The little prince sat down on a stone and looked up at the sky.This from the beautiful book by Atoine de Saint-Exupery.
"I wonder," he said, "if the stars are lit up so that each one of us can find his own star again. Look at my planet. It is right above us...But how far away it is!"
"It is beautiful," said the snake; "why have you come here?"
"I am having some difficulties with a flower," the little prince replied.
"Oh!" said the snake.
And they remained silent.
"Where are the men?" said the little prince, at last resuming the conversation. "One feels rather lonely in the desert."
"It is just as lonely among men," said the snake.
The little prince gazed at him for a long time.
"You're a strange animal," he said at last. "You are as thin as a finger..."
"But I am more powerful than a king's finger," said the snake.
The little prince smiled. "You do not look very powerful...you don't even have paws...you cannot even travel."
"I can carry you farther than a ship," said the snake.
He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet.
"Whomever I touch I send back to the earth from which they came," he added. "But you are pure and innocent and come from a star."
The little prince said nothing.
"I feel sorry for you, so weak on this earth of granite. I may be able to help you one day, if you become too homesick for your own planet. I can..."
"Oh! I understand you perfectly," said the little prince. "But why do you talk in riddles all the time?"
"I solve them all," said the snake.
And they both fell silent.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Nostalgia
The Japan post brought back some more fond memories:
Randosel
Besides walking in lines while holding hands, wearing matching colored hats, or raising their arms as high as possible while crossing the street, Japanese school children also all have the same backpack: the Randoseru (or Randosel).
A commercial for the Randoseru:
A commercial for the Randoseru:
Friday, April 24, 2009
Unpredictably Irregular Poetry Exposure #6
"Ode to the Confederate Dead"
Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality.
Autumn is desolation in the plot
Of a thousand acres where these memories grow
From the inexhaustible bodies that are not
Dead, but feed the grass row after rich row.
Think of the autumns that have come and gone!--
Ambitious November with the humors of the year,
With a particular zeal for every slab,
Staining the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs, a wing chipped here, an arm there:
The brute curiosity of an angel's stare
Turns you, like them, to stone,
Transforms the heaving air
Till plunged to a heavier world below
You shift your sea-space blindly
Heaving, turning like the blind crab.
Dazed by the wind, only the wind
The leaves flying, plunge
You know who have waited by the wall
The twilight certainty of an animal,
Those midnight restitutions of the blood
You know--the immitigable pines, the smoky frieze
Of the sky, the sudden call: you know the rage,
The cold pool left by the mounting flood,
Of muted Zeno and Parmenides.
You who have waited for the angry resolution
Of those desires that should be yours tomorrow,
You know the unimportant shrift of death
And praise the vision
And praise the arrogant circumstance
Of those who fall
Rank upon rank, hurried beyond decision--
Here by the sagging gate, stopped by the wall.
Seeing, seeing only the leaves
Flying, plunge and expire
Turn your eyes to the immoderate past,
Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising
Demons out of the earth they will not last.
Stonewall, Stonewall, and the sunken fields of hemp,
Shiloh, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Bull Run.
Lost in that orient of the thick and fast
You will curse the setting sun.
Cursing only the leaves crying
Like an old man in a storm
You hear the shout, the crazy hemlocks point
With troubled fingers to the silence which
Smothers you, a mummy, in time.
The hound bitch
Toothless and dying, in a musty cellar
Hears the wind only.
Now that the salt of their blood
Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea,
Seals the malignant purity of the flood,
What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity,
What shall we say of the bones, unclean,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow?
The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green?
The gray lean spiders come, they come and go;
In a tangle of willows without light
The singular screech-owl's tight
Invisible lyric seeds the mind
With the furious murmur of their chivalry.
We shall say only the leaves
Flying, plunge and expire
We shall say only the leaves whispering
In the improbable mist of nightfall
That flies on multiple wing:
Night is the beginning and the end
And in between the ends of distraction
Waits mute speculation, the patient curse
That stones the eyes, or like the jaguar leaps
For his own image in a jungle pool, his victim.
