Modern Sounds

It's 6 in the morning, and pouring rain, but the sky is light. Its soft white-gray hue lights up my curtains. The sound of the rain beating like pebbles against the balcony floor makes me think I might be in a tent in the middle of Jersey, or back home in the Pacific Northwest- or in the middle of a rainforest that Philly once must have been eons ago, like when brontosauri were still roaming the Earth munching on trees. As the day breaks and the minutes move forward, the rain slows to a silence and is surpassed by the sound of cars speeding by below over the wet roads, of car doors slamming shut, and of birds chirping and human voices calling. The roar of the brontosaurus becomes the groaning and heaving of the Septa bus and garbage trucks. Modern Sounds.

The Shark Devours the Seal in One Fell Swoop

To have the opportunity to say goodbye and prepare for a death is, I see now, an opportunity that exceeds expectations. In real life, according to the ways and whims of Mother Nature, death happens in an unplanned instant and is devoid of the sense of justice or retribution. It is not required to explain itself. It is not required to make sense, to forewarn or be gentle. Simply, it is a part of the system of life in which what comes must go. Life goes on. Screams are swallowed by the stars. From here on, survival is predicated on acceptance. However, what is accepted is not the death itself, but rather the sense of loss which becomes a part of the survivor's being.

Spatial Relationships in Dance

In movement, two kinds of spatial relationships are considered and accounted for: the one between the body and the space in which the body moves; and the one between the head-- which houses the mind-- and the body, which is viewed as being separate and distant from the self. Such a disjointed perspective helps to achieve extension, a largeness of presence, balance, and freedom of movement.

The Stranger's Hour

Stepping out into the vacant night, a couple hours before the break of dawn, the air is warm for winter and thick with fog. Beams of light from streetlamps streak through the darkness, their light scattered in a hundred thousand different directions by the microscopic droplets; darting, floating and swirling through space, so that the night is made strangely bright-- almost white-- leaving the lone witness of this hour's spell a stranger in a well-worn path, nought but a shadow herself passing through the mist.




Stepping out into the dawn, the birds scatter out of the bushes and trees. Passing by the empty lot of unkempt grass, a bovine figure stands against the far wall, a fixture beneath the cityscape. Tiny sparrows fly toward the fence, settling into the little looped wire openings. One settles next to a rusted padlock. The earthy red of the rust and the charming roundness of the little sparrow are expressions of beauty which sit side-by-side in peace against the golden light of the waking sun. The light is full of promise.




Stepping into the midnight hour, the air is frigid. The church steeple rises high into the navy blue sky and curves to meet the charcoal branches of a giant tree which bends to meet the steeple. They loom across the sky and pull the ground from beneath her feet. Hooded figures head toward one another, and cross without a word, eyes to the ground. The birds are silent, the fence empty.

Froot Loop

Froot Loops are the colors that dreams are made of 

They are like spoonfuls of happiness 

innocence in a bowl

And you can eat them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner

...and especially for dessert 

Too bad your poop turns green if you eat too much 

Froot Loops are the colors that dreams are made of 

They are like spoonfuls of happiness 

innocence in a bowl

...

Wrapping Up

What is sweet without the bitter? What is life without the urgency caused by death? What is love without yearning? Everything tinged with sadness, all sadness tinged with beauty, each beautiful thing beholds a mystery which fills the heart with wonder- a wonder which elevates the spirit, if only briefly, and not without lasting consequence. This Christmas, I give to show that I love, and I am going to midnight mass as an atheist. Driven by awareness of the brevity of life to seize the chance for kindness and love, for ritual and mystery. This Christmas, I spend time and money on a live Christmas tree that will soon whither and die, driven by nostalgia for Christmas trees past, by a childish reverence for this particular tradition, and by a desire to not let this year's Christmas season pass quietly and forgettably. This year, I embrace the experience of Christmas for all its worth, dead tree and all. Merry Christmas, y'all.

