Experiments in Living

Buddha


"The male, destructive principle is diametrically opposed to the female, constructive one, which is based on mutual aid, on grace, on understanding and dialogue. In the modern, male, states, women have not only been deprived of any possibility of expressing their essential nature, they had to submit to the male principle, they were forced to recognize it..."
---Lida Heymann (from the Vertigo Years)

"Every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal wearer [and] sex maniac" now thought he had a political message.
---George Orwell.

"Genius is not allowed for by regulation."

'The English alternative vision of the future , it seems, was essentially private and domestic'

The pacifist movement as one way of imagining a new type of living together, against the dominant culture of war and (male) aggressiveness.

'These newfangled designs for living were often intertwined with bohemian lives..an ever-shifting landscape of spiritual leaders and hangers-on, of mystics and scholars, charmers and charlatans.'

Of course, these sentiments have probably always been with us in one form or the other, are in all likelihood as old as humanity itself. Who hasn't, after all, dreamt of escaping from one's family, home, and country, the weight of the world with all its attachments, responsibilities, burdens and complexities into a realm of uninhibited freedom, lightness, or towards a utopian island of equality and meaningful idleness, with the toil and drudgery from work on the one hand, and the divisions between people- man and woman, class and caste, religion and race-on the other, finally and permanently abolished? "Whither shall I flee?"

But there are certain times as well in which the pressure of such feelings, aspirations, become more keenly felt. This desire for escape (Levinas, or Peter Brown's Making of Late Humanity) becomes more acute at particular junctures in history. Is it any wonder, then, that such an 'ecstatic, irrational dimension' would appeal to a 'young generation whose childhood had been dominated by rigid notions of discipline, control, reason, self-sacrifice', and mechanization?

But what kind of freedom can be imagined when those boundaries are less restrictive, when things can be acquired at the click of a button, when neither nation nor God can inspire and, more to the point, be worth the effort of rebelling against?And when the shock of the new doesn't shock any more? (Of course, class and gender inequalities and exploitation still exists, but the trend has surely been to one of greater freedom and equality, and less stuffiness?)

The 'experimental communities' might have been set up rebel against conventional morality and decency, but in an age when conventions are themselves almost synonymous with conservatism and have the slight whiff of backwardness about them, one has to ask: rebel against what, exactly? (Iris M., in Existentialism and Mystics: the left has run out of steam because it has achieved a lot of its historic goals)

'The cult of life and the idea of true community, of free spirits not subjected to the rules of society, and the vision of a rebirth of truth long lost, fascinated German artists...Society is always prone to suppress the charismatic ferment of communal visions.'

Er..well, we know how that ended up! A sense of place, attachments, middling morality and middle-age duplicity, the acknowledgement of constraints, the daily bourgeois compromises and numb-like passivity before spectacles, all that seems infinitely boring and trivial in comparison.

A diversion: driving in the early morning, the only car on the road, the plain fields stretching out forever on both sides of me, and the sky, the grey-blue sky filling up the horizon, great and reflective, heavy with the night but ready to break into self-awareness at any moment, to awaken from its dream...

On the way back it was if the land had been redeemed by time and light. Brilliant light poured down and struck the white mist still hanging about at knee-height. In the distance this produced the effect of transforming everything into a blinding, pulsating flash of whiteness, strangely alluring- as if nothing existed there, or maybe it was that everything did.

Driving past it, or through it, saw a family huddled together on a donkey cart, their thin rickety bodies draped by the same honey-brown check shawls, their dark faces and hair covered in dust. Ridiculous to think of a photograph or a post at this time. You think you see people, but you don't really.

At the airport, a thin, slightly-balding middle-aged man stood in front of me. His hair slicked back, his stubble slightly grey, like an old dog's, his eyes soft and light, he wore a 1970's jacket with sheep's fur collars and lining. All very Jack Nicholson. He backed into me, looking upwards at the arrivals board. Nearly said, "what the fuck, watch your step uncle!" but let it pass. Zen training. Even though 'Jack' was up for a fight. A fat kid, like something out of Charlie and the chocolate factory, with striped shirt, puffy red cheeks and all, tried to inch his way ahead of us. "Kid, you ain't going nowhere," I thought, but nah, it's too early in the day for that. Your hands remain loose. Your defensiveness falls away. And then 'Jack' lets him go in front of us, turns back to me and smiles, nods. Yeah, okay, go on then.

~~~

I didn't try to communicate any kind of philosophy since I am not a philosopher. I am a photographer. That's it.
---Saul Leiter.

"We do better to slide over the world a bit lightly and on the surface." Through his discovery of sliding and gliding, he lost much of his fear, and at the same time acquired a new sense of his life.'
--from Bakewell on Montaigne.

thoughts of a random nature

O.E. gor "dirt, dung, shit," a Gmc. word (cf. M.Du. goor "filth, mud;" O.N. gor "cud;" O.H.G. gor "animal dung"), of uncertain origin. Sense of "clotted blood" (especially shed in battle) developed by 1563.

gore

c.1400, from Scottish gorren "to pierce, stab," origin unknown, perhaps related to O.E. gar "spear" (see gar), which is certainly the source of the third meaning of Mod.Eng. gore , "triangular piece of ground" (O.E. gara ), hence also "front of a skirt" (mid-13c.), and "triangular piece of cloth" (early 14c.).

Watching the Tsunami (or what one friend called 'the swami') was -and I know this is going to sound terrible-kinda addictive in a way. In the same way, perhaps, that some people are drawn to accident scenes, or have a strange fascination with horror stories-ghoul and gore galore- or others, still, to pornography and violent images. But that picture of the huge wave from the helicopter, silently and inexorably making its way inland, the sun's dazzling light dancing on its back, was an image sheer out of Tarkovsky.

One person remarked, my heart is very upset by all that has happened there and the cynic in me asks: is that true? I mean, is that what you really feel or are you just saying that? Cut off your little finger or save the whole of China? How far out does your sense of identity, sympathy, and commonality extend? Always gets you just how vociferous the brothers are in condemning Israel and how silent they are when it comes to Darfur, say, or the backward rag heads that are the Saudi 'royal family'.

