January 29, 2009
In the paper today was a piece about peanuts. A good quantity of peanut-related products had been shipped out with healthy doses of contamination by a bacteria that can cause sickness. Those in charge of the government agencies who look into such matters said that the company, Peanut Corporation of America, knowingly sold the contaminated products. One FDA official, speaking from his farm in Des Moines, where he’d just chased down a stray heifer, had this to say: “I’m still getting my mind around the fact that there’s a company called “Peanut Corporation of America”—and it’s not a joke.”
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Jasper Hanks
I read with interest the many letters full of good wishes and welcome to the new president. The Washington Post, now costing two dollars each for these inaugural times, is full of important and historical coverage--and is priced accordingly. I chose this peculiar missive among the many that appeared in its special "Letters to the President" section.
Letter to Obama (Washington Post)
It was back in 1958 and I was headed home to Nevada by way of Death Valley. My old truck was mostly wore out by that time, would overheat every ten miles or so and force me to stop. I pulled over by a Joshua Tree when I saw the needle go past the halfway mark—which was kind of hard to make out, on account of the gauge glass being cracked right where the needle would be in the too-hot range. My dad had gave me the Chevrolet after he was done with it. He bought it new in 1939, wrecked it once when a possum ran out in front of him, then drove it some more before handing it over to me.
The radio preacher was talking on the Emerson radio I carried with me. The truck didn’t have one, didn’t have much of anything besides what it needed to run. My old man told the Chevy dealer to give him a truck that wasn’t nothing but a truck. Nothing else. I remember he was mad and hollered something fierce when he saw the hand-crank vent at the front by the window, and thought they’d charged him extra for that. But the store man said no all the new trucks had them and you couldn’t get it without that window crank. It still took him a while to settle down, though. By now the hard springs were poking through the seat, hurt my butt on long rides. You had to sit up straight and kind of hunch forward to make the springs hurt less. But—like I said—every ten miles or so you had to stop anyway to let the truck rest and cool down.
The preacher was talking about what made us different from the other things that were alive, what set us apart. I was there in the shade of the Joshua Tree, and he said this—I remember it: “Can a cactus be President?” Then he said that no a cactus could not be president. Then he stopped, and the radio was quiet for a minute. I thought maybe the batteries had run down, but then he piped up again, like he’d just thought of something new to say. He said that a cactus was a prickly thing, and then he just let the matter rest, didn’t talk about the president or the cactus. But I was thinking that—from what he said—the main reason a cactus couldn’t be president was that it was prickly. I knew that wasn’t the case, that there were other reasons besides that.
Now it’s all these years later, maybe over fifty or so, and the new President’s swearing-in is coming over the television—the same one I’ve had for maybe twenty years, but still works okay. It doesn’t show the pictures in color, but there ain’t much color around here anyways. I set up the tv in the kitchen, moved away some beer cans to make space for it. These weren’t regular beer cans, like the ones I haven’t throwed out yet—these are ones from a long time ago, from olden times, have markings on them not like the new ones. One of them says, “Bullfrog Beer Our old Famous Brand.” Someone told me the can might be worth as much as ten bucks or maybe a little more, if the right person wanted it.
I looked hard at the screen, the little tv sitting on the counter with the beer cans on either side. They showed him, the new man that would live in the White House. He was not prickly. I turned off the set.
Out in the yard the old Chevy was still there. I didn’t think about it much, didn’t really remember if it ran when I parked it there, or if I just kind of pushed it out of the way and left it. It was part of the scenery, and after some years, maybe longer it just blended in, so that you didn’t have to really look at it to know it was there, but if you happened to be looking that way, chances are you would kind of just glance over it like you were staring out at the horizon—where there isn’t much of anything at all. So, in a way, the truck had become kind of invisible. I remembered the radio sermon out there in the desert, when I’d stopped to let the truck cool down. We had a new president and he wasn’t prickly.
So I’m writing this to thank you Mr. President for the good you have done and will surely do as you lead us in this great nation. And it doesn’t matter if we are alone all by ourselves with some beer cans and a old truck, or living high up someplace with offices and big cities and a lot of people around. You will do your best to help us all and I thank you for that.
