Midnight Visions (written at 12:40 a.m.)

By Aurin Squire

In arbored hollows I carve these songs.
Chariots driven by beasts of sound.
Yolked to heavy burdened cries,
I ride the words like Cavalry.

Whipping equine legs and breast.
Necklaced blood on cavern chest.
Round and round faster the pace pressed,
under the measured driving stress.

Quail Eggs, Jellyfish, and West Hampton

Pat reached inside his bag and said he had something for me to see. I leaned back in my chair and patted myself down for the LIRR round-trip ticket I had just purchased from Atlantic-Pacific stop to West Hampton for the weekend. He found what he was looking for before I could find my ticket. With a flourish, he produced a tiny plastic pack with 18 petite bubbles with spotted brown and black orbs inside.

"Quail eggs," I guessed correctly before he turned the carton over to show the label. He looked disappointed that I didn't even hesitate in my answer. I brightened my eyes and re-answered: "Wow! Quail eggs!" Pat nodded and smiled. He got them from Whole Foods at Columbus Circle. They were next to the electric-green, avocado-sized Emu eggs and the grapefruit sized pearls listed as 'ostrich eggs.' Emu were several dollars for each one and an ostrich egg cost about $40. The quail eggs were $7 for 18 tiny eggs that equaled maybe 3 chicken eggs in yolk.

I never had quail eggs and was intrigued but my body pat-down had become slightly panicked. After several minutes of the macarena I found them lodged in between some papers. My mind could relax and return the topic of quail eggs. Boiling them seemed like the best way to maximize the experience. Pat also had some Celtic sea salt in his bag. The only thing I brought for this journey was an assortment of day old fruit and nuts. Next time I'll bring something more exotic.

Pat and I have gone up to the West Hamptons a few times. We meet up with our friend Pam, who has this vintage 1940s beach house, which she has restored to its glory days. The past few years we went up there, it was mostly to help in the restoration process. I removed rust from vintage art deco dining room lights, sanding off grim from kitchen cabinets, and did some minor detailing for chairs and tables. I also fought the sand dunes that were encroaching on the back porch and wall. A few metal stakes were pounded into the ground and we all helped insert some wooden planks to serve as a dam against the tons of sand that were being blown slowly into the backside of the house. Then I began shoveling the sand for a few hours onto the other side of the sand dam. A few new coats of paint and pounding down some boardwalk planks and the beach house looks remarkable. A high plumage of trees, vines, and bushes hides the cabin from the main road. On each side of the beach house are rows of New England mansions and modern-looking glass bird houses.

We got into West Hampton by 11:30 and Pam took us to a local diner in Hampton Bay. Despite the Hampton's posh image, there are still plenty of regular places that serve large portion diner food and we ate huevos rancheros, coconut cookies and a large wedge of bread pudding with seltzer water.

The weekend was amazing. Too many things to list and yet it was a fairly simple two-day getaway. All we did was eat, swim, talk, sleep, swim, eat some more, and go for walks on the beach. Cell phones were off most of the time, I checked my email once for 5 minutes, and no TV. Pam's house is lined with dozens of classic books. Her parents owned the house and she said they were voracious readers. Furthermore they lived next to a book editor so they were getting the best of the best for decades. Each room has piles of sea shells in jars, platters, and decorating the wall. I took the bedroom facing the beach and slept with the window open. I went to bed hearing the lapping waves and smelling the salt. I could sleep 8 hours every day if I went to bed near the ocean.

I also saw jellyfish for the first time. In fact the sand was pocked with the clear jellyfish glistening in the bright sun. They were without tentacles and harmless. I scooped up one with a sea shell and carried it back to our beach chairs.

In the morning Pat broke out the quail eggs. He boiled them for a few minutes and we scooped out 18 little brown-looking rocks. Pam toasted 7-grain bread and I buttered the bread and sprinkled sea salt on to the sticky side. Then I broke off pieces of the bread and wrapped the peeled eggs in the salty, buttery goo. Quail eggs taste almost exactly like chicken eggs. If I had a better palette I could probably discern what exactly was the after-taste that made it slightly different. The inside of the pealed shells was light blue and matched the beach house.

Pat broke out his 8 mm vintage camera with a 3-minute roll of silent film. Now I know why all those old 60s home movies feel so stage. When you only have 3 minutes, there is no time to waste. Every scene has to be thought out. Pat filmed the boardwalk and the patio.

Sunday late afternoon we crowded back on to a west-bound train. The car was filled with hungover teenagers with smiley face stickers covering their clothes and skin. We guessed -perhaps snobbishly- that they were probably heading back to New Jersey after a weekend on a party boat drinking and popping pills. Everyone was wearing sunglasses, texting, and occasionally moaning.

Buddhist Logician: Art of Reason

I finished another Asian Classics Institute class. The latest one is Logic: Art of Reason. The class taken from Master Dharmakirti (650 AD) and his Commentary of Valid Perception, which is a commentary on Master Dignaga (440 AD) and his Compendium of Valid Perception. The Tibetan monastery book used for this course was The Key to the Logic Machine by Purbochok Jampa Gyaltso Tsultrim (1825-1901) who was the tutor to the 13th Dalai Lama. The lecture series was online and taught by Geshe Michael Roach and available at acidharma.org.

The Art of Reason was one of the most challenging classes I've ever taken. And yet, I'm aware that the text was just a brief overview of all the major points of Buddhist logic. This is possibly something I'm going to have to sit with for a while. Even though I've done the homework, could memorize the study questions and complete the quizzes and final exam next week, it wouldn't feel right. I think I'm going to have to re-listen to the major of the lectures if not the entire series. Logic requires so much concentration and energy on my part that it's easy for me to get distracted. There are points that I get and have memorized but I don't truly understand.