~~~

Last night faced with the choice of watching Bangladesh beat England (hurrah!), going to 'The Last Word' to pick up Lorrie Moore's book (after reading Dyer's rave review), or going to watch a, er..local dance (mujra). But the thought of being in a crowd of 200 drunken guys ogling at some scantily clad, voluptuous women 'dancing ' just doesn't do it for me. And when my friend said to me, "come on, loosen up, get in tune with the 'punjabi way of things'" you knew, if ever you needed convincing, that that was it!

Well, the Lorrie Moore book is very dull so far, I have to say. And no, not in comparison!

~~~

Dyer's usually on the money though, so let's see.

"I don't even need an intellect, now that I've got all my books around me. Finding myself, at last, in the perfect situation for work I don't want to do any work...Needless to say, I have no impulse to read. Books are to be arranged and classified, shuffled around...

I think of people living in my street, couples with children, families, and I feel a kind of pity for them, because they are not here, they are not me, in this lamp-lit solitude, surrounded, at last, by the books acquired over twenty years."

On Camus: "He achieved something priceless: a heart free of bitterness."

a mind in the cave

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."
---Adam Smith.

Thus begins the promising new book by Samuel Bowles. It's strange to think not just how old this dichotomy is, but also how remarkably little can be added to what is already known.

First things first:

Are we, by nature, self-interested animals? Questions of 'nature' don't really interest you and are sometimes mere fodder for reactionaries of different stripes and sizes. But the notion that we are exclusively self-interested and/or that it is uniquely rational to be self-interested (i.e.have self-interested preferences) doesn't sit easily with our common experiences of altruism, a sense of fairness, sympathy, and various commitments or recent experimental literature (Fehr, Bowles, etc.).

It's hard to imagine that our language and experiences are so off the mark that these other motivations/experiences/preferences are ultimately veiled forms of self-interest.

So, the existence of the old dualism hardly seems the question; how we deal with conflicts between perspectives -our own and wider ones (Nagel)- and different interests or motivations seems to be more to the point. The origins of those other-motivations, and following on from that, the institutional frameworks that sustain them, can be important. For example, if we're brought up to believe that self-interest is king, or that our nature is defined by it, or that what counts and what motivates us must fundamentally be related back to a narrow version of the self, then it's entirely possible that we will, in fact, grow into that picture of ourselves.

Bowles's approach doesn't work for me, though. Here's why:

Why are we not purely selfish beings? "Proximate answers to this question are to be found in the way our brains process information and induce the behavioural responses that we term cooperation."

There's something suspect in this reduction-if that's what is-of ethics to the mind. "Process"?

Secondly, "humans became the co-operative species we are because co-operation was highly beneficial to the members of the group that practiced it..competition with fellow group members [heightened group-level advantages]."

So, commitment or "strong reciprocity" (whereby the individual forgoes benefits to help someone else out) are perpetuated, sustained, at the group level because it is evolutionary beneficial.

This seems like crap reasoning. Under this tautological approach, anything that is is the way it is as a result of evolutionary pressures . That hardly seems like an explanation. But also, again, is something being lost in thinking of morals in this way? It doesn't really explain, I think, the reason for morals, just how a given moral perspective might be 'productive' in the survival of the species. More to the point, one would like to know, as an individual, how one ought to live, and does the species-perspective (even if true) help?

last word (for Roxana)

through the lens

Well, you don't meet any genuine eccentric ("off-centre") people here and maybe that's not such a bad thing after all. To give you an idea of how bad/good it is: I'm probably one the loopiest (I exclude you, dear N-man, because you only want to be loopy for professional reasons!).

What do you see at the university? Oh, just the usual basic human motivations in play, I guess: pettiness, and self-importance, and self-promotion; ridiculously un-funny in-jokes; the constant desire to cultivate an aura of intelligence and invulnerability around oneself; the thrill of hearing one's own voice; the deep cynicism which passes for cleverness; the desire to have one's thoughts met with approval and admiration by an unsuspecting and docile group; the sycophants and boot-lickers, the court hijras.

Yesterday, in conversation with a student:

I think, well, to the extent that there is an 'I'.

Christ! Give me a break.

And this priceless snippet of a conversation between two students:

"beyond that we label things as blasphemy m...issie...so try not to put another toe outta line or who knows u might be next (=P jokes apart) ...anyways wat is wrong is wrong and u cannot condone wat is labeled as wrong...i know we are all bad and another bad act wont make things better off so try to be where u oughtta be and if not u could simply keep such things within yourself instead of holding a mic and blurting nonsensical/sensitive things out...ppl like me and others do take offence and so FIRST, you need to be tolerant and respect the fact dat we dont hear/receive/take shyt like this, ....KHUDA khofi bi koi cheez hai [There is such a thing as the fear of God]"

~~~

lech: M.E. lah (mid-12c.), from O.N. lagr "low," from P.Gmc. *lægaz (cf. O.Fris. lech, Du. laag, Ger. läge "low"), lit. "that which is lying flat;" related to O.E. licgan (see lie (v.)). Meaning "humble in rank" is from c.1200; "undignified" is from 1550s; sense of "dejected, dispirited" is attested from 1737.

