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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.
17 comments:
Cecil Hemley from The Paris Review reproduced for educational purposes only
Witnesses
Once, quiet meant discord and pain;
My frantic mind willed hurricane
To blow away its disbelief,
But violence brought it no relief.
How does it happen that a bough
In winter stillness calms me now?
The spirit sees what it has known;
It prints its trials on leaf and stone.
So leaf and stone record for me
The ways I went unwittingly.
What did I find? What do I know
That makes the silence beckon so?
From issue no. 6 (Summer 1954)
I contemplate our mutual silence, which may be broken, at some point.
Exercise 91.
When I reflect on the original post I can come to the home truth that I was neither deserving of being launched nor was the estranged party and GI bill recipient forthcoming.
Most of his money and property were split in years long legal disputes between the son and daughter, who were not related to me.
The understanding of merit applies. One is a combination of righteous and wicked acts, and the struggle to overturn one's bad traits and sins is a lifetime's work. One may not merit to hold an esteemed position or to have children because of the crooked path one has taken in life. It may happen later, after qualitative changes and sincere repentence, and then it is understood and truly appreciated.
I have not thought about the elder Keith for quite a long time. Without a complete admission from my mother, she conceded that he was not my biological father, and I emphasize the point that one does not go decades without speaking to someone who is a relation? Like a reset, no accumulation.
I atoned for the original sin of walking away in the first post by caring for my maternal grandparents, for many years, against logic. When they were buried, I considered the people who raised me are gone from the world.
In those terrible circumstances, I knew I was communing with a transcendent person. She had a remarkable resolve to see me through my difficulties even though she was in the nursing home, and routinely abused and neglected. She died at 79 pounds when the facility was locked from the outside. All of this is besides the point; without this experience, I would not have changed.
https://books.google.com/books?id=MILuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT5&dq=The+Book+of+Letters+%22kaf%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiHmKn6psmGAxW0k4kEHU3HOKU4ChDoAXoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q=The%20Book%20of%20Letters%20%22kaf%22&f=false
I am not giving up easily; but what happened before, in the trials of learning and gaining a livelihood, indicate that it was not meant to be.
Ironically, I make just as much as a salaried PA now. This is not to accept the terms complacently. So many people fall to pieces because they settle on one way, and that is it.
https://books.google.com/books?id=cJvEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA136&dq=Twelve+Trees+Daniel+Lewis+%22no+tannins%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjj5PnKlveGAxX_F1kFHanxAqIQ6AF6BAgGEAM
https://www.designboom.com/architecture/utopian-deserted-surreal-urban-landscapes-usa-owen-davies-phhoto-series-light-mass-06-24-2024/
https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/how-the-salt-shed-happened_o
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a45980114/atlantic-equitorial-water/
Always wanted to go here; not to camp (after camping various times in my youth, of being crumpled on the ground, cold/hot and trembling from branch breaks, never again). I am astounded how so many freely bivouac on drugs or not. There is no job I would not do to stay housed.
https://www.nps.gov/lavo/planyourvisit/exploring-the-hydrothermal-areas.htm
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Blue_Machine_How_the_Ocean_Works/V3-pEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=How%20the%20Ocean%20Works%20Czerski&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover
Richard Powers's Playground (2024) is indebted Czerski's The Blue Machine (2023).
Tevet 11, 5785
Footnote to the ArtScroll Tehillim 1-72, 27:
"Four pursuits require חִזּוּק (strengthening, from chazak חָזָק), 'constant exertion and effort with all of one's might (Rashi). They are Torah study, performance of good deeds, prayer, and pursuit of a livelihood. We learn, from the above verse, that prayer needs constant devotion (338)."
https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/2717713/jewish/Studying-Tehillim-Chapter-27-Part-3.htm
The glibness of being Reform is not taken, but parts of this article ring True:
"Exodus does tell the dramatic story of how a slave nation slipped the bonds of captivity and servitude, but it goes much further than that. As far as the Torah is concerned, it is good to use the Israelite example to teach the world that God smiles when slaves escape their earthly master’s lash, but the text insists this lesson must be paired with the far more challenging notion that true freedom can only be achieved by serving God. For many, this second, complicating message is a tough one to handle. Having to obey a lot of rules sounds like the opposite of being free, at least to the ear of a child, or of an infantilized adult raised in Don Draper’s postwar cult of the individual pursuit of happiness ('Whatever you’re doing, it’s OK. You are OK!'). What the Torah’s deliberate linkage between the liberation from Pharaoh and the revelation at Sinai aims to argue, though, is that ultimately no one actually gets to choose not to serve someone, some thing, or some power.