Jasper Hanks
Beatty, NV
Letter to Obama (Washington Post)
It was back in 1958 and I was headed home to Nevada by way of Death Valley. My old truck was mostly wore out by that time, would overheat every ten miles or so and force me to stop. I pulled over by a Joshua Tree when I saw the needle go past the halfway mark—which was kind of hard to make out, on account of the gauge glass being cracked right where the needle would be in the too-hot range. My dad had gave me the Chevrolet after he was done with it. He bought it new in 1939, wrecked it once when a possum ran out in front of him, then drove it some more before handing it over to me.
The radio preacher was talking on the Emerson radio I carried with me. The truck didn’t have one, didn’t have much of anything besides what it needed to run. My old man told the Chevy dealer to give him a truck that wasn’t nothing but a truck. Nothing else. I remember he was mad and hollered something fierce when he saw the hand-crank vent at the front by the window, and thought they’d charged him extra for that. But the store man said no all the new trucks had them and you couldn’t get it without that window crank. It still took him a while to settle down, though. By now the hard springs were poking through the seat, hurt my butt on long rides. You had to sit up straight and kind of hunch forward to make the springs hurt less. But—like I said—every ten miles or so you had to stop anyway to let the truck rest and cool down.
The preacher was talking about what made us different from the other things that were alive, what set us apart. I was there in the shade of the Joshua Tree, and he said this—I remember it: “Can a cactus be President?” Then he said that no a cactus could not be president. Then he stopped, and the radio was quiet for a minute. I thought maybe the batteries had run down, but then he piped up again, like he’d just thought of something new to say. He said that a cactus was a prickly thing, and then he just let the matter rest, didn’t talk about the president or the cactus. But I was thinking that—from what he said—the main reason a cactus couldn’t be president was that it was prickly. I knew that wasn’t the case, that there were other reasons besides that.
Now it’s all these years later, maybe over fifty or so, and the new President’s swearing-in is coming over the television—the same one I’ve had for maybe twenty years, but still works okay. It doesn’t show the pictures in color, but there ain’t much color around here anyways. I set up the tv in the kitchen, moved away some beer cans to make space for it. These weren’t regular beer cans, like the ones I haven’t throwed out yet—these are ones from a long time ago, from olden times, have markings on them not like the new ones. One of them says, “Bullfrog Beer Our old Famous Brand.” Someone told me the can might be worth as much as ten bucks or maybe a little more, if the right person wanted it.
I looked hard at the screen, the little tv sitting on the counter with the beer cans on either side. They showed him, the new man that would live in the White House. He was not prickly. I turned off the set.
Out in the yard the old Chevy was still there. I didn’t think about it much, didn’t really remember if it ran when I parked it there, or if I just kind of pushed it out of the way and left it. It was part of the scenery, and after some years, maybe longer it just blended in, so that you didn’t have to really look at it to know it was there, but if you happened to be looking that way, chances are you would kind of just glance over it like you were staring out at the horizon—where there isn’t much of anything at all. So, in a way, the truck had become kind of invisible. I remembered the radio sermon out there in the desert, when I’d stopped to let the truck cool down. We had a new president and he wasn’t prickly.
So I’m writing this to thank you Mr. President for the good you have done and will surely do as you lead us in this great nation. And it doesn’t matter if we are alone all by ourselves with some beer cans and a old truck, or living high up someplace with offices and big cities and a lot of people around. You will do your best to help us all and I thank you for that.
Jasper Hanks
Beatty, NV
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Street People
I heard the fox tonight. Coming home around one in the morning, the night had settled into the coldest temperature it was comfortable with—would not rise from that or dip any further. It was around twenty degrees outside, and the air was clear and dry. No clouds hid the bright moon, making the night seem colder. The sharpness of everything pricks at you, makes the edges of the world seem more brittle, less kind than in milder and cloudier times.
