by my green candle

gorgias

2008-07-02T11:00:00.001-05:00

He concludes as follows that nothing is: if [something] is, either what-is is or what-is-not [is], or both what-is and what-is-not are. But it is the case neither that what-is is, as he will show, nor that what-is-not is, as he will justify, nor that both what-is and what-is-not are, as he will teach this too. Therefore, it is not the case that anything is. And in fact, what-is-not is not. For if what-is-not is, it will be and not be at the same time. For in that it is considered as not being, it will not be, but in that it is not being, on the other hand, it will be. But it is completely absurd that something be and not be at the same time. Therefore, it is not the case that what-is-not is. And differently: if what-is-not is, what-is will not be, since they are opposites, and if being is an attribute of what-is-not, not-being will be an attribute of what-is. But it is certainly not the case that what-is is not, and so neither will what-is-not be. Further, neither is it the case that what-is is. For if what-is is, it is either eternal or generated or eternal and generated at the same time. But it is neither eternal nor generated nor both, as we will show. Therefore it is not the case that what-is is. For if what-is is eternal (we must begin at this point), it does not have any beginning. For everything that comes to be has some beginning, but what is eternal, being ungenerated, did not have a beginning. But if it does not have a beginning, it is unlimited, and if it is unlimited it is nowhere. For if it is anywhere, that in which it is is different from it, and so what-is will no longer be unlimited, since it is enclosed in something. For what encloses is larger than what is enclosed, but nothing is larger than what is unlimited, and so what is unlimited is not anywhere. Further, it is not enclosed in itself, either. For “that in which” and “that in it” will be the same, and what-is will become two, place and body (for “that in which” is place, and “that in it” is body). But this is absurd, so what-is is not in itself, either. And so, if what-is is eternal, it is unlimited, but if it is unlimited it is nowhere, and if it is nowhere it is not. So if what-is is eternal, it is not at all. Further, what-is cannot be generated either. For if it has come to be it did so either from a thing that is or from a thing that is not. But it has come be neither from what-is (for if it is a thing that is, it has not come to be, but already has), nor from what-is-not (for what-is-not cannot generate anything, since what generates anything must of necessity share in existence). Therefore, it is not the case that what-is is generated either. In the same ways, it is not both eternal and generated at the same time. For these exclude one another, and if what-is is eternal it has not come to be, and if it has come to be it is not eternal. So if what-is is neither eternal nor generated nor both together, what-is would not be. And differently, if it is, it is either one or many. But it is neither one nor many, as will be shown. Therefore it is not the case that what-is is. For if it is one, it is either a quantity or continuous or a magnitude or a body. But whichever of these it is, it is not one, but being a quantity, it will be divided, and if it is continuous it will be cut. Similarly if conceived as a magnitude it will not be indivisible. And if it chances to be a body, it will be three-dimensional, for it will have length, width and depth. But it is absurd to say that what-is is none of these. Therefore, it is not the case that what-is is one. Further, it is not many. For if it is not one, it is not many either. For the many is a compound of individual ones, and s since [the thesis that what-is is] one is refuted, [the thesis that what-is is] many is refuted along with it. But it is altogether clear from this that neither what-is nor what-is-not is. It is easy to conclude that neither is it the case that both of them are, what-is and what-is-not. For if what-is-not is and what-is is, then what-is-not will be the same as what-is as regards being. And for this reason neither of them is. For it is agreed that what-is-not is not, and what-is has been shown to be the same as this. So it too will not be. However, if what-is is the same as what-is-not, it is not possible for both to be. For if both [are], then they are not the same, and if [they are] the same, then [it is] not [the case that] both [are]. It follows that nothing is. For if neither what-is is nor what-is-not nor both, and nothing aside from these is conceived of, nothing is.

Sextus Empiricus on Gorgias, Against the Mathematicians

pantagruel

2007-12-05T23:05:00.000-06:00

“My friend, where are you coming from, at this hour?”

The student answered him:
“From the spirit-evocative, grandiosely illustrious, manifoldly celebrated academy which one vociferates as Lutetia.”

