Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

col lor rapido corso

2012-02-11T12:19:00.003+11:00

Of Dreaming

Men will seem to see new destructions in the sky. The flames that fall from it will seem to rise in it and to fly from it with terror. They will hear animals of every kind speak in human language. They will instantaneously run in person in various parts of the world, without movement. They will see the greatest splendour in the midst of darkness. O! marvel the human race! What frenzy has led you thus! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you in human speech. You will see yourself fall from great heights without any harm, and torrents will accompany you, and will mingle in their rapid course...

Of Bees

And many others will be deprived of their store and their food, and will be cruelly submerged and drowned by folks devoid of reason. Oh Justice of God! Why dost thou not wake and behold thy creatures thus ill used?

Of writing Letters from one Country to another

Men will speak with each other from the most remote countries, and reply.

(Leonardo da Vinci, misc. in The Literary Works of Leonoardo da Vinci, Vol. II, (ed.) Jean Paul Richter, Phaidon, 1970 (first published 1883): link

pour F

castling - moshiayakh

2012-02-09T14:50:00.000+11:00

Nachdem im Verlauf der Jahrhunderte das namengebende Geschlecht im Volke verschwunden, machte ein Lehensmann den Dorfnamen zu seinem Titel und baute ein Schloß, von dem niemand mehr weiß, wo es gestanden hat [...] - When over the course of centuries the eponymous family had disappeared from the people, a liege man took the village name as his title and built a castle of which it is no longer known where it once stood [...] (G. Keller, Der grüne Heinrich: link, trans. mine) || Das Dorf lag in tiefem Schnee. Vom Schloßberg war nichts zu sehen, Nebel und Finsternis umgaben ihn, auch nicht der schwächste Lichtschein deutete das große Schloß an. Lange stand K. auf der Holzbrücke, die von der Landstraße zum Dorf führte, und blickte in die scheinbare Leere empor. (F. Kafka, Das Schloß: link) || The text, on the other hand, begins its artful game by introducing a castle which is neither present nor absent: "The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show that a castle was there." (A. Ronell, "Doing Kafka in The Castle") || The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. (JL Borges, "Kafka and his precursors": link) || Der Ursprung des Messianismus in der Verzweiflung ist der innere Grund seines notwendigen Versagens, seiner Inkongruenz mit sich selbst. "Der Messias", vermerkt das dritte Oktavheft, "wird erst kommen, wenn er nicht mehr nötig sein wird, er wird erst einen Tag nach seiner Ankunft kommen, er wird nicht am letzten Tag kommen, sondern am allerletzten." - Despair is the origin of messianism and the inner reason for its inevitable failure, for its incongruence with itself. "The Messiah", the third octavo notes, "will come only when he is no longer needed, he will only arrive one day after his arrival, he will not arrive on the last day, but on the very last." (WG Sebald, Unheimliche Heimat, p.98-99, transl. mine)

summer, now

2012-01-09T16:50:00.004+11:00

[...] that the corpse of Laurence Sterne was "stolen from its resting place and recognized - just before dismemberment - on a medical school dissection table at Cambridge" (J. Barnes, "To the music of time", TLS Dec 9 2011, p.5) || At a performance of Twelfth Night in Covent Garden, [Castlereagh] was hooted and hissed at so loudly that the play had to be stopped. Another time, he took refuge in a draper's shop in St Martin's Lane where he was pelted with mud and vegetables until the Bow Street runners came to his rescue. (F. Mount, "Forever unforgiven", TLS Dec 9 2011, p.3) || When Elizabeth, the daughter of James VI and I, married the Protestant Frederick, Elector Palatine and - briefly - King of Bohemia, in 1613, their lengthy wedding festivities included twenty performances by the King's Men, Shakespeare's company, including seven plays by Shakespeare, among them Much Ado (twice), the lost Cardenio, and The Tempest, with its central concern with rulers, legitimacy and self-government. Frederick's nickname, "The Winter King", arose because his tenure in Bohemia was less than a year; the pan-European war that it sparked, however, lasted Thirty Years. (R. Morse, "Ghetto Bard", TLS Dec 9 2011, p.15) || Opinion was divided as to whether she had left me, and I didn't know for sure myself, as we don't discuss such things. The evidence seemed to be that she had, given that she no longer lived here, but we continued to visit [...] I developed a fussy bachelor personality about the house [...] (H. Williams, "Freelance", Ibid., p.16) || The theologian Rudolf Otto described primitive religion as an encounter with the mysterium tremendum, a fear and trembling in the face of impersonal, fickle and ultimately unknowable divinity. (P. Bebergal, "Pits and Purgatory", Ibid., p.19) || "I pass my days, reading, shopping and yawning." ||

summer, soon

2011-12-18T14:06:00.000+11:00

ripatriarsi e ritornare

2011-12-13T14:37:00.003+11:00

"Now you see that the hope and the desire of returning to the first state of chaos is like the moth to the light, and that the man who with constant longing awaits with joy each new spring-time, each new summer, each new month and new year - deeming that the things he longs for are ever too late in coming - does not perceive that he is longing for his own destruction. But this desire is the very quintessence, the spirit of the elements, which finding itself imprisoned with the soul is ever longing to return from the human body to its giver. And you must know that this same longing is that quintessence, inseparable from nature, and that man is the image of the world." (Leonardo da Vinci, "What is life?" in The Literary Works of Leonoardo da Vinci, Vol. II, (ed.) Jean Paul Richter, Phaidon, 1970 (first published 1883), p.242: link) || Auf welche Art hängt aber das Triebhafte mit dem Zwang zur Wiederholung zusammen? Hier muß sich uns die Idee aufdrängen, daß wir einem allgemeinen, bisher nicht klar erkannten – oder wenigstens nicht ausdrücklich betonten – Charakter der Triebe, vielleicht alles organischen Lebens überhaupt, auf die Spur gekommen sind. Ein Trieb wäre also ein dem belebten Organischen innewohnender Drang zur Wiederherstellung eines früheren Zustandes, welchen dies Belebte unter dem Einflusse äußerer Störungskräfte aufgeben mußte, eine Art von organischer Elastizität, oder wenn man will, die Äußerung der Trägheit im organischen Leben. [...] Der konservativen Natur der Triebe widerspräche es, wenn das Ziel des Lebens ein noch nie zuvor erreichter Zustand wäre. Es muß vielmehr ein alter, ein Ausgangszustand, sein, den das Lebende einmal verlassen hat, und zu dem es über alle Umwege der Entwicklung zurückstrebt. Wenn wir es als ausnahmslose Erfahrung annehmen dürfen, daß alles Lebende aus inneren Gründen stirbt, ins Anorganische zurückkehrt, so können wir nur sagen: Das Ziel alles Lebens ist der Tod, und zurückgreifend: Das Leblose war früher da als das Lebende. Sigmund Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips (1923): link || In what way is the instinctive connected with the compulsion to repetition? At this point the idea is forced upon us that we have stumbled on the trace of a general and hitherto not clearly recognised—or at least not expressly emphasised—characteristic of instinct, perhaps of all organic life. According to this, an instinct would be a tendency innate in living organic matter compelling it towards the reinstatement of an earlier condition, one which it had to abandon. [...] It would be counter to the conservative nature of instinct if the goal of life were a state never hitherto reached. It must rather be an ancient starting point, which the living being left long ago, and to which it harks back again by all the circuitous paths of development. If we may assume as an experience admitting of no exception that everything living dies from causes within itself, and returns to the inorganic, we can only say ' The goal of all life is death'-, and, casting back, 'The inanimate was there before the animated . (S. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle: link)

rühmen, das ists

2011-12-09T20:56:00.002+11:00

In 1710, Richard Steele wrote in Tatler that recently he had been to visit an old friend just come up to town from country. But the latter had already gone to bed when Steele called at 8 pm. He returned at 11 o'clock the following morning, only to be told that his friend had just sat down to dinner. "In short", Steele commented, "I found that my old-fashioned friend religiously adhered to the example of his forefathers, and observed the same hours that had been kept in his family ever since the Conquest." (T. Blanning, "Darkness visible", TLS September 23 2011, p.3) || Last month I read an Associated Press item about a man in Adams, Massachusetts, who, having bought the apartment building where his seventy-four-year-old grandmother has lived for ten years, raised her monthly rent from $96 to $400. She says that she can't afford to pay $400, because her income, from Social Security, is only $500. Also, she is a double amputee; in the newspaper that I saw - The Daily Hampshire Gazette, of Northampton, Massachusetts-the AP item was accompanied by a picture of her sitting in a wheelchair. You have to say this about the grandson, just for a start: this man has a public relations problem. (C. Trillin, Too soon to tell, New York, 1995, p.9)

chronos tou einai

2011-12-09T20:10:00.000+11:00

turpis et periculosa

2011-11-29T16:13:00.000+11:00

Introduced into the courtroom, the accused underwent an initial interrogation. After the first hesitations or contradictions, or even only because he declared himself innocent, the judge ordered the application of torture. The accused was spread out on his back on the rack (cavalletto in Italian or eculeus in Latin, meaning little horse, which relates to the German for torture, Folter, deriving from Fohlen, "colt"), with arms extended backward and upward, and hands tied with a cord that passed through a pulley, in such a way that the executioner (quaestionarius, tortor) could pull the cord and cause the dislocation of the collarbone. This first stage, from which the name "torture" derives (from torqueo, "to torque or twist until shattering"), was usually followed by flogging, as well as laceration with iron hooks and harrows. The dogged search for truth was such that the torture could be prolonged for several days, until the confession was finally obtained. (G. Agamben, "K." in: Nudities, Stanford, 2011, p.26) || Es ist ein auffälliger und allgemein bemerkter Zug im Verhalten der Paranoiker, dass sie den kleinen, sonst von uns vernachlässigten Details im Benehmen der anderen die grösste Bedeutung beilegen, dieselben ausdeuten und zur Grundlage weitgehender Schlüsse machen. Der letzte Paranoiker z. B., den ich gesehen habe, schloss auf ein allgemeines Einverständnis in seiner Umgebung, weil die Leute bei seiner Abreise auf dem Bahnhof eine gewisse Bewegung mit der einen Hand gemacht hatten. Ein anderer hat die Art notiert, wie die Leute auf der Strasse gehen, mit den Spazierstöcken fuchteln u. dgl. (S. Freud, Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens (Über Vergessen, Versprechen, Vergreifen, Aberglaube und Irrtum: link)

redundant (1948-1980)

