Prandial musings

I gave a dinner party last weekend to clear out my pantry. A neighbor brought along esteemed company to my humble table, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and author of a book made into an Oscar-winning movie. I haven't seen the movie or read any of his books, unfortunately, so I didn't have anything to add to his ego wall. Anyway, this gentleman so generously led the after-dinner conversation with his signature brash joie de vivre. Here are some gems from that night :


"The Pulitzer isn't about passion. It's about sarcasm. Write a lot of good sarcasm, and you'll win it."

"If you want to be respected as a writer, don't quote Shakespeare. It's cheap. Downright cheap. Anyone who quotes a popular author for the purpose of being romantic is a bleedin' hack. Same could be said if you're quoting Dickinson or Frost. But, you could do it if it's tongue-in-cheek, as a meta reference -- hey, do you have any more of that port?"

"OK, watch as I quote poetry in prose. Who's that good-lookin' fella on your mantel? What's his name? CJ? I once knew a rancher named CJ, craziest son of bitch who'd ever -- anyway, observe:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

...i took the one less traveled by...

and I saw CJ and beat the Jabberwocky outta him,

and a fly passed by while he died

and that has made all the difference


"Back in my day, being a writer used to mean something. Now everyone's a writer. And that garbage the whole lot of them turn out - there's no charm, no wit, no deep tragedy. Just...wallowing. Actually, they're wading. In shallow water. They want to drown, so they kneel down. When that doesn't work they lie down and bury their faces in the mud."

"You fall out of love, and that son of a bitch hurt you like a mother, rip him up, destroy him in prose. You're gonna grow cold and lonely, but man, years from now you're gonna be quoted. Every pimply-faced kid in high school's gonna know your name. Look at Hemingway, wanna be great like him? Make your life as great as your writing. What I'm trying to say is, you're gonna have to be brave enough to let your life fall into a bit of ruin. The compost - what's left - is your material, your golden nugget. I'm not kidding. Writing's not for the piss weak."

"If you've got the tiniest bit of ambition, you'd have to forget about being happy. Happiness only exists in mediocrity, when you'd have stopped trying. So, shine or die."

"I woke up at noon today. Well, I would've slept until the cows came home.There's something about European cities that encourages you to be downright sybaritic."

"I'm tired talking about what I do for a living. Can we talk about something else? Rachel, don't you own a microwave? Wouldn't you rather just nuke the tea!"


On a happy note, I think I've hit my stride in the art of the souffle-making at last. I'd only ever made souffles twice before, and they didn't come up puffy enough. I remember my grandmother telling me that whenever I'm feeling anxious in the kitchen or in bed, a shot of spirits is gonna make me instantly amazing in both :) Sooo...I chugged down a good amount of gin and tonic while I was cooking this time around. Whether or not that resulted in my souffle's improvement is, uh, debatable :P

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Ever After ( A Fairy Tale )

Some passions don't play by the rules

I.

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

II.

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

III.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

IV.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks
complaining
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
'The Lady of Shalott'.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance--
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right--
The leaves upon her falling light--
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:


But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."



Alfred, Lord Tennyson


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A night without armor

"I hate the dark." It's a nothingness so complete you start to see things that aren't there. Who knew that could be so terrible?

Hum jahaan aaye hain, meherbaan saaye hain where we landed, the shadows are kind

"Sometimes it's easier."

"What is?"

"The darkness. It's like faith -- it's intangible."

Raatein so jaateen hain, raahein kho jaateen hain nights end, paths get lost

"Intangible." The word felt like that reluctant space within him defined by her absence. "As you will soon be?" Tomorrow.

He felt her hesitate, ever so slightly."Yes."

He sighed. "How then does one know faith?"

Dhadkanein hain jawaan, hum yahaan khwaabon ke kaaravaan laaye hain Heartbeats are vibrant, here we have brought the caravan of dreams
Her voice took on a teasing tone. "How does one see a soul? It's about as intangible."

He laughed uneasily. "Go to sleep."

She thrashed around a bit. "You think I haven't been trying? You might have to stop talking first."

"And since we're on the subject of all things intangible --"

...jaane hon kal kahaan... who knows what will happen tomorrow?

"Hmmm?"

"How then does one know love?"

She told him because he wanted to know. She whispered it all into his ear.

