All posts tagged Will Arbery

Announcements, Dreams, and Travels/Travails

When I come to NYC to visit, I jump right into my element. For a visitor who knows the city well, life here offers itself up like infinite plates of tapas: stores are open around the clock, coffee comes in large cups, your blood absorbs the liveliness of the streets. Having lived here (specifically in NYC) for fifteen years, I know other sides of the city too. But this brief visit does me good. I head out today to Massachusetts, and from there in a couple days to New Hampshire; I come back to NYC just for two days before returning to Hungary. There’s so much to do in this chink of time. I had the fortune of seeing Will Arbery’s play Corsicana last night; I recommend it to all. From what I can see, it is playing through July 17.

This post is a bit of this and that, but it all comes together in the end.

First, a few exciting announcements. The Platon Karataev duo (Gergely Balla and Sebestyén Czakó-Kuraly, Platon Karataev’s founding members and primary songwriters) will be headlining at Arlene’s Grocery here in NYC on October 24! Mark your calendars, tell others about it, and come out for the show in October! This comes a day after their U.S. debut, their show at Cafe Nine in New Haven. For a sense of the duo, see the video below. Both of these shows are historic even in advance, and the time before them will go by fast!

Next, I am honored that my translation of Gyula Jenei’s poem “The Legend of Lobo” (which is part of the collection Always Different: Poems of Memory, published by Deep Vellum earlier this year), has been published by The Continental Literary Magazine. They will be publishing three more of these translations; I will add the links here as they appear. (Update: “Slap,” “Litterfall,” and “Passageways to God” have been published as well.)

And now for the “travails” part: While I was enjoying the music at Fishing on Orfű (see my descriptions of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4), Dominó, one of my two dear cats, jumped out the window. The person feeding the cats had opened the window slightly (with the top part sliding inward) and thought he had closed it afterwards. Apparently it was still open a crack, and Dominó, who loves to jump onto the very top of that window, managed to get out.

In between the Orfű and NYC trips, I must have searched the neighborhood at least twenty times for him: early in the morning, late at night, and in between. At one point I thought I saw him under a car, but he slid away when I approached. I am distressed about this but also hopeful. We have a good plan worked out: a neighbor who feeds the outdoor cats every day spotted him under a car yesterday, took pictures, and fed him. Between her, some others whose help she has enlisted, and my cat-sitter, they should be able to catch him and bring him back inside, or at least verify his safety until I get back. Poor Sziszi is distressed; I hope she can have her friend back soon. At least the street is very quiet; lots of cats live in the neighborhood.

When I landed in NYC yesterday evening and my phone received its data streams, I received two pieces of good news: first, about the show at Arlene’s Grocery, and second, about Dominó being spotted under a car. That makes for a good arrival. (Update: The evening of my return, I saw Dominó outside! Not only that, but he came and rubbed against me when I called him. So it was fairly easy to pick him up and bring him back inside. He and Sziszi were amazed and ecstatic; I have never seen two cats so happy to be reunited.)

But what about dreams, also mentioned in this post title? Well, besides all of this being stuff that dreams are made of, dreams figure in Corsicana and in a song by Art of Flying that has been playing in my head, one of the most beautiful songs I know, “born to follow.” I will end here with that song. Listen to the slow and subtle way it builds.

born to follow, by Art of Flying
yr tears were golden light upon my hand
you sang the heavens floated on the sea
when beauty rears its ugly head
when every rain drops misery
under heaven the thunder rolls
its messages in shadows hid
don’t waste away yr wind
you were only born to follow
who hides the night? who rides the wind?
who rings the bells of happiness?
whose one invention is the end?
whose wheel brings nothing whose wheel brings death
under heaven…
we poured our blood into the fields
& left with nothing but the air
we could not eat yr promises
& starve to death while no one cares
in yr voice I disappear
& I am held like blood is held
this is the place where jesus fell
& yr only born to follow
arise arise yr work is done
the fields are buried with the dead
& now it looks like no one won
some dreams awaken some dreams are dead
under heaven the thunder rolls
its messages in shadows hid
don’t waste away yr wind
you were only born to follow.

I made a few edits and updates to this piece after posting it.

Inside and Outside

With the online teaching, I spend most of the day inside, but try to get outside at some point to run an errand or take a walk. Today I might be able to go on a bike ride, if I get the essential things done in the morning. Some combination of inside and outside is important, but the mixture varies from person to person. In July 2012, my dear friend Cybèle Troyan walked and biked with her husband and daughters from Le Puy en Velay, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain (a distance of 1,500 kilometers); her husband, Bennett Voyles, wrote a book (which I highly recommend) about their pilgrimage. On another occasion, without their daughters, Cybèle and Ben walked from Berlin to Rome. Such a long walk is out of the question for me because of the sun exposure, but I admire it and the love of the outdoors that comes with it. There’s an indoor aspect to such a walk, too; you immerse yourself in the outdoors and are therefore inside it.

I have been thinking about the inside and outside in writing and other art; when and how to speak without reservation, and when and how to hold back. Or what the “inside” and “outside” even are. There is no absolute answer, but I have been influenced recently by Jeremy Bendik-Keymer’s The Wind: an Unruly Living (about which I wrote the other day) and Will Arbery’s play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which I had the fortune of watching online.

Last night I revised a sonnet I had written over three years ago; I realized that it was too enclosed and didn’t end with what it wanted to say. I changed just three lines of it, and there it was.

At other times obliqueness is not only necessary but truthful; the “direct” our “outward” truth will miss the point somehow. Instead, you need to wind around dimly in the dark.

David Brooks wrote a column titled “Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations.” While his advice seems reasonable, I find the formula irritating (some magic number, a list, and an assumption that people need this advice in the first place); moreover, I question the concept of “deep” conversations to begin with. There’s nothing inherently superior about discussing one’s private fears and hopes, or the meaning of life, nor is this necessarily deep. What I have learned over time, sometimes the hard way, is that both people have to want to take part in the conversation, whatever it is about. A sustained, voluntary conversation, even on a supposedly superficial topic, contains much more, and goes much farther, than a “deep” unwanted dialogue.

Back in the days when I used to communicate a lot by email (my emails now are occasional, not regular, except when related to work), I found it hard to sense the other person. Some of my correspondences were one-sided, but I would not realize this for a long time, and when I did, it was too late; in a few cases, the person had gotten deeply annoyed. Our current forms of communication run the opposite risk. They are too fragmented. I often can’t stand them. Sometimes people, out of the blue, will send me a link on Messenger without telling me what it is. I just ignore it, since it could contain a virus. But that’s the sort of thing that goes on.

What, then, if you are not having a conversation, but instead writing for readers, whoever they might be? Something similar still applies. You have to consider the person who might be reading. You don’t know who it is, but you have to uphold this person’s trust, by making the reading worthwhile, helping the reader where necessary, assuming intelligence (on both ends), and letting the work take shape between the two of you. It will always be between two.

The other night I took a walk and saw this tree against the sky. Both tree and sky bringing each other out, after dark. Inside and outside, surface and depth. If you go far enough, the outside becomes inside, as in Robert Frost’s “Come In.”

So no, I am not after “deep” conversations, since the sound of a car driving through puddles can surprise me with its depth, bringing back sounds of old rains, of days when I sat inside, watching the evening, watching my words stumble on the line of what they want to say.

I took these photos on two different walks last week.

When looking online for Frost’s “Come In,” I found David Sutton’s website and began reading his poems. An exciting discovery.

I made a few minor edits to this piece after posting it.

Take Away the Takeaway

All posts tagged Will Arbery

Announcements, Dreams, and Travels/Travails

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