Once I asked, rather innocently: "If you could have any painting- irrespective of price or... anything, it could be yours and it would hang on your wall and you'd live with it, which would it be?" Without the slightest hesitation he pulled out three books of Matisse from off the shelf. He showed me the same painting in three photographs. He said: "neither look right... but this is the painting. This one."
"[bewilderment]""What?"
"I'm... shocked."
"Why?"
"I'd have expected... I don't know. Something less... tangible... maybe Tapias or something."
"No. This one. How about you?"
"Chagall________
____"WHAT!"
What do you mean what?"
"I'd have expected Bacon or Keifer or something"
"I can't live with it... look at this Chagall, look how beautiful it is__________exactly, you can
__________________________________"(I can see how beautiful it ____is)"
see... it makes me so happy. _and especially from Chagall... he had a hard time, I love to see him like this."
"He paints in dreams."
"(and he dreams like a child)"
"Right.____ and no one dreams better than a child."
"[...]"
"I know; I couldn't think of a better word."
"ha-
__"if I remember correctly, last week you said antidote instead of anecdote,
_____________________________________"You're going to raise that again!"
__________________________________________________________oh yes"
"miserable old man!"
"ha!"
* * *
This is my favorite part... in almost all of Brahms, I have three favorite moments. One in each of the slow movements of the Piano Concertos, and one in the Deutsches Requiem... here it comes... oh my. It's about 20 seconds long, 2:14 into the andante. In film... even in prayer, I have my 'moments', things I look forward to, and feel my nerves charge and fire in cascades when it comes. Here are highlights of some of them:
*
Oh my God, Thy Trust hath been returned unto Thee.
I was pleased with my suit... I looked good. That was something at least. Most of the guests didn't know to laugh or cry- this was a funeral, but also a reunion. He had been a grave man the entire time I knew him. He carries the record for Longest-Time-Depressed (Male Category) in my family. He did such a good job he even won the Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously. I am later told, in the many tales that were told of him, that he never really managed leaving his home. That he broke when he boarded the flight to leave Iran... (I am also told three men with very heavy looking guns knocked on the door of his now-vacant house at the very hour his plane tilted and stretched and flew). They say the initial crack was pretty big, and things started to leak out. He withered and withered away slowly. (not with a bang but a whisper).
It didn't mean much to me. Some hugs. Some tears. Lots of questions. I, more concerned with how perfectly the shade of my tie was chosen. The evenness of the knot. That my sister was not alone. Finally... I don't know how long passed. I remember sitting and seeing lots of dark dresses rise and fall and sway as they walked. All sorts of tones in various languages. Finally, I found myself on a patch of grass, staring down at a box. I had seen the body, I washed it. (it?) It had felt like any other cadaver I had investigated last year. In fact, I'm sorry to say, I missed my scalpel. It was windy, it was hard to hear. I stared at the box... wondered about it warming slowly in the heat of the sun. Thought about how right I was to wear this cardigan under my jacket. Perfectly selected. Then.__T h e n__. Those words. Thy Trust. Thy... t r u s t. My soul shivered a little, I stood stunned. Nonplussed. The size of such a phrase. I began recounting my seconds... moments I had lived up to the trust invested in me. Other moments not. Somewhere a woman weeped. A car turned a corner. A Muslim funeral was to begin soon. My sister was squinting, looking up from her chair at my face. She moved one hand over her eyes like a naval-salute. "what?" (in whispered tones). "what?"
I could not respond. Death had been unlocked. Life had fallen through the opening. I could no longer pry them apart.
*
Thy might, in truth, is equal to all things.
ALL? If so, that includes:
hot-air-balloons. _catastrophes. _kittens. _miscarriages. _the sound of babies crying. _old lady's hands. _the smell of Jasmine in about two months walking down Hegafen St. in Haifa, Israel. _ eyelashes. _the milk way._ the number 56 x 45,322. _ perfectly blue skies. _the crunchy noise you hear when you walk across snow. _the time I cried because I could not help it on the train from Hamburg to Prague because I was certain if ever there was a time to cry, this was, without a doubt it. _popcorn. _words. _black skin. _mountains. _timescales only geologists are patient enough to bother about. _racecar driving. _lust. _the equations governing electromagnetic radiation. _the taste of salt from kissing a woman's eye when she's crying.
see?
*
... protect the bearer of this blessed Tablet, and whoso reciteth it, and whoso cometh upon it, and whoso passeth around the house wherein it is.
Usually it takes 13-or-so minutes to reach it. It's a slow building process. Standing waves made of words. Patterns. It starts like a little rattle. Usually the tea-saucer a few feet away. I hear it start to shake. No one else notices, so I don't make much of a fuss. When we get to O Thou my soul! the plate falls to the ground. There are crumbs now everywhere. Still. No one notices. The words carry on. I am concerned, I tune back in. I close my eyes. I notice my head nods to it in time. I hear something moving behind me. I look back, the bookcase jitters. Don't look, don't look. I turn away. Close my eyes. Everywhere it starts now. Cutlery in the drawers, the lights begin to twitch on and off. Outside, I can't tell if it's still sunny, the cat that had been staring at us through the glass turns to wind and glides away. The painting on the wall adds to the sound. O Ravager... strong... soo strong. And then: the explosion. The Holy-Grail of physics. How to generate a force-field. How to rub hands together and close eyes tight enough and hum in the right order to generate electricity. My hair stands upright. I am breathless. The rhythm of my heartbeats has been reset (clear?). I pant my way out of that darkness shortly after. And look around... nothing is the same. The universe changes each time to accommodate those words.
