We Call the Neighbor’s Fat Burro Donkey Hotei, but His Name is Cantinflas
Certainty grows in corners, away from light.
From his mouth issues the breath we take, the words we keep.
Enjoy the collusion of shape and sound.
We share the hummingbird’s taste for sweet, but not its fierceness.
Its heart beats 1,200 times a minute,
and you ask me how best to bury money.
Hoteiβs name means cloth sack, and comes from the bag he carried;
a man of loving character, he possessed the Buddha nature.
What we own cannot be held.
Most plastics are organic polymers with spine-linked repeat units.
The space you’ve left expands exponentially.
Left in the rain, the bell grows.
Christen me at your own peril. Agaves flower once then die.
Fluency in silence.
I dropped my pants when the scorpion stung my thigh.
The wind takes nothing it does not want.
After vulcanization, thermosets remain solid.
The Cantinflas character was famous for his eloquent nonsense.
Vacuum wrap the bills in plastic, place them in pvc.
Having mastered imperfection, I turn to folly.
Not the thing itself, but the process laid bare and opened.
Hoping to hide, the scorpion scuttled under a boot.
Thought to action, whisper to knife: which is not a curse?
The wind wants nothing; the burro sings his loneliness.
This first appeared here in May 2015. My failures often lead to success. I’ve never quite completed this piece, and don’t know that I ever will. But the first draft (nearly five years ago) set me off on a new path, one that has served me well. What more can I ask?
Well, I just had to Google Cantinflas, didn’t I? π
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Of course!
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Love how you weave the diverse strands of awareness rather than attempting to isolate focus. (Tho the one time I was stung by a scorpion, for a moment there focus happened!)
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Scorpions have that ability to focus our attention!
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Speaking of folly, I am preparing to do my taxes. Also I must confess that the little prescription user fee chits DO go in a Ziplock bag. And some “unfinished” things like this piece are very worthy of publication. Glad you took this very fertile one out of the bag.
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Thank you, Bob. Taxes! Ugh.
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βA painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.β Paul Gardner
True of writing, as well. π
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I love that. So true, too.
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It’s a good reminder that with a positive attitude, nothing is really wasted! I take great comfort (hee hee!).
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I have a folder of fragments and discarded lines that I hope to use someday. Of course there may be many good reasons why those lines were discarded in the first place. Ha!
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Thankfully, this was not hermetically sealed, but allowed to breathe over the years.
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Thanks, Ken. It still has a little life.
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“We Call the Neighborβs Fat Burro Donkey Hotei, but His Name is Cantinflas” This line made my day. Thank you for the laugh the memory of a black and white Cantinflas running around engaging in his shenanigan. The not so debonair Latin lover type.
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Am so pleased to have brought laughter to you. Thank you.
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Ahh… god old Hotei… folkloric god of luck converted into a Buddhist saint by itinerant Indian monks seeking to convert local Chinese. There was/is also a Japanese rockabilly-ish rockstar named HOTEI who wrote a great song called “Beauty and the Beast”… and played a beautiful, non-saxophone based version of the love theme from Bladerunner.
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This Hotei doesn’t quite resemble the original version.
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I prefer the Japanese HOTEI… 100% more rock n’ roll and 100% less theology…
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Electric guitar helps!
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I love this version!
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I love cantinflas’s movies, as a matter of fact, I am watching one now. Puerta joven!
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Excellent!
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“Having mastered imperfection, I turn to folly.” i mastered folly first then moved to imperfection but i feel i could have done it the other way around without spraining my ankle.
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You may have chosen the better path. I distinctly remember stubbing my toe a few times.
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There were sort of sink holes but not quite on this path.
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Having mastered neither imperfection or perfection I personally have turned to the Suntory Corporation for single malted insights into Reality… 17 year old Hibiki insights…ι£²ι !!
Yatta!!
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Someday I must try your favorite elixir!
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You have spent much time sampling and appreciating beers. I have spent years sampling and seriously studying single malt whiskies. So I am pretty sure you will see some truth in what I say…
…that the only certainty in all potables (or indeed in Life itself) is this: there is the stuff you like and the stuff you don;t and it does NOT matter if it is Dom Perignon or Diet Pepsi. Dom is NOT “better” than Pepsi, though one or the other may be more finely crafted; requiring a more complex, lengthier process of creation. Laphroaig whiskey is a more complex beverage than A&W Root Beer, but the root beer is sweet and satisfying…and Laphroaig tastes like licking an ashtray’s anus, if it had one. But I love both for different reasons. But no one can rightfully say Laphroiag drinkers are partaking in something of inherently greater universal value than Diet Pepsi drinkers are. I REALLY REALLY love Diet Pepsi, and can also taste the “hidden” flavours in Lagavulin.
