With a battered copy of Rayuela in his hand, well worn, read and fawned over, he's come to realize how interconnected everything is. Somehow Argentina, André Breton, John Coltrane, Jorge Luis Borges, Jean Cocteau, Louis Aragon, poetry, mate, a flute, Eric Dolphy, Yusef Lateef, and thoughts of a beautiful woman he once met, all mix together in one giant soup.
Then there are ideas that somehow take hold of one’s mind and begin burrowing in until they grab on to the heart only to emerge in the form of a painting or poetry. Somehow, thoughts of Montparnasse, Le Dome, Rue Raymond Losserand begin their slow dance with the streets of Buenos Aires, where someone, somewhere is reading that very same novel, sipping mate, listening to Coltrane, and thinking of the streets of Paris.
The space between New York City, Paris, and Buenos Aires are filled with ideas brought on by a sentence or an image, a sort of land bridge which will bring it all together. Somehow, an idea in the head of a now deceased Argentine, via Paris, is the thread which ties it all together and he feels much richer for it.
Dolphy blows his sax as he contemplates this, filling his head with wonder and words. Ideas can come from anywhere, and this tattered novel he once carried around for weeks on end is just another door that opened and life came rushing in.
New York City, June 2004