I wandered into the Rothko Chapel in Houston last week. The culmination of Abstract expression. When you first walk in there is a bench with a line of around 10 holy books; the Bible, the Koran, The Sutras, the Torah, The Upanishads. In the main hall are Rothko’s paintings all very dark, mostly black; fourteen of them. Some with a subtle purplish tone like the faintest suggestion of light coming from within them. They are like looking at a painting with your eyes closed. There is a configuration of windows in the center of the ceiling that lets in the light from the sky. We could feel each cloud that passed.
When I say they are like looking at a painting with your eyes closed, I don’t mean the malleable shut-eye darkness that Salvador Dali talks of when he talks about putting pressure on the outside of the closed eyes and watching the colors of the physical nerve ending swirl about. Rothko’s darkness is an intellectual void, a spiritual void, similar to the one Buddhism talks of. It is a darkness one must conjure on your own, a darkness from the other end of the optic nerve.
One Day Later
Here I am sitting on the front porch at Carla & Louis’s house in La Grange. I can look down the hill and make out the water tower across the river. Its the only sign of the town. The chickens are hanging out, making unusual sounds, mellow little clucks of contentment. Rex the rooster fakes finding some bug or something in the grass and calls the hens over, they peck about & walk away unimpressed. They like to have their dust baths in the flower garden by the front door where they have created an extremely fine bowl of dust. I want to join them.
We drove up to Giddings City Meat Market. It started pouring down rain as we arrived, but we got a parking spot right outside the front door. Right away inside my eyes felt the smoke that hazed the place. What a smoke it was that perfect Smoked brisket smell. That perfect smoked ribs & chicken smell. The perfect smoked sausage smell. When you first enter the market you are in the butcher shop. The glass on the display counters was so scratched and foggy I couldn’t tell what was there. Colin lead the way. We followed him into the dinning room at the back of the shop. A soot covered walk-in cooler created at hallway between the butcher shop and the dinning room. On the door of the cooler was a, “How to perform the Heimlich Maneuver,” poster. Next to it were pictures of John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, and a few local country singing heroes I wasn’t familiar with. The smoke grew thicker as we crossed the wood worn dining area. I haven’t felt this much excitement to get into a line since getting on space mountain at Disney world. My eyes stung so much I could hardly read the chalkboard menu; “Ribs, Sausage, Chicken, Brisket, Steaks.” Before ordering We got to collect our raw onions and pickled Jalepenos on a bit of wax paper. When we got up to order they ask, “What you want?” “Brisket,” I say. They rip a sheet of red paper off a roll, lay it on the counter, open the cast iron lid to the fire pit that opens effortlessly because of the counterbalanced weight system connected with pulleys to the ceiling. They quickly raise a whole brisket out through the smoke on a big fat fork, plop it on the paper, whip out a foot long knife and whisper, “Say when,” as they start slicing. I get about four of five slices, some ribs, a sausage, some chili beans, and a can of coke-cola. They deal in a couple of slices of white bread before they wrap it up and add it up. Remember how Andy Griffith used to say, “Gooood,” on Andy of Mayberry?
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