“What did he just say?” Pantagruel asked one of his companions.

“From Paris,” he answered.

“Ah, so you come from Paris,” Pantagruel continued. “And what do you do all day, you and all the other gentlemanly students in Paris?”

The student answered:
“We transmigrate the Seineian flow, both matutinally and nocturnally. We perambulate the transecting metropolitan arteries and assorted urban intersectional quadrant points. We converse continuously in Latinate verbalizations, and like veritable connoisseurs of aspects amatory we endeavor to captivatingly incur the benevolence of the universally magistrate, multiplicitously engendered, and ultimately endogenous feminine sex. At suitably appropriate intervals we ensure that we incarnate ourselves in certain well-defined habitations and, in an utterly ecstatic venereal transport, we inculcate our virile members into the most interiorally located recesses of the pudenda of these meretricious but supremely amiable personages. Then we engage in gustatorial ingestion at the meritorious quaffing establishments of the Pine Cone, the Castle, the Magdalen, and the Mule, imbibing inter alia appropriately elongated comestibles, liberally perforinated with quantities of aromatic herbal concoction. On occasion, the hazards of aleatoric existence being what they are, and our pecuniary chambers being entirely evacuated of their contents, inclusive of all assorted metallic substances of recognized potency in such affairs, we obligatorily terminate our parsimony through the vendation of our printed textual sources, and equally of the habilitating furnishings of our persons, pending to be sure the anticipated arrival of alleviating remunerations from the trusted ancient source of original domestic succor.”

To which Pantagruel said:
“What the devil kind of language is this? By God, you must be some kind of heretic.”

François Rabelais, Pantagruel

hostages to momus

2007-11-15T08:29:00.000-06:00

“Well, gentlemen,” says the landlord , “I reckoned you-all would be inquiring this morning. You all dropped off of the nine-thirty train here last night; and you was right tight. Yes, you was right smart in liquor. I can inform you that you are now in the town of Mountain Valley, in the State of Georgia.”

“On top of that,” says Caligula, “don’t say that we can’t have anything to eat.”

“Sit down, gentlemen,” says the landlord, “and in twenty minutes I’ll call you to the best breakfast you can get anywhere in town.”

That breakfast turned out to be composed of fried bacon and a yellowish edifice that proved up something between pound cake and flexible sandstone. The landlord calls it corn pone; and then he sets out a dish of the exaggerated breakfast food known as hominy; and so me and Caligula makes the acquaintance of the celebrated food that enabled every Johnny Reb to lick one and two-thirds Yankees for nearly four years at a stretch.

“The wonder to me is,” says Caligula, “that Uncle Robert Lee’s boys didn’t chase the Grant and Sherman outfit clear up into Hudson’s Bay. It would have made me that mad to eat this truck they call mahogany!”

“Hog and hominy,” I explains, “is the staple food of this section.”

“Then,” says Caligula, “they ought to keep it where it belongs. I thought this was a hotel and not a stable. Now, if we was in Muskogee at the St. Lucifer House, I’d show you some breakfast grub. Antelope steaks and fried liver to begin on, and venison cutlets with chili con carne and pine-apple fritters, and then some sardines and mixed pickles; and top it off with a can of yellow clings and a bottle of beer. You won’t find a layout like that on the bill of affairs of any of your Eastern restauraws.”

“Too lavish,” said I. “I’ve travelled, and I’m unprejudiced. There’ll never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee and over to Norfolk for his rolls, and reaches up to Vermont and digs a slice of butter out of a spring-house, and then turns over a beehive close to a white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he’d come pretty close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount Olympia.”

“Too ephemeral,” says Caligula, “I’d want ham and eggs, or rabbit stew, anyhow, for a chaser. What do you consider the most edifying and casual in the way of a dinner?”

