schumann, beethoven, mingus, a spontaneous essay.

i was listening to the radio with kyote on a wednesday afternoon.

schumann was a fucking mess but when you hear the throaty clangor of his piano clashing against vivace strings like german tongues barking into a venetian night, when you hear his pianoforte syncopation lull then jar against melodic blackforest birdsongs, when the angst of his late compositions tear into something deeper than ears or mind to furiously dazzle, you realize his music was sincere and perfect. Languor and anarchy collide in schumann.

he died in an asylum in 1856 at 46 years of age and was still a fucking mess after a suicide attempt two years before. his ambition of becoming a concert pianist was promising as a student- schumann possessed equal proportions of talent, determination and technique- but the dream collapsed when his hand was worked by a machine of his own devising. The function of his invention was to increase the reach & strength of hands but it instead caused irreparable damage.

(there are other theories explaining the demise of his hand. One theory includes a botched surgery to separate ligaments. Another theory proposes faulty coordination of the hand to be an effect of mercury poisoning, mercury being a popular treatment of syphilis at the time. no one really knows but these theories all convey the slan of romantic conjecture unless, of course, you were schumann living through the raw experience, prior to the fauxfinish of a retelling, the ornamentation of myth, the gaudiness of an orator's language. . . the irony of perception and recitation and the mongering that occurs.)

schumann's a composer whose work I know more from his influences (schubert, beethoven) , his influencings (schoenberg, lizst, brahms), than his own actual compositions. but the abrasive ironwork, the bone-hammer of his piano concerto commanded attention and research and then the parallels to other artists start emerging.  

ie: the late voracious pianoworks of schumann compare in emotional texture to beethoven's final works, the hammerklavier and even the antimelodies of the grand fugue quartet. the syphilis connection to schubert offers a simple correlation in both's relatively young death after a prolific period of work. How all three suffered the torture of audio hallucinations becoming “angel songs” and then degenerate noise- cacophonies of unsound mine. I think of mingus, mingus the composer who preceded mingus the photographer. Mingus who preceded the bedraggled figure evicted from his apartment, bass-less and baseless, the tragic clown of his own musical selfportrait. Schumann was a man of hardedged suffering in a long line of them.

all in all schumann is a powerful orchestrator, a titan of the language of pure sound, a man whose mind swelled like a hornet's nest in a storm while spinning out an opus still marveled over today. . . a vessel dissolved by the power of the very acid it contained, like a narrative, like a nautilus, cantor's aleph, like a love or a lust, a shard of music in the afternoon sipping coffee with an orange scone.

of myth and miles: an essai of lung-distance-log slant.

June 6^th  

i. miles as excavation.

de kooning had translucent&papery teeth from a malnourished childhood and in new york while painting some of the most powerful art of the postwar america he survived on cafeteria packets of ketchup 'cause all his money went to color and bedsheet-canvas and midnight coffee. 

(fifteen cents and limitless refills made for many insomniac abstract expressionists.)  

kline was at the cafeteria doodling on napkins later folded into pocket for further development, his eyes and coalminer hands charcoal dark, his eyes and fingers yellowing. motherwell wrote eager ideas with a pencil from harvard and he was not hungry but he was struggling (columbia was expensive).  gorky had one good arm left, the wrong one, and he managed to off himself with it. meanwhile rothko was bleeding out in his studio bathroom, seagrams seven thinning the blood and rushing the deadlocked thing.  schnabel was not yet 

a boy and beuys was the new duchamp and freud was sipping schnapps with bitter, muscleless models.

i was crossing the wrightsville beach drawbridge at mile nine with the chorus in mind: de kooning had translucent teeth and meticulously clean brushes.

rage and its echo.  

pollock once punched de kooning. rauschenberg once erased de kooning. de kooning didn't give a shit either way. he was occupied.

