ADVENT 2005

11/27/2005: in a dream asking directions to the Sterling Memorial Library, to read today’s newspapers while a car is being repaired and being directed to take the number 9 elevator to the 7th floor, which surprises that things have changed, since the reading room was always on the first floor; and, later in the evening, in the flashing lights of a police car, which seem to herald the light which flickers on the back of a pew in St. Mary’s Church, as a child bundled in winter clothes kicks his/her foot to allow and disallow the illumination of overhead lights and in the doll, which appears beside the man sitting next to the child, during the sermon on our anticipation of the coming of Christ, not an ordinary doll, which hides the child, but a large doll of a king, as if one of the Magi;

11/28/2005: in the comments of a lady to her male companion that the book she had just read describing the life of the author in a previous existence was meaningless, at an exhibition of paintings from Russia at the Guggenheim Museum, as a docent explained that the monks had controlled Russia for 800 years, longer than that of any other nation; and, later at night, in the three light bulbs of the floor lamp in a dark room which suddenly become lit, not by the required turning of a small knob three times, but by merely touching the lamp, while humming “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel”;

11/29/2005: in the fourth attempt on the telephone with a representative of the Vanguard Group to correct the error of confidential information on one man’s account having been sent to a stranger, as the room suddenly darkened, as though one of two lamp lights had been shut off, but the only light that had been turned on was still on;

11/30/2005: in the four cars negotiating traffic in the early morning on Elm Street, after passing three trucks, with their lights flashing and parked in tandem at the curb, a white car in the left hand lane passing a black car in the center lane and then turning left at the intersection where the latter suddenly stopped, after having pulled into the left hand lane, causing the third car behind it to swerve to the center as another white car passed them on the right;

12/01/2005: in a large branch with two limbs in the top of a bush, like antlers of a jolly green reindeer; and later in the tube of toothpaste on the bathroom sink that points to a pink cloud, above the words “arts” and “fog” on a San Francisco coffee mug, which are above a blue trolley car, which is in turn above “cable car”;

12/02/2005: in the moose head on the Elks Club, which mimics the antlers of the day before, with an American flag on the pole to its right and a flagless pole to its left, or maybe with the sky as its flag; and later in the Terex crane at a 45 degree angle to the ground, with its square wire box at the top beside the three flood lights of the parking lot;  

12/03/2005: in the two articles left on the side of the street no doubt for a bulk pickup, an easy chair and a tread mill, with its right brace support missing, and across the street in the two highway plastic cones, one with a ring on the top and the other without one;

12/04/2005: no apercu today, except perhaps in learning that “apercu” means “a revealing glance”, maybe that of a bird, perched on a branch under an umbrella of the rhododendron, perhaps confused by the falling snow;

12/05/2005: in the four articles in the dish rack in the left hand kitchen sink: a glass desert bowl and a scouring pad of plastic in the center, both round and of the same size; a dish towel, folded in a square on the right; and a rectangular sponge on the left, its longer sides being only slightly longer than those of the towel;

12/06/2005: in the record of the transaction on 12/01/2005 of the purchase by $1000 of 31.626 shares of the Wellington Mutual Fund for a price of $31.62: the digits of the month add to 3, of the day to 1, and of the year to 7; while the digits of amount of the purchase add to 1; and those of the price per share add to 12 and then to 3; and those of the number of shares add to 18 and then to 9; and in the 10 letters of the name which add to 1; a most remarkable coincidence, if it is indeed a coincidence; 

12/07/2005: in the two black pieces of tire on the side of the Delaware Turnpike, a rectangle flat on the ground and an upright “U” as in “you”, and minutes later in another piece of tire lying on its side as a “U” with a silver streak, lying on its side; and later in an elevator at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D. C., in the comments of one young woman to another: “You can sing. You can sing the contralto’s part. Do it this weekend.” and in the other’s reply: “But, first I have to get rid of Grandma”;

12/08/2005: in the piece of square newspaper on the sidewalk in front of the Westville Post Office, inside a square segment of cement, beside a yellow piece of plastic in the shape of a “C”, and across the street in the weather beaten cardboard box tacked to a telephone pole for no apparent reason, inside of which is also tacked a strip of cardboard, folded in thirds, with the both ends extended as if arms reaching out from a cape; and, an hour later, compelled to return there to mail another letter, in the young woman standing beside the pole, talking on a cell phone while holding in the same hand a square, gray envelop, which covers the bottom half of her face;

12/09/2005: in the fall of a small square cloth to the right of the sink and, at the bottom of the circular waste basket on the left, in the small blue plastic “C”, probably the seal for some bottle, together with three q tips, within a Target’s shopping bag, now its liner, covered with the company logos, red circles around a red dot in the center of each;

12/10/2005: in the sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of a yellow construction vehicle, its fork lift down to form a triangle with the nearby snow bank, with “Deere” painted on its side;

12/11/2005: in the small piece of red yarn on the shirt on the right side above the heart, in the shape of an “x”, which forms a “p” on a lower part of the shirt, after being flicked away, the two first letters of the Greek word for “Christ”; and, later, in the small green leaf, in the shape of a mandorla, on the sidewalk, one cusp of which pointing to a snow bank and the other to a rose bush with similar green leaves surrounded by snow;

12/12/2005: in the small two poster frames, one over the other, on Whalley Avenue, the larger one on the top is just a frame with no advertisement, the smaller has a “For Sale” notice;

12/13/2005: in the check mark made by the heads of three men, standing together across the street from Edgewood School, with man on the left taller than the man on the right, who is in turn taller the man in the middle, as if to approve of education, compared to no such approval of the tree trunk seen earlier in the day with a yellow ribbon around it on which is hung a hunk of snow, somewhat round, as though a trophy shield on the belt of a heavy weight boxing champion;

12/14/2005; in the piece of string on the basement stairs in the form of a crozier, the top on the edge of the third step, the rest stretching to the edge of the fourth, which to a skeptic might be a question mark;

12/15/2005: in the two shadows, one of the triangular top of the Hall of Graduate Studies on the tower of Morse College beside it and the other of the moving clouds on the Payne Whitney Gymnasium across the street; a contrast repeated in two dials on the dashboard, the gage for fuel being lit, while the gage beside it for speed constantly flickering;

12/16/2005: in the “Sincerely Yours” written on the window of a beauty salon on Chapel Street next to a sign on the side of the building with “New Beginnings” on top and “Church of God in Christ” below, and an arrow pointing to a door in the back;

12/17/2005: in the twelve paw prints made by a neighbor’s cat on the windshield of a car in a garage en route to the warmth of the front hood; and, later, in the user friendly can of sand at a 45 degree angle with the sidewalk above an empty whiskey bottle, noticed as an ambulance speeds by with red lights flashing;

12/18/2005: in the first letter, “C”, of “court/work”, written in haste instead of  “work/court” on a card that was filed alphabetically between one with the “word” and the next with the “world” in a card container, the “Word” (Christ) who comes into the “world” on Christmas;

12/19/2005: in the “Dove” above the “Vinyl Windows” of an advertisement on the side of a truck, stopped at a red light on Whalley Avenue, which turns to a flashing caution light in unison with the flashing of the tail lights of a nearby parked truck, a tension repeated in its license plate: “Yse 9747”, for “Yes” the struggle is with the worldly “4” and the spiritual “977”;

12/20/2005: in the string of lights on the decoration above the front door of a house on Chapel Street in the form of an inverted  “V”, with one strand out on the right side, as though an inverted check mark, giving though the sky had received a passing grade;

12/21/2005: in the white back of a sign, probably for highway directions, the bottom covered by a black sheet, perhaps of plastic, held by eight pieces of masking tape and by three pieces of tape at the top, which was probably attached the top of the sheet to cover the front, at an exit from the Oak Street Connector beside the New Haven Coliseum, whose bottom half has been demolished in the process of dismantling it completely; and later in the three pennies in the parking lot of the Best Buy store on the Boston Post Road, shining in the morning sun, beside a pack of Newport Cigarettes, probably empty; and still later in the words of a sign on a building across the street form the Yale New Haven Hospital, obscured by a column and by the edge of the hospital, leaving visible only the “Canc…cent…”, in which the beginning “c”s of both fragments  correspond as do the “n”s, while the “a” and the “e” do not, nor do the “c” and the “t”: the “Almighty” and “Christ” contending with the “earth” and “temporality”;  

12/22/2005: in the three shots of Novocain in a dentist’s chair, followed by the grinding sound of a drill, and then by the sheering sound of another drill, while water is being sprayed into the mouth; later, in the string of lights placed at random on a bush, which takes the form of a fish, beside an outdoor structure of a deer in white lights; and, later, in the three tangerine seeds which fall, bounce off the bottom of the sink and into two basins nearby; and later, after working on a book exhibit, noticing the random series of 21 emails sent to classmates and 3 to wives of classmates;  

12/23/2005: in the “wheat” on a yellow wrapper, probably of a loaf of bread, to which a small empty whisky bottle points in the gutter on Dixwell Avenue, near another larger empty bottle, probably a beer bottle, half covered by ice; and later on the roof of an Exxon station, in the dozens of small American flags flapping in the wind except for three on one end, still and peaceful;

12/24/2005: in the small green triangle, left from wrapping a Christmas present, that had fallen next to a white triangle in the design of the fabric of the chair, as the CD of “Vingt Regards sur L’Enfant Jesus” by Messiaen is playing; and minutes later in the three long packages and large bag, carried by a woman from her mini van to the back for her home, the bag being placed in a black garbage can and the others in her garage, who returns to remove her infant son from the van, to meet her husband on the front walk, and to enter their front door with them;