Swallow Cafe

The beloved Archive closed, I saw a glow of activity behind the mesh-grilled windows. Can it be, I thought? It has reopened? Yes, it had indeed. A rather tall, baby-faced, dark eyed man with curly pomaded hair - the owner - told me that it is called the Swallow. "Now, don't be dirty," he cautioned. "No way, I love to swallow a big shot of espresso," I said, noting the rise in my voice's volume. Everyone paused, unsure of my sanity. "Alright, well I look forward to seeing you." We shook hands and I walked next door to have a chicken shawarma.

I went to this party where a cat sat on the bed, and I, loving cats joined it. It sat up, its legs spread-eagled, and bobbing it's head, began to peck at my hand to smell me. what the fuck is wrong with this cat. Its black fur was thick and soft and silky and he was affectionate, letting me stroke his thick neck. I asked a dude named Orion who had funky braids what was wrong with the cat. "He has cerebral palsy." I looked at the cat, its limbs tucked underneath itself. "See how he's doing that? We say that he's baking a loaf."


Tonight is Halloween. I'm going to be a lion. I am sitting at the Swallow, after being satisfied with their macchiato. The decor is more spartan, rustic, European. I am sitting at the back of the cafe in an old movie theatre seat next to an exposed bulb floor lamp. Hanging light bulbs provide industrial light. It is a better fit for us than the Archive, which was old and dirty with worn seats and cushions and baristas who were of a more underground ilk. These baristas are better at making coffee and the red Marzocco machine has white ovular lights that glow like a spaceship. Yes, Daniel Adler likes the Swallow.

Halloween Word Search: A Poem

Autumn's Sonnet

Kiss me under the golden linden trees.
High, heavy, they reached to the ochre sky,
Their ribbed arches a cathedral of leaves.
Remember those consummate lips pass by.
Now the leaves have fallen, brown, crackled, dry;
 The hyperborean night, no release.
 Wings of this darkling thrush do not south fly –
Do the lindens bear it with greater ease?
Spring will come and shroud winter, Autumn’s bloom,
 The ripe gourds gone, an Old Man in their place.
Left to freeze, the harvest met its cold doom
And love’s last sigh lingered without a trace.
Next fall’s bejeweling and fattening sun, 
Will shine on plump, ripened fruit,  not so young.
-Daniel Adler

Twain, Tolstoy and Austen, Oh My!

The literature world is abuzz with news. Mark Twain’s autobiography is finally going to be released after 100 years of waiting. I’ve been reading a lot of his pithy one-liners: “Adverbs are the enemy of the verb;” “Travel is fatal to prejudice” and admiring them for their brevity and truth. Hemingway greatly admired the man, and said that “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. “ Twain's style was without verbosity and decoration, which is why I’m unsettled by the half million words in the soon to be three volumes of the manuscript published by the University of California. I was so excited to read it, but now, knowing that it’s longer than War and Peace, I’m neutral.

Speaking of War and Peace, I’ve reached the 1,000 page mark! And Tolstoy also died exactly 100 years ago today. Rest his soul.

And in other literary news, Jane Austen, who was supposed to have turned out finished masterpieces, was actually found to have had an editor. Gasp! It doesn’t diminish her status as a great writer, though; it seems most of the edits were spelling, and punctuation. The editor also said you can use some more speech tags (he said, she said, which Austen famously omitted, noting that she didn’t write for “dull elves”). How post postmodern of her.

Matthew Sliced My Papaya Last Night

Matthew made squid spaghetti last night.

But after dinner he sliced open a papaya. I had blogged about this fruit (it is extraordinarily good for you, maybe even better than any other fruit with its loads of fiber, folate, lycopene, and Vitamins A and C) and eaten papaya sorbet before, but I had never tried it. Using our green handled cheap, sharp knife, he split the long fruit into quarters. Julie tried a seed, which in fact is edible, but she said that after the sweet chewiness, it was bitter, and spit it out. Its grapefruit –colored flesh glistened. It was ripe.

Matthew said to squeeze lime on it; he had done this before, but I wanted to try the fruit in its purity. I took a slice and cut back the skin, which was maybe a millimeter thick, revealing a wet pink square. As I bit into it, juices oozed. I moved over to the garbage can, and then the sink so as not to drip on the floor.

