century. Before that, it was Heaven or Hell, me hearties. People didn't get baptized till right before they died, because if you sinned after baptism, oops, straight to Hell.
"Someone stole your bag while you were in the john.
You didn't say you wanted me to keep an eye on it"
George Eliot said: "It is never too late to be what you might have been."
I feel ready for whatever comes next.
Especially if it's lunch.
"Till human voices wake us, and we drown"
I sleep I sleep & still I drown
did you place yourself between me & the poem?
the poets who don't surf
lie broken in the backwash
Veblen counted devout observances as one of the four occupations,
together with government, sports and war,
that the leisure class deems appropriate to its magnificence.
"I owe my superiority
to the fact
that I have
no heart."
Lefty's self-appointed job is to fish the wire strainer out of the sink. Sometimes he also goes after a toy mouse or a scrap of plastic that I throw in there for him. He gets right at it when he hears that strainer rattling. If cats sweat, surely that's what he's doing. I don't know that he'd be as avid & active if there was a mouse to be caught. Then he hides the strainer, usually under my chair, until I toss it back in the sink.
When I went by Key Food at 5 p.m. yesterday, the line was 20 people long, all the way down the block to 3rd Street, with plenty of room between each shopper. They seemed patient, resigned I guess. I skipped the line by going this morning at 6:30 for Old People Hour. There was plenty of everything but I forgot to get cereal for Johnny & the only thing I laid in for Passover was matzoh. The store was crowded. I guess as more bodegas close, people will be dashing into the supermarkets for a quart of milk or a pint of ice cream.
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
~ John Bunyan
And that's what makes it easy to follow the strictures. Keeping away from others is the easiest thing we can do for others, we who are not frontline workers. What we can do is be careful & be cheerful. When a good friend died, beloved of many, his widow said, I'm just waiting for someone to say they feel worse than I do. We who are safe & healthy have to stay in line behind the widows.
We've been spending time on the roof—a safe way to get outside. I went up at 7 last night to clap & hear the clapping, & to see if there were lights on in the buildings around me (plenty). Someone boomed out Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York," the version the Yankees play when they win. This city that never sleeps at night is uneasy in its insomnia & nightmares. I almost can't remember what it's like to shake hands or hug or talk to a hostess about getting seated or changing in the locker room with a bunch of karatekas. We are suspended in a surreal city, right through the very heart of it.
Woke up today reluctant to go out (I go every day to my office, three unpeopled blocks from my house). There were five cop cars, lights on, pulled up haphazardly up the block between 3rd & 4th, & a guy I know from the bodega said there'd just been a gunshot on 2nd Street. So it felt ominous.
Everyone I know seems to be taking an occasional day or two to cower, then to get back to yoga, karate, sewing masks, whatever they do to cope & stay the course.
I wrote this yesterday:
Are you listening
Are you listening
to the Blue Sky Boys right this minute?
If so, is it "Asleep in the Briny Deep"
& are you crying?
If not, do you really have anything
else to do with your life?
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have moments of fear, like when I saw this ambulance across the street. I dreamed last night of an unrecognizable New York, full of muggers' alleys & whitecapped rivers. I carry on & those moments are small. But they're real & they keep me washing like Lady Macbeth. "Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale."
How great to see these guys at Greg's impromptu publication party for his beautiful new book of collaborations (with the likes of Ted Berrigan, Allen Ginsberg, & quite a few others), with photos by Monica Claire Antonie. His plans for a do at the library of course were canceled so he invited a few of his fellow collaborators to meet in the park, where we kept a safe distance & were so happy to see (but not hug!) one another.
Everything is a calculation of the odds. Safe to walk to the park? Safe to chat across the hall? OK to walk a block without a mask?
In-person meeting: the most beautiful & nostalgic phrase of the month.
Change is certain. Progress is not.
~ E. H. Carr (1892-1982), English historian, diplomat, journalist and international relations theorist, and "an opponent of empiricism within historiography"
And it's clear we don't have a whole lot of control over where & how change will come.
And it's clear that what looks like progress isn't necessarily, that there seem to be as many unintended consequences as there are intentional ones.
It's a great trip, though, & I'm happy to be along for the ride (even now).
People are taking this seriously. WE are doing everything we can to protect ourselves & our neighbors. I know how scary the map looks, with that blood-red splotch right on top of us. But block by block, we're careful as can be. I appreciate all the contact from around the world but please know that we are OK. As long as the ice cream supply can be replenished, that is.
I've been having a good day. I went to the market early, so I had a walk with a purpose, learning Norwegian along the way. Bought onions & potatoes so it looks very much like more soup migh be happening in Chez Nauen. I took an online karate class & meditation; found out that my lovely neighbor Louis is a car guy—he's from Detroit so I'm not surprised, but it was fun to talk about beautiful old cars with someone who likes that conversation; talked with my mother who is stoic about what's going on; had some ideas for projects; revised an old play; & didn't worry. A good day.
And this picture proves it. I cooked! Yes, I cooked. I made yellow lentil soup with carrots, onion & garlic. It was pretty good, but now it's gone & it looks like I may have to do it again. (Insert unhappy face emoji.)
I don't get why people like to cook. All that work buying stuff & still not having the right ingredients, chopping, measuring (well, I don't actually do that), & then it still isn't really tasty, & then it's gone. At least a poem, even a bad poem, MIGHT be wonderful while you're immersed in it. But food is just food.
I know I'm a yokel.
Update: I made soup AGAIN & was really struck by how you can throw together a bunch of inedible stuff, like beans & water, & it turns into FOOD. I might keep this up!
