In transit -- Anthony Bourdain
Iran
scatter me across borders, my broad chest
fitted me in when I broke nan with
men whose husky voice made Farsi sound
like marinated meat in luscious herbs
Italy
Shed my memories to the sea
my honeyed skin tone merged
into the reflections of Sicilians
sipping wine and sharing nuanced
differences between sea bass and sea bream
Vietnam
Silence my heart into the place
that loaned me its tender soul
along with handshakes, and aroma
of simplicity as they relished bowls
of lemongrass broth and pickled fish
Japan
Surround my tatto’ed limbs with Geishas
so they can envelop me into a quiet
let me float, and experience the lightness
of their land, with the same abundant content
that came with warm miso soup and ramen
Spain
Set me to rest, so my curiosity
continues to merge into the history
of Barcelona, where I relished a potent
legacy of unfinished art as I shared
paella and afternoon siestas
And more
Preserve my jaw, my souvenir to you
representing my potent desire for a full life
the jutting jaw that took me to places
opened crisp conversations, encouraged
exotic experiments in food that were
bold, delectable and expansive
In spite of
the frequent contradictions
with my own diminished load
of days that I drifted
and nights that were seared
I found moments that mattered
through the honesty of my critics
unfiltered laughter of strange company
tears shed over meals in unknown homes
keep watching
the afterglow of my unknown parts
let me return to you my curly grey
the reserved twist in my wood fired smile
the majestic marinate scents in my hands
the crushed pepper like freckles on my neck
let me remind you to watch for the weary
in my enthusiastic voice of replayed episodes
let me nudge you to find the pygmy in giants
scatter me across borders, my broad chest
fitted me in when I broke nan with
men whose husky voice made Farsi sound
like marinated meat in luscious herbs
Italy
Shed my memories to the sea
my honeyed skin tone merged
into the reflections of Sicilians
sipping wine and sharing nuanced
differences between sea bass and sea bream
Vietnam
Silence my heart into the place
that loaned me its tender soul
along with handshakes, and aroma
of simplicity as they relished bowls
of lemongrass broth and pickled fish
Japan
Surround my tatto’ed limbs with Geishas
so they can envelop me into a quiet
let me float, and experience the lightness
of their land, with the same abundant content
that came with warm miso soup and ramen
Spain
Set me to rest, so my curiosity
continues to merge into the history
of Barcelona, where I relished a potent
legacy of unfinished art as I shared
paella and afternoon siestas
And more
Preserve my jaw, my souvenir to you
representing my potent desire for a full life
the jutting jaw that took me to places
opened crisp conversations, encouraged
exotic experiments in food that were
bold, delectable and expansive
In spite of
the frequent contradictions
with my own diminished load
of days that I drifted
and nights that were seared
I found moments that mattered
through the honesty of my critics
unfiltered laughter of strange company
tears shed over meals in unknown homes
keep watching
the afterglow of my unknown parts
let me return to you my curly grey
the reserved twist in my wood fired smile
the majestic marinate scents in my hands
the crushed pepper like freckles on my neck
let me remind you to watch for the weary
in my enthusiastic voice of replayed episodes
let me nudge you to find the pygmy in giants
[Anthony Bourdain’s birthday June 25 2019 is being recognized in his memory across the
world as Anthony Bourdain Day in honor of the man lost last year on June
8th under unfortunate circumstances]
St. Anthony Bourdain -- Lynette May
After dropping out of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, Bourdain attended The Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York (though he graduated with an associate's degree, the school conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters on him in 1917.) After managing a number of restaurants in New York he published "Don't Eat Before Reading This" in the "New Yorker" magazine in 1999 and expanded it into the best-selling book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" (2000). As a result the Food network gave him his own food-and-travel program "A Cook's Tour" which ran from 2002 to 2003, and Fox Broadcasting Company aired a situation comedy "Kitchen Confidential" starring Bradley cooper as "Jack Bourdain" in 2005. After hosting a number of similar shows for the Travel Channel and writing more books and essays including fiction and historical nonfiction, he was hired by the Cable News Network to star in "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown," which ran from 2013 until his death and won Emmys from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences every year from 2013 to 2016 and again in 2018. He became celebrated for consuming exotic local specialty dishes such as "sheep testicles in Morocco, ant eggs in Puebla, Mexico, a raw seal eyeball as part of a traditional Inuit seal hunt, and an entire cobra -— beating heart, blood, bile, and meat -— in Vietnam" as well as his sharp, sometimes profane, social, political, and artistic commentary on the places he visited, and his history of use, saying that he and his staff "were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in refrigerator at every opportunity to 'conceptualize.' Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Cannabis, methaqualone, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, secobarbital, tuinal, amphetamine, codeine and, increasingly, heroin." Just before his 62nd birthday he hanged himself in his hotel room in Kaysersburg-Vignoble, France, in 2018. David Klion summarized his life in an essay in "The Nation": "Bourdain understood that the point of journalism is to tell the truth, to challenge the powerful, to expose wrongdoing. But his unique gift was to make doing all that look fun rather than grim or tedious."
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