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6 V I S I T I N G J A C K G I L B E R T AT F O R T J U N I P E R He is shivering beside the hearth, a fringed alpaca draped over his shoulders, the shock of white hair disheveled; his beard bearing the stubble of a few days deep in thought of how he might outwit Capablanca, call checkmate on his next move. He is talking about wabi, the aesthetic spirit the Japanese place in things that are worn, or impoverished, and he recounts the beauty and inner light of the weathered wooden shingles of the houses in the seaside villages. He shifts in the seat he has made of a crate placed on end to tend the poor fire with the iron poker, somehow the thawing iced logs beginning to spark. He relates how he visited a poet who played the piano, who sang out each line to the rhythm struck on the keys, who composed as he played and sang as he wrote. He mentions the man’s unkempt white hair, how he just sat 7 at the maestro’s feet. On the rug in front of the hearth, I think, Just the way I’m sitting, as he bends to work the poker among the cordwood that begins to burst into flame. ...

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