Subversion & Street Dogs

(1)

He said:
I was walking down the street; well suited, cupcake in hand. I had this Rage Against The Machine song blasting on my iPod. I felt so subversive.

I replied:
No, dude, that was not subversive. That was inversive. I like to think that subversive acts are a bit more performative, or at least audible.

He said:
Can I use that in my poem?


(2)

Among the characters that I miss the most since returning from India, are Mumbai's ridiculously unusual street canines. At a ratio of one to every couple of street blocks, these dudes are a sub-culture onto their own.

The fact that I am occupying precious blog space writing about dogs is already something of note — I'm a devoutly self-professed cat person. I’ve never owned a dog nor have any future desires. I’ve periodically bonded with friends’ dogs in the way one, as a camp counselor, might grow fond of children. For the most part I’ve had issues figuring out the proper angle of the Alpha gaze, the perfect excuse for deflecting an invitation to someone’s house when menstruating, and the absurdity of having to point the finger each time the poor creatures flatulate.

But the street dogs of India. Well, they’re really not dogs at all. More feline than canine. More reserved than gentlemen. More soul than anything. Instantly fascinating and totally unforgettable. And very much at the heart of the understated rhythm of my Bhulabai Dessai Road neighborhood:


Raju, the little prince of our lane, unmoved by the erratic stream of near skin flinching automobile encounters. Karmically speaking, no one would dare hit him. Instinctively, he was impervious to harm. Slept curled, catlike, under the cars. Challenged the night sky to impromptu singing competitions. Kept the lane watchmen company by their fragrant street fires.


Then there was, the white dog, who appeared each morning as we walked to Satsang. A ritual altered only by our delays and accelerations. If we were early, she’d be turning the bend to her corner; if on time, she’d be settling into a morning sit; if late, she’d meet our eyes at a distance.


By my second week in the neighborhood, I had gotten into a habit of carrying around a one kilogram bag of All-Veg Pedigree dog food (laboriously procured, at the local Pharmacy, for a set of temple cats; there is no cat food in India). On a couple of occasions, I had offered both dogs a handful to supplement their regular street diets and both seemingly refused the food until I intuited the following ritual:

a) Make some coy eye contact and say hello.
b) Put a handful of the food a couple of feet from chosen dog, being sure that the food is nearer to the building side of the pavement (versus roadside).

The dog will tentatively eye the food while performing a slight-footed deer-like stomp and bow.

c) Invite the dog to re-approach the food with a generous hand gesture.
d) Pat the dog on its head while crouching at head level. Say good-bye. Walk away.
e) Never look back or else the dog will get embarassed and abandon all attempts at eating.

Kinda mystical, this ritual. Like a puja of sorts.

Sprung

There’s a startling warmth in the air. Unusual for mid-April in Boston; suggestive of the obviously errant climate shift. As a result, this weekend, things have rapidly modified along my local urban walkways.

The Scientologists mark street corners like feral cats, Red Sox nation struts its fugly all-American red n’ caps, random geese suicidally waddle along car ramps and the air is heavy with the darling smell of premature May buds.

It is obviously Spring — full force. And, it’s time to go outside. So today, we did.

The plan was to take a long leisurely stroll through the local Arboretum (a vast outdoor park-scape filled with a wide variety of flowering deciduous trees; none of which I can name). Ahead of this stroll, we decide to take a quick early season peek at shoes. This is done mostly for Ani, who has been proven to have seasonal shoe disorder. I offer to scope out a block of Newbury Street with her. Just one block. Nothing really.

Right?

Suffice to say, that a mere 150 feet, a couple of Thom Browns (one retail; one outlet) and a Steve Madden later, I’m audibly feeling:

(1) that I am the wrong gender for spring/summer shoes
(2) that I should be 18
(3) that I should be a teenage prostitute

So we leave.

We skirt back past the Scientologists, the random geese, some strange intermittent smell of cabbage and head (via car) to our initial destination — The Arnold Arboretum.

The Arboretum is immediately arboreal and photogenic. The place is filled with jaunty canines, mismatched couples, bold Magnolias, unapproachable Bonsai, the staring ones, the stared-at ones, dormant rabbits and an abandoned tennis ball. Waking life. So perfectly cyclical. So often overlooked.

I took some photos — in case you haven't gotten out lately:

The Sweetest Day

Lately, creativity seems to be my primary offensive move against Ego getting the best of me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shedding that capital E anytime soon ‘cause it kinda keeps me from becoming too amorphous and amoebic. After all, we use ego to classify ourselves into these individualized human packages — and in the grocery store of life this is what I'd call spice (and variety).

