Navahnoonoo Bougainvillea

Navahnoonoo bougainvillea

villy-nilly, so  silly

Poppy & fuschia

orange & moosha-                                    

I've come here to tell ya'                                    
of Navahnoonoo bougainvillea
with her petals like leaves                    
that cling to the eaves

peeping this way & that
on her round little mat                   
at parents and others
with kisses that smother

They tickle and pinch you,
the cute little NooNoo!               
With amazingish brio
you try to break free. . . oh!  

'Can't knit or crochet
but I know how to say,                                           
and I know how to hug 
your adorable mug!                                                                        

Navahnoonoo Bouganvillea             
Oh what a silly,
a rhymer, a climber, a gootchy, a poochy,
a sure fire dancer, a sweet moving mantra

These stanzas keep humming,
they flibble & pop,
so I'll just do one more                                               
before you say "Stop!"                                                                  

I know this sounds terse:                                                     
Yet it renders some verse:

        The darling of smoochie,
                           our own Navahnucci!                             

                                                     

RWF Eyes, Part One

New York is such a crazy place. From the food to the parking to the daily living, it really can be quite insane; the upside of all this is that it provides great material.

A long time ago I once wrote a story entitled “Rainer Werner Fassbinder Eyes” about a woman who worked at a local bakery in my neighborhood. Bakeries are big in Gotham as we have every type of bread and cake known to humankind, from the crispily-crusted San Francisco sourdough and smoothly sublime petite-four, to the perfectly fluffy cheesecake and beyond, very beyond. . . .  If it weren’t for the fact that the city affords miles and miles of walking it off, the effects of this situation would be truly devastating.

Aaaah, love it or leave it.

But back to the simple specter of the kaiser roll and seeded rye from which emerged my tale. The acronym of the story’s title actually had to do not merely with a corner bakery, but with the eyes and point of view of a certain formerly touted German film maker. The title also was meant to remind of the many artsy foreign films and retrospectives that once showed at the city’s movie houses, though of course many of these venues have all but disappeared. In those days however, when Fassbinder roamed the big screens with his bleak vision of humanity, there were lots more large and dark yet cozy spaces featuring foreign and what we now call “indie” movies from around the world; people did not have to huddle as much in front of their little home screens to stay connected, whether by fact for fiction.

Fassbinder was a bit of a downer, even in the universe of intensely thought provoking “art films,” and that’s putting it mildly. In addition to his especially grim world view, he had an incredibly long, harsh and self important sounding Teutonic name that took some real effort and concentration to utter: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; in addition, there was the sticky problem of which way to pronounce the “W”- do you pretend you’re a linguistic purist and give it the ol “vee” treatment or simply admit your no-nothing American status and opt for the wubble-yoo sound? But for a while several decades back the guy was quite popular with the urban avant-garde, even though he tended to make you feel somewhat more than slightly suicidal after ingesting one of his unremitting, dismal takes on the nature of modern decadence and the horror of humanity in general. On the other hand, what would be the point of all that intellectual posturing anyway if you could not exit the theater ready to do away with yourself over the sheer awfulness of things??? The world sucks! Enjoy it! Have some babka while you’re at it, that is, if Molly Bloom will let you out of the bakery. . . .

It Can't be 2015!

It can’t be 2015!
It can’t, it won’t,

It’s just too mean!!!

I cannot be this old!

I’m not, it’s clear,

A story still untold!!!

Have I really spanned two centuries?

It’s strange, it’s weird,

I think I am a’feard!!!

And where did the millennium fly?

A decade and a half (ago)?

This makes me laugh, ho ho (oh no)!!!

It can’t be 2015. . . .

It’s not, it won’t,

This has to be a dream!!!

Darn it. Whatever.

Never say never.

It’s 2015 and oh how clever (is time).

          

Search Results

1. 

Blogton Two

January 16^th, “This sounds very much like the boy talk that I do not allow.”- Carson to the footmen

And boy oh boy, is there indeed “boy” (or as it were, “boy-butler”) talk in Episode Numero Uno. . .  and girl talk too!!! Sex, sex and more sex, well, sort of anyway, at least with lots of intimations of naughtiness, post-Edwardian style if nothing too graphic or visceral, as Downton gloriously swept into its miraculous fifth season. How is it possible that a mere soap can remain so shamelessly compelling and continue to retain its highfalutin demeanor??? 

I was in near tears when the last scene faded just a brief hour and what looked like maybe eight minutes or so into the evening, give or take a couple of seconds, at the thought of waiting another week for the second episode and yet another window into the world of those sumptuous gowns and smart daytime outfits. Along with my immense sadness at having to wait seven days for the next installment, naturally came the conflicting emotions: would Mary join the modern world and liberate herself already for goddsake? Why must Edith continue to suffer, and to such a maudlin degree? Will she ever muster the gumption to flaunt social convention and stand up for herself, and do we care? She's becoming annoying. And what evil retribution if any does Thomas have planned for the much beleaguered, guilt-ridden lady’s maid with the sad, soulful eyes and questionable hairdo? Perhaps most significantly, how do I really feel about that mere school teacher infiltrating and dissing- yes dissing, your heard right!- the esteemed halls of well dressed nobility with her crazy socialist talk??? Does this mean I am something akin to a federalist at heart? What's a federalist? I'm not sure I know, but it sounds right for some reason.