Table Set for Four

After work, I take a walk and gather garlic, persimmon, and a bouquet of pink roses and hydrangea from George Baker flowers. Once home, I boil beef chuck, rehydrate dried seaweed and cringe multiple times at the terrible smell of fish sauce as I spoon it into the brothy medley not once, nor twice, but FIVE times. I arrange the various items just so on my boring, white ikea table, a table set for four.

Yarn Store

I dallied in a yarnyard this afternoon, a resplendent world of different colored skeins. An otherworldly periwinkle blue sat on a shelf, so unassuming, waiting patiently to be transformed into a dreamlike stratosphere. Lush grassy greens and mustard yellows caught my eye; as well did a deep, rich red, and a black that was not quite black-- containing silver linings. In my mind, images were spun of strawberries and Central Park, of traipsing through a wonderland of autumn leaves until time and direction held no meaning. And chartreuse! such a delightfully ambiguous color...

Ballet. Beer. Beatles. The Bachelorette Life.

The Definition of Movement

Theorem 2.5.11: A movement is the integral of an infinitesimal series of poses.

Corollary: Between each pose, there must exist a critical factor called "flow".

Example: Pirouettes. Pique fouettes.

It is unrealistic and detrimental to practice to try to hit every single pose contained within a movement. The mind must focus on the most prominent, pivotal moments and visualize them as images to aim for. Flow must be created through proper timing, proper use of the parts of the body, etc. Flow must be used, not forced; under control, not out of control. 

*Source: The Calculus of Ballet, by Angelina Ballerina

Gravitational Grief

Grief is a force like gravity; it works over a field that is greater, much greater than the day to day, the hour by hour, or even the week to week. It extends its broad, heavy reach over a vast area of months, perhaps even years-- I cannot yet tell-- and weighs heavily on your subconscious, latent, until it manifests itself, for instance, in dreams, which more and more to me seem like a conduit to some realm beyond, whether this hidden realm lies in the self or in angels and ghosts. Because its reach covers such a vast area of time, its weight is only minimally felt from day to day. But over time-- weeks, months-- this weight accumulates with the self being none the wiser until one night, you find yourself facing an old brick wall in the middle of a walk home, weeping, unable to contain the grief that has mysteriously taken over your conscious, adult self and broken it down into notes of whimpering, sounds of the child that you thought you had outgrown many years ago. You could attribute it to extreme fatigue, hunger, physical exhaustion, daily stress, all leading to some random existential crisis, but the truth is that the grief exists inside of you independent of these negative physical conditions, and is carried around with you through all the day-to-day, week-to-week highs and lows, through all the ephemeral moments of laughter or of worldly troubles. The negative physical conditions only make it easier to break down the self, to tap into this latent abyss-like pool of sadness and release the element within, an element which hijacks the well-controlled, well-composed self of reason and maturity, and reduces it to a heaving soul, primal sounds escaping from a source beyond comprehension, as if the force of the element is too much to bear for one fragile human being and must be released to the night sky, dissipated among the stars, absorbed by the silence of space and whatever mysterious dark matter that exists there. Thus is the mammoth power of grief; it buries deeply inside the individual self, and extends across acres and acres of time.

Cleveland

Beauty is made visible by the presence of light. 

Light can be found in any corner of the world,

 no matter how seemingly desolate or dull.

29th Birthday

Dear Umma, I miss you. Thank you for giving me life.

Love,

Angie

Waking

The transition from sleep to wake is sometime so harsh. From one reality to another, my consciousness is dragged, and because the first is so foreign in light of the second, the second seems all the more so...strange...alien...I feel lost for that first minute or two of waking and adjusting myself back into our collective reality.

Dear Bart: A Letter to a Departed Soul

Dear Bart,

I remember my very first encounter with you. It was back in July 2010, during the first month of my employment at the cafe, and it peaked my interest enough that I put pen to paper and wrote about it later that night:

"You good?" 

"No...I think I'm wicked." 

So responded La Colombe's very own Picasso, a penniless artist who's been a patron of my workplace since its inception 16 years ago. He's a fixture now, the old whiskered face framed by long, scraggly gray hair hanging from a balding dome, never seen without his sketch pads cradled beneath his arm. He walked in today, approaching the bar with a lost, bewildered, half-crazed look in his eyes. After a minute, he ordered a granita, which I poured for him, though his entire appearance screamed "homeless". He just stood there with his sketchpads under his right arm and stared at the granita without taking it, as if he both feared it and was shocked by its existence. Which is why I asked after his well-being.

