October 30, 2002
I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years
What I want to remember from this past weekend and my grandparents celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary:
Saturday night, after we sat up late, late, late playing dominoes (my brothers, grandparents and me) we all clambered into beds with the crisp, cotton sheets one only finds in a grandmother’s house. Such darkness there, and such quiet and I couldn’t sleep. After lying in bed for half an hour or so, with such a stillness that I’m sure my granny thought everyone else in the house was asleep, I heard her murmur, “Bill?”
“Yes?” he answered.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, babe.”
And that’s a pretty good love.
What I want to forget about this past weekend: almost everything else.
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“Walking Around” by Pablo Neruda
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don’t want so much misery.
I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.
That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords,
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.
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October 26, 2002
Cafe Saraj
I’m tired and hungover and hungry and in such a hurry to leave and get on the road to Kentucky that I shouldn’t be writing this right now, as I know I don’t have the vocabulary or the grace to do it any kind of justice. I need to write it now, though while things are still fresh in my head.
I spent last night going to Bosnian bars.
St. Louis has the largest U.S. immigrant population of Bosnians. There’s a neighborhood close by that has been totally revitalized by this community and it’s a really cool thing to see.
So when Cary and Liz came to take me out last night, I envisioned sitting in dimly lit bars over cocktails with well-dressed people and pleasant conversation-level music in the background. We had decided to go to a handful of bars, mostly familiar to me, in the South Grand area. I heard them trompling up the stairs of Josh’s fire escape in their boots and they burst into the place, all squeals and hugs and grins. And then impish Liz says, with her smile that defies you to deny her, “We’re taking you to Cafe Saraj. We’re taking you to Bosnian bars tonight!” Well, alright. Let’s go!
The first place we went, Cafe Saraj, we would have passed by, save for the woman acting as a hawker out front. The place itself was fairly non-descript, an old Irish pub with the old bar name and a leprechaun still painted on the side of the building. The woman, employed by the bar in some capacity I still can’t figure out, was just plain striking. She was short and thin, wearing a red sweater and had dyed her black hair white. It was frizzy and standing up on top of her head in a strange approximation of a huge afro, black roots proudly showing. From the street we could hear the wailing and whirling musicians.
Liz nudged me. “You go first,” she said and all of a sudden I remembered alll the trouble and bad situations that I’d found myself in because of Liz’s ideas that she always insisted I go through with first. This wasn’t quite like that but it was kind of warming to remember, as I often forget this about Liz who sometimes seems so different than the punk rock hellion she was when I met her, now respectably married and in a doctoral program.
So in we went. It was a long bar, well-lit for a drinking establishment, with the musicians by the front door. There were a handful of tables with white tablecloths and between them and the bar were four people, arm in arm, doing some sort of folk dance (a Bosnian one, I’d wager) and singing along with the musicians, heads thrown back and no attempt to sing in tune.
I liked it here. It was loud and gorgeous and manic.
We found a spot at the bar and ordered drinks. Liz and Cary are whisky drinkers. I ordered a vodka tonic. “No tonic. Sprite.” Oh well. “I’ll take it straight with a lemon.” A perfect drink, just a few ice cubes. Delicious Absolut, lemony and crisp and cold.
We stayed and talked and listened to the amazing music, but I couldn’t help feeling a little ill at ease because we were the center of attention. I kept looking up to meet eyes that had been examining me. We were the only non-Bosnians in the packed-to-Friday-night-capacity bar, and it was obvious and just a little disconcerting. We made friends. Some strage man bought us drinks, but luckily, never came to say hello. Men made advances to Cary, then Liz. “Do you speak Bosnian?” was always the first question. When the answer was no, the back was always turned. Finally Cary, a little frustrated, when asked the second most common question of the evening, “If you don’t understand [the music, the language] why are you here?” answered back a little desperately, “We like the way it sounds.” And beautiful stuff it was, all mournful and melancholy, mostly Arabic based music with beautiful Slavic syllables sung over it.
We had to make a quick getaway to Cafe Verona, when Liz’s young suitor (very young, probably 22 if a day) became a little too insistent that she become his date for the evening. “But I’m married!” she exclaimed, flashing her wedding ring. “That’s alright,” he said. “I am too!”
“Mazeltov,” I said, and grabbing Cary and Liz, headed for the front door.
The night was full of adventures. Sadly, I can’t recount them all here because I have to load my sleepy self and stinky bags of clothes into my brother’s Jeep and head out east, into the hilly green of Kentucky, the good smells of my grandmother’s kitchen and her hard, hard, sweet hugs that I can’t wait to feel again.
