Discoveriing a Poet

Poetry Month is over. But I'm still reading poetry, as I intend to keep right on doing. In the last few days I've discovered William Matthews in a 2005 issue of Poetry International which has many of his poems and many short critical or appreciative pieces about him. The poems are wonderful. Many are about jazz especially his favorite, Mingus. But he had also discovered opera at an early age [in Cincinnati, I think as he spoke of hearing lions in the zoo while at an outdoor opera; Cincinnati's zoo opera was quite famous and is where I first heard opera -- the lions were quiet that night. Matthews died in the late '90s. Here is a poem with humor, and a turn toward profundity. I am very happy I have discovered this man's work, his mind.

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

"The tenor's too fat," the beautiful young
woman complains, "and the soprano
dowdy and old." But what if Otello's
not black, if Rigoletto's hump lists,
if airy Gilda and her entourage
of flesh outweighs the cello section?

In fairy tales, the prince has a good heart,
and so as an outward and visible
sign of an inward , invisible grace,
his face is not creased, nor are his limbs gnarled,
Our tenor holds, in his liver-spotted
hands the sporano's broad, burgeoning face.

Their combined age is ninety-seven; there's
spittal in both pinches of her mouth;
a vein in his temple twitches like a worm.
Their faces are a foot apart. His eyes
widen with fear as he climbs to the high
B-flat he'll have to hit and hold for five

dire seconds. And then they'll stay in their stalled
hug for as long as we applaud. Franco
Corelli once bit Birgit Nilsson's ear
in just such a command embrace because
he felt she's upstaged him. Their costumes weigh
fifteen pounds apiece; they're poached in sweat

and smell like fermenting pigs; their voices rise
and twine not from beauty, nor from the lack
of it, but from the hope of accuracy
and passion, both. They have to hit the note
and the emotion, both, with the one poor
arrow of the voice. Beauty's not for amateurs.

Wisdom -- wise old woman?

This past Sunday the New York Times Magazine was devoted to considerations of wisdom. The lead article discussed scientists trying to locate and define wisdom. I was fascinated and frustrated. Why must science be so parochial, so US-centric? or Euro-centric?: I can understanding having to narrow the scope to be able to handle data but to proceed as if the rest of the world has nothing to contribute is -- what else can we say? -- exceedingly unwise. However I read the whole thing with interest. And then I took the wisdom test with some trepidation.

I've always thought a worthy life goal is to be a wise old woman -- like in the fairy tales -- after all we can't go on seeing ourselves as The Princess beyond a certain age. After that we certainly don't want to become the Queen as in Snow White's nasty step-mother. Much better to be the wise old woman who has the answers or the keys that makes it possible for the hero to accomplish his seemingly impossible task. So have I gained wisdom or, as T.S. Eliot recognized, knowledge is not wisdom: Well the scoring is 1 to 5, 5 being some pinnacle of wisdom. I was a modest 3.8 ... not stupid or idiotic but far from profoundly wise. [I recommend readers of this blog check out the Times magazine soon, because my impression is that the site changes every week. Tho' if you're more computer savvy than I, maybe you can figure out how to get to their archives.
When I think of wisdom, I think of examples of people from other cultures, like, obviously, the Dalai Lama. [The surveys quoted said people put Ghandi at the top of their lists.]
What about Chief Joseph of the Nez Perze. People with broad perspectives, who have cultivated compassion and understanding. Where are the Americans, the Europeans? Who???

A few weeks ago I mentioned a book by a woman who wrote of her own enlightenment. I've been pondering that since I encountered it and I remember reading in literature about Buddhist meditational practices that euphoria, such as that woman described [and named "enlightenment"] may happen during practice of disciplines but it is an impediment to continued work toward enlighteniment. Euphoria feels great, but it seems to be a chemical imbalance. Not so different from a drug highl. But this is already far afield from the scientists in the Times article -- they take no meditational practices into account. They don't recognize what I'd call "mind work", the kind of practices I've read of used to train the mind to reach an equilibrium, to empty itself of thoughts and look at pure mind. I unerstand that, in theory, I do not feel myself drawn to those practices. I think this attitude which is a kind of laziness on my part, or an attachment to the ephemeral, will keep me from becoming wise by my own definition. But still time remains before me [I hope] so maybe another phase will come about ...

Spring Fever

I awoke bright eyed and bushy-tailed, as we said back home in Indiana, yeserday mornig with a list in my head of things I wanted to accomplish this weekend. Mostly spring cleaning-rearranging related. Like putting away the boots and getting out the sandals, stashing the cashmere turtlenecks and getting out the short sleeved t-shirs. Also some house cleaning and related jobs. I also planned weekend time to be outdoors.

It's Sunday evening and I've accomplished most of my list. There's a ton of ironing to do and a few odds and ends not done. But I managed to walk by the Hudson yesterday and stop to each lunch on a bench near the boat basin beneath a portion of the long stand of flowering trees -- all in lush bloom! Gorgeous to look at -- no scent. The breeze from the river was coolish so I didn't sit long after lunching but walked on up to the community garden that I love. That's where these pictures are from. It is always predictably beautiful. Yesterday was no exception as you see.

