Just another day at the library
Today I sit and the cherry blossom falls around me. So delicate so beautiful soft tender kisses whispering with the wind. All is pink and burnt gold shining, petals fall into my pizza and I am more content to look at it soft pink, and green glisten of gelapino pepper, light reflecting light from the oil of pepperoni and the paused metal of a knife and fork. I prefer it as art to food right now. Around me chatter blurs the edges of the traffic and the sound of singing and a flute filters through this afternoon sun.
I sit here working. Pen in one hand, cigarette in another and coffee before me cupped in corrugated cardboard. This is beautiful too. I am still, inside. I work on my essay, another, on Japanese art and culture, and I read.. A book of Junichiro Tanizaki 'in praise of shadows',
he writes "whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates
like the far off shrill of an insect, lost in contemplation of flavours to come, i feel as if I were being drawn into a trance. The experience must be something like that of the tea master who, at the sound of the kettle, is taken from himself as if upon the sigh of the wind in the legendary pines of Onoe."
The petals fall across the pages and mark the words. I close the book and think, about the taste of my latte, about the sharp breeze on the back of my neck, I hold the heat of the coffee in my mouth, then swallow. It slips down my throat with a touch of cinammon.
Last night I saw a friend's playNex she directed, written by one of my favourite tutors, John London. The play was great, I laughed out loud all the way through. Sam was in it and was brilliant, comic timing to perfection. By all accounts it was a hit. One of Peter Hall's old stooges from the 50's came and loved it as did an avantgarde filmmaker who directed a film on Vita Futurista though I can't remember his name. (Lutz Becker). So we all went to the pub to toast first night success. And then there was Paul.
Paul is a face that most everytbody knows but who few people know, if that makes sense. A fixture of the Rotherhithe library, eternally weaving in and out of rich dusty pages and devouring knowledge that shoots out of his mouth with every passing like pellets at clay pigeons. He quite simply blows your mind. A short roundish jewish south-african guy, around late 40's with small wire rimmed glasses framing sharp and curious eyes, his mind races to catch up with itself tumbling out of his mouth in a freeform dance that spins a trail of dizzziness behind it. He is eccentric, and truly fascinating. He has a lot to say, and to be sure if you can pace yourself to match his train of thought it is all astute and on the money. Though more often than not he'll leave you far behind, to recollect your rattled brain from which the cobwebs have been sandblasted.
I watched his whirlwhind work its magic on everyone, already heady with the evening and wine and beer. Conversations fell quiet as he spoke, and laughter at the images he conjured in the air. . . but also I noticed how they laughed sometimes from behind walls, for a moment he playing jester to their sovereignty . . . i don't mean to sound, i don't know, judgemental, or I do , I am, though I stand outside that judgement, and think about how standardised our society becomes, how easily otherness becomes a comfortable divider. They were not unkind, just indulgent and pleasantly diverted. even J-Lo, viewing him as an intriguing diversion from - o , but I know I'm fascinated by characters too. But I think it is important to leave a space for equality and how surprised and humbled we can be, to know that a man's or woman's wiring can just mean that thoughts travel along different routes, as they all do. Except often they don't. Have you ever listened and noticed the predictability of some conversation? Too often people wander through life not truly connected, mindlessly regurgitating words, sentences that have turned over and over, stock script, stock scenario, stock response . . . Well something really touched me, and I felt tears, a sweep of melancholy, ripple through me as we talked . . . it surprised me, I felt foolish a little and just watched this emotion pass through me, I don't think he noticed though i knew my eyes must be brighter with my emotion, it was some thing he said. but i'm too tired, none of what i write makes sense right now, the images, and experience i'm finding hard to transcribe, I'm no longer sure what /i'm trying to say... maybe it is no longer interesting, just another evening in a pub . . .
listening to: Kitaro 'Silk Road ii'
I sit here working. Pen in one hand, cigarette in another and coffee before me cupped in corrugated cardboard. This is beautiful too. I am still, inside. I work on my essay, another, on Japanese art and culture, and I read.. A book of Junichiro Tanizaki 'in praise of shadows',
he writes "whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates
like the far off shrill of an insect, lost in contemplation of flavours to come, i feel as if I were being drawn into a trance. The experience must be something like that of the tea master who, at the sound of the kettle, is taken from himself as if upon the sigh of the wind in the legendary pines of Onoe."
The petals fall across the pages and mark the words. I close the book and think, about the taste of my latte, about the sharp breeze on the back of my neck, I hold the heat of the coffee in my mouth, then swallow. It slips down my throat with a touch of cinammon.
Last night I saw a friend's playNex she directed, written by one of my favourite tutors, John London. The play was great, I laughed out loud all the way through. Sam was in it and was brilliant, comic timing to perfection. By all accounts it was a hit. One of Peter Hall's old stooges from the 50's came and loved it as did an avantgarde filmmaker who directed a film on Vita Futurista though I can't remember his name. (Lutz Becker). So we all went to the pub to toast first night success. And then there was Paul.
Paul is a face that most everytbody knows but who few people know, if that makes sense. A fixture of the Rotherhithe library, eternally weaving in and out of rich dusty pages and devouring knowledge that shoots out of his mouth with every passing like pellets at clay pigeons. He quite simply blows your mind. A short roundish jewish south-african guy, around late 40's with small wire rimmed glasses framing sharp and curious eyes, his mind races to catch up with itself tumbling out of his mouth in a freeform dance that spins a trail of dizzziness behind it. He is eccentric, and truly fascinating. He has a lot to say, and to be sure if you can pace yourself to match his train of thought it is all astute and on the money. Though more often than not he'll leave you far behind, to recollect your rattled brain from which the cobwebs have been sandblasted.
I watched his whirlwhind work its magic on everyone, already heady with the evening and wine and beer. Conversations fell quiet as he spoke, and laughter at the images he conjured in the air. . . but also I noticed how they laughed sometimes from behind walls, for a moment he playing jester to their sovereignty . . . i don't mean to sound, i don't know, judgemental, or I do , I am, though I stand outside that judgement, and think about how standardised our society becomes, how easily otherness becomes a comfortable divider. They were not unkind, just indulgent and pleasantly diverted. even J-Lo, viewing him as an intriguing diversion from - o , but I know I'm fascinated by characters too. But I think it is important to leave a space for equality and how surprised and humbled we can be, to know that a man's or woman's wiring can just mean that thoughts travel along different routes, as they all do. Except often they don't. Have you ever listened and noticed the predictability of some conversation? Too often people wander through life not truly connected, mindlessly regurgitating words, sentences that have turned over and over, stock script, stock scenario, stock response . . . Well something really touched me, and I felt tears, a sweep of melancholy, ripple through me as we talked . . . it surprised me, I felt foolish a little and just watched this emotion pass through me, I don't think he noticed though i knew my eyes must be brighter with my emotion, it was some thing he said. but i'm too tired, none of what i write makes sense right now, the images, and experience i'm finding hard to transcribe, I'm no longer sure what /i'm trying to say... maybe it is no longer interesting, just another evening in a pub . . .
listening to: Kitaro 'Silk Road ii'
posted by tara at 6:26 am
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