Some might call the fox’s cry a “bark.” I think it sounds more like a scream. Even if you’ve heard it many times, like I have, it is still disconcerting, unsettling. It’s simply that I don’t know what it means—that piercing cry out there in the brittle cold. If I were another fox I might pay it no heed, or perhaps answer in a way that would make the other fox just shut up. But I’m a human, and if I heard another human making that sound, I would know that person was not having a happy time. So the fox spoke to me, and I heard what I wanted to hear, as people often do. I went to the leftover beef stew, lingering in the fridge since before I left for Europe. I took the whole crock pot and a spatula out into that area of the yard just under the maple tree, scooped it out onto the frozen ground. The fox would know to look for it there, would leave no trace of it the next morning. It was maybe even looking at me silently from the not-too-distant stand of trees, from that place its scream had been coming from.
I thought about the encampments of street people in Paris, bedding down for the night in the out of doors. I would walk the streets late, see a small village huddled in the granite entrance of an office building, see the stuff of their bedding—cardboard, sleeping bags, blankets and so on. Up ahead on a bench would be a buffet set out by a neighborhood business—a restaurant that had closed for the night. Tray upon tray of untouched food waited there in aluminum foil dishes, as yet undiscovered by the city dwellers who called the streets their home. Chicken and rice and cous-cous, potatoes and vegetables that had just been offered in an expensive eatery, waited in the silent and deserted street, with the overhead lamps casting their light on this incongruous scene. I’d passed many of the street people so far, but now there were none—the food and the people inhabited two different worlds at the moment. I walked on, my travels taking me to the parts of the city removed from the grands magasins, where people who were not actually from the city rarely strayed. At this hour the big boulevard was dark and traveled by little traffic—unlike the constant to-and-fro of that area near the Place de la Madeleine or near the big opera house, where a good deal of activity could be expected no matter what the hour.
Back in my familiar neighborhood, with all the cafés suffused by a golden light, couples toasted each other, drank to the day, to each other’s health. They spoke of their work, of the kids, or of the kids they planned to have—one day if they ever moved away from Paris and someplace a little more reasonable. They pondered what little introduction to their meal they might indulge in, would it be some foie gras or coquilles Saint-Jacques—or perhaps something else entirely? This was their main preoccupation as they sat in front of the expanse of glass, that partition that separated them from the glistening city outside—the streets and sidewalks and fashion shops reflected in the mirror of the café’s window.
Just outside, within view of the comfortable and warm couples, a man was dragging an enormous piece of cardboard to his spot to bed down for the night. The cold November streets would be a little more welcoming with a mattress made from the discarded refrigerator box. Whatever he could pull up over his body would be a temporary shield against the drizzle or snow that might fall that night.
Back home, in the woods outside the comfortable homes of suburbia, a fox screamed.
Some might call the fox’s cry a “bark.” I think it sounds more like a scream. Even if you’ve heard it many times, like I have, it is still disconcerting, unsettling. It’s simply that I don’t know what it means—that piercing cry out there in the brittle cold. If I were another fox I might pay it no heed, or perhaps answer in a way that would make the other fox just shut up. But I’m a human, and if I heard another human making that sound, I would know that person was not having a happy time. So the fox spoke to me, and I heard what I wanted to hear, as people often do. I went to the leftover beef stew, lingering in the fridge since before I left for Europe. I took the whole crock pot and a spatula out into that area of the yard just under the maple tree, scooped it out onto the frozen ground. The fox would know to look for it there, would leave no trace of it the next morning. It was maybe even looking at me silently from the not-too-distant stand of trees, from that place its scream had been coming from.
I thought about the encampments of street people in Paris, bedding down for the night in the out of doors. I would walk the streets late, see a small village huddled in the granite entrance of an office building, see the stuff of their bedding—cardboard, sleeping bags, blankets and so on. Up ahead on a bench would be a buffet set out by a neighborhood business—a restaurant that had closed for the night. Tray upon tray of untouched food waited there in aluminum foil dishes, as yet undiscovered by the city dwellers who called the streets their home. Chicken and rice and cous-cous, potatoes and vegetables that had just been offered in an expensive eatery, waited in the silent and deserted street, with the overhead lamps casting their light on this incongruous scene. I’d passed many of the street people so far, but now there were none—the food and the people inhabited two different worlds at the moment. I walked on, my travels taking me to the parts of the city removed from the grands magasins, where people who were not actually from the city rarely strayed. At this hour the big boulevard was dark and traveled by little traffic—unlike the constant to-and-fro of that area near the Place de la Madeleine or near the big opera house, where a good deal of activity could be expected no matter what the hour.