What shall we say who have knowledge
Carried to the heart? Shall we take the act
To the grave? Shall we, more hopeful, set up the grave
In the house? The ravenous grave?
Leave now
The shut gate and the decomposing wall:
The gentle serpent, green in the mulberry bush,
Riots with his tongue through the hush--
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all!
-Allen Tate
Read his commentary on the poem here.
Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality.
Autumn is desolation in the plot
Of a thousand acres where these memories grow
From the inexhaustible bodies that are not
Dead, but feed the grass row after rich row.
Think of the autumns that have come and gone!--
Ambitious November with the humors of the year,
With a particular zeal for every slab,
Staining the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs, a wing chipped here, an arm there:
The brute curiosity of an angel's stare
Turns you, like them, to stone,
Transforms the heaving air
Till plunged to a heavier world below
You shift your sea-space blindly
Heaving, turning like the blind crab.
Dazed by the wind, only the wind
The leaves flying, plunge
You know who have waited by the wall
The twilight certainty of an animal,
Those midnight restitutions of the blood
You know--the immitigable pines, the smoky frieze
Of the sky, the sudden call: you know the rage,
The cold pool left by the mounting flood,
Of muted Zeno and Parmenides.
You who have waited for the angry resolution
Of those desires that should be yours tomorrow,
You know the unimportant shrift of death
And praise the vision
And praise the arrogant circumstance
Of those who fall
Rank upon rank, hurried beyond decision--
Here by the sagging gate, stopped by the wall.
Seeing, seeing only the leaves
Flying, plunge and expire
Turn your eyes to the immoderate past,
Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising
Demons out of the earth they will not last.
Stonewall, Stonewall, and the sunken fields of hemp,
Shiloh, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Bull Run.
Lost in that orient of the thick and fast
You will curse the setting sun.
Cursing only the leaves crying
Like an old man in a storm
You hear the shout, the crazy hemlocks point
With troubled fingers to the silence which
Smothers you, a mummy, in time.
The hound bitch
Toothless and dying, in a musty cellar
Hears the wind only.
Now that the salt of their blood
Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea,
Seals the malignant purity of the flood,
What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity,
What shall we say of the bones, unclean,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow?
The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green?
The gray lean spiders come, they come and go;
In a tangle of willows without light
The singular screech-owl's tight
Invisible lyric seeds the mind
With the furious murmur of their chivalry.
We shall say only the leaves
Flying, plunge and expire
We shall say only the leaves whispering
In the improbable mist of nightfall
That flies on multiple wing:
Night is the beginning and the end
And in between the ends of distraction
Waits mute speculation, the patient curse
That stones the eyes, or like the jaguar leaps
For his own image in a jungle pool, his victim.
What shall we say who have knowledge
Carried to the heart? Shall we take the act
To the grave? Shall we, more hopeful, set up the grave
In the house? The ravenous grave?
Leave now
The shut gate and the decomposing wall:
The gentle serpent, green in the mulberry bush,
Riots with his tongue through the hush--
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all!
-Allen Tate
Read his commentary on the poem here.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
New Sites
I have added two sites to my blogroll, BookNinja and 3QuarksDaily. Both of these are interesting in their daily engagement with current culture while not neglecting the classics of Great Literature. Mostly, both of the sites just link you around the web, something that can help with web exposure. Just this morning, 3Quarks posted an article concerning GMH, mostly good because it contains "Carrion Comfort", a great poem. Edward Thomas is there too, along with a poem about Smokey The Bear. Check them out.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A Perfect Circle with 3 Points
In my one semester of grad school, I began researching a paper on a Southern New Critic of the Vanderbilt era. I was writing about the origins of the Southern Ballad and the responsibility of the ballad collectors, especially in the heyday of ballad collecting in the 1920s, to maintain the tradition of cultural authorship. I investigated theories of authorship and attribution as well as copyright law for this paper. When I went to look up information on this guy (whose relation to the ballad and authorship comes in the form of his novel, The Big Ballad Jamboree), I merely typed in his name, Donald Davidson, and checked out the books that sounded interesting. Unfortunately I ended up with a slew of books by and about a more contemporary linguistic theorist. I read through them a bit and found them extremely interesting as related to the paper I had in mind. Then of course I realized my naivete. However, there were a few things I retained from that brief reading of the linguist Donald Davidson that remain intriguing.
