Variations on a book.

A few days ago on The Face, a friend commented that she was about to write by clearing a space on the table, reading a few pages from her "Bible" (which for her, that day, was The English Patient), turning off the internet, and writing. I loved this idea. I brought with me to Idaho a bunch of books that could serve the "Bible" role--for me, for a few days, it was Larry Levis's Selected--and I used this method to jumpstart my writing.

It was amazing to me, though, how deeply some of those poems have penetrated my...what, my tropes? images? paradigms? For instance, this:

I know this isn't much.
But I wanted to explain this life to you, even if
I had to become, over the years, someone else to do it.
You have to think of me what you think of me. I had
To live my life, even in its late, florid style.

That's from "My Story in a Late Style of Fire," from Winter Stars. I bought that book before the first meeting of the first workshop I attended, taught by Larry Levis. Evidently, I have been reading this poem for all the years since. It was, actually, shocking to me. I not only love this poem--it, in some sense, has become me. Or I have become it. I guess this happens with every book that, in some way, forms us.

I remember thinking quite clearly at one point in my life that I no longer wanted to keep having the same arguments. In a sense, I wanted to stop reading the same book. This is, of course, not possible, or at least I have not found it to be so. We keep reading the same books that have read us. These books--the ones that form us--are us. We are them. In this sense, we never really leave our old books behind--our old lives, our old ideas and commitments--we are always in them, they are always in us.

Right now, I am wondering if there's even a point to saying, of this phenomenon, this is terrible or this is true or any such judgement. I am wondering, what, in fact, the Bible is--the rotating cast of sacred books, or beautiful books, or searing, or visionary, or transformative books. Can you choose your Bible? or does it in some way always choose you?

My family used to love to play a little game, where we'd name the top five records, or books, or movies, or whatever--the ones you'd take with you to a place where you'd have those and no other. My kids would always joke with me that I acted like it was real--like I'd never be able to revise my list. I always put Leaves of Grass on my list of books, and I did always put the King James Bible. To me, whatever else it was, it was a book of beautiful language, and parts of it mean a great deal to me--words that feed me. Even when I'm choosing, my old book follows me.

If you are of the book--sacred or secular-- then books that choose you--or the ones that you choose--give you the frame for thinking and feeling. I feel I might never stop being able to read through the original books--the original books speaking, always, through every new text. At this point in my life, I'm not sure why I should even try, aside from understanding that mine--my reading, my writing--isn't the only way.

I am asking myself: what is it that my own poems are doing? what news do they have to deliver? what beauty of their own? what voice or beauty that isn't somehow ventriloquizing, quarreling with, revising, contradicting, singing the old books?

Larry Levis again, speaking in a borrowed voice--the voice of Whitman:

Now that I'm required reading in your high schools,
Teenagers call me a fool.
Now what I sang stops breathing. 

And yet
It was only when everyone stopped believing in me
That I began to live again--

Pardon me, I have only just discovered Paint.

And soon I will meet Elijah James Elliot Davies, 9 lb. 6 oz., just a week overdue and beloved already of his sisters, mother and father.

Mole poblano.

[So: I am making mole poblano with turkey for a family party. I have never made it before. I will be reporting in stages. Rick Bayless is my guide.]

[Note to anyone who is coming to the family party: this will be delicious, I promise. But do not pay attention if you don't actually want to know what is in the dinner. I mean it.]

Stage 1. Toast the seeds and toast some other stuff as well.

But first, put 3/4 of a 15 oz. can of tomatoes in a bowl. Or, guess how much is the equivalent portion of a 28 oz. can, and put that in a bowl.

Then, crumble 2/3 of a tablet of Mexican chocolate into the tomatoes. Try to think of this as a step and not something really disgusting.

Then, assemble all your ingredients for the toasting before you start the toasting. Or, if you are me, toast and scramble for the next item in the list: sesame seeds, coriander seeds, chile seeds (see note below). Then almonds and raisins. Then onion and garlic, a tortilla, and two slices of stale bread.

The toasting seeds is aromatic and not something you should do whilst scrambling for the next item on the list. Happily, there was no scorching. Toasting chile seeds is a heady--not to see cough- and sneeze-inducing--experience for the 30 seconds it lasts.