Silently we sucked at the skin like monkeys, filling ourselves with the powerhouse fruit. The word Matthew used to describe the papaya was 'ancestral.' "Is it your new favorite fruit?" he asked. “No,” I said shaking my head. But I certainly won’t turn it down when it’s offered.

A Disquisition on Tradition and Post Postmodernism

It occurred to me while riding my bike this morning that ever since the 20th century, artists have had an additional level of self-consciousness. What I mean is that at the crux of postmodernism was the notion of breaking from tradition because it had all been done before. And while artists have always viewed themselves as successors to a tradition, the naming of the era in which they live is a relatively modern development. John Keats wasn’t aspiring to define Romanticism with “To Autumn.” Especially in the fine arts, movements like Bauhaus and Fluxus offered manifestoes that differentiated their artistic practices from the norm. That never happened before Modernism.  

In Ancient Rome, there was no artistic movement called originalism. They simply referred to the art of the Greeks as their precursors, and the Greeks referred to the Etruscans. Today, my very attempt at using post postmodernism as one of the keywords for my blog is an example of the way artists deal directly with tradition. Today we are increasingly aware of the tradition. Paradoxically, however, tradition has become increasingly hazy as the canon has been restructured over the past 30 years. Also, contemporary writers who have received approbation may view themselves as inheritors to the writings of Mailer, Roth and Updike. That’s okay, but only time will decide the best of the best.

For our current era of what is not yet named, but which I think of as Millenialism (using post postmodernism because that’s what people search for, and that’s why it’s in all the titles of my posts) it is about striking a balance of new and old. We must remember the best works of yesterday and read the best authors of today, of whom I cannot yet fairly inventory.  Let’s not get all James Joyce avant garde art on the readers, but don’t make it Dan Brown easy. It’s all about striking a balance.

Friends in Post Postmodernism

One night Gabriel wanted to introduce John to Buckley. He invited John over on a Friday while he and Buckley were getting high. When his old best friend and his new friend shook hands, it was with that momentary satisfaction and solid grip that two people make when they're sizing each other up. They relaxed, drank, started to talk about themselves, and then about women. Buckley, proud teller of stories, began his story first.

"At school one night in February, there was a little dance party my brothers and I had in our frat house. There was this girl there, who I had been thinking about for a while named Melissa. She had cocoa colored skin and kind of frizzy caramel hair and a tight little body and huge titties. So me and my brothers are all dancing to the Talking Heads, and she and I are grinding on the floor and she can feel that I'm into her. So I grabbed her titty and she was like "Jack, not here! Let's go somewhere else!" I don't know why, but we went into the bathroom. And we're kissing and sucking and I try to pull down my pants and she's like 'Jack Buckley, I am not giving you head in the bathroom.' That didn't stop me from taking her shirt off and watching those big titties spill out." Here the rising tension of the story led Gabriel to lean in. John looked all the cooler with a little smile on his face, waiting for the punchline. "They hung down to her belly button man, they were so big. So I picked one up and started sucking on it and slapping it around and she was loving it, but I was a little drunk so when I started playing on her titties, I started saying all this stupid shit like, "Bingo bongo." Here the friends chuckled as specks of spittle lined the corners of Buckley's mouth. "And finally, I slapped 'em together and said "Jambalaya titties!" He giggled at his own ludicrousness.

"Then this kid starts knocking on the door really hard, and I have a feeling it's J.T., one of the brothers who  gets the drunkest, and he's banging and screaming "Lemme in." So Melissa has had enough of me by this point and she hears this kid and she wants to get out. She encases her bongos and then walks out with me pawing at her asking for more. But as soon as she's out J.T. hiccups some vomit right onto the floor and gets it all over her shoes. He runs into the bathroom and we hear his lurching and grunting." Here Buckley giggled vehemently, satisfied in his recollection. "And after that I never saw Melissa again!"

Gabriel, used to Buckley's stories, laughed along with him, but John only smiled. Gabriel's old friend was kind of an idiot, he thought. For him, women were business, and you didn't discuss business matters during play hours.
      
