July 25, 2010

Mother’s birthday, deep dark before morning, one bird in the weeds chirping hopefully. Listening to “Gaude Flore Virginale” from the Eton Choirbook, oddly right for a dark summer morning, already hot, or still hot from the day before.

I think of conversations I heard around me while we waited in perplexity and rising fury for our flight to Asheville, still only five days ago. A member of the sewer board was on the phone the while with colleagues in city government, talking about meetings, scheduling or rescheduling meetings, gossiping about meetings, providing a fascinating glimpse into the workings of city government, where items such as with where the mayor sits at a meeting are read as though they were the guts of sacrifice. Another city official later appeared in the flesh, and the two men talked with each other–often while still also on their phones. Terry Bellamy was the topic much of the time, her capriciousness and her–to them–mad unconcern with proportion and procedure, offering a buy-out of the airport at one point, which left her colleagues gaping at its randomness and probable illegality. The second official quoted someone as saying she was the most frustrating city official he had ever worked with. Me, I suddenly saw her in color and three dimensions, and however frustrating she was for them, I was interested in city government in a way I had not been before.

US Air responded to my bitching with a gift certificate. All right then.

Meeting last night at the Charlotte Street Pub with MA, who is looking fulfilled and happy. It was a wonderful evening, our conversation ranging through books and art and poetry, deeper and wider than I have been able to delve in conversation in a long time. What they say about common interests being sometimes vital is true, after all, and a lesson for one who often has his most intimate relations with people with whom he has nothing at all in common, except that. MA has begun sending me poems which are sensationally good, with a a voice unique and authoritative from the first line. The people around us sometimes broke into our conversation, it was that good.

Have been writing almost heroically, stopping only when knocked out by the heat. Why I never thought of getting a cheap fan for this rom until this second I don’t know. Guess I felt suffering was part of the admonition.

Chat with BB, who has finished another book of angry political philosophy. Something in his presentation allows people to ignore how systematic he is.