The Magic Thread

I once walked on the beach at Playa del Rey with the poet, Jack Gilbert. He talked about the difference between poetry and prose. Poetry has an element of magic, he said.

The world is a magical place. You don’t need the Surrealists to tell you that, though we do love works of art like Andre Breton’s Nadja that dramatize this web of connections beneath the surface of reality.

This magical synchronicity seems to happen more with certain people than others. Listen to what happened when Willis and Sarah came to Paris a few months ago this summer:

 

For you to fully grok these coincidences, I have to first introduce you to the dramatis personae—six people, many, but not all, of whom already knew each other. They are:

Willis, poet and translator.

Sarah, Willis' wife, expert on, and author of, books on Chinese furniture, architecture and art.

John: food writer and cartoonist.

Varda: psychologist.

And Richard and I, poetic and mythical string surrealists.

Six people who have all spent varying amounts of time in Paris:

Willis first came to Paris in 1948 for a year at the Sorbonne. He knew The Father of Dada, Tristan Tzara. Willis wrote poems then, and writes poems now—some forty or so this Paris trip, during the couple of months he and Sarah spent in July and August.

Richard and I have been coming to Paris individually for years, and together since our honeymoon in 1997, and now live here.

John was in Paris for two months this summer, as he was last summer, when we introduced him to Varda, who’s lived here since the ‘90s.

(The thread goes back further, but more on that later.)

Richard and I were to meet Willis and Sarah for café at Les Deux Magots. When we arrived, there were no tables for four outside, so we settled in at two tables in the glassed-in section between the sidewalk café and the interior, with a view of the street.

We arranged the tables so that they would have the best view, which is what you do with friends. But until they arrived, we’d sit facing out, in order to spot them.

Who should we spy but John, who happened to stroll by and sit down at a table near the entrance. This spot has special resonance for us. It’s where we drew the picture in our Dream Book two years ago of our plan to move to Paris, back when it seemed a mirage.

Richard tapped John on the shoulder, and invited him to join us. John sat down with us (surprise! We’d never bumped into each other in Paris before.)

A few minutes later, Willis and Sarah arrived.

I’d last seen Willis at an Eco-poetry festival that Richard and I had produced at Ballona Wetlands, where Willis read his poems. Richard had seen him more recently in the Bay Area where they began their quest for abandoned shoes chronicled in an earlier post.

I hadn’t met his wife, Sarah, yet. She was shy and graceful, an Asian art historian in pearls.

Though in his 80s, Willis has the zest of a young boy. We introduced him and Sarah to John, who happens to live most of the time right near them in the Berkeley-Oakland hills.

We ordered drinks. John was only able to stay with us for fifteen minutes, he said; he was meeting our mutual friend, Varda, for dinner.

“Varda,” said Willis. “A girl named Varda broke my heart when I was 10 years old. I kissed her, and the next day she brought me an envelope, which I opened with excitement to find another envelope, and inside that was another one, like Russian nesting dolls, and finally in the center… nothing.” He mimicked being crushed. “So I knew my love was hopeless.”

We knew that Willis had lived in New York City as a child, which would have been more than seventy years ago.

“This Varda lived in NYC,” I said. I felt a thread pulling taut.

He mentioned her last name.

I had traveled in Vietnam with her, and had learned her maiden name. “It’s the same Varda!” I exclaimed.

All of our mouths fell open. What were the chances that John would walk by, stop at Les Deux Magots before dinner, join us and Willis and Sarah, mention within fifteen minutes the name of the friend with whom he was having dinner, and that she would be Willis’s first (though unrequited) love, whom he hadn’t seen in over 70 years? 70 years bridged in fifteen minutes.

John was flabbergasted.

But we were about to go out of town to a friend’s wedding. “Please, please wait for a few days to have the reunion—we’d love to be there!” we pleaded.

Later we learned that John was so excited to tell Varda the story that he turned it into a game of “This is Your Life” over dinner. At first she didn’t recognize Willis’s name, then suddenly the memory of a T-shirt that Billy wore broke through.

But in spite of John’s request, Varda couldn’t wait to have the reunion.

We were disappointed, since we had an overwhelming desire to see this magical thread that extended from us to Willis to John to Varda and back 70 years in time to another continent--a Paris play!--reach its dramatic fruition.

