Journal II

JANUARY

A heat wave today. Driving into a sea of hot air and light, the horizon dusted with the smoke of fires burning far away in the mountains. Mirrors everywhere, reflecting from the top of cars, windows, the air sparkling as if made of particles of ice.
We came home and closed all the windows, the doors, drew the curtains, barricaded ourselves against the heat, then watched from inside the spectacle – this white burning stillness falling on everything.

After the heat wave, a big storm last night, shredding the trees, the wind moving in whirlpools above the street lights. Late at night the wind subsided, the sky suddenly clear and this brilliant, miraculous full moon above the city, slightly off the bridge.

An article about a retrospective exhibition of Max Beckmann’s works. Max Beckmann describing colours as: „The strange and magnificent expression of the inscrutable spectrum of Eternity.“

Wieniawsky’s „The Legend“ over the radio, as of old. Father playing. This intimate, mysterious music travelling across time. The documentary on European musicians reminded me of him, all these short, compact men, with small energetic hands.

At K’s for dinner. On the terrace, the sun was setting, the sea very still, a lake full of golden brown reflections. From the other side the sound of a motor.

Discussions about the new theories, the new discoveries, magnetic zones, a new phenomenon that could not be measured before, the instruments not fine enough.
At every age, the universe lends itself to us, graciously.

FEBRUARY

Touching the flowers of the bottle-brush, soft as the fur of a cat.

Hot and humid, storms during the night, the rain pelting down, the lightning, a spectral white-blue opalescence, flashing silently in the room. The thunder would come from far away, bursting on top of the house. Then the lightning again, sinister, flicked in and out by an unseen hand. I woke up afraid.

Reading Stendhal’s autobiography The Life of Henry Brulard, he talks of writing:
„We are all writing as if the world is attacking us, we are writing from a centre that we try to make into a retreat from which we are going out to repulse the advancing armies of the enemies…“
And later:
„In the presence of people I loved, I totally lost myself, my personality.“

At the pictures, sitting in the dark, couples, kids, elderly people, all of us watching this amazing intimacy shown on the screen. Before, this type of sexual intimacy would have been in books, a one to one involvement, but now a mass participation.

Albert Tucker in a documentary about his life, Joy Hester… „Women,“ he was saying, „have an insidious power to invade the male psyche, one has to be aware of it all the time.“ As if describing the enemy at the gate.

I was falling in and out of sleep, dreaming of Mother in the backyard putting clothes on the line, talking. I helping, making myself useful. The light on the clothes, brilliant white, peaceful, full of a live element, like the light for the last few days, luminous.

MARCH

Katherine Anne Porter: „Love, is purely a creation of the human imagination. It is the most important example of how imagination continuously outruns the creature it inhabits.“

A beautiful autumn day, the sky, a vast resonating chamber in which the planes are entering. Driving to our Sunday lunch, everyone in a good mood. We stopped on the way at an Italian delicatessen full of smells of goat cheese, dry figs, exotic Easter cakes in baroque looking boxes, tins and tins of olive oils, pastas. We were all lost in these fields of possibilities – walnuts, coffee, mountains of bread.
Finally we made it to R’s. The sea below dark blue, full of high waves and eerie looking surfers in their black rubber suits, thin and tall, running, as if on hot coals, down the hill, with their surf boards.
Alter lunch we went down, the street very steep, the sea beating between two rock heads. Wild, dark, tall waves falling on the beach with a tremendous sound, turning into foam, a continuous activity, the sound so powerful we had to shout, and on the crest of the waves these black sea creatures.

When you look at Celan’s anguish, yours becomes an affectation. But how can one live with such anguish? One has to read him at noon, with the sun out, friends in the house, to counteract this sort of desperation.

Bertolucci talking about films and filming. After all the preparations, when one is filming, it is a moment in the lives of the actors, the crew… when the scene is finished, the moment has passed for ever.
He was quoting Cocteau:
„The cinema is death at work.“

V. talking as always about Hindu metaphysics – stopping time, insinuating oneself in the momentary gap, tapping into the vitality of the universe, the potency of the cosmos. What an amazing notion. All this to be achieved through ritual.