2011-11-25T08:29:00.001+11:00

aidao domous kai epaines persphoneies

2011-11-11T12:22:00.005+11:00

Our weekly endeavour is to find a neglected work or curiosity by an established author for about £5, to brandish as a clove of garlic against the blood-draining horror of mainstream Christmas fare (Do Ants Have Arseholes?, My Shit Life So Far, etc.) (J.C., "NB", TLS October 21 2011) || Here comes the place where cleaves our way in twain. Thy road, the right, toward Pluto's dwelling goes, And leads us to Elysium. But the left Speeds sinful souls to doom, and is their path To Tartarus th' accurst. (Virgil, Aeneid (6.535)) || "Seine Scheu vor einer selbständigen Existenz war so groß, daß sie alle Beschwerden des Krankseins aufwog." - "His timidity at the prospect of an independent existence was so great that it counterbalanced all the hardships of being ill." (S. Freud, "Aus der Geschichte einer infantilen Neurose", Studienausgabe Bd.VIII, Fischer, 2000, p.132, transl. mine) || And his sisters, are they not all with us? (Matthew 13:56) || [...] to the Elysian plain…where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give cooling to men. (Homer, Odyssey (4.560-565)) || And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them. (Hesiod,Works and Days (170)) || In no fix'd place the happy souls reside. In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds, By crystal streams, that murmur thro' the meads: But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend; The path conducts you to your journey's end.” This said, he led them up the mountain's brow, And shews them all the shining fields below. They wind the hill, and thro' the blissful meadows go. (Virgil, Aeneid (6.641)) || When my mother was dying, she got out of the hospital somehow, at night, and wandered around town until someone who didn't know her at all spotted her and took her in. If this were fiction, as I said, it would be too much, but it is true. (A. Munro, "Dear Life", The New Yorker, Sep 19, 2011, p.47)

the light

2011-11-11T12:21:00.000+11:00

boy, boat, Milena

2011-11-08T18:22:00.003+11:00

Nicht immer war mir in der letzten Zeit so schlecht, es war auch schon zeitweilig sehr gut, mein Hauptehrentag war aber etwa vor einer Woche. Ich mache in meiner ganzen Ohnmacht den endlosen Bassin-Rundspaziergang auf der Schwimmschule, es war schon gegen Abend, viele Leute waren nicht mehr dort, aber immerhin noch genug, da kommt der zweite Schwimmeister, der mich nicht kennt, mir entgegen, sieht sich um als ob er jemanden sucht, bemerkt dann mich,wählt mich offenbar und fragt: Chtěl byste si zajezdit? [Möchten Sie eine Fahrt machen?] Es war da nämlich ein Herr, der von der Sophieninsel heruntergekommen war und sich auf die Judeninsel hinüberfahren lassen wollte, irgendein grosser Bauunternehmer glaube ich; auf der Judeninsel werden grosse Bauten gemacht. Nun muss man ja die ganze Sache nicht übertreiben, der Schwimmeister sah mich armen Jungen und wollte mir die Freude einer geschenkten Bootfahrt machen, aber immerhin musste er doch mit Rücksicht auf den grossen Bauunternehmer einen Jungen aussuchen, der genügend zuverlässig war sowohl hinsichtlich seiner Kraft, als auch seiner Geschicklichkeit, als auch hinsichtlich dessen, dass er nach Erledigung des Auftrages das Boot nicht zu unerlaubten Spazierfahrten benutzt, sondern gleich zurückkommt. Das alles also glaubte er in mir zu finden. Der grosse Trnka (der Besitzer der Schwimmschule, von dem ich Dir noch erzählen muss) kam hinzu und fragte ob der Junge schwimmen könne. Der Schwimmeister, der mir wahrscheinlich alles ansah, beruhigte ihn. Ich hatte überhaupt kaum ein Wort gesprochen. Nun kam der Passagier und wir fuhren ab. Als artiger Junge sprach ich kaum. Er sagte, dass es ein schöner Abend sei, ich antwortete: ano [ja] dann sagte er, dass es aber schon kühl sei, ich sagte: ano, schliesslich sagte er, dass ich sehr rasch fahre, da konnte ich vor Dankbarkeit nichts mehr sagen. Natürlich fuhr ich in bestem Stil bei der Judeninsel vor, er stieg aus, dankte schön, aber zu meiner Enttäuschung hatte er das Trinkgeld vergessen (ja, wenn man kein Mädchen ist) Ich fuhr schnurgerade zurück. Der grosse Trnka war erstaunt, dass ich so bald zurück war. – Nun, so aufgebläht vor Stolz war ich schon lange nicht wie an diesem Abend, ich kam mir Deiner um ein ganz winziges Stückchen, aber doch um ein Stückchen mehr wert vor als sonst. Seitdem warte ich jeden Abend auf der Schwimmschule ob nicht wieder ein Passagier kommt, aber es kommt keiner mehr. (10. August 1920, in: Franz Kafka, Briefe an Milena, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 204-206.)

a - h

2011-11-08T18:12:00.004+11:00

owst iv

2011-11-06T12:10:00.001+11:00

The system of power maintains general repressions, which are imposed likewise on all members of society. As long as it is administered by a social class, then class-specific privations and denials are linked to the general ones. The traditions that legitimate authority also must compensate the mass of the population for these specific renunciations that go beyond the general privations. That is why the oppressed masses are the first to be incapable of integration by legitimations that have become fragile. It is they who first critically turn the utopian content of tradition against the established civilization [...] (J.Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, p.280) || Someone who distinguished himself in the ideological legitimation of the colossal expropriation and ruthless repression that struck its victims was Locke. This 'most particular supporter of the lash for vagrants and paupers' (Marx) was in fact, at the same time, the 'father' of 'free-thinking', the protagonist of the great ideological battle that deconsecrated absolute monarchy and stripped it of its Christian and Biblical cover. (D. Losurdo, Liberalism, Verso, p.319) || It is to be expected that these underprivileged classes will envy the favoured ones their privileges and will do all they can to free themselves from their own surplus of privation. (Freud, The Future of an Illusion: link)

owst III

2011-10-24T17:35:00.008+11:00

The loi des suspects passed in 1858 after Orsini's attempt on the Emperor's life gave Napoleon III and his government unlimited powers to banish, expel or imprison any person suspected of opinions hostile to the Empire. (Y. Kapp, Eleanor Marx, Vol.1, Lawrence and Wishart, 1972, p.102) || Das Wort Kafka bedeutet im Tschechischen Dohle, eine Herleitung, die Kafka selbst nutzte, um auf geheime Beziehungen zwischen sich und der Titelgestalt seiner in Riva am Gardasee lokalisierten "Jäger-Gracchus"-Fragmente anzuspielen (gracchio bedeutet im Italienischen Dohle). Es handelt sich aber um eine Volksetymologie, denn die Bezeichnung Kafka geht auf eine niederdeutsche, von aschkenasischen Juden gebrauchte Verkleinerungsform des Namens Jakob zurück. - In Czech the word Kafka means jackdaw, a derivation that Kafka used himself in order to allude to secret connections between himself and the titular figure of his „Hunter Gracchus“ fragments which take place in Riva at Lake Garda (in Italian gracchio means jackdaw). But this is no more than demotic etymology, since the designation Kafka relates back to a low German diminutive of the name Jacob used by Ashkenazi Jews. (H. Binder, Kafka - Ein Leben in Prag, p.31, transl. mine)

séjour aux tropiques

2011-10-24T17:29:00.003+11:00

garçon de piscine

2011-10-18T20:10:00.006+11:00

Weil seine bisherige Entwicklung so ungünstig verlaufen war, ergab sich ein Rückstand in der Reifung seiner Persönlichkeit, deren Außenaspekt ein ungewöhnlich juveniles Erscheinungsbild war. Den erstaunlichsten Beleg für diesen zuletzt erwähnten Umstand gibt Kafka in einem Brief, den er am 10. August 1920 Milena Jesenska schrieb. Vor einer Woche etwa habe ein Bademeister der Civilschwimmschule einen zuverlässigen Ruderer gesucht, der einen Bauunternehmer auf eine benachbarte Moldauinsel übersetzen sollte, und in dem gerade anwesenden, immerhin siebnunddreißigjährigen Kafka gefunden, dem er als armen Jungen die Freude einer kostenlose Bootsfahrt zu machen glaubte. So "aufgebläht vor Stolz" wie an diesem Abend sei er schon lange nicht mehr gewesen, meint Kafka, obwohl der Passagier zu seiner Enttäuschung das fällige Trinkgeld vergessen habe. (H. Binder, Kafka - Ein Leben in Prag, Mahnert-Lueg, 1982, p.99) || Because his development until now had proceeded so adversely, a lag in the maturation of his personality ensued, the outer feature of which was his unusually juvenile appearance. The most remarkable testament of this Kafka renders in a letter to Milena Jesenska from 10 August 1920. About a week ago the pool supervisor of a swimming school had sought a reliable rower who could ferry a property developer across to a neighbouring Moldova island, and had found Kafka, who happened to be available, 37 years of age at this time, whom he thought a poor boy delighted by the opportunity of a free boat ride. He hadn’t been this “bloated with pride” for a long time, Kafka claims, even though to his disappointment his passenger had neglected the customary tip. (Binder, p.99, transl. mine)

acedia

2011-10-18T13:27:00.006+11:00

The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are "still" possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge — unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable. (W. Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History", Thesis VIII) || Finally, in June, his excesses led to arrest on charges of drunken rowdiness. He served a one-night sentence for this on June 16, 1836. (M. Rubel & M. Manale, Marx without myth, Blackwell, 1975, p.11) || For my own part, of the many wonderful tales Mohr told me, the most wonderful, the most delightful one, was “Hans Röckle.” It went on for months and months; it was a whole series of stories. [...] Hans Röckle himself was a Hoffmann-like magician, who kept a toyshop, and who was always “hard up.” His shop was full of the most wonderful things — of wooden men and women, giants and dwarfs, kings and queens, workmen and masters, animals and birds as numerous as Noah got into the Arc, tables and chairs, carriages, boxes of all sorts and sizes. And though he was a magician, Hans could never meet his obligations either to the devil or the butcher, and was therefore — much against the grain — constantly obliged to sell his toys to the devil. These then went through wonderful adventures — always ending in a return to Hans Röckle’s shop. (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Biographical Notes on Marx’s Literary Interests: link)

