french roast and fugazi. . .

mahler’s 150th birthday. the brutal brushes, the pushing-and-pulling colors, the sounds of knife scraping canvas, a female arabesque becomes a pennsylvania hill grided into mosaic farms, charcoal grinding her black dry-oil against the tweed of cotton, the pushing of titanium white into burntbone black, gray pasting form into fields of kinetic line. landscape and figure mingle and enmesh, a biomorphic dance, fugazi launching vocals and rampant rifts, then bach cello suites (rostropovich) and kyote sleeps as basho breathes.

the pleasure of work. the pleasure of the run. the pleasure of Being, Whole. (van gogh’s delirium?)

august fifth twenty-ten. caprice bistro for dinner.

my wife and I haven’t had a dinner date since our anniversary, and before that it was sometime around our wedding two+ years ago. so a date was due—and enjoy a date we did.

the hostess warmly received us, offering the window table on their banquette as we arrived. it was 6pm and we enjoyed a marvelous living theater of the street outside, watching downtowners walking dogs, moving from desk to bar, jogging, or riding the horse-drawn carriage for a tour (probably the finest window in downtown wilmington). my wife was beautiful and happy, reviewing the menu and sipping a mohito, freshly muddled mint wafting across the table. our lively waiter explained the specials, cracked a coupl’a jokes, and we ordered the first course: spinach salad and curried mussels. mussels are something of a culinary religion in the bistro menu, and man does Caprice nail them! yellow curry pushed and pulled the mussels like a spirited dance partner, allowing the mussels their own flavors, then enhancing them. the spinach salad was good, the fresh leaves like crisped butter pushing lightly bitter notes against a very good Roquefort cheese and sweetened walnuts.

for the entrée, my wife had the plat du jour—lapin au moutarde. the rabbit was perfectly prepared, and a hint of smoky pork-salt extracted the nuanced flavors of the meat. the mustard notes were pleasantly subtle, infused with a buttery white wine. the sauce coated a fresh fettucine, perfectly al dente and flavorful in itself.
i had the bistro steak. pomme frites arrived with the teres major steak, seasoned and grilled and served with a bordelaise reduction. pink and tender on the inside while nicely charred on the outside, the beef was amazing. the baked, herbed tomato and sauteed carrots were also delicious, that innate sweetness working the meat's earthier elements.

dessert was a simple, traditional faire (by choice)—my wife ordered the crème brulee, vanilla, with the crisp skin of the caramelized sugar cracking nicely beneath the spoon. my choice was also delicious, (though I caught some jokes for the simplicity of my dessert palette)the eternal "dame blanche." while vanilla ice cream is timeless and not very exciting, add the chef’s belgian chocolate and freshly whipped cream (amazing!) and voila—a beautiful dessert. a cup of dark coffee, procured from a regional coffee roaster, poured dark and deep to make the meal a fine success.

while my palette may be less advanced in some selections, the fundamentals of cooking are well-represented and are, infact, feted at caprice bistro. even a basic selection, whether beef or vanilla ice cream or coffee, becomes a multilayered, intricate flavor-map of culinary traditions of the French bistro.

mahler, oil sticks, oil of night, strange divulgements. . . .

may 10.

a coupl’a mahler symphonies and a history of war & fucking. . . . a running (internal) dialogue.

a nighttime run, the first night run in at least one year, and a truly surreal experience.  the first kicks were normal and stretching and then the weirdness fell around me.  the grass became an asphalt mosaic, with no topography visible, just feet responding to what was there on the kick. then a blazing-eyed albino cat, the white cat that would stalk my run for perhaps a quarter mile as bats overhead dangle from a hyper puppeteer's wires in the azure fade-out of evening. . . . the porch visits of neighbors, dark and vague but for crystal voices and occasional distorted laughter. . . . then the long quiet of the night’s arrival, hardly a bird, trees stalk stars still as a cat. . . . pastels fold in on themselves and the stars emerge (in my periphery a tree quickly lunges). . . . night collapses and form dissolves into cloud-mind. . . . symphony.  the same effect as long daytime runs, but in much shorter work. hallucinatory and introspectful, an accompanying sensory deprivation yogis & ascetics endure as happenings approaching enlightment, Awareness. but I just kept running and breathing, the nights delirium containing me like a wolf-womb. stretching in front of the house, the night folds up its immense strange theater set and all is restored to normalcy. 
now pbs—“an American life: into the deep.” a show of American whaling and specifically the Essex’s disastrous and horror-stricken voyage.

night pours across the land like oil in the gulf.

time for pastel drawings, oil sticks. franz kline and joan mitchell, motherwell in mind. the french painter—soulages? the Italian poor artists, arte povera. . . hemingway is in mind much lately. . . . should revisit his short stories.
may 11. 11h01am. seven miles at the beach, summer rest loop and around the loop and the causeway park area and back. . . . gray broke into sun and warmth. mozart’s requiem on the way home.

have tapped into a great local band, and (as usual) I am the last to know. no dollar shoes is a group of mad-talented local boys who tear up the traditional bluegrass instruments with a certain punk sneer in their drawl. check it out here or here.

may 12. mahler and miles. . . .

mahler’s seventh today, a ravenous recording from the berliner philharmonic and was up latelate with kyote and croup. . . . . a long day followed. . . . brahms and flogging molly and memford and sons.
may 13. eight miles and change from folk’s café (downtown) into fifth and fourth and catholic school laughter and restoration construction across many porches of the southern homes leaning over the sidewalks with oaks and magnolias and taxis and sherrifs and small convenience stores populating the road towards the railroad passing where greenfield lake becomes visible. . . . a good day for a run, as temps rise into mid 80’s quickly with the sun. an old box turtle creeped along the edge of the park, his shell partially algaed over, a Mandelbrot puzzle of age in each pentagram formation and the interlocking shapes. . . . . recursive imagery. gatorade and old crow medicine show on the drive home.

a slight envy of the artists who meet for coffee and kibbutz at folk’s café each thursday, inclusive and interested. they would recognize my paintings but they would not recognize me.  I was just a runner (in a sketchy neighborhood) looking for a banana at the café where they sat. anonymity as exclusion.

may 17th.

one cannot structure the emotional into form, rather one allows the emotionalism to possess the body and surge into work and Act. this is true in running as it is in painting.  the interesting parallel between running, painting. . . . . the crux of the thing.  act serving as nexus to higher self.
saw porpoises, two of them, swimming across the tide-break sunday morning with ky and kas.