Tuesday, November 23, 2004

When I was little, when I wasn't outdoors pretending I was Robin Hood or Davy Crockett, I lived in the TV. Best were after-school cartoons, and among those, after Felix the Cat, I treasured most the old-fashioned atmospheric ones, animations from the forties I vowed I'd own when I grew up so I could watch them over and over whenever I wanted. Among these was a story of spring's arrival--a bleak, freezing winter landscape, and underground a navy of slumbering pixies who gradually awakened and began the arduous work of bringing the surface world back to life--turning great wheels and gears and cranks, the lifegiving machinery of the underworld. Up top the snow begins to melt and trees to blossom and birds to sing the glory of it, but bad old winter refuses to retreat, and bears down with all his might, blizzards and rages, and the little underground people exhaust themselves at the helm, just barely vanquishing the cold season and bringing all to rights in the end. Another told the story of a little boy mole who lived with his mother in a hole in the ground. Like his mother, he was very nearsighted. When he went outdoors to play, he'd squint and stumble around, and nothing appeared to him as what it really was. He spent his afternoons daydreaming in the safety of his special place next to a beautiful lake, staring at a magical castle that gleamed in the sunshine on the far shore. One day a wicked, cynical traveling salesman came by and sold the little boy a pair of spectacles. He was overjoyed that finally he could see the world as it really was. He put them on and ran to look at it. But it was ugly, and ordinary. And worst of all, when he went to his special place, he found it was actually a putrid cesspool, and standing in place of his magical castle stood a great heap of rotting garbage. He began to cry and fled toward home, but he was lost in a world he no longer recognized. Before too long he fell and shattered his eyeglasses, and his magical world was restored. 10:25:38 AM    comment []

Hot milk and Thomas a Kempis. Hot milk and Zenkai Shibayama. Hot milk and Lobsang Rampa (You--Forever; remember that guy?). The milk is never hot enough. 12:47:09 AM    comment []

OK. This, then, from Charles Simic, because I love the lines You'll chop onions and pieces of your heart / into the same skillet and Your body and soul will sit on separate stoops / chewing the same piece of gum: WHAT THE GYPSIES TOLD MY GRANDMOTHER WHILE SHE WAS STILL A YOUNG GIRL War, illness and famine will make you their favorite grandchild. You'll be like a blind person watching a silent movie. You'll chop onions and pieces of your heart into the same skillet. Your children will sleep in a suitcase tied with a rope. Your husband will kiss your breasts every night as if they were two gravestones. Already the crows are grooming themselves for you and your people. Your oldest son will lie with flies on his lips without smiling or lifting his hand. You'll envy every ant you meet in your life and every roadside weed. Your body and soul will sit on separate stoops chewing the same piece of gum. Little cutie, are you for sale? the devil will say. The undertaker will buy a toy for your grandson. Your mind will be a hornet's nest even on your deathbed. You will pray to God but God will hang a sign that he's not to be disturbed. Question no further. That's all I know. (from The Black Cat, 1996) 12:40:10 AM    comment []