Later de kooning would succumb to alcohol and elaine and alzheimers and his estate would be dredged through the legal imbroglio that makes even the purest painting a horror of assethood and de kooning (in flemish) means “the king."

to enunciate, van gogh's ribcage splintered into waspnest lungs beneath ironball shot, the fire of absinthe neurosis, the spray of ravens above sunflowers, impasto tracks of bristle in lemonyellow sun. beneath these things was the love of a perfect pigment and the god igniting it. 

ii

and right now its blueberry scones and gogol bordello with kyote in backyard, monday brunch, and i'm anchoring this narrative back down.

iii

y'day was a touch cooler and I was due a long run, 18 or 20, needing the mileage appropriate to the grandfather mountain marathon in 34 days but a sore throat and some mad sinus pain worked against me, dropping my mileage to a struggling 10 miler. wrightsville beach's wide loop (including the bird reserve and some incline/declines along the way to summer rest) seemed right and I ran it without haste as a white porpoise drifted beneath the bridge at mile seven but the white porpoise became a white buoy and the heat was working by this time and my pace was labored but obligated. Ruminations on the grandfather mt. 26 continued and de kooning was there too but considerations of running the asu track into the mountains replaced much dread with reflection on runs past. Runs on highwayside in tennessee, cold rain spitting into face wincing against early-evening headlights. Runs on unpainted asphalt roads across pennsylvania farmland rolling in neat mondrian quilt. Runs passing bridges over mayan ruins on red oxide bikepaths in cancun. 

then the infernal walks of earlier days, the miles spent walking beneath delirium and depression or chemical horrors or just searching for something different to endure, something worth enduring, and the idea of running boone's memory-laden streets forces a barrage of questions, a season of introspect, un saison en enfer. And  37 years pushes the introspect a bit deeper, pushes the drawing paper and running shoes and dead paint-tubes and gray paint and gray hair and gray language. Immersion in a thing:  it is the passion that is important. it is the faith to work that is important.  to be present in the work of the thing, the Work of the thing, its struggle, is what is important.  

language snatches from 8 miler today. forgive the poetics.

i

We are imperfect teeth and elephant soul. Sexdread in mustang head. Muy gusto.

Your hair is a flock of wild song- a knot of psalm- a tangle of riverprose. schoenberg or webern come to mind. nothing traditional, nothing melodic, it wouldn't represent, it wouldn't be right. mouth purses against fist, sawing a sort of flabby reeve sound. Imperfect souls and mustang teeth. Memory may capture what the soul sets free.

ii

You refine language in your sleep. with inevitable poetics, your sad eyes research and catalog doubts, the nuanced recoils, the lulls. . . a reclusive mining, stolen from a witness. I am bewildered by your time in dark mind.

iii

Soul dancing beneath a drape of leather-- lost is nuanced pose, lost is essential movement, lost like a fine-boned bird trying to lift a blanket of ox-skin. Music in a vacuum.

iv

your eyes stay on the level, diamond- lucid. a theater and its heavy curtain. eyes that dissect, eyes that reassemble, eyes. Ballistic like van gogh sunflowers.  I am reassembling, collaging. fragments.

your hair was a tangle of wild song,  heated breath, tooth-raw neck and sexstained ribs. Metronomes of ivory.

You are elephant, soul and ivory, leather, leaden, melancholy.

to Catch, to Catch, to Catch.

Keith Rhodes is a recognized chef who braids farm-to-table philosophy with low-country cooking and elevated culinary presentation. He brings solid accolades behind his cuisine, including a James Beard Award Nomination for 2011 and a Best Dish award in North Carolina for 2010. His food is an eclectic mix of Michelin ambitions and shrimp and grits sensibility; luxury ingredients are juxtaposed against highwayside produce and small-source ingredients. Little-known proteins become stars alongside country buffet staples, mulling a high-vs-low play of flavor notes, amplifying something deconstructed or something extraordinary. Foodies and writers and gourmands trek to sample his menus and so did we. Well, we drove four minutes from home.