That was nearly two-and-a-half years ago. Since then, I have found out several things about you: you were not in fact homeless or penniless (you had a brother who loved and took care of you); perhaps you have not been around the cafe for nearly that long (but long enough to become a fixture); and that witty play on the word 'good' was a very characteristic response coming from you. Since then, I have only had a few real conversations with you aside from the usual exchange at the bar between barista and customer-- but those conversations were so unique that I can recall each and every one of them. Even an innocuous greeting could turn into a struggle for truth: I recall one time when I ran into you on the way into the cafe, and asked, "How's it going, Bart?" You stared at me with the most confused-- then tortured expression, and replied,

"How's it going? Uhhhh, I don't know! Uhhh huh huh...That's a difficult question! Uhhh huh huh!..."

I felt bad for having disturbed your mental peace, and tried to pass off the question as inconsequential. Eventually, I continued on my way and left you alone on the sidewalk, still struggling to find an answer. Most others would have given a programmed response, and you could have too. But instead, you struggled to find an honest answer to a meaningless query. It was unnecessary, but to this day, I admire your bizarre sincerity.

Aside from this brief but telling encounter, I had a few longer conversations with you-- all of them interesting and memorable, never boring, never of this world. What I have learned from these few but treasured dialogues was that you did not see the world as it was seen by most of us. Instead, you saw right through the veneer of banality that clouds the day-to-day interactions of your fellow humans, and what you saw underneath was sheer absurdity, or else a miracle of God. This is what I loved about you, Bart. For you, everything was painted in a divine light. For you, everything had meaning. I believe this way of seeing that you had was the greatest gift you gave to us at the cafe. Your presence was a constant reminder to your family at La Colombe that nothing was ordinary, if only we could see the absurdity, the humor, the tragedy, and the extraordinary beauty in life's situations.

In one encounter, as our brief meeting of hearts came to a close, I grasped your hands in mine for the first and only time, and thanked you for the conversation. At last, I understood. I understood why you would laugh so hysterically, or else weep in the most tragic, unabashed way, your heaving sobs echoing throughout the cafe. I understood why you stared speechless with wide, unbelieving eyes at the most commonplace scenarios. You saw the nonsense in the perfectly sensible act of working. You saw the reverence in the silly act of kissing a painting. You heard the voice of God in a Rolling Stones song. Everything you saw was touched with religious fervor, and therefore everything you saw was a miracle. Your special vision was both a blessing and a torment to you, and a mystery to the rest of us. Save for the few times you allowed me into your world through conversation, I could only guess as to what was going on in your soul whenever you broke down laughing or crying, or both.

I ended up covering an entire wall in my bedroom with your paintings. Then when I moved, I wanted to be more selective about what I put up on my walls, and so chose only the most vibrant pieces to light up my room. The days after you passed away, I spent many hours meditating on your death and your life, while staring up at these colorful paintings on my wall. The one at the very left looks like a dancer to me. But that is because I am a dancer and always have dancing on my brain. One in the middle bears full frontal nudity and angels. The piece to the right shows several human figures simplistically scratched out in black sharpie, floating along the interior of an enclosed, tentacled shape. In my current mood of mournful contemplation, they appear to me like trapped souls being flung about in space, tossed around in the maelstrom of life without a point of reference to "make sense of it all" and be found. Even your artwork, Bart, is not immune to the viewer's interpretation.

Nor is it immune to the whimsical, veering pattern of value placed on artwork. Countless times have you come up to the bar with sketchpad in hand, saying "I have something for you." At which you would proceed to barter a painting for a coffee. What often happened to these paintings used as bartering objects was that they were placed on a shelf in the back kitchen and forgotten, then thrown out. Some were rolled up and taken home to be pinned up or stashed on a shelf. On the other end of this spectrum of value, your artwork has been sold for two, three hundred dollars. As well, I have seen them professionally framed and exhibited at a local gallery. I know of a man who owns two suitcases full of your paintings collected over the decade or more of your friendship with him. He clearly values them highly. As for myself, I have thrown away several of your paintings, kept several more, and even on one occasion ran into (slowly-moving) traffic to save a painting that had been picked up and carried off by a strong gust of wind. The varied fate of your artwork is a veritable, organic, real-life demonstration that art has no intrinsic monetary value.