Back in my familiar neighborhood, with all the cafés suffused by a golden light, couples toasted each other, drank to the day, to each other’s health. They spoke of their work, of the kids, or of the kids they planned to have—one day if they ever moved away from Paris and someplace a little more reasonable. They pondered what little introduction to their meal they might indulge in, would it be some foie gras or coquilles Saint-Jacques—or perhaps something else entirely? This was their main preoccupation as they sat in front of the expanse of glass, that partition that separated them from the glistening city outside—the streets and sidewalks and fashion shops reflected in the mirror of the café’s window.
Just outside, within view of the comfortable and warm couples, a man was dragging an enormous piece of cardboard to his spot to bed down for the night. The cold November streets would be a little more welcoming with a mattress made from the discarded refrigerator box. Whatever he could pull up over his body would be a temporary shield against the drizzle or snow that might fall that night.
Back home, in the woods outside the comfortable homes of suburbia, a fox screamed.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Boston To Reyjkavik
Boston To Reyjkavik
On the plane to Iceland I had the good fortune to sit next to a man maybe ten years my junior who was born to an Icelandic mother and had since made his life in the United States. He was American but also somewhat Icelandic. He told me things.
This he said: That once, maybe five years ago, maybe less, he’d met a young woman in the small island country, had brought her home to Austin. Things had not gone well, as one might expect. The constant crush of sweltering days, where the temperature climbed to over a hundred degrees, was more than she could bear. Add to the mix some built-in instability that the youthful couple brought to Texas, and you might very well imagine a scenario with blue police lights on a hot Austin night, shouts and the sound of things being thrown coming from a rented clapboard bungalow with dogs barking in the neighbors’ yards. Outside, a chain-link fence erected many years ago enclosed a tattered yard that didn’t need much tending, on account of the burnt and withered grass that didn’t really grow, but just rose tentatively an inch or so above the ground—only to be beat back by the terrible sun. A small concrete path, leading from the bungalow’s back door, ended at a tilting clothes-line pole. Beyond that was a barbecue grill faded of all color from its days in the heat.
And then there were court appearances; and later, silences spread across the tables in the local fast-food eateries, and the sun-blasted Texas landscape outside, and the pickups and cars and slow-moving people just props to their drama, which was the only thing that mattered. You begin to get the idea. The woman is back in Iceland now, and the two are happier with this arrangement. I liked the man, admired his openness, told him to order his favorite Icelandic vodka, because it was on me. I’d vowed to get as drunk as I could on this hideous flight that I hated more than anything in this world—which is saying something, because there are few things that I don’t hate. After a gin and tonic and a vodka and cranberry juice, I still wasn’t sufficiently numbed—and could actually understand most of what my seat-mate was telling me. I went to the back of the plane, paid for another Icelandic vodka, came back to drink it alone. My new friend was nodding off in front of the brightly-lit touch-screen video display. I watched the strange concert of an Icelandic group called Sigur Ros, as they toured the small towns and sparsely-populated places—some of which I recognized—to pay homage to and thank the people of Iceland for listening to them.
If you could attribute a sound to the silent rocks of Iceland, and vast, untouched landscapes, recently heaved up from the earth’s innards—Sigur Ros would be that sound. There were three or four musicians—it was hard to tell, because they played behind a gauzy veil-like thing that projected shadows from behind—where the band performed. Everything was mystery—their strange music, that followed no musical conventions, but nonetheless expressed perfectly their time and place. The band members themselves—now worldwide performers—were self-effacing, as if to say: “We’re Icelanders—how could this have happened to US?” It is not dance music, is not a carnival ride on the midway; it is something you have to pay attention to, and if you get it—you will know right away. My feeling is that it helps to know Iceland to appreciate their music, but I am not sure it is entirely necessary. Sigur Ros. There are accents that need to be placed here and there, and that are hidden somewhere on my computer keyboard, like the mystery that is their music. These things elude me at the moment. Sigur Rós. Okay, there.
