"[...]a vessel cleaving the dungeon of the waves[...]"
You're Love in the Time of Cholera!
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Like Odysseus in a work of Homer, you demonstrate undying loyalty by
sleeping with as many people as you possibly can. But in your heart you never give
consent! This creates a strange quandary of what love really means to you. On the
one hand, you've loved the same person your whole life, but on the other, your actions
barely speak to this fact. Whatever you do, stick to bottled water. The other stuff
could get you killed.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Never miss a word
You're Infinite Jest!
by David Foster Wallace
While you1 consider yourself2 to be clever,
there are those3 who think you're just full of yourself or, perhaps worse,
playing a joke4 on everyone around you, and yet you are pretty sure that
you really are that brilliant after all, since people would hardly take the time to
get to know you5 if they didn't care very deeply about what you had to
say to them, to wit, about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their
drug habits, and of course what videos6 they prefer to watch, since,
after all, your impressive vocabulary and tendency to go on and on7 makes
you seem superior, able to educate them, and really drive a sense of something
ineffable into their measly little skulls while you are not above making a cheap
gag or really going after anyone or anything or telling them about incredible
futures involving tennis, geopolitics, and
1Meaning you personally, not someone like you or your own
personal daddy, for example.
2As well as you can see yourself, which, frankly, may not be that well.
3Though we wouldn't deign to be so peripatetic as to name them here, mind.
4Jokes, though not common in Victorian England, were known to originate
sometime in ancient history, perhaps as early as the time of Babylon, or even before.
It is thought that the history of the joke plays an integral role in the mindset of
the characters depicted here, though you may disagree at this point, in which case I
am facing quite the dilemma in relaying this narrative, no?
5It is rather time consuming, after all.
6Ha!
7and on and on and on...
Take the Book Quiz II
at the Blue Pyramid.
You're The Metamorphosis!
by Franz Kafka
Though you think you're in the midst of a dream, the fact of the
matter is that your life has become a nightmare. The nightmare at first seems
horrific to you, but you are slowly able to adjust to the facts of the matter
and settle down and make do with what you've been given. There are those that
would say you're pointless and absurd, but you're really just trying to
demonstrate that people can (and do) adapt to anything, no matter how absurd
it is. Not that this will really inspire them to change, because they probably
don't understand.
Take the Book Quiz II
at the Blue Pyramid.
About Me
- Σφιγξ
- possesses wholly unmerited academic pretensions; examines love as an entomologist; collects haunted dollshouses; notes the lunar phase as regularly as the temperature; peruses field guides; reads like a serial magazine subscriptionist; functions through coffee and "mood" music; draws to the very corners of the page; takes notes on unlined paper; reads poetry as prayer; observes textual authority with the incredulity of fiction; suppresses the smart-ass answer(s); adapts as well as anyone beseiged by her own bibelots; she is a sensation seeker in spite of all of this.
6 comments:
Examples complete this then, after half
An eye to the time, a clock signal oscillates
Out of the cloud covering, and the clothes beneath--
For all the dew hemmed into them.
Having made your way into the sun, careworn
But uncompromised, a moment's hands
Draw out the archer's bowed arms,
This weather you are, lately pretending
If it isn't the tree's murky attraction to the strand
You caper, alone toward the terminus of now.
Shyness replies, "where are you spinning
a bout of your own default time?"
Examples complete this then, after half
An eye to the time, a clock signal oscillates
Out of the cloud cover and the clothes beneath--
For all the dew hemmed into them.
Having made your way into the sun, careworn
But uncompromised, a moment's hands
Draw out the archer's bowed arms,
This weather you are, lately pretending
If it isn't the tree's murky attraction to the strand
You caper, alone toward the terminus of now.
Shyness replies, "where are you spinning
a bout of your own time?"
"The tundra was wet, almost boggy, peppered by rivers, lakes, pools, bogs and peaty hummocks. Although it had so little rainfall it was actually a desert, the tundra was one of the most waterlogged lands on the planet. There was little evaporation into the cold air and virtually no absorption into the soil; for, just a short trunk's reach down through the carpet of plants, the ground was always frozen. That was the permafrost: nearly a mile deep, a layer of frozen soil that had failed to melt since the Ice Age."
Stephen Baxter's Silverhair (1999)
I remember taking a class about ecology, but I later dropped it because the first two tests were unwinnable, and the instructor made a point of this. So I did not play. I like being tested, but if I cannot construe the rules to coordinate my strategy, what is the point? I remember a syllogism of tundra gelisols, which are formed by cryoturbation (nice word), went like this, all gelisols have a B horizon but not all gelisols have A horizons, true or false? The tundra does not have a subsoil, or B horizon, but its soil profile is exclusively A horizon. Wrong either way. Anyhow, I was listening and learning something in two weeks. I will still transport this story to Mars and continue the Icebaby (2000) story, sometime.
I was listening to one of my favorite albums then, and I have bought and given away this album several times. "Easy in the City" is one of favorite tracks, which opens with the sound of steam escaping from a manhole..."If there is a secret in Magritte, I'll let you know."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Acquaintances
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/rene-magritte-1898-1967-les-compagnons-de-la-5869325-details.aspx
https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-06-03/the-biography-of-gladys-the-killer-whale-who-breaks-sailboats-and-reigns-supreme-on-social-media.html
I found a copy in an unexpected place, Frank Schätzing's Der Swarm (2004) in the thought that I would attain (in part) reading fluency of German. There is film out, and the plot it seems to be Michael Crichtonesque. The eco-terror or eco-sermon is not my genre.
https://www.dw.com/en/frank-sch%C3%A4tzing-the-swarm/a-44606295
https://youtu.be/6SqufBzChsw?si=-yUJ0fukdtIX2muV
I was trying to finish The Power of Trees last night, which has stubbornly remained 40 pages from completion. I could not sleep, while I was thinking about the upcoming project...how best to orient the space, with the citron tree from above or looking up contained in a box.
I am going to take a long walk Thursday night, and leave it at the Little Library on Carolina Avenue. I will take a picture of it.
Wohlleben's message is that removing old-growth deciduous forest and replacing it with conifer plantations is not an effective carbon sequestration strategy. The ground humus, without the trees, loses its microbial and fungal networks that facilitate moisture and temperature moderation. The spruce they have planted in Germany parch in the sun because the soil network is so compacted and devoid of biota, and then the bark beetles damage the projected timber.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Power_of_Trees/EtOLEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the%20power%20of%20trees%20wohlleben%20forest%20cooling&pg=PT45&printsec=frontcover
I am trying to share, and I have borrowed items from the dollhouse box with SF rarities from the San Francisco Kinokuniya branch that made me wonder.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XVJpTnzwDrFqfseLyVDclsDKJjZ_t-yX/view?usp=sharing
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