Oh, Key West, you found me just in time.
It is snowing back home in Seattle, and here you have me sitting in a long, loose, terribly vivid skirt and tiny shirt, under the royal palms and papyrus, caressed by a hundred felines, teased by mosquitoes and tiny lizards, entranced by brown pelicans, vultures and ospreys and wild chicken families. I have made and eaten wonderful food. I am in love with your piece of the endless Atlantic. Your residents warn me of their strangeness and their eccentricities, but they breathe calm and lovely to me.
Thank you for embracing me when you ignore so many others. Thank you for giving me what I did not know I needed. Thank you for your joy and your passion, freckled as they are by humanity.
Behold my newness, scrubbed clean of my grey skin, my eyes unpeeling and a breath of future wisdom at my neck.
I will do right by this opportunity.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Cucurbits and Tubercles
(...or Squashes and Root Veggies, for those of you who don't garden, speak Latin, or make love to words like an OCD logophile)
I love eating food in season, not just for its superior quality, but also for its perfect fit with the turning year's mood swings. In the segue between autumn and winter, just around the first frost of the hermetic season, root vegetables (tubercles and the like) attain a sweetness and a depth unmatched at any other time of year. They are perfect for roasting, for steaming and blanching and sauteeing and frying, for mashing and smashing and bathing in butter. Burrowing roots and tubers are the winter kitchen's blank canvas.
The other great autumnal rock stars are the brilliantly armored winter cucurbits---the humble squashes. O Kabocha! O Calabaza! All you earthly-hued cousins of sweet meaty flesh! You cry out, insistent, for heated sacrifice. You are tragically resplendent hollowed and roasted, your shiny skins filled with your own dressed innards. I love you sweet and savory, creamy and rough, smeared on face and speared on tongue. If root vegetables are the canvas, winter squashes are the ochred foundation painting. These two are the basis for comfort & joy in hearthside hibernation.
Scattered and smashed and artfully married with these are the brightly colored palettes full of winter fruits, window-grown herbs, late-harvested grains and cold-tapped sugars; apples and quinces, sage and thyme and rosemary, hard wheats and rich, earthy molasses and maple syrup.
These are the foundations of our burgeoning cuisine. These are the meals of preparation and promise. The pumpkin colored carpet leading to the dirt-velvet burrow. These are the offerings of hunt and forage, of stiff-fingered plucking and digging. This is plunder hard-won from the cold & sleeping earth.
Dine well this winter, sweet gastronomes, and be grateful for each mouthful, for every morsel pushed backward on the tongue.
I love eating food in season, not just for its superior quality, but also for its perfect fit with the turning year's mood swings. In the segue between autumn and winter, just around the first frost of the hermetic season, root vegetables (tubercles and the like) attain a sweetness and a depth unmatched at any other time of year. They are perfect for roasting, for steaming and blanching and sauteeing and frying, for mashing and smashing and bathing in butter. Burrowing roots and tubers are the winter kitchen's blank canvas.
The other great autumnal rock stars are the brilliantly armored winter cucurbits---the humble squashes. O Kabocha! O Calabaza! All you earthly-hued cousins of sweet meaty flesh! You cry out, insistent, for heated sacrifice. You are tragically resplendent hollowed and roasted, your shiny skins filled with your own dressed innards. I love you sweet and savory, creamy and rough, smeared on face and speared on tongue. If root vegetables are the canvas, winter squashes are the ochred foundation painting. These two are the basis for comfort & joy in hearthside hibernation.
Scattered and smashed and artfully married with these are the brightly colored palettes full of winter fruits, window-grown herbs, late-harvested grains and cold-tapped sugars; apples and quinces, sage and thyme and rosemary, hard wheats and rich, earthy molasses and maple syrup.
These are the foundations of our burgeoning cuisine. These are the meals of preparation and promise. The pumpkin colored carpet leading to the dirt-velvet burrow. These are the offerings of hunt and forage, of stiff-fingered plucking and digging. This is plunder hard-won from the cold & sleeping earth.
Dine well this winter, sweet gastronomes, and be grateful for each mouthful, for every morsel pushed backward on the tongue.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
...Are Those Feathers I Smell Burning?
