And Sorghum: You Don’t

My sister wanted to come up.  She’d bring her son.  They’ve been down in Brooklyn, throughout the Covid period.  For us it has been a bucolic drama which forces us to mask-up when we go to our choice of grocery stores and confront the challenging reality of not being able to go to local restaurants.  In the city, it’s been different.  Twenty-percent of the metropolis has been exposed to the virus and confinement means quarantining in a very tight space.  It is also the stigma that is involved in living there in the eye of the hurricane.  No one else is particularly interested in seeing you. 

My wife acquiesced.  So, it was a go.  And then my dad said he’d come.  My mom as well.  My little brother and his nephew got word and suggested they’d head up as well.  Fortunately, this all passed the veto committee that my wife chairs and today, around noon or so we welcomed them all. 

My wife wisely suggested that we set things up in the front yard, away from the view of the Gunks, but away too from the glare of the sun.  We pulled out the long table and moved out a few chairs and it all worked pretty swell. I’d thawed out a turkey breast, cooked a side a ham and generally overcooked a half a dozen other dishes that were all a lot of fun to make. Mac and cheese for kids.  But for the first time I made quinoa and turned it into a cold salad.  You can’t seem to buy baba ghanoush here, so I made some.  And sorghum:  you don’t see that every day.  I read on the label, which had the flag of India, and not China and a shot glass of sorghum liquor that you could make sorghum popcorn and so I did. 

I played Bessie Smith all day.  It fit; the heat, the swinging chair, the familiarity.  My nephews were both here.  They all looked a bit like I looked when I was twelve, or when I was four.   My brother’s son wanted to go running around in the house and we wound up in my closet.  I told him, we’d better get out of here, as it’s a bit of a messy walk-in closet.   Ah, but he thought it might be grand to stay in the walk-in closet.  I suggested his aunt, my wife, might "hit-me-with-a-stick" if she found us playing in here, so we’d better go.   The noble, young paladin took this at face value, an injustice certainly and he promptly searched out my wife and earnestly suggested that it wouldn’t be fair to hit me with a stick.  Awkward initiations then, into familial sarcasm.

Sunday, 06/07/20

But Obscured By Green

The bridge over the Walkill River is the point I’ve decided that is approximately twenty-five minutes north of my house wherein I generally try to turn around and head back home  Today was beautiful outside and I biked right passed it.  I kept on passed the field that seems to be owned by the Coppersea Distillery, who have their sign up there and past the field where they’ve dropped a number of big trees and further along passed the old abandoned delivery truck clearly off there in the woods in the winter but obscured by green, this time of year, out beyond Cereus Way after which there’s a long straight shot that isn’t familiar to me at all and I marvel at the tall trees and to my right I notice a fawn lying on its side.  I think to look at it on my return but when I did, I zoomed right by.

Roger Cohen, who’s columns are always so thoughtfully written offered a quote by Marcus Delespinasse, concerning the “savageness of white apathy.”  This has, except for very brief windows of time, certainly been the default for the entitled beneficiaries of the United States of which I’m one.  Removed from the obligations, somewhat, living overseas for twenty-years I’m back now, considering with faltering steps, my reentry into my inheritance.  The Chinese tell us that “silence is golden” and the movement is insisting that “silence is violence.”  A contemplative posture, therefore, certainly in perpetuity, as savagery. 

It is a lurch though, after trying to do our part to stay safe.  I’ve been diligent about distancing.  I’ve done my part to protect my parents, my family, myself and to lurch suddenly into: “we must go participate in mass demonstrations,” proved harder than I’d anticipated to other to persuade other intimates, still, and rightly focused on social distancing. 

Fortunate, I count myself.  I do not have, nor have I ever had a Facebook account.  I’m increasingly convinced that Facebook was an interesting but failed experiment wherein a Saudi Arabia's worth of the nation’s personal data is the crude oil of one company.  Standard Oil was broken up.  I think  Facebook shouldn’t be allowed experiment with all the power it has.  I did have a Twitter account that I's tried to use for a few months about six years back.  It still exists, I suppose, as they spam me from it.  But I don’t have Snapchat, and I don’t have Instagram.  I’ll acknowledge the importance of voicing opinions and certainly of getting involved, but I’d don’t want to do so on “social” media.  It seems like a mob Althing from the outside, devoid of thoughtful moderation, measured argument  nor any reflection whatsoever.

Saturday, 06/06/20

Facing the Trail, Stoically

I was biking south today.  They’ve got the road blocked off at Bridge Creek Road.  It’s been two weeks now and it appears that absolutely nothing has been done to advance this effort.  There are never any workers here.  Nothing industrious appears to be happening up ahead.  My mind turns to the famous story of the friendship bridge which China and Russia recently undertook.  China threw up their portion in a matter of months and the bridge came to a mournful halt in the middle of what I assume was the Amur River.  The Russians took another few years to get their bit done. 

The last time I saw it I looped to the left and went down underneath to consider the planks that had been removed.  Some nets had been placed. It looked pretty desolate.  Returning back underneath there was a lone workman who unlocked a gate and, to my eyes, just walked around.  I expect this bridge will probably be impassable now for many months.  America’s days of repairing bridges quickly, ended many years ago. 