But we heard about it from John.

Later, musing on the thread connecting us all, I thought about its further reach.

I remembered the night in Paris that Richard and I arrived at our apartment, anticipating that the renovation would be complete, and discovered that all the walls had been painted gray-green, which gave us the feeling of being a couple of peas in a bowl of pea soup.

We had to move into a temporary apartment on rue du Bac, while our apartment was being re-painted. Now our plans to begin furnishing the place were so delayed, we couldn’t possibly finish it in the time we had.

We sprawled on two couches in the rue de Bac apartment, feeling depressed. (Oh, you poor things, stranded in the 6^th arrondissement in Paris.)

Let’s call Connie, Richard suggested. And we did. We had never met her, but my friend, Carol, had been urging us to meet for several years.

Connie invited us to join her and several friends in one hour for a film and dinner. It was a Ronald Colman film, based on Oscar Wilde’s play, Lady Windermere’s Fan.

More synchronicity! We happened to live in the beach shack Colman once owned in Playa del Rey. That night, we met Connie, Susan, Diane and Varda all for the first time.

Connie was the cousin of a good friend from my years in Santa Fe. I’d met Carol one night at a restaurant where I was reading a book of poems by Denise Levertov. She greeted me, and I soon joined her poetry workshop.

The thread that connected Carol and me was poetry.

The thread that connected Willis and Richard was poetry.

And the thread that connected Richard and me to John and Connie and Varda and back to Willis and Sarah was the poetry of the universe. 

 

Surrealist Café Opens!

On today's menu, the results of our first Surrealist Café community collage.  Readers will recall that we asked you to walk into a cafe precisely at 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 30, and record, in whatever medium you chose (poetry, prose, photography, etc.), what you observed.  These contributors seized the time, and amazed us with their originality, fecundity and talent.  All contributions are (c) 2011 by their individual creators.

This post is dedicated to the memory of our friend, mentor, role model, and surrealist creative, Jane Winslow Eliot, who died at home in Venice, California on Sunday, July 31.

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Margo Berdeshevsky, Starbucks, Rue de Rivoli, Paris, France:

 

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John Harris, Les Deux Magots, Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris, France:

Hemingway would have called her "a well built woman," meaning sturdy and with a good shape. Her long hair, cascading in multi-colored curly strands reflects light like the leaves of Paris' majestic plane trees. She is reading Sartre's Nausea in French, and I know she is French because she wears her clothes well, and not the other way around--as with many chic American women. If there is a "seduction" factor in France that goes deeper than sex, it is here in the café, where Hemingway and his women float through like ghosts, making my heart beat faster.

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Diane Sherry Case, Starbucks, 26th and Wilshire, Santa Monica:

I wanted this to be playful. But in came a girl with a bashed-in face. Her remorseful boyfriend spent the night in jail, bloody fists and bloodless heart. He remembered their love way too late as his fist flew toward her face and he just couldn’t stop it, he just can’t stop it. I wanted this to be fun. But here she is, her lips caked with blood. Her son came home all hyped up and wired, swearing, You stupid bitch. Then out flew her truth. I never wanted you to begin with, I was sixteen years old. I just wanted to be playful. But here she stands with a bruised green nose. Plastic surgery, what are credit cards for? A new nose, some pouty lips, as if men will come running with hard-ons for her, a hundred hard-ons, she could choose. She picks up her purse, afraid to be seen, and leaves, as the kid with the derby stands there calling her name, Stella, chai latte, Stella, chai latte. 

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Janelle Balnicke, mobile sidewalk cafe, Worthing-on-Sea, England, UK:

See Worthy Widow Walking by Worthing-on-Sea, Saturday July 30th 1PM

 

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Tara Ison, Steve's Espresso, Tempe, AZ, USA:

A chalkboard whiteboard blank-parchment fresh-drywalled neck nape, this faceless fetus-soft young boy sitting there back to me, young man man-boy, spread sheet of buttered filo leaves asking to be rolled stuffed baked tasted swallowed whole, a new-shelled pink abalone steak slab smelling of weed and salt and waiting to be licked and nipped by wolves, sniffed and gripped by some mean old bitch who has gone from buttery young flesh herself to crusty dry talon’d owl, who who who is she anymore to taste wet plump tongue and will he leave flee finish his coffee and leap upon his hyped-up hipster sneakered feet and buoyant himself away, will the back of his young man boy neck escape so easily my horned veined crepe’d hand before I am over and done? 