I have been so full, during these last many months of growth and opportunity. This nonstop balancing act of homage and betrayal and calm, calm, calm has left me largely unable to write with any kind of regularity. I'm too close to see the thing, too close to make out details... "The Thing," of course, is the trajectory of my life-pattern segue, the path from There to Here to There. The overgrown machete-cut trail of murder and love and bewilderment and beauty. The Artery of Understanding....
And I still don't get it.
I reckon that's what I'm doing here: trying to figure stuff out. Writing down what knowledge Experience has given me. Trying not just to remember, but to live what my Mama taught (and continues to teach) me. Trying to acknowledge with my Absolute Everything the rhetorical query of George Eliot, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
Of course, I am only now realizing that sometimes "making life less difficult" entails adamantly demanding others Piss Off and leave me the hell alone so I can think. I used to be so good at that when I was still a belligerent teenaged drunk....
These days, in lieu of shouting, I am moving 2725 crow-miles away (to a subtropical island, no less) before I leave the US entirely for a while. I'm afraid Seattle's oyster-broth winters have been in my hair a bit too long. I've got too much rain in my eyes to see, too much blood on my skin to be able to feel anything but vicious extremes. And christ almighty, the whole Terrified-to-Idiocy climate of oppression gaining momentum in this country is making my goddamned skin crawl. People are getting dumber and meaner, and I've been exposed---to my last howling nerve---to too much cruel and violent bullshit this year to be willing to put up with any more. Period. I'm not saying I'm the only one stripped to the marrow. Not by a long stretch. I'm just done keeping my bones in the petrol-fire. I'm done seeing it, smelling it, being reminded of it every day. I'm tired of coughing up loathing every morning with my coffee...
So, I'm getting out.
Giving myself a metaphysical electroshock. Letting the sun burn the bile from my skin. Engineering my own recrudescence. Planning my own bonfire, my own smoldering ashpile, my own PhoenixNest from which to rise.
Lo, I am already on fire.
And I still don't get it.
I reckon that's what I'm doing here: trying to figure stuff out. Writing down what knowledge Experience has given me. Trying not just to remember, but to live what my Mama taught (and continues to teach) me. Trying to acknowledge with my Absolute Everything the rhetorical query of George Eliot, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
Of course, I am only now realizing that sometimes "making life less difficult" entails adamantly demanding others Piss Off and leave me the hell alone so I can think. I used to be so good at that when I was still a belligerent teenaged drunk....
These days, in lieu of shouting, I am moving 2725 crow-miles away (to a subtropical island, no less) before I leave the US entirely for a while. I'm afraid Seattle's oyster-broth winters have been in my hair a bit too long. I've got too much rain in my eyes to see, too much blood on my skin to be able to feel anything but vicious extremes. And christ almighty, the whole Terrified-to-Idiocy climate of oppression gaining momentum in this country is making my goddamned skin crawl. People are getting dumber and meaner, and I've been exposed---to my last howling nerve---to too much cruel and violent bullshit this year to be willing to put up with any more. Period. I'm not saying I'm the only one stripped to the marrow. Not by a long stretch. I'm just done keeping my bones in the petrol-fire. I'm done seeing it, smelling it, being reminded of it every day. I'm tired of coughing up loathing every morning with my coffee...
So, I'm getting out.
Giving myself a metaphysical electroshock. Letting the sun burn the bile from my skin. Engineering my own recrudescence. Planning my own bonfire, my own smoldering ashpile, my own PhoenixNest from which to rise.
Lo, I am already on fire.
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Bullfighter
(Seattle)
There's an oil painting of a bullfighter, mesmerizing a wild-eyed bull, hanging in our dining room. It used to hang above the fireplace in the Palindrome House. The painting is old and crackly, beginning to lose flakes of color and layers of vividity. Its kitsch value keeps it around, as well as the inexplicable draw it seems to have on every person who spends any time with it. Yesterday I noticed something new: the painting is pocked with dozens of tiny holes. Like from dozens of tiny moth mouths.
Or from the edges of a shotgun spray.
Now I can't stop staring at it.
They're probably not shot-holes, though, right? I mean, every other shotgun blast I've ever seen (like the one through my bedroom wall) leaves holes a bit bigger than the ones in the bullfighter's bony hip, in the bull's meaty flank, peppered through the mustard-and-gangrene sky that seems to sicken them both. And the painting was still hanging when I went through the old house, so I have no idea whether or not those holes continued through the wall behind. Still...
It's everywhere. I can't go anywhere in this town without feeling the tap-tap of tragedy on my right shoulder, waiting for me to turn around so I can see its wide, bloody grin.
I get it, already. Jeezus.
Leave me alone.
...Of course, it won't leave. Can't leave. Is maybe bound up here forever, caught in the silken nets of fog that extend over the valleys, tripped up in the pointed tops of needled trees and in the teeth of mountains. My shoulders are not big enough, despite my Atlas-training, to shake this grinning, gnawing beast free. I have to get outside the pit, outside the fight, to see what I'm dealing with. It may only be a tiny thing with big teeth and bigger bark...but it may be a monster. Either way, I am ill-equipped to continue fighting. I need to recharge, to shift my perspective. I cannot in good conscience keep ruminating our little Tragedy when we live largely untouched by the Great Tragedy of the world. I need to go and meet people wiser than I, people who live beside the Great one all life long and grin in spite of it. Or because of it. People with wider views of suffering and joy.
UnAmerican.
Unspoiled.
Uninterred.
There's an oil painting of a bullfighter, mesmerizing a wild-eyed bull, hanging in our dining room. It used to hang above the fireplace in the Palindrome House. The painting is old and crackly, beginning to lose flakes of color and layers of vividity. Its kitsch value keeps it around, as well as the inexplicable draw it seems to have on every person who spends any time with it. Yesterday I noticed something new: the painting is pocked with dozens of tiny holes. Like from dozens of tiny moth mouths.
Or from the edges of a shotgun spray.
Now I can't stop staring at it.
They're probably not shot-holes, though, right? I mean, every other shotgun blast I've ever seen (like the one through my bedroom wall) leaves holes a bit bigger than the ones in the bullfighter's bony hip, in the bull's meaty flank, peppered through the mustard-and-gangrene sky that seems to sicken them both. And the painting was still hanging when I went through the old house, so I have no idea whether or not those holes continued through the wall behind. Still...
It's everywhere. I can't go anywhere in this town without feeling the tap-tap of tragedy on my right shoulder, waiting for me to turn around so I can see its wide, bloody grin.
I get it, already. Jeezus.
Leave me alone.
...Of course, it won't leave. Can't leave. Is maybe bound up here forever, caught in the silken nets of fog that extend over the valleys, tripped up in the pointed tops of needled trees and in the teeth of mountains. My shoulders are not big enough, despite my Atlas-training, to shake this grinning, gnawing beast free. I have to get outside the pit, outside the fight, to see what I'm dealing with. It may only be a tiny thing with big teeth and bigger bark...but it may be a monster. Either way, I am ill-equipped to continue fighting. I need to recharge, to shift my perspective. I cannot in good conscience keep ruminating our little Tragedy when we live largely untouched by the Great Tragedy of the world. I need to go and meet people wiser than I, people who live beside the Great one all life long and grin in spite of it. Or because of it. People with wider views of suffering and joy.
UnAmerican.
Unspoiled.
Uninterred.
Thursday, September 7, 2006
Incensed
so, apparently the pentagon released the new edition of the army field manual today, a revision that implicitly denies soldiers the rights to torture prisoners, that says that soldiers must obey many of the guidelines of the geneva convention, etc. within hours of the manual's release, bush gave a speech saying that the cia needed to torture people to get information, even though the only admissions we've been able to use have been given by people who were not tortured.
so, basically, what i'm hearing here is that bush just likes to fucking torture people.
