Hyperborean hustle (Folded Legs, Saddleshoos).
N.B.: Bay Area restaurants and my sister’s anonymous Rockridge lifestyle blog shall be linked generously in this post!
K visited this weekend for ad hoc trappist ale quaffing, familial ramblings, scooter scrutiny, Rockridge brunch, clambake crashing, Mission District carne asada, lifetimes updates, and one epic impromptu dance-off (which he won handily, see photo above). His hyperborean flaxen locks, first spied (gently wind-wafted) by this author whilst alighting at Ashby BART Friday afternoon, have been the topic of several ensuing convos/emails. Quilty commented on an aesthetic resonance with 1970s French intellectuals. K is a doctoral candidate at UCSD studying empires, as Saddleshoos lately noted (in the boldly titled “Political Theory” post).
Folded Legs.
This calls to mind the lynchpin piece of ay-are-tee hanging in my cabin, an aces monk-made litho scored by K on a trip to Greece some years back at the Monastery of Tansfiguration on Meteora:
Above my bed, my dresser.
I got it framed at Dharma Framing & Gallery, across the street from my old office in Martinez on Estudillo Street, and it (seems to have) eventually inspired the phollowing poem:
No trees
only makeup
and trashbags
disconglomerated
inches and inches
an awful fragment
fulfilled
a tower rising from the sand
sinewy and bent
upon which
monks might genuflect
or cozy cities
be laid down—
a pastry on a pastry pad
A pastry on a pastry pad
a pastry on a post-it pad
a penis on a pantry post
a pen cap on you, mom and dad.
In case you publish poetry, this poem is now officially up for sale.
K and I share an (in his case, academically useful; in my case, dilettante-ish) interest in Classical culture and languages dating back to our boarding school days and Mr. Shagam’s Latin class, an interest that for me asserted itself insidiously last summer in the shape of an eight-week intensive seminary New Testament Greek class at GTU. I was one of two non-seminary students (the other, pursuing a joint GTU/UCB doctorate in Septuagint studies, natch) who made the trip up to the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary at the top of Marin Ave. every day for two and a half hours of ho anthropos, daily translation quizzes, foggy morns burned off, some biblical queer theory courtesy of Sean B., &c. My participation was paid for by a Religious News Writers Association scholarship, the only application I’ve filled out since I was 17. Depending on their program of choice, some of the pastoral-inclined only finished four weeks of the course, which was intended to give foundation enough for interesting exegesis to inspire sermons. Many questioned my presence these early mornings in the Berkeley hills, after which I’d commute to MTZ and the life of a community newsman.
The charming, quick-to-laugh, motorcycling (from Vallejo!), great-big and impressively named Victor Vanloo, appeared one morning with a Koine edition of one of the Harry Potter books (can only find what appears to be the Hellenistic edition online…). I was tempted to seek out a copy myself, but ultimately elected not to, realizing the idea was probably based on a familiarity with the text I didn’t enjoy, considering I never read any of the books or saw any of the movies in the first place.
Sunday, K remarked that he’d already ingested most of my hardcopy NY Times online in the four days previous. Why did I subscribe? Still, we lugged the thing to a breakfast (generous term), where it rested below plates of de-canned corned beef hash, spicy sausage, and mediocre waffle (K vowed to besmirch the donutshop-cum-low breakfastfare eatery’s name online; strangely thirty-plus Yelpers deliver a four-star average). Now the Sunday times sits, still completely unread by yrs truly, and slightly breakfastmeat-stained, on my dresser. Much like all that unread Greek lit’rature, another heavy roll of useful text gone untransitive…
4 Comments
August 26, 2008 at 7:47 am
fun because last night TVA broadcast the Spy Who L’ed Me (French dubbed version) in which intrepid spy climbs up to this very monastery. No poetry resulted.
August 26, 2008 at 4:17 pm
That poem is one of my favorite things rimpletide has ever written. I love it so much in fact that I had rimpletide dictate it to me at riiiiici’s birthday so I could read it during the birthday toast.
Also, I have frequently stared at that monastery litho, wondering what on god’s earth it is. I never knew it was from K, or Greece, and now it makes so much more sense.
I think you should post a higher res image of the litho–it’s some trippy sh*t. Then the poem becomes even more hysterical. I mean hysterical in the best way. As in the extent of my enjoyment.
August 27, 2008 at 9:35 pm
pray tell: who is that charming fellow with the rose?
August 28, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Rimpletide, you are spelling it wrong. ey ar tee.
…
Then.
…
Shit, i just googled that ass and I have been spelling it wrong all this time.
ay, bee, cee, dee, ee, ef, gee, aych, eye, jay, kay, ell, em, en, oh, pee, que, are, ess, tee, you, vee, double you, ex, why, and zee