Today I cut down Bridge Creek Road, as they recommend.  This is in parts, wonderful and ominous, as I’ll need to return up this downhill dash that quickly sets the fifteen speed bike well passed the point of capturing any traction.  One house has built out a nice lawn above a creek, another and in-ground pool.  Soon I have to pedal and then pedal hard.  At Old Ford Road I go left and repeat the downhill dash and then confront a punishing uphill stretch.  I’ve been spoiled for the last year rolling along the fine, flat, rail trial.  At some point I call it a day and walk it the final fifty feet to the summit. 

At the top it’s a nice glide past some tall lawn trees and abandoned barns, down to Philiies Bridge Road.  Friday, I feel free.  I ride back up the rail trail knowing I wont get through.  I’d like to see the bridge work or lack thereof, from the other side.  One the way down I did a double take and stopped.  A fifteen-pound lady snapping turtle was standing up, facing the trail stoically.  Behind her lay a small mound of soft dirt.  There was a similar space not far off, up the trial and it occurred to me as I walked quietly towards what was now obviously a her, was that she was laying eggs.  I snapped a few photos and left her in peace, a bit worried that the next people who passed by, perhaps with dogs, might not be so accommodating.

Friday, 6/05/20

Bamboo Covered in Snow

I ordered Bamboo.  I thought I’d plant some.  I imagined a bit of Asia in my back yard the way we'd had bamboo at our house in Pleasantville, that lived on for the first few years we lived there after moving in in 1977.  Would this bamboo grow?  Says it would.  I thought of those lovely pictures of Sichuan in my mind with forests of bamboo, covered in snow, pandas nibbling away.  Should be alright. 

They were stuck in customs for a while.  Fortunately there doesn’t seem to be a tariff on bamboo, nor an embargo of a particular grass.  I wondered though if I might not have to call my friends at customs and explain that I was just a guy, living in New Paltz who thought to plant some bamboo in his yard.  I hadn’t thought through whether the plant was an undesirable, invasive species or not.  Would it spread wildly and kills lots of other happy natives?  Would it throw the local ecosystem out of balance by providing succor to some dreaded mite that happily feeds off it?  Might not there be some vile bugs attached to these very plants themselves? 

A few days ago my wife announced that there were two big packages that had arrived.  I’d thought we’d be stuck there in customs for a while but there they were.  I unpackaged them and they were each sitting in ten gallon plastic holders.  They looked, not bad.  Dry, but not too dry.  I think that’s the best I could say they looked.  They were mostly green and seem to have survived shipping and detainment well.  My wife looked them over suspiciously.  “I don’t like bamboo.  This isn’t the nice bamboo.  We call this maozhu. ("hair bamboo.")  I don’t like it.”

Today I cut them out of their holders and dug a whole down near the edge of the forest and planted them.  I imagined them finally stretching out their roots after having been bottled int to that plastic drum for most of their life.  Pouring water on to them from a pink watering can I wished them both well.  Please, spread out and prosper.   

Thursday, 06/04/20

Waddling Full-Waddle After

Up early for a call.  Rolled around in the bed alluringly positioned, there in the office, trying to get some reading done before I’d have to be up.  Many, many people wanted me to do facilitate the middle of an argument and get it settled and I just wasn’t in much of a mood for that.

The national news is overwhelmingly bad and before I dove in to the morning paper, I pushed forward with my "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", which is a different sort of window into Dante's Inferno than what you get with say Solomon Northrup or Fredrick Douglas. 

My wife asked if I’d join her for a walk.  I’d gotten in a good bike ride earlier in the day but sure, I could take the time for a stroll now.  Glad I did.  I seemed to be tripping over new species, a list of which I'd identified with my Seek app, is written out below: 

Back on a fast and as a result, without alcohol in my system I’m up late.  My wife just came in convinced there was one and then a dozen people outside blinking lights, but they turned out to be fireflies which I haven’t seen yet, but will look forward to welcoming. 

Oh, I should tell you I’m continuing to dig into the oeuvre of John Gilmore on all his dates as a sideman, outside of the work with the Arkestra.  “Limbo” is a song on the pianist Andrew Hill’s album “Compulsion” from 1967, recorded there at Rudy Van Gelder studios in New Jersey.  There are two such dates he did with Andrew Hill as earlier mention, and Gilmore always sounds majestic like a Shakespearean' king. 

And a remarkable scene the other day, yes, yes.  Right below me.  I’ve long worried what might happen to the big, fat ground hog were he to have been confronted by the wily, orange she-fox.  Oddly, she always visits in the early morning and he often comes out early afternoon. (genders, mind you have been anthropomorphized.  I really have no idea.)   I’ve never seen them meet up.   Today I looked up startled to see something completely unexpected:  the ground hog was waddling full-waddle chasing after the she-fox.  And while she could outrun him, I’d say it was only just so.  I had absolutely not predicted that the groundhog would catch an attitude and enforce lawn etiquette.  The groundhog is usually only concerned with eating grass and never disturbs his neighbors, but it was almost as if this time, the groundhog was sticking up for all the squirrels and mourning doves and other animals the fox usually scares the life out of.   More likely "he" wanted to be sure the fox go nowhere near "his" nest and offspring. 