lecher: [Middle English, from Old French lecheor from lechier, to lick, to live in debauchery, of Germanic origin

for anton

This reminded me of the cover of a book on one of anton's post (can't for the life of me remember what it was). Anyway, this remains one of my favourite songs of the year (thanks Bob, for pointing me here. Danke!).

~~~

'Extremely idle, extremely independent, both by nature and by art'
(What, was Montaigne a Kashmiri?)

'Acceptance of life, of one's self as it is'.

This is incredibly difficult-and isn't one part of life to not accept what is or even care about acceptance? Pascal on M: "He did not want to maintain anything at all."

Who is the enemy of the Muslims? Well, who isn't?! That's the question. Becomes a bit tiresome after a while (Zionsits, Hindus, Raymond, Horus, neo-colonialists, feminists, etc., etc)...

'Imagining your world from different angles, or at different scales of significance'.

But that requires flexibility, the acceptance of 'provisionally fixed points'. Not with the 'eye of the universe' (Sidgwick) , sub specie aeternitatis, but with Blake's (?) 'double vision'.

He who sees Ratio sees only himself.

'To see a dog dreaming-it must have an inner world, just like ours'. But for Descartes it has no perspective, no true experience, doesn't imagine a hare running in a field in its inner world...all there is, is the shadow of mechanical operations of the brain.

Well, if it's good enough for humans, it's good enough for dogs! And God alone knows what the status of the hare is!

But this ability/desire to see things from multiple-perspectives, isn't that disturbingly close to the post-modern? Or, if you want to go back, to cubism vs the static perspective of the Renaissance (a point made by Robert Hughes)?Does one end up with weakened capacities for 'seeing' at all? In some sense, isn't this tied in with capitalism's devaluing of 'place', "all that is solid," the very possibility of experience (E.S. Reed)? Nothing jars against our sensibilities so much as the idea of 'cosmos' or the classical or discipline.

Maybe there's something in that, the hidden affinity between Romanticism and late capitalism, but on the other hand, isn't the very definition of what it is to be human the ability to form a second opinion, revise one's views, cross out and start again? This distancing-from oneself, from nature, one's roots and home, and therefore from one's initial point of view, has always been with us, whether we cultivate it or not. The most difficult of things: 'disciplined freedom' (Sen).

...

a thing of beauty

"The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though hidden from our eyes."
---von Humboldt.

No, haven't read either Humboldt but liked the cover of this edition because it reminded me of Idris Khan's work. If we could pile up all the words we've spoken-harsh or otherwise-what kind of picture would emerge? If we could superimpose our sentences on to one another, which words would stand out, be distinct?

~~~

Looking for something substantial to read-substantial in the sense of helping me lose myself, pass time, dream a bit as words slip me by. Dip, not plunge, with no hope of ever finishing or learning from. Bellow or Donna Tart. This pale substitute for any real communication, the weight against the complex lightness of the world, or was it the lightness against ...I forget now. Thoroughly modern in your boredom, you look for some space to move about in, lead pencil in hand, to mark out a turn of phrase here, a dazzling insight there, with a few grey lines and crosses (which amounts to a strange Puritanical distillation, not a path in the white fog).

You start. Good. Six pages, before little R races towards me on all fours, a destructive inquisitiveness in her eyes. She touches the tip of the pencil with the tip of her finger with an incredible gentleness.

"Are you writing about me?" she asks shyly.

"No, dear, go back to sleep"

"Are you writing to me, then?"

"Oh, little one! There's more to the life than writing about someone or writing to someone!"

And with that she lunged at Bellow, bending some of the pages with one hand as she clenched her fist in triumph with the other, like a crazy Taleb.

"Then why, o why, do you read little man? And why can you never say what you want to say, except obliquely? Who do you write for then, black sun?"

~~~

Perhaps, when we're half asleep
the same hand that sows the stars
trails across the galactic lyre...
the dying wave reaching our lips
as two or three words.
---D.P.

~~~
Lesley Chamberlain:

ways of approaching

Dear C, I need you to confirm: is this him?

The last four or five posts have been connected to Russia-obliquely, so why not...

And it is memory saying all things must be changed
Yes, but to get beyond this point?

I do not speak of accident, forgetfulness, for weakness
Of this kind is always with us and complaint supposes

No alteration. The point we have reached
Is not an argument, it is a greeting,

As gentle and as loving as I can make it
To you, today, beyond all changing days.

~~~

Your eyes, your face. Our slow time.

~~~

Say there's no word for it, for what it is to say,
That in love's dance we mimic it
And that endless creation, taken how you will,

Is much to be desired. Say now that our adventure
Is quite unsayable, and see -we are open
As summer roses, open for all time.

~~~

that love is never fulfilled
but the ways of approaching
endless.

~~~

and this line, somewhere, recalled from memory because you can't find it anywhere on the page, and maybe it never was. reading late at night, in the silence, when the day is done, means your mind is half-dreaming already. It was:

the song of the whale moves inward.

what is most inward, the very definition of inwardness, this whale in the vast sea, with all that anarchy sliding by unnoticed, overwhelmed by gravity and slow time, it's love-song booming across a thousand miles, till it reaches shore.

~~~

something simple, like the ascent and descent in one's own house; having many rooms, some littered with dusty books and yellowing photographs. what is absolute, what an image? can one be guilty of words not spoken?

the storm before the world

I know, or I once knew you, before the storm of the world; before our assigned roles had set in, before, even, you began to question me (which must have been a very long time ago). Before words, or knowledge, or desire took shape. For desire is only borne from memory, and you were not that, then.

The summation of it, though, is that we do not know, only see through a glass darkly, as it were. The hours like some pagan god, promising little. The world and time flies in all directions, everything in the universe is pulled by some mysterious force. Many fall, others fade. Light reconfigures. Who can say, we were probably lost, even then, before the first shadow fell across your hesitant lips. You, like a ghost in my mind, the deepest part of me that I couldn't locate in life, and I, like a gnostic-seeker, who couldn't tell where this storm had come from, or for who.

the immortalization commission

on a day like this

On a day like this you can't remember the words in your dream, just the faint rhythm of a line that escapes you. The first day of spring, the light warm and soft, crouching like a child hiding in the fields, breaking free on the horizon.

Sin and prayer:

Not for you. Never really appealed to you. If there is any guilt then it is when you're happy. Puritan upbringing, I'm afraid. Or was it just there from the beginning, in the bones? Prayer? For 'salvation'? Wasn't Lawrence right: better to live and love? In any case, the only prayer is surely for other people. Even then, you think working to help other people is better. What is the use of talking about a 'good state of mind' or spirituality?