owst II

2011-10-13T15:52:00.002+11:00

Nach der Julirevolution, als der liberale Bankier Lafitte seinen compère , den Herzog von Orléans, im Triumph auf das Hôtel de Ville geleitete, ließ er das Wort fallen: "Von nun an werden die Bankiers herrschen." Lafitte hatte das Geheimnis der Revolution verraten. (Marx, MEW Bd. 7, "Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich 1848-1850", S. 12-34, (Dietz Verlag Berlin/DDR 1960), s.12: link) || After the July Revolution [of 1830], when the liberal banker Laffitte led his compère, the Duke of Orléans, in triumph to the Hôtel de Ville, he let fall the words: “From now on the bankers will rule”. Laffitte had betrayed the secret of the revolution. (Marx, "The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850": link)

owst

2011-10-13T15:47:00.001+11:00

In jeder Revolution drängen sich, neben ihren wirklichen Vertretern, Leute andern Gepräges vor. Einige sind die Überlebenden früherer Revolutionen, mit denen sie verwachsen sind; ohne Einsicht in die gegenwärtige Bewegung, aber noch im Besitz großen Einflusses auf das Volk durch ihren bekannten Mut und Charakter oder auch durch bloße Tradition. Andre sind bloße Schreier, die, jahrelang dieselben ständigen Deklamationen gegen die Regierung des Tages wiederholend, sich in den Ruf von Revolutionären des reinsten Wassers eingeschlichen haben. Auch nach dem 18. März kamen solche Leute zum Vorschein und spielten sogar in einigen Fällen eine hervorragende Rolle. Soweit ihre Macht ging, hemmten sie die wirkliche Aktion der Arbeiterklasse, wie sie die volle Entwicklung jeder frühern Revolution gehemmt haben. Sie sind ein unvermeidliches Übel; mit der Zeit schüttelt man sie ab; aber gerade diese Zeit wurde der Kommune nicht gelassen. (Marx, Ueber den Buergerkrieg in Frankreich, MEW Bd.17, p.347 - link) || In every revolution there intrude, at the side of its true agents, men of different stamp; some of them survivors of and devotees to past revolutions, without insight into the present movement, but preserving popular influence by their known honesty and courage, or by the sheer force of tradition; others mere brawlers who, by dint of repeating year after year the same set of stereotyped declarations against the government of the day, have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water. After March 18, some such men did also turn up, and in some cases contrived to play pre-eminent parts. As far as their power went, they hampered the real action of the working class, exactly as men of that sort have hampered the full development of every previous revolution. They are an unavoidable evil: with time they are shaken off; but time was not allowed to the Commune. (Marx: On the civil war in France) |

St. Paul, again

2011-09-16T14:30:00.004+10:00

stilled life

2011-09-15T18:30:00.004+10:00

And one reason for this atheistical failure of interest is its failure of theological radicalness: such atheists are but what are called 'negative' theologians, but attenuated ones. In a sense which I hope to clarify in a moment, they give shorter measure than good theologians do in the extent of what they deny. It is indeed extrordinary how theologically conservative some atheists are, and one might even speculate that atheists of this species have an interest in resisting such renewals of Christian faith and practice as would require the renewal of their rejection of it. I suppose it must be upsetting for atheists when the target of their rejection moves; for insofar as a moving Christian target does upset the atheist, it reveals, depressingly, the parasitical character of the rejection. So a static atheism can have no wish for a moving theism. (D Turner, 'How to be an atheist': link) || When René Magritte made his 1949 parody/tribute version of Manet's "Le Balcon", he metamorphosed the figures on the balcony into three wooden coffins, seated or standing. A pictorial pun on nature morte.The English phrase "still life" has always seemed to me a more affirmative term than nature morte. It was derived from the Dutch stilleven, which may be translated as "stilled life". This makes good sense, of course, when understood as a generic name for all the elaborate memento mori symbolism that shaped a century or two of Dutch still life painting. (N Wadley, "Modern life by moonlight", TLS June 3 2011, p.17) || Seit alters ist Arkadien für Hadeseingänge berühmt. - Arcadia has always been renowned for its entrances to Hades. (F Kittler, "Ein Erdbeben in Chili und Preußen", p.33. Transl. mine) || In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps, that snores when you pick it up. If the ghost cries, they carry it to their lips and soothe it to sleep with sounds. And yet, they wake it up deliberately, by tickling with a finger. (C Raine, Caxtons and Ghosts: link)

nature morte

2011-09-08T08:28:00.005+10:00

"Lovynge is the hynde, and frendlye is the Roo", so Proverbs assured him, "let hyr brestes alwaye satisfye the, and holde the ever content wyth hyr love." (JP Carley, "Italic ambitions", TLS June 3 2011, p.3) || My recollection is that the perhaps sufficiently devious Paris audience watching [Rohmer's Marquise von O...] with me, in 1976, was tickled by its naiveté, since giggling and snickering greeted its melodramatic representation. (A Kotin Mortimer, 'The devious second story in Kleist's Die Marquise von O...' The German Quarterly vol.67(3), 1994, p.297) || Und man muß Bewohner von Städten sein, sei es, um sich mit einer civilité höherer Art zu brüsten, sei es, um in melodischen und äußerst kunstvollen Versen das Glück der Hirten und die arkadische Stille als verloren zu beklagen. - And it is necessary to be an urbanite, be it in order to boast of one's refined civilité, be it to lament the loss of the joy of shepherds and arcadian calm in melodic and rather artful verse. (J Starobinski, Kunstgriffe der Aufklaerung, Ffm., Fischer, 1994, p.21. Transl. mine) || [...] Prayers or Medytacions, wherein the mynd is stirred, paciently to suffre all afflictions here, to set at nought the vayne prosperitee of this worlde, and alwaie to longe for the everlastynge felicitee [...] (Carley, ibid., p.4) || We learn that William Kent, the eighteenth-century architect, built "a grotto for Queen Caroline based on Spenser's description of Merlin's cave, and at Stowe a hermitage based on Archimago's cell." (H Wilkinson, "Child of Chaucer", TLS June 3 2011, p.10)

Logis in St. Paul

2011-09-01T10:36:00.005+10:00

On the way a lightning bolt of undefined inspiration ran right through me - a passionate desire to write, and to write in Russian. And yet I can't. I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced this feeling can really understand its torment, its tragedy. English in this sense is an illusion and an ersatz. (V Nabokov, "Nov 10, 1942, St. Paul, Minnesota" in The New Yorker, June 13 2011, p.104) || Der Fehler, den wir Zuhörer immer machen, liegt in der Annahme, daß in diesen melodischen Wundern die Sprache und die Musik ihr natürliches Erbteil zitieren, während sie doch in Wahrheit daran das Künstlichste sind. Was es zu dessen Herstellung braucht, das ist nach wie vor ein weitgehend unerschlossenes Geheimnis. Gewiß ein seltenes handwerkliches Geschick, das zu den kleinsten Adjustierungen und Korrekturen befähigt; außerdem, glaube ich, ein sehr langes Gedächtnis und, möglicherweise, auch einen gewissen Mangel an Liebesglück, der das Los gerade derer gewesen zu sein scheint, die, wie Mörike und Schubert, wie Stifter, Keller und Walser, ein paar der schönsten Zeilen für uns geschrieben haben. - The error we listeners always make lies in the assumption that language and music recite their natural legacy in these melodic miracles while in truth they comprise its most artifical aspect. What is required for its production continues to remain a largely undiscovered secret. Certainly a rare artisanal deftness that has the capacity for the most minute adjustments and corrections; furthermore, I believe, a very long memory and, possibly, also a certain lack of romantic fortune which appears to have been the lot exactly of those, who, like Mörike and Schubert, Stifter, Keller and Walser, have written for us a few of the most beautiful lines. (WG Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, p.90. Transl. mine.) || I love you, my sweetheart. Try to be cheery when I come back (but I love you when you're low, too). (Nabokov, Ibid.)

chapter, verse

2011-08-28T12:42:00.003+10:00

Take, for instance, our Book of Revelation, of which we shall see that, instead of being the darkest and most mysterious, it is the simplest and clearest book of the whole New Testament [...] All this now has lost all interest, except for ignorant persons who may still try to calculate the day of the last judgment. But as an authentic picture of almost primitive Christianity, drawn by one of themselves, the book is worth more than all the rest of the New Testament put together. (F. Engels, "The Book of Revelation", 1883, link) || Nehmen wir z.B. unser Buch der Offenbarung, von dem wir sehen werden, daß es, statt das dunkelste und geheimnisvollste zu sein, das einfachste und klarste Buch des ganzen Neuen Testaments ist. [...] All dies hat jetzt jegliche Bedeutung verloren, ausgenommen für einfältige Personen, die noch immer versuchen mögen, den Tag des letzten Gerichts auszurechnen. (F. Engels, "Das Buch der Offenbarung", 1883, MEW 21)

2011-08-26T08:52:00.002+10:00

beating heart, standstill

2011-08-21T10:25:00.005+10:00

"Montcrieff died while translating [In search of lost time], which is no wonder, and the last volume was translated by a man called Blossom who did quite well. [...] The whole is a treasure hunt where the treasure is time and the hiding place the past [...] Jean Cocteau has called the work "A giant miniature, full of mirages, of superimposed gardens, of games conducted between space and time." (V Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, 207-08) | "[...] and the much-vaunted shrinking of the state has meant a hypertrophy of its repressive apparatus, a low-intensity war of the state against society on behalf of the markets." (A Toscano, "The Prejudice Against Prometheus") | He once saw a man die, he recalled, who complained bitterly in his last moments that destiny was preventing him from finishing the book he was writing. The absurdity of regret, in Montaigne's view, is best conveyed by lines from Lucretius: "But this they fail to add: that after you expire / Not one of all these things will fill you with desire." As for himself, Montaigne wrote, "I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden." (S Greenblatt, "The Answer Man", The New Yorker, Aug 8 2011, p.32) | Der schwäbische Quietismus, dem Mörike sich verschrieb, ist, wie die Biedermeierkunst überhaupt, ein von der Vorahnung des böses Endes ausgelöster Totstellreflex. - Swabian Quietism, to which Mörike was devoted, just as the entire body of work of the Biedermeier era, is a death-feigning reflex set off by a premonition of the bitter end. (WG Sebald, Logis in einem Landhaus, p.82) | In Pyrmont, einem Orte, der wegen seines Gesundbrunnens berühmt ist, lebte noch im Jahre 1756 ein Edelmann auf seinem Gute, der das Haupt einer Sekte in Deutschland war, die unter dem Namen der Quietisten oder Separatisten bekannt ist [...] Der Herr von Fleischbein, so hieß dieser Edelmann, wohnte hier von allen übrigen Einwohnern des Orts und ihrer Religion, Sitten und Gebräuchen ebenso abgesondert, wie sein Haus von den ihrigen durch eine hohe Mauer geschieden war [...] Dies Haus nun machte für sich eine kleine Republik aus, worin gewiß eine ganz andre Verfassung als rund umher im ganzen Lande herrschte. Das ganze Hauswesen bis auf den geringsten Dienstboten bestand aus lauter solchen Personen, deren Bestreben nur dahin ging oder zu gehen schien, in ihr ›Nichts‹ (wie es die Mad. Guion nennt) wieder einzugehen, alle Leidenschaften zu ›ertöten‹ und alle ›Eigenheit‹ auszurotten.

