June 1: Spendthrift Genius, John Coltrane, "The Mad Feast"

It is, then, a small world there in the goldfish bow, and a very large one.  Say the nucleus of any atom in the bowl were the size of a cherry pit; its nearest electron wold revolve around it one hundred and seventy-five yards away.  A whirling air in his swim bladder balances the goldfish's weight in the water; his scales overlap, his feathery gills pump and filter; his eyes work, his heart beats, his liver absorbs, his muscles contract in a wave of extending ripples.  The daphnias he eats have eyes and jointed legs. The algae the daphnias eat have green cells stacked like checkers or winding in narrow ribbons like spiral staircases up long columns of emptiness.  And so on diminishingly down.  We have not yet found the dot so small it is uncreated, as it were, like a metal blank, or merely roughed in--and we never shall.  We go down landscape after mobile, sculpture after collage, down to molecular structures like a mob dance in Breughel, down to atoms airy and balanced as a canvas by Klee, down to atomic particles, the heart of the matter, as spirited and wild as any El Greco saints,  And it all works.  "Nature," said Thoreau in his journal, "is mythical and mystical always, and spends her whole genius on the least work."  The creator, I would add, churns out the intricate texture of least works that is the world with a spendthrift genius and an extravagance of care.  This is the point.

Dillard loves focusing on the minutia of creation.  Atoms and electrons and algae and dauphnias (which is a small freshwater crustacean used to feed aquarium fish).  The tiniest matter of the universe, for Dillard, holds the key to understanding the universe.  Rather than looking always to the stars to find the face of God, Dillard looks downward and inward.  She finds divinity in the capillaries of a goldfish tail.  Prophetical nature.

I, of course, agree with Dillard.  You only have to look at the fractal landscape of an icicle to know that there's something more at work than frozen water.  The creator, as Dillard says, invests as much genius in snowflakes as black holes.  We are surrounded by extravagant design every day, and Dillard finds great inspiration in it.

I am not a biologist or physicist or naturalist.  I appreciate nature in all of its complexity and beauty, could spend hours watching the breakers of Lake Superior on a stormy November day.  On a daily basis, however, I am indoors a majority of the time, with little exposure to windows.  Therefore, I must glean my daily inspiration from other sources.  Most of time, those sources are writers.

For instance, at the moment, I am rereading a book by a friend and colleague of mine.  It's called The Mad Feast, and it's a collection of essays about food.  No, it's not a cookbook, although it does contain recipes.  Matt, the author, sort of explodes the meaning of food.  For instance, in an essay about Okie Sirloin (barbecued bologna), he contemplates the Dust Bowl, migration, and the evolution of the parking meter.  It's weird and, at times, frustrating to read.  But it excites me, the way, I imagine, listening to John Coltrane excites a jazz musician.  It pushes the boundaries of food writing and travel writing and writing, in general.

Now, will I ever write like Matt?  Probably not.  It's just not me.  However, reading his book gives me license to be weird, attempt things I wouldn't normally attempt.  I have poems to write for an editor.  Poems that are pushing me in an artistic direction that makes me a little uncomfortable.  That's okay.  This is the point of creation, to invest an extravagance of care in the least works.  I need to surrender myself to that extravagance, the way Dillard and my friend, Matt, do. 

Saint Marty is on the prowl for a little spendthrift genius tonight.

February 25: Guns of August, Matt Gavin Frank, "The Mad Feast," Artichoke Dip

Sounds fell all about me; I vibrated like still water ruffed by wind.  Cicadas--which Donald E. Carr calls "the guns of August"--were out in full force.  Their stridulations mounted over the meadow and echoed from the rim of cliffs, filling the air with a plaintive, mysterious urgency.  I had heard them begin at twilight, and was struck with the way they actually do "start up," like an out-of-practice orchestra, creaking and grinding and all out of synch.  It had sounded like someone playing a cello with a wide-toothed comb.  The frogs added their unlocatable notes, which always seem to me to be so arbitrary and anarchistic, and crickets piped in, calling their own tune which they have been calling since the time of Pliny, who noted bluntly of the cricket, it "never ceaseth all night long to creak very shrill."

