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"[...]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.
10 comments:
The entrance to the British Museum features Luci di Nara, Hollow Face by Mitoraj.
http://www.caffeeuropa.it/immagini/44immagini-Mitorajtesto.html
¡Oh Forma sacratísima, vértice de las flores,
donde todos los ángulos toman sus luces fijas,
donde número y boca construyen un presente
cuerpo de luz humana con músculos de harina!
http://www.poetasandaluces.com/poema.asp?idPoema=2072
http://books.google.com/books?id=yOuCwLxWOGUC&lpg=PA168&dq=shin%20300%20five%20letters&pg=PA168#v=onepage&q=shin%20300%20five%20letters&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=1YIAAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA119&dq=Val%C3%A9ry%20Le%20Sylphe&pg=PA119#v=onepage&q=Val%C3%A9ry%20Le%20Sylphe&f=false
Le Sylphe
Ni vu ni connu
Je suis le parfum
Vivant et défunt
Dans le vent venu!
Ni vu ni connu,
Hasard ou génie?
A peine venu
La tâche est finie!
Ni lu ni compris?
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
The Taurus growth path is finding stability in the natural world, and admiring its persistence.
http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/373
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rENYcxrgk
http://books.google.com/books?id=Aq-Yg6B51NsC&pg=PA101&dq=eros+bound&hl=en&sa=X&ei=955aVJC8CKOrjALb4oDABQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBw
http://www.20minutes.fr/culture/1475251-20141105-video-prix-goncourt-lydie-salvayre-laureate-roman-pleurer
I read James Merrill's The Yellow Pages (1974) because it was nice receiving such a limited edition Temple Bar copy entrusted with biographical clippings from the Rhode Island bookshop, Cellar Stories. Here, this was meant for you.
www.cellarstories.com
Is the Aeon like the Alpenglow from the emergence of winter? A sun dog?
https://31.media.tumblr.com/4d27de22b09570557ebccd9560425c80/tumblr_inline_mk0kx9PRn21qz4rgp.jpg
"Rough Scheme for an Aeon in the Alps" page 17
One day in autumn an old god sees red,
Screams, drop lie something mowed.
Coming to himself in a brown pool of blood,
He blinks round the wrecked room.
There is so much that he will never fathom
Still pounding in his system.
His emotions are those of the shepherd gaping
At huge, half human tracks, a trail smoking
Upward, most of his flock missing.
He has no choice now, he must think
Winter. In a trice the mercury has sunk
Like a numb slug into its bubblebank,
And at the lake's heart the immense
Valves clash shut. Silence.
He nods through white crocheted curtains—
Obedient, the Jungfrau knits her brows.
The shape that stalked him, in her vise,
Cannot so much as push up edelweiss.
Queer valley mists, though, have begun to weave
Up past him, forming a ceiling. If
Messages reach him, who is he to give
An answer, a coherent one? His head
Fills with the creak of a bed
Where someone lies unsleeping, exhausted.
The room just seems to be illumined.
Knowledge of life ebbs from the god's mind.
Creation mourns a friend.
Above the clouds, meanwhile, the mountain's
Whole being confronts the heavens.
She strains, in air that burns and thins,
To keep cool, hide the hard core of her shame,
That body huge and haired, and for all time.
Sweating a steep, clear stream,
She musters atmospheres against the fact—
Pleat-shaded-pink now, amorous, abject,
Now gemmed and ruthless. It is quite an act,
And it concludes with avalanches! ...
Much later, when things could focus, they hung on the eyelashes
Of the unearthed. A strange equal to the fantasies
Employed to flee it. These it effortlessly
Called back into its corpse. The sun drew near. The valley
Turned green out of pure susceptibility.
The lake shook on the brink of grave disclosure.
When grunts and tinklings filled the ether
Then it was the old god's eyes ran over.
He sniffed. Who willed this warmth?
No answer. I am not a god of wrath—
I shall be able to endure the truth!
In its own time came a stench of corruption
In some high place, potent as saffron.
Hallooings from the deranged mountain
Heralded discovery of the beast.
The next day young and old could taste
Their ancestor. It was already harvest.
The god, extinguished at his window,
Gazed into bonfires far below
And manikins black against the glow.
His face worked. He wanted to know why
They did not come after him with cutlery
Instead of feasting on his effigy.
(1957)
*A sun god's miraculous advent in a backward canton?
"Autumn Elegy" page 41
Sumac, your running wild
In bad seasonal verse
Depresses me no longer. Spelt anew
In the mind's mirror, child,
Your dark dry blood reverts
To that of the young demi-god Camus.
(1960)
"Oracle" page 31
Suddenly as of today
The weeping beech in the next garden
Is making large doomed signals.
After an August spent on the lawn's edge,
Look at it now! The tree is in a trance!
And high time. Just this once
It may have something really important to say.
Or is that fair?
One or two simple characteristics,
Such as a weakness for somber ornament
Combined with that congential slight deformity
That crooks us earthward into the gloom we shed—
Mightn't those, if heeded,
Have utter truths the flailing
Limbs never will, an all but weightless
Claw of bamboo haunts, an early
Figment of blue smoke crazes?
I should like to put a hand out saying Hush!
Be still. It doesn't matter.
Too late. The sky is hoarse with birds.
The leaves have started up their stylized wailing.
The shutters beat themselves against the wall.
Already leaves of three colors are racing ahead of me
(Why am I always the last to know?)
As I step from the house into my element,
The old progress resumed
Complete with mourners and outriders
Through a kingdom vast and cold;
Freely resumed, for in this middle season
What is driven where it means to go?
(1960)
"Hour Glass" page 46
Dear at death's door when you stand
I will run to let you in.
You may know me by my grin
And the joints of this right hand.
You will follow unafraid
As one seldom does in life.
I will say to Pluto's wife,
"Please your Majesty, this shade
Is my friend's who kept your Spring,
Show me how to wear your green.
Twenty winters intervene
Yet I glow remembering."
She will then unlock a chest,
Shake our senses out like robes
Fine and warm to naked ribs,
Make a signed when we are dressed
For one hour in which we fill
With ten thousand joys and pains.
Then, reversed, the burning grains
Back through her transparent will
Drain, and the robes are blown apart,
Two more bat shapes in the cave,
Little dreaming now they have
Blessed each other heart to heart.
(1968)
Exercise 91.
Thank you for reminding me of the above. It means a lot to me.
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