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October 25, 2002
More
“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”
-Woody Guthrie
Posted by pogo at 11:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
I Love Living in the City
Well, things are looking up. I had a good nap yesterday. Last night Josh and I went to the Blackthorn Pub, which was a place in my old neighborhood that I was scared to go to for a long time for no good reason. My friend Cary ultimately made me go, and I was very sheepish afterward, seeing nothing inside but the stray motorcycle rider and SLU student. It’s just very dark and I swear it used to look a lot seedier. It ended up being one of my favorite bars.
When we got inside we went to the bar, ordered pizza and pitcher of local beer(Schlafly, Pale Ale, delicioso!) and a Chicago style pizza pie (I’m a big fan of the St. Louis style, but in a bar, Chicago style is way more substantial) and made our way over to a wavering booth. As we sat down, the Soft Boys’ “Queen of Eyes” came on the jukebox and I went, “Aaaahhh.” It was good to be there. We waded through two pitchers and half a pizza (which is quite a feat) and talked and talked and talked and then walked up the street to my friends’ Cary and Jason’s house and visited for a short time. Saw all the photographs that had just come down from Cary’s recent show and got reacquainted with all their four cats that are very dear to my heart (Isaac, Oscar, Gala and Goo.)
Right now it’s raining like crazy. It woke me up early. I saw a bit of the news and traffic’s been backed up for two hours on one of the major highways because of a bad accident. That’s another thing I remembered liking about living in the city — lateness is always accepted because you can shrug and mutter, “traffic,” and that will be that. The rain is nice, it’s still warm-ish outside, but I’m sad because I’ve no umbrella and now I have to wait for the weather to clear up before I can take my leisurely morning coffee walk.
The best thing that’s happened so far was yesterday when Josh and I were returning from our walk around his very pleasant neighborhood. There was an older woman in the courtyard, struggling to pick up five phone books and unlock the door. We rushed over to help her and she and Josh started talking. She abruptly turned to me and exclaimed, “I think he’s just darling!” which was a sentiment she’d repeat at least twice in our conversation. Marie’s lived in the building for twenty years and is my brother’s friend. She likes to gossip about the other tenants. Josh told me a funny story about her. This neighborhood is so close to the Hill (the fiercely Italian neighborhood very close to here) that they may as well paint all the fire hydrants red, white and green and annex it. One day as Marie and Josh were gossiping she mentioned to my brother (who also gets presumed for Italian around here) that a very nice girl had moved in next door to him, and had he met her? “She’s very cute,” she assured him. “Now, she’s not Italian, but she’s very nice…”
I like Marie. Now I’m going to have some cold, leftover pizza for breakfast.
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October 24, 2002
St. Louis Blues
I love my man like a schoolboy loves his pie,
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his rocker and rye
I’ll love my man until the day I die, Lord, Lord.
I got the St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be, Lord, Lord!
That man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me.
***
I’m in St. Louis and nothing interesting has happened yet.
My brother lives on Chippewa Ave. in South City. It’s a main thoroughfare through the city. I had forgotten what it’s like to have non-stop traffic rolling by all day. I got used to it when I lived here and when I moved away, I kind of missed it and then got used to it not being there. I think I heard the new Nelly song booming from somebody’s Jeep at the light outside earlier. I’ve heard lots of thumpy songs, and it’s been nice rather than annoying. A little reminder that I’m in a totally different place. It’s constant and soothing, sort of like listening to the ocean.
I’ve never been to this apartment before. It’s in a neighborhood full of memories for me. My old leasing company is down the street. My friend Julia used to rent a house off of Chippewa, near the Hill (the Italian district, where I aim to go get some coffee and bread and shoot some film en la manana.) Josh says she lives even closer to him now. My friend Cary had her second apartment with some jerk named Scott near here, on Oleatha, where I drank lots of underage beers. My old roommates Jenny and Jeff live in a house just a little ways over on Tholozan, which is a street with a highly disputed pronuciation in this city. Of course, every city has shameful ways of mangling place and street names (go down to Man-chack via Guadaloop if you don’t believe me.) St. Louis is the worse though, since it’s an old French city. Gravois becomes Grav-oise. And so on.
