we smiled, not to hide our tears from ourselves
or each other, but because the day was ending,
if there were lamentations they were not ours
but the starlings gathering in the oaks,
the starlings and bobolinks and the vireos
chanting and bowing in the darkening branches
all along the road to Ohio and the coming night.
Kathak taught me gentle boom and wild precision. It was ancient all at once. It taught me the language of eyes (Whitman: “what’s that in your eyes? more than all the print I’ve read in my life); fine ferocious womanhood in the subtle hands and head. Feet on the ground. Wobble glory. Bell weight. Smack-arch on the smooth concrete. Drum speak back dig dig te tum da. Chai break and a closed-eye dilak. Right pregnant pause. Splayed story in the jump canyon.
Mata ji. Those three straight months changed my conversation forever.
PSYCHOGEOGRAPHIE | GUY DEBORD
“By wandering, letting onself float or drift (dériver is the French word used) each person can discover his or her own ambient unities of a specific city.”
Belkis Ramirez via Julia Alvarez
Dias de Sol, 1993, Xilografia
El Pensamiento de Julia, 1991, Xilografia
En Oferta, 1997, Instalacion
and speaking of book trailers
JEFF SCHALLER for Iron Hill for Philly Beer Scene
Encaustics and pen on notebook paper
Shalom Auslander’s book trailer for Hope: A Tragedy, in which he asks Ira Glass if he’ll hide Auslander’s family in his attic, should another holocaust occur.
At the Free Library near you!