Mr. Rhodes maintains his passion for our locale with Catch restaurant.  Market Street's strip malls and vacant car lots scream urban sprawl, reckless construction, while daring even the bravest of drivers to turn left or right.  Market Street terrifies city developers across the nation. But Mr. Rhodes moved into one of those strip malls, designed a nice, unassuming and simple interior, squeezed a kitchen behind some partitions, and started cooking. To Catch.

The maitre d' greeted us at a small podium in front of young herbs growing beneath bright lights and she sat us at a table that featured a slight wobble. The room was bright with evening light from large windows (facing Market St), and artful photographs of local beach scenes charmed the modest space. Casual but smart is a catch-phrase of the space, from describing the bar area to the staff attire to the overall vibe. (Mr. Rhodes emits the same vibe- I used to see him at The Village Market after dinner service when he was chef at Deluxe.  A friendly guy.) The service at Catch is focused and engaged and their knowledge of the food was impressive. She anticipated our questions and responded with well-informed answers. If she did not know, she found out. We were specialed and Kas got an excellent recommendation of wine and we got into the menu with our orders.

Our oyster appetizer offered six perfectly fried NC darlings bedded across a good cole slaw. The cole slaw was room temperature but fresh, which was fine when paired with the oysters' temperature. In fact, I believe Chef Rhodes may have designed the dish that way, to present the creamier undertone of a blue cheese folded in with the slaw. A tooth of shell did bite into my gums but I cannot dis the dish on that one mishap. All in all, a good starter.

The sweet potato salad of sauteed sweet potatoes, spinach, chevre, cranberries and toasted hemp seeds was good and plentiful. This is the dish that won NC Best Dish award last year, and I agree that it was very good. North Carolina has good spinach, excellent local goat cheese, the sweet potatos are a major cash crop, and we have really good hemp. It all worked marvelously in this dish.

Kas had scallops, listed as OBX diver scallops, grilled on bamboo skewers, and they were delicate and light and delicious with a smoky char pushing against citrus notes. Alongside were two thick slices of fried green tomato: amazing. The dolloped aioli was tasteful with white truffle as a base flavor, but the scallops were superb sans sauce.

I had local flounder pan-fried with a lively breading insulating a finely-flaked meat. This was the whitest meat flounder can produce, and I think Mr. Rhodes procures the finest seafood around.  (Hence the name Catch, I suppose.)  The filets were easy to savor with good clean buttery flavors bolted by a vinaigrette of lemon, peppers, perhaps saffron.  The filets were not large, but were cut to the exclude the lesser ends of the meat.  Sweet potato puree and sauteed spinach accompanied the entree. The flounder was good for what it was, and it was true to the menu's description. 

The highlight was a spanish basque cake, a buttery pound cake with almonds and a caramel sauce slung across the plate, maybe a hint of lemon zest. Topping the basque cake was freshly whipped cream.  The cake was a magnificent cracking crust of full sweet aromas yielding a warm near-custard center.  If I take anything to the grave from my life as a dessert addict, it will be the part of this cake I wrestled from Kas. 

One issue that lingers is the portion-to-cost ratio. With a low-country format I anticipated larger portions, and my instinct is that 23 dollars worth of flounder should amount to more, but I was satiated by the end of my plate (and one and one-half of Kas's scallops). They did not serve us bread, but I saw bread at other tables so it must be delivered on request. I didn't care about the bread so much as I was curious of what Chef Rhodes would choose for Catch's menu. After all- it could have been jalapeno cornbread or something totally funked out and awesome, or it could have been a crusty basic bread working towards technical perfection.

(Catch has two locations.  This meal was at the Ogden location while the other spot is in downtown Wilmington.  Check online for more information.  I would recommend reservations for any dining occasion there.)

swamp run, mindswamp, body as the sag of soaked fabric.