So this is where I am, in a new-old, strange-familiar place, badly in need of a cup of coffee and waiting for my brother’s roommate to come home with Tony Hawk 4. I’m spending tomorrow afternoon with my Dad, most likely at the art museum, and then we will eat Vietnamese food in my old neighborhood off of South Grand. Then tomorrow night is reserved for running around with my two best girlfriends, the aforementioned Cary and her sister Liz. We’ll go to bars I’ve long forgotten, hear songs from long ago on jukeboxes that never stopped playing them here, and maybe even run into a few old friends. We will laugh and play catch up in a comfortable way and remember lots and lots and lots from long ago. We will communicate with a familiarity that I’m lucky to know. We will most assuredly have too much to drink. We will tumble out of bars, hitting the chilly city streets, illuminated by a million tinkling lights and see our breath in the night air and walk home arm in arm, a definite force to be reckoned with. These are all good things.
Then it’s up bright and early and off to Kentucky the next day.
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October 23, 2002
Dedicated Follower of Fashion
I’ve just returned from what was probably the most excruciating job interview in existence, and that’s not a statement I make lightly, as I find even the good ones to be pretty painful experiences. Have you ever blurted out, “I fell in love with punk rock freshman year of high school!” in an interview? Now I have, and worse. Well, what the hell kind of a question is “When did you discover fashion?” anyway? One that deserves a smart alecky answer, that’s what. But no, this was interview land, where one must never be honest, or think too hard. If I was being honest or thinking at all, I would have never even gone to the interview, as I am just not the sort of girl who was made to sell clothes, or really even care all that much about clothes.
“I think the black leather jacket is a timeless article of clothing,” I said, and immediately wanted to crack my head on the corner of the desk in front of me until I Just. Stopped. Talking. My armpits were pouring out buckets of sweat and I could smell the smell of my deodorant mixing with it and seeping into my nice Chinese silk blouse that was definitely underappreciated in this particular room.
“Do you like to shop?” Um. “Yes!” I enthusiastically lied. I do like to shop… for food and things to make delicious foods with, so I guess that wasn’t really a terrible lie. The terrible lie came later when Leslie asked me, “Do you think it’s feasible for you to work part time, 20-25 hours a week, making $7.15 an hour?” I answered something about it being feasible if I added it to the supplementary income from selling my plasma and art. Leslie didn’t laugh. I looked her dead in the eye and said, “Yes, I guess so,” all the while thinking I may have fallen in love with punk rock when I was 13, but it just divorced me.
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The word ‘art’ is very slippery. It really has no importance in relation to one’s work. I work for the pleasure, for the pleasure of the work, and everything else is a matter for the critics. -Manuel Alvarez Bravo
R.I.P.
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October 22, 2002
Hard, Ain’t It Hard
“I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you’ve not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I’d starve to death before I’d sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.”
- Woody Guthrie.
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October 21, 2002
I was tuned into the shine of the late night dial
This was a perfect rainy weekend. I saw “The Ring” and screamed out loud. I saw lots of good friends and didn’t go to one bar. I played with my Animal Crossing friends, Kiki and Punchy. And I discovered Radio KAOS 95.9 Austin!
On our way south on Saturday night, the garage show (Stronger than Dirt, KOOP 91.7, 8 pm - 10 pm, Saturday night) ended and so I was playing with the radio. I passed over some kids talking, mid-way up the dial, and from the backseat Hoss asked, “Did they just say Blackie Lawless?” I’m certainly not one to doubt Hoss’s keen ears when it comes to matters of metal, so I backtracked and, sure enough, the opening chords to “Fuck Like A Beast.” were blasting away [The first line to the song goes, “I got pictures of naked ladies/ Lying on their beds,” and it just gets better from there, really]. After that song ended, there was a frenzied thrash metal explosion for about thirty seconds and then, a little bittersweetly, we were at the party and had to get out of the car.
For the return trip, we were graced with the Commies, The Ends and lots of other local punks. Sadly, the deejay announced that we had just missed the Chumps. Chumps never win.
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October 19, 2002
Dippity Do
At the risk of turning this into an old lady haven, I’m posting a recipe that Sarah requested last night. It’s something we all ate on Jacob’s birthday and should come in handy since it’s so close to Halloween. It’s a very old Mayan recipe, still served in the Yucatan, and much healthier than your run-of-the-mill queso.