But what of value of the other type? Artistic value is finicky: it may exist for one person and not for another. I like your paintings because they are the most accessible inroad into your mind, which-- as sincere and honest as you are-- is still veiled in mystery. Your paintings, to me, speak to your love of your fellow men and women and to your love of God. They can be filled with vibrant colors, conveying a childlike exuberance; or else they convey a visual hell: dark and gloomy. They are confessions of your soul, or to speak less emotively, they are representations of your inner state of mind, and that is the reason why I like them.

What would you think of having a proper exhibition of your visual confessions at the cafe that became your second home? There are a few people in this world-- from the cafe you left behind-- that would take these more practical matters of business into their own hands, who would put in the time and the effort to ensure that your works are appreciated by the public one last time. There are a few people here who would wish to have your paintings hung up on a wall, to be viewed, internalized, and judged by the anonymous public. And what better place to display the works of Bart Brooks than on the walls of the cafe that you blessed with your creative presence for over a decade?

With this posthumous exhibition of your works, Bart, we wish to honor our resident artist, our dear, "Penniless Picasso". We want to ensure that you are deservedly appreciated and never forgotten despite your sudden departure from our cafe walls. The new customer who begins to frequent our shop will never know it as it was; only as it is, without your presence. However, for those of us who were around when you were still alive and drinking coffee, we will see the cafe in a different, more aged and colorful light: we will see the cafe as it was, with you sitting at your table with your sketchpad and cheap pastels, either accompanied by friends or else alone, every once in awhile laughing hysterically-- or is it weeping tormentedly?-- at things that the rest of us cannot see.

Goodbye, Bart! And thank you for this last conversation.

Angie

Bart Under a Tree

Note: A version of this letter appeared in Paradigm Magazine on November 29, 2012. Select "Bartwork" on flickr.

Contentment is snuggling under a heavy blanket and drinking hot liquids for the remainder of a frigid day.

Espresso is the eye of the hurricane.

Cappuccino Art

Cappuccino pouring has great potential for creating amazing art. The different designs that can be produced with its more heavily foamed ink is not quite limitless. Unfortunately, cappuccino art is generally undervalued; all the recognition and efforts toward perfection are bestowed upon the more exact and uniform art of pouring lattes.

Cappuccino art-- at least the way we make it at La Colombe with a nice head of foam quite distinct from wet latte milk, and with a wider surface to draw on-- is more abstract and freewheeling, and less strict than the standard designs that baristas aim to perfect with their latte milk (the heart, rosetta, tulip, and variations of these). Your imagination comes into play much more than in latte art. In this respect, it's rather like reading tea leaves or the sludge from Turkish coffee.

That said, one of my favorite cappuccino designs is the turtle with its heart visible in the middle of its shell, which is relatively easy to repeat compared to say, the pi symbol.

The Right to Marry

It is interesting that gay marriage is being sought more ardently than ever before by a nation that is becoming less and less inclined to marry in general, our marriage rate hitting a record low of 51%. Nevertheless! Let everyone have the right to become a divorcee. God bless America.

The Moon Rising

The moon is full of romance and mystery. It always gives me pause, expands my vision, and puts me in my place. The way in which it glitters ceaselessly upon moving waters its brilliant Morse code leaves me mesmerized on the docks. The sky changes gradually: from a strata of cotton candy hues blended seamlessly into a uniform navy blue. City dwellers wander in, in twos and threes, to watch the spectacle of the moon rising. It hovers a discontinuous jump above the endpoint of the bridge overhead that seems to demonstrate some ideal calculus curve. The higher it rises, the wider it casts its charmed net, of a hushed and tranquil feeling, a soundless lullaby.

...I am forever waxing on about the moon.