Tata: Okay okay okay okay-
Daria: I’m sitting down.
Tata: Okay okay okay we went to Lowe’s and bought peat moss and two bags of manure –
Daria:Those are words you’ll never hear me say: I went to Lowe’s for two bags of manure.
Tata: I could swear I just heard that. So we’re walking out in the parking lot in a pouring rain and Pete tosses two bags of manure in the trunk of my car and I stomp around to the passenger door, open it and sit down. I thought I was sitting on my keys so I jump out of the car and it still hurts and I slap my pants where it hurts and omigod a yellow jacket falls on the ground –
Daria: Where’d you get that?
Tata: Lowe’s, obviously. So obviously I freaked –
Daria: Obviously! Daddy was deathly allergic to wasps –
Tata: I yelped that! If I have trouble breathing take me straight to the hospital!
Daria: Did you?
Tata: Well, no. I was yelping, what with the inhaling and exhaling. So there I was, freaking out, and Pete was holding the mooshed yellow jacket and asking, “Should I hold onto this?” and I was like –
Daria: Did you take the yellow jacket back to Lowe’s?
Tata: I should have returned that and claimed it was already broken but I was thinking Omigod, I cannot die from bee bites. So I said, No. Jesus! You’ll need both hands if you have to carry me into the Emergency Room. The freaking thing stung me four times and I have a crazy strip of swelling down my left thigh.
Daria: I might have to Facebook this: Today, in a pounding rain, my sister got bee-stung on her butt.

Last night, Pete and I went out to dinner with Sharkey and old friends from that bar where we all lived. Pete recognized most of the faces from another bar half a mile away from the first, where we also all lived. There were third, fourth and fifth bars where we all lived and a dozen more in New York, but several of us are still in denial and some of us still get the shakes when we hear the magic words: Are you with the band? In any case, I brought up gardening.

Pete’s been planting up a storm in trays in the basement complete with grow lights, while I’ve been waiting for a visit from Homeland Security where I explain no one has as yet outlawed herbes de Provence. They’ll listen to me. I’m a little old lady with a clean rap sheet and a filthy blog. So we’re going to need an excellent lawyer if we don’t in fact get to transplant the tomatoes that are growing in one of these contraptions (left). Tomorrow, I’m going to transplant a mesclun mix into a window box, also in the mini greenhouse, if I am not unfortunately incarcerated for growing salad. In any case, I described this outdoor furniture thingy as like shelving wrapped in the pelts of plastic sofa slipcovers. Everyone looked confused. I switched to horticulture jokes.

Johnny, Poor Impulse Control’s Southwest Bureau Chief, sends back this detailed communiqué from Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico. Yes, there is such a place. Do I know there was a television show by the same name? I do, but it’s just a coincidence, like Intercourse, Pennsylvania and that North Brunswick is south of South Brunswick, New Jersey. No one is that casual about place names. That’s why you go to arenas that share the same names as ginormous corporations: because names come from God. I read that somewhere. So here we are in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico. It’s a coincidence. Shut up.

Plainly, it’s not all glamor. I was thinking the other day about the gaps between what we see and what it might be possible to see. At the height of my artistic rampagery, a photographer and I combed the rusting ramparts of shipyards and power plants for industrial stalagmites and stalactites of great scale we could use in what graduate students refer to as body art. Finding the rusted cityscapes became a hunger for us. In retrospect, it’s kind of a miracle we never got arrested, which would have been an excellent career move.

You see the sign. You may see what it was supposed to be. Perhaps you make signs or grew up in a forge. If you did, I’m glad you got out, those are hot. You have insight into what was, perhaps not just at the beginning but also over time. You see the pride someone felt the first time he flipped the switch on a new sign. You see the fatigue of late nights, beer sweat and unpaid bills. You see someone turning off the sign for the last time and locking a greasy door. You feel the wind blow. All that’s left is a picture of love, of this place. Once upon a time, happily ever after.

An hour ago, I was upstairs rowing when I felt a truck stop in front of the house, but I was rowing so I didn’t get up to find out if it was selling ice cream. I immediately forgot about this truck because I have no attention span and I almost never eat ice cream. Some time later, Pete mentioned the fire trucks parked in front of our house. I have to say I was really surprised. When your house receives that kind of attention, usually you’re aware of something a little different going on. The strangers with the big yellow coats are a tip off. Pete said the trucks were actually addressing an incendiary situation two doors down and their presence in front of our house was merely friendly. I wondered if we should bake something but that seemed like pandering. Every gust of fresh air carries with it an intensely chemical smell, familiar for all the wrong reasons: grease, lighter fluid and something else I’d rather not think too much about. The lights are very twinkly.