Sikil P’ak (Pumpkin Seed Dip)
1 cup unhulled raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup hulled raw pumpkin seeds
1 habanero chile or any fresh, hot, green chile, wiped clean
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
12 oz tomatoes, broiled (you don’t have to broil them, but I like to)
2/3 cup water (give or take)
2 heaped tablespoons roughly chopped cilantro
2 heaped tablespoons finely chopped chives
Heat a thick frying pan or comal and toast the unhulled seeds slowly, turning them constantly, until the hulls are well browned and crisp (some types of seeds will start to pop open). Add the hulled pumpkin seeds and toast for 1 minute more. Set them aside to cool. Meanwhile, toast the chile, turning it from time to time until it is blistered and black-brown in spots. Using an electric coffee/spice grinder, grind the toasted seeds, together with the salt, to a coarse powder. Transfer to a small serving bowl.
Blend the unskinned tomatoes briefly with 1/3 cup of the water. Stir into the ground pumpkin seeds together with the cilantro, chives, and whole chile, (If you prefer a more picante dish, blend a small piece of the chile with the tomatoes before mixing them with the seeds.) The mixture should have the consistency of mayonnaise. If it is too thick, you may have to add a little more water to dilute it.
Serve it at room temperature, as a dip.
Note: Sikil P’ak can be made ahead of time and will keep for a few days, although the fresh cilantro taste does suffer a little.
Mmm, mmm good. I promise, no more recipes for awhile.
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Buckets of Rain
I like it when it rains at our house. The air conditioning unit in our bedroom pokes far out the window and when big drops of rain hit it, it sounds like little firecrackers. Doesn’t sound very soothing, but it is. There’s only one window, so when it’s gray outside it’s very cavelike inside. I could sleep the day away, muddled up in soft sheets that smell like lavender (courtesy of a very thoughtful gift from neighbor/friend/bad apple Sarah), listening to the rain attack our house.
But this morning, despite the coziness and rain, I couldn’t wait to get out of bed. Jacob wasn’t there, which is unusual. And then suddenly he was! Leaning over my shoulder, whispering, “tacos… I brought you tacos.” I ask you, has any girl ever had a better boy? (Answer: no. never.)
All of this should make me happy and light and lazy, but I feel rushed today, with a million things to do. All good things, Spirited Away with friends, maybe finding some time to sneak into the darkroom and get some printing done, an anniversary party, a Keith Carter opening and later on the Stitches and Demolition Doll Rods at 710, and I’m excited about every last one of them. But so much to do! Must prepare ! A perfect Saturday. Roxy Music is playing in the living room and I have to go make guacamole for the party.
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October 18, 2002
Mashed Potato Time
today is a day for making potato soup. first the boy was sick. he slept it off, but sometime yesterday he passed it along to me. i won’t be sick today, or anytime soon. i refuse. i need soup. i call upon my great-grannies past to fortify me with their recipes for potato soup. i don’t think it really makes you better when you’re sick, but it sure does taste good, and lays a good path for a night full of beer drinking, as well.
i like beer. i like beer almost as much as i like potatoes. and i won’t be sick.
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October 17, 2002
Blue Kentucky Girl
I’m going to Kentucky for a week and a half. I don’t know how it happened. I was only going to go for a weekend, long enough to wish my grandparents well on their 50th wedding anniversary, have a beer with my sweet baby brother, shoot a few rolls of film and be back on my way, safe and sound to Austin, the land I love so well.
But I can’t say no to my mother. More accurately, I will go to great lengths to avoid arguing with my mother, which has often resulted in me doing very foolish things, though none of them as foolish as the arguments we’ve gotten into, which is probably why I continue to do it. I’m not even in the same room with her and she’s already bitching, “It’s such a long way to come, there’s no point if you don’t stay and visit. What do you have to do in Austin that’s so important, anyway?” and on and on and on and so. There you go. Rather, there I go. I’ll be pulling out the banjo tunes and chewing tobacco to get myself in the right frame of mind in a few days.
And really, why shouldn’t I take a long visit? I like my grandparents, I actually like Kentucky, which was something that took a long, long time for me to be able to say. It’s really beautiful. Food tastes good there (except for the stuff fried in lard, which is a good deal, I’ll grant you.) and the sky is amazing, bright and clear and no street lights around for miles. I’ll eat biscuits every morning with blackberry preserves that my grandmother made herself. I’ll play the out-of-tune piano in the breezeway and I’ll sleep on feather pillows. I’ll hear stories I’ve never heard before. I’ll take a million pictures. As long as the Alabama cousins don’t try to take me honky tonkin’ I should be alright.
And then I’ll run back as fast as I can to Austin, back to this century and the sweetest boy I know.