Gabriel told the story of the fat girl he fucked, looking to John for reassurance. But when John's turn came, he just smiled and looked at his phone, checking the time. He said that after that drink they should get ready to go.

 Buckley and John were nice enough to each other, and Buckley tried to converse with him, but John only smiled and answered his questions. It was clear that they were of a different ilk. Gabriel noticed this, and when John found a woman at the bar, he fell back on his old friend. Buckley had more tact than to discuss John openly, but Gabriel could tell that he was glad John had left.

It is interesting that humans always break down into twos or threes when in a larger group. Like electrons finding their right orbit, they know what is most stable. Gabriel thought that he, Buckley, and John would be able to go out together and have a grand time, but it began to make sense to him that it's best to keep different groups of friends separate.

The Javits Center and Post Postmodernism

Yesterday Daniel Adler went to a trade show at the Javits Center, that huge structure that will one day be remembered as a relic of postmodernism. You know when you go to one of those old malls that has pinks and turquoises everywhere and you think, wow this place must have been great – 35 years ago. That’s what will happen to the Javits Center in about another 20 years. Because I.M. Pei designed it, it will look a better for wee bit longer.

While I was away from the office, I received a nice e-mail highlighting 10 aspects of postmodernism. I have been stewing about post postmodernism recently, and have used some of those aspects to redefine the shape of a couple of tenets described in the above link.

1.    Opposition to authority has become a general acceptance of authority. Religion no longer inculcates morality. The police do that these days. You don’t kill someone because you’re afraid that you will spend a lifetime in hell as was thought maybe fifty years ago; you don’t kill them because you are afraid of being caught and send to prison. When Foucault adumbrated this notion, it led to a resistance against the system. These days, we accept it.

2.    Postmodernists rejected Truth. Post postmodernism embraces it in our era of digital similitudes. It is understood and transmitted that there are certain universal emotions, like love, anger, and sadness. These are conveyed in an intimate manner in contemporary arts, often encouraging the viewer to interact to better understand the universality of such notions.

The Dramatic Monologue in Post Postmodernism

 Some of my most recent blogs have taken the form of modern dramatic monologues. See Robert Browning. The writer addresses the reader as though he is speaking about himself, the tone is slightly persuasive and there is often an implied immediacy. Example: You’re at work, bored out of your mind, and you decide to blog about how blogs are defining post postmodernism and its literature.

This is the next step in the line of Free Indirect Discourse, where the writer’s narration can be confused with the thoughts of the character. In fact, in this blog style of writing, which most MFA programs encourage, it can be hard to distinguish between the narrator and you, the reader. The result is an uncanny intimacy between us. You come to feel as if we have shared the same experiences. And isn’t that the goal of most excellent writing?

What else about this solidifying post postmodernism? Well we no longer need to validate our existence through technology – we want to create experience through technology. We don’t want merely to social network, we want to meet people in reality by using Facebook Places. We aren’t as concerned with avant garde art and breaking from tradition; instead, the avant garde is made by those who are most familiar with tradition and who give their own little tweak to it.

My Two Favorites in Downtown Manhattan

It was light jacket weather in New York. Gargis day, Daniel Adler said, pointing to the puffy cumulus clouds and the blue sky with green leaves in a corner of the vista.

In SoHo at Gimme Coffee! the baristas are kind and successful because they love coffee and it shows when they brew. A barista with a cycling hat said they are opening a new headquarters on N 6th and Bedford in a couple of months. Daniel Adler asked them about the word malic, which they didn't know, but was on a poster of one of the coffees. It is a crystalline acid found in unripe apples and other fruit.

It was crowded at the bar and a woman watched in awe as he shot his espresso. He rolled it on his tongue and it cooled and became bitter in his mouth after the flavors had changed from amber to cocoa. She said you should have seen your face and he said you're not the first person to tell me that. She was once attractive, and her date was a short Eastern European man with a big bulbous nose and a cleft chin, straight blonde hair and blue eyes. He had a heavy accent when he said No; it sounded like "Naogh." "You should video yourself and put it on youtube," she said. Watch out for it, dear blog audience.