“I’ve been infatuated from time to time,” I answers, “with fancy ramifications of grub such as terrapins, lobsters, reed birds, jambolaya, and canvas-covered ducks; but after all there’s nothing less displeasing than a beefsteak smothered in mushrooms on a balcony in sound of the Broadway street cars, with a hand-organ playing down below, and the boys hollering extras about the latest suicide. For the wine, give me a reasonable Ponty Cany. And that’s all, except a demi-tasse.”

“Well,” says Caligula, “I reckon in New York you get to be a coniseer; and when you go around with a demi-tasse you are naturally bound to buy ’em stylish grub.”

“It’s a great town for epicures,” says I. “You’d soon fall into their ways if you was there.”

“I’ve heard it was,” says Caligula. “But I reckon I wouldn’t. I can polish my fingernails all they need myself.”

O. Henry, “Hostages to Momus”

mahu, or the material

2007-06-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

This time, he rings off. He then gets up. He shaves. He has his coffee. Very depressing. Everyone’s in the same state. He tries to laugh it off, defiantly. And in doing so he becomes even more like everyone else. He puts his right foot into his right sock and his left foot into his left sock; he puts on his braces; he buttons up his flies; he takes out a clean handkerchief; he double-locks his door; he doesn’t say good morning to his concierge. Outside, he says: “Good God, what weather!” It is raining. He takes advantage of the fact to perform his little experiment. When the rain is very heavy, it forms a mirror and you can see yourself on all sides. It’s very pleasant for the back and the profile. When he raises his foot, three million feet rise with it. When he scratches his ear, three million hands scratch three million ears. They are my hands, my feet. Or rather my hand, my foot. Oh, look, I’ve put my jacket on inside out. Inside out? Yes, north, south, east and west, three million jackets inside out. Latirail stops. The jackets continue on their way. My God, what’s happening? The other one moves on. It’s me that’s moving. Hey, wait, I’m just coming!

He bumps into a gentleman.

“Oh, excuse me, I thought it was me…”

The gentleman looks very surprised.

Damn, it didn’t work, thinks Latirail. First time I took myself for someone else.

The gentleman has walked on. He is thinking exactly the same thing. He too was performing an experiment and he bumped into Latirail. He is very annoyed. He thought it was an original experiment. So he invents another one and bumps into Latirail again:

“This time, Monsieur, would you please put your jacket on right side out. It’s been annoying me a great deal.”

“But, Monsieur…”

It wasn’t Latirail any more. It was someone else. Latirail was standing off, observing the scene with some concern.

Robert Pinget, Mahu, or the Material

ulysses

2007-06-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

Were they indefinitely inactive?
At Stephen’s suggestion, at Bloom’s instigation both, first Stephen, then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, their gazes, first Bloom’s, then Stephen’s, elevated to the projected luminous and semiluminous shadow.

Similarly?
The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations were dissimilar: Bloom’s longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form of the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter who in his ultimate year at High School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point of greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the institution, 210 scholars: Stephen’s higher, more sibilant, who in the ultimate hours of the previous day had augmented by diuretic consumption an insistent vesical pressure.

What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the invisible audible collateral organ of the other?
To Bloom: the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity, reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity. To Stephen: the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised (1st January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails.

James Joyce, Ulysses

as i lay dying

2007-05-13T12:16:00.000-05:00

My mother is a fish.

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

ulysses

2006-07-20T14:55:00.000-05:00

The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the lowest computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York Street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle by Speranza’s plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and M-ll-g-n who sang The Night before Larry was Stretched in their usual mirthprovoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the scene were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day’s entertainment and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the Poor for their excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal houseparty which included many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grand stand while the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation, present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed doyen of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos. Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Señor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriums- ordinaryprivatdocentgeneralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which all took part) ensued among the F.O.T.E.I. as to whether the eighth or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland’s patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars, boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas, catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending parties. The readywitted ninefooter’s suggestion at once appealed to all and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily congratulated by all the F.O.T.E.I., several of whom were bleeding profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies’ and gentlemen’s gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme.

