acquiescentia in se ipso.
---Spinoza.
Being the person one just wants to be. Not wanting, being. Not the pleasure one derives from that harmony,or not just the pleasure, but the life itself (of which pleasure is a part). In silence. But not a resignation to the satisfaction of desires, motivations, goals we just happen to have. One notion of freedom lies that way, no doubt, and the alternative view of freedom, 'objective' or impersonal, can also be paternalistic: freedom structured or ordered by reason.
But no, being the person one wants to be.
A freedom from titles, names; to find a good that is not so tightly linked to them. On the other hand, a good that is expressed in the things you do in your life. 'The quality of our attachments is the quality of our understanding.'The loved one has many names, is nameless.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
you burn me.
---Sappho.
Classes over, the term all but come to a close, just the fag end now.A tremendous sense of relief. Students' gazes buried away in their books, the library ticking over with thought, your hands cold and dry, but the lines more prominent now. A small tree, nameless, with its dark eleven o'clock shadow. There's something both beautiful and horrifying in the thought that it will survive us, that life goes on, somehow, miraculously.
Your mind has slowed down, is less restless. Always strayed too much, unlike your starred heart. Like an old person, you look forward to soup at 4 o'clock. You have no desire to talk to anyone. Just stay in your cell and read up on community. Yes, I know! Maybe some fragments that you'll hold, not shape, in the palm of your hands.
In the morning mist you walked past dark leaves, a few holding the memory of summer and brilliant blood-red.
You were late, as always. It passed you by. This sense of lateness, your defining characteristic, reflected in your eyes, part of your inheritance.You wait, patiently,for some kind of recovery, recollection and more. The winter mind, the winter heart, conserving,holding back, for the memory of the future, the day you remember me.
]
] nor
] desire
] but all at once
] blossom
] desire
] took delight
---Sappho.
Classes over, the term all but come to a close, just the fag end now.A tremendous sense of relief. Students' gazes buried away in their books, the library ticking over with thought, your hands cold and dry, but the lines more prominent now. A small tree, nameless, with its dark eleven o'clock shadow. There's something both beautiful and horrifying in the thought that it will survive us, that life goes on, somehow, miraculously.
Your mind has slowed down, is less restless. Always strayed too much, unlike your starred heart. Like an old person, you look forward to soup at 4 o'clock. You have no desire to talk to anyone. Just stay in your cell and read up on community. Yes, I know! Maybe some fragments that you'll hold, not shape, in the palm of your hands.
In the morning mist you walked past dark leaves, a few holding the memory of summer and brilliant blood-red.
You were late, as always. It passed you by. This sense of lateness, your defining characteristic, reflected in your eyes, part of your inheritance.You wait, patiently,for some kind of recovery, recollection and more. The winter mind, the winter heart, conserving,holding back, for the memory of the future, the day you remember me.
]
] nor
] desire
] but all at once
] blossom
] desire
] took delight
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
freeing the dust
a moment, amongst moments. thinking it would open up on to something, and not collapse under its own weight, become thought again.bright and gleaming.stone blossoming into flower, dreaming of star.
The water
flashes
each time you
make it leap -
arching its glittering
back.
Each moment slowed down, frame by frame. You return to it, read it slowly, as you imagine doing (ideally) with your life. Where that (ideally) comes in was tricky. The water, the thing, on its own, isolated. The world before us. Then human agency; then the world again, the world alive, independent existence.At the centre: the ability to make something happen, to be connected to the world in that moment. I think, I am thinking. To 'I am'. The gaps covered by that arching back, like a salmon returning home, a rainbow of hope, a mirror, doubling what was one. The salmon is the stream. 'I think'. The 'I' is given, must be lovingly recognized, acknowledged.Home, your perpetual origin, was carried in your heart,all along.Water helped you remember, bring you back to the black land, where your fair hand turns, and turns again, the dark pages.
Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk asked one of the disciples of Rabbi Moshe: "What was most important to your teacher?"
To which he replied: "Whatever he happened to be doing at the moment"
The water
flashes
each time you
make it leap -
arching its glittering
back.
Each moment slowed down, frame by frame. You return to it, read it slowly, as you imagine doing (ideally) with your life. Where that (ideally) comes in was tricky. The water, the thing, on its own, isolated. The world before us. Then human agency; then the world again, the world alive, independent existence.At the centre: the ability to make something happen, to be connected to the world in that moment. I think, I am thinking. To 'I am'. The gaps covered by that arching back, like a salmon returning home, a rainbow of hope, a mirror, doubling what was one. The salmon is the stream. 'I think'. The 'I' is given, must be lovingly recognized, acknowledged.Home, your perpetual origin, was carried in your heart,all along.Water helped you remember, bring you back to the black land, where your fair hand turns, and turns again, the dark pages.
Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk asked one of the disciples of Rabbi Moshe: "What was most important to your teacher?"
To which he replied: "Whatever he happened to be doing at the moment"
I said, the summer garden I planted
bears only leaves–leaves in abundance–
but no flowers.
And then the flowers,
many colors and forms,
come forth...What magic denial
shall my life utter
to bring itself forth?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
This is near the place I used to live. The river Roding, usually so tame and quiet, melancholy, actually flooded once.How amazing that is, when something crosses it's time-worn boundaries, makes contact with what has surrounded it for so long.
All I remember now is like a loose thread.When the Roding slows, and stones lie still in its dark waters, my heart is lost.
We humans, who have thought of commonalities in terms of things that transcend us, like religion or abstract reason, or in terms of blood and soil, have never stopped to think that living side-by-side with other people was what it was all about. If all truth was on the boundaries, then human beings are that boundary par excellence.
~~~
Chekov said: Let’s put God—and all these grand progressive ideas—to one side. Let’s begin with man; let’s be kind and attentive to the individual man—whether he’s a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a restaurant. Let’s begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual—or we’ll never get anywhere.
---V.G.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
...
Merry Christmas !!!
~~~
Lovely Christmas with friends: roast chicken (lemon and thyme); rich fruit cake, mashed potatoes; warm spiced cranberry drink (vodka optional). Good, decent, and intelligent people to talk to and yet, for all that...what is it?
A told me, matter-of-factly, in a hushed voice, amidst all the laughter: "I don't want to be here". Well, join the line, kiddo. But she'll be okay, will land on her feet. Always does.
bt, young and enthusiastic, practical head on his shoulders, always speaks his mind, and knows his mind. More importantly, points me to interesting poets and novelists. Impossible to keep up with, but that's okay.
Hasan K, tall and lanky, a bundle of bones, glasses, and communism ; the academic's academic. Could talk about China for ever, and still hold an audience.
Someone says, above the din:"critical thinking". I hear snatches of conversations around the room, Lately, I've become quite invisible. Then someone says, with great confidence, "academia is about questioning everything."
Is it, I wonder to myself.This isn't really about freedom, though you recognize how important that is. That you can question anything is not the whole of the issue; it is, rather, whether you need to, whether some things are (and should be) taken as given. Not just your reasoning abilities themselves, but all sorts of practical and moral insights. Some things are left best in the half dark.
Fudge, under the table, looking on at us with those sad eyes. Old fudge, unable (or unwilling) to participate in our conversations. Seen it all before, I guess. The most reflective dog this side of the Oxiana.
And yet, despite all that, there's a restlessness in your heart. The shadow of those who are absent moves across my face, is on my skin, twists beneath my shoulder blades. Home is where the heart is. And your heart is homeless.
At random, I flick open the book closest to my free hand, as people of faith in the past might have opened their holy book. The first words I catch are:
'We have entered the dark stretch of night just before dawn
as we have entered the dark stretch of land
before the home's come to.'
---Ken Irby.
~~~
Lovely Christmas with friends: roast chicken (lemon and thyme); rich fruit cake, mashed potatoes; warm spiced cranberry drink (vodka optional). Good, decent, and intelligent people to talk to and yet, for all that...what is it?
A told me, matter-of-factly, in a hushed voice, amidst all the laughter: "I don't want to be here". Well, join the line, kiddo. But she'll be okay, will land on her feet. Always does.
bt, young and enthusiastic, practical head on his shoulders, always speaks his mind, and knows his mind. More importantly, points me to interesting poets and novelists. Impossible to keep up with, but that's okay.
Hasan K, tall and lanky, a bundle of bones, glasses, and communism ; the academic's academic. Could talk about China for ever, and still hold an audience.
Someone says, above the din:"critical thinking". I hear snatches of conversations around the room, Lately, I've become quite invisible. Then someone says, with great confidence, "academia is about questioning everything."
Is it, I wonder to myself.This isn't really about freedom, though you recognize how important that is. That you can question anything is not the whole of the issue; it is, rather, whether you need to, whether some things are (and should be) taken as given. Not just your reasoning abilities themselves, but all sorts of practical and moral insights. Some things are left best in the half dark.
Fudge, under the table, looking on at us with those sad eyes. Old fudge, unable (or unwilling) to participate in our conversations. Seen it all before, I guess. The most reflective dog this side of the Oxiana.
And yet, despite all that, there's a restlessness in your heart. The shadow of those who are absent moves across my face, is on my skin, twists beneath my shoulder blades. Home is where the heart is. And your heart is homeless.
At random, I flick open the book closest to my free hand, as people of faith in the past might have opened their holy book. The first words I catch are:
'We have entered the dark stretch of night just before dawn
as we have entered the dark stretch of land
before the home's come to.'
---Ken Irby.
The time to speak freely is not upon us yet, only its distant shadow. Still, bound, the tongue weaves a pattern as the mind imagines a world, the heart does not know.It was on a day like this, the chill in your bones, generations of unknowingness reflected in your sad eyes. We are here for a while, then gone.
You fall. Head over heels, again. There's no fool like an old fool. So, here you are, out of step, out of sync with the times. "Walk on," or walk in. The distinctions no longer interest you, are like the haze in your heart.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
half-way
'Took my heart to the limit,
and that's where it's going to stay.'
