Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Tuesday, Dec 18—Read Kevin Killian's Fascination . Who would have guessed that the North Shore of Long Island was so full of incident and pathos in the 70s? This three-decker memoir is in search of lost time, the writer's teens and twenties, lived in a haze of drugs and drink and drool-worthy boys. "Move along the velvet rope, run your shaky fingers past the lacquered zigzag Keith Haring graffito: "You did not live in our time! Be Sorry!"" Friday, Dec 28—Saw the Indian's Progressive Artists' Group show at Asia Society. Ram Kumar's "Unemployed Graduates" (1956), F. N. Souza's "Tycoon and the Tramp" (1955) and "Girl with the Silken Whip" (1963), and S. H. Raza's two "Ls Tere"'s (1973 and 1985) were stand-outs. My favorite painting was V. S. Gaitonde's Untitled (1962) abstract work, commissioned by Air India. After the show GH and I had Spanish tapas, Barcelona-style, at the very fine Boque...

It's National Poetry Writing Month again, and I've started a project tentatively titled "50 States in 50 Days," as a way of getting to know this country better. Suggestions welcomed. Here's Day One: Alabama Why would you want to see a natural disaster, even if it’s the greatest? Visit the Vulcan instead, cast-iron god holding up his new spearhead to the sun. You can’t see the impact crater, even though the impact rim is intact. You can only walk in the maze of rings of fractured rock, more than 3 miles across, hope to find in the ground a splinter of shocked quartz, which proved this is indeed a star-wound. * PB invited GH and me to a sake tasting last night. Terada Honke has brewed sake for more than 340 years in Kozaki, in Chiba Prefecture, 87.5 km to the northeast of Tokyo. The lecture was by the 24th Head, Masaru Terada, who married into the family, like the two generations before him. The brewing house specializes in so-call...

I'm going to record my daily activities more faithfully on this blog. It is the main on-line repository of my memories. I've been working on Snow at 5 PM this Thanksgiving break. Yesterday GH and I had brunch with Dan Liu at Maison Harlem. He shared about the way he catalogues his images. One useful tip was to keep hi-res assets on Dropbox, which can be accessed from any device. For Thanksgiving dinner, GH and I went to Barawine. I had good mussels and a passable Sancere. Then we came home and watched Last Vegas, a 2013 comedy starring Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline, and directed by Jon Turteltaub. Good script and acting. The plot is so-so. The movie confirmed our prejudice against Las Vegas.

Met Maureen Hoon for lunch yesterday at Sovlaki Midtown. Really juicy lamb chops, in pieces easily handled with fingers. Pita bread made in house and on the day. Maureen showed me some images of her new art project, which arose out of her response to a deeply moving piece of music about loss. We talked about the fundraiser for Singapore Unbound. After leaving her, I worked on Does grass sweat in the New York Public Library branch near me. Jacques the day before gave me an important clue to the character of Sam Fujimoto-Meyer. He described his son as being a moral absolutist. Since young, he has always wanted to know who the bad guys are. This despite his enormous intelligence and wide reading. The two are not contradictory. In the evening, we finished watching a queer movie from Venezuela. An older man started a relationship with a young gangster. When the young man wanted to show his gratitude to the older man, he killed the man's father since the man had said how much he wished h...

Visited Segovia yesterday, just half an hour by train from Madrid. When the bus from the train station approached the old city, everyone was immediately struck by the grand Roman aqueduct running across the public square. The aqueduct also ran underground to the castle. At the museum of contemporary arts, I saw the show of Esteban Vicente's works. Born in Turégano, Spain, he studied art in Madrid, remarking on his experience at the Academy: "It doesn't give you any ideas about anything. It gives you tools, and teaches you about materials. Academic training is safe. It prepares you to be against." He moved with his American wife to the USA a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. One of the first generation of American Expressionists, he knew artists such as De Kooning, Pollock, and Rothko. His works in the Segovia museum were constantly evolving, but maintained a delicate sense of balance. I liked his drawings best: their austerity was sensual and s...