They went to Super Taste for dinner. There were new menus and the staff wore maroon polos with the name of the restaurant in Mandarin on the left breast. His little woman was there and she recognized him even though he hadn't seen her for a year. She brought the hot and spicy beef soups and then the dumplings and stood at her counter like a captain at the helm of his ship, overseeing the slaves working, arms crossed, satisfied. "SHINTONG WAO!" Oh, she runs a tight ship. Her voice is big though she is small and she is gentle too, like a good woman ought to be. And a good man is gentle too, but he knows when to be hard and strong also.

The Hangover

When you put your head down it's like falling into a deep cave. You tumble and fall and you are out of control. You sleep, wake up with dry throat. Go to the refrigerator, chug milk. It is cold and lubricating.

Sleep more, my pretty. You wake up and smell the alcohol coming from your pores, feel it hang in bags under your eyes. In your head a blacksmith hammers on his forge. You will take a Tylenol to feel better. Make the coffee, drink it fast. Yea, you're feeling better.

Relax. Last night you were so mighty, so powerful, happy. Now you're reduced to ashes. Be good to yourself today because you're bad in yourself from last night.

Today will be a good day to recline. A big greasy breakfast, yes that will rejuvenate you. Your urine lightens as you rehydrate, good, good. You are becoming healthy again. And by dinner time you're fine! The Chinese food really did the trick. That was great. Let's have a beer.

Lamentation for the Comma

Oh, comma! Dear friend, connector of clauses, I am ridding my writing of you!

Ernest Hemingway and many other writers before him recognized that commas are burdensome. Sometimes they are necessary, but other times they are burdensome. When you are using conditional statements it helps to use the comma. But, as this sentence demonstrates, the commas could be omitted entirely for stronger writing.
 
Read out loud: "Once he had pulled the tail around with one hand until he could reach a horn with the other and when the bull had lifted his head to charge him he had run backwards, circling with the bull, holding the tail in one hand and the horn in the other until the crowd had swarmed onto the bull with their knives and stabbed him," For Whom the Bell Tolls, 365.

That one clause, surrounded by commas, is enough pause to give the reader in this long sentence. Extra commas can be burdensome and heavy to a reader, though at times clarifying.  I will still use the comma but not in the way I have done when I was younger. Get rid of the commas before the 'buts' and the 'ands.' This will make for stronger writing. Only include them if there is another clause after the clause beginning with 'and' or 'but,' I tell myself. Then you, Daniel Adler, will write like a Hemingway in post postmodernism. 

Manifest Ur Destiny - Greenpoint USA

 We walked through Greenpoint because the L was down for the weekend. It's not a good idea to go to Manhattan when the train is down. Let's cafe hop and get lost, we decided. M noodle shop, with its 2011 Zagat Rating was tasty, but if I go back, I’ll definitely get something besides the lo mein. Down Ainslie St., one of my favorites in the city, underneath the high sycamores to Fortunato Bros. bakery, we shared marzipan and espresso and cookies.

It was an early autumn day, still warm enough to wear t shirts. By the river other couples canoodled on the rocks, watching the early sunset. A model was being shot. Waves of nostalgia lapped at the edges of my mind like the East River on the shore. When we left and walked down the industrial streets a tag that I choose to use as the title of this post made us wish we had a camera.

On Manhattan Avenue we walked into a Polish store. I love entering ethnic food shops.Down the aisles of sauerkraut and hanging meats, at the end was a freshly smoked salmon. Its black eye and small sharp teeth made me feel out of my element. An gray-haired, high-cheekboned, blue small-eyed, man told me the going rate in his Slavic tongue. He cut with a fish saw, which might have been a hedge trimmer, a large chunk about three bites, of greasy pink salmon. I was alarmed at the freshness. I thought about buying some, but we wanted to sit down for dinner.

Krolewskie Jadlo (King's Feast) has knight’s armor in its facade. We shared borscht and a Polish platter with stuffed cabbage, pierogies, kielbasa, and potato pancakes (just crisp enough, and not at all soggy). Alex forgot it for lunch, as I hoped she would, so I get to eat the leftovers when I get home tonight.