Photo: Bob Hosh

Yesterday, Minstrel Boy told me a story that reminded me of another about Mullah Nasrudin, the Sufis’ Wise Fool. I spent a little time looking for this Nasrudin story online, but I’m not going to find it. It’s from one of Idries Shah’s collections, so out of print even Alibris scoffs at my search. Someone from the commune gave them to me for my birthday when I turned 13. It was quite some time before I knew how lucky that made me. Online, though, one can find some delightful stories. Wikibooks:

Who died?
A traveler was passing through town when he came upon a huge funeral procession. Nasrudin was on a corner watching the people pass by.

“Who died?” the traveler asked Nasrudin.

“I’m not sure,” replied Nasrudin, “but I think it’s the one in the coffin.”

In this format, some stories come with the lessons spelled out.

* Language is imprecise and we can sometimes miss the context of a question.
* Speak only the truth you know.
* Once somebody is dead, it matters little who they were in life.

Fantastic! Even I might learn something!

The Nature of the Unseen
It seems that the Master of Mirth and Chief of the Dervishes, Nasrudin, was once called to pontificate on the ‘Nature of Allah’ in the local mosque. Present were the many Imams and Doctors of the Islamic Law. Out of courtesy and because Nasrudin could not be counted on saying anything worthwhile, these illustrious guests explained and inspired the audience with their eloquence and wisdom.

Finally it was Nasrudin’s turn to explain ‘the Nature of Allah’.

“Allah …”, started Nasrudin impressively “is …”

Nasrudin removed and held up an ovoid mauve vegetable from the folds of his turban, ” … an aubergine.”

There was uproar at this blasphemy. When order was finally established, Nasrudin was reluctantly asked to explain his words.

“I conclude that everyone has spoken of what they do not know or have not seen. We can all see this aubergine. Is there anyone who can deny that Allah is manifest in all things?”

Nobody could.

“Very well,” said Nasrudin, “Allah is an aubergine.”

I love this guy!

* Don’t talk about things you don’t know about.
* If you can’t see god in all, you can’t see god at all.
* A fool can make a fool of learned men.
* The wisdom of the lord is the folly of men, and the folly of men is the wisdom of the lord.
* People know as much about god as a chick that is still inside the egg.
* Wise men can be trumped by a vegetable.
* Religious people do not really believe the things they say and think they believe.
* No description is equivalent to the thing it describes. To do so it would have to be the thing itself. Therefore, one can demonstrate but not describe the nature of Allah.

Wise men can be trumped by a vegetable. That explains a lot, I think.

Audience with the King
Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers gathered around to hear what had passed. “At this time,” said Nasrudin, “I only want to say that the King spoke to me.” All the villagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The remaining villager asked, “What did the King say to you?” “What he said – and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear – was ‘Get out of my way!'” The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.

Imagine the progress we might make if these stories were taught for five minutes out of every news hour. Just…imagine.

I’ve been thinking about this song all day. The melody is full of whispers and suggestions that travel up my spine and out through my limbs, I feel it in my shoulders and the way my head should turn. This is my native language. I have spoken it well, lyrically, better than I have done anything else. I wonder now if I am an exile, abroad in a land where I will never speak it again. This is an idle thought, of no importance. My hands are full.

Jake and Dinos Chapman made an installation piece called Hell that was destroyed in a fire. With the help of some very generous benefactors, the artists recreated the piece, this time naming it Fucking Hell. The Guardian UK:

Fucking Hell – also on show at the White Cube gallery in central London – is nine glass cabinets arranged in a swastika formation with tens of thousands of miniature figures enduring awfulness on a grand scale. The original installation was lost in the east London fire which destroyed much of Charles Saatchi’s stored art collection four years ago.

“You couldn’t fail to see something funny about Hell being on fire,” said Jake. Their first thought was: let’s do it again. Jake said: “We wanted to rescue the work from the sentimentality that soon clothed the work after it burned, an affection for the work that wasn’t there when it actually existed as an object, so the idea of a world without Hell was unacceptable to us.