Yesterday was my first full day in Madrid. Woke up at my usual time and worked on the Mothership interview. The gym on my street, Calle Valverde, opened at 9 am. A cute young gay guy was working out there when I arrived. Four other guys came in after me. The equipment was rather worn, but I managed to put in a good workout. Then I went for a run. I had walked around Chuecas on the day of my arrival in Madrid. Yesterday, I ran to the west of my street, and looked around Malasaña. The neighborhood, with its alternative shops and wall posters, reminded me of the Lower East Side. Like the LES, it was also gentrifying, art galleries and such. I decided to walk to the Prado instead of taking the Metro. At the museum, I saw Titian's wonderful "A Knight of Malta with a Clock." Everywhere I was looking for portraits of men in their handsome prime, Caravaggio's young "David with the Head of Goliath" proving an exception. Velazquez was a star of the show. His "L...

Grateful to my well-wishers on Facebook: Thank you for your birthday wishes! I had a terrific Day. Guy gave me a special breakfast treat - pastry and special coffee - and presented me with a chic striped shirt and neat blue jacket. Better still, he went in late for work! Then I worked on new posts for my arts website Singapore Poetry, before having a simple lunch of soup and cheese sandwich. After lunch, I started reading THE NEW VILLAGE, a collection of poems by Chinese-language poet Wong Yoon Wah, translated by Ho Lian Geok and Ng Yi-sheng. So much to learn about Singapore! For dinner, Guy took me to one of my favorite restaurants in New York, Commerce, on, you guess it, Commerce Street. I had a tasty Toscana and Guy an even tastier Rhone wine. My duck was delicious, just two thick slices, cooked just right, pink and crispy in the right places. Guy had a very flavorful curry with root vegetables. Then we had a couple of drinks at Monster Bar, before heading home. I feel very lucky....

inside coils of clay fired by the onggi master fermented cabbage for Michelle Slater Lee Kang-hyo, 'Onggi Master"

Philip Guston, "Shoes," 1972, oil on panel Life got away from me, and so I've not been able to blog it down. So here's catch-up. March 15 evening: GH and I attended a Singapore get-together at P and A's home. I was expecting an informal potluck event, but that showed how out of touch I am with my Singapore friends. A is Singapore's ambassdaor to the UN, and so lived in appropriately well-appointed circumstances. A man took our jackets, another tended to the bar. Yet another took away our dishes after we were done feasting on the buffet dinner. Fortunately P and A were a very down-to-earth couple. Unlike some of the suits there, A was wearing just shirtsleeves. They soon made us feel welcomed. I had not seen P for years, and was pleased to see that she has not changed in appearance or manners, at least not at first re-acquaintance. I met a woman who works for one of the UN bodies, and her husband who teaches management studies at Columbia. There was...

On Tuesday we arrived at Chateau Cervantes in old San Juan. The hotel was done up in a sharp, moden style, but it was strangely empty. We wandered down to the promenade by the bay. The promenade was opened in 1991 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas. GH loved the bluish tiles paving the roads. The city wall rose on one side of the promenade. It opened in the San Juan Gate, through which visiting Spanish dignitaries used to pass into the city. A little square by the right side of the gate was very charming. It had a little fountain and a pool. The colors were so brightly present. We had a very late lunch at Aureole, a restaurant bar across from San Jose Plaza. Our first taste of how slow service was here. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the narrow streets, peeking through wrought iron lattices into homes, GH photographing all kinds of architectural details. I especially liked Salvador Brau Plaza, with its wide and gentle slope. On...