(as pop songs go, this ain't half bad. Bob, forgive me!)
Well, Cornelius?
'Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet'
Fragments, fragments is all we have. Hold them carefully in the palm of your hand. Close your hand, flesh to flesh, like the circle of earth, when night becomes day, and opposites meet. The hollow of the hand, the locus of prayer. The deal was done. Give me back what was mine. This world in miniature, like a speck of dust in your eye. And yet, it still brings tears!
How many images go up in to the making of a human soul? Perhaps only one. The mirror broke, the ice queen relented, and now I hold pieces of her heart in my hand.
~~~
Little r has, in one hand, throughout the day, either Billy Badger or Rupert the Bear. It's strange what we become attached to, what we become used to. Even a silly face has its charms after a while. And prisoners, no doubt, reconcile themselves with the marked faces of their fellow prisoners, as if sharing a common fate could eliminate the memory of freedom.
~~~
"You must have a lantern in your hand to give light, otherwise all the materials in the world are useless, for you cannot find them, and if you could, you couldn't arrange them."
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
[
The bracketed future,
[
together, alone: [ ]
Time, the space between us [...]
Of waiting.
"Look...doings!"said little r.
Soon there will be [I am]
God [as a] witness [to] our doings.
Our words b[ro]ken, as the b-ro-ken world.
What kinship does b have?
Go, if you must, ] [
I await your return...]
~~~
we have
a Grand Master of chess
made of electronic circuits.
But above all
we have
the ability
to sort peas,
to cup water in our hands,
to seek
the right screw
under the sofa
for hours
This
gives us
wings.
---Holub.
The unclenched hand, 'solar generosity', said Larkin; the curvature of our hands, a sign of our humanity:knowing what to let go of, what to hold on to...
[
together, alone: [ ]
Time, the space between us [...]
Of waiting.
"Look...doings!"said little r.
Soon there will be [I am]
God [as a] witness [to] our doings.
Our words b[ro]ken, as the b-ro-ken world.
What kinship does b have?
Go, if you must, ] [
I await your return...]
~~~
we have
a Grand Master of chess
made of electronic circuits.
But above all
we have
the ability
to sort peas,
to cup water in our hands,
to seek
the right screw
under the sofa
for hours
This
gives us
wings.
---Holub.
The unclenched hand, 'solar generosity', said Larkin; the curvature of our hands, a sign of our humanity:knowing what to let go of, what to hold on to...
Monday, December 19, 2011
Q&a
Where are you when you think? Not here. Which is strange, for someone who's 'all there'. Yesterday, I had to stop the car at the side of the road, put on the emergency lights, and repeat to myself: where the fuck are you? How can an oriental be disoriented?
Where are you when you think of another?
When you're a student you always hear teachers trying to be sexy by saying something like: 'it's not about what you know, it's about the questions you ask'. Knowing isn't everything. Or something equally odd: 'question everything'.
7:00 a.m.
No-one about except the cleaners. The earth still slowly coming to terms with the morning light. Shall I be open today, or not; who will find love on this bench, under this tree today, and who will lose it? Black coffee, a croissant. Lecture: woefully under-prepared. Hoping to wing it. Nabs, dear Nabs' books just come in, sitting on my desk, next to the pile of articles on utilitarianism.: Ken Irby's collected poems; Anne Carson's 'Fragments of Sappho. Danke, danke.
Outside on the steps, someone has made and left two white paper boats, the size of my thumb. Really quite delightful.Both capsized.Sunk, the night before.
The questions, you found, were only there to pass the time, to hear your voice, to read your words. How superficial is that?!
to fall in love with,
as surely
as the loved one
in the photograph before me.
---Ken Irby.
What intelligence you have is quite silly, really. The light in your eyes; I'm light-headed when I think about it.The distances between people. One might as well be Algerian or Chinese.
My house: there aren't many things in it any more. Nothing to count or tally. The only people there are visitors, strangers, or cut-throat property-dealers.And yet, for all that, still it stands, empty like a human heart.
Where are you when you think of another?
When you're a student you always hear teachers trying to be sexy by saying something like: 'it's not about what you know, it's about the questions you ask'. Knowing isn't everything. Or something equally odd: 'question everything'.
7:00 a.m.
No-one about except the cleaners. The earth still slowly coming to terms with the morning light. Shall I be open today, or not; who will find love on this bench, under this tree today, and who will lose it? Black coffee, a croissant. Lecture: woefully under-prepared. Hoping to wing it. Nabs, dear Nabs' books just come in, sitting on my desk, next to the pile of articles on utilitarianism.: Ken Irby's collected poems; Anne Carson's 'Fragments of Sappho. Danke, danke.
Outside on the steps, someone has made and left two white paper boats, the size of my thumb. Really quite delightful.Both capsized.Sunk, the night before.
The questions, you found, were only there to pass the time, to hear your voice, to read your words. How superficial is that?!
to fall in love with,
as surely
as the loved one
in the photograph before me.
---Ken Irby.
What intelligence you have is quite silly, really. The light in your eyes; I'm light-headed when I think about it.The distances between people. One might as well be Algerian or Chinese.
My house: there aren't many things in it any more. Nothing to count or tally. The only people there are visitors, strangers, or cut-throat property-dealers.And yet, for all that, still it stands, empty like a human heart.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
I-level
I am I,
when I am you.
Dodge the questions, as you dodge the bullets."Droll rat," they would shoot you, if they knew.In the mean time, the time we have between us, let's dance together in a minefield.
Loyalty, fidelity...to what or who, God knows? Your own Jewish nose, so unremarkable in other ways, has picked up the scent and follows your trackless ways. What kind of religion is this, that leads you to infidelity?
Darkness crumbles. Is it day or night? The winter fires, Anna said.Remember? The late flaring of your soul. For so long, your I at an angle to the universe.I see you face to face now. You've saved the last dance, the dance of death, for me.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Golden words of wisdom from swami blacksun
Irony of ironies! Having just written an article for the papers (don't bother asking for the link: it's as crap as this blog) on the importance of trust for development ('social capital' and all that) I get a lecture from an estate agent on the importance of trust! Bizarre!
So, there I was, in this dusty little square, a little corner of the dust-bowl that is Lahore, carcasses hanging outside the butcher's, flies, the works. His office: cheap wooden paneling (like you might expect in a 1970's second-hand car dealer's office). On the wall, next to a huge grey filing cabinet, a picture of his father...Sufi something, something. A lovely railway-green table. Qur'anic verses on the wall. Fading mustard sofas, bits of the covers peeling off. Two fans, both gold plated. A huge wall clock, something one might expect in a railway station. A rich, ornate pattern of flowers on the ceiling. You almost imagined that behind some closed door they were making B-grade films. Or God knows what.
As I wait for the estate agent an old bearded man tells me, in response to my question whether X still lives around here: who knows. He may be alive, he may be dead. After all, we all have to die, we all have to go back to God.
Yeah, er..okay, uncle.
First lesson in life: never talk to anyone unless you have to.
The lecture:
Do you see this? he said, holding the flimsy contract in his hand.
"It's all meaningless". What matters is trust, whether someone's given their word. In the end of the day, this piece of paper is only as good as the character of the people behind it. I've done lots of deals with people and it's been about honour.
Lesson number 2: when someone puts their hand up to stop you from interjecting, just so they can continue on their cheap Sunday school sermon, you know they're majorly screwed in the head. Ride the tiger, grasshopper.
I could see this wasn't going to be a pleasant next 20 minutes. When Paks go on a rant the best response is to just let them have their say (hope you're taking notes, Roxana and anton!) or, if you're like little r, the 'chaabi master', just egg them on a bit!
Lesson number 3, little ones: always imagine the end of a conversation; the handshake, you getting back into the safety of your car. When the other person talks think of something pleasant like cinnamon rolls or Monica Bellucci...it helps pass the time. Now and then raise your head so as to indicate you haven't died of boredom and nod your head as you say: "Really?".
So he continues...are you telling me there's no corruption in England, America! There's more, much more! "There are people living in cardboard boxes in the Bronx chipped in his friend, the "engineer."
Of course, I'd been making the point in my article about the importance of trust. But that has to go hand in hand with contracts, a good and transparent legal system. Part of me wanted to ask him: why do you think Pakistan's so fucked up then? But if I've learnt anything over the years it's that it's best not to engage with other human beings. Especially if they're not very pretty. A harsh lesson, I know. But it's the way of the future, I tells ya! Sod all that stuff about community. Give me my money and let me go home....
On the way back: stopped over at the Last Word, as a drunk might find refuge in a pub in the mid -afternoon, sinking into oblivion. Didn't want or need anything, but at least here there was a moment of respite. Anyway, my Burnisde books haven't come in. Doesn't matter. Khair...
~~~
Pharmakon: the poison and the remedy are the same; time is the great healer, time is the wound. Your absence is real. Is reality anything else?
So, there I was, in this dusty little square, a little corner of the dust-bowl that is Lahore, carcasses hanging outside the butcher's, flies, the works. His office: cheap wooden paneling (like you might expect in a 1970's second-hand car dealer's office). On the wall, next to a huge grey filing cabinet, a picture of his father...Sufi something, something. A lovely railway-green table. Qur'anic verses on the wall. Fading mustard sofas, bits of the covers peeling off. Two fans, both gold plated. A huge wall clock, something one might expect in a railway station. A rich, ornate pattern of flowers on the ceiling. You almost imagined that behind some closed door they were making B-grade films. Or God knows what.
As I wait for the estate agent an old bearded man tells me, in response to my question whether X still lives around here: who knows. He may be alive, he may be dead. After all, we all have to die, we all have to go back to God.
Yeah, er..okay, uncle.
First lesson in life: never talk to anyone unless you have to.
The lecture:
Do you see this? he said, holding the flimsy contract in his hand.
"It's all meaningless". What matters is trust, whether someone's given their word. In the end of the day, this piece of paper is only as good as the character of the people behind it. I've done lots of deals with people and it's been about honour.