To keep apace with any potential interest some of you may have in my word wads — I’m compiling legs, arms, ears, crotches, spines, eyes, shoulders [typographically speaking] for our combined pleasure. Like this theater poster design I just finished:


My friend Rachel Perlmeter is the director. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill wrote The 3 Penny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) in Germany during the 1920s. The play is jazzy, cabaret while offering a powerful critique on the capitalism of Germany's Weimar Republic.


**

Those marks are particularly helpful when one is about to go off on a massive tangent.

Recently, a friend shared this SFist link about a hiker falling to her death at the Marin Headlands.

The Headlands are my favorite place to hike, ocean gaze and meditate. The last time I was there, I lead my GF up a rather cliffy shortcut after getting us trapped on a bit of beach that had gotten predictably cut off by a high-tide I chose to ignore. That short-cutting act probably introduced a mysterious mite-like bite to my lower left leg that morphed into an even more elusive rash about a week later and consequently took several meds a month to eradicate. We could have fallen.

Only The Classical Bits

All who know me well, know that I'm a shameless electronica/dance music addict. Mix in a sizeable dose of 80s New Wave; re-mixes of World Music that reek of tabla and haunting vocals; and select departures into EuroPop — and a picture of my musical soul begins to come into Macro focus.

True. All that — with a minor exception. Rarely brought out. Experientially induced.

This time this positive induction process was brought on by a friend named David McGrory and his piano recital named "The Music of Literature." David actually makes a full-time adult living as a concert pianist and music director — nothing aside (no pint pouring, shoe polishing, patron gesturing).

Yes. I willingly attended an afternoon Classical piano recital at an, ahem, library. Lethal combination. But there's so much more to this than the causal mention of two of the most repellent concepts to the average mediated mind:

(1) classical anything, and (2) The Library.

If you've made it this far you are by default un-average and literate. Bravo. Or maybe you're just humoring me. Whichever — applaudable both.

So, the solo piano program:

10 Pieces from Romeo & Juliet — Sergei Prokofiev
6 Character Pieces from Don Quixote — Erich Wolfgang Korngold
"Dante's Sonata" — Franz Liszt

Some of you may already understand the faceted draw here. I like to overlap my interests. Ah, the webs within which we delightfully surrender our wings. How regally, archaically noble.

Anyhow. Dénouement? Yeah.

Prokofiev is Russian and — as far as early 20th century classical music goes — rocks. A large statement on my part as I tend to be partial to Baroque music. But then again I'm also partial to most things Russian (meat products, Stoly-Elite vodka, poetry). And, it so happens that the Montagues and Capulets piece from Romeo and Juliet is one of my all time favorite bits of Classical music goodness. I have a bright memory of Jenna (one of my BFs from high school) and I, laying on tables in a darkened painting parlor of our school's art building enraptured by this sound:



I preferred the simplicity of David's solo piano version. His rendition reduced the grandiosity of the full orchestral piece while preserving the delicious core.

Let's go forth, shall we?

So, the Don Quixote bit. First off, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, was a wee boy of 12 when he not only read this jaunty [sic.] tome, but took it upon his little self to write 6 character pieces (for the piano) evoking the mood of said book. Wünderkind. Sigh. And we wonder whether the perceptions of the adolescent mind are worthy of our attentions. Seriously, people — this should resonate deeply.


Love little Korngold's bow-tie-esque thing, almost as much as this girl's:


Right. I've digressed.

Um. Okay. So, via this child's overtly mature musical odyssey:

Don Q dreams of heroic deeds; Sancho rides a grey donkey; Don Q goes forth; Dulcinea exists; adventure is attempted; it all ends in the loss of a dream and death. Fabulously delusional and sad sad sad.

Think think. Recall.

Lastly, David performed a piece spawned by Liszt's 19th century vacay in Florence (Italy) during which the composer read Dante's Divine Comedy [aka. Inferno]. At this point I became fixated by the idea that the painting framing David's hunched shoulders [Juana Romani's The Reader] was that of Dante's Beatrice. I would share the work, but it has faded into such obscurity that I can't really find it on the internets. So instead I'll share another favorite:


Degas. Girl in a tub. That is all. Back to the recital.

Much of the audience was old, asleep or absent ... but such is the demographic of life. The awake and aware are most likely to note that the smell of an old library is not unlike that of a church. And that there is, in fact, such a thing as the sound of silence.