If a Lion Could Talk, and: Article of Faith, and: On the Level, and: The Honest Cook’s Insomnia

IF A LION COULD TALK

It was only the dawn of the Christian movement, but Jerome was already wise to it—he knew that but for a man who is not a man trapped inside books would latter-day-painters lose their perspective somewhere along the vanishing point.

So he tied his body to a great denial and scolded his widow patron’s daughter for the crampy hungers gathering in hers.

Leaving behind his ascetic theater he let his rags polish the floors as he delighted in the intercourse of a a little night reading.

The dog-faced lion played along, shedding the sweaty mane-cape, rewarded each night for his loyalty with a bowl of kibble.

Jerome gazed out of the casement at a beautiful scene, stars fanning the cool expanse of lapis desert dome, and chuckled to himself, “No one paints a saint in the great library built through the pilfer of a pious widow’s gold.” A scholar, he knew that sainthood, just like good translation, requires a bit of finger pointing, and some ethically questionable sleight of hand.

ARTICLE OF FAITH

I was made unwell by knowing too well what could not happen. The sameness of failures and surface actors. Death, friend, a promise of peace across the fence. Impoverishment enriched. No more double-folded life where all is poisoned by recollection, cognizance of the wheel, wrong pat- terns. Night’s descent turned vision blind, but dawn redeemed by crystal sparkle, mirror signal, savior -line which my dead eye fished up to pine, insight restored.

ON THE LEVEL

Around 1985 I began to project my future into the 1920s, free of the corset, newly enfranchised, a girl with a haircut like one of the guys. In the future I would be the heroine of a Vera Caspary mystery, listless in my studio apartment littered with stockings and cocktail shakers. I could just see myself balancing cozily on the pinstriped knee of my sugar daddy while he sweated out multiple gin martinis. “Gee doll, you’re swell.” He winks at me. and though I’m not actually very pretty, he pulls my head back with a handful of platinum and plants one on the collar. Damned if I know why he gets to me.

In the years to come there would be other pasts, but in ’85 it seemed to me that the 1920s had all I could ask for. A New Woman bohemia before hippies or yuppies (then called Babbitts, whom everyone laughed at), with gold-tipped cigarettes and Chanel No. 5. There weren’t any cell phones in my future, but just down the hall from my apartment was a phone for residents only. The faded wallpaper added necessary melancholy, geometric calla lilies, Art Deco motif.

In 1985 I thought the only screens in my future would project moving pictures of silent idols or be hung nonchalantly with peach slips and tap pants, a garter belt or two, used to cordon off a dressing room in the corner of my studio. Without these dreams of the 1920s how could I have pinned my hopes on an adulthood of something besides cash registers and classrooms?

My parents, having fled their pasts, had no way to build a future. I had the crackle of Jazz Age recordings preserved on 1980s vinyl. Listening prepared me for 2015’s haunting by technological memory, but not for its presentist static, those superabundant incremental distractions not on the level with any future, or past.

THE HONEST COOK’S INSOMNIA

It’s best to start with desire. A vivid imagination of the end result of your culinary efforts— both the pleasure in the mouth and the admiration of others— is inevitable, but do not overindulge in such fantasies lest you undermine surprise and set yourself up for disappointment. Do not cook for others, whether to impress them or conform to their tastes. Nevertheless, you should be as attentive to the palate of who you are...