Davidson described the formation of language as "triangulation." When two individuals communicate, they form a certain understanding of one another and the others' starting point to the conversation. They each contribute to the other and create a direct link of communication in a very intimate way. Imagine a person's relationship to his or her best friend; they speak together and understand each other in a way that almost makes for its own language, one that others either don't understand or don't find of interest. What forces their communication to adapt, to change, is the interruption of a third party. Neither of the original two can connect with the newcomer on an individual basis without disrupting their own relative distance in the newly formed communication triangle.
Another way of thinking about this, and this is the approach I was planning on taking with my paper, is to imagine an insular culture where everyone within the culture can communicate and interact with everyone else on the common basis of being involved with the culture. Yet when someone new arrives in the area, it disrupts the active connection between the participants in the culture and forces them to adapt in their communicative efforts. This, Davidson argued, forms the basis for all linguistic development.
On a similar note, three members of the former Ante-Occidents once raised their legs together, resting one leg on top of another, and began to spin in a circle, thus forming a perfect circle with three points.
Davidson described the formation of language as "triangulation." When two individuals communicate, they form a certain understanding of one another and the others' starting point to the conversation. They each contribute to the other and create a direct link of communication in a very intimate way. Imagine a person's relationship to his or her best friend; they speak together and understand each other in a way that almost makes for its own language, one that others either don't understand or don't find of interest. What forces their communication to adapt, to change, is the interruption of a third party. Neither of the original two can connect with the newcomer on an individual basis without disrupting their own relative distance in the newly formed communication triangle.
Another way of thinking about this, and this is the approach I was planning on taking with my paper, is to imagine an insular culture where everyone within the culture can communicate and interact with everyone else on the common basis of being involved with the culture. Yet when someone new arrives in the area, it disrupts the active connection between the participants in the culture and forces them to adapt in their communicative efforts. This, Davidson argued, forms the basis for all linguistic development.On a similar note, three members of the former Ante-Occidents once raised their legs together, resting one leg on top of another, and began to spin in a circle, thus forming a perfect circle with three points.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Unpredictably Irregular Poetry Exposure #5
Two poems this time, one a translation, the other...well, you'll figure it out.
New Translation of Polina Barskova
by Ilya Kaminsky
New Translation of Polina Barskova
by Ilya Kaminsky
A Still Life
Saturday morning. Schubert. Frosya torments the slipper.
White hydrangea. (Remember, as in Sapunov?)
I lie on the floor between dolls, small hats, t-shirts.
I stare at you, and close my eyes.
Music for performance over water? Over waters?
The German rhythm stops
like a member of the National-Socialist party in a frightened mouth.
You sit by the computer, covered with light ice
covered with your porcelain beauty.
And waters of Schubert like thousands of tiny mice boil in your mouth.
I’ve been looking at you for three years, like a maniac at the
corpse’s cameo
waiting—the policemen will arrive—they’ll begin to yell
beat me with a shoe, and I will lay quietly on the floor.
Know nothing. Hear nothing. Nothing.
The white hydrangea, a fistful of fireworks
in the sky, as if
some celestial mole labors in the sky.
—Mishenka, it is too bright?
—It is not too bright.
Bubbles of Schubert. Tears bubbling in my mouth.
I Love Me, Vol. I
Frustrate Lee? Let art surf:
Regard a mad rager,
dessert-stressed
flesh self,
radar,
drab bard
(anal was I ere I saw Lana),
flee to me, remote elf!