A good place to hear some of their music is on the internet. A nice clip from the “Heima” concert is on YouTube.
On the plane to Iceland I had the good fortune to sit next to a man maybe ten years my junior who was born to an Icelandic mother and had since made his life in the United States. He was American but also somewhat Icelandic. He told me things.
This he said: That once, maybe five years ago, maybe less, he’d met a young woman in the small island country, had brought her home to Austin. Things had not gone well, as one might expect. The constant crush of sweltering days, where the temperature climbed to over a hundred degrees, was more than she could bear. Add to the mix some built-in instability that the youthful couple brought to Texas, and you might very well imagine a scenario with blue police lights on a hot Austin night, shouts and the sound of things being thrown coming from a rented clapboard bungalow with dogs barking in the neighbors’ yards. Outside, a chain-link fence erected many years ago enclosed a tattered yard that didn’t need much tending, on account of the burnt and withered grass that didn’t really grow, but just rose tentatively an inch or so above the ground—only to be beat back by the terrible sun. A small concrete path, leading from the bungalow’s back door, ended at a tilting clothes-line pole. Beyond that was a barbecue grill faded of all color from its days in the heat.
And then there were court appearances; and later, silences spread across the tables in the local fast-food eateries, and the sun-blasted Texas landscape outside, and the pickups and cars and slow-moving people just props to their drama, which was the only thing that mattered. You begin to get the idea. The woman is back in Iceland now, and the two are happier with this arrangement. I liked the man, admired his openness, told him to order his favorite Icelandic vodka, because it was on me. I’d vowed to get as drunk as I could on this hideous flight that I hated more than anything in this world—which is saying something, because there are few things that I don’t hate. After a gin and tonic and a vodka and cranberry juice, I still wasn’t sufficiently numbed—and could actually understand most of what my seat-mate was telling me. I went to the back of the plane, paid for another Icelandic vodka, came back to drink it alone. My new friend was nodding off in front of the brightly-lit touch-screen video display. I watched the strange concert of an Icelandic group called Sigur Ros, as they toured the small towns and sparsely-populated places—some of which I recognized—to pay homage to and thank the people of Iceland for listening to them.
If you could attribute a sound to the silent rocks of Iceland, and vast, untouched landscapes, recently heaved up from the earth’s innards—Sigur Ros would be that sound. There were three or four musicians—it was hard to tell, because they played behind a gauzy veil-like thing that projected shadows from behind—where the band performed. Everything was mystery—their strange music, that followed no musical conventions, but nonetheless expressed perfectly their time and place. The band members themselves—now worldwide performers—were self-effacing, as if to say: “We’re Icelanders—how could this have happened to US?” It is not dance music, is not a carnival ride on the midway; it is something you have to pay attention to, and if you get it—you will know right away. My feeling is that it helps to know Iceland to appreciate their music, but I am not sure it is entirely necessary. Sigur Ros. There are accents that need to be placed here and there, and that are hidden somewhere on my computer keyboard, like the mystery that is their music. These things elude me at the moment. Sigur Rós. Okay, there.
A good place to hear some of their music is on the internet. A nice clip from the “Heima” concert is on YouTube.
Monday, January 5, 2009
It's Very Likely
Recently there were high winds in the area that resulted in the death of a priest who was trying to clear a roadway—and that also injured a little boy in Montgomery County, Maryland. The head of emergency services in that county had this to say to reporters:
"There were some toys and playthings out there. It's very likely he was outdoors playing."
"There were some toys and playthings out there. It's very likely he was outdoors playing."
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Jacques Prévert
Paris
With a terrible chill settling over the town, and an intermittent drizzle to round things out, I got in line with the others, those waiting to learn about the life of Jacques Prévert. It was free, so only the wait was necessary to gain access to the Mairie—or building that served as the city hall.
