The Scribe

Up till now I knew everything. How to spell Champs-Élysées. What is the year on Earth. Sound arising, layered. Each separate season in its time, wishing someone else had not already said it better. Or again, that this unfolding redeems the great undoing. Now nothing is more certain, my opinions flattened by a dubious claim: work, pain, compete to be the best, the usual. Men. I am. Further notes come of their own volition; I am only the scribe.

Comforting Routines

Tuesday holidays confuse the weeks. Undeterred I pursue my comforting routines. Neck exercises replace yoga on Sundays. Bacon and eggs replaces granola. Bach cantatas. Price halved, the Times continues. My usual lunch. Other elements capriciously vary, but not much these days. I read and write as always, though it's winter so my studio is not warm till afternoon. Despite chaos and lifelong adjustments the personal pattern persists.

Distant Beloved

Density accumulates. Nothing happens yet the day is full of meanings and satisfactions (after predawn dismay). News (all bad), communication, editing, exercise, intellectual stimulation, job possibility, new Nocturne, shopping, good writing, cooking, conversation, Dante, Beckett on film to go. (Incomplete list.) Not to mention memory or distant beloved always here.

High Water

This by my reckoning is my thousandth blogpost. Talking to myself and you, existing in public. Nothing else matters: if Bollywood calls I am ready to dance. The usual strategy. Journals reveal too much. It is time to take charge of the plot. How it happens not necessarily the same. what it is gradually revealed possibilities not otherwise known exploit arising formulations high water wearing temporary banks

Responsible Whim

Unstable static weather related erases Dudamel Beethoven. Mark attention passing. Dante's architecture enables exuberant invention. Why should a watch be square? Do I dare see "Sweeney Todd"? Fassbinder's exquisite craft allows personal responsible whim delight deepens astonishing perfection despite despair. Sleep discrepancy effectively addressed.

Look Down

Teenage Lincoln Kirstein meets Gurdjieff misses Ezra Pound. How can I spare this book? Daniel Boone enables French grid American west: look down. Hitler anticipates American hegemony. Invisible "empire of bases" empowers enemies bleeds wealth. Such my joy of reading. Eventually warm eventually write.

(Day Off)

Continually more ease. Presents promptly distributed. Family in touch. Contradictions recognized. Satisfactions of editing. (Novelist's day off.) Wide reading (piles of books). Reopen past: la belle jeunesse. Only now do I see. Completely here, ceremonially eating.

How Late

Early swim clean house. Bad lunch good converse. Pouring sun triple rainbow rewards rising. Yummy dinner sweet candles. Read Dante. Messiah helps Christmas lights artistically disposed, design principles fresh invented limits confusion. Moon past full, north leaning toward light, new colors tempting overdo. I learn how late to stay up.

Vibe Sincerity

Not just drumming but shamanic, a funny little circle, ladies with enormous drums with names, the same great vibe sincerity I lost in the Haight, remembering the moon and animals, embracing custom dubiously known, familiars equally at sea; let us gather in the rain and give each other what we are, exchange gifts, unjudging, any sins outside and far away, another time, another self.

Past Midwinter

Black morning gradual gray wet light. I'd left the heat on in my studio all night. How much time does it take to live a life? Enough. Time will be the final knife. No reason not to do the thing, to cook, to write. Pleasure floating moving past midwinter patterns naturally delight.

Pouring Out

Share Scarlatti, historic memory, restrained reception. Essential not to be impressed. But entertained? Sometimes I am on, amaze myself if not the other. Enjoyable sensation beyond self, riches of being pouring out, meetable.

Hand Matters

My senses part of the weave of being. Radiant with sensitivity, my hand matters, listening to Stravinsky making too much point for me, the conductor's doing, making Christa feel invincible. Saying it doesn't make it true, but the thought counts.

My Beliefs

Human history as a whole is a history of violence and warfare. (Keith Ward) This cloud is my beliefs. Perfectible happiness love goodness beauty art for the general. Sun breaks through. I dissolve.