Connoisseurship is supposed to lead to the uplift of the human spirit, not a social hierarchy of “classy” people versus “barbarians”.
So if you try my beloved Hibiki 17… I think we could have an uplifiting, shared human experience, which is what I love about Scotch appreciation! π
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I plan on searching for Hibiki 17 this weekend. If I am unable to find it, is there another Japanese whiskey you recommend? I consume books, music, food and drink that friends love because they adore them. Of course I have my own well established likes and dislikes, but sharing in this manner is important to me. I don’t have to like everything that everyone else likes, but the attempt to share and understand is imperative to the art of living.
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Hakushu 12 yr old from Suntory is like drinking an almond milkshake mixed with green tea. But it will hit your wallet hard… so I would seek out the Hakushu Reserve, good quality and more affordable. You are going to have to pay $$$ for these as they are imports in Texas.
If you find nothing, get a bottle of Scottish Dalwhinnie 15 for yourself and your wife. It is like drinking honey mixed with clover.And NEVER buy ANY Dalwhinnie products with a year after it (e.g. Dalwhinnie 1987, etc.) It is a marketing tool for suckers who think the price tag makes it special.
And if all else fails, buy a bottle of Laphroiag 12 yr and be prepared to taste the wildest whiskey ever… it is kind of like going through whiskey boot camp…
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I’ll let you know how my search goes.
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Talisker is a great one, but don’t pay for any special “cask” or “reserve” or “double” blah blah blah. Anytime someone adds some special sounding words to a whiskey it is like adding the word “magic” to a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke then charging $300 dollars for it!
BUT… if you can find a bottle of Glenmorangie “Portwood Aged” single malt, it is really worth it. They take the whiskey and finish aging it in an old barrel that used to hold port wine, thus adding a subtle “cherry” like after-taste as the whiskey leeches the port essence out of the wood.
Also, if you can find a Wolf Blass unwooded chardonnay (white, not red label), make ABSOLUTELY sure you drink it while eating fresh kappa maki and/or tekka maki. It is an almost unbelievable pairing and the flavour spectrum in your mouth will be like eating/drinking a Van Gogh painting, very very vivid! Especially with the kappa maki, as the chardonnay adds a very slight “apple-y” flavour.
Mecha mecha, beri beri, totemo oishii!!!!!!!
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I’ve had Talisker and Glenmorangie (tho which version, I’m not sure), and quite a few others over the years, one of which tasted like toasted sweat socks and burnt peat, but in an almost pleasant way, so I am prepared to accept what comes. I’ve not made kappa maki in years, but when I do, will follow your suggestion.
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Wolf Blass Unwooded Chardonnay and kappa/tekka maki… prepare it all for your wife/anniversary. She will be VERY happy with your gift!!
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I love donkeys. We have quite a few here in Ireland.π
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I lose all affection for them when they bray before dawn. But otherwise, I’m quite fond of them. π
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π
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‘The space youβve left expands exponentially.’ This is such a powerful description of loss.
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Thank you.
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the journey is the grace.
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It is indeed, Nancie.
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Nice thought matrix, nice poetic form. I once tried to learn Spanish by watching old Cantinflas movies on Mom’s black-and-white TV.
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Thank you! I think it might be difficult to learn Spanish from Cantinflas films.
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It was the ancient Greek poet Pindar that said,”Oh my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but to exhaust the limits of the possible.β (Pythian iii).
One may not learn Spanish from Cantinflas films, but one should at least try to see what possibility of Spanish acquisition lies in them… if Pindar is one to go by… π
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The “eloquent nonsense” might lead one astray. Or to new heights!
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The only “astray” worth worrying about is not writing new things AFTER you are lead either astray or to greater heights. Your only enemy is “metrophobia”…the fear of poetry!!
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I must admit that “astray” seems like home to me. π
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Then you are KenkΕ Yoshida reborn!
(gassho…)
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Hahaha. Yes, I did have to broaden my scope beyond Cantinflas.
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π
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That’s awesome!
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