from Caffee Reggio [travel note]

That would be your faithful correspondent, ensconsed on the E Train heading south from Penn Station, circa 11pm of a Sunday. Got in from East Hampton (having spent an intense day reviewing video / preparing for edit, with Don Lenser at Ellen Frank's abode/atelier, on which more later). Surprisingly (not having advance-checked), no Amtrak to DC till 3am. Ergo the southward jaunt to my sometime home base: Caffee Reggio on MacDougal Street.

"Look what the wind blew in," quoth Jack Williams, now manager of the place (erstwhile -- in days I lived upstairs on 2nd floor -- one Theo, Britisher, painter, later opera-singing dabbler, and proprietor of a teashop or somesuch in distant Calcutta if I recall aright) had held that role. Jack though even back then (I'm talkinjg circa 1990) worked here. "I think the principal character is too unsympathetic," I allow -- giving him my terse critique of his play. Last time I was here (couple months ago), he sent me off with a DVD of a read-thru of his latest (and perhaps strongest, my critique notwithstanding) theatrical effort. Earlier he'd been writing screenplays, but has turned to stage-plays these days. I'd watched the DVD on the train south, that time. This train to DC, though, I'll need to be editing video ferociously -- since gameplan is to Fed.Ex. a rough-rough-cut (winnowing mainly, but perchance with some glimmers of the nascent organization) of the short work-in-prog. to Don tomorrow. Which means I should be basically done with that 1st phase of the edit by 10am or so....inshallah. My dayjob awaits at noon. [some of these particulars have tweaks-in-prog.]

Sitting with Don, exchanging thoughts and taking in his view as we pored over the footage from start to end (bit less than 3 hours of material in all) was a good experience in itself. The sense of deadline pressure with this editing stint is a bit intense (I leaving the country Nov. 10, and the work to screen in NYC Nov. 17).

I should hie me away to Cafe Esparanto (down the block) shortly, to begin some work on it maybe. Reggio is better for internet connection, but Esparanto is better for electricity! Furthermore, Esparanto is open all night (Reggio on a Sunday will close shope at the ungodly-early hour of 1am or such, I think). In gone years (well, in the one gone year I lived upstairs), I'd sometimes come down for espression around midnight -- then onward with painting for hours. Though much of the time I was working a graveyard shift uptown -- so the hours / espressos / painting would differ.

How I got into oilpainting upstairs: It started by painting my kitchen. I'd done some dabbling with oilpainting earlier in Walnut Creek (and I recall a couple of all-night oilpaint sessions when in high school -- the first taste of the art). When I moved into the apartment above Reggio, I was confronted with a likeable kitchen area with white small tiles. I begain painting them with oilpaints -- and laso the metal cabinets. Besides some simple geometricc patterns and landscape paintings (on the cabinets especially), I inscribed some lines of Hafez and Rumi. From Rumi:

Wherever a pain is     the remedy goes there
wherever a lowland is     the water runs there
if you want the water of mercy   go   become lowly
then drink the wine of mercy     & become drunken

And from Hafez? Alas, I don't recall the couplet(s) selected. I rather doubt the current tennant still has the evidence intact.

Anyway, Markar and Parkar (my tenants for a few months -- before they moved down south to live near the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach -- where they remain to this day) encouraged me in my home-decor efforts. After I'd spent time painting walls (tiles, cabinets), I guess I felt ready to approach something like canvas. Though I also liked painting at times on wooden board. I admired the quote from Howard Hodgkin, to the effect: "Canvas -- it scares me." Hodgkin had made a career of painting on small wooden boards. I was willing to venture into canvas, Hodgkin's good apprehension notwithstanding.

It was also in the place upstairs that I unfuled a sequence of dinner parties. A happy memory. Someday, inshallah, perhaps I'll get into the dinner party racket again. But for now: I'll down the mocha, and pack up the laptop before the battery expires.

Reggio, incidentally, is the place for caffee mocha par excellence.

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A day later, it occurs to me: this was the Hafez verse I'd oil-painted (amid landscape) on the old MacDougal Street metal kitchen cabinet (16 years ago):

By the marge of the stream   sit
          and the passing of life   behold
for this example of the passing world
          is for us enough

Really only some handful of friends saw that ephemeral art. Of course the landscape included a stream.