Pig

So I come to yesterday. All of a sudden, the bolt came from the sky and hit me in the head. I had what may be called "a moment of luminosity," standing in the parking lot at Bob's.

An episode of "Due South" I like, has in it this wild chase by the Canadian Mountie to join his beloved. She is plenty bad, the woman is. He, the stalwart male protagonist, can do nothing about his feelings, can't help himself. He is squeaky clean, as they say, but he is drawn to her smell, to her hair, to her beautiful body, etc. It will end badly.

The hero can't help himself. Ecstatics are that way. An episode of the tv show, "Due South," by director, Paul Haggis, has me thinking about the beauty of art.

Now comes my daily life and what this show did to mess it up. The images stayed with me, as I thought about why the thing was so beautiful. What characteristics it had, that were special to me.

I was able to shave and eat and drive and all that, but my mind was on the show. The shots, the shadows, the faces of the heroic persons on the screen and even the music moved me most mightily. Tv that is good does that to a person. All one has to do is admit the power of the thing. And somehow survive its impact.

I am up in Revere. Behind where I sell in the parking lot, is Tony's bar, and the pig is in a huge aluminum sleeve, circulating anonymously to the noise of this little motor and some gears that turn the spit. Tony calls me over to the spot behind the bar in the backyard where this thing is going on. He says, won't I come by later to share the pig and some drink? I do not approve of public drinking. I am a prude and know the noises from behind the tarpaulin that shields the yard soon enough will be those of men and some women who have engaged in public drink.

I need to concentrate on selling, but on this day, the noises from in back of Tony's, from behind the tarps, will be of men and women laughing and cursing with the help of alcohol. I put it out of my mind and do my work, but it is there in the back of my head. The music, the cursing, the noise, all affect me.

The pig swirls. It is the day of the year when a pig is sacrificed by denizens of Revere. I know I have to accomodate to the animal sacrifices of the locale in which I work. But my deeper thoughts are tied to the tv drama, "Due South," and the irrestible pull of what seems to me to be its considerable beauty.

I grab a used and wrinkled brown bag with the remains of food in it from the ground. In Revere, things blow about a lot, rubbish and stuff. The place I work at is near the Atlantic Ocean. I write "moments of luminosity." .

I have on a silly grin because creation is in process. I like it when I am making something that is going to please me. The show," Due South," and my experiences that follow it, will carry me to the next platform of understanding. I can learn from selling stuff at the side of a road, at the dear edge of the parking lot. I'm a road scholar.

The selling work I do gives me long hours of inner calm, where I hear the noise of the cars on the streets and the customers. In me, I am silent, stationary and poised for great thoughts and ideas. An invisible at the side of the road, I am a quiet sponge taking in the world's sights and images. This day art will visit me. I have that confidence.

More background on what was happening to me that summer day.. I didn't have my camera with me that day and regretted it mightily. I have a little Infinity Junior that I am deathly afraid of losing, so I leave it at home a lot. Mistake. I almost go to the local Walgreen to buy a throwaway camera, but I am too cheap.

I went on an errand for Bob early yesterday in his car and came back to my spot, looked over at where tarps stretched across a high chain-link fence prevented you from seeing the pig, mentioned earlier. Shadows of the men cooking the pig. Tarps are the standard blue; the shadows black-like.

They were there cooking the carcass since four AM, I am told. They put it on the spit to roast it slowly. It is better that way. In the past they found the large amount of coals they used, created so much heat, the thing would ignite with the fat of the pig and the operators were forever dousing the flames with water. To control the business. So this time they got up early or stayed up all night to cook the pig the right way. Slowly.

The shadows I saw on the tarpaulins freaked me. They were incredibly beautiful. In a half an hour, by nine AM, they were gone. It was a split second of luminosity. It is that fleeting a thing, like the images burned in my brain from the "Due South" episode.

I love beauty; fleeting and casual beauty. A silouette of the men cooking the pig that day. It is why I study art from the library. A black and white print by Reginald Marsh.

I am reminded of Theophilos, the painter of Lesbos, Greece, who painted on any surface, using as model, anything. Something he saw, a postcard, an old piece of string on the ground. He cared not about fame or money, just about the next thing he was painting.

The true ecstatic is that way, going about the world getting off on what it is that moves him or her. The work at hand, is but a ticket to the next thrill, the next piece of work. The next piece of work is the only thing in the whole world that counts.

The tv can transport me to nirvana. Or the movie theatre or the rental video. I just celebrate my vision and that of the people in "Due South".

Joy to have others with me on the living journey who care about the same beauty I do. Art, art, beautiful art, everywhere. And I am so close by it. I tremble. In Konstantine Kavafi's words, "So many times, so close I am." He is talking about an imaginary lover's body. I am talking about a thing I see or perhaps that sees me.