Lesson number 2: when someone puts their hand up to stop you from interjecting, just so they can continue on their cheap Sunday school sermon, you know they're majorly screwed in the head. Ride the tiger, grasshopper.
I could see this wasn't going to be a pleasant next 20 minutes. When Paks go on a rant the best response is to just let them have their say (hope you're taking notes, Roxana and anton!) or, if you're like little r, the 'chaabi master', just egg them on a bit!
Lesson number 3, little ones: always imagine the end of a conversation; the handshake, you getting back into the safety of your car. When the other person talks think of something pleasant like cinnamon rolls or Monica Bellucci...it helps pass the time. Now and then raise your head so as to indicate you haven't died of boredom and nod your head as you say: "Really?".
So he continues...are you telling me there's no corruption in England, America! There's more, much more! "There are people living in cardboard boxes in the Bronx chipped in his friend, the "engineer."
Of course, I'd been making the point in my article about the importance of trust. But that has to go hand in hand with contracts, a good and transparent legal system. Part of me wanted to ask him: why do you think Pakistan's so fucked up then? But if I've learnt anything over the years it's that it's best not to engage with other human beings. Especially if they're not very pretty. A harsh lesson, I know. But it's the way of the future, I tells ya! Sod all that stuff about community. Give me my money and let me go home....
On the way back: stopped over at the Last Word, as a drunk might find refuge in a pub in the mid -afternoon, sinking into oblivion. Didn't want or need anything, but at least here there was a moment of respite. Anyway, my Burnisde books haven't come in. Doesn't matter. Khair...
~~~
Pharmakon: the poison and the remedy are the same; time is the great healer, time is the wound. Your absence is real. Is reality anything else?
Thursday, December 15, 2011
the orient
You know, I've traveled a bit in 'the orient' (why, I even live there and might be said to be an oriental of sorts myself) but I've never seen anything like this. Missing out again, I guess!
But no, the serious point: what is this fascination and obsession with 'the east' and with women's bodies and the veil? Of course, there's a political context to it; it would be naive to assume otherwise. The 'East' as passive, half-awake, there for the taking. The east that needs to be liberated, set free from captivity ('the lustful turk' and all that).
The East as a dreamworld, a place and time of lost innocence (but also, confusedly, of uninhibited sensuousness). Gaugin, perhaps? In a world that was being narrowly defined by rationality and industrialization, wouldn't it be nice to return to the pre-reflective states and to nature?
On the other hand, isn't a lot of the criticism just reactionary? In the 'west' people suffer from alienation, a lack of protection; they face the relentless gaze, the tyranny of fashion; they miss out on family life, homeliness, security, modesty, etc., etc. the harsh world of politics and the public realm being left to the men, the hunters. And shouldn't we respect differences? Eastern (Muslim) women are not like the farangi women, are they?
Well, don't buy it for a second, not a for a second.To talk about the Enlightenment nowadays is to align oneself with all sorts of unpleasant bedfellows. Narrow views of rationality, a thin concept of 'Man', a lack of respect for difference and uniqueness; the crushing of all that reeked of tradition, superstition, emotions. Science, prose and not art or poetry. Sure, but isn't it also an attempt to see what we share with one another, what we hold in common? A respect for sameness doesn't necessarily lead to the flatlands; instead, it can be just the opposite: east, west, man, woman, rich, poor...there is only the human being.Or, to be more specific, the ability to see ourselves clearly depends on our ability to see other people clearly:to keep the right balance between people's specificity and individuality and what is common. Us & them. The '&' unites and individuates.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
winter fires
There's something primitive and satisfying about putting on the heater in the early hours of a winter morning. Is this a deep ritual from our ancient past?
Driving along the Canal yesterday, late in the afternoon; the green, opaque water slowly moving down, as if it had suddenly become more reflective, cautious, this last month. It carried with it a few twigs and dry leaves. It seemed as if no-one even recognized its existence.On the way back, a delightful scene of lots of small, ankle-high fires in the grass. The gold vivifying the green. Each fire unique and yet, somehow, mystically tied to the other.
'You realize I attach great importance to the human voice, more than to what is written, for what is written does not contain my voice'
At Canal View you notice that the woman has a very distinctive face, very tender, tinged with some sort of sadness. She folds her arms. Has strange cheekbones. There's something 'western' about her. Not her accent or even the way she carries her hair (which is always a dead give away). 'You always pick out such things,' I'm told. Yes, that's true, I always like to see gold in the straw, wonder what history a face has? God, I can't stand mirrors any more.
There's no betrayal like the human voice.
---Richard Ford.
Driving along the Canal yesterday, late in the afternoon; the green, opaque water slowly moving down, as if it had suddenly become more reflective, cautious, this last month. It carried with it a few twigs and dry leaves. It seemed as if no-one even recognized its existence.On the way back, a delightful scene of lots of small, ankle-high fires in the grass. The gold vivifying the green. Each fire unique and yet, somehow, mystically tied to the other.
'You realize I attach great importance to the human voice, more than to what is written, for what is written does not contain my voice'
At Canal View you notice that the woman has a very distinctive face, very tender, tinged with some sort of sadness. She folds her arms. Has strange cheekbones. There's something 'western' about her. Not her accent or even the way she carries her hair (which is always a dead give away). 'You always pick out such things,' I'm told. Yes, that's true, I always like to see gold in the straw, wonder what history a face has? God, I can't stand mirrors any more.
There's no betrayal like the human voice.
---Richard Ford.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
A white butterfly floated into the prison and my heart beat faster. She left, and my heart fluttered after her.
~~~
Five states of mind. None of them true. Quintessentially, you draw circles around an absence. Your heart, officially dead wood. On which a butterfly perchance came to rest.
~~~
Behind the black was the red; and behind the red the white. But behind the white there was only a heart.
~~~
The way of the future is the way to the past. If time flows then, as the Romans knew, it flows backwards towards you.
Sun and time fade; the winter light, weak and fragile, coldly reflected on the library's high windows. Books and soil become closely packed. The winter's mind conserving, not straying or wavering. All I remember is like a loose thread.When the Roding slows, and stones lie still in its dark waters, my heart is lost.
She smiled at the questions, as if to say, 'And if I answered you, would you know me then?'. A fraction of her known, as if glimpsed from afar.'She did not care for films, newspaper reportages, the radio. She wanted personal knowledge.'She was always on the inside; he always on the outside.But if you open this door, she said, make sure you don't bring in the cold with you.
~~~
Five states of mind. None of them true. Quintessentially, you draw circles around an absence. Your heart, officially dead wood. On which a butterfly perchance came to rest.
~~~
Behind the black was the red; and behind the red the white. But behind the white there was only a heart.
~~~
The way of the future is the way to the past. If time flows then, as the Romans knew, it flows backwards towards you.
Sun and time fade; the winter light, weak and fragile, coldly reflected on the library's high windows. Books and soil become closely packed. The winter's mind conserving, not straying or wavering. All I remember is like a loose thread.When the Roding slows, and stones lie still in its dark waters, my heart is lost.
She smiled at the questions, as if to say, 'And if I answered you, would you know me then?'. A fraction of her known, as if glimpsed from afar.'She did not care for films, newspaper reportages, the radio. She wanted personal knowledge.'She was always on the inside; he always on the outside.But if you open this door, she said, make sure you don't bring in the cold with you.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
fixations
Late 14c., fixacion, an alchemical word, from M.L. fixationem (nom. fixatio), noun of action from pp. stem of L. fixare, frequentative of figere "to fix" (see fix). Used in the Freudian sense since 1910.
Are there people without fixations? Is not the constant denial of fixations itself a fixation?
There are words, there are words we repeat to ourselves, to others, as if they were like us, or would like us. Everyone needs a fix 'cos everyone's broke. Spent.
A phrase, a word, your signature. What is the word or phrase that is you? For fuck's sake. Repetition and ritual. Need I say it again.
Epitaphs:
Death isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I want my money back!
~~~
Does death, then, have the final word, like a mask with its fixed expression? Something not to be repeated (or even spoken)?Perhaps then.And yet death is the fixation! 'The point of all points', the ultimate 'brokenness' that cannot be fixed. Aren't our fixations so many distractions from it, our way of extending the moment? Two ways: religion, art, abstract thought, as a way of detaching oneself from life; pure excess as a way of being absorbed in the moment, of forgetting that it will not last.
Why are you throwing this corn around?
To keep the tigers away.
But there are no tigers here.
It must be working then!
But what if you're fixated by someone? Breathlessness. Asphyxiation. Suffocation. Wonder, not finding its expression in life, turns to stone, becomes hooked to an 'object'. Does one end up killing the 'thing' one loves?
Are there people without fixations? Is not the constant denial of fixations itself a fixation?
There are words, there are words we repeat to ourselves, to others, as if they were like us, or would like us. Everyone needs a fix 'cos everyone's broke. Spent.
A phrase, a word, your signature. What is the word or phrase that is you? For fuck's sake. Repetition and ritual. Need I say it again.
Epitaphs:
Death isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I want my money back!
~~~
Does death, then, have the final word, like a mask with its fixed expression? Something not to be repeated (or even spoken)?Perhaps then.And yet death is the fixation! 'The point of all points', the ultimate 'brokenness' that cannot be fixed. Aren't our fixations so many distractions from it, our way of extending the moment? Two ways: religion, art, abstract thought, as a way of detaching oneself from life; pure excess as a way of being absorbed in the moment, of forgetting that it will not last.
Why are you throwing this corn around?
To keep the tigers away.
But there are no tigers here.
It must be working then!
But what if you're fixated by someone? Breathlessness. Asphyxiation. Suffocation. Wonder, not finding its expression in life, turns to stone, becomes hooked to an 'object'. Does one end up killing the 'thing' one loves?
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Goodbye Lenin
100 pages in to Lesley Chamberlain's 'Philosophy Steamer'. Not half as good as the excellent 'Motherland'. But still...
