You are here: Clearwater Beach

I once knew a guy...let me start over. A guy I knew was charged with teaching college freshmen something about how to write. Position papers were part of the syllabus. In order to provoke them, this guy, I'll call him Philly, presented the hypothesis that some clothing catalogs were pornographic because by showing the clothes without people in them they suggested the people without clothes.

He expected, of course, vehement refutations. Instead he got papers that tried to advance the idea.

Thinking this over, I wonder if this guy's past (undergrad physics major turned writer) gave form to his "theory" in the first place. Something like the absence of one thing proving the presence of another. Thoughts, California?

So here's some pornography. If you think I should get dressed already, tell me which one's your favorite.

You are here:  Between Ishin (Mittelstraße, Berlin)

and Stuart Dybeck's "Paper Lantern," whose "...words are a fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes." (Benedick, Much Ado about Nothing, II, 3):

"Here, there’s nothing of heaven and earth that can’t be consumed, nothing they haven’t found a way to turn into a delicacy: pine-nut porridge, cassia-blossom buns, fish-fragrance-sauced pigeon, swallow’s nest soup […] Sea urchin roe, pickled jellyfish, tripe with ginger and peppercorns, five-fragrance grouper cheeks, cloud ears, spun-sugar apple, ginko nuts and golden needles (which are the buds of lillies), purple seawood, bitter melon…"

Excerpted from “Paper Lantern” by Stuart Dybek, from The New Yorker magazine, reprinted in Best American Short Stories 1996, ed. Kennison, pp.113-125 of 363.

For the entire luscious story in audio (and just like Ishin, there's more to it than food...):

 http://huffduffer.com/Clampants/48152

You are here: Under the (influence of) Portico

Quartet. You are also at the Scheune, which tonight is a barn with a portico.

It's fun not to know what's coming next, like walking hay-bestrewn out of a barn and finding yourself under a portico. Or strolling along under a portico and becoming suddenly and pungently aware of livestock. In the middle of the next song your fingers are oily from melted mozzarella. Two songs on and you can smell kaluha and camels. Taste Newcastle. Contemplate the aesthetics of chipped nail polish (which I've decided is the only way to wear "It's khaki time!").

They've mastered synesthesia. They know the way to my heart and other parts is through my ears.

You are here: Dahlem

At a birthday party hosted by a goddess in a golden dress. Her legs are long, her skirt is short. She is a dangling earring. I covet the paintings on the walls. If I knew anything about them I'd post a link, all I can say is that they look very much like enlarged fashion photographs of the space between neck and breast. One clad in black, one in pink. The only false note--and here I'm reminded of poor Burger, Carrie Bradshaw's castrato--is the scrunchy on the gray-haired DJ. Male DJ. Does that make it better? Or worse? But I really don't want to write about any of that. What caught my attention was a semicolon of a man, mid-40s, pleated khakis, sports coat, maybe an ascot? As the evening matured I became mesmerized by his bouncing, snapping figure, his eyes locked on some nervously smiling, undancing companion. I could not look away. He stepped in rhythm, his body twitching from the neck down, his facial expression eager. It was St. Patrick's Day. He was dancing a jig. And just now it occurred to me that after some 35 years I may have been in the same room with Mr. Fig, an equally entrancing figure from, was it first grade? I've googled Mr. Fig (thought it might even have been Figg, somehow more dignified, no?) and he really does exist. And I was right about the tall green hat. A sort of mad hatter leprechaun. Mr. Fig dances a jig. But this one didn't have white hair. It was Dahlem after all. There you only really have to age if you choose to. Or decide to spend your money on something other than youth. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlem_%28Berlin%29 

https://www.google.de/search?q=dahlem+bilder&hl=de&client=firefox&hs=yXb&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=blF_T9GDCYPYtAaYh5zVBA&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=563 

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Fig-Level-3-Pre-Primer/dp/0153305037


This whole connection may have been brought on by a conversation with Jesolo about figs. I'm dancing a jig of joy as I write and shout out to Baltimore, California and Utah.

You are here: in Richter's Atlas

I'm a bit of a glutton. Have a hard time not indulging myself. So of course when it came to my attention that there was more Richter to be had right here in Dresden I did not hesitate. I crawled right up into his attic and rolled around among his clippings and photographs and sketches and took gratuitous pleasure in spotting the sources of all the magnificent dishes I'd seen in Berlin. I'm sure I moaned. I may have howled. It's a tidy attic, everything laid out in orderly rows and columns, and it takes no work at all to find what you've looked at in its original form: the eggplant before the moussaka. It's a sort of miracle that you can eat the moussaka and then go view the eggplant it was made from. But then it was made by a titan holding the heavens on his shoulders. 

For a better view:

https://www.google.de/search?q=gerhard+richter+atlas&hl=de&client=firefox&hs=0Z8&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=j_t5T7-TGMXJswbo6a3VBA&ved=0CEoQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=574