In Greek, the language I mean, I think it is even more beautiful to state and sate on

the line I just gave you. It goes in Greek, "toses fores toso konta na eimai." So often so close am I. To a luminous and beautiful image.

One sees the stimulus wherever it is found, and then reacts to locate it into some intellective format. The thing happens pretty fast and one has to be alert to the connection that will be made to the visual stimulus.

So what connection did I make to "Due South?" For a few years now I have been mouthing a mantra. Sheer beauty is all around us. I see it in the shadows of the pig-cookers and in the show on the tv. I look at the signs, buildings, people, cars, for more evidence.

My pal, Scottie, sells fruit at the edge of the parking lot. The labels of the fruit boxes with their attendant pictures are lovely. I find meaning where I can. One said" Red Rooster," and showed a picture of a proud bird. I think over the visual prospect of putting these images on the tv in one of my little essays.

Bob's is full of little surprises and treats. This includes Bob himself. He is proprietor and the major domo of Bob's Discount of Revere. One day I was going into Boston on the Green line and stopped to pay my two bucks for the parking. A Nigerian guy appropriated my funds and said, "I know you from Bobby's Discount." Only I just call it "Bob's."

Bob names people. He bestows on them, names they will carry proud and happy all the days of their life. The names will vary now and then. The nice thing is you get more than one and won't know when the name will change. Only Bob knows. One day he calls you "Wellesley," or "his lordship," and the next day,"Acton," or most recently,"Wellfleet."

The day the pig was cooking, Bob of Bob's Discount fame and renown, called me "Professor Nutmeg." He says, " you are a rare spice." It just happened to be one of those odd days for me, the confluence of the stars or something, but I was kidding with him and Scottie and a few other acquaintances in front of the store.

For Bob to call me anything, was great, but "Professor Nutmeg!" That was an honor. The thing with the pig and the shadows had made me unsteady. I was kidding around a lot which is something rare for me. Usually I am quiet, lost.

But I was rockin' and a- rollin' and Bob loves it. He got a kick from my high. He loves verbal repartee. I think secretly he lives for it. He is gloriously verbal, bawdy, tough in speech, wonderful to listen to. When I am on, so to speak, Bob and some other pretty good friends, watch and laugh.

I must say. I must admit, that Bob's is my most favorite place in the whole world. I really don't ever want to be anyplace else. In the whole world. I don't care if Bob doesn't recognize me, or my existence most of the time. The point is he lets me be there with Kevin, Scottie, Ed, Aileen, Maria, Anna, Tommy who calls himself Patrick, and a lot of other wondrous beings that huddle under his shadow. Some call Bob, "Mr. Heart," in reference to his colossal coldness and hard approach to the world of money and commerce. He is that cold and tough, but that is how we all manage to survive another day. Because the master is tough and cold and provides to us.

I have hung at Bob's a while. Often I say to me, about Bob, "I just wanna be wicha." I include in my wish, his cast of characters at Bob's Discount, the folks I enjoy so. What I like best is their words, the way they talk. The stories they tell. The way they accept me as a loony in residence, with all the other loonies. What joins us, is the words. The absolutely astounding and outlandish things we say to one another. For me it is paradise.

So I am tripping, at about eight- thirty in the morning, goofing, at Bob's,and Ed, another concerned friend who works at Bob's, comes up to me and I tell him about the pig and the shadows of the men on the tarpaulin. I explain the concept of fleeting luminosity to him and he says to take less thorazine, which I gather is some kind of bad drug. And I tell him, how lucky he was to share my Prozac moment, and he walks off, shaking his head that one more friend has finally gone off the deep end. He is not surprised, nor am I.

Outlandish moments are common at Bob's. Mine are non-drug, non-alcohol moments, I must hurry to say. I feel stuff from what I see, and think on how to view things in a new way.

Luminosity is fleeting. You have to catch it when you can. You have to know it is there for the asking, when it knows to knock on your door. I think an artist is just an average person who happens to be ready for the unusual when it decides to strike.

I do not believe in supernatural stuff much. Saint-icons that tear or bleed or speak. That kind of thing. I believe in the ordinary, everyday miracle.

The miraculous is with us all the time. In deference to my oddness, the fruit man, Scottie, has called me Dr. Demento on occasion. I am called other names to go with "Professor Nutmeg." I am called "Dr. Strangelove," " Professor Halibut," "Dr. Zivago," "Professor Gaga," "Dr. Lala." That is how I am seen and I am damned proud of it. I am home and these are my people. I will take them, over the corporon people I knew at the big places I have worked at in the past, where I did not fit in. The corporations and the universities.

My luminous moments are rare. I take 'em where I can get them. I hear my impulses talk to me and then I go off, half-cocked, to meet some new adventure. God, it is hard to be me! My mother-in-law whom I treasured as a best pal, said I was tilting at windmills all the time. I am in search of the grail. The one Monty Python immortalized.

