I went out in my shorts and sat on the porch this morning. I was going to read. No need to put the morning’s contacts in yet. Nearsighted, I poured a fuzzy class of grapefruit juice and soda water and heated up some of yesterday’s coffee and want out and read the first half or so of Carl Van Vetchen’s controversial 1926 novel, “Nigger Heaven.” Byron and Mary are interesting. Their tale is engaging if not captivating but as a historical piece, considering the phenomenon of the Harlem Renaissance and what a strange, remarkable and unpredictable concoction it was, this book has remarkable if opinionated explanatory powers, in a fashion that no other text quite affords. Van Vetchen appreciates what is happening there in Harlem as a scene, and take pains to explain it in his work. It was 10:30AM and the sun was now upon me, somewhere passed the mid-point, when I decided to take a break.
I met my wife out in the front of the house and considered her garden. Our things arrived yesterday. All that we’d accumulated and deigned to keep over the previous fourteen years since the last time we’d lived in the United Sates and one year at least since any of us have touched any of these items, the boxes had all been unloaded and stacked in our garage yesterday. “We should make some progress on the stuff today. When do you want to do it?” I immediately resisted as I wanted to go back and finish the novel before noon, but quickly and inexplicably, I changed my mind. “Let’s go get it done.”
More music of the twenties to help with this. In honor of the blond Van Vetchen, presumably of paternal Dutch descent, I decided upon Bix Biderbecke who was always said to have an exceptional tone on his cornet and his midwestern ensemble, the Wolverines. How it is they got so funky out there in 1920’s Davenport Iowa, I will need to research sometime. For now, it was tearing up cardboard into two-foot strips that I could easily stuff into plastic bags. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full is all the recycling bin at the top of the driveway will hold and resisting the urge to punctuate every Wolverine pause with “oh play that thing," I made some pretty good progress.
This is broken. A plate. It had memories that tied disparate, lovely people together. I could have lived the rest of my life and never thought of it again. But seeing it there now, broken elicits a small ache and I make an involuntary, accusatory comment about just how it was packed. Huh? In an instant you realize how unimportant any of these things you haven’t really missed, actually are.
Spurge is an interesting word. Type it yourself. Your little AI-god spell checker will confirm for you that the word is recognizable. The god will not underscore this collection of letters with a red squiggle. A word, indeed. And if I were freestyle rapping and landed on something about which I had an urge or suggested to the audience I was not afraid to splurge it would certainly be good to know that spurge was out there. The Latin “Euphorbia” might also be used in a rhyme. Elated, I'm sure. It is “a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae).” I am forever amazed at the biodiversity in my yard as today, one and then another plant caught my eye and I found out that the tough little plant coming up out of the gravel before the garage door was a “Nodding Spurge” and his cousin up at the top of the drive was a “Spotted Spurge.” Just watch me next time the conversation turns towards the Gainsbourg they called Serge.
Saturday, 08/09/20
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