APRIL

We left Canberra early in the morning, the mist was rising like steam from the ground. Around us the silence of the hills, the cows in the paddocks insubstantial shapes. Driving up the little bridge we took the wrong turn. The white gums tall and very beautiful, and suddenly in the middle of the bush this white clay mine. A mountain of clay of a startling old marble whiteness, above it the sky had become sharp blue.
We came out, walked around it, climbed it. The ground had been cut into a large opening with serrated walls, filled now with rain water, a small lake that reflected the sky, transforming it into a giant boulder opal, turquoise blue.
We became very excited, took photos. The forest full of large gums, their bark marked by a cuneiform script. An ancient hand or some cardiac machine that had left its mark?
On the way back, we stopped in Goulburn, at the Paragon Café, for some tea.

When the ambulance went past, the dog next door started to howl, a human howl, as if it had released in him some deep anguish, a sound of mourning, of deep weeping, his head tilted upwards, matching his voice to that of the ambulance.

Re-reading Chamfort, his acid wit, his aphorisms, his despair at the terrible transformations of the French Revolution, his tragic end. His quote, that we used in the office and that Dr C. liked very much:
„When my friends are one eyed, I try to see them in profile.“

MAY

A review of the latest book of the well known writer, full of admiration, describing him as:
„…a protean figure, the international literary superhero, Bard of the bush and champion of rural Australia, a polilingual translator, someone solemn, grand, eclectic…“ and so on, then quoting a politician who referred to him as:
„The Ayers Rock of Australian literature, central, vast, immovable, contentious and yet changing with the colours of the day…“
Admiration always sounds so absolute, so totalitarian.

Afternoon visit to Mrs C. She was on the balcony with her straw hat, but complaining that she had lost again her front teeth. She was very pleased to see me. She kept looking at me with her still, aquamarine eyes.
From the balcony we watched the city and the new bridge. The milky light falling on the park, the garden next door, the lemon tree heaving under the weight of lemons.
I asked her if Linda Williams had come to see her. „Linda Williams“, she said, the name was familiar, but she could not remember her. So many names that one had to place.
We seem to be slowly disconnecting from everything, things are receding further and further away, till we lose even the memory of something we can’t place, the loss remembered vaguely at the beginning, later only a faint feeling about it, a light shadow absorbed by the everyday.

Discussions over the radio about Liszt and his career as a concert pianist. His impact on audiences was spectacular, on women, of course, but it was reported at the time, that after listening to him:
„Even strong men became incoherent.“
I rather liked that.

JUNE

Coming out of the Opera House, the city was rising lighted in the mist, weightless, the massive shapes of the buildings floating above the ground.

Discussing with I. the idea of size in literature. I felt that it has something to do with the physical space of the country, as in America too, people trying to cover it by inflating all things oversized cars, buildings, novels, instead of concentrating them as in populated countries.
But the whole scene, it seems to me, quite impoverished, an age of salespeople, men and women, constantly tailoring their minds to one goal, how to sell and sell more, as if life, reality, growing up, dying, have anything to do with it.
These are forces outside the framework of these merchants, a melancholy kingdom totally sealed off and constantly giving itself prizes, more and more of them, in need of constant reassurance that they are the best, measure up against all the past masters, which they are simplifying for easy consumption, at any rate. Lists of past giants are constantly being prepared, for comparison.

Munch:
„Like all nervous people I talk a lot. When I talk I confide in the person I am with and prevent them from attacking me. Some people use speech like gas to silence their victims and thwart their intentions, they use talk as a weapon for attack. I use it as a means of self-defence.“