What was the appeal of Communism? For the life of me, I don't get it! Of course, the notion of the 'common good', notions that were floating about in the 'silver age' and already present amongst the populists before the commies appropriated it. But you believe too much in the individual-Jesus, that makes me sound like Ayn Rand!-to be really attracted to the common anything. No, not the individual, or any other useless abstraction,just my own and the people I know.
What is fascinating, though, is this battle between the individual, the rational, on one side, and the collective notion of the good life, and the mystifications of Tradition on the other. The 'progressive' part of Communism had to destroy the old order, old ways of thinking. And of course, it only led to a new type of fanaticism. To believe in reason only is, as Berlin rightly said, an extravagance. But, but, that sort of cold, detached view does appeal to you in some way. You haven't got an ounce of mystical or religious sensibility in you at all.
'Inwardness' as a form of resistance to the materialism of capitalism and communism alike. But, on the other hand, the need to get away from 'inwardness'. Keynes: Good states of mind depend on things working. The charms (and dangers) of utilitarianism, of piecemeal social change/reform.
In the end of the day, you're too lazy to be attracted to any ideology. Even religion seems like such an effort. Austerity and worldliness require too much concentration, absorption.
The Dougal once told me about a Quaker 'gathering' she went to. People just sat on their chairs and kept quiet.Reminds you a bit of that line from 'wise blood': The church of Jesus Christ without Jesus Christ. A bit like five easy pieces, if you know what I mean. I wonder if you can bring your own sarnies, or a flask of tea?Don't even have to talk to anyone either. Now, that's my kind of religion! Though you always imagine the chairs to be too austere and uncomfortable. Some sort of Bauhaus or Ikea crap.Far better the plush ones at Border's or, even better, the British Library.
What was the appeal of Communism? For the life of me, I don't get it! Of course, the notion of the 'common good', notions that were floating about in the 'silver age' and already present amongst the populists before the commies appropriated it. But you believe too much in the individual-Jesus, that makes me sound like Ayn Rand!-to be really attracted to the common anything. No, not the individual, or any other useless abstraction,just my own and the people I know.
What is fascinating, though, is this battle between the individual, the rational, on one side, and the collective notion of the good life, and the mystifications of Tradition on the other. The 'progressive' part of Communism had to destroy the old order, old ways of thinking. And of course, it only led to a new type of fanaticism. To believe in reason only is, as Berlin rightly said, an extravagance. But, but, that sort of cold, detached view does appeal to you in some way. You haven't got an ounce of mystical or religious sensibility in you at all.
'Inwardness' as a form of resistance to the materialism of capitalism and communism alike. But, on the other hand, the need to get away from 'inwardness'. Keynes: Good states of mind depend on things working. The charms (and dangers) of utilitarianism, of piecemeal social change/reform.
In the end of the day, you're too lazy to be attracted to any ideology. Even religion seems like such an effort. Austerity and worldliness require too much concentration, absorption.
The Dougal once told me about a Quaker 'gathering' she went to. People just sat on their chairs and kept quiet.Reminds you a bit of that line from 'wise blood': The church of Jesus Christ without Jesus Christ. A bit like five easy pieces, if you know what I mean. I wonder if you can bring your own sarnies, or a flask of tea?Don't even have to talk to anyone either. Now, that's my kind of religion! Though you always imagine the chairs to be too austere and uncomfortable. Some sort of Bauhaus or Ikea crap.Far better the plush ones at Border's or, even better, the British Library.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
all these things you are
Singularity. Black hole. The first star. Fish in time's dark waters; Tree, Daphne. Crow in dense foliage, dreaming of star. A mind, wandering. The fierceness of the day like your heart. A stray dog, Pythagoras's friend. Royalty without title. The red blush of innocence. A song of experience.Mirror, object, reflection. Cornelius, all these things you were...
Monday, December 05, 2011
the inner fake
I don't know what my best side is, honest, but from here, all that 'inwardness' does look awfully fake.
'I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet.'
---Charles Simic, NYRB.
What have you learnt over the years? Nothing. But all those books ? Even less than nothing.Well, at least they helped kill some time. The Ph.D. , for Pete's sake? What a joke that was...and how easily you complied!The oddest thing is how people without an 'education' think that people with an 'education' are clever.
Cleverness was never what it was about. Would you give up your books, then, for a different life? Yes (except for the books with pictures. I like those).
But what else could you do ? (don't worry, this is just me talking to myself). I mean, you're even more useless in 'real' life than you are in the fake, academic one! Touché, old friend (er..remind me not to talk to you again!).
Would it have mattered if you'd been a good academic, though? Probably not. Then I'd be even more brain dead.And your use of the past tense is very sly, if you don't mind me saying. What if you'd actually read a book, you know, like from start to finish? If it ain't good enough for Samuel Johnson, it ain't...(note to former self: a fragment to shore up the ruins).
Can you be serious for a moment?
Yes, okay, for a moment.
Do you have to be East European to realize the absurdity of life? No, only to realize the absurdity of words like 'East European'.
Is there a streak of madness in your family? Well, now you mention it, old dougal...but no, it's what's saved us all these years. How do you work that out? Everyone has to work it out for themselves.
'I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet.'
---Charles Simic, NYRB.
What have you learnt over the years? Nothing. But all those books ? Even less than nothing.Well, at least they helped kill some time. The Ph.D. , for Pete's sake? What a joke that was...and how easily you complied!The oddest thing is how people without an 'education' think that people with an 'education' are clever.
Cleverness was never what it was about. Would you give up your books, then, for a different life? Yes (except for the books with pictures. I like those).
But what else could you do ? (don't worry, this is just me talking to myself). I mean, you're even more useless in 'real' life than you are in the fake, academic one! Touché, old friend (er..remind me not to talk to you again!).
Would it have mattered if you'd been a good academic, though? Probably not. Then I'd be even more brain dead.And your use of the past tense is very sly, if you don't mind me saying. What if you'd actually read a book, you know, like from start to finish? If it ain't good enough for Samuel Johnson, it ain't...(note to former self: a fragment to shore up the ruins).
Can you be serious for a moment?
Yes, okay, for a moment.
Do you have to be East European to realize the absurdity of life? No, only to realize the absurdity of words like 'East European'.
Is there a streak of madness in your family? Well, now you mention it, old dougal...but no, it's what's saved us all these years. How do you work that out? Everyone has to work it out for themselves.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Friday, December 02, 2011
the periodic table
"Distilling is beautiful. First of all, because it is a slow, philosophic, and silent occupation, which keeps you busy but gives you time to think of other things, somewhat like riding a bike. Then, because it involves a metamorphosis from liquid to vapour (invisible), and from this once again to liquid; but in this double journey, up and down, purity is attained, an ambiguous and fascinating condition … And finally, when you set about distilling, you acquire the consciousness of repeating a ritual consecrated by the centuries."
Was thinking about this and have to admit that the word purity does grate. Who, in this day and age, can accept the idea of perfection or an unblemished soul?
In today's Observer there was a piece on a biography of Kurt Vonnegut. These lines struck you:
'The book paints a picture of a man who was often distant from his children, cruel to a long-suffering first wife, caught in an unpleasant second marriage and spent much of his later years depressed and angry.'
This reminded you of a comment made by the great Shirley Williams about her ex-husband, the philosopher Bernard Williams. Something along the lines: might have been a good philosopher, but was a terrible husband.
Recently, similar sentiments expressed about Christa Wolf and, before that, about Isaiah Berlin (by Edward Said).
The Gauguin problem:
Can goodness be one-sided? One could be a good painter, a good musician, even a good philosopher (in some technical sense, I suppose) but does that count, how does it count, in the assessment of a person as a good person? A good life means what, exactly?
Well, of course, it's unfair to set the bar so impossibly high that no-one ever clears it. Secondly, it's unreasonable to expect, given the way human nature is, the mixture of elements that goes up to make a personality, that someone will be good in lots of different ways. You might even say, screw the morals, as long as he or she is creative in their field, that's what counts. By talking about 'the good' in ethical terms aren't you really just opening the door to fundamentalism and authoritarianism, to people who want to impose their idea of how goods should be ordered?
Thirdly, you don't know the context in which people make choices, only see things from afar. Someone stabs his wife, but he was traumatised by his childhood experiences;someone thinks nothing of the Palestinian people's aspirations but then you've got to understand where they're coming from; and if someone supports a dictatorship or a colonial power you have no idea why they did that (for their mother's sake?). Maybe there wasn't much of a choice anyway, maybe goodness is sometimes only about choosing the lesser of two evils.
I think there's a lot to be said for that. Of course. But just to be a contrarian..I'm sure you could find some 'goodness' in all sorts of horrible people. If Hitler had been a good painter, then what? If a suicide bomber is kind to his own family does that in some way absolve him or her of what they've done?
Most of the times the waters are muddied; but sometimes there has to be an idea of clarity, doesn't there?
Was thinking about this and have to admit that the word purity does grate. Who, in this day and age, can accept the idea of perfection or an unblemished soul?
In today's Observer there was a piece on a biography of Kurt Vonnegut. These lines struck you:
'The book paints a picture of a man who was often distant from his children, cruel to a long-suffering first wife, caught in an unpleasant second marriage and spent much of his later years depressed and angry.'
This reminded you of a comment made by the great Shirley Williams about her ex-husband, the philosopher Bernard Williams. Something along the lines: might have been a good philosopher, but was a terrible husband.
Recently, similar sentiments expressed about Christa Wolf and, before that, about Isaiah Berlin (by Edward Said).
The Gauguin problem:
Can goodness be one-sided? One could be a good painter, a good musician, even a good philosopher (in some technical sense, I suppose) but does that count, how does it count, in the assessment of a person as a good person? A good life means what, exactly?
Well, of course, it's unfair to set the bar so impossibly high that no-one ever clears it. Secondly, it's unreasonable to expect, given the way human nature is, the mixture of elements that goes up to make a personality, that someone will be good in lots of different ways. You might even say, screw the morals, as long as he or she is creative in their field, that's what counts. By talking about 'the good' in ethical terms aren't you really just opening the door to fundamentalism and authoritarianism, to people who want to impose their idea of how goods should be ordered?
