Charles A Monagan's "Inside Anxiety: The Private [Lies] of Neurotics"
Bizarre Influences
There is something in the nature of the neurotic that loves things such as horoscopes and palm readings and the like.
Part of this fascination has to do with the neurotic's self-absorption, to be sure, but part also is due to the convenient idea that our fates may not be entirely under own own control. We are perfectly willing to accept any good fortune that comes along as a product of our own design, but it is handy to be able to blame bad luck on some grand and sinister force.
The thing is, it's hard to tell which astrologer or which palm reader to believe. You pick up three daily papers and you get three different horoscopes, each one vaguer than the last. You wonder where the "unexpected journey" will take you and which "co-worker" will need your "advice." Similarly, when someone who is trying to pick you up in a bar reads your palm you don't know whether to laugh or cry or call a cab.
What follows should clear up your doubts once and for all.
Your Horoscope For The Rest Of Your Life [Abridged Version]
Aries (March 21-April 19) : Your worst suspicions will always be confirmed.
Taurus (April 20-May 20) : You will continue to forget where you hid things.
Gemini (May 21-June 21) : The spiritual meanderings never really do stop.
Cancer (June 22-July 22) : A life of gathering useless information.
Leo (July 23-August 22) : No end in sight for the restless self-appraisal.
Virgo (August 23-September 22) : A life of impossible choices.
Libra (September 23-October 23) : Continued specious self-improvement.
Scorpio (October 24-November 21) : A life of undefined desires.
Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) : A career of seemingly linked but ultimately disparate ideas.
Capricorn (December 22-January 19) : You never run out of good last-second solutions.
Aquarius (January 20-February 18) : A lifetime of unsatisfactory afternoon naps.
Pisces (February 19-March 20): The imagined slights continue to cause problems.
The Puzzled Expression
By 1927 a wide-spread neurosis began to be evident, faintly signalled, like a nervous beating of the feet, by the popularity of crossword puzzles.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald
And so crossword puzzles remain popular as the neurosis continues to spread and deepen. The puzzles have a salubrious effect on the troubled mind. For a brief time they take the neurotic away from the cares of the real world (i.e., the rest of the newspaper) and into a sanctuary of strict order, clear laws, and well-defined borders. Certain among us, of course, turn the puzzles into yet another anxiety-ridden exercise by racing against the clock, using ink only, or sneeringly rejecting any offers of assistance. These approaches ultimately can lead to the most profound sort of misery.
...
Crossword puzzles also provide us with a curious aggregation of celebrities. Each of these people has made his or her mark in some other, usually worthy pursuit only to be awarded a second claim to immortality by virtue of possessing a strange, vowel-heavy name. The same undying fame has been conferred upon a handful of cities, animals, and natural watercourses as well.
Bizarre Influences
There is something in the nature of the neurotic that loves things such as horoscopes and palm readings and the like.
Part of this fascination has to do with the neurotic's self-absorption, to be sure, but part also is due to the convenient idea that our fates may not be entirely under own own control. We are perfectly willing to accept any good fortune that comes along as a product of our own design, but it is handy to be able to blame bad luck on some grand and sinister force.
The thing is, it's hard to tell which astrologer or which palm reader to believe. You pick up three daily papers and you get three different horoscopes, each one vaguer than the last. You wonder where the "unexpected journey" will take you and which "co-worker" will need your "advice." Similarly, when someone who is trying to pick you up in a bar reads your palm you don't know whether to laugh or cry or call a cab.
What follows should clear up your doubts once and for all.
Your Horoscope For The Rest Of Your Life [Abridged Version]
Aries (March 21-April 19) : Your worst suspicions will always be confirmed.
Taurus (April 20-May 20) : You will continue to forget where you hid things.
Gemini (May 21-June 21) : The spiritual meanderings never really do stop.
Cancer (June 22-July 22) : A life of gathering useless information.
Leo (July 23-August 22) : No end in sight for the restless self-appraisal.
Virgo (August 23-September 22) : A life of impossible choices.
Libra (September 23-October 23) : Continued specious self-improvement.
Scorpio (October 24-November 21) : A life of undefined desires.
Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) : A career of seemingly linked but ultimately disparate ideas.
Capricorn (December 22-January 19) : You never run out of good last-second solutions.
Aquarius (January 20-February 18) : A lifetime of unsatisfactory afternoon naps.
Pisces (February 19-March 20): The imagined slights continue to cause problems.
The Puzzled Expression
By 1927 a wide-spread neurosis began to be evident, faintly signalled, like a nervous beating of the feet, by the popularity of crossword puzzles.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald
And so crossword puzzles remain popular as the neurosis continues to spread and deepen. The puzzles have a salubrious effect on the troubled mind. For a brief time they take the neurotic away from the cares of the real world (i.e., the rest of the newspaper) and into a sanctuary of strict order, clear laws, and well-defined borders. Certain among us, of course, turn the puzzles into yet another anxiety-ridden exercise by racing against the clock, using ink only, or sneeringly rejecting any offers of assistance. These approaches ultimately can lead to the most profound sort of misery.
...
Crossword puzzles also provide us with a curious aggregation of celebrities. Each of these people has made his or her mark in some other, usually worthy pursuit only to be awarded a second claim to immortality by virtue of possessing a strange, vowel-heavy name. The same undying fame has been conferred upon a handful of cities, animals, and natural watercourses as well.
22 comments:
J, writing today's horoscope at the evening's close:
You will find yourself before a computer monitor across an expanse of blue-green tagboard drinking proseco and paring kiwis. Another still life study with tatters of butterflies pulled mostly from car grills (the products of a life) emerges from this contemplative, blue-green murk.