Someone suggested that my mysterious & incessant racking cough throughout January & February may have been symptoms of the virus. I don't think I had a fever, & didn't have chills, but I did have exhaustion & shortness of breath. Who knows? No one ever figured it out but it stands to reason that different people will have variants of the symptoms. A lung X-ray was clear but I've had compromised lungs ever since September 11 (pneumonia twice since then). I eventually chalked it up to allergies but who knows? On the one hand, I hope I had it without worrying that I might die. On the other hand, it's horrible to think that I may have been Patient 0.5 - an early spreader.Well, till I can test for the antibodies, I won't know & of course will continue to be careful.
I know it's a bullet train into New York right now, as Johnny said, but it (surreally) doesn't feel like anything in particular is going on, just perpetual Sunday morning. Our population density means we can't really separate as much as we need to but everyone I see or know of is doing their best.
Found Poem (Carol Halstead)
You forget
I walked right up
to someone to say
thank you
and then you realize oh
step back Carol
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
~ Marie Curie
So much remains to be done, and some of us won't be here to do it. But the poetry will still get written, the music composed and played, the paintings painted, as well as the discoveries made, the lives begun & saved, and on & on. The world never quite manages to come to an end, no matter what happens & no matter what is predicted.
A friend wrote from Brazil to express surprise at the "jaunty" tone of an earlier post. Then he wrote to say he had misread something & withdrew the word. But it does make me think, as I have been: What tone does one take in the face of terror & uncertainty?
Some people prefer? enjoy? knowing everything, or can't help reading the news all day long. Some people minimize, & each generation seems to be accusing the others of carelessless.
I'm with the ones who take in information but try not to get overwhelmed. Clearly this is a long-haul situation & we have to pace ourselves. I am most definitely doing everything I'm told: washing like a raccoon, keeping my distance. After that, what can I do but try not to melt into fear? What good does it do me or anyone to think about my loved ones I may never see again?
"Jaunty" comes from 17th-century French meaning well-bred or genteel. I think it might in fact be a good word to use right now. It certainly is well-bred not to, oh, hoard toilet paper. For the band to play while the Titanic sinks. I always admired that Roy Cohn (otherwise the opposite of admirable!) famously & impressively kept his cool while waiting for results of a trial with his life/career on the line (I don't remember the details).
I hope the health-care workers maybe get a moment to relax & even laugh in the midst of tragedy. I've tried to be light with people who have it worse. I don't want to be the one who needs help.
This is only part of the conversation. I'm sure some days I'll want only to cower & I may even find myself wallowing in — looking for! — the scariest news. But as many people as can probably should stay as normal as possible.
I skedaddled, didn't meander or dwaddle at all, from the store where I saw this sign, the pet store Whiskers on 9th Street.
What happens when there's no one to grow / process / package / ship / sell the food?
On my walk today, I saw daffodils, forsythia (yellow bells, they're called in South Carolina), tulip tree & this. Spring comes as does greater trouble. The State Department has issued a Level 4 Do Not Travel warning. My brother-in-law is on a cruise (as a lecturer) somewhere near South Africa.
I went to the 99¢ store on Ludlow Street for shampoo, kleenex, & dish soap, & found—back in stock after many months—my favorite notebooks! They even had colors (green, red) they hadn't had before. I'm using the last one at the moment (I go through a lot of notebooks). Katz's was open for takeout & thought about ordering a pastrami sandwich for my brother but he's in California & who knows where he'll be in a few days' time. It was a crisp sunny day. I did some work, checked in on or was checked in upon by lots of people, watched black belt class, went for another walk. I thought about the Black Plague & how it killed half the people in Europe, leading to enormous & permanent political upheaval. C-19 is not going to kill half the people in the world! We are home with plenty to do, books to read, movies to stream, electricity to see & cook with. It's tough for plenty of folks, I am not minimizing the risk to jobs & healthcare workers, for example, but for many of us, it's an inconvenience & we're not likely to have our entire families wiped out. The stretches of time when I can suppress my anxiety are actually very pleasant.
Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never.
~ Cesare Lombroso
I guess it was genius to go to Scotland, eh? I'm still a little mid-Atlantic brainpower-speaking: tell me, how does this quote apply to my ill-fated trip, or does it? I'd like it to come out that I'm a genius, but it certainly didn't turn out that way.
Definitely guessed wrong on the impact of the virus, & had to grab a very expensive last-minute ticket, with the worry that I wouldn't get back for a very long time if I waited. One needs to be home when something big is going on, & it was distressing to be so far away. Things are closing or closed here but I don't think it's really struck that this might or will go on for a long time. Of course I hope people don't get sick of social distancing & self-isolation & all the things we are learning just when it's most important to stay the course. This article in The Washington Post was reassuring. And Scotland was great, even if the trip was too short & marred by worry.
Is it a terrible idea to travel internationally? Hard to say, so I'm going to go to Scotland tonight, & hope that I get back on the 20th as planned.
I mean, it's a fantastic idea to go to Scotland! I will see my beloved namesake & her mom, a quasi-cousin & a lifelong friend, do a reading, & see a city I've only been to once, ages ago. Despite the weather app predicting nonstop rain, it will be intermittent. I don't need wellies, she said, but bring a warm jumper. I'll also take the train to Liverpool for a couple of days to see other cousins.
In the middle of a pandemic (has COVID-19 been declared such?) & a pretty big stock market tank, this may be my last chance to take this sort of trip.
I remember reading about a young man who came to the States, maybe as an exchange student, and while he was away, there was a revolution & his country ceased to exist. It took him many years to get home. Little worries circle me but then I think: it's the (post-Brexit!) UK. What can happen?
We shall see.