Specific Detail

I was asleep. You can't really fault someone for dreaming. Horses cutting caracoles. They woke me. I wanted to get up and go write, as I've been doing lately, but I fell back asleep. Another dream, involving that luscious Madonna. Finally did get up, brewed a double espresso, made an three-egg omelet with cheese and onions (caramelized), slab of toast with horseradish jam. Have to run the AC for Black Dell and there's a harmonic set up between it and the fridge, compressor music, it sounds a lot like church music and isn't half bad. Lounge around all day, listening to that, reading art criticism. Couldn't get started writing, so I took a walk out the old logging road. Blackberry blossoms are raining off and the fruit is forming, a couple more good rains, there'll be gallons of them around the house and along the driveway. Blackberry harvest is announced by seeing B walking up or down the driveway, a gallon milk jug with the top cut off, hanging around his neck, looking every bit like the Japanese Hermit, with a silly smile on his face. He developed a technique of marinating meat, leg of lamb, a whole loin, various wild things his brother traps, that I shamelessly started using, in blackberry juice. It can carry a very heavy spice load, I use three or four varieties of chilies, in excess, but I've learned they mostly cling to the outside, so you control the relative heat by the way you construct a bite. "Constructing Bites" isn't a bad title. Titles, generally, spiral into meaninglessness, sometimes they offer an entry, sometimes they just obscure what's being said. I don't trust titles anymore. I don't trust anything anymore. I never did say anything about anything, my hands are clean. Being obscure is just a way of hiding. There's a long history of this, consider most writing, the visual arts since the 16th century, fetish objects since the beginning of time. We admit collusion, but seldom reveal ourselves. Those small ceramic artifacts I collect, they're just a way of factoring time. Most things are a way of factoring time. Amselm Kiefer's work, by the nature of the materials, is designed to fail. A painting of his, still wet on the floor, fetches a million dollars. The molten lead doesn't adhere, the straw molds, the feathers fall off. Soon, you're left with a blank canvas, which may have been the point. I like his work, actually, if I had a million to throw around. I'd rather hear Jerry Garcia, one last time, if I had my way.