This morning will be marked by the acute pangs of another job well done for the benefit of someone besides yourself, like a ghostwritten essay for an entrance commitee or a signature look for fall gleaned from obscure clothiers for a tête-a-tête with a
demi-god.
Afternoon shows off its unattractiveness in the close examination of a mole. With your foresight, you see how a dark blossom secretly enlarges, like an inverted exit wound. You must decide whether this is an analogy of your blooming mortal powers or melanoma.
If you seriously choke,recall somewhere that sections of the Nile are permanently clogged with water hyacinth.
This is the mansion:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/C%C3%A0_d%27Zan_in_2007.jpg
I love the work by this outsider artist, Ivan Albright:
http://www.vmfa.museum/collections/99_59.html
This first Gilbert & George I've seen without their featured foreskins:
http://www.vmfa.museum/collections/85_390.html
Le Douanier, Chuck Close...amphora in the shape of a breast, the usual.
Ivan Albright's "Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida" and "That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)" reminds me of a clairvoyant's vision of Victorian squallor.
And yes, I had to buy Art in America (usually I think it is a collection of commodities) for Philip Taaffe's painting on the cover.
Papa Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle has to say:
"We know very little about pain either. The only fact that we are certain of is that pain occurs in the first instance and as a regular thing whenever a stimulus which impinges on the periphery breaks through the devices of the protective shield against stimuli and proceeds to act like a continuous instinctual stimulus, against which muscular action, which is as a rule effective because it withdraws the place that is being stimulated from the stimulus, is powerless. If the pain proceeds not from a part of the skin but from an internal organ, the situation is still the same. All that has happened is that a portion of the inner periphery has take the place of the outer periphery.
...
Yet it cannot be for nothing that the common usage of speech should have created the notion of internal, mental pain and have treated the feeling of loss of object as equivalent to physical pain."
It is F. Scott Fitzgerald's and Howard Hughes's birthday today. My use of NIH sources has Ice Station Zebra to thank, in part for producing the paranoia that consolidated the estate into the self-sustaining tax shelter.
http://www.nonesuch.com/albums/kronos-quartet-performs-philip-glass
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/science/a-world-of-creatures-that-hide-in-the-open.html?ref=science&_r=0#slideshow/100000003061350/100000003061359
http://www.bartleby.com/85/6.html
"Kew Gardens" was printed independent of the 1921 collection Monday or Tuesday that contained "Blue & Green".
http://books.google.com/books?id=OTOFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT65&dq=Abtu+Ant+pilot+fish&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Zq48VNHpCeLksASYhoKoBw&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/space/in-cosmigraphics-our-changing-pictures-of-space-through-time.html?ref=science&_r=0
VERSION 6.0: Homosexuality-compatible. Homosexual colors added back (sea-foam green, fire-engine red).
*Thank goodness; though, would it be appropriate to use sustainable aphids for carmine, instead?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/bible-system-updates
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/337840409519483430/
Yes, you are right to suggest that "Garden Abstract" might hold the key to the last project.
This is a quick, pleasant read. I remember watching Rocky & Bullwinkle for the turns of phrase (s). Alas, the cartoons of today, like the reading, is so degraded.
If I had to stay in a room with Harry Potter or E.L. James, I would consider my luck in having a 400-page tablet of origami paper to perfect my cranes. The instinct to refrain from such -ly adverb-heavy reading was right.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0AhHDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA113&dq=Nabokov%27s+Favorite+Color+is+Mauve+"grade+level"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHzLXF-aHbAhVOj1kKHcN4DykQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q=Nabokov's%20Favorite%20Color%20is%20Mauve%20"grade%20level"&f=false
are*
https://youtu.be/1TtY29sbhL8
https://books.google.com/books?id=O6ngzj0nAKMC&pg=PA291&lpg=PA291&dq=martanda+egg&source=bl&ots=rD5ar9WmIf&sig=ACfU3U2-wOqVoJ37IJ6f0Sqyhz8mXx124A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7xtSGkZfmAhUDc98KHXRrBrcQ6AEwB3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=martanda%20egg&f=false
https://www.vmfa.museum/exhibitions/exhibitions/edward-hopper-american-hotel/
The Monument Rose (1953) has a picture drawn by Khalil Gibran on the cover.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4333371?seq=1
https://books.google.com/books?id=m4sXQnbHxZgC&ppis=_c&lpg=PA193&dq=%22Invocation%20to%20Old%20Windylocks%22&pg=PA39#v=onepage&q=%22Invocation%20to%20Old%20Windylocks%22&f=false
https://books.google.com/books?id=Pb-QgLHcaFYC&ppis=_c&lpg=PA57&ots=9S4hhUHh7x&dq=old%20windylocks&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q=old%20windylocks&f=false
She is a fraud. The accumulation of reading her articles in the TSL and elsewhere stalls out with this flaccid fan-girl encomium.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/21/how-the-critic-jacqueline-rose-puts-the-world-on-the-couch
Neuroticism is so common, and its badge-bearers are common.
https://books.google.com/books?id=m4sXQnbHxZgC&pg=PR17&dq=jean+garrigue+studies+for+an+actress&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYm8OkrKqBAxUTj4kEHYAbBC0Q6AF6BAgLEAM#v=onepage&q=jean%20garrigue%20studies%20for%20an%20actress&f=false
Jean Garrigue's Studies for an Actress and Other Poems (1973) (!)
I will put the collage here, sometime.
A trait from my youth, I always keep half of the bed (no matter its width) full with marked books, unfinished articles, flashcards, crossword puzzles, and book jackets (removed to prevent damage). I hide this tendency from others, but I reoffend with items that proccupy me. Bed as life raft. I go so far as changing the sheets twice a week, to order the debris as I go about my journey.
I constrain the entropy with another, I find. A bedroom should not have a television and it should not have encroaching items that are less important that the person laying there.
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