Nice morning surprise. My Pillow Book has been selected as a Staff Pick by Wendy Chin-Tanner at Lantern Review . Thanks, Wendy and LR! Had a wonderfully relaxing time at Aires Ancient Baths yesterday afternoon. GH and I luxuriated in a series of pools of different temperatures. The 97 F warm pool was a gentle introduction. Going from the 102 F hot pool to the 61 F cold pool was supposed to improve one's blood circulation. The propeller jet bath prepared one for the massage, which we added to the bath package and were very glad that we did. My favorite tub was the salt water pool at 100 F, in which one surrendered oneself to the water and floated. There were a steam room too and a lounge to drink tea. The baths were patronized by straight young couples on the day that we were there. We had dinner afterwards at Thalassa , a Mediterranean and Greek restaurant, also on Franklin Street. The fish specials and on the menu were displayed in ice. I chose the Lavraki, which came ...

The last three weekends were busy ones. S and R drove up from D.C. to stay with us overnight on September 29. We went up to the roof of the Met and enjoyed the glittering autumnal view there. Then we had a very nice dinner at le Paris , which I strongly recommend. Columbus Day weekend began on Friday with drinks with DW. We hadn't seen each other for a long time, and the time at Suite Bar passed very pleasantly, so pleasantly that we both wondered afterwards why we were not meeting more often. Then on Saturday, dinner with P and J at Spring Natural Kitchen on the UWS because J wanted to try its organic cooking. Dinner was a success. It was so easy to be with them, so relaxing.  On Sunday G and I went to Philly for the day. We both loved the new Barnes Foundation building, designed by Tod Williams. I was mesmerized by the Matisse dance mural but liked "The Joy of Life" much less than I thought I would. I had the unwanted feeling that the Picasso works in the coll...

Last Friday, after having dinner at Buvette (French and Italian tapas place in Greenwich Village), I watched the film Teddy Bear with WL, DM and BCH at Film Forum. Directed and co-written by Mads Matthiesen, the movie followed a shy bodybuilder's search for love. Dennis had to leave the house in the Copenhagen suburb that he shared with his possessive mother for Thailand where he found true love after a series of mistrials. The ensemble acting was terrific. Kim Kold was an endearing boy in a superman's body. Elsebeth Steentoft brought a frightening intensity to her role as the dominating mother. She was the emotional blackhole that nothing could fill. As true love Toi, Lamaiporn Hougaard was sweet but not saccharine. Her spirit rippled across her face when she was crossed. WL invited me to hear Taka Kigawa play "The Art of Fugue" last night at (le) Poisson Rouge. Kigawa sounded jerky at the beginning as if he was slightly nervous. The playing was somewhat detached...

Heard Orpheus Chamber Orchestra again last night, at Carnegie Hall. Did not care very much for the score or the playing of Tippett's Divertimento on "Sellinger's Round" with its English musical allusions.  Jean-Yves Thibaudet, the French pianist, came on next to play, with Louis Hanzlik on trumpet, Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor. First time I heard the piano concerto, and I loved it for its youthful brio. It brimmed with ideas and moved with zip. Thibaudet was poetic where the music was poetic and brash where it was brash. A tad too civilized, perhaps, but that might be my prejudice against the French. After the intermission, we heard Honegger's languorous evocation of a summer morning. Pastorale d’été was quite lovely, if not exactly ground-breaking. Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings concluded the program. Lush and sentimental. I hated it. I thought the musicians were on auto-pilot. Here was where an original interpreter--a conductor, ...

Listen. I will say this only once—           in your language— tonight’s special is a spring quartet         with pinto beans, capers, bell peppers, wild onions            and a lemon source. You can have either a tambourine          or a side of basilisk but not both. I advise the basilisk.          For drinking I have a medium-bodied Hungarian tune           from lost-and-found. I also have a delicious Sangiovese         but it is not for you. There are three desserts tonight.            Yes, quite a spread. An American confection, heavy,            sweet and empty, nine hundred and eighty calories            minus the Yiddish, a fruit tart in a major chord called           The Less De...

