卡茨与诗人约翰·阿什贝里 (John Ashbery) 合作，为他的诗集《后发座》(Coma Berenices) 绘制插图。请听这幅肖像画描绘的对象----阿什贝里——朗诵这首诗。
Transcript
John Ashbery: That meant that these cocktails became more and more pointed at the situation of the masses—at Edie, at Mrs. Pogarski, at the space between her legs, at von Klunk. So the snowball got lost up ahead. It had succeeded in its mission, which was to put everybody out of doors for fifteen minutes. When they returned it was as though to a later act of the shabby costume drama in which all had become embedded like La Brea tar. There were new solutions wiggling to be applied and old ones which had been superseded though they lived on in the public consciousness like the memory of a beloved opera star and her tresses in a cell in the walls of an alveolate neo-gothic parlor. Fears that the snowball had reached extinction, or that it had been fatally sidetracked in the Coma Berenices of its own perverse self-projection through the dangerous daydreams of housewives, their hands at rest in the dishwater of a kitchen sink, or retirees and empty-nesters wishing to refinance the mortgage on their house or move to a smaller one or rent out part of it, proved premature. What piquantly captured the imagination of each, from competitor to consumer to straw boss to newly outsourced consultant, was how all-inclusive the bench warrant was. No beating about the bed of roses here!
Edie had felt vaguely apprehensive since the afternoon a dark-hatted man had called while she was out. He had said something about testing the water, her maid Maria told her. There had never been a problem with the water before. Maybe it was part of some ruse to get into the house and rummage around in Carl’s papers. He hadn’t called or returned. Yet she was left with the fact that he had been there; that something or someone wanted part of her attention; that is to say, part of her.
At five o’clock she mixed cocktails—for herself and Carl, should he show up—in the shaker old Mrs. Lavergne had left her. Bombay Sapphire martinis. Carl had fallen in love with them in Bangalore where he had been posted on an assignment. Somehow it was always a disappointment when they came out of the shaker colorless instead of blue. The sapphire color was in the bottle. She wondered if Carl had noticed this, or, more important, whether it bothered him. He had been so tight-lipped lately—though always the affectionate dear he had been on the day they first met at the Cayuga Country Club. Well, he’d had a lot on his mind. The refinancing hadn’t been going too well—at least that was her impression, since he hadn’t talked about it. When things went well he grew expansive, his tone avuncular. “Well, let’s see what the pixies left in the larder last night. Maybe some little cheesie-biskies?”
The battlefront heat had been singeing everybody’s nerves. Maria, badly off, had complained of backache. The arcane arousing had taken place on schedule. Then the arraignment was ascendant. The executive expectation, expecting expression, expectorated artwork, i.e. visual arts. The work of art had not arrived.
《后发座》(Coma Berenices), 约翰·阿什贝里，耶鲁大学美国文学阅读系列收藏，贝内克图书馆，2006年9月20日。发表于《我将在何处游荡》(Where Shall I Wander，Ecco/HarperCollins出版社), 版权©2005年John Ashbery。版权所有。经管理John Ashbery遗产的Georges Borchardt公司安排使用。
