Kippur

The silhouette of a man who, his arms half raised at different levels, confronts the thick mist in order to enter it. (Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1913).

Oakland studio, 1980. Downtown light, filtered through high factory windows. Guston’s drawings—the figure with the pointed hair, poking out in front like a sword, or a wand. Reappearing three decades later--unexpectedly, down below and from the side of the screen in a video of the Red Army Chorus, singing Kalinka… their uniforms and Soviet-era regalia intact, but no Red Army now, just the puffed-up voices awaiting a cause.

A father…

The summer following, in a shaded west Los Angeles living room, Pacific Palisades, there high on a shelf, a strangely elongated shoe—more abracadabra or boat—a genie-in-a-bottle—but recognizable from the same film footage. Part of the outfit—the pointed hair, the long pointed shoes…

Enter stage left, electric guitars… (Mayakovsky: Levy! Levy! Levy!)

Does one really want an explanation? Isn’t the fact itself enough—the apprehending, or the memory. Does it matter about the Leningrad Cowboys, D’s role as ambassador (Ambassa-Dude inscribed on a plaque—letters on thinnish square of bronze…), or how this entire spectacle was arranged…

Arranged…

His face as he tells me, quizzical, bemused by the events of the world—as always--but they haunt him now as well. Casey, now Brooke—both gone…

(Brooke. I see her name in my address book. It means she’s there; but she’s not… But she is…)

The good, strong way in which Judaism separates things. There is room there for a person. One sees oneself better, one judges oneself better. (Kafka, Diaries, 1913).

A self-assessment, is that it? Atonement? The Eritrean father and son, behind their 7-eleven counter, up on Stockton, while the louche highschool kids parade in and out. A dark-dark-skinned girl with golden band around her beautiful hair, large and immaculate white blouse, gathered at the waist. Nile queen…

This day…



(18 September 2009)