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Stuart Balcomb, Rose Café, Venice, CA, USA: 

TEN CITIES: See how the scene and circumstances change with each new location:

Los Angeles: the Player, in his requisite Hollywood black, pitching a script to a hot, young actress.

Seattle: art dealer in Pioneer Square, lunching with his gallery assistant.

Buenos Aires: metal sculptor in La Boca, tourists from Florida at next table.

Boston: jazz club owner, discussing his lease with landlord's wife.

Seville: meeting his daughter-in-law for the first time, his only son having died last week.

Perpignan: owns four fishing boats, wants to sell one.

Albuquerque: Hitman, flown-in to find former mob member, now in the Witness Protection Program.

Munich: Belgian tourist, imploring his estranged niece to stay and have a litre of Hefeweizen.

Palm Springs: retired airline pilot, moved here for his asthma condition.

San Francisco: bartender on his day off, lunching with waitress he secretly loves, but won't ever tell her.

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Scott MacFarlane, The Bunker, Mount Vernon, WA, USA:

“Bunker”

One o’clock      
     home      
     from the inferno, from her      
     duodenum raging            
          like Der Führer concussed in his bunker, 
          like a pickax impaling the blue iris of her mortality,
          like stillbirthing.

“I can’t live like this.” Woe and tears
     drip
     drip
     drip of drugs
          end her Third Reich of agony,
          extract the axe
          resurrect the old her,
     day-to-day. 
          Saturday’s
          peace of 
          acquiescing
          pain.

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Ann Denk, Café Inconnu, Newport Beach, CA, USA: 

 

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Joanne Warfield, Rose Café, Venice, CA, USA:  

Little Kenzo

Ahh, little Kenzo, full of pure joy,
What’s to become of this four-year-old boy?

A rocket scientist or a priest yet to be?
What lies in his future, the world will soon see.

There’s hope, I do glean, in his backpack of books,
and in the kind eyes of his mother’s sweet look.

With all of our children so gently embraced,
This surely would foster a true state of grace.

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Steve De Jarnatt, Food, Pico Boulevard, West Los Angeles, CA, USA:

A familiar face.  A face that feeds me. On the Westside now. But it had given sustenance mid-town for years. It all came back one day. Judy, Judy – Judy’s.

I’m a regular — tri-salad to go, meatloaf from heaven. Comfort. FOOD. And idle, always interesting chat. The Eames—ADD—locavores. Today I go by ruled by time, on an expedition to capture a moment. But she’s not in today far as I can see. I scour the faces. Families picking crusts like any other, the solitary ones who homestead a table for the day—the Gort glow of their MacBooks winking. Nothing to write home about. Or to Paris.

There she is — in the kitchen. Judy’s reddened mug. Overseeing something emerging from the oven? Crying. With someone else who’s crying. Through the portal square, framed beside The Specials. String hair down from the bun. Moving from the frame, off stage—unknown.

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Suki Kitchell Edwards, 8100 feet up Animas Mountain, Durango, CO, USA: 

 

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Dawna Kemper, Pat’s, Topanga Canyon, CA, USA:

Bright yellow bandana-print muumuu fringed bottom smocked bodice you keep pulling up to cover the bikini top with the cacophony of black and white letters pressed against each other. What do they say? (I can’t tell without staring.) Speaking Spanish to the waitress to your husband to God. Unruly waves of dull brown hair pushed free of your face by a wide stretchy black band bold in your pockmarked makeup-free beauty. Flip flop dangles and falls from your pink lacquered toes and stays off, foot dangling free naturally expressive the hands, too, painting words while you speak chopping smoothing waxing the air in front of you. You eyed my boyfriend’s plate when it arrived, then back to talking niños with your husband hands still moving pausing only when your own plate of eggs was delivered, latching hands with your man to offer up a whispered rezo a Dios.