“While everyone else was whingeing around kicking their legs in the air like overturned cockroaches, the first thing we said was we’d remake it”. The Chapmans did not realise Hell was in the fire at first. “We thought it was in special storage for the stuff that he [Saatchi] really liked,” joked Dinos.

Pictures don’t do it justice, so watch the movie. Go ahead. It’s really short.

In the course of considering Heaven and Hell, we are also considering the nature of a Supreme Being. I’m not sure there is one, but I do three stupid things before breakfast so what do I know? A lot of people are sure, and they’re sure there’s an afterlife that rewards good behavior and punishes bad. That’s an awful lot to be certain about on some very iffy say-so, and these are just words. But art is a lens that blurs and focuses. Art is character study. As I watched the short movie, I thought: Hell itself is not the product of a loving theology. The minds that created it, as minds will when there is a gap in information, did not hope for the love or favor of their Supreme Being – or its mercy. No. All of that suffering, filthy and predestined, is just a bore. Imagine tormenting souls for ten minutes. Imagine an hour. Try to imagine a ceaselessness that you simply can’t as a mortal being. Imagine the tedium of eternity. What the creators of the philosophical Hell feared more than anything was their Supreme Being’s indifference. Given the many myriad possibilities of the human imagination, this is the poison pill: that there is no reason to care about any of us.

Of course, I am special. I hear the dance in music and sense the impatience of time.

DON’T LAUGH!

Man: I can’t believe this! Can you get the cream out of the can after someone uses it for whippits?
Pete & Tata: No.
Man: While my daughter was in the shower, the boys sniffed out all the gas. Feel this!

He hands Pete the can. Pete shakes it and hands it to me. That guy is talking a blue streak. I shake the can. It’s light, all the pressure’s gone and the contents sound liquid. Someone’s gonna get it!

Man: How can you tell what they did? Can you look at their pupils and see?
Tata: After about a minute the buzz disappears.
Man: Because one of them is upstairs in sunglasses.
Tata: Well, it is 8:45 p.m. Who could blame him?
Man: I’m really mad! They wouldn’t do this at their mother’s house.

He is also, by the way, on the phone with his girlfriend.

Man: Tata says we can’t look at them and tell. (To us) What about the cream? How do I get that out?
Pete: Nope.
Tata: It’s garbage, dude.
Man: I can’t – like – open it somehow and re-whip the cream?
Pete & Tata: Noooooooooo.
Man: Their mother’s going to be seriously pissed. Can you believe this?
Pete: I used to have a tank of nitrous as tall as your son.
Tata: My friends and I tooled around town with the Executive Whippit Travel Kit. I couldn’t be mad about this if I tried.
Man: How many brain cells do you think they killed?
Pete: Oh, about twenty martinis’ worth. Don’t tell their mother.
Man: I wouldn’t if they’d just stop lying about it.
Tata: Sure, because that works out well for kids.
Man: They keep saying it was like that. Could it have been like that?
Tata: Look, I was a bad kid. I have given every excuse and I’ve heard every excuse.
Man: Tata says she was a bad kid and gave every excuse. What about Tiffy’s strawberries?

He keeps talking as he walks away.

Tata: He’s mad about the wrong things.
Pete: Yeah. He’s not right. More wine?

Every afternoon for a few years now, she and I would shut off our PCs, gather up our stuff and walk out of the library together. We talked about everything and nothing. We would take deep breaths and describe the weather, the season, a distant fire or a budding tree we smelled on that breeze. Her nose was better than mine, but mine is pretty good. Each breath held stories from far and near, and we considered them during the walk from the library to the street, across the street and up the sidewalk, where we parted company every day. Yesterday, I heard secondhand that a brain scan revealed no activity, which signaled the end of speculation. When I put on my coat in the afternoon, she had not asked, “Are you ready, m’dear?” and never would again. I walked to the curb and crossed the street without looking, and cried all the way home. What with all the not-looking, it’s kind of a miracle I didn’t get flattened by a semi.

Attention Sunday morning talking heads: this is how it’s done.

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That was last night. So what the fuck is with the Today Show this morning?

After work at the family store, where I’m listening to enchanting salsa today, I’m dashing off to help Siobhan tidy up her Dad’s house. He’s being released from the local health facility after winning a 3 games out of five Battleship tourney with his mortality. How could I not want in on the Swiffer and Windex action?