Noise.  White and otherwise.  Cacophony.  Stridulations.  Piping.  Creaking and grinding.  Dillard writes about all the sounds of nature.  Cicadas and frogs and crickets.  Noise is constant, even in the quietest of places.  Dillard is lying in a sleeping bag in the woods, staring up through trees at the stars, and she's listening to this tiny symphony

This evening, the members of my book club convened at my house.  The book:  The Mad Feast.  The author:  Matthew Gavin Frank.  It's a challenging book that avoids labels.  It's not a cookbook, even though it contains recipes.  It's not a travel book, even though it spans all 50 of the United States.  Matt calls it an "artifact," which makes it sound like a loom from colonial Boston. 

Matt is a friend of mine, a colleague from the university, and he graciously joined us for our little soiree.  The discussion ranged far and wide.  We talked about the book.  And our favorite meal (rack of lamb with mint jelly for me).  Our least favorite food (liver--Matt says he's going to make me like liver somehow).  We discussed the poet John Ashberry and pigeons.  Sea urchin and beaver tail. 

All this may strike you as a bit discordant, like a roomful of violins playing different tunes at the same time.  It wasn't.  Like Dillard zipped up in her sleeping bag, listening to the chatter of insect and amphibian, our book club conversation somehow made sense in the context of Matt's book.  We verbally wrestled, and the night (seasoned with artichoke dip and lasagna) sounded beautiful.

For the record, I love The Mad Feast, in all its weirdness.  It's a book that stretches me as a reader and person.  Sure it can be frustrating (or "annoying" as one of the book club members said), but it's that quality that makes it irresistible.  For me, it really is like a song that you have to learn to love (something by Tom Waits or Neil Young--singers with confounding voices that stretch the definition of music).

So, it was a good gathering with good food and good noise (lots of conversation and laughter and stories).

Saint Marty is full tonight.  He had a mad feast with his friends.

Everyone's a critic . . .

December 3: The Pamphlet, The Mad Feast, Peter Thabit Jones, "Later," Off the Top of My Head

The pamphlet was resting on his lap the night he and Robert attended the lecture by its author, the two sitting in the back of an auditorium of an Upper East Side school.  The auditorium was full, the crowd largely female, divided into two general groups--rather affluent elderly women who may have had a real craving for an insight into the next world, and much younger, sharp-looking women, college students for the most part, Ives concluded...

At one point, Ives becomes a lecture junkie.  He attends any talk given by spiritualists, reincarnationists, psychic societies, and holy men.  He's searching for answers.  After a near death experience, Ives experiences a mystical vision that he doesn't understand.  Colored winds and spinning suns over Madison Avenue.  Nothing from Ives' past unlocks the meaning of the vision.  So Ives decides to explore any explanation, no matter how ridiculous. Thus, he finds himself in auditoriums, listening to presentations on astral projection and past lives and love in the hereafter.  All in pursuit of truth.

I attended a "lecture" given by a friend of mine this evening.  His new book was just released last month, so the local library invited him to read from it.  Matthew Gavin Frank and The Mad Feast.  Matt is a fantastic performer, and the room was packed.  People were lined up along the back wall. 

Matt teaches in the MFA program at the university.  He teaches graduate classes in creative nonfiction and poetry.  His books get reviewed in Entertainment Weekly and The Paris Review.  Over Christmas break, he's traveling to Greece to participate in a conference.  In the past three years, he's published three books.

It was a good night.  I saw some friends that I hadn't seen in quite a while.  I got to hear Matt tell some really good stories.  The only thing missing was a little alcohol and pizza.

Saint Marty is tired.  And hungry.  Ready for a long winter's nap.

Later

by:  Peter Thabit Jones

Later, at the table,
From a stockpile of old thoughts,
A bundle of dry words
And yesterday's dark news,
A poem catches fire.

Off the Top of My Head