October, 2009:

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Everyone in the Good Ol’ USofA has a gramma that was the “pie” gramma. This gramma is the keeper of the secrets of baking. This was the gramma that stood at the kitchen counter when we were kids and using nothing but a rolling pin and air (as far as we knew) baked delicacies fit only for kings and kids. Thankfully we were the later.

Zoom forward a few dozen years, and you find yourself in Santa Barbara on the west sah-eed.

Which brings us at long last to the title of this entry – Gramma Laura. She would have been right at home here. She would have been among the keepers of the secret of the grain. (Not brewers) She would have spoken the universal language of crust and cake, of rising and dusting, of sifting and kneading.

For weeks now, as I have sallied forth on UnterMyrtle (my bike) on my morning ride, I have passed by a Mexican bakery. All this time, I have been gathering my gringo courage. Today, I found my strength and my conviction. I walked into the panadería as if I knew exactly what the hell I was doing. Of course I didn’t.

OMG! Which as we all know is the Spanish abbreviation for Optimally Magnificent Goodies.

But I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. Even though I have been studying my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons – I had not progressed so far that I felt comfortable ordering pastries from a panadería. Let me tell you…no es una problema. One of the wonderful things about being a Spanish speaking person, is that – you are probably much smarter than your American cohorts, and you speak English too! There should be a lesson in that. But, I digress. What you need to know is that the lovely peeps at this lovely panadería were fluent enough for all. They directed me to the pastries they thought I would find most delicious. And with the help of an elderly Mexican gentleman, I selected even a few more….

And the point of this rambling sentence? None really. I’m too stuffed. Too satisfied to type another word. Let’s just say “wow”. Gramma Laura would have been proud.

Pax – Out

When I was a young man: a new father in fact; my father-in-law said to us one day:” We should sally forth, to the land of my birth in search of the holy grail”. I knew that his cause was just, and his honor true.

Being but a squire at the time, I attended my master and saw to his needs; For I knew this was a journey of great import. We were in search of the great Chicken Fried Steak.

Away we went, launched from the tepid shores of Southern California, on our way to the hinterlands of the Texas panhandle – the place of origins…the beginnings. The Australopithecian beginnings of the CFS. Chicken Fried Steak. We sought the Lucy of CFS, and would have none of the posers along the way.

Diner after diner we tried. Restaurant after hole in the wall did we patronize. Until, at last we gave up.

There’s only so much Chicken Fried Steak you can eat before you long for a salad or a baked potato.

Which leads me to a minor story of a similar bent. Since I arrived in Santa Barbara I have been on the quest for the perfect fish taco. One would think, that the fish taco would be a mainstay of the diet here in the Barbara, but alas, it is not the case.

So, where in fact did you find the grail? The thronging masses ask? Mia Cucina is the answer. Come to find out, the best cookin’ is home cookin’. Fresh red snapper. Onion, Garlic, Cilantro, Chiles, a little olive oil and some fresh tortillas from the corner bodega later…..voila! The best fish tacos in Santa Barbara. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by. I will throw a few together for ya. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Once in a decade or so, an image so impacts me, that it feels like there is a physical weight on my chest. An example  would be the  little girl in the Shake and Bake commercial from the 60′s -  “And I helped”.  It was just such a weird and twisted image. Betty Crocker had gone terribly wrong. Over and over again, the networks played it. Even in my 10 year old world, the word on the street was: This was seriously twisted- and no one knew why.

Now, in my wisdom years, I understand why. The little girl was an alien. She simply was not from this planet, but some other relatively accessible sphere that has been monitoring us. And so it goes.

They took X-files of the air for a reason. I submit as evidence the above picture. At first, just a harmless Yahoo Mail ad banner. But then…insidiously…infiltrating my dreams…then my waking hours…Like some evil Jim Carrey or Jim Varney or some other evil Jim….Jimmy Crak Korn…Hell, I don’t know.

The point is this. There is something about this young man’s face that is just disturbing. Otherworldly. Which give one pause to ask:

Did the advertisers know this, and chose to use this image because they knew it was just so freaky-deaky that lots of folks would feel oogie, and then buy their product. OR,

Am I the only one that finds this visage slightly warped, looney, wacky, funhouse and disturbing?

Just another post from the editors at the Trifling Blog for your amusement and bemusement. Pax out.

As a writer, I am often wont to do a little research before I flesh out a concept or narrative. In this particular case, I got in my cyber-car and drove over to WIKI with a query on the origins of “Scotch” in scotch tape. This is just the word that I find myself using when I need an invisible self adhesive tape. “Say, do you happen to have any Scotch tape?” – You know what I mean.

Having located the junk drawer and found the Scotch tape, I was able to pin up the following email on my bedroom wall. Now, you have to understand that I am not an individual ordinarily given to pinning random pieces of paper up on my bedroom walls. I (as all friends will attest) have a serious case of OCD. In fact, a disorder. But in this case, when I received the email – I printed it and stuck it to the wall using my favored adhesive – Scotch tape. Following is the email from a dear friend…

“Well you lost your swing… We got to go find it… Now it’s somewhere… in the harmony… of all that is… All that was… All that will be… ~Bagger Vance
Happy birthday D, I’m hoping that this next journey around the sun concludes the search for that allusive swing… Love you!!!”

Sometimes, friends are closer to you, than you are to yourself.