As the stoic and wordless people of Paris emptied their pockets at the security checkpoint, I asked this: “We have to put in our coins as well?” A flustered man was collecting the contents of his pocket from the little security bin, where he’d put a good deal of small and insignificant fractions of the euro. He was holding things up. No—the security man said—an affable person with a formidable sidearm. “Your knives, guns, sharp, pointy things. We need to collect all that.” There was some measure of relief that this loud American, so inexplicably dressed like the rest of them, had cleared up this detail of the security procedure. It was almost as if it would have been impolite for the armed guards to say that the coins were not really something that needed to go through the metal detector—so they said nothing at all. But this blowhard, hell-sent directly from across the Atlantic Ocean, was okay. He’d slice through the layers of formality, the centuries of keeping quiet unless it really required a comment—and even then it was best just to keep mum. No telling what might happen.
Inside, the people in charge of this exhibit spared no detail of M. Prévert’s life. All of his childhood sketches were there, the animations for fantastic cartoons played in black and white on one of several movie screens set up in little theatres. In other screening rooms, there played little films that exhibited an unrestrained sense of humor and creativity. He was a man not bound by convention, had realized from an early age how his life would most likely play out, and had followed that path to success. In his wake lay the works he’d created: the lyrics to “Les Feuilles Mortes,” which has become a standard covered in both popular and jazz circles—most often in English under the title, “Autumn Leaves.” Various plays and films he’d authored, and had also helped direct. His innocent and fascinating sketches seemed to bear a fanciful nod to Hieronymous Bosch—that vastly strange artist of fifteenth century Europe, in the respect that he depicted beasts never before seen or even imagined. Absent, of course, are the illustrations of nightmarish monsters and incomprehensible transactions between human-like creatures and their devil-sent counterparts. Prévert’s drawings have a good-natured quality about them, that does not delve into irony or rake at the muck of the human condition.
He appeared to love cats, and was often photographed or depicted with a favorite feline on his shoulder or nearby in the household. The illustrations that illuminated his life for the visitors of the exhibit were so numerous that I eventually just sought out the ones that contained a cat—in order to save a little time. In all, the artist is most known as a prominent poet and screenwriter—although I can say I only have a passing acquaintance with his works. In the coming times, I’ll do my best to rectify that.
I exited the place, deciding to bypass the little gift shop area that sold books and postcards and other things related to the departed artist’s life. I felt, during the exhibit, that I was suddenly becoming sick. I was on the left bank, within sight of the well-lit Notre Dame cathedral, and had the full and bustling rush-hour Metro to contend with. The symptoms came on quickly: An aching throughout all my body, that seemed to permeate my very bones, and a chill that had nothing to do with the damp and cold Paris evening. I put on my gloves, wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck, and pulled my grey woolen cap down over my ears.
On the subway, I was glad to have a respite from human interaction, from the obligations of coming into close contact with people. I could be miserable and sick, and not have to acknowledge anyone. This is a major advantage of Parisian life—or life anywhere in a big city, for that matter. Had I collapsed suddenly on a crowded sidewalk, the busy pedestrians would simply have stepped over my person, trying hard not to look too closely at this unfortunate, as it might be deemed impolite. I felt comforted by that thought.
Fortunately I found a seat on the two trains I had to take, did not much care if I were sitting where an infirm or more deserving person might have sat. By this time I was almost trembling with shivers, and wondered how long this whole episode was going to last. Getting off the final train, I trod upon a young man’s feet, something that I am prone to doing on the Paris Metro. They don’t quite give you enough room to stow your feet under your seat, so many passengers sit with their legs out in the standing area. You really have to pay attention. I apologized, stumbled off the train, and got out into the fresh air of the Place de l’Opéra. I made for my hotel, with my coat bundled up around my face, and quickly got undressed and into bed at around eight in the evening. The next morning I would sleep through breakfast, and the hotel lady at the front desk—Mlle. Frédéric, would tell me afterwards that hardly anyone had come down that morning—that it seemed as though everyone in Paris had become sick.
With a terrible chill settling over the town, and an intermittent drizzle to round things out, I got in line with the others, those waiting to learn about the life of Jacques Prévert. It was free, so only the wait was necessary to gain access to the Mairie—or building that served as the city hall.