~~~

On a day like this you think of the light and how it reminds you of other times. Late summer days in the seventies, perhaps. In a southern mood, with your sun-and-wheat-consciousness, you think how the same light falls on people in distant places today, bringing them happiness. And perhaps also a long time ago, in a tavern, surrounded by trees and their leafy shade, when a man looked up and wondered to himself: how many days have passed?

Remember me when I'm gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no longer hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turning to go, yet turning stay...

Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

cube, square

(Above: one of the rejected submissions for Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square).

This was supposed to rival Mecca and Jerusalem. A space that represented the fourth dimension, that was 'beyond' time. The attempt to build heaven on earth resulted in the all-too predictable creation of gulags and varieties of hell. The quest to build the 'New Man' invariably results in cleansing society of the impure and the unbelievers.

Anarchic peoples, like desert nomads, hate and destroy images, and a similar image-breaking streak runs through Russian history…

Malevich was touched by mystical yearnings. In his hands the non-objective canvas became an icon of anarchy and inner freedom: this is what made it dangerous to Marxist materialism. Of his painting Black Square he said he had felt 'black nights within' and a timidity bordering on fear', but as he decided to break with reality and abandon the image: 'a blissful sensation of being drawn into a "desert" where nothing is real but feeling, and feeling became the substance of my life.'

Now this is not the language of a good Marxist, but of Meister Eckhart – or, for that matter, of Mohammed. Malevich's Black Square, his 'absolute symbol of modernity', is the equivalent in painting of the black-draped Ka'aba at Mecca, the shrine in the valley of sterile soil where all men are equal before God. And if this seems far-fetched, I quote the judgement of Andrei Burov, an architect who left the Constructivist Movement: 'There was a strong Muslim influence and orthodox Mohammedanism at that; by way of decoration only clocks and letters were allowed.'

excerpt from "George Costakis: The Story of an Art Collector in the Soviet Union," in What Am I Doing Here? by Bruce Chatwin

A week-long fantasy

For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.

Why do you look for co-incidences? In John Gray's fascinating book (of which more later) there's this line-by H.G. Wells, I think- which goes something like: we cannot know future patterns.

And yet we surround ourselves with frames, have an eye for geometry that matches the keen vision of the nomad, are tied down by an obsession for precision: how was it, exactly? And repetition, as the memory of you fades: how was it again?

In a discussion with T about one of your favourite paintings-and a brief mention of his other one: Icarus. Desire goes unnoticed. How the world carries on; how the seas rage on without us knowing or caring.

Within these phantasmal boundaries each lord's hall is a place of refuge. Within: warmth and light; human solidarity and culture;rank and ceremony. A solidification of time.

Outside: unredeemed time.

~~~

At the medieval-like market you bought beetroot, delicious with its oak, earthy, woody covering. You cut and washed the lot, each piece gleaming like a new-born baby or a piece of glistening coal brought out from the depths. Also bought some 'black carrots'. Must take a photo of them and the market next time, next week...the market, full of tractors, donkeys, straw, mud, and shit, as if time had passed it by. Also bought a large earthenware jar in which to keep the drink. Very Roman. A few indecipherable hieroglyphs, like black crows circling around a cool well.

The black carrots, peeled and diced (by the end I began to feel a bit sorry for them..is there something as a vegetable soul?) But for the most part it was great fun preparing this fermented drink (mustard seeds, red chillies, and black salt as well). Handling them left ink-marks on my fingers . Not indelible-very little is-but still under my fingernails as I write this. Hands that would know...

Takes a week to mature. Until then, just dream on. The outer skin of the carrots piled up, like the bark of a black tree, or charcoal; the fleshy carrots put to one side, slowly secreted a light blue liquid that gradually became gray-blue, then purple. And I couldn't but help think of Bonington, and his wonderful water colours at the Wallace Collection. Twenty six! Jesus!
~~~

And then the art of (un)dressing.

Let's not go there.

But how things come together, and then fall away in their own separate way. Of this I cannot write.

originality

interview with G. Dyer to follow...

"And be not conformed to the world"

What is originality, then? At the very least an attitude, perhaps; at the best, a way of living. Of course, if you're hooked on to the 'first' then a cover or a re-make, because it always invites comparisons, will seem tainted, lacking in something: precisely: it wasn't the first, the thing that pulled you in the beginning-and there's nothing like that first movement away from yourself.

But if the artist creates, or if you make something your own, see it with your own eyes, see or make something that is fresh, vital, unique, then it's possible to imagine more than one form of beauty.

In religion as well: should we say the Truth is one.
Yes! But 'one' is not a number!

Every person is born as a unique individual, adds a different perspective to the world, is a new bridge. A child looks on the world in simple amazement. The original wonder. Parents and an education will soon see to that though, beat or coax it out of you. And if you survive that, society or religion or work will get you.

