Tidbits

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Rebecca L. Spang
The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture

Two of my favourite sentences in this book. The first on the 18th century view of restaurants:

The miracles of digestion were not unfailing, however, and so vital a bodily process could easily be deranged by ill-prepared foods, intellectual exertion, or emotional anguish.

The second, a gem about the transformation of the institution of the restaurant in the 19th century:

In a restaurant, the ostentatious potlatch of baroque expenditure was replaced by the equally conspicuous and significant economy of rationalized calculation.

And so for day 3092
30.05.2015

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On Prose Poem as a Form

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Sarah Burgoyne : short takes on the prose poem

The more I learn about prose poetry, the more emphatically I can state it has nothing to do with margins, postcards or quirkiness. Like Rimbaud states of a morning of drunkenness (something akin to the prose poem spirit), “Cela commença par quelques dégoûts et cela finit,–ne pouvant nous saisir sur-le-champ de cette éternité,–cela finit par une débandade de parfums.” Or, in Ashbery’s translation, “It began with disgust and ended in a panicked rout of perfumes.”

https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2022/03/sarah-burgoyne-short-takes-on-prose-poem.html

And so for day 3091
29.05.2015

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A Sense of Reaching Out

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Hervé Guibert
À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie

About the baths in San Francisco at a certain time in history…

Cette menace qui flotte a créé de nouvelles complicités, de nouvelles tendresses, de nouvelles solidarités. Avant on n’échangeaient jamais une parole, maintenant on se parle. Chacun sait très précisément pourquoi il est là.

At least that is one character’s perspective as reported by another character.

And so for day 3090
28.05.2015

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Beginning a Cento

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Francois Lachance

my mustard seed husk, my origami cosmos within

within I’m more darn than breach

[p. 75 & p. 95 – Tolu Oloruntoba, The Junta of Happenstance]

And so for day 3089
27.05.2015

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Long Hand

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Francois Lachance
p 74 [R]eaders are responsible for their own journey through the text from the very beginning.

I like how the handwriting has introduced line breaks in unexpected places…

p 74 [R]eaders are responsible for / their own journey through the / text from the very beginning.

From Alice Bell “Ontological Boundaries and Methodological Leaps: The Importance of Possible Worlds Theory for Hypertext Fiction (and Beyond)” in New Narratives: Stories and Storytelling in the Digital Age.

And so for day 3088
26.05.2015

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Inkstone Dew

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson
W.S. Merwin, Takako Lento, translators

628
When I went to view chrysanthemums at a mountain village hut, the elderly host brought out his inkstone and asked for a hokku —

Touched by the dew
of your chrysanthemums
the inkstone comes to life

I think the charming introductory note lends poignancy to the haiku.

There is more to know about the allusions Buson is working with thanks to the translation and commentary by Allan Persinger in Foxfire: The Selected Poems of Yosa Buson

My old master departs with his ink stone after viewing Yamaga’s chrysanthemums — this poem is written for him

The ink stone received
dew from chrysanthemums —
may it prolong life

Kiku no tsuyu
ukete suzuri no
inochi kana

628: This poem refers to a Noh play, “Makurajido” and is about a Chinese emperor’s retainer, who accidentally steps on the emperor’s pillow. Because of this the retainer is exiled to Mt. Rekken with the pillow he stepped on. On the pillow were written words, which the retainer writes on the leaves of the numerous chrysanthemums on the mountain. When the dew and rain would wash away the words, he saved the water and drank it. Drinking the magic chrysanthemum water, revives his youth and keeps him alive for 700 years. He eventually gives the water to Emperor Wei as a sign of atonement.

Yamaga is a place in Kyoto.

Furthermore there is the legend, “The life of the writing brush is determined by the sun, the life of ink by the moon, and the life of the ink stone by the passing of ages. An ink stone is a rectangular stone dish with a sloping interior for an ink-stick to be rubbed against the slope in water to produce the ink (sumi) used in calligraphy. Finally, in this poem then are two symbols of longevity, the chrysanthemum dew and the ink stone, which is what Buson is wishing for his old master.

And so for day 3087
25.05.2015

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Birdbreast

Posted on May 24, 2015 by Francois Lachance

The joy of finding the lines referencing the title lodged in the middle of the book…

Each one a furnace,
each chest a coral of embers,

Tolu Oloruntoba
“Pyrrhula”
Each One A Furnace

And so for day 3086
24.05.2015

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When the tomato?

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Most people know that tomatoes came to Italy after the contact with the Americas. But there is a another story …

Elizabeth David
Italian Food

It was only in the late Middle Ages that pasta began to be eaten with tomatoes, the cultivation of which dated from the time when one Fra Serenio brought the precious seeds on his return from China.

She lets this stand and although she has made ample use of Marinetti in the previous paragraph she doesn’t acknowledge him here as the source of her fabulation. She does not demur. She seems to steam on her own authority.

Marinetti tells a tall tale…

Marinetti
The Futurist Cookbook
Translated by Suzanne Brill

It was only in the high Middle Ages (Cordazio Camaldolese: The Main Dishes in Use in our Lands and Regions and Islands and Peninsulas and so on With their Manner of Preparation in the Kitchen Explained) that gherkins were replaced by tomatoes, the cultivation of which was already quite extensive, dating from when Brother Serenio, on his return from China, brought that most precious seed — and not the seed of the silkworm, as is commonly believed (cf. in this regard the definitive work of historical exegesis written by Valbo Scaravacio and entitled ‘Truth and Nonsense’, published by Pirocchi […])

And so for day 3085
23.05.2015

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Being Drawn In

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Gillian Sze
“The Hesitant Gaze”
quiet night think

Ekphrasis is not only to compose a text inspired by the artwork itself, but also to be carried off by the uncontainable surge of memory and affect, judgment and speculation.

And so for day 3084
22.05.2015

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The Responsive Medium

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Francois Lachance

As reported to me by the poet Edward Mycue from his friend, Edith:

Paper is very patient. You can write anything on it. It will not complain.

And so for day 3083
21.05.2015

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