Alle diese Personen mußten sich täglich einmal in einem großen Zimmer des Hauses zu einer Art von Gottesdienst versammlen, den der Herr von Fleischbein selbst eingerichtet hatte, und welcher darin bestand, daß sie sich alle um einen Tisch setzten und mit zugeschloßnen Augen, den Kopf auf den Tisch gelegt, eine halbe Stunde warteten, ob sie etwa die Stimme Gottes oder das ›innre Wort‹ in sich vernehmen würden. Wer dann etwas vernahm, der machte es den übrigen bekannt. Der Herr von Fleischbein bestimmte auch die Lektüre seiner Leute, und wer von den Knechten oder Mägden eine müßige Viertelstunde hatte, den sahe man nicht anders als mit einer von der Mad. Guion Schriften, vom ›innern Gebet‹ oder dergleichen, in der Hand in einer nachdenkenden Stellung sitzen und lesen. (KP Moritz, Anton Reiser: ein psychologischer Roman: link)

long, last, happy

2011-08-08T15:35:00.001+10:00

Hannah writes sentences like these, from the story "Love Too Long": "She and the architect were having fancy drinks together at a beach lounge when his ex-wife from New Hampshire showed up naked with a single-shotgun that was used in the Franco-Prussian War - it was a quaint piece hanging on the wall in their house when he was at Dartmouth - and screaming." (A. Martin, Gonzo Guys, TLS April 15, 2011, p.20) | Bedford spent her early years with her father in a schloss near Baden, full of Renaissance art. He had lost all his money, and they lived in austere seclusion, bartering their apples for butter and using candles for light, but he liked to sketch and was fond of animals, having kept a chimpanzee in his youth. The ill-tempered family donkey was given felt slippers to wear when it came into the house. (C. Moorehead, The warm south, Ibid, p.14) | New Yorker editing is easily caricatured. The obsession with coordinate syntax and commas, the fact checking, the distaste for certain topics and products [...] and the cultivation of a particular breed of ironic detachment [...] (F. Green, Occupation: Writer, Ibid, p.3) | The notion of devoting an entire conference, and then a book, to a single painted pot is one that would only occur to Classicists [...] (AM Snodgrass, A piper at the party, TLS May 13 2011, p.4) | "The only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense." Edward Gibbons victim in that particular footnote was Jerome, the author of three extremely imaginative "Lives" of hermits. (WV Harris, Time of bones, Ibid, p.5) | A few years ago, during a visit to Yalta, the director of the Chekhov museum there swore to me that Chekhov's toothbrush had disappeared from the display after a visit by a group of Japanese tourists. [...] In Yalta, Putin had paid an obligatory visit to the Chekhov museum and the director had jokingly urged the Prime Minister not to return the Kuril Islands to the Japanese unless they returned Chekhov's toothbrush to the museum in Yalta (Z Zinik, Freelance, Ibid, p.16)

Petaluma

2011-08-04T18:05:00.000+10:00

The first piece of art that Karen Green made after her husband, David Foster Wallace, took his own life on 12 September 2008, was a forgiveness machine. She is standing in the neat, white studio at her house at Petaluma, north of San Francisco, explaining to me how the machine worked and how it didn't [...] "People don't understand how ill he was. It was a monster that just ate him up. And at that point everything was secondary to the illness. Not just writing. Everything else: food, love, shelter…" (The Guardian) | Sie stand am Zaun des Gartenlokals und blickte auf die Havel. Sie fühlte oft Langeweile. Sie ermüdete auch bald. (Rolf Schneider, Hanna) | [...] for in secret Quirke prized his loneliness as a mark of some distinction. (Benjamin Black, Christine Falls)

Minos et Pasiphae

2011-06-09T15:31:00.005+10:00

[...] a story from the trenches of the First World War, which was recounted many years later by the German playwright Carl Zuckmayr. A friend of Zuckmayr's, a medic in the German Army, told how his unit captured a seriously wounded Indian solider serving in the British Army. To save the man's life, the German doctors needed to amputate one of his legs, but since they didn't speak English, they couldn't communicate this to the increasingly terrified prisoner. Finally, the medic hit on the idea of saying tghe only remotely Indian words he knew "Rabindranath Tagore! Rabindranath Tagore! Rabindranath Tagore!" The name acted like a charm, and the Indian soldier relaxed, nodded, and began to smile. (A Kirsch, "Modern Magus", The New Yorker, May 30 2011, p.75) || "Pascal himself claimed that Molinists were correct concerning the state of humanity before the Fall, while Calvinists were correct regarding the state of humanity after the Fall." || Critics will always be jealous of poets and find elaborate reasons for their acrimony (G Steiner, The Death of Tragedy, Faber and Faber, 1961, p.54) || Could the agonized Indian really have understood the German pronunciation of the English version of a Bengali name? (Kirsch, "Modern Magus") || But [Alexandre] Hardy was no mere hack. He embodied that part of the baroque which is a kind of pure, joyous energy. His range is fairly described by the repertoire of the Players in Hamlet: "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene indivisible, or poem unlimited." (Steiner, 52)

drei wege zum see

2011-05-15T10:25:00.003+10:00

mono

2011-05-03T16:20:00.001+10:00

Lacrimae rerum - mono no aware || Wirf die Fische ins Meer. Lösch die Lupinen! Es kommen härtere Tage. || Der Kapitalismus ist die Zelebrierung eines Kultes sans rêve et sans merci [...] Der Kapitalismus ist vermutlich der erste Fall eines nicht entsühnenden, sondern verschuldenden Kultus [...] Darin liegt das historisch Unerhörte des Kapitalismus, daß Religion nicht mehr Reform des Seins sondern dessen Zertrümmerung ist. | Capitalism is the celebration of the cult sans reve et sans merci. [...] Capitalism is presumably the first case of a blaming, rather than a repenting cult [...] Therein lies the historical enormity of capitalism: religion is no longer the reform of being, but rather its obliteration. (Walter Benjamin: Kapitalismus als Religion [Fragment], in: Gesammelte Schriften, Hrsg.: Rolf Tiedemann und Hermann Schweppenhäuser, 7 Bde, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1. Auflage, 1991, Bd. VI, S. 100 – 102.) || Durch eure Schuld. Ihr habt euch nie geeint und nie vereinigt. Durch Jammern wird die Industrie und Börse nicht gereinigt. (Kurt Tucholsky, Angestellte)

Pauper ubique jacet

2011-04-19T13:49:00.002+10:00

"Aus ihrem goldnen Zeitalter, wie Thornton richtig sagt, stürzte die englische Arbeiterklasse ohne alle Zwischenübergänge in das eiserne." || As Thornton rightly has it, the English working class was precipitated without any transition from its golden into its iron age. || Die durch Auflösung der feudalen Gefolgschaften und durch stoßweise, gewaltsame Expropriation von Grund und Boden Verjagten, dies vogelfreie Proletariat konnte unmöglich ebenso rasch von der aufkommenden Manufaktur absorbiert werden, als es auf die Welt gesetzt ward. Andrerseits konnten die plötzlich aus ihrer gewohnten Lebensbahn Herausgeschleuderten sich nicht ebenso plötzlich in die Disziplin des neuen Zustandes finden. Sie verwandelten sich massenhaft in Bettler, Räuber, Vagabunden, zum Teil aus Neigung, in den meisten Fällen durch den Zwang der Umstände. Ende des 15. und während des ganzen 16. Jahrhunderts daher in ganz Westeuropa eine Blutgesetzgebung wider Vagabundage. Die Väter der jetzigen Arbeiterklasse wurden zunächst gezüchtigt für die ihnen angetane Verwandlung in Vagabunden und Paupers. Die Gesetzgebung behandelte sie als "freiwillige" Verbrecher und unterstellte, daß es von ihrem guten Willen abhänge, in den nicht mehr existierenden alten Verhältnissen fortzuarbeiten. || The proletariat created by the breaking up of the bands of feudal retainers and by the forcible expropriation of the people from the soil, this “free” proletariat could not possibly be absorbed by the nascent manufactures as fast as it was thrown upon the world. On the other hand, these men, suddenly dragged from their wonted mode of life, could not as suddenly adapt themselves to the discipline of their new condition. They were turned en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases from stress of circumstances. Hence at the end of the 15th and during the whole of the 16th century, throughout Western Europe a bloody legislation against vagabondage. The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers. Legislation treated them as “voluntary” criminals, and assumed that it depended on their own good will to go on working under the old conditions that no longer existed. (Karl Marx Das Kapital - Bd. I VII. Der Akkumulationsprozeß des Kapitals 24. Die sogenannte ursprüngliche Akkumulation) || The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms. [...] The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity." [...] Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day... (The Independent) || Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, collapsed and died less than three minutes after being hit with a baton and pushed to the ground by a police officer, PC Simon Harwood, during the demonstrations near the Bank of England. He had been trying to get home from work at around 7.20pm on 1 April 2009 when he encountered the Metropolitan police officer. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate Tomlinson, a father of nine, who was pronounced dead more than an hour later. (The Guardian) ||

Latecomers

2011-04-06T15:47:00.004+10:00

Procrastination, he says, "is a spurious form of immortality," the ego's way of claiming that it has all the time in the world; writing, by extension, is a kind of death. (Dana Goodyear, "Hollywood Shadows", The New Yorker, March 21, 2011, p.54) || He would, he had long ago decided, be deliberately euphoric. It was a technique which he could practice and perfect, although sometimes it nearly eluded him. (Anita Brookner, Latecomers, Chivers, 1989, p.3) || Da das Wetter schön und die Sonne noch hoch am Himmel war, so gingen wir ein wenig in den Garten hinab, wo Goethe zunächst einige Baumzweige in die Höhe binden ließ, die zu tief in die Wege herabhingen. (Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, Reclam, 1994, p.365) || M. schreibt: "Ich habe in letzter Zeit verstärkt das Gefühl, dass immer weniger Leute mich verstehen." Aus M. Frisch Tagebüchern (68-71) zitiert er: "Lange bevor der Gezeichnete denkmüde wird, zeigt er sich stoffunlustig. Er will nur noch Essenz. Aphorismus als Altersform."

chez moi, un instant

2011-03-29T16:56:00.004+11:00

velle non discitur

2011-03-15T18:32:00.005+11:00

Seneca sagt vortrefflich: velle non discitur [wollen läßt sich nicht lernen; Epistulae 8I, I4], wobei er die Wahrheit seinen Stoikern vorzieht, welche lehrten, [die Tugend sei lehrbar; Diogenes Laertios 7, 9I].