Thirdly, you don't know the context in which people make choices, only see things from afar. Someone stabs his wife, but he was traumatised by his childhood experiences;someone thinks nothing of the Palestinian people's aspirations but then you've got to understand where they're coming from; and if someone supports a dictatorship or a colonial power you have no idea why they did that (for their mother's sake?). Maybe there wasn't much of a choice anyway, maybe goodness is sometimes only about choosing the lesser of two evils.
I think there's a lot to be said for that. Of course. But just to be a contrarian..I'm sure you could find some 'goodness' in all sorts of horrible people. If Hitler had been a good painter, then what? If a suicide bomber is kind to his own family does that in some way absolve him or her of what they've done?
Most of the times the waters are muddied; but sometimes there has to be an idea of clarity, doesn't there?
Thursday, December 01, 2011
on the 1001 th day and night
When you've run out of things to say to one another, the words turning as cold as the blank wall at 3 a.m. on a winter night. You count the hours to go but you can't read the time, there isn't enough light.Dreamer,dream me now.When you think back because that's the only way you can think...
The old music, that survives in forgotten, sleepy small towns. The song, the singer, reaching a kind of fame-if you want to call it that-for a few days, one summer. A kind of perfection, that knows its own end. Now that lost music is in your eyes.
Your jumpers have holes in them around the shoulders; there are toothpaste marks, rubbed off but the smudge still visible, on the front. Your jeans are torn on the inner side. Yes, the inner side, never your best. Your shoes have never been polished and their colour has faded from neglect and indifference. You comb your hair with your fingers, not bothered to look for your cheap plastic comb.
Why, what's up with you? Anyone would think you've fallen in love...or out of love. This is how you live when you have a cold heart.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
goodness
One of the most mysterious words in the English language. What is it?Certainly, you don't want to reduce it to desires or preferences: your wanting something, x, cannot make it good.The satisfaction of your preferences, whatever they happen to be, is good in an instrumental sense but unless it leads to something good we'd struggle to call it good.A good thief or a good criminal is good in a very limited sense of the term.
In economics, of course, the word is an empty term, not really carrying much substance. In fact, Broome suggests that we do away with the substantive view altogether. Goodness, according to him, is really a relation of 'betterness'. And again, we're to assume that this is not connected to an 'objective' notion of betterness but, rather, a subjective ordering. Economists think, have to think, in terms of relativities: x is good is a meaningless statement; we can only say x is better than y (for me). Choice, then, is about choosing what is the best amongst all alternative feasible options.
Now, what's wrong with that?
If you say you want to buy a good pen you'd hardly be likely to say what constitutes a good pen is the fact that you want it? Or, to say that you like pink pens makes it a good pen ('pushpin is as a good as poetry'). Surely there's something internal to a practice or an x that makes it good, some set of widely shared criteria? Can taste (in the modern sense of the word) or pleasure on its own ever be a reason? (The Pope's distinction between different types of pleasure is relevant here...Hannah: pleasure is the fundamental awareness of reality).
x is a good cricketer.
Is that really about x being better than other people?
The question, then, is how is good 'stuck' to cricketer? Is 'good' attributive because it is comparative or does it require, as Bernard Williams holds, a more "intimate" relation?
If you say of someone, 'she's a good person', what you seem to be saying is that she is, fundamentally, an okay person. She is, at heart, a decent sort.
Which is strange, really. It means: a) goodness is nothing special and b) it's not really unique or tied to someone's way of life. Have we lost the ability to talk of a 'good life' without the religious framework around it? Who in this day and age talks about good or evil?It does sound awfully pretentious to our modern ears to speak about what constitutes a 'good life'. It's what I make of it...what 'works' for me, works.
'Be a good chap and shut up, won't you'
In economics, of course, the word is an empty term, not really carrying much substance. In fact, Broome suggests that we do away with the substantive view altogether. Goodness, according to him, is really a relation of 'betterness'. And again, we're to assume that this is not connected to an 'objective' notion of betterness but, rather, a subjective ordering. Economists think, have to think, in terms of relativities: x is good is a meaningless statement; we can only say x is better than y (for me). Choice, then, is about choosing what is the best amongst all alternative feasible options.
Now, what's wrong with that?
If you say you want to buy a good pen you'd hardly be likely to say what constitutes a good pen is the fact that you want it? Or, to say that you like pink pens makes it a good pen ('pushpin is as a good as poetry'). Surely there's something internal to a practice or an x that makes it good, some set of widely shared criteria? Can taste (in the modern sense of the word) or pleasure on its own ever be a reason? (The Pope's distinction between different types of pleasure is relevant here...Hannah: pleasure is the fundamental awareness of reality).
x is a good cricketer.
Is that really about x being better than other people?
The question, then, is how is good 'stuck' to cricketer? Is 'good' attributive because it is comparative or does it require, as Bernard Williams holds, a more "intimate" relation?
If you say of someone, 'she's a good person', what you seem to be saying is that she is, fundamentally, an okay person. She is, at heart, a decent sort.
Which is strange, really. It means: a) goodness is nothing special and b) it's not really unique or tied to someone's way of life. Have we lost the ability to talk of a 'good life' without the religious framework around it? Who in this day and age talks about good or evil?It does sound awfully pretentious to our modern ears to speak about what constitutes a 'good life'. It's what I make of it...what 'works' for me, works.
'Be a good chap and shut up, won't you'
Monday, November 28, 2011
elemental
I don't know why, but reading Miroslav Holub reminds me of Calvino. Maybe Mr. Palomar. There's something utterly simple about the poems, as if everything is redeemed by the last words. Like the last brick in a wall, the final farewell between friends or loved ones...everything suddenly makes sense, is seen clearly. You breathe again, realize you were caught in the spell of someone else's imagination, and now you must return to life, always return...
The yellow balloon, of course. Our reduced lives. ticking away, atomically. the loose strands of our being, looking for a small hand to pull us back. And all that innocence strays through all that experience.
I'll slip out in front of the curtain, taking
great care not to tangle my strings
in the flies,
I'll jingle my bells (merrily),
doff my cap
and before the puppeteer knows what's happening
I'll speak in my own voice,
you know,
my own voice,
out of my own head,
for the first and last time,
because afterwards they'll put me back in the box,
wrapped in tissue paper.
I'll say what I've wanted to say
for a whole eternity of wood...
~~~
What am I doing here. Without the question mark Chats., what indeed. And where is 'here'.
what is a black man. and what colour is he.
Stop the press. The first genuine 'mouse on the bs.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle...one of my students is now the foreign minister.God help this country!
The yellow balloon, of course. Our reduced lives. ticking away, atomically. the loose strands of our being, looking for a small hand to pull us back. And all that innocence strays through all that experience.
I'll slip out in front of the curtain, taking
great care not to tangle my strings
in the flies,
I'll jingle my bells (merrily),
doff my cap
and before the puppeteer knows what's happening
I'll speak in my own voice,
you know,
my own voice,
out of my own head,
for the first and last time,
because afterwards they'll put me back in the box,
wrapped in tissue paper.
I'll say what I've wanted to say
for a whole eternity of wood...
~~~
What am I doing here. Without the question mark Chats., what indeed. And where is 'here'.
what is a black man. and what colour is he.
Stop the press. The first genuine 'mouse on the bs.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle...one of my students is now the foreign minister.God help this country!
Friday, November 25, 2011
taking stock
As usual, the lists appear. Books of the year etc., etc.
So far, for me it's been (in no particular order):
Jesus's Son
Falconer.
Tim Liardet's latest poems are also there or thereabouts.
G. Dyer's essays, 'Working the Room',
John Gray's Immortalization commission.
Books I plan to read before the hols. are over:
Wildwood,
Cheever's journals
List of books I've recently bought but haven't read:
Miroslav Holub's collected poems,
Pessoa's Book of disquiet
Wolf Solent,
Veronica
Exit ghost,
Rabbit, Run,
Life and Fate
Books on their way (or photocopies):
Bruni's 'Civil Economy'
P. Foot, 'Goodness'
Love's work,
The Lover's discourse (barthes)
John Burnside (his latest novel and poems)
That they may face the rising sun,
a book of Sappho's poems
Books I have but will never have the time to read:
Rebecca West,
The Machiavelli moment,
The Meaning of Icons.
Romanesque art by Schapiro,
The poetics of space
Books started but not finished (too many to list here)
biographies of Celan, Matisse and Hardy
Vertigo by Blom.
The Romantic Economist.
Books on my desk that I periodically dip into:
Gunter Eich's poems, 'Angina days'
Robin Robertson's poems,
Macintyre's Dependent Rational animals
Griffin's 'Well-being',
Beyond the Invisible Hand
Books I've started but will definitely not continue with:
Lorrie Moore's Gate book
James Salter's pretentious crap.
Jon McGregor.
Analysis:
Can't read biographies; don't like economics; the books I'd love to read, have stored away, are on art or history, you've become very judgemental; am drawn to Catholic writers; need a break to read. Need a break to escape from reading!
So far, for me it's been (in no particular order):
Jesus's Son
Falconer.
Tim Liardet's latest poems are also there or thereabouts.
G. Dyer's essays, 'Working the Room',
John Gray's Immortalization commission.
Books I plan to read before the hols. are over:
Wildwood,
Cheever's journals
List of books I've recently bought but haven't read:
Miroslav Holub's collected poems,
Pessoa's Book of disquiet
Wolf Solent,
Veronica
Exit ghost,
Rabbit, Run,
Life and Fate
Books on their way (or photocopies):
Bruni's 'Civil Economy'
P. Foot, 'Goodness'
Love's work,
The Lover's discourse (barthes)
John Burnside (his latest novel and poems)
That they may face the rising sun,
a book of Sappho's poems
Books I have but will never have the time to read:
Rebecca West,
The Machiavelli moment,
The Meaning of Icons.