We walked home and Alex found a small ceramic Corinthian column, which she knew I’d love and which I carried over my shoulder, down Morgan, and put my hardy fern atop. Beat and still full, we relaxed in Sunday night.

Daniel Adler's Little Brother Grows Up

Daniel Adler playing the mouth harp
with Little Matthew in a Moscow Subway.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about happiness, death, and bronze plaques. Though condensed, it made me start thinking about the almighty importance of “being in the now.”

We have a beautiful roof, with a view of the Manhattan skyline, and while smoking a cigarette with Matthew, I could not help but understand what it all meant.

My minion has a troubled unconscious. All of his dreams are unpleasant, and usually revolve around not being up to authoritarian standards. This is reflected in his work experience. An example: at the restaurant where he works, on a lonely night when only the manager and her friends were patronizing, Matthew changed the radio to a song he likes. She was not pleased. Or, the other night at La Tortilleria, he put his coat over his chair, leaving a corner of it resting on the knee of a guy sitting behind us. “It’s clean,” he deadpanned, as the guy moved his knee.

But he is learning. His fears about being fired are socializing him, albeit slowly. He needs to be more conscious about how his actions come off to others. Then he can revert to his naturalized “moment” living.

And what about Daniel Adler, you ask? Since I'm writing a bildungsroman, it helps to have one occurring right in front of my eyes. How's that for immediate living?

P.S. Pine Box finally opens tonight!

Daniel Adler Moves In

Last night I moved into my new home. It was a drizzly, wet night, much like the very first day I moved to Brooklyn. Isaac, my Hasidic landlord, was a little late on getting the apartment cleaned and ready, but I will forgive him. He is trustworthy, and I look forward to his proration for three days rent.

I biked in the rain to Walgreens to get a shower curtain liner, which was discounted 15% by the manager since he didn’t have any actual shower curtains.

My new neighbors are fun.  They invited me over and we watched the insect episode of  “Life,” a new version of “Planet Earth.” One of the girls had cookies shipped fresh from her grandmother. They were delicious.

Julie and I made some Progresso Chicken Noodle Soup and I surveyed the thorough cleaning job Yulia was doing. Yulia is a thickset Polish woman with big arms, saggy breasts, and honest blue eyes. I liked her, and when I spoke to her, thanking her for what she had done, she looked at the ground, bowing her head. She is finishing the cleaning of the apartment today.  

We don’t have any furniture yet. Matthew picked up the mattresses and moved them from Greenpoint to our home in a cab, I don’t know how. He is my minion. Today went food shopping, and I told him that if he feels ambitious, he can search for some kitchen counter furniture with drawers, since the ones under the sink don’t open. 

After Chris and I drank some Irish champagne for a nightcap at Kings County, he said something very poignant: Matthew needs to be dunked in New York. He needs that sense of cockiness and entitlement to be washed off in the responsibility and individualism of the city. “How right you are, old boy!” I said. “And I’m the one holding his heel, suspending him over the dunk tank.”

Tolstoy and Post Postmodernism

I am reading War and Peace. Halfway through, it feels like I am learning how to write. Granted, Tolstoy wrote it in Russian and I'm reading it in English, consequently losing much of the original poetry, but when I open it I am absorbed into early 19th century Moscow.

The best parts are when Tolstoy describes a lover’s quiver, or a transcendental moment inspired by the heavens, or a grain of social minutiae that has not changed in 150 years. The context has changed, but the song remains the same.

Reading Michael Cunningham’s editorial in the New York Times, I was reminded that I am reading a work in translation. And I began to think about the book that I am writing, and who I am writing for (side-note: I’m perfectly aware of the prepositional finish of that sentence, and in a Hemingwavian manner, I am choosing to advance written English in a colloquial sense to better suit my ends. Try saying it the right way and see which sounds better).  Sure I’m writing for myself, and I’m writing for you, and I’m writing for future generations and all that, but I’m also writing for writing.  I am writing so that anyone who reads what I write will recognize it as supremely sublime.

And so I work. And work. And will continue to work for years, until it is smooth and polished, like the oyster’s pearl, who without trying, simply lives and produces a jewel. And if the world is my oyster…