Schopenhauer, Arthur. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung I, 404.

Seneca puts it excellently: velle non discitur [willing cannot be learned; Epistulae 8I, I4], and in this he prefers the truth to his stoics, who taught [that virtue can be taught; Diogenes Laertios 7, 9I].

the firecreek excerpts 0.2

2011-03-15T14:14:00.002+11:00

Das andre Leben ist nichts andres als das Leben im Einklang mit dem Gefühl, mit der Idee, welcher dieses Leben widerspricht. Das Jenseits hat keine andere Bedeutung, als diesen Zwiespalt aufzuheben, einen Zustand zu verwirklichen, der dem Gefühl entspricht, in dem der Mensch mit sich im Einklang ist. Ein unbekanntes Jenseits ist eine lächerliche Schimäre: das Jenseits ist nichts weiter als die Wirklichkeit einer bekannten Idee, die Befriedigung eines bewußten Verlangens, die Erfüllung eines Wunsches: es ist nur die Beseitigung der Schranken, die hier der Wirklichkeit der Idee im Wege stehen. Wo wäre der Trost, wo die Bedeutung des Jenseits, wenn ich in ihm in stockfinstere Nacht blickte? Nein! dort strahlt mir mit dem Glanze des gediegenen Metalls entgegen, was hier nur mit den trüben Farben des oxydierten Erzes glänzt. Das Jenseits hat keine andere Bedeutung, keinen andern Grund seines Daseins als den, zu sein die Scheidung des Metalls von seinen beigemengten fremden Bestandteilen, die Scheidung des Guten vom Schlechten, des Angenehmen vom Unangenehmen, des Lobenswürdigen vom Tadelnswerten.

Feuerbach, Ludwig. Das Wesen des Christentums. Dritte Auflage, Leipzig 1849/Reclam 1969, 275.

the firecreek excerpts 0.1

2011-03-13T22:35:00.002+11:00

Wirkliches, sinnliches Sein ist solches, welches nicht abhängt von meinem Mich-selbst-Bestimmen, von meiner Tätigkeit, sondern von welchem ich unwillkürlich bestimmt werde, welches ist, wenn ich auch gar nicht bin, es gar nicht denke, fühle. Das Sein Gottes müßte also sinnlich bestimmtes Sein sein. Aber Gott wird nicht gesehen, nicht gehört, nicht sinnlich empfunden. Er ist für mich gar nicht, wenn ich nicht für ihn bin; wenn ich keinen Gott glaube und denke, so ist kein Gott für mich. Er ist also nur, indem er gedacht, geglaubt wird – der Zusatz: für mich ist unnötig. Also ist sein Sein ein wirkliches, das doch zugleich kein wirkliches – ein geistiges Sein, hilft man sich. Aber geistiges Sein ist eben nur Gedachtsein, Geglaubtsein. Also ist sein Sein ein Mittelding zwischen sinnlichem Sein und Gedachtsein, ein Mittelding voll Widerspruch. Oder: es ist ein sinnliches Sein, dem aber alle Bestimmungen der Sinnlichkeit abgehen – also ein unsinnliches sinnliches Sein, ein Sein, welches dem Begriffe der Sinnlichkeit widerspricht, oder nur eine vage Existenz überhaupt, die im Grunde eine sinnliche ist, aber, um diesen Grund nicht zur Erscheinung kommen zu lassen, aller Prädikate einer wirklichen sinnlichen Existenz beraubt wird. Aber eine solche Existenz überhaupt widerspricht sich. Zur Existenz gehört volle, bestimmte Wirklichkeit.

Feuerbach, Ludwig. Das Wesen des Christentums. Dritte Auflage, Leipzig 1849/Reclam 1969, 305.

periphron

2011-02-15T18:40:00.001+11:00

the navel of all the waters

2011-02-15T17:42:00.004+11:00

This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That || The city of Troy fell over three thousand years ago, at the end of the second millenium before our era. (T.R. Walsh & R. Merrill, "The Tradition, the Singer, the Performance) in The Odyssey, University of Michigan, 2002, p.1) || But Ishtar rose up and mounted the great wall of Uruk; she sprang on to the tower and uttered a curse: 'Woe to Gilgamesh, for he has scorned me in killing the Bull of Heaven.' When Enkidu heard these words he tore out the Bull's right thigh and tossed it in her face saying, 'If I could lay my hands on you, it is this I should do to you, and lash the entrails to your side.' Then Ishtar called together her people, the dancing and singing girls, the prostitutes of the temple, the courtesans. Over the thigh of the Bull of Heaven she set up lamentations. | [...] | So Enkidu lay stretched out before Gilgamesh; his tears ran down in streams and he said to Gilgamesh, 'O my brother, so dear as you are to me, brother, yet they will take me from you.' Again he said, 'I must sit down on the threshold of the dead and never again will I see my dear brother with my eyes.' (The epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin, 1960, p.88-89) || After the fall of the Mycenaean palace cultures and the destruction of Troy, from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the eighth, Greek civilization crosses the period that historians call the Dark Ages because of what appears to be a general decline in cultural vitality. Instead of featuring the large palaces of Agamemnon's Mycenae and Nestor's Pylos, where scribes kept records of palace accounts [...] life in the Dark Ages was lived in small communities for whom writing seems not to have existed and grand social systems were only a memory. (Walsh & Merrill, 11-12) || Wretch! Faraway from his friends, he has long been suffering sorrows, off on a tide-washed island the broad sea has its navel. (The Odyssey, ibid., 86 (49-50) || ...unhappy man, who still, far from his friends, is suffering griefs, on the sea-washed island, the navel of all the waters... (The Odyssey, Perennial Classics, 1967, p.28 (49-50)

per noctem

2011-01-28T20:45:00.003+11:00

nequiquam

2011-01-21T17:13:00.001+11:00

et mūtam nēquīquam alloquerer cinerem (link) | "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." | hyperbaton | [Kraus] wrote of the Germans generally: "They will have forgotten that they lost the war, forgotten that they waged it. For this reason it will not end." | Back in Berlin in December 1918, [Kessler] visited the imperial palace soon after it had been ransacked by mutinous German sailors. In the empress's private rooms, he walked through the hideous clutter of tasteless objects, past smashed doors and furniture and walls hung with trite paintings in the grand patriotic style; he saw vast armoires stuffed with kitschy plates, trinkets, souvenirs, medals and other knickknacks. He felt no anger at the looters, only "astonishment" at the mediocrity of the people who had collected this trash. "Out of this atmosphere was born the World War, or whatever guilt for the World War was the Kaiser's," he notes. (Amos Elon, "The Wanderer", NYRB, Oct 24 2002, pp.18-20) | It is a common experience of expatriates and travelers that, when you meet someone from another culture, you begin to act out a part you feel you have been assigned in an earlier life. Your persona goes into action, and you deliver the lines provided by some mysterious central scripting unit (Hilary Mantel, "Naipaul's Book of the World", Ibid. pp.10-12) | "noce fratris quam ipso fratre miserior: made sadder by the brother's night than by the brother himself" [...] "per noctem in nihilo vehi: to vanish by night into nothing". (P. Stothard, "Made sadder by the brother's night", TLS June 18 2010, p.13) | memories of green | In 1903, battles broke out on the streets of Athens between police and Classics students (instigated by their conservative professor) protesting against the use of a demotically tinged translation for a production of Aeschylus' Oresteia. Three people were killed. (M. Griffith, "Unseen Translations", TLS Feb 12 2010, p. 27)

Tee vs. Kaffee 1:0

2011-01-18T13:29:00.000+11:00

Der Tee ist meiner Ansicht nach ein Phantasticum, der Kaffee ein Energeticum – daher besitzt der Tee auch einen ungleich höheren musischen Rang. Ich merke beim Kaffee, daß er das feine Gitter von Licht und Schatten zerstört, die fruchtbaren Zweifel, die während der Niederschrift eines Satzes auftauchen. Man überfährt seine Hemmungen. Am Tee dagegen ranken sich die Gedanken genuin empor.

