poetry of x is music

an old casino by the bay
Once in a while we stop at one of the dozen casinos in the 140 mile stretch from Taos to Albuquerque. It's like running a gauntlet and we sometimes succomb to the lure. We've been lucky, most times not. So I started writing a piece about the phenomenon of gambling in the USA and how 81% of the population, on all economic levels, do it. I learned that, in our society, 1-2 millionaires per day are made in casinos, more than through any other means (which could explain its popularity). Remember that Cole Porter song from the 1956 movie, High Society? who wants to be a millionaire?  answer: it seems everyone does.

Not all casinos are on glittering strips or picturesque mesas near mountains and deserts. Some are run down or abandoned, as Wallace Stevens so hauntingly wrote:

Life is an old casino in a park.
-----
----- a grand decadence settles down like cold.
------the rain
Swept through its boarded windows and the leaves
Filled its encrusted fountains...
                       (excerpts from Academic Discourse at Havana)

This one is in Bodega Bay, CA. I didn't go inside even though the motorcycle guys outside were friendly and polite. Do you think they still have old "fruit machines" in there? Next trip, I'm going in.

Until then, I'll research, write, and possibly visit some of the old casinos that still exist. My son conveniently lives in Las Vegas, NV and although we haven't been there for awhile because Vegas forces me into theme park mentality and I'm not good at it, I will go now with a sense of purpose that will amuse him and he will probably come with me. He lives there but never goes into a casino.

other senses...

The second batch of neon-food-coloring dyed wool came out of the crock pot the way I hoped it would; a glory of blues and magentas. All the colors morphed easily into the early morning mountain backdrop as spring continues to ebb and flow. The birds at least know what season it is as they trill a Babel of sounds into the air.

If the poetry of X was music,
So that it came to him of its own,
Without understanding, out of the wall

Or in the ceiling, in sounds not chosen,
Or chosen quickly, in a freedom
That was their element...
                (excerpt, Wallace Stevens, The Creations of Sound)