A note on chile seeds: For this recipe, you are supposed to tear apart piles of dried chiles, taking out the stems and ribs and reserving 2 t. of the seeds. Except I did not find the proper chiles at my store which has a pretty well-stocked Mexican grocery, which even so did not have: ancho, pasilla, or mulatta chiles. I thought to myself, well, I will just get these other kinds of chiles and we'll figure out which ones will approximate. But The Bayless says: "Mole poblano calls for the triumvirate of ancho, pasilla, and mulatta chiles. If you can't find these chiles at your otherwise well-stocked Mexican grocery, pick up your marbles and go home. You are not making mole poblano." So that means I need to go to a real Mexican grocery. Tomorrow. And find ancho, pasilla, and mulatta chiles or die trying.

Anyway! I decided that my inferior chiles could still yield chile seeds, so I tore some up and got the seeds, and toasted them. Heady, cough-, sneeze-inducing. Etc.

Also, I ground up some spices (aniseed, cinnamon, pepper and maybe one other thing), and I toasted the almonds in oil (delicious!) and also the raisins, which, how curious is that? But kind of fun, to watch them puff up, and some onions and garlic, and finally a tortilla and the bread. Toasting toasting toasting. All of this stuff is in a bowl now, each thing getting acquainted with the other.

Tomorrow, assuming I find the illustrious tres chiles, I will fry and soak them, and then blend up the chiles with all of the above along with a lot of broth until it is the mysterious, the ineffable, the awesome mole. I will report how it goes.

Blackbird.

New 500 words: "Four and Twenty Black Birds."

Fresh words.

New 500 Words entry: "The 99 Names."

Updating.

New entry on the 500 Words page: "Seven Days."

Now: who wants to guest-write a 500 Words piece? I know you have 500 words you want to say about *something*.

Pages.

Blogger has static pages now. I will now pause briefly, so that you may reflect. Or maybe you already knew this, in which case, why didn't you let me know?

Here's how to make some static pages on your very own Blogger blog. In case you don't already know.

And now, I have two static pages: one, for my summer reading list, and another for a project I'm calling 500 Words (mouseover for links). I will spare you the background on the latter, but I am hoping to write several short prose pieces on various topics, to which I will alert the readers of this blog in the regular posts. There's one about Don DeLillo up there right now.

Carry on.

Like a heartbeat baby, trying to wake up.

Singing son said recently, when I asked him if he'd listened yet to the new Beck, "I don't like new music, I only like old music."

Of course, even the oldest old music was new music once, but still, he has a point. It's especially great to find out how great an old song is, a song you haven't heard for a long time, or maybe, more to the point, that you never really listened to in the first place.

For instance, "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite." It's on a great album, maybe even a perfect album, Automatic for the People, and the lyrics, which I never really heard until recently, when singing son chose the song for a game of "choose the song" on our way home from Idaho, are awesome. This is a fun game, by the way, with a limited group of people with a bunch of fully loaded iPods between them.

A couple of days later, when my son was helping me pick up my bike and bring it home, he busted out this verse, as he is wont to do, wherever and whenever:

Baby, instant soup doesnt really grab me.
Today I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial.
A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some nescafe and ice,
A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of doctor seuss

Singing son has a little bit of an uncanny ability to mimic the voices of other singers, so his reaching up for the "candy bar" was so Michael Stipe, I could have sworn we were back in the 90s eating at The Grit in Athens, GA. I haven't been able to stop singing this bit of this song to myself now for a couple of weeks. Sometimes, this little bit of the song keeps me awake at night, because I myself need something more sub sub sub substantial.

Anyway, you can check the song out for yourself on the "Pretty Music" feature of this page (upper right hand corner), if you've never heard it, or if, like me, you never really heard it until someone pointed it out to you, while you were driving through the georgian vistas of eastern Idaho, or while waiting for someone to adjust your brakes in a bike shop.

Clarification: In my previous post, I inadvertently implied that I personally threw the baby shower for singing son and his lovely wife. This isn't so--I was just an assistant. The hostess was my daughter the make-up artist, who is a perfect hostess and the impresaria of enjoyment.
It was a swell party, thanks to her.

Right back at ya: Thanks to renaissance girl for her kind words about my blog. Most of the time when I try to say "I love your blog," it comes out more like "when are you going to blog again, already?" Which doesn't have the same gracious ring, come to think of it. I appreciate the words you put out in the world, all of you. Thanks for your messages.