Originality. Not just 'la' but fidelity. Fidelity to what or who, though? A text, a score, is only a series of black marks on white paper. Of course, that suits you: a fragment of a quote here, a single song there; not the sustained engagement that produces any real depth. But still, these are the times you live in. The classical world is over, and so is Tradition. If that is the choice-and you think it is-then better to find one's own way of being superficial...

Learning to let go; knowing what to keep. If through all the changes, falls, deviations, swerves, doubts, you can still hear the same bright voice, always the same, never the same.

inventory

things to do. and find. it accumulates, despite your puritan tendencies. you can't stop it. an old glass jar on the bookshelf, the label worn out: a number and some indecipherable words.probably from a hospital. books and cd's strewn over the desk (Savall's Celtic tunes, still unlistened to, Geoff Dyer and Celan, a book on fairness, Coltrane and Piazzolla, Gunter Eich, The Immortalization Commission). a camera (unused), kept in a 'Servis' shoe box. the desk drawers full of old photographs, from different times and places, mostly half-forgotten.

who gave what, when. would be another.


on the (fake) wooden floor: a camera stand back from the seventies, its legs askew like a giraffe, a rusting eiffel tower, a black and gold statue of some minor egyptian god, the black mainly just layers of dirt, you suppose, but the silence is genuine. a tattered suitcase, grinning through the silver zip. been there, done that, my friend.

make things up as you go along, to pass the time, to avoid the glaring gaps, what's missing. make a note of things. which is itself not a thing. even the thing is not it.

suede brown trousers thrown on the chair (its springs have nearly given), along with torn socks, corduroy coat (brown with the cliched elbow patches), crumpled shirts (yes, a choice selection!), a tie from the wreckage of the past. above the chair, on the wall, a cloth wall hanging, made up, like everything else, of a patchwork of slightly faded or discarded pieces. never really liked it, and doesn't really belong. next to the window, a wind chime. opposite the chair/cupboard its twin, clean and cushioned. a place to observe the chaos from all angles (but don't look inwards). above your head, three old E.S.Curtis photos, yellow and brown (Apache, and all that). Also, it now transpires, made up, fake, the unreal gestures made to please, to remember.

there will be a record of all we've said and done, somewhere. the small kindnesses, but the cruelty too. God's cross falling on who knows what. what did you know?

A Certain Light

In a certain light we are not who we are. All that was false falls away. In that second space we see behind appearance, the time that generates time, the gaze before the gaze. Beyond the stones there is another reality, other orders of being. Sometimes, as in a dream, we are made aware of them co-existing with our own familiar way of seeing the world and we catch a glimpse of these other realms; we discern our name, reclaim the acts that are ours, and think to ourselves: this is home, our true reality, all else is shadow.

-

-

Anything can happen.

Those overlooked regarded.

Ground gives.

The Heaven's weight

Lifts up off Atlas.

Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.

---Seamus Heaney

-

-

Maybe this other reality is locked into stone, inheres deep in the rock, like a black bird, captive but taking flight; maybe it is our gaze that has turned the world to stone, brought about its silence, when everything is flowing? The bird dreams of a star, catches its own reflection and now waits, age upon age, to be released...

-

-

'Looking close in the evil mirror Crow saw

Mistings of civilisation...

Stone likewise. A pebble is imprisoned

Like nothing in the Universe.

Created for black sleep. Or growing

Conscious of the sun's red spot occasionally,

Then dreaming it is the foetus of God.'

---Ted Hughes.