They say studying this course puts into close contact with understanding dependent origination and that eventually leads to deeper understandings of emptiness. I expected a dry, dull series of lectures of negation (which is, after all, the ultimate point of emptiness). By the end of the series when I was reading the scripture I started to cry. To believe that this knowledge was almost wiped out by invasion of Tibet in 1959 is profound. But what's more inspiring is that great masters like Khen Rinpoche helped keep logic and debate series alive when the monasteries were struggling in the early days of exile in India.

The Art of Reason will be the 14th full course I'm trying to complete with ACI. There are a total of 18 full course courses. If I'm fortunate to complete The Art of Reason I will have 4 more full courses in the open series. It would be nice to finish the last 4 courses this year but I can't rush it. It's better to actually understand these subjects than just to do the paperwork.

King Lebron and the Cleveland Mythmakers

I'm a Heat fan just b/c I'm lazy and just adopted all the teams of the town I was raised in. But I wasn't enraged when Shaq slammed the Heat or overjoyed when they get good players. It's sports. Chill out, people. The rage people have toward sports is proportional to the insecurity and self-hatred those same people have in their personal lives. For a town like Cleveland, this rage reveals more about its lack of character than the flaws of Lebron James.

Frankly I always thought the King James stuff was...silly. The throwing of chalk in the air at the beginning of games, the 'we are all witnesses,' I would see and think 'is there any irony in this or are you really pitching a 19-year-old basketball player as a Biblical prophet?

But people in Cleveland appeared to be quite serious. Didn't anyone notice what egoism such statements required and an entourage of enablers to feed this? Didn't the NBA, David Stern, Nike, the mayor of Cleveland, ANYONE feel a little embarrassed? Michael Jordan earned his crown. But Cleveland and the NBA was so desperate for another king that they held the coronation before the boy grew up. What they ended up making was a enfant terrible. It can't be completely Lebron James fault. He was a teenager being showered with millions. What about the adults in this scenario, what about Cleveland?

In Cleveland, no one could stand up to Lebron. The one possible upside about being in Miami is that plenty of people will stand up to him. He does not run the town, there will be no 'witnessing' and other fluffed up stuff. That just won't be tolerated without laughter and eye rolling. If any sports athlete tried to do that in Miami, they would be ridiculed. The great thing about ridicule is that it has a humbling effect. Even a king needs a court jester. In Miami he will find plenty of people willing to tweak King James and slap his crown off. Now the question is, will he be able to adjust to that? LBJ will either learn to grow up or isolate more within his circle of enablers.

Dwayne Wade, Bosh, the owner, and especially Pat Riley will not hesitate to sit him down and tell him 'it's time to grow up, King James. Enough with this.' And as a good role model, D. Wade rolls with almost no entourage. Riley, Alonzo Mourning, Bosh, these are all people who move as independent adults, not in need of coddling.

Detractors grasp at straws, 'what about you wanting to be a billionaire, Lebron?" That won't happen in Miami. But James spoke about being a billionaire like a rich kid who wants more. He already has hundreds of millions of dollars (and in FL, there is no income tax). Maybe he realized the difference between hundreds of millions and a billionaire is pointless. Why chase after a bank statement? Life is short. Get your rings, get your house on the beach, and be on a team of great players.

Cleveland was the ugly girlfriend who pampered and spoiled the immature but gorgeous lover. And then when the lover rightfully leaves because he has no real respect for her (b/c she has no respect for herself and is desperate to cling on) she goes into a rage. The hunky boyfriend has moved on to dating a more mature and more gorgeous supermodel. The supermodel will have no problem slapping his feet off the coffee table and yelling at him when he doesn't come home on time. Will the relationship be forever? Probably not, but the supermodel has a hot hunk, and the immature lover may grow up and become a man capable of being in a real relationship.

Sure, people in Miami will throw a party for you and let you party on their yacht, shoot confetti off and dance in front of a smoke machine like a U. of Miami throwback to the days of the Orange Bowl. But that was all after UM had already won championships (plural!!). But don't expect too much myth making down South without championships. He will have to earn the crown.

Cleveland never would have allowed Lebron to grow up. You need to leave home for that to happen and that's a truth even a king knows.

Tuesday Tanka

Naked man on train
Lounging in makeshift bedroom
Scaring away shy,
Staggering up to bare feet
Blindfolded for beauty sleep

Sonnet 64: The Subway Train

By Matthew Paul-Olmos

The subway trains can be such the painful ride
These people with love in their hearts
Their eyes on each other, just so close inside
And the way they kiss goodbye, their travels never apart.

The streets of the city can just break your day
These girls with their hair and faces an smile
Looking at you as though you had a way
To break through the crowd, thick with denial.

But you continue on, through your everyday
Wondering which one will be next in line
She'll come unexpectedly from some random way
And youll know her when you see her like some bullshit astrological sign

And maybe youll write junior high style prose just like this,
But who really cares, the time will come again to hit and, or miss.

Sonnet 63: Her Eyes are Vacant

By Matthew Paul-Olmos

Her eyes are vacant as some shit’on parking lot
And yes, I know at some intersection I found them draw’ing
But that was then and now its not
Now they are empty an on the floor crawling.

Her silences makes me sick to the sound
And its true, I once mistook her song for beauty
But no, now I know it is more like children drowning
Sinking deeper down and along into stupidity.

But nothing is worse than hearing her talk
Sentenced thoughts like a car wreck
And rather than listen, you’d rather be on the asphalt outlined in chalk
Pretending to sleep and hoping she’d slip on the glass and cut through her neck.

But there is one feature which I now do truly adore,
It is her absence and the ocean between us which no cars can go.