Art Action

Walk around, look in the shops. Eat, observe local characters. Our crowd somewhat younger. How fit? I am here but living in a bigger world, as if in Paris, London, New York, for thinking and creative energy, style, attitude, envisioning art action, where the fun is.

Just in Time

Intense tai chi leg twists what effect hips good bad? "Bad Dog" Christmas cards just in time. Iris Murdoch what a pleasure ("The Bell"). Cusack "Say Anything" beautifully felt truly touched. Rich experience in a simple ordinary setting reaching out to poets.

Organ Replaced

Days blur, Saturday on Friday, Monday more weekend, Sunday write swim buon viaggio concert rain, imagining a way to tell. Beethoven's birthday 1770 marimba. Eighth circle eighth ditch. Organ replaced by inoffensive orchestra. Paul's pianos will complete the thought.

No Substitute

Reeling after neighborhoods Hawthorne not our idea of city dynamic sophisticated Alberta better think Albuquerque livelier mix I go for yuppie funk. Together fun no substitute for everyday reality.

Experimental Cooking

Reading Havel reflect how little one's own capacity is tapped. Fewer occasions to rise to as decades pass. Record weak. His exquisite self-awareness so likable does him honor but no good. Being himself too much work for writing plays, experimental cooking. Emails elicit instant answers. Give away computer. Ready to go.

On Proust

Proust's great novel would be even more delicious if he hadn't changed the boys to girls. There are real women too, producing two incompatible levels of reality. The meditations on love and lust are exquisite but the substitution undermines the honesty: what he is saying is no longer true or, sometimes, credible. Too bad. I suppose he had to do it, but I wish we could read what he wanted to write and actually had to say.

Easy Poetry

Ginger reprieve undoes regret but mystery remains: why is she limping? Days off frustrate dubious flu vaccine. Cancel Theater Times. Rich Italian teens defy distracted parents. Melting frost permits Chinese herb run. Tender nuzzle releases sleep thanks Mahler Five. Easy poetry agenda table door.

Chance

Onion slips, knife stops, blood. An exciting (fictional) encounter. Movies come by chance, each a world, Herzog tendentious, frightening, Resnais tricky, elegant, anti-romantic. Like book reviews, Picasso, China then and now. Albertine pays a visit. Sewing, ironing. Deepening winter. We are happy.

Garlic Fingers

Too cold for studio doesn't stop me writing. I make it to the West Coast. Dutilleux the Brahms of Paris 1964. All agree to penetrate expression. Garlic fingers. Friends for dinner. Horse chiropracty. Silver polish. Point of view tells what is important, chooses what to tell. What to eat before a trip.

Smooth Sliding

"Prick" sad dreaming whimpering unwakeable, deepest devastation then over. Rain every day, tractor undriven. Snores inevitable. Quietly at home, then out about, seek find. Read Havel, my hero. Unmentioned, not forgotten, invisible. Essential tasks. Shuffleboard experts practice smooth sliding. Free breathing blessing renewed!

Growing Inward

What use thinking without saying? No one can know how help is willed. Right or wrong untested, lesson undrawn. Wisdom growing inward, lonely self beyond remembering. What are we waiting for? Each on his path, needing to be witnessed, yearning to be known.

Serious Thinking

Sexy haircut makes me younger, just in time. "Reasons and Persons" closely argued challenges assumptions: who, how many? Serious thinking about religion: I don't get it. "Divine Comedy" dramatically draws us in. Courage for winter. Joy of cookies. Proust invites revisit; much of the banquet remains. Desires abated, why resist?

Doing It

Through the rain, tai chi again, time for a trim. Abyss gapes, I pass, rebound, and swim again. Hours at the easel key to art. Hang in, what else? I am not trying I am doing it.

Well Again

Am I bankrupt for art, or is the art bankrupt? I am contented at the Grange, no longer longing for Italy. (Bedbugs.) Rain is good, extreme cold alarming. I like heat, to a point. Once I am well again, I will diet.

Open Mind

Pure spirit rising. No history. Each begins new. Promises kept. Comfortable body. Open mind. Uncorrupted knowledge. Sickness leaves of its own accord. Everyone sleeps, etc. All same. Conditions propitious. Seize the opportunity.