Hum hain iss pal yahaan We are here at this moment
Pighli pighli si hain, mehki tanhaaiyaan the air melts with the fragrance of solitude
Har pyar milan to nahin Every love doesn’t end in being united
Judaai bhi toh ek pyar hai Separation is also a form of love
Pyar khotaa nahin, pyar sotaa nahin Love is never lost, love never sleeps
Pyar dhalta nahin, haan badalta nahin Love never ebbs, and never changes
Hum rahein na rahein, hum milein na milein* Whether we live or not, whether we meet or not

Later he would tell her the darkness danced behind her eyes, and he saw it all.










* Rahman+Akhtar

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Feels damn great to be driving again...

Random thoughts in my head blowing past guardrails at a speed over 200 mph / 322 kmh in a colleague's Carrera GT on A-- of the Autobahn.

Strangely, cops, pull over, crash, big rigs wasn't among 'em.

tag cloud credit: Wordle.net

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Gotterdamerung*

Postcard from an inmate in the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt, Czech Republic, 1944.

The convention ended a day early in Dresden. My colleague Varick offered to take me on a day tour of Prague, which was roughly 2 1/2 hours away. I instantly agreed, excited to see the famous jewel of the Czech republic.

We were making good time for Prague when my companion suggested a quick detour to a place called Theresienstadt.

"What for?" I asked, curious.

His expression was inscrutable under the dark glasses he wore. "A bit of perspective."

Varick told me a bit of Theresienstadt on the way. It was a garrison town in the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire converted in WWII by the Third Reich into a transit camp for their prisoners before they were dispatched to the great slaughterhouses scattered around Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe: Auschwitz-Birkenau,Treblinka, Riga, Sobibor and Lublin.

Entrance to the Small Fortress

We entered a small settlement made up of narrow roads and centuries-old architecture. A string of words painted on an arch above the prison gates greeted our arrival to the fortress of Theresienstadt. ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work brings freedom. It was a perversion of a noble idea that condemned a generation of able-bodied Jewish youths to their deaths.

I'd seen that slogan before. "Auschwitz." I pointed out.

Varick's eyes clouded. "Have you been there?"

I nodded quietly. Stories of forced labor, horrific experimentation on women and children, gravel pits, gas chambers. My visit to that monument to extreme cruelty and depravity hollowed me out for days thereafter. Theresienstadt is smaller than Auschwitz, and not as noted among the scholars of the Holocaust, but its history is no less haunting: 33,000 prisoners had perished within its confines.

We entered the prisoners quarters by way of the courtyard. All the rooms were pitifully small. People were packed into these tight spaces, and the overcrowding and inhuman living conditions bred numerous diseases that contributed to the rapid decimation of the population. There were certain places within the facility that further magnified the brutality that befell the ghetto residents. A whole wing of the building was occupied by a row of solitary confinement cells with rusted manacles attached to the walls. Down a dark corridor was a "special" holding room where guards locked up a hundred or more prisoners at a time without sustenance and simply left them to die of suffocation or starvation.

Solitary confinement cells, Small Fortress

"People took pride in the fact that they lived in an age of clinical efficiency, one where they could withstand having their collective views prescribed. But in Germany, one man came up with a dream of unprecedented dignity and conquest, a chance for ordinary people to become gods. Who can resist that? And so a whole nation followed his dream, and they acted like gods - without shame, well-dressed, well-fed, with the power over life or death." Varick sighed. "My family paid the price of their ambitions."

Execution grounds

We made our way out of the barracks into the squat-walled square which served as the spot for executions. Prisoners were frequently used as target practice, and around 300 people were killed here between the years of 1943-1945. Adjacent to this place were a series of mass graves where the bodies of 600 prisoners were buried.

One of the four ovens in the crematorium

"I suppose I have my mother's love of the arts to thank for my survival," Varick said without a trace of irony as we entered a small chamber leading to the crematorium. The ashes of the cremated inmates still lingered in the four ovens. "I was sent to live in England with my aunt before the Gestapo initiated deportations in Berlin. My parents promised to follow soon after the theater season was over." He shook his head, sad amusement coloring his voice. "My mother adored Wagner."

Varick was an only child. His parents had been upright German citizens, they loved their country and were enthusiastic participants in its culture. And yet that had not been enough to keep the SS officers from knocking on their door. They were taken to Theresienstadt in the winter of 1942.