The quest is for pure beauty. When I look at the skyscrapers in Boston, as I try to drive on the Expressway, my heart soars. It is pure beauty to me. So is my latest granddaughter, Jennifer Catherine. I freak on her eyelashes, chubby legs, her lovely hair.

So is anything to do with my wife. I marvel she stayed with me, a certifiable odd human. At least, life is not dull with me, she said, in one of her kind moments. Most of the time she treats me from a distance, hoping I will stay out of her life, and leave her alone. I mean she does not dislike me. Only knows to stay out of my life because my disorder, my messes, will just end up upsetting her, and so, best to leave me be. The label,"Professor Nutmeg," seems to fit.

What I am, is a polite pilgrim. I don't bother anyone. I am a visualist, an ecstatic, a witness, a saver of odd strings, a possessed being, in love with the ordinary.

That is all. I am in touch with images that move me greatly. They occupy my mind so. I am poor at making money or finding things I have misplaced or lost.

I am busy, is all. Locating pure beauty in the bounteous buildings designed and built by Adler and Sullivan, turn of the century Chicago.

Pure beauty is the dramatic football game between Oklahoma and Colorado in the tv last night. I could do a big number on the drama between those two powerhouses last night. What can I say to you? I am possessed.

Some folks are. I am not apologizing. Bob once said I had no malice in my soul, as if that was unusual for a human. In his world of petty merchants, carnival touts etc, I am unusual. I have not an ounce of interest in money. Nor, any common sense. Obviously, to mislead, or cheat or steal, is not my style and Bob knows it. He also gave me an unparalled complement a few times when he put me in the category of Stanley Atwood, one of our fine friends. He called me a gentleman and that was something. Gentleman means a nice person, gentle, kind, decent. Yes, decent. Stanley is decent and I guess I am too.

I am one of the cast of characters at Bob's. "I just wanna be witcha." With Bob and the people there.

Great art like" Due South," make one less lonely. Somewhere in the intergalactic space, that vast gloom out there, that cold space, there is a speck of genius that gives light to a life. When great stuff in the form of tv images comes to my house, I rejoice.

"Due South" is one of those events that bowls me over.

Art is a blend of intuition and madness.It is a gamble and desperate. All artists are nuts, holding the wild reins of the horse, and letting it take where it does. Down a wonky lane. Art is around us, to drive us to ecstasy. Song, tv, ballgame. All art. Photo, magazine ad. We all react to these silent stimuli. If we dare register them deeply, they inhabit us and make us crazy.

All artists are like Frazier in "Due South". He can't help himself. He chases the woman. We can't help it either. We are moths to fire, or to the hundred watt bulb. A drug addict to cocaine, a lush to liquor, a libertine to sex , a food excessive to Hagen Das. I don't know what. A Grateful Dead groupie. A chase, always a chase, that ends in loss and grief. Holy motion that ends in the graveyard.

God, why? When the result is frustration and pain and trouble and loss.

'Cause.

'Cause that is what drunken nuts do; jaded radical politicals do it. So does the fool, Frazier, chasing this bad woman to his end. Why, oh why? I just don't know.

Only can say, we do it because it is there, like Mount Ararat, and Everest. Because we crave kicks. We are willing to pay the price. Oh, I don't know. I say, maybe it is the search for pure beauty and the perfect moment . That moment of luminosity. Motion, the lubricant for life, leads the actors to drama, comedy and tragedy. Movement is life. Stasis ever death. Keep on movin'. Keep them doggies movin'.

Now to shop at Damoulas's. The grand supermarket in Ashland. Not the new and shiny one in Bellingham. The one in Ashland favored by the wonderful Brazilian people who live in and near that town.

Forget this stuff I am spouting. Beauty may be at Damoulas's. I cannot say if it is there, or on the side of a Greek urn or on the tv show, "Due South."

I need to get grated cheese, red pepper, and some other stuff. Let's close this mess with the master of them all, the gentle assassin, Constantine Cavafy, my lifemate, my lithe lion, Cavafy; where he does the "Ides of March," one of his knifelike mantras, a poem. He says to Caesar, to be careful 'cause he's gonna get it, if he is not careful. Beware of the bearer of so-called news. This person who brings him some news has got a knife on him.

We all know the outcome. Caesar is put to rest. His reign silenced in blood.

I shall quote the few first lines and let it go at that. I will render it in Revere street- prose, because that is how I inhale Cavafy in my lungs, in the vernacular speech.

Fancy stuff , be scared of it, oh my soul!

And all your needs-ambitions, you must be victor over them

and if you cannot, go forth with hesitation and precautions.

I repeat, go with caution.

And the more you probe ahead of your eyes

the more you have to examine yourself,

the more careful you have to be.

The ambition of Caesar led to his downfall. The excess passion of Frazier to his. Oh, artist, oh painter, oh artist, oh videophile, oh juggler..... take care. Your ground is shaky. Danger will make you weak. Take care.