Romanesque art by Schapiro,
The poetics of space
Books started but not finished (too many to list here)
biographies of Celan, Matisse and Hardy
Vertigo by Blom.
The Romantic Economist.
Books on my desk that I periodically dip into:
Gunter Eich's poems, 'Angina days'
Robin Robertson's poems,
Macintyre's Dependent Rational animals
Griffin's 'Well-being',
Beyond the Invisible Hand
Books I've started but will definitely not continue with:
Lorrie Moore's Gate book
James Salter's pretentious crap.
Jon McGregor.
Analysis:
Can't read biographies; don't like economics; the books I'd love to read, have stored away, are on art or history, you've become very judgemental; am drawn to Catholic writers; need a break to read. Need a break to escape from reading!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Waking up in the middle of the night I don't why, but I thought of these words: the dark recesses of the mind without the light of God. No doubt, this came about from finding a copy of Macintyre's wonderful chapters, Fides et Ratio, and from a weird discussion with a behavioural economist who claims there's a 'molecule' in the brain that inclines us to be moral (his words were "cause us" and that seems really problematical).
If morality is an 'act', an intention to act or a change of mind, a second thought, something that depends on clarity (perhaps not always), some kind of 'movement', then isn't there an 'I' that is directing this movement?
~~~
Some people here think that it's shrewd or clever not to say anything. Whereas, knowing and expressing what you believe in is surely a form of intelligence? Of course, those who think they always know what they believe or those who feel they always have to express it, are often insufferable bores at best, irritating ranters at worst.
~~~
Listening to some lovely playing of Scarlatti's on the radio the other day. By someone called Tharaud. But I like this better.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
blame it on...
For the Dougal:
Growing up in an all-white community you didn't, naturally, realize how un-cool white people were. You had an inkling of course. I mean, the National Front were still about and some people still found it hard to overcome their 'race consciousness'. And you really couldn't take people who harped on about Empire too seriously, could you? Underlying it all was a terrible idea of superiority and arrogance. The way people looked down on black people, for instance. Just showed up how primitive their 'thinking' was, really.
Later on you realized-and how could you not realize given the way you were brought up by your parents-that not all white people were un-cool (no, not as dramatic as a Malcolm X moment, but still). After all, there were some white people who listened to the Jackson 5 and George Benson, B.B. King, Marley, and Otis. Not as a form of resistance to the mainstream but for the simple reason that they could see beauty and find beauty in something they weren't familiar with. That itself is a form of resistance. "Take you shoes off and,you know, relax," as Redding said in one of his songs.
Later still, you could see that people who liked classical or jazz, I mean really liked it, were actually open to other influences, could appreciate other stuff. You remain convinced by Sain Z's words: if you see beauty, you'll see it everywhere...which is why Peter Brown, AnneMarie Schimmel, Edward Said will always stand out for me: there can be no self-knowledge without an understanding of, a concern for, other people and traditions.
~~~
Came across a brilliant interview with Macintyre..on education: "The task of the educator is to stand against the current which in fact will probably overwhelm him."
Or as St. Paul said: "Be ye not conformed to the world"
The full text can be found here
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
if nobody speaks (of remarkable things)...
then i won't also. Okay, okay, only two pages in, but already I want to burn this book (where's the Taleban when you need them?). That's got to be the worst start to a book I've come across in a long while. It may get better (can't get much worse); it may even turn out to be a great book, but the beginning is pure and utter crap. In the beginning was...mud.I guess one has to be grateful..it's not often one comes across such purity.Not even Lorrie Moore's gate-stairs or whatever it's called sucks this much.
The city, it sings. Do me a favour.
Stacked...hang on, that sounds a bit familiar...very Larkinesque.Okay, then the whole structure...isn't that a rip-off of Dylan Thomas? If the dougal was reading this she would say two things: you haven't fucking read Thomas and yes, it is a rip off.
Hackled and crackles and clip-clop. Come on dude, I could say that...the clip-clop of the rag-and-bone man's horse, just before he snuffed it. Ah, the particular and the universal.
Listen.
Please, for Christ's sake.
Listen, and there is more to hear.
Yes, unfortunately so.
~~~
Kahneman: peak effect.
~~~
Was driving past the uni the other day when a car in front of me was crawling at 15 miles an hour, blocking my way. Eventually got past him and was about to give him the old stare when I noticed that he was a very, very old man, his hands locked on to the steering wheel, his incredible bony hands fragile and elegant at the same time whilst he seemed to be staring out into eternity. It was two in the afternoon and a brilliant sunny day and yet he had the windscreen wipers on (full speed and all, the crazy punk). I'm not sure if he was dead or not but the whole thing was spooky, let me tell you. It was like some sort of death crawl, a ghost ship in what people mistakenly call 'the real world'.
~~~
The city, it sings. Do me a favour.
Stacked...hang on, that sounds a bit familiar...very Larkinesque.Okay, then the whole structure...isn't that a rip-off of Dylan Thomas? If the dougal was reading this she would say two things: you haven't fucking read Thomas and yes, it is a rip off.
Hackled and crackles and clip-clop. Come on dude, I could say that...the clip-clop of the rag-and-bone man's horse, just before he snuffed it. Ah, the particular and the universal.
Listen.
Please, for Christ's sake.
Listen, and there is more to hear.
Yes, unfortunately so.
~~~
Kahneman: peak effect.
~~~
Was driving past the uni the other day when a car in front of me was crawling at 15 miles an hour, blocking my way. Eventually got past him and was about to give him the old stare when I noticed that he was a very, very old man, his hands locked on to the steering wheel, his incredible bony hands fragile and elegant at the same time whilst he seemed to be staring out into eternity. It was two in the afternoon and a brilliant sunny day and yet he had the windscreen wipers on (full speed and all, the crazy punk). I'm not sure if he was dead or not but the whole thing was spooky, let me tell you. It was like some sort of death crawl, a ghost ship in what people mistakenly call 'the real world'.
~~~
Monday, November 14, 2011
slacker
Everyone who knows me will testify to what an absolute and shameless slacker I am.
O.E. slæc "loose, careless" (in ref. to personal conduct), from P.Gmc. (cf. O.S. *slakasslak, O.N. slakr, O.H.G. slah "slack," M.Du. lac "fault, lack"), from PIE base *(s)leg- "to be slack" (see lax). Sense of "not tight" (in ref. to things) is first recorded c.1300. The verb is attested from 1510s. Slack-key (1975) translates Hawaiian ki ho'alu First record of slack-jawed (1901) is in Kipling. Slack water "time when tide is not flowing" is from 1769.
Not flowing. Yep, that's me. Would love to say it's because I'm such an anarchic, counter-culture, hip revolutionary but the sad truth is that it's really plain old Kashmiri laziness! And no, not the kind of deep and quiet idleness that leads you to self-reflection and profound insights into what life's all about but, rather, the kind of idleness that means that for large parts of the day you're sleeping or thinking about sleeping (if you're not thinking about devouring a divine c.r. that is).
Why do you find it so hard to buy into this idea of productivity, routine, order? I spend most of my time day-dreaming and can achieve in 20 exalted minutes or so what most people can't do over the span of their whole lives!
"Slacker", "loser". Always a sense of strong approbation associated with them in the Protestant world or the world of success and achievement (E.P.: Time-Work discipline, Foucault on idleness as the new cardinal sin and all that). Do your work, and do it well, meticulously.The notion of perfection. But to what end? Khair... 'Yeah, like, whatever'. Blasé, indifferent. Simmel. Can't be bothered to read it again. Where's wiki when you need it?
Of course you don't believe in work! Avoid and evade at every opportunity. The K-manifesto: never do today what you can put off 'till tomorrow. I've gut a grudging respect for people who work hard, people like nabs and R, though they make me slightly sick and dizzy.
When I was unemployed I found it hugely comforting doing something like getting dressed and posting a letter at the local post office. Now I think universities are amongst the best places for useless people. They're like a retirement home for the middle-aged and badly dressed.(I'm not talking about a proper university, of course; those are full of ridiculously eager people working with great gusto and little refinement, trying to convince themselves and other people that they're clever/not useless after all).
A rant takes up so much energy. Better just to smile.
Whye slacke you your busynesse thus?
Work shall set you free. And yet there's wage slavery everywhere! A life consumed by work,a consumer life (if you think of 'work' as meaning 'labour' a la Arendt). Your head is full of so many fragments of useless knowledge, how can you contribute to the knowledge economy? (I'm taking the piss, just in case you're wondering).
Here's the dope:
"You're a skatepunk rebel because you work seventy hours a week beta-testing video games. This, we might say, is meta-bullshit."
---Mark Kingwell.
O.E. slæc "loose, careless" (in ref. to personal conduct), from P.Gmc. (cf. O.S. *slakasslak, O.N. slakr, O.H.G. slah "slack," M.Du. lac "fault, lack"), from PIE base *(s)leg- "to be slack" (see lax). Sense of "not tight" (in ref. to things) is first recorded c.1300. The verb is attested from 1510s. Slack-key (1975) translates Hawaiian ki ho'alu First record of slack-jawed (1901) is in Kipling. Slack water "time when tide is not flowing" is from 1769.
Not flowing. Yep, that's me. Would love to say it's because I'm such an anarchic, counter-culture, hip revolutionary but the sad truth is that it's really plain old Kashmiri laziness! And no, not the kind of deep and quiet idleness that leads you to self-reflection and profound insights into what life's all about but, rather, the kind of idleness that means that for large parts of the day you're sleeping or thinking about sleeping (if you're not thinking about devouring a divine c.r. that is).
Why do you find it so hard to buy into this idea of productivity, routine, order? I spend most of my time day-dreaming and can achieve in 20 exalted minutes or so what most people can't do over the span of their whole lives!