Cited today:  Black Ash, Eastern Black Walnut, Meadowsweet, Bird Cherry, American Trailplant, Tall Hairy Agrimony, Common Jewelweed, Orchard Grass, Creeping Thistle, Common Evening primrose, Lady’s Bedstraw, White Mulberry, Northern Catalpa, Alternate-leaved Dogwood, Musk Stork’s-bill, American Pokeweed, Pale Jewelweed, Fringed Sedge, Allegheny Blackberry, Common Columbine, Yellow Sweetclover, Pacific Crab Apple, Wild Yam, Virgin’s-bower, Common Milkweed, Meadow Buttercup, Greater Periwinkle.

Wednesday 06/03/20

Is Fresh and Unnerving

Wife wanted to go to nursery today and though I was busy, of course, as always, I tried to clear out my work and join her as I was curious to see the place, as well.  Sabellico is where my stepdad, the grand-man of gardening in our family, secures his flora.  My wife had joined him once before and so this was my wife's chance to turn-me-on to the place.  Sabellico is large but not huge.  There were more trees to consider than any other place I’ve seen around the area, but at the same time none of the simple trees I’d hoped to find, like, say, a copper beech or a sycamore, were anywhere to be found.  I took mental notes, mostly and decided I wasn’t going to buy anything this time.  I’m supposed to call back and ask for the rather easy name to remember:  John.  

I had a book, a pamphlet really entitled “The Confessions of Nat Turner."  It’s a gruesome remembrance from death-row, the protagonist of which, not unlike Hong Xiuquan of Taiping Rebellion fame, Turner believed he was touched by God to reinterpret the Good Word.  The narration was formal and largely devoid of the vernacular or the vengeance I'd expected, that it made one wonder to what extent this was an accurate rendering of what his final words.  Did he narrate things that couldn’t be repeated?  Was he, in fact quite capable of speaking in the manner so provided?

John Gilmore sure is nice to spend some time with.  Not sure what brought me over to listening to him again this week.  I think I must have had “Artistry of Freddie Hubbard” and been shaking my head at one or another of his majestic solos.   I knew that he never really any headlining sessions, but what besides all the rich materials he recorded with the Arkestra, other sessions are there of John Gilmore as a sideman?

These last few days I’ve gone through all that’s listed obtainable.  I’d heard that album of Pete La Roca’s before: "Women at the Turkish Bath” but I don’t remember it being so singularly compelling.  Chick Corea’s work is fresh and unnerving and Gilmore’s solo on "Love Planet" for example, is like a parade of bull elephants.  The two sessions with Andrew Hill who I tend to like, but not love, were also good to consider anew.  And there is, fortunately that remarkable live session recorded in Europe in 1964, when he was in the Jazz Massagers with Art Blakey, Lee Morgan and John Hicks.   .  I’m listening to their version of “I Can’t Get Started” with almost uncomfortably close close-up of John Gilmore at the outset.

Tuesday, 06/02/20

Was Becoming Wonderfully Absurd

My old friend died.  Found out last night.  He was my boss and he changed my life in a wonderful way when we met about fifteen years ago.  I’d had a chance to see him on my last pass through San Francisco.  He’d been diagnosed with Leukemia and though it was serious, his doctors had good things to tell him.  Today, my old colleague wrote me and many of the old team let us know.  Within the somber mood, I was glad to remember I’d managed to tell him that he had positively altered my life forever with his actions and to think of him as the mighty force he was, heading somewhere new. 

I don’t want to feel numb.  My daughters are American.  But they didn’t grow up here.  And now they are trying to make sense of this place, that seems so much less well managed and so much more volatile than the idyllic Beijing they grew up in.  America is worth trying to explain.  But just now so much is inexplicable.  My older one is trying to figure out how she feels about protesters who vent and rage but don’t wear masks during a pandemic.  My younger one is noting how everyone in the BTS Army is sharing a black screen in support of Black Lives Matter, but she is rightly commenting that most cases it seems forced and obligatory. 

Part of feeling numb is looking in vain for intelligent articulations of the situation from supposed leaders.  And it feels, wrongly that we are denuded of leaders.  And there is the hollow feelings that leaders can’t help just now.  We have been stretched to the ripping point through the administrations anti-management.  Everyone, everywhere, it seems is frayed. 

Pauline Hopkins wrote “Of One Blood” in the early part of the last century.  And though some of the drama is a bit contrived it is also wonderfully anticipatory of Sun Ra, and Funkadelic and the Afro- Futurism of "Black Panther."  I had an odd journey where I was drawn back into the narrative, despite how fantastic it was, because it was becoming wonderfully absurd. 

My calzone came off tonight.  The one side stayed in there a bit longer than it should have but I learned from my last foray and had removed all the excess dough.  There was enough of it in fact that I made a small pizza out of it, that seemed to be the favored dish for my little one.  My shredded turnips and zucchini bake was not particularly well-received.  I keep hoping I’ll find the magic formula on that.  

Monday, 06/01/20