His mother died of a lung ailment under the harsh surroundings, in the second autumn of her incarceration. His father was transported to the camp in Riga, where he disappeared among the tangled masses who died of hunger or illness or executed in the forest of Rumbula. Both were devoured by an ideology that justified severe persecution of a group of people not because of anything they did but simply because of what they are.

Children's art, Jewish Museum

We spent the longest time at the visitor center. A significant portion of the walls exhibited the drawings and poetry of the children of Theresienstadt. Here were visual testaments to the resilience of the human spirit, the search for meaning and normalcy in the midst of the most appalling of circumstances. The scene broke my heart. What valor to live at all, even for a day, knowing death would come as a turn in the weather, a guard's mad whim, a belly unfed for too long or the next train out to another camp. Of the 15,000 children who came into this place, fewer than 2000 survived.

Ohre River

We walked a quarter mile down to the banks of the Ohre. In the final days of the war, burnt human remains were trucked here by the sackloads, and dumped into the river's fawn-colored depths. The river was calm today. There was not a fragment, not a movement in the water, left of the essence of Varick's mother, or the scores of people who, as a Jewish placard in the crematorium put it: "have left and will never return."

Varick stood beside a willow tree leaning over the water. It's his fourth visit to Theresienstadt in 30 years, a pilgrimage of sorts to the place that would always recall him to the void which stained him, the passive memory of the loss which made up the core of his vulnerability.

And his salvation. Before we left the prison camp, he wrote these words in the guestbook: When I was younger, hate was all I had. After some time, I realized that it had been hate that took my family away. I couldn't bring myself to think or feel like that anymore. My parents died in my place to give me the liberty and opportunity I take for granted everyday. The only way I can honor their sacrifice is to strive to better my life and the lives of those around me.

We rambled about the shore for awhile. Birds chirped and pale flecks of sunlight honeycombed through the trees. A fresh breeze blew in, bringing with it the scent of damp grass and freshly crumbled soil. The afternoon was awash in serenity and deep-blue sky, which made it hard to grasp that at one point in time this place wallowed in the jagged anguish and rust-red blood of its inhabitants.

Yet one must never forget.

I knelt down, and plucked a single shiny brown pebble at my feet. I felt I could not take more from Theresienstadt.

I pocketed the small stone, straightened up and met Varick's curious gaze.

"A bit of perspective," I whispered.

Holocaust resources on the web:

International Tracing Service, http://www.its-arolsen.org/
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum http://www.ushmm.org/



*The twilight of the gods
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Song of the Nomad

You are right, Sahara. There are no mists, or veils, or distances. But the mist is surrounded by a mist; and the veil is hidden behind a veil; and the distance continually draws away from the distance. That is why there are no mists, or veils, or distances. That is why it is called The Great Distance of Mist and Veils.



It is here that The Traveler becomes The Wanderer, and The Wanderer becomes The One Who Is Lost, and The One Who Is Lost becomes The Seeker, and The Seeker becomes The Passionate Lover, and The Passionate Lover becomes The Beggar, and The Beggar becomes The Wretch, and The Wretch becomes The One Who Must Be Sacrificed, and The One Who Must Be Sacrificed becomes The Resurrected One and The Resurrected One becomes The One Who has Transcended The Great Distance of Mist and Veils.

Then for a thousand years, or the rest of the afternoon, such a One spins in the Blazing Fire of Changes, embodying all the transformations, one after the other, and then beginning again, and then ending again, 86,000 times a second.

Then such a one, if he is a man, is ready to love the woman Sahara; and such a one, if she is a woman, is ready to love the man who can put into song The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Is it you who are waiting, Sahara, or is it I?




You are right, Sahara by Leonard Cohen
Images from ashesandsnow.org

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Anthem

No man, no madness
Though their sad power may prevail
Can possess, conquer my country's heart
They rise to fail
She is eternal
Long before nations' lines were drawn
When no flags flew, when no armies stood
My land was born


And you ask me why I love her
Through wars, death, and despair
She is the constant
We who don't care
And you wonder will I leave her

But how?

I cross over borders
But I'm still there now

How can I leave her?
Where would I start?

Let man's petty nations
Tear themselves apart
My land's only
Borders lie around my heart


from Chess

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