Ernst Jünger an Albert Hofmann, in: Hofmann, Albert. LSD mein Sorgenkind (1979). Stuttgart 2010, 164.

rock sing

2011-01-18T11:01:00.002+11:00

allo scuro nel letto

2010-12-07T10:35:00.004+11:00

Daß die Periodisierung der deutschen Literaturgeschichte zu einem gewissen Abschluß gekommen ist, und daß jedermann ahnt, was etwa er sich unter literarischem Barock vorzustellen hat, bevor er sich auch nur mit ihm befaßt hat, - das sind Anzeichen dafür, daß die wisschenschaftliche Arbeit vergangener Generationen doch nicht ganz vergeblich gewesen ist, wenn auch das Ergebnis nicht immer unseren Wünschen entsprechen mag. | That the periodizing of German literary history has come to a kind of completion, and that everyone intuits what is meant by literary Baroque, even before one has engaged with it - that is an indication for that fact that the scientific work of past generations may not have been in vain altogether, even if the result may not always correspond to one's wishes. (Klaus Weimar, Versuch über Voraussetzung und Entstehung der Romantik, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 1968, transl. mine) | I myself have proved it to be of no small use, when in bed in the dark, to recall in fancy the external details of forms previously studied, or other noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly an admirable exercise, and useful for impressing things on the memory | o in me provato essere di no pocca vtilita, quado ti truovi allo scuro nel letto 4 andare colla inmaginativa repetedo i linia- meti superfitiali delle forme Sper 1'adrieto studiate, o altre cose notabili da sottili spe- culatione coprese, 6 ed e questo propio uno atto laudabile e vtile a confermarsi le cose nella memoria. (L. da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci Vol. 1, ed. Jean Paul Richter, Section 496) | I had come across Carpocrates's assertion that to escape the tyranny of the angels, the masters of the cosmos, every possible ignominy should be perpetrated, that you should discharge all debts to the world and to your own body, for only by committing every act can the soul be freed of its passions and return to its original purity. (U. Eco, Foucault's Pendulum) | Oh wär ich da, o stünd ich schon / Ach süßer Gott vor Deinem Thron / Und trüge meine / almen! / So wollt ich nach der Engel Weis’ / Erhöhen Deines Namens Preis, / Mit tausend / schönen Psalmen

...della luca d'oro

2010-12-07T10:19:00.002+11:00

os deuses e os mortos

2010-11-30T18:03:00.002+11:00

He had found the thing which modern people call Impressionism, which is another name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to the universe. (GK Chesterton, The Man who was Thursday) | Manisha Ma Bhairvara worships the Goddess and engages in tantric ceremonies in the cremation grounds of Tarapith, in Bengal. Lal Peri is a devotee of the Sufi saint Lal Shabbaz Qalander. Tashi Passang lives as a Tibetan monk in Dharamsala, in India. Hari Das is possessed nightly by a god during a cycle of theyyam ritual performances every December to February in Kerala. Rani Bai is a sacred prostitute (a devadasi) in a town in northern Karnataka. Kanai is a blind minstrel who sings with the Bauls ("crazies"), an antinomian sect, at Kenduli, in West Bengal. Mataji wanders as a member of a sect of Digambara ("sky-clad", that is, naked) Jains at Sravanabelgola. Mohan was a low-caste singer of the epics of the cavalier hero and deity Pabuji in Rajasthan. Srikanda Stpathy is a Brahmin idol-maker [...] (W Doniger, "Balm for the wounds", TLS Jan 8 2010) | For the proponents of the so-called B-theory, there is no ontological difference between what is past, present or future: all events are equally real, wherever and whenever they occur. For the proponents of Presentism - much in vogue - reality is confined to the here and now: both past and future are equally (and completely) unreal [...] There is also the "Moving Spotlight" view, which grants some degree of reality to both the past and the future, but holds that only those events that fall under the steadily advancing beam of the present are fully real. (B Dainton, "Past, what past?", TLS Jan 8 2010) | The nadir was probably signalled in 1985 by the great schism in the British Worker's Revolutionary party, when the scandal over the late Gerry Healy's antics with new female members caused a split into two factions known to party members themselves as the "fuckers" and the "wankers". (Donald Rayfield, "Death imitates art", TLS Oct 23, 2009, p.12) | Memory Lane (Mikhael Hers, 2010): trailer

November

2010-11-30T17:08:00.002+11:00

saevit toto Mars impius orbe

2010-11-24T14:42:00.003+11:00

So the gods agreed to exterminate mankind. Enlil did this, but Ea because of his oath warned me in a dream. He whispered their words to my house of reeds, "Reed-house, reed-house! Wall, O wall, hearken reed-house, wall reflect; O man of Shurrupak, son of Ubara-Tutu; tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise wordly goods and save your soul alive. Tear down your house, I say, and build a boat. These are the measurements of the barque as you shall build her: let her beam equal her length, let her deck be roofed like the vault that covers the abyss; then take up into the boat the seed of all living creatures." N.K. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Story of the Flood, (Penguin: 1960), p.108 | [...] their minds acid with professional jealousy, farcical ghosts who called one another cher maitre... U. Eco, Foucault's Pendulum | I’ve spent ten days being depressed. Now I’m starting to get better. It seems that I may be liquidating a whole bunch of my neuroses forever. For three days I have sat through high-speed psychoanalysis with one of the most renowned doctors in the States (the editor of The Psychoanalytic Review), my good friend Dr Stragnell. Very interesting. We have uncovered fifty per cent of my ‘doubt’ complex – this is, of course, my sore spot. We have been applying a scientific method – this isn’t the usual quack treatment. The latest hysterical depression (during my present fortunate circumstances!) upset me so much that I decided to root out the guilty group of neuroses (without touching the others). My decision happened to coincide with Dr Stragnell’s arrival (sometimes I’m lucky). It’s very interesting to see how my doubt obsession developed and who and what are guilty. Imagine, Pearl! I will no longer need constant affirmation! To hell with it all! I will be able to do everything! S. Eisenstein: link | "Jott, junge Herr, sunst schrewen S' doch ümmer ihrst, o'r schicken uns Baarschen o'r den kleenen inglischen Kierl. Un nu keen Wort nich. Awers ick wußt et joa, as de Poggen hüt oabend mit ehr Gequoak nich to Enn koam künn'n. 'Jei, jei, Mutter', seggt ick, 'dat bedüt wat!' Awers as the Fruenslü sinn! Wat seggt se? 'Wat sall et bedüten?' seggt se, 'Regen bedüt es. Un dat's man gaud. Denn uns Tüffeln bruken't.'" Fontane, Schach von Wuthenow

a love supreme

2010-11-14T08:33:00.004+11:00

The Liberal Democrats were drawing up plans to abandon Nick Clegg's flagship policy to scrap university tuition fees two months before the general election, secret party documents reveal. As the Lib Dem leader faces a growing revolt after this week's violent protest against fee rises, internal documents show the party was drawing up proposals for coalition negotiations which contrasted sharply with Clegg's public pronouncements. (guardian) | [...] the Observer has learned that defence firms are working closely with UK armed forces and contemplating a "militarisation" strategy to counter the threat of civil disorder. The trade group representing the military and security industry says firms are in negotiation with senior officers over possible orders for armoured vehicles, body scanners and better surveillance equipment. (guardian) | For many people, up to the end of the seventeenth century, dragons and fairies were part of everyday life. Dragon skins hung in some parish churches and ploughing regularly turned up elf arrows, little-worked flints of great delicacy. (R Hill, "Giant Steps", TLS Nov 13 2009)

sistema macchina della luce d'oro

2010-11-12T08:34:00.005+11:00

Nobody has greater respect than I have for your judgment in socks, in ties, and - I will go farther - in spats; but when it comes to evening shirts your nerve seems to fail you. You have no vision. You are prejudiced and reactionary. Hidebound is the word that suggests itself. (Wodehouse, Clustering around young Bingo) | Jan Tschichold was one of the most distinguished typographers of the last century, and has had many admirers, among whom he himself was not the least (S. Carter, "Poor Typists", TLS April 10 2009) | In life a podgy, balding man of middling height, in death he was transformed into a firm-jawed figure eight-feet tall, perched on top of an imposing granite plinth, and surrounded by railings to protect him from the sticky fingers of "mischievous boys and others". | Despite some nervous attempts to blame the local Inuit population, not least by Dickens in a shrilly racist article published in Household Words, the evidence was clear: whether through choice or necessity, the survivors had turned to cannibalism. (R. Douglas-Fairhurst, "Terror to terror", TLS Nov 13 2010) | [...] the "Central Six" that psychologists have categorized: general intelligence, openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, stability and extraversion. Being able to signal our characteristics is important because the perception by others of those characteristics affects their willingness to join us in all of the encounters and partnerships we undertake [...] So to send a credible signal about their vast earning power, the truly rich have to waste money on baubles whose only merit is their being unaffordable to the poor. To signal their intelligence the brainy may likewise have to do some really pointless and wasteful things (like write sonnets or compose symphonies) that are just too difficult for the unintelligent person to do. That said, natural selection has, over vast stretches of time, trained us to want to do these things, so that sonnets and symphonies...cease to seem so pointless and wasteful. But they are no less baubles for that. (P. Seabright, "Why we walk the dog", TLS Nov 13 2010) | Zur Sühne für eine halbe Schuld (und ich rechne hoch, wenn ich von einer halben Schuld spreche), will sie die ganze tragen, auch vor der Welt, und will sich in jenem romantischen Zuge, der ihr eigen ist, aus ihrem Unglück ein Glück erziehen. | As atonement for her half of the blame (and I am rounding up when I speak of half of the blame) she wants to carry all of it, before the entire world, and, through that romantic inclination peculiar to her, she desires to rear happiness from her misfortune. (Fontane, Schach von Wuthenow)

the passage to cosmos

2010-11-06T09:53:00.008+11:00

[The devil] is as high as a child of two. Its depth is a foot, fifteen inches. The air stirs around it, invisibly. I am cold, and rinsed by nausea. I cannot move.... It has no edges, no mass, no dimension, no shape except the formless; it moves. I beg it, stay away, stay away. Within the space of a thought it is inside me, and has set up a sick resonance within my bones and in all the cavities of my body. (Hilary Mantel, Giving up the Ghost) | For I dance /And drink, and sing, /Till some blind hand /Shall brush my wing. (Blake) | But I pray to Mnamosyna, the fair-robed child of Ouranos (Pindar) | And live alone in the bee-loud glade | Lee Barker as Tarzan: link | The old Baron, the most loquacious man of his time, was effectively silenced. (Laura Dassow Walls, The passage to Cosmos): link | Im raschen Trabe ging es, die Friedrichstrasse hinunter, erst auf das Rondell und das Hallesche Tor zu, bis der tiefe Sandweg, der zum Kreuzberg hinaufführte, zu langsameren Fahren nötigte. | They went down Friedrichstrasse at a quick trot, first toward the roundabout and the Hallesche Tor, until the deep sandpath leading up to the Kreuzberg necessitated slower driving. (Fontane, Schach von Wuthenow)

phos in euphrone pheron

2010-10-29T19:48:00.001+11:00

http://www.vimeo.com/16303895

hibernaculum

2010-10-19T18:12:00.000+11:00

ockulta dagboken

2010-10-16T09:25:00.002+11:00

Edmond de Goncourt overheard a conversation in a Paris restaurant: “The Sarah Bernhardt family—now, there’s a family! The mother made whores of her daughters as soon as they turned thirteen.” (nyrb) | demotic - umgangsprachlich (?) | deutschlandradio ogg stream | hibernaculum | Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St George's, was much addicted to opium. | Beyond lay another broad wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers. | The Man with the Twisted Lip link | Im Bus liest einer: how to build a scale using factor analysis | Angelo & Poodle cross at Nicholson and Holden

skogssnufvism

2010-09-14T18:13:00.003+10:00

Flucht nach Italien, um sich zu poetischer Produktivitaet wieder herzustellen. Aberglaube, dass er nicht hinkomme, wenn jemand darum wisse. Deshalb tiefes Geheimnis.

