Golden Eye


Today I wrote a tongue in cheek rebuttal to the women who are making light of Brugh Joy’s wise old man beard. When he went to circumambulate the holy mountain on the Tibetan Plains he grew a beard that is like wisps of smoke on his chin, and there is a spot of gold, like a small golden coin, woven into the grey hair.

Brugh talked about the pilgrimage he took while we were socializing at one of our dinners at Rex Ranch. When we spend a few days together, we finish up with a dinner party, starting with appetizers and wine and conversation on the patio.

Brugh hired a professional guide to take him on his Tibetan trek, and one of the best. He just called him up and told him what he wanted to do, and the professional guide put it together. One of the adventures he told about was climbing a ladder up a rock face to the top of the world, where, apparently, there is a small meditation cave. He managed to get into the cave without killing himself, which was a distinct possibility from his description of the place.

And he made it back down from the cave. And somewhere along the way he grew the wispy goatee and somewhere along the way the golden coin was woven into it, which caused one of the women to slyly suggest that perhaps the beard was metaphoric pubic hair, though she didn't elaborate on what part of the female genitalia the gold might represent. I do however recall a tall blonde bartender who used to cheer up gloomy women by saying, "Cheer up, honey, you're sitting on a gold mine."

The mischief maker labeled her post: “For the eyes of the seven sisters only.”

Of course everyone read it.

I remember once that Brugh talked about the tribal societies having a men’s house, where women where banned under threat of death. “They can’t have them there,” he said. “Right in the middle of a male initiation one of them would giggle and there would go the ritual.” Yes, or one of them would say something under her breath which would carry like a faint scent, picked up but not quite brought to consciousness ...

I remember being at a party with a bunch of Russians in Los Angeles. One of the men was a decorated veteran of the war in Afghanistan. I was with Bianca, the witch of Bergamo, a town so old they have to make room in the graveyard once in awhile by throwing old bones into a shaft which leads directly to hell. This gives the more observant citizens an attitude of sarcastic reserve, knowing that no matter how nice the burial, the jig is eventually up.

As the war hero was giving his boastful speech, she would insinuate remarks just beneath the threshold of his hearing. For example, if he raised a glass to toast Russia, she might say, “one more glass of vodka may kill the fool and then you’ll be speechless.”

She would have made the perfect mistress.

The men’s house had to be defended, and while our correspondence among group members is private, I can say that I used the sword. The genetic scratch patterns are the oldest way of distinguishing the individual, I maintained, and one of them is the gesture of pulling the chin hair, or stroking the chin. The gesture is mostly unconscious, but Brugh has materialized it, and the golden circle is the incorruptible center of the objective intellect, the philosopher's stone.

One image I had was of the thumb’s lifting up the head to provide images to the kinesthetic excesses of the women’s house, and of the spot of gold being a reflecting, golden eye.

Of course that brought to mind Carson McCullers’ book, and the movie (Reflections in a Golden Eye) with Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando. But what was the golden eye? I didn’t recall. I saw the movie years ago, and mostly remember the scene where Liz takes a whip to Brando for beating her horse. With a little research I found that the golden eye was the design in a peacock’s fan. Here is the section:

"Look!" Anacleto said suddenly. He crumpled up the paper he had been painting on and threw it aside. Then he sat in a meditative gesture with his chin in his hands, staring at the embers of the fire. "A peacock of a sort of ghastly green. With one immense golden eye. And in it these reflections of something tiny and —"
In his effort to find just the right word he held up his hand with the thumb and forefinger touched together. His hand made a great shadow on the wall behind him. "Tiny and —"
"Grotesque," she finished for him.
He nodded shortly. "Exactly.

In the process of looking for the meaning of the golden eye I ran across some great essays and reviews of the movie and of the book. I still don’t know if I understand the golden eye in McCullers’ novel, but a peacock is often used as a symbol of male pride: “Proud as a peacock.” Eye is a palindrome, so it can read left to right or right to left. It sounds exactly like “I”. And what reflects in it is tiny and grotesque. I don't know what it means but it brings to mind the quote from Blake: "Pride is shame's cloak."

What does this have to do with the little circle of gold in Brugh’s beard? Nothing, really, except one thing made me think of another. But I can pull it together by suggesting that the golden coin in Brugh’s beard might be a mesmeric device by which he seduces innocent shop girls, like a fly fisherman drawing a spinning lure past a trout.

I wonder how long it takes to grow one of those wispy little chin beards?

Posted: Thu - July 3, 2008 at 11:34 PM