Where are you now? Where are any of us these days? These days, when a whole afternoon can slip by, as light and insignificant as a cloud; the hours fall on your lap...books, and words, and notes are rearranged, clothes folded and put away-as if any of that makes a difference. An empty, clear glass on your table, perfectly empty, and a silver spoon next to it, pointing to it in adoration, gleaming with an unknown purity, truth. Things are in order here, but what of it. Where am I?

~~~

Darling R wants to see the world from every possible angle and sleeps, in her own distinctive way, at a tangent to others. "One must create one's own space in the world," she says, pretending to frown. "Or at least find it"

I think you're going to be a great actress, I comment, trying to tease the little one.

"What? Better than you?!"

R, you cheeky monkey, don't get me started...

~~

The hours fall, and fall. Her eyes fill up with mischief. She folds her arms on the dark failings, and laughs, then opens and closes her hand, as if it was a flash. She can say the word "hippo". Perhaps that's all there is to it, even though 'the word is too frivolous in the English language' (Gunter Eich)

at moments like this

At moments like this you remember what is possible, the meaning of the word hope. Through "the arc of history" you will see that it was America that supported Pharaoh (just as they supported General Z and General Musharraf).

But nah, though it's enjoyable watching Israel and the Saudi degenerates squirm. it's time to move on, and move on up. As Otis would say, take your shoes off, get comfortable, y'know..

the red and the black

the search for Truth is not easy, especially if one is not searching, or know what the Truth is.

early morning light seeps in. grey and cold objects still finding their Form, their outlines first. A crow falls, falls, swoops down from a height like a thick blanket. why outside my home, and no other? craas blindly against the emptiness of the universe, as if hearing his own voice, awakened to his own ugliness, he could discover his unique soul.

but crow spoke. and you thought of him, was in your mind somewhere; then, by hand and red ink made his way to a blank page of your notebook. no, not blank. scrawled in black are the words: just as it is, unmisted by love. from there-after a suitable elapse of time for breakfast-he, somehow, miraculously, jumps to your computer screen and this blog...reassembled, digitally. and now, i suppose, you read of him too and, despite yourself, think of him (or me), imagine how that ugly craa sounded.

for a second he's lodged in your mind. an image forms, grey at first but bryter, clearer later. this dead crow who's made such a fantastical journey already. not all crows, crows did not fall like the snow, generally, just this particular early-morning one, the one that fell from the sky.

and then you clear your throat, your tongue loosens, moistens, and your lips move unconsciously. you whisper his name to yourself, ever-so-gently, like breath on a dark mirror.

if only the reverse were true! then I, standing upright, would write of you truly, speak to crow, find my Form, so that in a flash you would fall by my side and i would hear the beautiful craaing of your voice unfurling against the emptiness of the universe.

the quality of light

You don't need to know very much to know everything (as long as you're actually there)

---Alexander Linklater.

But what if you're not? The news from a distant star pales in comparison. We're not just talking about latest books, exhibitions, the third-hand,derivative, morsels of film and book reviews, or the reassuring voice on R4 telling you nothing in a way that you've grown accustomed to.

What of the lives that go on and on without you? And what if you've become unrecognisable to your own self, part of you 'going on', part of you coming to an end? 'I wasn't quite myself'. To lack soul is a terrible affliction; to have a heart and not be able to express oneself, or adequately reflect on what's really important...

The winter light filters through the white streaks in the sea of grey. At first timidly and then gradually strengthening until it expands, filling out the sky, opening her up, as it does. The clouds lift, the ancient pulse of things; then this new light streams into the ward, illuminating the tissue box next to the window, taking away the heaviness from other objects...down the blue drapes, forming squares down its spine. The "Gherkin" shines on one side, the light like a fire jumping from one shard of glass to another; it comes to rest on the face of a patient, his face all bruised, Christ-like in his forbearance...this light, everywhere, from some distant source, unifies, individuates, redeems (for a while). This late, last flare of a dying sun..light that reaches us even when it's just a memory, not really there, ghost-like in it's frailty.

The quality of light is like our understanding.

Walk past a bust of W. Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, his stern face and very imposing beard noteworthy. Trinity Green (1695) , across Regent's Canal, and the Guardian Angels' Church (1905). The cold on your back makes you slouch, and the flesh on your hands seems slightly withered. Some lovely old brick buildings in this run-down part of town. How the light gathers on the high windows, reflecting sky and trees, pink clouds and dreary faces. The wide pavements, the endless line of traffic lights, glowing without religion in the late afternoon; the shops mostly selling fried chicken. An old man with a Texan hat and round-rimmed spectacles walks, amazingly, down the road in the fast lane handing out leaflets. On his back he's got a sign which reads: 'Come to Ye Lord' . On the other side: 'Jesus Saves'.

Nearby is 'Oxford College of Sufism' and past that still there's 'The Centre for Advanced Studies'-in what, God knows-just above a betting shop. At the cafe they're selling hot cross buns except the brothers call them hot croissants (to avoid any reference to a cross, perhaps). Outside the station a black woman wails at the top of her booming African voice: "If you do not believe in our Lord Christ you will burrn in 'ell for all of your lives."

So much for love and peace!

all happiness is a kind of innocence

all happiness is is a kind of innocence.

Geoff Dyer writes with a light touch and returning to Anglo-English again reminds you just why you like him so much (his fantastic essay on Idris Khan is featured here, but I have yet to post notes to the Somme book). Music: Nils Molaever, Nusrat, Trane. Do I need to say much more?

Away from that pretentious European dribble and post-modern waffle. Hurrah!

England doesn't have any public spaces, just public houses [C, who said that? Starter for ten]. England doesn't have any intellectuals, either. Or of it does, then they're a very odd breed indeed. England has no eternal friends, only eternal interests. Yeah, it's a bit crap, isn't it!?

~~~

Here I am, surrounded by books. The shelves heave under the weight and sag in the centre (poor craftsmanship by Ubo!). No more in any order. Or, rather, the order is gradually being forgotten so that half a row of books are still conceivably in some sort of category, but are rapidly followed by all sorts of titles arranged haphazardly.

A glimpse, dear readers:

On Flirtation, The World of Knots, Waiting for Godot, The Ascent of Man, Shalimar the Clown, Richard Pryor, Der Gulag, Artistic Theory in Italy, Tulip in the Desert, King of the Castle (2), Alone with the Alone, The Constant Gardener, A History of Islamic Philosophy, The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes, Alan Bennett's Untold Stories, and The Ruin of Kasch.