"Slacker", "loser". Always a sense of strong approbation associated with them in the Protestant world or the world of success and achievement (E.P.: Time-Work discipline, Foucault on idleness as the new cardinal sin and all that). Do your work, and do it well, meticulously.The notion of perfection. But to what end? Khair... 'Yeah, like, whatever'. Blasé, indifferent. Simmel. Can't be bothered to read it again. Where's wiki when you need it?
Of course you don't believe in work! Avoid and evade at every opportunity. The K-manifesto: never do today what you can put off 'till tomorrow. I've gut a grudging respect for people who work hard, people like nabs and R, though they make me slightly sick and dizzy.
When I was unemployed I found it hugely comforting doing something like getting dressed and posting a letter at the local post office. Now I think universities are amongst the best places for useless people. They're like a retirement home for the middle-aged and badly dressed.(I'm not talking about a proper university, of course; those are full of ridiculously eager people working with great gusto and little refinement, trying to convince themselves and other people that they're clever/not useless after all).
A rant takes up so much energy. Better just to smile.
Whye slacke you your busynesse thus?
Work shall set you free. And yet there's wage slavery everywhere! A life consumed by work,a consumer life (if you think of 'work' as meaning 'labour' a la Arendt). Your head is full of so many fragments of useless knowledge, how can you contribute to the knowledge economy? (I'm taking the piss, just in case you're wondering).
Here's the dope:
"You're a skatepunk rebel because you work seventy hours a week beta-testing video games. This, we might say, is meta-bullshit."
---Mark Kingwell.
Friday, November 11, 2011
a song for Roxana (thank you!)
we're on a dying planet, kid. yep, that's the way it is. if i could tell you the things i love you'd be startled! still, no time for that. now, where's that balloon out of here, toto?
you placed a black spot in my heart, a few brown ones on my arms and shoulders. but since your hand was so fair i've grown quite fond of them...
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
a non-killer whale (for anton)
moon-whale:
Their music is immense
Each note hundreds of years long
Each complete tune a moon-age
So they sing to each other unending songs
As unmoving they move their immovable masses
Their closed eyes ecstatic.
---Ted Hughes.
The sea, like our lives, dark and light; it will rain and it will not rain. You carried with you keys, for different rooms and different houses. Moving from one room to another silently, re-imagining some sort of habitation, warmth, loss, lies, the stories that will be fabricated, binding generations. I will leave a coin under the cupboard, in the dark and the dust, so that something of mine grows old. What moves the heart, except this unending song that falls, like rain, and not like rain?
~~~
Today I was driving with someone. At a turning the car next to us suddenly accelerated and screeched in front of us, blocking our way. A well-built young man came out and said to the person sitting next to me: "Don't look at my family or else I'll rip you to shreds." Which was sad, really, since he disrupted a very nice train of thought...
The winter sun, deep shadows after a brightly-lit afternoon. You look around at all the new houses coming up. This idea of beginning. But also: who knows how things will be in ten, twenty years...A doctor said something to me: you can't plan everything in your life...you have to leave some things to God. That's so true! Tawaakul. The most incredible thing-if you've got it.
You can think: in the whole history of humankind so many things have gone wrong; but that doesn't really get at it (I really must apologise to the long suffering readers of this blog for all these gloomy thoughts!). It's this: in any individual life anything, at any moment, can go wrong and you can't really stop it or foresee it. You can see the appeal of Utopias, of idylls, Arcadias...'the Garden,' the protective home, shelter, refuges from the fierceness of the world.
But these houses, in the fading light, you look on them with a sense of awe. The laughter, the heartaches..it's all there. In the morning you read these lines from an ancient text (Xenophon):
[8:18]How good it is to keep one's stock of utensils in order, and how easy to find a suitable place in a house to put each set in, I have already said.
[8.19] And what a beautiful sight is afforded by boots of all sorts and conditions ranged in rows! How beautiful it is to see cloaks of all sorts and conditions kept separate, or blankets, or brazen vessels, or table furniture! Yes, no serious man will smile when I claim that there is beauty in the order even of pots and pans set out in neat array, however much it may move the laughter of a wit.
[8.20] There is nothing, in short, that does not gain in beauty when set out in order. For each set looks like a troop of utensils, and the space between the sets is beautiful to see, when each set is kept clear of it..."
Order in our lives. How we long for it. But not just any old order: has to be the right type.And yet you know, you can spend your whole life thinking it's just around the corner, or that if you did this, rather than that, then things would somehow slide into order. But it doesn't work like that. Not for most of us, anyway.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
a time of gifts
\
. .
'This nose for example, which no philosopher has hitherto spoken...'
Looking at my nose close up in the mirror. How very ancient it is! Not in the sense of an august and wise Roman senator, but more like a deep-sea fish.
~~~
On Saturday, driving down towards Cavalry, on one of the better roads in town and there, what do I see in the dark? At first I thought, what the hell is that, a deer? Duh! No, a brown donkey running down the middle of the road, in the same direction as the cars! In the land of lazy sods you can imagine how lazy the donkeys are. As an old friend once said (with reference to Italy, actually): any country that has such a high proportion of donkeys can never make any progress. (Now, there's a Ph.D thesis for you!).
~~~
At the Eid family dinner I'm egged on to apply for Principal at my old school. Uncle M__ with his corny jokes...a couple are invited to dinner at 7 but the hosts don't serve dinner immediately; instead, they just ask: "are you comfortable?" One hour passes, then two and all they can say, at regular intervals is: "are you comfortable?". Ten o'clock, ten fifteen. And still no sign of the food, still the same old question: "are you comfortable?". By now the couple are furious so the man says, "Listen, we didn't come-for-the-table, we came for dinner!".
I know, I know.
Next time: must avoid these family gatherings.
~~~
A time of gifts. Anything Bob recommends (music-wise)turns out to be fab. Books: not so sure. But Time of Gifts does look like the real thing. anton, of course, is always right and has superb recommendations. Just got Veronica and, so far so good, despite bilal's reservations.
~~~
Just realised that there are lots of really interesting perspectives on the economy by Catholic writers: Macintyre, Bruni, etc. The idea of the 'civil economy'. Ties in with the idea of the gift and 'other' motivations for exchange. i.e a move away from Adam Smith. What is meant by the 'common good'? Is it something beyond Pareto (or, more broadly, utilitarianism)?
~~~
Roxana came up with this beautiful line (which I can't remember now!)...went something like: '..as if an innocent and wise face could wipe away all the vileness in life.' Indeed. But there are so many ugly faces. Has any philosopher commented on the effect of that? Still, she must be right...the naive view that beauty will somehow triumph over all the stupidity and cruelty. Each child has that potential...
Maybe I'm just growing old, but almost every woman I see nowadays looks beautiful, has something about her.
Sigh, sigh...
. .
'This nose for example, which no philosopher has hitherto spoken...'
Looking at my nose close up in the mirror. How very ancient it is! Not in the sense of an august and wise Roman senator, but more like a deep-sea fish.
~~~
On Saturday, driving down towards Cavalry, on one of the better roads in town and there, what do I see in the dark? At first I thought, what the hell is that, a deer? Duh! No, a brown donkey running down the middle of the road, in the same direction as the cars! In the land of lazy sods you can imagine how lazy the donkeys are. As an old friend once said (with reference to Italy, actually): any country that has such a high proportion of donkeys can never make any progress. (Now, there's a Ph.D thesis for you!).
~~~
At the Eid family dinner I'm egged on to apply for Principal at my old school. Uncle M__ with his corny jokes...a couple are invited to dinner at 7 but the hosts don't serve dinner immediately; instead, they just ask: "are you comfortable?" One hour passes, then two and all they can say, at regular intervals is: "are you comfortable?". Ten o'clock, ten fifteen. And still no sign of the food, still the same old question: "are you comfortable?". By now the couple are furious so the man says, "Listen, we didn't come-for-the-table, we came for dinner!".
I know, I know.
Next time: must avoid these family gatherings.
~~~
A time of gifts. Anything Bob recommends (music-wise)turns out to be fab. Books: not so sure. But Time of Gifts does look like the real thing. anton, of course, is always right and has superb recommendations. Just got Veronica and, so far so good, despite bilal's reservations.
~~~
Just realised that there are lots of really interesting perspectives on the economy by Catholic writers: Macintyre, Bruni, etc. The idea of the 'civil economy'. Ties in with the idea of the gift and 'other' motivations for exchange. i.e a move away from Adam Smith. What is meant by the 'common good'? Is it something beyond Pareto (or, more broadly, utilitarianism)?
~~~
Roxana came up with this beautiful line (which I can't remember now!)...went something like: '..as if an innocent and wise face could wipe away all the vileness in life.' Indeed. But there are so many ugly faces. Has any philosopher commented on the effect of that? Still, she must be right...the naive view that beauty will somehow triumph over all the stupidity and cruelty. Each child has that potential...
Maybe I'm just growing old, but almost every woman I see nowadays looks beautiful, has something about her.
Sigh, sigh...
Monday, November 07, 2011
'too much, not enough'
Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, B__ had felt the symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in the direction of an ideal passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus — the contemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the infinitely great...Her mouth — were the lips red or pale, plump or creased? — had curved itself to a certain expression...
B___, of course, did not know. And such an explanation did not strike him as a possibility even. It is foreign to a mystified condition of mind to realize of the mystifier that the processes of approving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out a course from inner impulse, would look the same in the result. The vast difference between starting a train of events, and directing into a particular groove a series already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded by the issue.
~~~
There's something animal-like in Boldwood's response. That always struck you. The red seal matching the red of his bleary eyes. Red was everywhere. And he's hooked to it. Why this effect on the Puritan soul? His resistance breaking down by the mere mention of a few words, sent only casually. Later, she will wish that the words could be erased, wiped away, but it's too late..they've already lodged deeply in his flesh.
B___, of course, did not know. And such an explanation did not strike him as a possibility even. It is foreign to a mystified condition of mind to realize of the mystifier that the processes of approving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out a course from inner impulse, would look the same in the result. The vast difference between starting a train of events, and directing into a particular groove a series already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded by the issue.