*
Oh my God, Thy Trust hath been returned unto Thee.
I was pleased with my suit... I looked good. That was something at least. Most of the guests didn't know to laugh or cry- this was a funeral, but also a reunion. He had been a grave man the entire time I knew him. He carries the record for Longest-Time-Depressed (Male Category) in my family. He did such a good job he even won the Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously. I am later told, in the many tales that were told of him, that he never really managed leaving his home. That he broke when he boarded the flight to leave Iran... (I am also told three men with very heavy looking guns knocked on the door of his now-vacant house at the very hour his plane tilted and stretched and flew). They say the initial crack was pretty big, and things started to leak out. He withered and withered away slowly. (not with a bang but a whisper).
It didn't mean much to me. Some hugs. Some tears. Lots of questions. I, more concerned with how perfectly the shade of my tie was chosen. The evenness of the knot. That my sister was not alone. Finally... I don't know how long passed. I remember sitting and seeing lots of dark dresses rise and fall and sway as they walked. All sorts of tones in various languages. Finally, I found myself on a patch of grass, staring down at a box. I had seen the body, I washed it. (it?) It had felt like any other cadaver I had investigated last year. In fact, I'm sorry to say, I missed my scalpel. It was windy, it was hard to hear. I stared at the box... wondered about it warming slowly in the heat of the sun. Thought about how right I was to wear this cardigan under my jacket. Perfectly selected. Then.__T h e n__. Those words. Thy Trust. Thy... t r u s t. My soul shivered a little, I stood stunned. Nonplussed. The size of such a phrase. I began recounting my seconds... moments I had lived up to the trust invested in me. Other moments not. Somewhere a woman weeped. A car turned a corner. A Muslim funeral was to begin soon. My sister was squinting, looking up from her chair at my face. She moved one hand over her eyes like a naval-salute. "what?" (in whispered tones). "what?"
I could not respond. Death had been unlocked. Life had fallen through the opening. I could no longer pry them apart.
*
Thy might, in truth, is equal to all things.
ALL? If so, that includes:
hot-air-balloons. _catastrophes. _kittens. _miscarriages. _the sound of babies crying. _old lady's hands. _the smell of Jasmine in about two months walking down Hegafen St. in Haifa, Israel. _ eyelashes. _the milk way._ the number 56 x 45,322. _ perfectly blue skies. _the crunchy noise you hear when you walk across snow. _the time I cried because I could not help it on the train from Hamburg to Prague because I was certain if ever there was a time to cry, this was, without a doubt it. _popcorn. _words. _black skin. _mountains. _timescales only geologists are patient enough to bother about. _racecar driving. _lust. _the equations governing electromagnetic radiation. _the taste of salt from kissing a woman's eye when she's crying.
see?
*
... protect the bearer of this blessed Tablet, and whoso reciteth it, and whoso cometh upon it, and whoso passeth around the house wherein it is.
Usually it takes 13-or-so minutes to reach it. It's a slow building process. Standing waves made of words. Patterns. It starts like a little rattle. Usually the tea-saucer a few feet away. I hear it start to shake. No one else notices, so I don't make much of a fuss. When we get to O Thou my soul! the plate falls to the ground. There are crumbs now everywhere. Still. No one notices. The words carry on. I am concerned, I tune back in. I close my eyes. I notice my head nods to it in time. I hear something moving behind me. I look back, the bookcase jitters. Don't look, don't look. I turn away. Close my eyes. Everywhere it starts now. Cutlery in the drawers, the lights begin to twitch on and off. Outside, I can't tell if it's still sunny, the cat that had been staring at us through the glass turns to wind and glides away. The painting on the wall adds to the sound. O Ravager... strong... soo strong. And then: the explosion. The Holy-Grail of physics. How to generate a force-field. How to rub hands together and close eyes tight enough and hum in the right order to generate electricity. My hair stands upright. I am breathless. The rhythm of my heartbeats has been reset (clear?). I pant my way out of that darkness shortly after. And look around... nothing is the same. The universe changes each time to accommodate those words.
*
No God is there but Thee, Who hearest and art ready to answer.
-what?
read it again.
it...
read it again.
Thee
hearest
ready
answer.
I...
it means it'll be ok.
read it again. again. again.
(I am am)
God
Who
art ready
we'll be right.
you see?
Thee
ready
it'll be alright.
read it again. again.
art ready
art ready
(again. again)
(faster)
No God.
Thee
ready.
Answer.
Hearest.
hearest
hearest
hearest
ready.
again.
_____again.
(don't say anything else.
________________that's perfect.
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