SJ Rozan

Snowdrops, crocuses

Glowing white in morning sun

On last year’s brown leaves.

Soaring white seagull

Circles over blue water

Trailing black shadow.

Whitecap-sprinkled waves

Gallop in toward wall, spray foam,

Charge back out again.

And a collection of my haiku, in case you need it.

The other day I was one of fifty count ’em fifty adults rounded up by the powerhouse principal of PS 124 in Chinatown to come down and talk to the 4th and 5th graders about our careers. A good friend has a daughter there, and she proposed me, I got an official invitation, and the next thing I knew I was schlepping four books in different formats — hardcover, two trade pb’s (one a foreign edition), and a mass market pb, plus a marked-up manuscript of the hardcover book, down to Chinatown at 7:30 in the morning. Luckily they had coffee, tea, fresh fruit, and whole grain bagels for the grownups as we gathered in the music room waiting for Assembly (remember Assembly?). I had a lovely talk with Jan Lee of Sinotoque, a terrific interior design and Asian antiquities concern that used to have a shop in Chinatown. I was distressed to see they’d closed and delighted to find they’re still in business, they’ve just moved. To Brooklyn, natch. A little more chatting with some other folks and we all filed on stage in the auditorium to be introduced to the entire 4th and 5th grades; then each of us went off to our assigned rooms, where, with one or two other adults, we explained ourselves to kids cycling through a dozen or so at a time.

I was in the library, again natch, sharing the morning with a cop. We had such a routine down by the end that we could have taken it on the road. That they were nearly equally interested in me as in him speaks very highly of PS 124. I mean, he was in uniform and wearing a gun. I, on the other hand, had that manuscript. It’s an entire ream of paper, and looks bigger because each page is bent and dog-eared in some way. Each time a new group came in and I got to the point where I picked it up and explained what it was I got dropped jaws and popping eyes. “That’s one book?” “All those words?” “Why did you write all over it?” I had a great time, though it was exhausting. By the time it was over, it was a good thing one of the other presenters was Wilson Tang, the owner of Nom Wah Tea Parlor, the oldest tea house in Chinatown (opened in the 1920’s). He brought lunch!

Ladies and gentlemen, they’re Qing dynasty hat stands. Laraine was closest, with helmets. Not for guests, like a hat rack, but for the men of the house to place their hats upon when coming home. And why are there two? Not for the lady of the house, who wouldn’t have worn a hat, but because parents lived with one of their married sons and so there were often two men per household. Good job, all!

It’s Asia Week here in NYC. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you know I love this. I put on respectable clothes and decent shoes — allowing for the fact that there’s a good deal of walking involved — and I go from gallery to gallery, I hit most of the museums, and I go to the auction houses, which are holding preview shows of the week’s auctions. At the auction houses and many of the galleries you can ask to handle the art. Even the prints and ink paintings; you sit down at the table and lift them by their edges. The porcelains and bronzes almost cry out to be touched. They were made to be used, after all. You can learn a lot by running your fingers along the glazes, turning teacups in the light, feeling the weight of incense burners. The auction house employees will bring out a velvet tray and hand you anything you want to hold. In the galleries young assistants are eager to answer questions and explain things. This is because for all they know, you might be a collector. You might be some not-famous Getty heir who doesn’t care about being a celebrity — just about collecting art. Or at least, an adviser to a collector. Of course, some of the real collectors and advisers come equipped with tiny flashlights, loupes, and magnifying glasses. The lack of these doesn’t disqualify you, though. You just have to look as though the only real question you have about the item is whether it really fits in your collection. This is especially true at the auction houses, where nothing is sold on the days it’s exhibited anyway, so no one looks at you funny if you ask to examine a piece and then hand it back and walk away. Even at the galleries, when the item in question is a $3,500 tea bowl — one of my favorites today, sorry, no photo — no one’s surprised if you want to go home and think it over.

chinese lacquer screen

japanese ink painting — daoist immortal on his carp

wood grain on chinese cabinet

tang dynasty horse

chinese porcelain box

collector examines korean dagger

two points if you know what these are (I didn’t)

Tin sky, brass river.

Two dark planes in far distance.

Coming, and going.

Gadwalls at seawall

Nibbling moss. Low tide, later,

Will bring barnacles.

Quick merganser dives.

Gull swoops. Duck pops up. No catch.

Gull squawks, flies away.

And my Haiku e-book, if you want more.

For people wondering now about Jesuits, here’s a good, if slightly breezy (consider the source) rundown.

On the subject of the new Pope, Sam has this to say:

One of the protagonists of BLOOD OF THE LAMB is a fellow named Thomas Kelly, a Jesuit priest. We chose that order because Jesuits are the intellectuals of the Catholic Church. A Jesuit scholar honest with himself is forever caught in the tension between knowledge and faith. The best of them are fearless in the face of knowledge, believing any truth can be reconciled with the larger truths of theological doctrine. About doctrine they’re extremely conservative. Pope Francis can’t be expected to encourage debate on, much less support, issues like gay marriage or the ordination of women. But the order also has a strong strain of belief in and activism on social justice issues. It would be no surprise to see Francis focus on rooting out the endemic problem of child abuse; on redistributing Church wealth and pushing governments to more equitable treatment of the poor; and at the same time demanding that his now billion-strong flock swerve right, to the conservative path. Keep in mind, though, that pretty much all the Cardinals eligible for the job were conservative, having been elevated by either the last Pope or the one before him, neither of them progressives in any sense. A reformer was out of the question from the start. Although one could wish Francis’s stance were more progressive, it’s also true that if the conservative path in his definition includes social justice and humility in the tradition of St. Francis, that could set a tone the entire world could use, right now.

And let us add: from a writer’s viewpoint the tension between learning and faith makes a Jesuit a perfect character. When knowledge comes up that threatens Father Kelly’s faith, his training demands that he not turn his back on it; but he has serious trouble admitting new concepts into his world view. Until… well, you just might have to read the book.

Bergoglio. The guy wasn’t even on my radar.

Leaving aside what it must feel like to be elected to the most powerful position in your world only after five ballots — this is a vote of confidence? — I’m cautiously optimistic. No, he’s not a reformer, but this is a very conservative crowd of Cardinals; the closest things they have to reformers are Turkson and O’Malley, and nobody would call them progressives. Bergoglio does seem to be an honest, honorable, humble man, though, and I think that’s the best we could have hoped for.

On Francis, and on the Jesuits, more tomorrow. Or, more tomorrow from Sam Cabot, who, as my grandfather would have put it, has what to say.

And boy those St. Peter’s bells are ringing! Who? Announcement soon.

Betting on the next Pope is illegal in the US — why? — but nothing stops the Irish. Angelo Scola, an Italian, is in the lead. In fact three of the top six contenders are Italian. Close behind Scola is Peter Turkson, from Ghana. Two Americans are in there, too, long shots, Timothy Dolan from NY and Sean O’Malley from Boston. O’Malley’s a pomp-hating Franciscan, so I don’t give much for his chances, and Dolan hasn’t been a Cardinal a year yet (and would hate to spend the rest of his life in Rome, away from his Mets and Yankees). Turkson is the closest thing this current crop of Cardinals has to a crusader for the poor, though his anti-condom stance is hard to not shudder at, given the devastation of Africa by AIDS. Personally my money’s on the other African, Francis Arinze from Nigeria. An African would be a signal to the third world that the Church is taking its non-European faithful seriously; but while Turkson’s only 64, Arinze’s 80. His election would mean conservative Europeans would be assured of having a chance to take the job back relatively soon. Turkson would be much bigger a commitment to the third world. Is the Church ready for that?