Empale the embalmer's hand. The instrument of my
Voice, or rather, a bird in hand with a doll's eye
Lies bristling besides, the fiber bought for it, and generous
Layers of animal glue applied. After the horn is trimmed
Away, add watch crystal, a tin heart, turquoise... Talk
Away with whatever form the evening might take.
Perhaps the above is the product (a funny, perhaps inappropriate word for the shorthand my mind makes) of an article about an antique hand trepan, a Shannon Wright song I've replayed all evening (play count: 20 and counting) and a box of miscellaneous tiles uncovered and carried back from a hardware resale shop. And yes, I viewed a strangely beautiful film about an obsessive dwarf perfecting taxidermy in gritty Naples: The Embalmer. Watch on Netflix.
To some light-dealing demiurge, or to No..One in particular...A vessel for a minor malady
There’s no cure so why should I care
You have fled into this blackness
In this sling I must contain
You use your force
To comfort my trembling hands
And fold them aside
These hued eyes
They have sent
The longest beatings
The hour bows
To seek some light
With golden strings
You construct this wheel
With your threads of argentine
8 comments:
"Our trip through Mexico had already lasted a week. A few days earlier, in Tepotzotlán, in a restaurant whose tables were set among the orange trees of another convent's cloister, we had savored dishes prepared (at least so we were told) according to traditional recipes of the nuns. We had eaten tamal de elote--a fine semolina of sweet corn, that is, with ground pork and very hot pepper, all steamed in a bit of cornhusk--and then chiles en nogada, which were reddish brown, somewhat wrinkled little peppers, swimming in a walnut sauce whose harshness and bitter aftertaste were drowned in a creamy, sweetish surrender." "The Jaguar Sun" by Italo Calvino from the September 5, 1983 issue of The New Yorker
In recollecting The Embalmer (2003), I have an entirely different insight into the meaning. I am shocked by it, now. The notion of introducing the chaos of a third person into a relationship is anathema to me. That is worse that being alone. I have felt this way since the death of my grandparents, who consumed much of my free time, which is not a bad thing, but I felt that their care in my youth merited this kind of devotion. I want a spouse and family to consume my energy, and not to be adrift in the marketplace. While you are liberal, you are actually a very conservative person in your emotional expression. I knew that about you when I first saw you.
I remember the first thing you said to me, when I eluded you and just showed up to class, was that I had an inverted triangular physique.You mentioned it in a very offhand way, which is to say, not a direct statement. No one had ever pointed that out to me, so I was surprised.
The strategy, then, is to proceed without the assumption that anything is given.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Golden_Thread_How_Fabric_Changed_His/VweLDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Golden+Thread+Kassia+St.+Clair&printsec=frontcover
This album cover from Shannon Wright (2009) imitates this, Forbidden Fruit (1961).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Fruit_(Nina_Simone_album)#/media/File%3ANinasimoneforbiddenfruit.jpg
It has imitators, and I am amused to learn that a copy at the nearest location near me is the Virginia Military Institute's Preston Library:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Bent_Backwards_over_the_Grass#/media/File%3ALana_Del_Rey_-_Violet_Bent_Backwards_Over_the_Grass.png
I remember an appropriately framing line, "So I remember every face / Of every man who put me here" sung by Nina Simone and used in James Wan and Osgood Perkin's The Monkey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV8KskUf3lQ
LOL!
The ironic cabaret goes on, with a purpose-built Carnival of Souls (1962) remixing. There should be an analysis of the afterlife of the Carnival of Souls. Who would have thought an abandoned bathhouse in Salt Lake City could be so exciting?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIGrVGr9m0E
I remember it started in the nineties with Anne Taintor. I was an early adherent of her editing old photos.
https://images.app.goo.gl/Fc6FGm9VEzc6Fmxc9
10:05: Put on your life preserver ...I'm about to rock the boat.
10:51 thanks to "homeschooling" Margaret didn't need to hire a maid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW-LwNLLaQA
There was almost a Karen dust-up at the one fine dining restaurant open Monday at the lake. I just wanted chicken piccatta, and there was an infant crying constantly with the family near the next table. As a clinician, it sound hypotonic and like there was something wrong.
Without missing a beat, an assertive older dame told us, "you might want to ask for another table, the baby has been crying for two hours."
The family stood up, and several patrons, and there was a robust debate over my table about the crying infant.
I think another generation would have taken the baby away from the table to avoid disturbing others. I remained silent because I thought someone was going to take my glass to throw.
Note: babies crying or coughing otherwise, the obligation is to take temporizing measures to avoid disturbing the public.
My mother stayed at my place last night, and coughed for most of the night in the front bedroom until I awoke to make her honey-lemon tea spiked with Alka-Seltzer Cold.
A caregiver in either situation is obligated to respond.
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