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Bruce Moody, Café Inconnu, Crockett, CA, USA:

The Crimson Jumper

She walked a hundred miles in one week, once. From a disappointment in love. She didn’t know where she walked. Those old roads. Her head down. Just walked. Until love fortified itself in her, and dropped off its silver lamé of being duped. Now she sits guarded by her garments, which are unremarkable, which fit, which are comfortable and offer neither disguise nor invitation. She bends over her gadget. It does not mean anything to her, but it works for work. This is a strong woman, the air around her declares. Or a stronger woman. Stronger than before. She does not trumpet it. It is just in the air, like oxygen is in the air. Useful. Wiser. Benevolent.

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Lorie Adair: Steve’s Espresso Café, Tempe, AZ, USA:

He scratches behind an ear, cups his chin in a hand pale as a fish. He speaks to a friend; his mouth is thin, teeth the color of dishwater. Reaching into his pocket, he shifts to stand. At 6’ 3”, his thin legs poke from blue scruffs. He removes an I-Touch, rubs his fingers along the screen. He listens to his friend, grunts, holds the Touch 8 inches from his face. He sets it on the table, nods at his companion then lifts the screen again. He tilts it; a background beat of Soul. He stands, signals the barista. “Another to go.” He flips open courier bag, placing Touch in its pocket, angling laptop in its slot. Humidity like sex. Later, he reaches for the Touch, scrolls through the list, his forefinger sliding along glass. Caressing black space, he forgets the color of her eyes, the brand of lipstick she wears.

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Patrice Bilawka, Café Literati, West Los Angeles, CA, USA

Dusty Brogues

The Stranger strolled into the café and took his place across from me. Every day, same time—10 a.m. Just like me. He rarely looked around, but when he did he would sometimes cringe. His eyes were a blue, watery abyss. We never spoke. But I thought, “Maybe today… yes, maybe I should say hello.” Would I smile, or nonchalantly stammer a quick greeting? I would just do it. And whatever came out would be fine. I was looking at his shoes. Dusty brogues. Then I brought up my glance, and…the Stranger disappeared. He didn’t get up and leave, or switch to a different chair. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed. No. But he was gone. Do crazy people know they are going crazy? Do they keep things to themselves, like seeing people disappear? That was 7 weeks 2 days and 4 hours ago. The Stranger has not returned, and I have not seen anyone vanish since.

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Jon Hess, Café Literati, West Los Angeles, CA, USA:

"We close in five minutes," says the cricket behind the counter at Café Literati. Her fabulous gold hoop earrings sway, patting her neck. Her freckles are peach colored. "Well?" Her smile is nice -- her sadness deep. Her guitar is waiting for her in the trunk of her beat-up old Honda Civic. Chairs are put on tables. I'm the last customer. I wanted to tell her that I came here to write about her for my friend's blog "Paris Play." But then the seductive mystery of not knowing would be shattered and she would no longer be a stranger. Then I want to tell her to never stop singing, because her music heals her. The room is quiet for a moment. Minutes later, I step onto the LA street and imagine Paris.

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Richard Beban, Café André Breton, Paris, France:

At Play In The Surrealist Café

Today the sun begins its annual passage through the Lion constellation. It’s time to get serious—about play.

“What if?” the Surrealists liked to ask.

What if all of you, or many of you, or the lion-hearted and the playful among you, were to participate with us in a Surrealist game?

Yes? 

Of course you would!  Here's how:

1.)  On Saturday, July 30, precisely at 1 p.m. in your time zone, wherever you are in the world, walk into your favorite café;

2.)  pick one stranger walking by, or in the room;

3.)  write a paragraph (150 words maximum), or a poem (same word count), take a photo, or draw a picture, or even write a song, about him or her. Abstract, figurative, or realist, you choose.

And what if you sent your café composition to us by Tuesday, August 2, at 6 p.m. Paris time, and we published it in Paris Play the following Saturday, August 6?

What sort of collage would be created by all your various hearts and minds?

Forget whether you’re an artist, or a student, or a lawyer, or a mother, or all of the above. The point of this is the magic of collaboration and synchronicity. Please join us!

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“Of the three metamorphoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child…. But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred "Yes." For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred "Yes" is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world.”

—Thus Spake Zarathustra, part I, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann.