Attention Inventory: December
5 recently clocked preoccupations, including: lifelong secrets, Sinatra’s pastas, herbal hacks, and getting better with age.
Nothing succeeds without taking stock. Below, this month’s “Attention Inventory” list of 5 clocked preoccupations, including: lifelong secrets, Sinatra’s pastas, herbal hacks, and getting better with age.
1. Clandestine for No Reason
A nomination for more secret art: Picasso’s “Face with Leaves” (Visage aux feullies), cast in 24k gold and created in collaboration with goldsmith François Victor-Hugo, was made as series of private treasures. Never publicized (but rather quietly distributed to collectors), “few outside Picasso’s inner circle knew about their existence.”
And speaking of unexplainable private behavior:
I cannot shake off this recent profile of Joyce Carol Oates, particularly the mention of a lifelong unnamed secret she’s documented in her journals since the early 1970s:
“The journal, which she began in 1973, eventually swelled to more than four thousand typed, single-spaced pages. Throughout, she alludes to a secret. “It’s there, it’s always there,” she wrote in 1978. “I wish I could give a name to it, even in code.” She thought about the secret so often, she wrote, that the journal could be named “The Person Who Has Written This Journal Lives a Secret.” She couldn’t “help but wonder (and here fiction won’t help me, art won’t help me) whether it is a secret embedded deep within everyone’s life, but particularly within the life of the creative artist.” At times the secret felt as “awkward as a hammer stuck in my pocket, getting in my way . . . at other times small and contained and indeed unobtrusive as a tiny pebble.”
2. Beautiful Repellants
This month I took a trip to Todos Santos, Mexico, where I noted a tip to burn a bundle of fresh rosemary sprigs as a way to repel flies and mosquitoes.
First of all, it works.
Second, the fragrance is intoxicating, like an earthy and eucalyptus-y smudge stick. Don’t underestimate the hidden powers of your soup stock bouquet garni.
3. “Hand in Hand with Contentment”
As a counterpart to Joyce Carol Oates’ insatiable obsessiveness (see above), I offer a sweet line in an Agnes Martin interview that’s stuck with me, pulled from a 1972 conversation with Lizzie Borden:
“In my best moments I think life has passed me by, and I am content. Most people aren’t. Walking seems to cover time and space, but in reality we are always just where we started. I walk, but in reality I am hand in hand with contentment on my own doorstep.”
[For context, the transcription offers one of the few glimpses of Martin’s personal reflections on her life and work, and was originally printed to accompany an exhibition of her works at the Kunstmuseum, Winterthur, in 1992. It is included in a now out-of-print book of writings, but excerpts can be found online.]
4. Lawless Spaghetti
At dinner at [name redacted of esteemed Los Angeles dining establishment], we ordered the pasta special, made with smuggled Italian truffles, only to later realize that the single dish was $120. I will die on the hill that there are no rules in this life. People are out here doing unhinged things and getting away with it; just carry that with you today.
Speaking of dying on hills of pasta, Frank Sinatra was for some reason highly vocal about his love for it, publishing multiple cookbooks dedicated to his sauce recipes (maybe you want to make this “Fettuccine a la Sinatra,” which is actually just cacio e pepe.) Lesson learned: to distract men, serve spaghetti.
5. Optical Acquisitions
After dramatically breaking my eyeglasses in half on vacation, I visited my optometrist to learn that since my last visit my vision had actually gotten…better? (Benjamin Button eat your heart out, et al.)
In retrospect, I recognize that before I was perhaps actually just wanting a prescription that was as sharp and strong as possible; strain doesn’t always beget improvement. There’s a difference in demanding instant focus versus softly coming into clarity. It’s made me wonder about the ways that getting older has made my life simpler, or maybe just better aligned with nuance.
Until next time,
LP