----fftmc.
~~~
Strings:
Talking to A.I., a string theorist. It seems the latest thing is that the world (universe) is the way it is because that's the way it is. Perfect symmetry already contains chaos. It doesn't matter which way you put it. And there's no real explanation (don't ask for one!). It had to be. Or else there wouldn't be individuals like us, right now, at this very moment, asking: why does it have to be?
What little I understand:
If the sun were a degree closer we'd be consumed by its fire, light...disappear in her flames; if it was a centimeter further away we'd be frozen, our souls hardening, forgetting, our thick fingers fumbling in deep pockets, a quick death due to the lack of heat, light. A word, an image; part of you becomes hard, another softens, melts. There are no more questions.
On earth there are always reminders of this precarious balance: too much, not enough. Some things are infinitely far from us, and at the same time infinitely close.
The world is the world. What sense is in this. One might as well say the queen is the queen!~~~
There's something animal-like in Boldwood's response. That always struck you. The red seal matching the red of his bleary eyes. Red was everywhere. And he's hooked to it. Why this effect on the Puritan soul? His resistance breaking down by the mere mention of a few words, sent only casually. Later, she will wish that the words could be erased, wiped away, but it's too late..they've already lodged deeply in his flesh.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
the 10,000
sennett says somewhere that you need around 10,000 hours of practice to develop a skill. Was thinking-oh, okay, was dreaming-about this just now. With a sport, say. Is there something like 'mechanical intelligence'? (goes back to the indian juggler). say you can develop some level of physical fitness, as probably lots of people can. but what makes a great player great? with the thousands of hours under your belt you would know the speed of a shot, its spin or bounce, the right angle to play a shot, the right position to be in when the time comes; having the whole repertoire of shots in your bag and the perfect judgement to know which one fits which situation; you'd know the character of the person facing you, her strengths and weaknesses; you'd know something of your own soul too...
and all this would gradually become second nature, instinctive, so that someone looking at you from afar would think of how 'effortless' it all was, how 'graceful' you were. sportsmen and women who are graceful...now, there's a category! any suggestions?..that romanian girl, what's her name...nadia c., fed, of course, zaheer abbas (you struggle to think of an english sportsman with grace)...we're talking grace and refinement in the way you play, though, not necessarily in your whole personality (muhammad ali, the prime example). when is the mechanical transformed into lightness, the ability to dance?Zidane. or is there a natural, inborn talent? putting your socialist hat on you'd like to think not, or even if there is that 'luck' shouldn't translate into astronomical rewards.
what is that time when you're so immersed in what you're doing, what you're good at, that you open things up a bit, actually create time, or a bit of space? the greats always seem to have 'all the time in the world'; it's as if being half a second in advance of everyone else means being in a different world.
athletics. that's a tough one. the ratio of effort to talent seems skewed. but not the greats: m. Johnson or carl lewis who were too 'wooden'. maybe someone like calvin smith.
in music, too. do you just have the right ear, sensibilities, dexterity or can you plug away for the 10,000? even then, what counts as mastery?
who are the really clever economists then? (fff, you've got to help me out here). Er...academics aren't that clever though...lots of mechanical 'skills' without much grace or purpose. technical intelligence is one thing, what schuon calls 'integral intelligence', another. (i'm sure nabs could say a thing or two about mathematicians and the relation between maths and creativity).
Anne marie schimmel, peter brown...15, 16 languages. we're not talking here about what's the latin for: 'where's the nearest McDonalds?' anton, roxana, and the dougal too perhaps. is that all practice? and is that different from a mastery of a language? g. steiner; racine knew 500 words; shakespeare 20,000. what skill does a poet have? her eye for detail, her sense of place..how can originality be a skill.
okay, this might sound slightly blasphemous but God's had more than 10,000 hours...Penguins, yes, there's a good creation. lots of fun. but Man? didn't the devil have a point there? in the muslim tradition the devil says, don't send him to earth, he'll only create bloodshed and mayhem.
primo levi has this line about how those with skills manged to, somehow, survive. of course, ubo would make it. his skill? the ability to tell a joke, a story, make people laugh and feel at ease. that's another way of opening up space, of breaking things down.
and all this would gradually become second nature, instinctive, so that someone looking at you from afar would think of how 'effortless' it all was, how 'graceful' you were. sportsmen and women who are graceful...now, there's a category! any suggestions?..that romanian girl, what's her name...nadia c., fed, of course, zaheer abbas (you struggle to think of an english sportsman with grace)...we're talking grace and refinement in the way you play, though, not necessarily in your whole personality (muhammad ali, the prime example). when is the mechanical transformed into lightness, the ability to dance?Zidane. or is there a natural, inborn talent? putting your socialist hat on you'd like to think not, or even if there is that 'luck' shouldn't translate into astronomical rewards.
what is that time when you're so immersed in what you're doing, what you're good at, that you open things up a bit, actually create time, or a bit of space? the greats always seem to have 'all the time in the world'; it's as if being half a second in advance of everyone else means being in a different world.
athletics. that's a tough one. the ratio of effort to talent seems skewed. but not the greats: m. Johnson or carl lewis who were too 'wooden'. maybe someone like calvin smith.
in music, too. do you just have the right ear, sensibilities, dexterity or can you plug away for the 10,000? even then, what counts as mastery?
who are the really clever economists then? (fff, you've got to help me out here). Er...academics aren't that clever though...lots of mechanical 'skills' without much grace or purpose. technical intelligence is one thing, what schuon calls 'integral intelligence', another. (i'm sure nabs could say a thing or two about mathematicians and the relation between maths and creativity).
Anne marie schimmel, peter brown...15, 16 languages. we're not talking here about what's the latin for: 'where's the nearest McDonalds?' anton, roxana, and the dougal too perhaps. is that all practice? and is that different from a mastery of a language? g. steiner; racine knew 500 words; shakespeare 20,000. what skill does a poet have? her eye for detail, her sense of place..how can originality be a skill.
okay, this might sound slightly blasphemous but God's had more than 10,000 hours...Penguins, yes, there's a good creation. lots of fun. but Man? didn't the devil have a point there? in the muslim tradition the devil says, don't send him to earth, he'll only create bloodshed and mayhem.
primo levi has this line about how those with skills manged to, somehow, survive. of course, ubo would make it. his skill? the ability to tell a joke, a story, make people laugh and feel at ease. that's another way of opening up space, of breaking things down.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
the ladder of escape
hard to know if the line (or time) takes me away from you, or to you, he thought to himself. hide and seek; this desire to find you, to lose oneself. for a recluse, a line is a ladder, is an opening to another world; a word, a smile, the kindling of the heart, ties that would bind. bound and free, like a floating bridge that is at once a place where people meet, and simultaneously something that vanishes before your eyes. but the ladder is itself the world...
his eyes too dream-filled to think clearly. condemned to think of escape, to think that beauty or greatness is to be found in books or images or that one's emotions would be found mirrored in a song. and the inward life of a recluse is full of such fantasies and projections because there is, ultimately, only the inward life.
but he thanks the stars, the line of wavering stars that were his; outside, people move about mechanically with a blank look, and an unfaithful heart. it is wrong to say that nothing happens without words or a witness, or that there can be no movement when the body is still...the ladder was a door, a door that led to another room. he looked around this room that was so familiar only to notice that all his possessions had been stolen. but she did leave a mirror at least: 'look at you, think of me!'
it would not be here
if you were here.
what is remembered
is love.
---ken irby
Friday, November 04, 2011
letters from the heart
Mir-o-slav Holub,
We know everything
from A to Z.
Though sometimes the finger
is on the place between a and b,
empty as the prairie by night.
Between G and H,
deep as the Carpathian Lakes
...
sometimes it is
on the Galactic cool spot
after the letter Z,
on the beginning and the end,
and it shakes slightly
like a strange bird.
Not from hopelessness.
It's simply so.
"Unfortunately, we didn't have the volumes from R to Z-and the want of them shows in me to this day."
--Gunter Eich.
'You only love
when you love in vain'
There were words in my heart that I couldn't speak, that stood silently to attention like wooden soldiers on a shelf; others, unknown, like a language one dimly knew in childhood but that one's now grown out of, these are like the stumps of a tree, concentrated reminders of what might have been. Rings of time that never touch or overlap.Full of such empty places, unchartered territories,the silence between us, between our words, our letters even...all this seemed to be everything.
There are mountains, and mountain ranges, that don't belong anywhere, that spill out over and across the frontiers.This much we know, though knowing wasn't much after all.
~~~
Listening to the beautiful 'Preciso Aprender a Ser So'(Elis). Have no idea what it means, but it does sound wonderful even though the words escape me. The only videos for it are the cheesiest thing imaginable, or the slower MPB version.
We know everything
from A to Z.
Though sometimes the finger
is on the place between a and b,
empty as the prairie by night.
Between G and H,
deep as the Carpathian Lakes
...
sometimes it is
on the Galactic cool spot
after the letter Z,
on the beginning and the end,
and it shakes slightly
like a strange bird.
Not from hopelessness.
It's simply so.
"Unfortunately, we didn't have the volumes from R to Z-and the want of them shows in me to this day."
--Gunter Eich.
'You only love
when you love in vain'
There were words in my heart that I couldn't speak, that stood silently to attention like wooden soldiers on a shelf; others, unknown, like a language one dimly knew in childhood but that one's now grown out of, these are like the stumps of a tree, concentrated reminders of what might have been. Rings of time that never touch or overlap.Full of such empty places, unchartered territories,the silence between us, between our words, our letters even...all this seemed to be everything.
There are mountains, and mountain ranges, that don't belong anywhere, that spill out over and across the frontiers.This much we know, though knowing wasn't much after all.
~~~
Listening to the beautiful 'Preciso Aprender a Ser So'(Elis). Have no idea what it means, but it does sound wonderful even though the words escape me. The only videos for it are the cheesiest thing imaginable, or the slower MPB version.
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