(I'm writing some more dispatches in November. I won't post all of them, but I will post a few. Here's one.)
An Education
I've stood in front of the best art in the best museums of the Midwest with my little brother, having driven him there and installed him in front of pieces from a variety of periods in a variety of media, all in the interest of developing his mind. Contemporary Mexican baroque at the Walker. Sculpture gardens. Portrait rooms with eighteenth century courtiers etc. We stood there, still and taking it in-- face of youth, ridiculous clothes-- and I said to him, "That's you." When he visited me in New York City, I continued my work, taking him to the Poetry Project for the James Schuyler tribute. Or, no, it was the Jack Spicer tribute. The Met for the Temple of Dendur. (I lived perched on the upper edge of Manhattan the, moping around Inwood Hill Park at dusk for my desultory version of exercise, back when I thought that was safe.) This is Thai food on the Upper West Side. This is Central Park. Ethiopian food. This is the face you make on the subway. On one visit, I took him to the Cloisters, and he made me German tart with Italian plums from the market. In that one convenience store near NYU with the obscure Japanese candy, he ate ice cream with pieces of corn in it. Cursed me for taking him to a very slow Jim Jarmusch movie. Like, even more slow than usual. We peered through a locked gate in Soho at some kind of David Byrne installation. Listen, I took my role seriously. In a lavish room at the Frick, again we stood in front of a young nobleman of some kind, huddled there, unable to giggle in such a close atmosphere. But anyway, that is you.