January 19^th

When Lady Mary says “I’ve been tarnished and I won’t be tarnished again,” regarding her attempt at a barely discreet sex tryst with Lord Gillingham, we all know what she means; there’s danger in them there hills, at least socially speaking for Lady Mary. However when she jokingly comments later on of the Lady Dowager that “Granny has a past (!),” this said after a former and now elderly prince admirer from the deposed Russian aristocracy pops into the frame- that line is a bit harder to swallow; I always pictured granny springing fully armed from the head of H.L. Mencken, or perhaps Joan Rivers, Brit style of course.

And thus concludes Episode three of the Fifth Season of “Downton,” just prior to the moment when Bates, once again under deep suspicion (honestly, that guy was not born under a lucky star!), barely makes a pretense of limping his way down the hall, though he still uses the cane for effect; the thing is, I’m not certain he had any physical therapy as we know it today and so we are left to believe that somehow it really is mind over matter, either that or the cane was a scam to begin with. In truth, I’m ready to say hang Bates! (Oops, you know I didn’t really mean that).

However it’s Daisy, ineffably impish second cook, who puts the cap on it when she exclaims in the earlier episode, “Why do they call it a wireless when there are so many wires?” Somehow her reaction to seeing a radio for the first time seemed almost an anachronism in that it reminded me of my own jungle of wires, that horrible tangle of cords underneath the computer desk supposedly designed to enable wireless transmission. . . .  And to top things off, amid all his beneficence and noblesse oblige in agreeing to allow the darn contraption into the house in the first place- purportedly to hear an amazingly stilted and boring speech by the king that leaves the residents of the manor awestruck- Lord Grantham, the familiar “Robert,” and formerly a man of very cool and lah-dee-dah demeanor, is turning into a grouch!

Tell me, please, what is a devoted watcher of the series, a member in good standing of this inimitable soap opera cult, ever supposed to think?

Blogton, the Run-up, 2015

January 1^st

While everyone on the frozen ground below was joyously- nay, jubilantly!-  (to say nothing of somewhat idiotically) waiting for the giant, magic ball of crystals to finally come down in Times Square and announce the start of 2015 (an almost science fictiony sort of number for all it will be worth, you think?), I could not help but hearken back to the twelve months that had alternately crept or sped by at times- depending on which cliché comes to mind- while awaiting Season Five of Downton Abbey. In addition, I honestly could not understand what the hell everyone packed into those icy, roped off streets in mid-Manhattan was so happy about- Anderson Cooper et al, the politicos, the tourists, the plebes, the cops assigned to the detail, the media crew, the teenagers, the gawkers, the pickpockets and pedophiles no doubt infiltrating the crowd- didn’t they realize they still would have to wait another almost four full days or, to put it less dispiritingly, 96 hours, before the first episode of the new season aired for the masses or those unlucky enough not to have had early access to the DVD??? I have to admit the rape episode in Season Four gave pause for thought and was more than a bit off putting, not really fitting in so seamlessly with all that luscious Edwardian fairy tale splendor to which we’ve become so accustomed; however I was just not ready to give up on the whole thing. It seemed possible that with a little effort they could redeem themselves handily over at gorgeous, drafty old Highclere.

January 3^rd

In that interminable interim between the official start of the New Year and ads for the new PBS season, suddenly I was reminded that I still really cared, even though I had tried to banish all thoughts of the series during much of the previous year and was still smarting from the baddie incident that so beset Anna. During the run-up right before the new season aired I tried not to watch the trailers that were hitting the pixel waves like tantalizing shooting stars for fear of even the slightest hint-of-a-hint of a spoiler, and yet of course I had no choice but to become transfixed each time one of the inhabitants of the venerable Abbey, whether upstairs or down, suddenly flashed across the screen in some particularly captivating pose of abject angst for a mere second or two, snatches of scenes that served as part of the shameless titillation to the fifth season of Downton; and could that really have been a fire they were rather unsubtly hinting at in those agonized mini-moments of enforced viewing on the PBS website?  Did the producers and writers actually have the temerity even to suggest such a horrific occurrence, in that time, in that hallowed place, in that single family structure bigger than my apartment building??? Since I watch the show for the visual splendor and historical detail no less than the entrancing soap opera shenanigans, my rage and indignance at the very thought of yet one, single pillow tassel being corrupted, one square of oriental carpet spoiled, whether by actual singe damage or a mere waft of dark, sooty smoke, was almost too intense to bear. Basically I did not wish to think about it.