A fragmented fourteen began in mist-grayed morning before 7am to push outta our neighborhood towards wrightsville beach and a fast start felt strong and feet beat smooth at 7.2 minute miles and the empty streets were colorless in the fog-swallowing-the-sun flatness but the pace was strong and the lungs pushed the first four miles at 7m12secs, unforced & easy, then the sunheat started pouring on the shoulders, torso slumping beneath humid pulse, the wetheat starting in and by mile five I stalled at the dreaded intersection of eastwood/ military cutoff, heaved thick sauna-breath, but there was little traffic so I kicked off coughing, breathless, heavy but determined across the bridge, that green metal jawbone overlooking the painterly ICW, a fresh breeze beneath now blazing sun, but soon I felt the gravity of heat and exertion and I felt a succumbing apathy to the act of running, the weight of muscle dragging bone, so pulling into the WB park was none-too-soon of a thing. After a pit stop I joined the other joggers and walkers to the beach where I remembered how nice it was to live at the coast, a moment of gratitude before turning into the sun and starting back up the sand to mercer's pier where I would hit the turnaround point, push my body in snagged pacing and passages of walking and waterless dread through the unscenic church traffic to a joyful goal of Home. (Fourteen like a russian lyricist performing wagner.)

fracture, continuum and impulse withheld.

i.

Her eyes were wolflike, her eyes were aquamarine and howling, her eyes were blue sky behind smoke or fog. her eyes were wolfsex and wolflunge and brimming with crystals that had once pummeled someone toothless and bloody-mouthed. Her eyes were unsplintered rays, diamond light, were yesterday. Were blue like a false sea, a mountain collapsing, were never mine but as myth. Wolf moon with cadmium red figures poised and deliberate. 

Another series of faceless nudes, the sex of caryatids.  

Ink, charcoal, gesso.  On paper.

ii.

Grandfather mountain marathon and 26.2 miles ascending some 3000' called “america's toughest marathon.” that may, unfortunately, be true. More to come.  

Copperhead run on at poplar grove. Exceeded 700 miles for 2011.

iii.

Indistinct images.

on the side of the road is a dead fawn. with close scrutiny, the visual enigma decodes to twisted sheets of brown paper entangling fractured strips of wood. Dead deer averted. Next, old chair deteriorating above wooded shoulder trail becomes stormtwisted treetrunk. Tiredmind blurs & detaches object from reality. The senses, like the mind, like the self, needs distraction and satori and hallucination and lapse.

excerpts of thought.

April 27^th. Morning of ny ing marathon lottery begins with six miles at 5h30am.  running in the early dark is an eerie thing, entirely different than running in late dark but still vulnerable and primitive and revitalizing.  raw. an interesting mantra cycle/ chorus of fragments: 
silver scythe cutting spring wheatsky.

Harvest a field of pthalo blue.

Kicks through an empty, echoless world.

May 3^rd. Ran nine at brunswick nature park in slow/fast clips hurdling horse-scat and roots and eventually (felt it coming) broke a quick bend to the right as a black snake raced beneath feet off trail and swiftly ascended a net of branch and vine, his climbing form like a heavy black rope pulled in strange jerks through the tangle of growth. Unlike anything i'd ever seen before.

lotus blooms in marshland of bnp

trail shot on bnp with new growth in may.

May 6^th. A dozen miles at carolina beach state park with the great punctuation- the pause, build and break of the momentum- being a large deer that surprised me on a bend in the sand-bermed turn. She jammed through the thick of trees as a quick-paced percussion of hoof, her form dissolving immediately behind pines and crag oaks. . . reminded me of running pennsylvania when a huge buck and two doe stood on a gravel farm road in early morning, within twenty feet, a shock of deer when a doe sprang sharply ahead and her hooves where eye-level in effortless power and ee cummings poem 'bout the lithe light deer the fleet flown deer but back to carolina beach on a hot friday morning when I kicked slow and meandering like a heavy thing falling down the trail to be mocked by nature's brutal if not ungentle wit.