Rhetoric

I have to think about that, I haven't heard the word used in a long time. I speak well because I had five years of Latin, translated Cicero, and spend a fair amount of time listening closely to conversation. It interests me to speak clearly. The second tour through the Carters was a much smaller group and I was able to get down and personal, talk specific details, because I actually do know what was going on in 1943, when Clarence was painting "Let Us Give Thanks", and the great watercolor, "Convoy At Sunset" where the surface of the ocean is turned to rose. Sara and I were talking about it today, I know way too much about Carter, because we have the entire archive. I know the provenance of some of the pieces, what day he painted a certain detail: a particular sumac bush, in the great portrait of his favorite aunt and uncle. Look at the hands. I've found that looking at hands is informative. I meet way too many people. I can't keep their names straight. Even when I'm being perfectly clear I leave almost everything out. Any realistic map is too detailed to actually see; all those little lines, for instance, what do they represent? They found some etched symbols on a rock, 5,000 years old, in China, it might be language. I think it probably is. Rambling. One tired body when I got home last night. Couple of drinks and I was gone. Slept like a rock. Crow-noise out back woke me about 10, and I had slept longer than any time in recent weeks. There were three crows fighting over the two mice I'd put on the outhouse roof, two of them finally get one of the mice torn into pieces and everyone was happy. The caw they make when they're happy isn't nearly as frenzied as their warning cackle, or the pissed-off cackle they make when they're forced to move off a road-kill by a passing vehicle... more a satisfied caw. Pretty much vegetate through the rest of the day, read a New Yorker, tried to read "Lord Of The Barnyard" by Tristan Egolf, but it wasn't working for me. I sat and stared out a window for long periods of time thinking about various things: my daughters, my own benign neglect of myself and my personal environment, my new bosses, my failed first kimchi. I hadn't mentioned that, because, frankly, I was embarrassed. The house was too warm for the open-air primary fermentation. That's why they bury the fermentation vessels in the ground in Korea, now I get it. What you don't want to come home to, is a fiercely overflowing vat of rampantly fermenting cabbage. It was a mess, a smelly mess. Next time I'll do the two days of primary fermentation when I'm home and can better control the temperature. Life is a learning curve, there have to be mistakes, and I'm used to cleaning up messes. I've looked at dozens of recipes for kimchi, and many of them, in addition to fish sauce (fish sauce goes back to the Roman garum, literally a fermentation of fish heads and parts) call for the addition of tiny salted baby shrimp, which I shall stock up on, the next time I'm near an Asian market. It never did rain today, though it was forecast that it might. Some scudding clouds, but mostly a blue sky. The under-story was alive with bugs and birds, until I had to close the windows and crank the AC for Black Dell. Artificial climate is fine, but it certainly cuts you off from the natural world. I talked with M's daughter, last night, about blogging, explained to her that I wrote in the wrong program, didn't have a cell phone, or a TV, had a dial-up connection, and that my friend Glenn maintained the web-site. She looked at me with that kind of slanted head that implies incredulity. Another couple was there, I forget their names; they had come into the museum last winter. I was the only one there, they'd driven down from Cleveland, or some forbidding place, and I'd talked with them about the permanent collection, they'd joined the museum, and came to the opening especially, an overnight trip, to see the show. And to talk with me again, because good conversion is hard to find. Even if you're an enormously successful gynecologist in Cleveland. Evidently I'm a good conversationalist. I just listen closely and speak specifically, try to be clear, usually I look down, avoid any eye contact. The best rhetoric just calls you back to yourself, the best iteration. Spare me a moment's grief. When Cicero was cutting the arms and legs off any opponent in the Senate, verbally; the greatest sport was killing people in plain view. Lions, Tigers, and Bears. Not unlike pro-football; the price is bid ever upward; pro-baseball, or basketball: is anyone actually worth that kind of money? I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe distraction is worth the price. All I ever see is highlights, on ESPN, at the pub, at lunch. I can take it or leave it, I don't care which college wins the championship in whatever sport. I do enjoy watching anything that is gracefully done, but more generally, for me, that's going to be a lady lawyer, holding the door to the courthouse open with her hip, while she wheels in her trolley of evidence. There are so many fat people in Kroger, when I stop for supplies, that I only look at people's feet and ankles. How could you allow yourself to get that fat? The distance around your waist should never exceed your height. There are rules. I thought there were rules, maybe there aren't any rules. If Lucretius is correct, all that really matters is how you feel. And, for the most part, I agree with that. I'd much rather do one thing than another. Flash a long leg and I'm gone. Otherwise, life, as usual.