He fled to Italy in order to revive his poetic power. Superstitious fancy, that he should not succeed, if any one knew about it; therefore observes profound secrecy.

Eckermann-Goethe Conversations, 10. Februar 1829

bandura

2010-09-12T18:28:00.004+10:00

biosphere 0.99_n

2010-09-04T22:16:00.003+10:00

"Staatsgalerie Prenzlauer Berg" - ein klarer Fall von Amtsanmaßung. Er fügt sich in die Reihe von Überhöhungen, wie sie derzeit en vogue sind im >Prenzlberg<. Da läutet es im >Kolle Belle<, da tönt es >Immanuel Kirch Caree<... Sein Name ist kein Etikettenschwindel, sondern der Tarnname für einen Veranstaltungsort, der sich zum Größenwahn seiner kulturellen Ausrichtung bei höchst ungewisser Kostendeckung bekennt.

Pressetext der Staatsgalerie Prenzlauer Berg

biosphere 0.99_l

2010-09-04T21:59:00.002+10:00

Not all of the children are so lucky, however. Many of them subsist just as pueri conclusores, that is friends and playfellows of their master's sons, or worse, a pastime for adults who enjoy their joyous gaiety and cheer their houses with their laughter, their effrontery and their innocent nakedness. There were of course deprived individuals - akin to present day paedophiles - who took advantage of children in shameless turpitudes and unusual erotic practices, which lead into pederasty.
These children, called alexandrinae diliciae, also inspired artists, who depicted them in the character named "Cupid", which has its origin in the god Eros. The Cupid is a plump rotund child, always in the mood for play, barely conscious of its immortal glamour.

Garcia y Garcia. Pupils, Teachers and Schools in Pompeij. 2005, p. 18

but not Deussen

2010-08-29T01:35:00.003+10:00

Mag man hiervon auch noch so viel auf Rechnung der dichterischen Einkleidung setzen, so steht doch so viel fest, daß von den Hebräern die Schöpfung und Erhaltung der Welt auf ein menschenähnliches, mit menschlichen Eigenschaften und Funktionen ausgestattetes Wesen zurückgeführt wurde, eine Hypothese, welche unter allen philosophischen Theorien, die je über Wesen und Entstehung des Weltalls aufgestellt worden sind, die verwegenste und unmöglichste ist, und über deren Kühnheit wir nur darum nicht erstaunen, weil wir sie von Jugend auf zu hören gewohnt sind.

Deussen, Paul. Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, Band IV, 1913, S. 118.

One may attribute a fair amount to poetic imagination, but it is certain that the Hebrews traced back the creation and continuation of the world to a humanoid, a being with human characteristics and functions. This is the most daring and unlikely hypothesis among all philosophical theories on the beginning of the universe, the boldness of which does not surprise us only because we are exposed to it from infancy.

namely, Spark

2010-08-29T01:03:00.004+10:00

She wrote a review of T.S. Eliot's play The Confidential Clerk that astonished the author with its insight, and Eliot's praise encouraged her to begin a critical study of his work, but she was overdosing on Dexadrine in order to suppress appetite and work longer hours, which had the effect of making her temporarily deranged, convinced that Eliot's writing was full of coded threatening messages to her.

D. Lodge, "The Prime of Muriel Spark", The New York Review, Aug 19 2010, p.60

biosphere 0.99_k (ants and agriculture)

2010-08-28T00:46:00.004+10:00

Selbst komplexe Verhaltensformen im Umgang mit der Umwelt sind konvergent. Das konkrete Beispiel findet sich in der Landwirtschaft, die nicht nur von Menschen betrieben wird, sondern auch von Ameisen. Ihr "Getreide" ist dabei ein Pilz, der in großen Anlagen tief in der Erde angebaut wird, die sich durch eine komplexe innere Struktur mit Abfallkammern und Lüftungsrohren auszeichnen.
Bei genauerem Hinsehen sind die Parallelen zu unserer Art der Nahrungsmittelerzeugung auffällig.

Fischer, Der kleine Darwin, 2009, S. 128

Even complex behaviours regarding the environment are convergent. Agriculture is also practised by ants. Their "grain" is a fungus, which is cultivated in extensive underground complexes, complete with rubbish storage and fresh air ducts.
Upon closer inspection parallels with our cultivation of food plants become obvious.

biosphere 0.99_j

2010-08-28T00:35:00.004+10:00

Vom Standpunkt einer höheren ökonomischen Gesellschaftsformation wird das Privateigentum einzelner Individuen am Erdball so abgeschmackt erscheinen, wie das Privateigentum eines Menschen an einem anderen Menschen.

Karl Marx, Das Kapital Bd. 3, MEW, S. 784.

From the perspective of a more advanced economic societal formation, private property of parts of the globe by individuals will appear distasteful, not unlike having a human being as one's private property.

Berliner Luft

2010-08-15T18:24:00.002+10:00

Und dabei muss man nicht vergessen, dass er über ein halbes Jahrhundert in Berlin zugebracht hat. Es lebt aber, wie ich an allem merke, dort ein so verwegener Menschenschlag beisammen, daß man mit der Delikatesse nicht weit reicht, sondern daß man Haare auf den Zähnen haben und mitunter etwas grob sein muß, um sich über Wasser zu halten.

And then we must not forget that he has lived fifty years in Berlin. And the state of society there is such, that delicacy will not much avail you; and a man is forced to be vehement, and even rough, if he would keep his head above water. (trans. S.M. Fuller)

Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, (Ffm., Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1999), p.82

nuncle, ningle, neumes

2010-08-15T17:11:00.003+10:00

There is a natural development from bilingual dictionaries to dictionaries of “hard words” (Hüllen calls them “crypto-bilingual”), and eventually to comprehensive monolingual dictionaries. | […] an ingle, defined in dictionaries from 1598 through 1658 as a subservient boy hired or kept for sodomy […] In short, neither the “hermaphrodite” nor the “ningle” in Satiromastix has any force as evidence to support the reading “Wellbeck, where my gossip made fat Harry Ogle his mistress” describes Jonson initiating a homosexual relationship with a corpulent sixtyish subordinate blood relative of his aristocratic hostess. | […] where even the most intellectually stumbling character can pronounce the word “honorificabilitudinatibus”. (TLS Oct 9 2009)

namely, Eckermann

2010-08-15T17:05:00.003+10:00

Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli | Winckelmann Körner Müllner Tewes Dissen Schubarth Hagen Fürnstein Riemer Uhland Raupach Kotzebue Zauper Rückert Tiefurt Zelter Immermann Hagestolz | Wir saßen lange beisammen, in ruhiger liebevoller Stimmung. Ich drückte seine Kniee, ich vergaß das Reden über seinem Anblick, ich konnte mich an ihm nicht satt sehen. | Einige sagten mir, er habe die Brustwassersucht. (Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, Band 12(39), (Ffm., Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1999))

hayat var

2010-08-09T15:54:00.000+10:00

Medusa

2010-08-06T12:51:00.002+10:00

neumes

2010-07-20T07:50:00.003+10:00

Ich hatte nen Netz gespannt, um die ganze Welt, damit der Rubel rollt, sach ich mal [...]

Dr Mabuse (version 12): link

cuprite

2010-07-17T14:47:00.003+10:00

Thoughtful people have always found the cosmos to be ethically puzzling, for the fairness which seems an integral part of order is not a priority of human nature. Mountains belch and everything dies. Power belongs to the men with guns. The wicked prosper, the innocent suffer and the few pay for the crimes of the many. Epicurus observed that since evil undoubtedly exists, God cannot be both good and omnipotent, otherwise he would prevent it.

D. Coward, "To get the Beast by the tale"

zebeline

2010-07-17T14:11:00.004+10:00

The Robert-Rhys menage was never going to be without incident, and her first diary entry, less than a month into their marriage, sets the tone:

Keidrych enjoyed is lunch; he looks very unpleasant today. Debauched, with his four-day beard, he is busy scratching behind me writing to Kilham Roberts asking if the Literary Society will grant us some money to live on …. Today Keidrych frequently found cinders or grit in his stewed apples. I told him poets must always expect pieces of chimney in their dishes, that is their fate. He laughed and said what he usually does, “You ought to be filmed.” His ears are scarlet and I hate him, he is always chewing humbugs.

[…] After divorcing Rhys in 1948, she lived in a caravan with her two children, Angharad and Prydein, first in Laugharne (where her address was “The Caravan. The Graveyard. Laugharne") […]

[T.S.] Eliot asked her to send some of her own work, and his editorship was patient, tactful, supportive and occasionally baffled, as when he responded to her variegated diction with this masterpiece of graceful understatement: “The words plimsole, cuprite, zebeline, and neumes seem to exist, but I think that bringing them all into one short poem is a mistake (letter of November 24, 1943)

P. McGuinness, "Machine-age Mabinogion", TLS, November 6 2009, pp.14-15

2010-07-17T13:17:00.001+10:00

namely, Voltaire

2010-07-17T10:40:00.000+10:00

He despised novels which spoke never-endingly of love, romance and adventures high and low. They were in untruth in four volumes. They peddled dangerous illusions about human nature and the real world and were products of "weak-minded authors who write unthinkingly of matters unworthy of being read by thinking persons". One of his nightmares was being forced to reread Clarissa.