Today the ambition remained. I was well into chores when I went out and discovered the first of the spring street fairs was setting up on the east side of B'way. A sure sign of spring. A visit to one usually tells me what the subseuent ones are goiing to be like -- same sorts of booths. But wandering with the crowd later on in the day made me feel connected to the tradition of "Market Day" that goes back at least to the Middle Ages and, really farther back into history. Here we had no haggling --it's against the American commercial tarditions although it persists many other places. There was a great display of cheap goods and various eateries -- I noticed a new level of bad snack food -- high or low? I can't say. Ponder! Fried Oreos? No? You like your Oreos in their original form?: Well, then you can have fried Twinkies! I kid you not!! Despite constant emphasis on healthy eating the street fair people have come up with Fried twinkies. I also noted chocolate covered marshmallows, super gooey crepes, how about filled with banana and drizzles generously with chocolate syrusp ... sounds pretty yummy to me. I got my street fair inulgence, a gyro to bring home -- experiences has taught me that walking and eating a gyro is an invitation for disaster -- yogurt sauce dripping down my chin onto my clothes, shreds of lettuce and tomato spilling all over.

But the dictum is true: You've seen one, you've seen them all. The rest of the season's street fairs will offer the same booths ot $2 Chinese junk jewelry, '"hand strung genuine pearl" necklaces, 24 hours scented votive candles, Indian embroidered long full skirts and 4 for $10 socks. Ah, spring in the Big Apple.

Going Out of Business ... eventually

Last summer when I was on a grand jury and down in lower Manhattan twice a week, I explored the last of the rats' nest fabric stores that used to abound in that area. Only six or seven remained. By "rat's nest" I mean a jumble of fabric, mostly on long rolls, not folded on bolts as suburbanites find it. Often with barrels of remnants and piles of trims. Some of those stores are so claustrophobic I can't handle going in them -- there are a few in the garment district still but most there have mordernized and organized at least to some extent.

Tracy, a coworker spoke of S&W on lower Broadway when she made bridesmaides dresses for a sister's wedding. I found it and was glad to discover that their 100% cotton, quilt-appropriate cottens were organized in a section at the back of the store. Not a large selection but some nice ones at lower prices than uptown. Then in December I was disappointed to hear they were going out of business as of December. I was recovering from hip surgery and could not have managed the trip except with an expensive cab ride so I missed it. ... I thought. However, a couple of days ago I went down there to check into other bargain stores [shoes mainly!] in that area and walked along B'way. Lo, and behold! S&W were open with a big SALE sign. Wild horses couldn't have kept me from going in.



Everything was drastically, 50 to 60%, marked down. I quickly found a few bargains -- I would have found more but it was Friday afternoon and like many such stores, they close early because of the Sabbath. They actually turned the lights off in the back of the store to encourage me to make up my mind and get out of there. So I didn't get back to the majority of qulit fabrics. However, their patterns were 60% reduced and I have long been envious of the many quilters in my guild with wonderful patchwork jackets. I've thought of making one but don't have pattern. I found a Vogue pattern with an asymmetrical closing -- I like being a little different from the crowd -- yet simple enough to lend it self to a patchwork technique. I also found 6 yards of the wonderful multicolored fabric it's on for only $7 [barely over $1 a yard]. The very first thing I found, as I walked into the store was a cut of blue and white print that my color-memory said is the same as the colors in the blue and white quilt I am making and for which I need a border fabric. It was so inexpensive I knew that if my color sense was wrong I'd be able to use it for something else. Glory be! it is just the right blues. Today I finished the star blocks for the main part of the quilt. Now I have to do some interesting border piecing [Seminole, I think] and I have the right fabric to finish it! Hurray.

Quilt Related Books

When I was at the Folk Art Museum some weeks ago I purchased UNCOMMON THREADS, Ohio's Art Quilt Revolution (Gayle A.Pritchard, Ohio University Press,2006) and have only reached it in the pile of nonfiction reading I had accumulated. It is a a broad view of how it happened that Ohio was the breeding ground for the art quilt movement in America. I enjoy the comprehensive, socio-political chapters and having the quilt artists of whom I've been aware for years put into perspective. Of course I knew Nancy Crow was a force to be reckoned with, but I also had seen Terrie Hancock Mangat's work for many years. I was unaware for some reason that Susan Shie was a part of the Ohio group -- perhaps because the quilts she and her partner, Jame Acord, produce seem entirely sui generis. Among the surprises in this book is that Susan Shie's grandmother who taught her to sew was a Mennonite seamstress -- what a shock Susan's kitchen goddesses and other pagan figures would be to that prim lady in a picture in this book!

At this point I am trying to purchase quilt books for inforamtion and UNCOMMON THREADS is a fine example. I try not to purchase books with new techniques and shiny ideas for inspiration. At this point I have too much inspiration -- and not nearly enough time, alas!!

