abracadabra

After a long hiatus, here is a post from February when the blog went dark for a while. The Small Kitchen itself never goes dark, even after nightwatch, even after the lightswitch is flipped.

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Today in morning service, during the three bows at the end of service, someone’s cellphone went off, its ringtone set to the Steve Miller Band song Abracadabra. It was one of those perfect taut moments in a formal setting that feel heightened out of proportion to the actual thing. It was just someone’s phone ringing. But it was before 7 a.m. in a room full of silent people bowing. I’m usually hypertuned to laugh at these moments; I go right back to cracking up in church with my cousin, the woman in front of us turning sternly, you girls hush up! But by then it’s too late, that only makes matters worse. The containment provokes the laughter. I could feel that cascade effect of mirror neurons hearing S in the row in front of me trying not to laugh, triggering more laughter after I was already over it. I don’t mind this. I like that feeling of being part of a larger organism.

As any poet knows, part of the beauty and utility of a formal practice is what happens when the form is broken. Set it up so you can break it. Ask Gerard Manley Hopkins, who knew how to stretch a sonnet. His sonnet “That Nature is a Heraclitean fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection” is perhaps the first extended dance remix. But he went straight to the 12,” the plain old sonnet is implied.  The implication of the 20-line version with its lines that wrap is that the subject is too vast to be contained.

All this was bringing to mind a story Lynda Barry told in the workshop she recently taught in San Francisco. What I remember of the story is this: a paralyzed person was able to move a cursor by thought alone. In an experimental setting, the researchers were trying to sort out whether this was just a fluke, or whether the person could actually communicate in this way. So the person moved the cursor to A. That looked intentional so everyone felt encouraged. Then B, yes. The alphabet. That great sign that all is well. But wait, the next letter was R. disappointment spread through the room. But then A then C and soon everyone could see where that was going. He finished the word, spelling Abracadabra without “touching” anything… So what is touch if this is possible?

Mind over Matter. But is it “over”
Maybe it’s “and” or “with” or maybe there’s no difference…

Aaron Danforth, epilepsy patient: “I have to think of the word ‘move’ to get it to move to the right.”

mind over matter