D. Coward, "To get the Beast by the tale", TLS October 23 2009, p.14

2010-07-02T18:15:00.003+10:00

2010-06-30T11:11:00.009+10:00

Sagebrush Troubadour

2010-06-29T15:43:00.008+10:00

To give us an impression of the realness of people and things external to us, even if they are insignificant, there are few comparisons more instructive than the change in their disposition towards ourselves undergoes between the time before we know them and the time after. | Il n'est peut-être rien qui donne plus l'impression de la réalité de ce qui nous est exterieur, que le changement de la position, par rapport a nous, d'une personne même insignifiante, avant que nous l'ayons connue, et après. (Proust, A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs) | He was suddenly very sorry the cow had been found. Virag might still tell Mr. Molnar everything. And he, Andy, might have spent three whole years in the castle. (Danilo Kiš, Early Sorrows) | Wundersam ist es wie sich diese Herrlein einen gewissen sittig-religios-poetischen Bettlermantel so geschickt umzuschlagen wissen (Goethe-Eckermann Gespräche) |

douze points

2010-06-25T15:10:00.000+10:00

biosphere 0.999i

2010-06-21T18:58:00.004+10:00

Was Eichinger und Bruno Ganz im "Untergang" produzieren, nämlich die Beseitigung der fundamentalen Übereinstimmung der Hitler-Gemeinheit mit der alltäglichen Gemeinheit der/des Deutschen des sog. 3. Reichs, weist sie aus als Ferkel der besonderen Art, Sauberkeits-Ferkel, Beseitigungsarbeiter. Sie beseitigen nicht Dreck, sondern alle möglichen Einsichten. Sie verdecken mit ihrem >Untergangs-Epos< vor allem die deutsche herrschende Pornographie von heimlich wiederbelebter Reinheit< der Führergefolgschaft.

Klaus Theweleit, friendly fire, Stroemfeld 2005, S.264

tam ve-lo nishlam

2010-06-16T14:47:00.005+10:00

[...] ich erklärte dort dem Direktor, nicht ganz wahrheitsgemäß, aber auch nicht ganz erlogen, meine Kündigung damit, daß ich das Schimpfen, das übrigens mich direkt gar nicht betroffen hatte, nicht ertragen könne [...] - Kafka, Brief an den Vater, Reklam, p.27 | [...] and the explanation I gave the director for my resignation was, though not strictly in accordance with the truth, still not entirely a lie: my not being able to bear the scolding, which incidentally had not actually been directed at me - Ibid. | ...that they are always looking for new shapes of furniture for their eyes, but yet wish their ears to avoid such things? - Auerbach, "Figura", p.15 | [Freud and Jung] helped spread the rumor [...] of the origin of his spreading syphilitic infection. Freud, who shared Lou with Nietzsche, traced down the ostensible lues or luetic pathology to Nietzsche's having visited as we all know a bordello; but, Freud adds, a male bordello and, more precisely still, Nietzsche is said to have contracted syphilis in a Genoese male brothel. - Avital Ronell, "Hitting the Streets", Finitude's Score, p.68 | In the evening we acted still more insanely. The three of us [Deussen, Nietzsche, ?] were wandering through the streets of the little town making overtures to the girls we assumed to be behind the windows. - Ibid., p.75 | nova figura oris ("unaccustomed form of face") - Auerbach, "Figura", p.11 | The nineteen-sixties were the golden age of smoky, inebriated parents. Once, while lurking at the edge of one of my parents' parties, I looked across our smoke-filled living room and saw my father attempting to prove an old contention of his, that his navel was off-center - David Owen, "The Dime Store Floor", The New Yorker, Jan 25, 2010, p.37

nova figura oris

2010-06-16T14:27:00.007+10:00

Apple critter - variation of elbedritsch; Imaginary animals or monsters that people around here tell tales about; Hunting for him is like snipe hunting - Dictionary of American Regional English Vol 1. 1985, Harvard, p.77 | bei Luther: Schwermgeister - Duden «Etymologie» – Herkunftswörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 2. Auflage,1989 | Gamahuche: to perform fellatio or cunnilingus; E. Sellon (1865): 'Quick, quick, Blanche!' cried Cerise, 'Come and gamahuche the gentleman!' - The Oxford dictionary of slang (1989) | We have, as he says in De lingua latina (9,21), taken over new forms of vessels from the Greeks; why do people struggle against new word forms...as though they were poisonous? Et tantum inter duos sensus interesse volunt, ut oculis semper aliquas figurars supellictilis novas conquirant, contra auris expertes velint esse? - E. Auerbach, "Figura" in: Scenes from the Drama of European Literature, p.15 | [...] in the sense of the old Hebrew phrase tam ve-lo nishlam (it is finished but not completed) - Yerushalmi, Freud's Moses, p.96

fame, cntd

2010-05-24T10:37:00.001+10:00

perdita

2010-05-11T11:05:00.004+10:00

"On the Republican side, the Long Islander Rick Lazio [...] who, in a speech referred to Kim Jong Il as 'Kim Jong the Second' - has resurfaced." (The New Yorker, March 15 2000, p.22) | the word worsted | Simulant - malingerer | My own instinct for survival whispers that to enter the enchanted forest of current literary theory would be to double the perils I already face (Yosef Yerushalmi) | Two young women, bleached blonde hair, seated behind me, I take their accent for Russian, then they say perdita, bellissima, nullamente | Being obliged to live with men, I should have been very pleased if there were in their hearts an inner principle that reassured me against them (Montesquieu) | A sign next to the bus driver's rearview mirror says: WARNING BUS UNDER SURVEILLANC | Kammgarn | James Joyce, blind, plays a record of James Joyce reading Joyce to Sergei Eisenstein (Oksana Bulgakowa nennt das mediale Spaltung) | [The little man] will disappear with the coming of the Messiah, who (a great Rabbi once said) will not wish to change the world by force but will merely make a slight adjustment in it. (Walter Benjamin) |

ow wow ow

2010-05-10T11:01:00.000+10:00

Egyptian Shumba (3mb)

fame

2010-05-03T10:19:00.002+10:00

jagulars

2010-05-03T09:30:00.003+10:00

das Wort Pawlatsche | gestüm heißt unbounced | aufgeschobene Partizipien | grassroots - astroturfing | chicas y maletas | "think of Sans Soleil's famous gaze of the market woman from Guinea-Bissau into the camera" | "The film [La Jetée] also includes a famous segment showing the awakening of the beloved woman where the pace of the montage accelerates until the succession of still images becomes 'real' cinematic movement for a short moment." [my emphasis] | fame ? |

nomizein tous theous

2010-04-26T10:54:00.001+10:00

These absences make it difficult to speak of Greek "religion," at least in the positive sense in which the term is used in the context of monotheistic tradition. The Greek language does not even possess a term whose semantic field coincides with that of the word "religion." The nearest term, eusebia, is defined by the priest Euthyphro in the Platonic dialogue named after him as "the care (therapeia) that men have of the gods" (Plato Euthyphro 12e). In this sense, the term covers the punctual observance of services in order to express respect toward the gods, during which proper signs of homage and deference are displayed. These services usually took the form of votice and sacrificial offerings. The Greek equivalent of the word "faith" is equally weak. In everyday language, the expression "to believe in the gods" (nomizein tous theous) does not indicate a rational conviction of their existence (as it will come to do in a more developed philosophical language), but "to respect" or honor the gods by performing certain acts. Nomizein thus comes to mean the same as therapeuein: to devote the appropriate ritual care to the gods.

Mario Vegetti, "The Greeks and their gods", in: The Greeks, (ed.) JP Vernant, University of Chicago Pressp.256

Crest

2010-04-24T13:08:00.005+10:00

If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out of control | If there's been a way to build it there'll be a way to destroy it, things are not all that out

link (11mb)

eh? directions, please

2010-04-24T12:54:00.003+10:00

The two world wars have made Germany one of he most pacifist countries on earth, a sentiment that in some quarters extends to hostility toward anything military: there are neighbourhoods in Berlin where a soldier is well advised not to appear in uniform.

G. Packer, Embers, The New Yorker, February 1, 2010, p.37

fear of flying

2010-04-17T19:08:00.001+10:00

April 14

2010-04-14T17:08:00.005+10:00

But I watched them walk
Through the bottom land,
And I wished that I played
In a rock & roll band.

~~link(9.55mb)~~

nomizein tous theous

2010-04-11T11:36:00.008+10:00

Graf as Richter

2010-04-11T02:11:00.002+10:00

anniversaries

2010-04-08T17:24:00.004+10:00

Dormit hev'ck mi avfunn': sage Willi trübselig, doch mit einer Art Vorfreude.

Uwe Johnson, Jahrestage, Suhrkamp, 2000, p.1402

Pius itym

2010-03-31T09:05:00.003+11:00

The creative use of convention is also apparent in The Vocacyon of Johan Bale (1553). Bale's explosive text describes a year's hardships endured by a Protestant reformer under Mary: it lashes out at the "drunken bishop of Galwaye", and those Catholic "knightes of the dongehill" who enact "most filthie buggeries in the darke".

A. Smyth, "Flower arranging", TLS September 18 2009, p.24

Prospectus

2010-03-30T15:36:00.005+11:00

During this period, Mackey sought succour in spiritual practice. He engaged a friend, a follower of the Czech transpersonal psychologist Stanislav Grof, to guide him through a therapeutic session of holotropic breathing. "I had this very powerful session, very powerful. It lasted about two hours," Mackey said in an inspirational CD set he released last year called "Passion and Purpose: The Power of Conscious Capitalism." "I was having a dialogue with what I would define as my deeper self, or my higher self."

N. Baumgarten, "Food Fighter", The New Yorker, January 4, 2010, p.38

2010-03-28T11:22:00.000+11:00

antipodean

2010-03-27T10:17:00.002+11:00

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.

K. Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

beginnings

2010-03-13T12:28:00.003+11:00

first sentence found in old notebook: "That year I was hired as the night nurse at Bethlehem hospital and fell in love with the intern's legs." | F writes I wrote him that I won't stop laughing | Week 3 of Kafka seminar is complete. No pay, no staff number, no room keys. No human contact with HR possible ("your call is important to us"). This week's seminar: The Hunger Artist. Next week's seminar: A Report to an Academy. | eppur si muove | There are now more signposts on campus than courses on offer | all that is solid melts into PR | the neighbour listens to Morricone while building a carport | "Presque tout de suite après, au-dessus du vacarme de l'atelier, une sonnerie retentit deux fois." | "alles ständische und stehende verdampft" | H writes, "Giannoli was talking on Zerkalo's 'shot with the wind through the bushes', that Tarkovskiy used a helicopter with it."

Ins Gebirg

2010-03-13T12:20:00.004+11:00

Et nous voyons que l'ame en ses passions se pipe plutout elle meme, se dressant un faux subject et fantastique, voire contre sa propre creance, que de n'agir contre quelque chose [...]

comme l'ame descharge ses passions sur des objects faux, quand les vrais luy defaillent [...]

Montagaine, Essais: Livre premier, chapitre IV

cicadas

2010-03-08T19:10:00.007+11:00

March 2010,

Regen und Zikaden (7 min.)

(for headphones): link