By appointment only
A list of things from March
It’s tough to say what March was like on account of my calling in sick and playing hooky for the whole thing. I received no praise or A+ or red pen marginalia, in fact they may fail me, out of March that is, but at least I didn’t have to sit and listen to the lesson.
I don’t need a teacher; in my own time I’ve learned lots. I learned that I am made of something similar to silver, a good and precious metal, and I shine in the light, but only when I want to and never when someone else points the light at me. I am better being naked on my own terms. I am not available by the slice. I am not available at all.
If you’re new here, here is some context for how these monthly diaries are structured.
Call to adventure
I was devastated to learn about the critically endangered craft list—The Red List—where non-profit UK organization Heritage Crafts ranks types of craft that are soon to become extinct, lest we learn and practice them. Now feels like a good time to stop everything and delve into mastery. I’ll do horsehair weaving and tinsmithing, you learn pointe shoe making and lithography.
Threshold
Gathering at the edges and dripping wet with clarity, I’m drinking from the cup of Celine Breton. The French artisan/designer creates these magical woven textiles with fibres and beads, among other things, telling stories and forming bodies. If something can be magic and also sexy, this is the Something.
Guide
This month I read How To Watch Basketball Like A Genius, where I fell for the cover’s sacreligious depiction of Rodin’s Thinker, and I was not let down. I am constantly trying to better understand/verbalize/tactilize why I love the sport of basketball, in all its sinewy visual glory. This book tries to abstract the sport into a construction of rules and styles, and gathers opinions from physicists, sommeliers, cartographers, etc. on the art of strategy and form.
Temptations
In the (slow) process of refining my new kitchen setup, I made the mistake of going to 50 Norman in Greenpoint—now I lust after every piece of Japanese cookware they stock. In particular, I have my eye on a set of countertop Yakumi pans, this knife, and 1000000 tiny beautiful ceramic cups.
Revelation
Soft, candy-coated mountains and rivers flowing with whipped cream; Jongsuk Yoon’s Azalea Spring exhibition at Marian Goodman gallery. Her paintings are landscapes, in theory, but created purely with intuition and gesture and no regard for realist topography. The bubblegum pinks welcome you inside with a kiss on both cheeks, the butter yellows take your hand to guide you deeper. I let my mind run ahead of the group and she got lost in June, swam around under the blue sky, and retraced her steps to get back out into my body, which was standing in front of the painting for some time.
Transformation
I philosophize my appearance: Don’t feel soft around me, or eager, I will have no nonsense, and the only delicacy I respect is truth. I keep cutting my hair shorter and shorter, and keeping the edges blunter and blunter, it’s my BEWARE OF DOG sign hanging off the front fence. How else can I convey my severity without baring my teeth? Still I try to remain elegant, bare-skinned but not beautiful, so that I have the small power of surprise.
Atonement
I watched Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty on YouTube, and I’ve only just discovered that there are dozens and dozens of full ballets on there to watch. I love the internet. I’ll put a ballet on in the background while I’m writing, or cooking, and let it clarify me.
Return
Adding Ten Things I Hate About You to the list of eight movies total that I’ve seen and loved in my lifetime. I enjoyed all the subtle literary references, from the broad narrative adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew to the good-bad high school english class poetry. I don’t oft participate in poetry, but this month I read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (found a PDF here), and savoured poems with similarly yearnful tendencies. I sat up particularly straight for this one, on the painful and profound nature of change:
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. The Sea that calls all things unto her calls me.
Thank you, as always, for hearing my ridiculous riddles and opting to cross the bridge with me anyhow. I’m hopeful that next month will yield a more attentive mind and a more open heart.
It’s getting warmer now too,
I think watching basketball is like watching giant ballerinas which is why you like basketball and ballet equally.
The Heritage Crafts red list broke something in me the idea that horsehair weaving and pointe shoe making are going extinct while we’re all busy optimizing our morning routines. Also, the Jongsuk Yoon paragraph is beautiful writing in itself: your mind running ahead of the group and getting lost inside a painting, then swimming back into your body. That’s what gallery visits actually feel like but nobody describes it that honestly. And “I am not available by the slice” :) I’m stealing that.