Raft far!
O, desire, rise, do!
Dog sit in a lap, pal, an' it is God!
(Dog doo! Good God!)
Bosses sob,
nudists I dun,
sex at noon taxes --
risen or prone, sir?
Egad! No bondage!
Cigar? Toss it in a can, it is so tragic...
But sad Eva saved a stub.
God, to have Eva. Hot dog!
Madam, I'm Adam!
Symbiotics
All truth is organic. That is to say, truth does not exist in a stagnant form, rather it is active and living. According to Adorno's theory, language is merely our attempt to communicate that which is, to make the not quite cognizable into sense. For him, language is the process by which we become "disenchanted" with the unknowable, the way of de-mystifying that which is beyond our ken.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
A Little Late
I was listening to the radio today, as I do on the way to work usually, and I had the station turned to NPR, where I heard this interview. I was instantly reminded of an old professor of mine, Bill Jenkins, a man whom I would describe as an Anglophile. He often spoke to the class in reference to the poor state of Britain's morality and religious decay. Also today, I read on the online Guardian of the changing face of the British novel.
Those of you who like Neil Postman, Graham Greene, Dorothy Sayers, or any other British writer of the past century or who are interested in the demographic change that has become virtually global might begin to feel a bit of alarm at noticing the rapid rate of decline in people associating with any form of Christianity in Britain. The BBC did a piece on this back in 2000 called "The UK is 'Losing' its Religion".
In 2007, Vexen Crabtree wrote an article citing multiple statistical sources in which these statistics appear:
"66% of the UK population have no connection with any religion or church3.
18% of the British public say they are a practicing member of an organized religion4. "
Read the entire article here.
A bit selfishly, while being quite depressed by the situation as a whole, I was happy to note the thriving Orthodox community in Britain. The problem with that is the same as in America: while the Orthodox Church is growing in America, England, Australia, and other countries where it was relatively late in appearing, it is rapidly dissapearing in such "home countries" as Russia, Ukraine, and Greece.
While noting the worldwide rise of Islam, also pay very close attention to the terrifying numbers of Jedi Knights in Europe (390,000 in the UK alone!), with even the Pope partaking in this growing sect.
Those of you who like Neil Postman, Graham Greene, Dorothy Sayers, or any other British writer of the past century or who are interested in the demographic change that has become virtually global might begin to feel a bit of alarm at noticing the rapid rate of decline in people associating with any form of Christianity in Britain. The BBC did a piece on this back in 2000 called "The UK is 'Losing' its Religion".
In 2007, Vexen Crabtree wrote an article citing multiple statistical sources in which these statistics appear:
"66% of the UK population have no connection with any religion or church3.
18% of the British public say they are a practicing member of an organized religion4. "
Read the entire article here.
A bit selfishly, while being quite depressed by the situation as a whole, I was happy to note the thriving Orthodox community in Britain. The problem with that is the same as in America: while the Orthodox Church is growing in America, England, Australia, and other countries where it was relatively late in appearing, it is rapidly dissapearing in such "home countries" as Russia, Ukraine, and Greece.
While noting the worldwide rise of Islam, also pay very close attention to the terrifying numbers of Jedi Knights in Europe (390,000 in the UK alone!), with even the Pope partaking in this growing sect.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Unpredictably Irregular Poetry Exposure #4
I know these are predictably frequent, but some poetry should be read every day.
I will not attempt to translate, as my Spanish is by no means poetic, but you should be able to get the drift with all these cognates. "Oro" means gold, "prisa" means to hasten, "ondas" are waves. This should help.
LA HORA
Cada minuto de este oro
¿no es toda la eternidad?
El aire puro lo mece
sin prisa, como si ya
fuera todo el oro que
tuviera que acompasar.
(¡Ramas últimas, divinas,
inmateriales, en paz;
ondas del mar infinito
de una tarde sin pasar!)