We enjoyed our stay at Caymus Rancho so much that we were quite sad to leave it: the private balcony where GH sketched, I read, and we drank and read while watching the sun set; the tree outside the window in the morning, with leaves in gentle Pissarro colors; the old wooden floor; the split level which elevated the sleeping area, and so gave going to bed a sense of ceremony; and the movie loans for the end of a long, sunshine-saturated day. The Hesse Collection was off the beaten track and on higher ground. The gardens were bursting with flowers and the lotus pond was a long stone rectangle. The art museum was subtly joined to the winery. I loved Robert Motherwell's Open No. 88 for its achieved sense of balance and proportion, while showing its process in the form of erased lines. It inspired me to think about incorporating process into my polish. I also liked Surface Tension, a netting made with twigs pinned together with hawthorn thorns only, no glue or nails. Made by a Scotti...

Hot, but a beautiful day for a walk. I had visited Long Island City for dinner, but had not walked around the neigborhood. We followed a guide in Time Out . After coming out from the underground at Hunters Point, we tried to get brunch at M. Wells diner, but it was still packed at 1:30. We walked over to Vernon Boulevard and ate at Tournesol instead. I had a delicious terrine with foie gras. The server answered my questions about the menu very patiently. Both GH and I had a Bloody Mary, which was also very good. We walked to the new condominium developments at the waterfront. Everything was very well laid out, even overly planned, but the wild grass fringing the boardwalk was sensibly left alone. We dutifully saw the big Pepsi-Cola sign that looked over the East River. The wooden deck chairs and double hammocks were thoughtful additions to the Gantries Park. We walked to PS1 but did not go in. On 45th Avenue was a row of Italianate houses that date from the 1880s, the homes of the af...

Before heading over to Lincoln Center, WCT and I had dinner at Barcibo Enoteca , an Italian tapas and wine bar. WCT did an interesting thing: she picked buffalo mozzarella and Quadrella di Bufula, a semi soft-washed buffalo milk cheese from Lombardy, for the comparison, she said. The salame she chose was a tasty dry aged cured meat, Bresaoloa. I started on a refreshing glass of Lugana while waiting for WCT, and drank Monica, a red wine from Sardinia, during the meal. My pulpo, calamari and shrimp salad was fresh and tasty, though I could not deal with so much octopus tentacle. Putting together a restaurant is a kind of art, Barcibo suggested. The Cleveland Orchestra played as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. For their concerts here, Music Director and conductor Franz Welser-Möst has paired three Bruckner symphonies with works by John Adams. He was quoted in the program as saying: "I sometimes say that Bruckner is in many ways the grandfather of minimalism and I truly believ...

Third day in Boston, last Friday, SK and I went university visiting. We walked round Harvard Yard and into troops of Chinese students touring what could be their future alma mater. SK told me that in China there is a flourishing industry whose sole service is to get local students into American Ivy League schools. The last time I was here, six years ago, it was winter and the Yard was brown and hard. Now I was struck by how green it was. The Harvard Museum of Natural History put on a special exhibition on evolution. The exhibition text was somewhat strident in tone. It insisted that the theory was supported by "overwhelming evidence" and repeated that the theory was a "fact." I loved the glass flowers as much as I did before. So many grasses on display, that the show might be better named Leaves of Glass. We had lunch at the popular Bartleby's Gourmet Burgers. There was a long line. My Michelle Obama (cajun, goat cheese) was good, but nothing special. After ...

Unable--or, unwilling?--to distinguish between a muskrat and a wheelbarrow ("Zodiac"), these poems perform metaphoric transformations, at times with blinding speed. "Saucer" begins: Here is the saucer upon which my father's head pools like coffee. He's beyond medication. The hummingbirds have overtaken him, bricking his smile with sugarcubes. There is precise observation: The mosquito wrinkles against the glass ("Mirror") There is magnification. About Brussels sprouts, Frank, who also authored a food-and-wine memoir Barolo , writes: Architecturally-correct, each is a habitat with staircases. My favorite poem of this debut collection is one I wish I have written. "The Dressmaker's Dummy" begins with a description so sensitive it turns spiritual: She stands as if nobly eviscerated, rib- cage inflated as a balloon, a balloon's skeleton, a mold, a blueprint . . . and develops with an anecdote about his wife in a thrift store, sensing ...