JULY

I had arrived too early. The new building a huge bunker, everything aluminium coloured, the walls, the furniture, people at the far end going up the escalator, puppets disappearing into the vast glass ceiling.
The convention hall was full of tables laid out with flowers and candles. In the semi-darkness an army of waiters in black with white gloves moved about.
They slowly began to arrive, the large black curtain wall parting as they came in. Then P.R. came to sit at the same table. He was astonished to see me there, looked at me as if an interloper in his familiar world. He proceeded to tell me of his involvement with the „ethnics“, obviously the only topic of conversation with me. For the rest of the night he sat on the other side of the table, small and rather discoloured, stunned in his own unease, smiling an embarrassed smile to the air, convinced that his success could not be that great if people like me were part of it.
Then the journalist approached, introduced himself, he seemed in a permanent hurry, a minor official at court, running with the excitement of some dreadful catastrophe befalling an important personage. He asked me in a breathless voice how was D.
As far as I knew he was overseas having a good time. „No, no“, he said, he is back, had had a stroke and lost his eyesight. „Imagine“, he said, „incapable of reading.“
I was stunned, looked around to see if I could find him, black clad figures were coming in, moving through the catacombian darkness, voices that were laughing, telling stories. Then the curtain parted and there was D. Tall, walking on the arm of his wile, holding himself erect with dignity. Later I went to say hello, he apologised for the dark glasses he was wearing, the lights bothered him.
We went on, seated now, to eat our entrees, objects with little taste, difficult to define their origins, and drink the next round of wine to the deafening sound of the slide presentation that had started.
When the second course arrived on the large white plates, a piece of chicken that had been forced into a perfect round form to appear as a rose in the middle of the potatoes, I asked my neighbour laughing:
„Don’t you think that we eat and drink too much for intellectuals?“
She cut me down immediately in a sharp voice:
„This is a thirties idea.“
Then the proceedings began, the Master of Ceremonies totally in control, but at ease. They all seemed very pleased with themselves, their products, their style, the sales, a mutual admiration society. The language was as if of beef exports, rising curves of sales, local and overseas markets, exhaustive thanks to the sponsors, anecdotes of meetings with the great, defined as sportsmen or politicians.
Patrick White would have been very displeased with us, he would have quoted again his Amazonian proverb:
„Nothing is lacking, only what is missing.“
The very large audience clapped enthusiastically from the darkness, as the heroes mounted the podium. Behind them on the giant screen, crudely coloured books floated in a yellow red liquid. I was looking at D. tall and sombre with his silver hair, in the light of the candles, seemingly watching the scene behind his dark glasses.
Was he seeing anything?

At the cemetery, the sky empty, only a plane painted on the surface of the blue, suspended above the monuments on the hill. No one about but some Greeks. The same woman selling flowers in the shop, slightly older now.

AUGUST

In the Saturday papers discussion about the major publishing house up for sale, everyone lamenting its possible demise, the loss of major imprints etc. But the management described the sale in the new terminologies as:
„STRATEGIC RE-FOCUSING.“

Georgia O’Keeffe:
„Where I was born and where and how I lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.“

Listening to the singer, I thought of that amazing sweetness that I discovered in Spain, an unimagined sweetness, that is yet not too much, the absolute, refined sweetness that still maintains a backbone, that travels from cakes, to oranges, to language, to the light and back again.

I went with Y. to the official opening. Inside the clean lines of the gallery, waiters in white gloves were serving champagne, holding the bottles at the right angle, like exotic fruit they were handling carefully, pouring out the nectar.
The place was full already, everyone in black, with de rigueur hair cuts, in heavy black shoes, bending under the weight of aesthetic problems, but with a rather vacant look on their faces.
The officials, in dark, blue/grey suits, spoke of culture and excellence.
Only R.H. was getting slightly drunk, complaining mockingly about the changes in the gallery. „Where was the magnificent ‚David and Bathsheba‘? Or ‚The Charge of the Light Brigade‘? Everything had been replaced by a bronze nude with breasts held up by tape to stand forward in such an unnatural manner.“
When we left, he was sitting on the bench outside, in the misty yellow air, between the Greek columns, smoking. He opened a last eye on us, as we passed, mischievous and ironic.

SEPTEMBER

The Andrej Wajda interview – Polish nationalism and symbols. Listening to him you were in Polishness, all the concerns, the approach, the silent irony, the burden of nationalism, Catholicism, all inter-related.
He was at home, at night, by the fire, with a cat hovering in the background, and around him one felt the darkness. A sad, sombre face.
Defining his fundamental aim – „trying to have an affinity with the reality around him and with tradition.“

Very hot on the terrace, in the sun, as if summer, a haze over the city, everything blooming already, the orange tree heavy with blossoms and scent, and bees coming and going.

S. was coming down Martin Place, slightly thinner after his heart attack, paler. He was overwhelmed at seeing me, kissed my hands, kissed me on both cheeks, went into his usual little performance, how well I looked, „Unchanged, unchanged,“ he kept saying, „like the Acropolis.“ „I agree, I agree,“ I said laughing, „a ruin.“
Here we were pretending as of old, he a debonair young man flirting with a beautiful woman, but he had to stop and draw breath often, as if a heart attack was imminent.
We talked of the old countries. „The club empty now,“ he said, „all his friends at Rookwood.“ His eyes a faded brown, and his face longer and sadder under the elegant straw hat.

