Tuesday, October 12, 2010

A Note About Unions and Puzzles

Some pairings are beshert, meant to be, while others are drastically opposite.  Like cheese and strawberries or peanut butter cookies dipped into fish sauce.  Which one does not belong?  Knowing the difference is something upon which the Frenchy frogs pride themselves, passing this treasured knowledge in gastronomie classes to their less experienced spawn by terminating regular school classes in order to spend a week learning the art of which cheese goes with which fruit or the more delicate subtleties of l'escargot for the older children with more mature palates.

Sometimes two seemingly disparate tastes can be magical while others we think would be a nexus of harmony end up leaving a peculiar and even nasty aftertaste.  When I was a teenager, provologne cheese slices dipped in vanilla ice cream was heaven to me and chili and pickles made me squeal with excitement. These days I've a weird craving for broccoli and eggs. It's okay, it's a learning process, one that takes time and experimentation.  There are some fundamentals though, things we know just won't work and with or without a tipping point, it's important to know when to quit and just order take-out.

Opposites are never easy and it is only with great tension and an estuary of some sort, they can achieve balance.  Israeli artist Ruth Rosenthal and French musician Xavier Klaine seem to intrinsically understand this.  Standing quietly in churches or sepulchres, with nothing more than Rosenthal's mysterious English Hebrew hybrid spoken word and Klaine's even more mysterious organ march, they perform slow, stately, dark and poetic pieces that hinge somewhere between art and funeral lament.

I imagine the liquids that are hurting me inside.
Orange, the color of fire.
It's burning, like salt upon a slug.
Melting me, slowly, I'm losing my form.  Just like this slug, I become fluid...


Edit: Not to be punny, but I really do think I've bitten off more than I can chew with this puzzle. Can you point out the many undefined metaphors and connections I've left lingering, branchless and fruitless? Definitely a topic that requires further exploration but after two nights, I'm [to be punny again] ready to put it and myself to bed. Num yum and schlaf gut!

1 comment:

Christine said...

i like this post because it reminds me of a word i so rarely conjure. this is just a susurrus of what is to come of this topic i think.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...