There's an infinite pleasure in thinking of some hidden affinity between these books; in picking one up, checking the typeset, and putting it back on the shelf; even more pleasure (is that mathematically possible, nabs?) in just letting them sit there, knowing they'll never be read, maturing like a good wine. The utter superficiality of possession is intoxicating (we're still talking books here, just in case...). The sheer randomness thrown into order like the infinite city herself. This room, these books, this city...

~~~

Anglo-English.

The strange thing is that you were reading Whitsun and then, later, picked this up and in one of those freakish coincidence quickly realised that Dyer was also talking about Larkin's great poem in the essay. Spooky!

Quick and ancient eyes.

...

Black Swan

It had to be you,
make me feel blue,
or even quite sad.
It had to be you,
make me be true,
and it had to be me.

There's no time for us

there's no place for us

What's this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away

From us.

---Queen

Why did things have to turn out this way? If I had chosen left and not right would things have been so very different, would I have been someone else? The mind baulks at the thought that we had to live in this time and this space and no other, that something in our soul corresponds to the age we find ourselves in. Who, but a saint, can say what's done is done and accept that some knots of our being cannot be undone? Who but an Ubermensch can look at the pattern of his life and say: this is me...look at his friends and loved ones and say: this is my reality..look at his work, his house and think, this is the life I have scrawled in history, this is my name, 'I' and my destiny are one?

And yet, even as we reject necessity, we turn in horror at the thought that everything is mere chance, contingency: the mind intuits unity and has an inexhaustible passion for explanations and proofs, for constructing a web around the most gaping hole. Does randomness, eventually, lead to nihilism?

Some thoughts on Adam Phillips' Darwin's Worms:

Don't you think there's too much suffering in the world?
No, I think there's just the right amount.

The modern world starts with the rehabilitation of Nature. The secular passions of pain and pleasure are the only forms of redemption, the only things we can be sure of, and power is organized to harness the productivity of life: bio-power. It is, as Hannah Arendt would say, the unnatural growth of the natural, the revolt against necessity.

But if there is only Nature then it is meaningless to talk about nature being 'sublime' or 'capricious': she is what she is and these are only words we use to humanize her, they do nothing to change the phenomena itself. A rose is a rose is a rose. But, in that case, how do we actually 'think' that in the first place? To say that all is existence (or Nature) and that we can know it to be so seems contradictory unless one assumes that nature just throws up a self-reflecting being by chance. And if we, too, are a part of Nature isn't the possibility of these words a natural fact as well?

A.P. gets into a terrible flap: we are bound by mortality, transience and not transcendence [one would like to know how the mortal self can know this]. Our minds, like our bodies, are natural products and we are, essentially, un-intelligible to ourselves since the world and the self are not a product of intelligence or a part of the order of being,a hierarchy, but one of a piece in the continuum. [And yet, how can the 'piece' know that it is a piece unless it can transcend that perspective? Why does the 'piece' write a book..how can it do so?]

We long for certainty and knowledge when there's a fundamental uncertainty in the universe. There is no telos, we have entered the unredeemed stage of history. Life is life...

But why this longing? Why this desire for knowledge, for wholeness? Is this , too, a natural inclination or is it imposed from without: by society, religion, myth? But if all is Nature then there is no 'outside'! Even if one puts to one side transcendental arguments, from within Nature itself there is a desire to transcend her (Hans Jonas). As Pascal would say: if we are just reeds we differ from Nature in that we know we are so..Man is a thinking reed.

Life is not something that can be pictured (as in a biography) , only something that can be described and redescribed. We live in an age that wants to de-mythologise all pictures.

Chance disrupts the patterns, the inner constitution, the 'givens'.

How we escape from our life is our life.

The art of transience: to know that loss is a permanent feature of life ..to know time in its negative aspect and not something that leads to its fulfilment, its redemption. Well, yes, but to know that doesn't one have to be beyond time? Who is this 'I' that speaks about life ?

'With the modern age we're committed to instability'

A terrifying sentence. Again, as Bloch saw, to be committed to openness is , itself, a kind of binding.

'The will to permanence, to monumentalize the present, to stop time and resist change, is a form of idolatry.'
Had this been a Jewish prophet or a Muslim sage speaking one might give it some consideration. But it is, more likely than not, nothing but the legacy of the Romantics or a contempt for bourgeois solidity. How convenient for late capitalism one hastens to add! And what, should one say that the testimony of mankind throughout the ages, his desire for the Garden, for Arcadia, for peace, counts for nothing?!

Life is full of loss. Sure, but to recognize that isn't one already speaking from somewhere that is not lost? Nature knows nothing of loss or gain, of passing away and emergence, of fading, soaring. All is a seamless moment, it is we who construct the seasons and give her beautiful names. The only immortality Nature knows is process...

stray reflections

you write of my heart, word by word, like the january sun's sunken light. you write, to my heart, space after space, slotting in blankly without metaphor or hesitation. the deep reflected world of the life that wasn't, or that was, but lived anonymously, without knowing.

as if, of your heart. as if a believer, even though you are an infidel, unfaithful. each word key-solid, full of secrets, waiting to find you empty. the sun flares, late in the day, catching the rare essence of many things, unaware. but lateness isn't a beginning. your hands darken with time, as if guilty.

~~~

Happiness is a moment of grace. Hap: Haphazard, by chance. Robot, one of the few Czech words in the language.

~~~

on the district line today you read: '80 % of women said they trust men who txt much more than men who don't'. a woman sits opposite you with unkempt hair and light blue eyeshadow..very 70's. you thought she was egyptian. (yes, this is what this blog has come down to!). on the central line you always see much more solid figures: the boring middle classes, pig-fat, mildly content with all in the world thanks to Tesco's, Question Time, and Joan Bakewell. on the way back, a man with tightly cropped grey hair, dark slits for eyes (in fact, his eyebrows were so profusely bushy that all one could see were two deep shadows), and masses of flabby, blotched skin surrounding those eyes and tight lips.

~~~

Fascinating 'Start the Week' (for once). Must look out for John Gray's new book, Immortality. Picked up Exit Ghost for a pound at a charity shop. C bought me a book ('gifted' is what they say nowadays) and the Dougal has promised me Schama's Rembrandt's Eyes. Menashe's Collected Poems still to be found.

~~~

Ted Hughes: October Salmon:

All this, too, is stitched into the torn richness,

The epic poise,

That holds him so steady in his wounds, so loyal to his

doom, so patient

In the machinery of heaven

the philosophy of gardens

Abandon hopes to re-read Havelock's Preface to Plato since it would have to be read in conjunction with Iris Murdoch's brilliant Fire and the Sun. Then, you think to yourself, that would only be worth it if you'd read The Republic but you haven't, and you shan't, so you won't. Twice removed. And what good would it serve? You are an economist, aren't you?

~~~

At the hospital, Raymond says to Peter: Well, at our age I think we're blessed. But I can't go one step further and say 'thank God'.