As the stoic and wordless people of Paris emptied their pockets at the security checkpoint, I asked this: “We have to put in our coins as well?” A flustered man was collecting the contents of his pocket from the little security bin, where he’d put a good deal of small and insignificant fractions of the euro. He was holding things up. No—the security man said—an affable person with a formidable sidearm. “Your knives, guns, sharp, pointy things. We need to collect all that.” There was some measure of relief that this loud American, so inexplicably dressed like the rest of them, had cleared up this detail of the security procedure. It was almost as if it would have been impolite for the armed guards to say that the coins were not really something that needed to go through the metal detector—so they said nothing at all. But this blowhard, hell-sent directly from across the Atlantic Ocean, was okay. He’d slice through the layers of formality, the centuries of keeping quiet unless it really required a comment—and even then it was best just to keep mum. No telling what might happen.
Inside, the people in charge of this exhibit spared no detail of M. Prévert’s life. All of his childhood sketches were there, the animations for fantastic cartoons played in black and white on one of several movie screens set up in little theatres. In other screening rooms, there played little films that exhibited an unrestrained sense of humor and creativity. He was a man not bound by convention, had realized from an early age how his life would most likely play out, and had followed that path to success. In his wake lay the works he’d created: the lyrics to “Les Feuilles Mortes,” which has become a standard covered in both popular and jazz circles—most often in English under the title, “Autumn Leaves.” Various plays and films he’d authored, and had also helped direct. His innocent and fascinating sketches seemed to bear a fanciful nod to Hieronymous Bosch—that vastly strange artist of fifteenth century Europe, in the respect that he depicted beasts never before seen or even imagined. Absent, of course, are the illustrations of nightmarish monsters and incomprehensible transactions between human-like creatures and their devil-sent counterparts. Prévert’s drawings have a good-natured quality about them, that does not delve into irony or rake at the muck of the human condition.
He appeared to love cats, and was often photographed or depicted with a favorite feline on his shoulder or nearby in the household. The illustrations that illuminated his life for the visitors of the exhibit were so numerous that I eventually just sought out the ones that contained a cat—in order to save a little time. In all, the artist is most known as a prominent poet and screenwriter—although I can say I only have a passing acquaintance with his works. In the coming times, I’ll do my best to rectify that.
I exited the place, deciding to bypass the little gift shop area that sold books and postcards and other things related to the departed artist’s life. I felt, during the exhibit, that I was suddenly becoming sick. I was on the left bank, within sight of the well-lit Notre Dame cathedral, and had the full and bustling rush-hour Metro to contend with. The symptoms came on quickly: An aching throughout all my body, that seemed to permeate my very bones, and a chill that had nothing to do with the damp and cold Paris evening. I put on my gloves, wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck, and pulled my grey woolen cap down over my ears.
On the subway, I was glad to have a respite from human interaction, from the obligations of coming into close contact with people. I could be miserable and sick, and not have to acknowledge anyone. This is a major advantage of Parisian life—or life anywhere in a big city, for that matter. Had I collapsed suddenly on a crowded sidewalk, the busy pedestrians would simply have stepped over my person, trying hard not to look too closely at this unfortunate, as it might be deemed impolite. I felt comforted by that thought.
Fortunately I found a seat on the two trains I had to take, did not much care if I were sitting where an infirm or more deserving person might have sat. By this time I was almost trembling with shivers, and wondered how long this whole episode was going to last. Getting off the final train, I trod upon a young man’s feet, something that I am prone to doing on the Paris Metro. They don’t quite give you enough room to stow your feet under your seat, so many passengers sit with their legs out in the standing area. You really have to pay attention. I apologized, stumbled off the train, and got out into the fresh air of the Place de l’Opéra. I made for my hotel, with my coat bundled up around my face, and quickly got undressed and into bed at around eight in the evening. The next morning I would sleep through breakfast, and the hotel lady at the front desk—Mlle. Frédéric, would tell me afterwards that hardly anyone had come down that morning—that it seemed as though everyone in Paris had become sick.
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