he endorses the cia tactics that not only break international laws (that the u.s. agreed to, back in the day), but break our own laws as well. dude! this almost makes bush's speech two days ago, the one where he compared bin laden to hitler, seem almost funny. yeah, bin laden's a pretty twisted fucker, from all accounts, but bush is the one actually setting up death and torture camps, right fucking here on u.s. soil (and of course in cuba, cause we love the irony). oh yeah, and bush also acknowledged yesterday that we have secret cia prisons. isn't that great? he flat out, openly said, "yeah, we're totally torturing and unlawfully imprisoning people, but i betcha they're terrorists! and we gonna torture 'em until they admit it." this doesn't just sound like hitler's germany to me; this sounds like a cross between hitler and the horrific spanish inquisition, where church fathers (elected of god, just like bush?) would either kill you if you were a witch (terrorist) or torture you until you confessed you were a witch/terrorist, at which point the victim was usually dead or dying anyway. this is not okay; this is not stuff that happens to someone else; this is our motherfucking country, our words and votes and hopes that this megalomaniacal monkey is twisting to fit his depraved and downright cruel wishes. i don't know what to do to stop him, you know? maybe there's nothing i can do. my goddamned vote certainly doesn't mean anything, though i cast it again and again and again. i mean, when our own supreme court rules that the u.s. must follow the guidelines of the geneva convention (and the courts made that statement--again--on 29 june of this year) and then the puppeteer president says, "uhm, ...nah... we don't gotta do that," what the fuck are we to do? at this point...hell at the point three years ago when the idiot declared war on the entire middle east (one impoverished country at a time), we had every constitutional right to publicly hang him for high treason. with as many other treasonous acts as he's committed since then, we could probably kill his whole fucking family, rape him, and then set him on fire, just like the 5 u.s. soldiers did to the 14-year old iraqi girl, abeer hamza, back in march.
our country is being run by the powerhungry, by the cowering congress and courts that bow before them, by a homicidal maniac and buildings full of complacents afraid to lose their seats on the bench; it's being (over)run by a bunch of fucking skeksies. ugh. what's a gelfling to do? stay awake; stay aware. this gelfling will fight with the most powerful weapons i've got: the tempered steel of my words and the indomitable muscle of my love. always fight, always couteract evil with love, as powerfully as i can.
and fer cryin out loud, stay informed:
http://www.notinourname.org/
http://www.phrusa.org/ (physicians for human rights)
http://www.votersforpeace.us/
http://www.counterpunch.com/
so, basically, what i'm hearing here is that bush just likes to fucking torture people.
he endorses the cia tactics that not only break international laws (that the u.s. agreed to, back in the day), but break our own laws as well. dude! this almost makes bush's speech two days ago, the one where he compared bin laden to hitler, seem almost funny. yeah, bin laden's a pretty twisted fucker, from all accounts, but bush is the one actually setting up death and torture camps, right fucking here on u.s. soil (and of course in cuba, cause we love the irony). oh yeah, and bush also acknowledged yesterday that we have secret cia prisons. isn't that great? he flat out, openly said, "yeah, we're totally torturing and unlawfully imprisoning people, but i betcha they're terrorists! and we gonna torture 'em until they admit it." this doesn't just sound like hitler's germany to me; this sounds like a cross between hitler and the horrific spanish inquisition, where church fathers (elected of god, just like bush?) would either kill you if you were a witch (terrorist) or torture you until you confessed you were a witch/terrorist, at which point the victim was usually dead or dying anyway. this is not okay; this is not stuff that happens to someone else; this is our motherfucking country, our words and votes and hopes that this megalomaniacal monkey is twisting to fit his depraved and downright cruel wishes. i don't know what to do to stop him, you know? maybe there's nothing i can do. my goddamned vote certainly doesn't mean anything, though i cast it again and again and again. i mean, when our own supreme court rules that the u.s. must follow the guidelines of the geneva convention (and the courts made that statement--again--on 29 june of this year) and then the puppeteer president says, "uhm, ...nah... we don't gotta do that," what the fuck are we to do? at this point...hell at the point three years ago when the idiot declared war on the entire middle east (one impoverished country at a time), we had every constitutional right to publicly hang him for high treason. with as many other treasonous acts as he's committed since then, we could probably kill his whole fucking family, rape him, and then set him on fire, just like the 5 u.s. soldiers did to the 14-year old iraqi girl, abeer hamza, back in march.
our country is being run by the powerhungry, by the cowering congress and courts that bow before them, by a homicidal maniac and buildings full of complacents afraid to lose their seats on the bench; it's being (over)run by a bunch of fucking skeksies. ugh. what's a gelfling to do? stay awake; stay aware. this gelfling will fight with the most powerful weapons i've got: the tempered steel of my words and the indomitable muscle of my love. always fight, always couteract evil with love, as powerfully as i can.
and fer cryin out loud, stay informed:
http://www.notinourname.org/
http://www.phrusa.org/ (physicians for human rights)
http://www.votersforpeace.us/
http://www.counterpunch.com/
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