Cada minuto de este oro
¿no es un latido inmortal
de mi corazón radiante
por toda la eternidad?
I will not attempt to translate, as my Spanish is by no means poetic, but you should be able to get the drift with all these cognates. "Oro" means gold, "prisa" means to hasten, "ondas" are waves. This should help.
Related Topics
Back in June of 2008, Chase (of former Ante-Occidental renown) posted a piece on the state of human depopulation. While we never saw his followup work, the issue is still at large in this year's global perspective. Though I was hoping for a longer and more drawn out discussion of the pros and cons of God's greatest invention, Nicholas Eberstadt gives an interesting discussion of the current Russian dilemma here. I'm pulling for the Slavs in this case, but it seems as though the national direction set by Russia's Great Prince has long since disappeared.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Cultural Views of Work and Vocation
My perspective on my occupational status is rather uncommon in this country. Without addressing any like or dislike of one's profession, it is quite rare to find someone who sees what they do as something other than "work" or a "job". Perhaps it is my propensity towards laziness and procrastination, but those particular words don't jive with my personal philosophy.
When being introduced to someone, one is often asked the question, "What do you do for a living?" or, "Where do you work?" Personally, I prefer to answer, "I am a swim coach" or "I am a student" as opposed to "I coach an age group swim team" or "I study English literature".
When I lived in Japan, I was struck by the way the Japanese lived from day to day. If you were to follow the average middle-aged man from 6:30am-7:30pm, you would probably find him at an office for much of the time. Yet the attitude towards the work he does at the office (from my perspective) seems rather apathetic. He does not seem to dislike his occupation nor would he probably complain about it if you asked him. He works seemingly incessantly to improve the company, the corporation, to meet the goals within his sight. Yet the apathy stretches to this aspect of his life as well. It almost seems as though he typifies a paradox: he does not merely do his job, he makes it his life, yet at the same time he is as disinterested in the job as someone who hates his job--he does not derive any personal pleasure from it. This kind of worker is one that I would describe as vocationally masochistic.
The American Ideal, of course, is to achieve your own personal pleasure in life. The average view of one's line of work is that it is a means to an end--it allows the person to have the house, the car, the funds for mountain climbing or traveling. He or she may actually spend as much or more time at the office as the Japanese person, but the attitude towards the job is filled with passion, usually negative. He is equally masochistic, as he seems to derive pleasure from a source of pain.
I looked at the OED for some background on the words "job", "work", and "vocation", but I really don't think I need to go into the etymological implications of them. Rather, I think it is sufficient to say that each of these scenarios lacks a sense of attachment that used to exist in one's vocation or profession. The Japanese have it right in that they make the job a part of their life; the Americans have the sense of desire down pat. Yet they both separate their idea of "the good life" from their work.
Regardless of what position I hold in life, that position will become for me, not a part of my life, but integral to my life. I do not necessarily look for deriving pleasure from what I do, nor do I see it as something to complain about any more than I would complain about another aspect of who I am.
While I have thought about this subject before, my recent reading around about "dispassion" and "disinterestedness" and the difference between these things and apathy has made me think about the need to incorporate these things into every aspect of my life. This thought process has also made me realize that this is much different than merely being "content", because there is a sense of drive in each of these ideas. Rather than seeing my position in life as "fact", I prefer to see it as "condition", a state of being, and one which is dynamic.
When being introduced to someone, one is often asked the question, "What do you do for a living?" or, "Where do you work?" Personally, I prefer to answer, "I am a swim coach" or "I am a student" as opposed to "I coach an age group swim team" or "I study English literature".