Of course, the menu of options is large. You can serve Baal or Zeus, the Virgin Mary or your own carnal appetites, a higher ideal of peace, a personal lust for fame, or the fear of death and danger. You can devote yourself completely to the security of your country, or to the salvation of humanity through carbon capture and nuclear nonproliferation. You can give every fiber of your being to ensuring the health and success of your children, or else to making sure that every single thing you do is an act of love, charity, or justice. But there is one thing you cannot do: refuse to serve anything.
[...]
The Book of Exodus gives two intertwined answers to this question. On the one hand, it’s about idolatry. God is not merely about any one thing because He is One, and not counterbalanced by any other value or power outside of Himself. To worship wisdom, or money, or to seek only glory, beauty, purity, pleasure, or peace; all of these are simpler principles that may have some merit, but the empirically testable claim is that pursued independently, they always eventually lead down a crooked path, either to disillusion in failure, or else back to the bitterness of greater servitude to an ultimately cruel and unreliable master.
On the other hand, aside from warning against the perennial temptation and inevitable poverty of idolatry, Exodus offers a positive vision. We do not merely serve powers in order to get what we want from them; we also need to know what we should want, and a part of the human soul is always searching for something worth serving. The Torah provides a lifelong course in refining our understanding of what activities and performances in this world make our condition in it worthy of value—but only if we apply ourselves to becoming ever more worthy of it. As we will see, the Temple turns out to be the means to this end."
To read:
https://books.google.com/books?id=H4HIDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=every+life+is+on+fire:+how+thermodynamics+explains+the+origins+of+living+things&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjx176suPOKAxVqKlkFHRjvFLQQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q=every%20life%20is%20on%20fire%3A%20how%20thermodynamics%20explains%20the%20origins%20of%20living%20things&f=false
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/third-time-charm
A lot can change since 2008. Physical attraction is the fundamental basis for the match; although much can change in that respect, I was immediately drawn to you. I do not match easily with most people where physical attraction is concerned. When someone asked me who I would date as a younger person, the most honest answer I could give was "someone like me." This is the basis of the shidduch.
The antagonism you would find with my family has dissipated, particularly when you meet the de facto daughter-in-law.
"1] The word shidduch is Aramaic for 'peaceful' or 'tranquil' (see Targum on Sefer Shoftim 3:11), referring to the peacefulness which a woman senses when she finds her match and establishes her home (Ran, Shabbos 12a). Others maintain that the word shidduch means 'to bind or tie together” (Aruch)."
https://www.sawyouatsinai.com/laws-of-matchmaking.aspx?lang=en-us
It is better to remain single than to be in an unremitting competition with one's spouse. There remains the obligation to show up for the other person, and to continue being the best person one can be.
With my merit increment, I am not insulted by my hourly rate. I have found the tranquility knowing that I have nothing to prove, and that I do not have to get ahead in an ICU, where I would have my soul torn apart every day with close calls, bad calls, pleading/fighting of (un)loved ones, and dropoff to a ward for the next customer... the landfill of the human heart and body funnels there like a drain. It makes me puke when they have Honor Walks for the organ donations, which leaven a heartbreaking decision I hope I do not have to make.
Using another human as a means to an end is most literally defined there.
It is in the hands of Hashem what and where next.
Infirmities of the body reveal blemishes of the soul. I do not judge these people, but I recognize that I do not want a part of the pursuit of the catastrophic repair of multiple systems for perverse human acclaim. For instance, a sternum has been debrided away with green ribs and a diverted tracheostomy tube emerging from the region of the left subclavian. Dress every other day with sedation.
The problem is not the mending work. The husband and wife are drug addicts and make everyone who steps in that room preemptively miserable. We knew in 2022 when we warned him about getting an infected midsternal incision after a CABG. In such cases, one should not operate. A PCI to restore flow should have been sufficient. Misapplied compassion is expensive.
Finishing this evening after the gym.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Stolen.html?id=psd0EAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
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