On the way down the silver lift doors reluctantly close, shaking and trembling as if in an epileptic fit; only the electronic voice is constant, calm.

~~~

At the money-exchangers: do you accept Pk. Rs?

"No"

Then a long pause, a shifty look...

"Where are you from by the way?" (he says in Urdu)

I explain, not really wanting to get into this. He says he thought I was Italian or something.

"Your good name?"..."You're Kashmiri! "

It turns out that he is as well and wants me to come back on Saturday for lunch. He opens the door and walks out of the small cage he's in, hugs me and tells me that the home country is finished.

Yes, all very good. But do you have any bloody pounds for this mickey-mouse currency, I ask myself.

~~~

Walk down into the gardens, just past the small desi coffee shop (sells the worst coffee in the whole of London!Trust me). A small oasis of calm in the storm of the day. A place for sheltering oneself, disappearing. A small ribbon on a grey sackcloth, a dream within reality. You amble down to a small lily pond, surrounded by ferns (it came after this painting was made). And there it is, cool and still, dark, reflective, silent...a dream within a dream, since time out of mind.

~~~

Civilisation: books or gardens (or a book about gardens) ?

Not gardening, which is a philosophy in its own right; not philosophy as an idea either, but as away of living. Gardens as a cultivation of what's most human from what nature gives. A book on gardens, therefore, is twice removed. But that doesn't make it any less valuable...far from it. The dream within the dream is sometimes what's most real. Like an ancient park that is flattened, remodelled, renamed, so that nothing remains, except as an image in a book on a shelf near the high windows of a library.

Turn it inside out. The small pond...reminds you of Solaris. This small corner of London, unseen, stumbled upon. Proud statues of forgotten people.

Gardens as a place for individuals to breathe. Not the horrors of a family picnic. Jesus! That's too American by far. No, a place to lose oneself.

Preface to Plato

((Must finish Havelock))

"Watching it now the programme is clearly of its time."

The Guardian, 20/01/11.

A statement which is, no doubt, also of its time!

This need to place everything in a particular category, to nullify the possibility of the timeless, when did it start?

"Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable."

I remember a friend reading this and saying: "But it's so unfair, it doesn't discuss Islamic civilisation." Well, it was a personal view of western civilisation after all. Not a very interesting point, though: all roads, obviously, do not lead back to Rome and the decline in confidence in the very notion of civilisation (and western civilisation in particular) can lead to, perversely, a kind of parochialism at best; a horrifying narrowness of vision and the setting up of ineradicable distinctions at worst: us and them, purity and danger follow closely.

Isn't one of the defining qualities of civilisation openness to other currents of thought, artistic creativity, stray influences with varying degrees of self-awareness of these connections? You'd like to think so. But might not the opposite hold true? Hasn't 'civilisation' gone hand in hand with significant practices of exclusion? Isn't it about genius-which means a relation to a specific place (if not time)?

Another uninteresting question: Is western civilisation drawing to an end?

1. All this talk of an imminent end is nothing new; in fact, it might be said that the Renaissance begins with an acute awareness of death (J. Kristeva and Holbein; Hans Jonas; Pocock and the contingency of civilisation (Machiavelli)).

1. b. All those who claim it is the end are bound to be right eventually!

2. It's somewhat ironic that those who are partial to such a view are often western-educated and make their arguments using western technology and languages!

3. Even if it is the end you can't see it being replaced by any other type (Chinese, Indian or Islamic, say). What will be distinctive about India and China-even if we assume that they become the next great powers (and it's not clear that they will)? Economically, politically, and culturally, they might produce a variation of the western model but not much else (democracy, capitalism, individualism, for starters). And if anything comes out of the so-called muslim world it is more likely to be barbarism and fanaticism than civilisation.

the dark intervals

The places where we would never meet; the time between us, the time we never had together. The cliches we utter a measure of distances, the estrangement of our souls. The clocks we can't turn back. The dark wood that reflects our dark faces back to us.

A man lies in bed, pink and purple-brownish blotches on his face. He needs to phone his sister, is desperate to tell her of his illness, his fall..perhaps to seek some sort of final reconciliation or just to tell her what it's all come down to: alone amongst West Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. His posh accent and the vague smell of cats. An aunt, one of the few women to fly a Spitfire! What counts? Ultimately, I mean? Only a fanatic asks such questions. Keep the masks on, old b.

He looks at me, and says : "I envy you..nature is working in one when one is young and produces a great harmony, and balance" (I later find out that he's also worked with an orchestra). Of course, all that could be false, the bit about Rolls Royce, about being a pilot, but that doesn't matter somehow: the desire to weave together a story, to kill time...ah, yes, I know you well, my friend.

In everyone there sleeps

A sense of life lived according to love

to some it means the difference they could make

By loving others, but across most it sweeps

As all they might have done had they been loved.

That nothing cures.

---Larkin.

the deleted world

Man is air in the air and in order to become a point in the air he has to fall.

---Antonio Porchia.

It was evening. It was evening, wasn't it?

It was evening. When I first heard from you. Taken aback. Back. To the time when my words were dark. And in the darkness your face resembled mine. Staring through your mind, staring and staring, like a black sun. What was it? The random space that butterflies inhabit? This thought before the tongue moved? The world before metaphor, the silent, deleted world that was neither a beginning or an end. A moment is all it was, O my fire-born, time-thrown love.

It was evening, and the sea and sky were one.

sea and sky were one blue flag, with no design

but for the darker bluer line

but no matter what we do

you can't be me.

Waiting. Departures and Arrivals. The same old story. Nothing new there in any way. Anyway, my heart's all out of time.

An early morning walk in the dark light. Some keep the headlights on for safety, reassurance. A thin layer of frost sprinkled on the ground, like icing sugar. Tufts of grass frozen like stars, still deep in their night-thoughts. Leaves in the high tree rustling in the cold northernly. Past a vacant football field, hemmed in on three sides by a low fence and the council houses on the other. The goalposts abandoned, uneven, without any nets.

At night the dark rain falls. But no-one notices or remembers.