January 4^th, 5:33 pm, 3 hours and 27 minutes to go. . . .

Well, all comes to she who waits, and much in the way Mary eventually got Matthew after years of patient turmoil and a lollapalooza of a world war, tonight I finally get to see Episode One of Season Five. Yes, tonight! I know I cannot possibly be disappointed because even if that awful negativity of mind that occasionally creeps in regarding some of the less than stupendous PBS offerings rears its critical little self, I would fight this off strenuously with all the denial I could possibly muster! Furthermore, I could always fall back on that very first hypnotic season as a means of keeping the memory of the series’ debut alive, forever. And if I take issue with any of the new plot lines I also know that eventually I will come not only to accept, but to embrace them, if only because the show still endures and where there’s life there’s hope. But still, one can wonder. . . . I have planned an early, easy dinner and then some meditation before the program begins, to allow enough time to “get ready” so to speak, to assume the optimal frame of relaxation mind and alertness, and will return to this blogton with my take on the new episodes as the season gets seriously underway.

Beautiful Things, Part One

The shop “Beautiful Things" had been a fixture on Sycamore for as long as anyone could remember and was one of those old fashioned anchors that fix time in a fast changing neighborhood. The street on which the store stood actually was not called Sycamore but merely had a number; these nondescript numerals however did no justice to the long rows of large trees with peeling barks that lined the sidewalk, so I decided to change the name. “Sycamore” was only one block long, a winding and steep incline connecting two broader commercial avenues and had a kind of mid-century appeal that made this part of the city feel more like a village than an urban grid of humorless red brick buildings. The street housed just four small “ma & pa” businesses alongside the two-family houses and pre-war apartments: a bakery, a tiny beauty salon, a shoe repair and the gift shop; together these comprised a small town fantasy in the midst of a large, noisy and increasingly annoying residential area that slowly had been taken over by the usual gang of chain stores and an influx of tacky merchandise. The chain stores sold things like plastic serving trays with strange Santa motifs, fuzzy red stockings of unidentifiable fabric for hanging on your non-existent fireplace, suspiciously out of date shiny bags of Ghiradelli chocolate and big, ugly rubber skeletons that during the earlier October holiday seemed to kick off the whole seasonal madness.

Beautiful Things was wedged in between the shoe repair and pastry shop about halfway up the hill, its hall mark a display window that though quite small was nothing less than mesmerizing. It was impossible to resist gazing into this semi-precious cave of wonders while out doing the chores or running from one mind numbing, mundane errand to the next without stopping. On rich, black velvet jewelry pads carefully placed for optimum viewing sat marcasite pins that blazed like diamonds, glittering ovals of amber and polished stones of blue topaz sharing the reflected glow of the overhead track lights with pewter letter openers and miniature Tiffany-style lamps; semi-precious objects totally unnecessary for survival but succeeding in prompting all sorts of forgotten longings and desires for small luxuries. The window itself faced southwest, and when the afternoon sun bounced off the glass the whole sparkling collage became addictively hypnotic. 

The interior of the store was no larger than fifteen by twenty feet or so, with a kind of closet-office in the back hidden behind a flowery curtain. Once inside one immediately was bedazzled by the jewelry boxes- some of them musical with slowly turning ballerinas- as well as a colorful selection of silk scarves and ties, one-of-a-kind tea pots, ceramic vases, hand-painted dishes and of course piles of rings, bracelets and chokers, all neatly stacked inside the three-tiered glass case behind which the proprietors ruled their little kingdom of chotchkas. There were also a few obligatory gag gifts such as miniature slot machines and sleek, tiny clocks with sun dials that went all the way up to the year of infinity, but everything was tastefully arranged and carefully selected at the “shows” which Mel and Ruby always seemed to be attending. I know just what you’re looking for, Ruby would assure you after the better part of an hour spent considering a of shiny array of objects, none of which exactly did the trick; You want something smaller, daintier, perhaps with an amethyst in the center, right? They’ll probably have them at the show we’re going to next week- come back then. And she acted very much like she meant it. She would find this for you. Her mission was not to stoke the embers of your flagging, mindless consumerism, that vague yen that left you succumbing to ads trying to convince you that what you really required were seven different kinds of bathroom cleaners or a thirty-eight different face creams, but actually to locate that one special object that would totally change your life, or at least this was what she wanted you to believe. Ruby wasn’t really being helpful at such moments, even though she appeared to be holding out the carrot of finding “exactly the right thing,” this mainly having to do with her insane anxiety. She was so incredibly anxiety-ridden she could barely conceal her maniacal sense of impending doom for fear that perhaps one of the display “trees” of dangly earrings might just topple over with the customer’s next sneeze; this nervousness of manner comprising a kind of existential tick tended to upset the whole tight little sense of controlled cordiality she tried so hard to maintain in the store. . . .