This book sent me to the catalog of Nancy Crow's one-woman show that I saw at the American Craft Museum in 1993 -- the catalog is a farily recent purchase-- a repint (I think) by the America Quilters Society. I remember spending a very long time in front of several of the pieces in the show, trying to soak in why simple one-patch designs were so powerful. I don't think I understood it, really. There is joy in the colors, both complexity and simplicity in the patchwork and a fascinating tactile surface creaetd by the hand quilting -- which Nancy Crow has done by certain quilters she works with. very different from one another -- they use different techniques, different color palettes, and have very diferent ways of working ... still it all grew from that fertile Ohio soil, thanks to the particular Midwestern atmosphere of the 20th century which culminated in the explosion of ideas and understanding that quilts may be many things and all of that -- and more to come -- is art.

Fine Fickle Weather

The weather prediction was quite specific. Clouds in the morning, turning to bright sun in the afernoon. Didn't happen. Until mid-afternoon and never as warm as predicted. Throughout most of April and May, sometimes right into June, it is impossible to be dressed comfortably. Too warm or too cold, or it rains when no one expects it. I went out of my building this morning and saw a woman walking by in a sleeveless dress. I saw a man coming toward me in a parka with the hood up. Seveal people were wearing raincoats. We're all confused.

Oh, well ... as a walked home from the post office in the fine sun that finally shone, the street was lined with trees in new leaf -- the sun filtered through the tender yellow green of the small leaves and sprinkled the sidewalk with light while I walked under the new canopy. The picture here is from a walk to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park on Sunday before last. It was a lovely day. After the garden I found a path I had not previously been on in a section, the North Woods, I have not ventured into before -- it's further north than I usually have reason to walk. I picked my way through a bit of bog that had spread over the path for a few feet.

Eventually I was reluctant to leave and spent 15 mintues on a bench watching the usual mix of New Yorkers from toddlers to elderly out enjoying a truly wonderful day. The next day it rained and turned cold. But weather is a blessing for what many of us consiider social life -- it's always something to talk about. And we do.

Consider the Odds

I was surfing the Artful Quilters Web Ring and read Tall Girl's blog which is listed quite near mine [I'm now 160 - things get changed every so often, i was 181]. She wrote on Earth Day that she felt she was doing all she could to reclycle and be eco-aware but then read an article saying that the cords to all our electronics emit carbon and should be unplugged when not in use, including TVs and such. I tired to leave a comment when AOL seized up as it tempramentally. But since this is a peeve of mine, I'm writing about it.

The media are very good at scare tactics, pretty good at reporting odd staistics and lousy at putting most things into context. Two examples besides Tall Girl's concern occurred today. I went into a deli and heard a young man order an egg white omelet. "What do you want in it?' ask the guy behind the counter. "Nothing, just egg whites." I looked at the slender 30ish guy and thought Why? No one can convince me that egg whites alone taste good. He doesn't need to lose weight, he's probably too young to have serious conerns about heart disease. But he read something saying egg yolks are bad for you. That's why. At work I transcribed a woman journalist talking about anorexia and bulimia, looking for why young women want to be thin and obsess about their weight. The journalist, who is 27, had no historical perspective beyond her mother who is probably 50. and she, feminist that she proclaims herself to be. She had no political perspective at all. She had looked only at media images and the "perfect girl" idea -- but not where it came from, beyond the mother's need to be supermom. She seemed to be a very ingtelligent woman, perhaps in 30 years she'll be able to look at society with a wider lens and wonder why society at this time needs to portray women as stick thin -- boyish of figure. Certainly not Valkuries or Amazons. Look at the arguably most powerful woman in American Sect. of State Rice ... A smart woman, a talented woman [whose politics I dislike] but does she look like someone who can throw her weight around? All 110 pounds of her?

That's my soap box: The well meaning smart young or not so youing media people who glom onto a few statistics, but cannot see beyond, often, their own economic class, almost never beyond the American culture. So all become more and more parochial, and grab onto "facts" which are rarely put into any useful context. Another example: not an hour ago, I heard a health report saying that a new study says that people who eat a lot of flavaoids have 23% less pancreatic cancer. Where can you get flavaoids: Cabbage and spinach is all they said. What's the incidence of panreatic cancer? No information given, who should care about this "information"? It was presented as if we all should, after all they used the big C word. Really -- is this news? Is this really information? How much cabbage did you eat this week?

Let's go back to Tall Girl's concern about all those electical cords in her house. What is the possible carbon emmission, if it's true that there is? How does that compare to the carbon emmission of the power plant that generates her electricity? How does it compare to the haze of Beijing or Los Angeles or even tiny Kathmandu? Does she need to go around unplugging things when not in use, can't she do something truly positive with her time? Can't that guy with the egg whites spend five minutes in the morning actually enjoying his breakfast -- what if he at half a cantaloupe with some cottage cheese? Flavor, protein, calcium, caratinoids and tasty. We have one life to live, we aren't responsible for saving the world, we are responsible to ourselves not to waste the precious life we have.