We went to see P. in a small role in the play, falling down effortlessly as Dame Maud, who had one glass too many between acts. She alone sustaining the essence of the play, amusing oddities of stage life, she seemed to have a past, quirky opinions which seemed related to experience, despite the rather superficial text.
And that amazing ability, that she had always had, to convince one that she is floating on stage.

OCTOBER

Raining and a slight wind, the trees moving as if shaking themselves under water.

Looking out of the window at the back lane, there was the small utility carrying away Mrs C.’s meagre furniture, the round table, the two cupboards, the small bedside table. It seemed such an impoverished ending, sad and vulnerable.
Three months and everything has gone, the house sold, and all these strangers moving in, with their furniture, their presence in her rooms, looking out of her windows, sitting on her balcony. One is stunned to see them there, taking over her property, her home, her place of refuge till the end.
Nothing remains, as we know intellectually, but to feel the process itself, when it happens, a terrible realisation.

The dinner in honour of the Australian journalist who lives in New York. A tall, glossy woman with red painted nails and a warm skin, eating well, in between running down the local scene. Sydney, boring galleries, little to see, in NY you can go and see a masterpiece any time you want.
Ah! I thought, these people who recognise masterpieces and are constantly looking at them.
She was full of an attacking energy, entertaining, constantly on the look-out for „politically correct victims“, public money spent on useless projects, artists travelling to NY, an amplitude about her idea of money that she was bringing from NY, not realising the paucity of the arts money here.
Then on to cooking… and how good Toklas and her cookbook were, but Gertrude, that heavy, stupid woman in the background… I was listening to all this, could not find my way out of the maze of her perceptions.

NOVEMBER

The lady across the street is receiving visitors, an older woman holding a very small child. They are both bending over it, as if flowers in the wind. The child seems interested in the new surroundings, looking with curiosity at the garden, the street, the houses on the other side.
They both speak in babyish tones, one can almost hear them from the position of their bodies, their hands. They touch his fine hair, delicately.

In the film on Magritte, he was quoted as saying:
„In my pictures, the spectator recognises his isolation and listens to the silence of the world.“
And later, commenting on his portrait with four hands:
„The maniacs of movement and the maniacs of stillness will be equally disappointed.“

Hot and humid this morning, last night a terrible electric storm. I waited for a long time for it to pass. The house hit constantly by blue, undulating lights, followed by a terrible cracking of the sky, as if the sky was made of heavy glass that was breaking on all fronts, on and on, the horizon lighting up with the flare of pale fires, ghostly fires.

Aboriginal story telling, the landscape in the north populated with myths, the mountains, the rivers, the old woman saying:
Through the singing we keep everything alive…
Through the singing the spirits keep us alive…
Art too is constantly trying to sing the world alive.

Seferis writing to a friend:
„The truth is one seeks not to get away from a place, not to travel, not to see again the people one loves, not even to create something. At bottom, one is seeking to get out of oneself, and perhaps the criterion of man’s worth is the way he manages to get out of himself.“

DECEMBER

We walked down the empty, deserted streets, in the dusk, the cars passing down fast with a swishing sound. Most shops closed, only the delicatessen glowing in the night. We bought smoked herrings in Father’s memory, remembered how he loved to prepare them, searing them on the flame, so that the skin became alive with a copper, golden glow.

In a review by Helen Vendler of Steven Axelrod’s Robert Lowell Life and Art :
„…there was a degree of controversy about the recent Mary Cassatt exhibition… the show juxtaposed domestic objects with paintings of the same objects – a tea set, a silver service… The good intentions of the exhibition, to bring art closer to biography and thereby closer to the viewer, begged, once again, the central question: What had the data become in the picture, Cezanne’s bottles, cherub and skulls, stand untransfigured now in his studio, all light fled from them… Lowell’s domestic and public data, his mother’s Risorgimento coffin, etc, would not only not be art, they would also not be ‚experience‘. We cannot go behind art. The illusion that we can is of course, art’s most compelling hallucination.“

Last night watching a TV performance of Handel’s Messiah in Dublin. All these young women violinists in the orchestra, in their rich blue-green evening gowns, looking as if Mary’s sisters. The same light brown hair, shoulders, but especially her elbows and hands. Rather naive, young and awkward elbows, diffident, but attacking Handel with vigour.

Published in print in HEAT 12.