When I lived in Japan, I was struck by the way the Japanese lived from day to day. If you were to follow the average middle-aged man from 6:30am-7:30pm, you would probably find him at an office for much of the time. Yet the attitude towards the work he does at the office (from my perspective) seems rather apathetic. He does not seem to dislike his occupation nor would he probably complain about it if you asked him. He works seemingly incessantly to improve the company, the corporation, to meet the goals within his sight. Yet the apathy stretches to this aspect of his life as well. It almost seems as though he typifies a paradox: he does not merely do his job, he makes it his life, yet at the same time he is as disinterested in the job as someone who hates his job--he does not derive any personal pleasure from it. This kind of worker is one that I would describe as vocationally masochistic.
The American Ideal, of course, is to achieve your own personal pleasure in life. The average view of one's line of work is that it is a means to an end--it allows the person to have the house, the car, the funds for mountain climbing or traveling. He or she may actually spend as much or more time at the office as the Japanese person, but the attitude towards the job is filled with passion, usually negative. He is equally masochistic, as he seems to derive pleasure from a source of pain.
I looked at the OED for some background on the words "job", "work", and "vocation", but I really don't think I need to go into the etymological implications of them. Rather, I think it is sufficient to say that each of these scenarios lacks a sense of attachment that used to exist in one's vocation or profession. The Japanese have it right in that they make the job a part of their life; the Americans have the sense of desire down pat. Yet they both separate their idea of "the good life" from their work.
Regardless of what position I hold in life, that position will become for me, not a part of my life, but integral to my life. I do not necessarily look for deriving pleasure from what I do, nor do I see it as something to complain about any more than I would complain about another aspect of who I am.
While I have thought about this subject before, my recent reading around about "dispassion" and "disinterestedness" and the difference between these things and apathy has made me think about the need to incorporate these things into every aspect of my life. This thought process has also made me realize that this is much different than merely being "content", because there is a sense of drive in each of these ideas. Rather than seeing my position in life as "fact", I prefer to see it as "condition", a state of being, and one which is dynamic.
Monday, April 6, 2009
New Book
This is a relatively new book about my favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins was, as far as I know, the first decisively Modern poet and the first of three English-Welsh poets whom I absolutely love, followed by David Jones and Dylan Thomas. A pretty decent review, I must say, though I don't know how I feel about the idea of writing a biography in the present tense.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Undpredictably Irregular Poetry Exposure #3
Though you may know him for this poem, I better enjoyed William Carlos Williams' "Perpetuum Mobile: The City", whose first few stanzas read thus:
"—a dream
we dreamed
each
separately
we two
of love
and of
desire—
that fused
in the night—
in the distance
over
the meadows
by day
impossible—
The city
disappeared
when
we arrived—
A dream
a little false
toward which
now
we stand
and stare
transfixed—
All at once
in the east
rising!
All white!
small
as a flower—
a locust cluster
a shad bush
blossoming
Over the swamps
a wild
magnolia bud—
greenish
white
a northern flower—
And so
we live
looking—"
And which can be heard in its entirety here.
"—a dream
we dreamed
each
separately
we two
of love
and of
desire—
that fused
in the night—
in the distance
over
the meadows
by day
impossible—
The city
disappeared
when
we arrived—
A dream
a little false
toward which
now
we stand
and stare
transfixed—
All at once
in the east
rising!
All white!
small
as a flower—
a locust cluster
a shad bush
blossoming
Over the swamps
a wild
magnolia bud—
greenish
white
a northern flower—
And so
we live
looking—"
And which can be heard in its entirety here.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Addendum
I think I need to add an addendum to the last post. Perhaps it was somewhat unclear what my idea of aesthetic appreciation includes. I am not entirely sure myself, but I do know that, unlike the impression I probably gave in the last post, desire does not play THE central role. Desire is one of the many steps that one must take in learning to appreciate art, but it is merely a step. Ultimately, according to Kant, etc. one should reach a state of disinterest. I will not go so far as to suggest that aesthetic disinterest is the same as the Orthodox ideal of dispassion or apatheia, but there are some similarities, just as there are similarities to the Stoic idea of the same. Really it means to be able to be fully immersed in contemplation, yet not affected.
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