Quietly, unassumingly, Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the Gladiolus Cruentus. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate — short, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was exactly seventeen o’clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given by megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore’s patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who administered the last comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when about to pay the death penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication. Hard by the block stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially supplied by the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield), a terracotta saucepan for the reception of the duodenum, colon, blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully extracted and two commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most precious blood of the most precious victim. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats’ and dogs’ home was in attendance to convey these vessels when replenished to that beneficent institution. Quite an excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, fried steak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls and invigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for the consumption of the central figure of the tragedy who was in capital spirits when prepared for death and evinced the keenest interest in the proceedings from beginning to end but he, with an abnegation rare in these our times, rose nobly to the occasion and expressed the dying wish (immediately acceded to) that the meal should be divided in aliquot parts among the members of the sick and indigent roomkeepers’ association as a token of his regard and esteem. The nec and non plus ultra of emotion were reached when the blushing bride elect burst her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders and flung herself upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be launched into eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in a loving embrace murmuring fondly Sheila, my own. Encouraged by this use of her christian name she kissed passionately all the various suitable areas of his person which the decencies of prison garb permitted her ardour to reach. She swore to him as they mingled the salt streams of their tears that she would ever cherish his memory, that she would never forget her hero boy who went to his death with a song on his lips as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park. She brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhood together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present, they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including the venerable pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster audience simply rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst from their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being the aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye in that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the day, and was accepted on the spot. Every lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most timehonoured names in Albion’s history) placed on the finger of his blushing fiancée an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of a fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay, even the stern provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell ffrenchmullan Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without flinching, could not now restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard by those privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediate entourage to murmur to himself in a faltering undertone:

— God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause I thinks of my old mashtub what’s waiting for me down Limehouse way.

James Joyce, Ulysses

snow white

2006-06-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

DEAR MR. QUISTGAARD:

Although you do not know me my name is Jane. I have seized your name from the telephone book in an attempt to enmesh you in my concerns. We suffer today I believe from a lack of connection with each other. That is common knowledge, so common in fact, that it may not even be true. It may be that we are overconnected, for all I know. However I am acting on the first assumption, that we are underconnected, and thus have flung you these lines, which you may grasp or let fall as you will. But I feel that if you neglect them, you will suffer for it. That is merely my private opinion. No police power supports it. I have no means of punishing you, Mr. Quistgaard, for not listening, for having a closed heart. There is no punishment for that, in our society. Not yet. But to the point. You and I, Mr. Quistgaard, are not in the same universe of discourse. You may not have been aware of it previously, but the fact of the matter is, that we are not. We exist in different universes of discourse. Now it may have appeared to you, prior to your receipt of this letter, that the universe of discourse in which you existed, and puttered about, was in all ways adequate and satisfactory. It may never have crossed your mind to think that other universes of discourse distinct from your own existed, with people in them, discoursing. You may have in a commonsense way, regarded your own u. of d. as a plenum, filled to the brim with discourse. You may have felt that what already existed was a sufficiency. People like you often do. That is certainly one way of regarding it, if fat self-satisfied complacency is your aim. But I say unto you, Mr. Quistgaard, that even a plenum can leak. Even a plenum, cher maître, can be penetrated. New things can rush into your plenum displacing old things, things that were formerly there. No man’s plenum, Mr. Quistgaard, is impervious to the awl of God’s will. Consider then you situation now. You are sitting there in your house on Neat Street, with your fine dog, doubtless, and your handsome wife and tall brown sons, conceivably, and who knows with your gun-colored Plymouth Fury in the driveway, and opinions passing back and forth, about whether the Grange should build a new meeting hall or not, whether the children should become Thomists or not, whether the pump needs more cup grease or not. A comfortable American scene. But I, Jane Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, am in possession of your telephone number, Mr. Quistgaard. Think what this means. It means that at any moment I can pierce your plenum with a single telephone call, simply by dialing 989-7777. You are correct, Mr. Quistgaard, in seeing this as a threatening situation. The moment I inject discourse from my u. of d. into your u. of d., the yourness of yours is diluted. The more I inject, the more you dilute. Soon you will be presiding over an empty plenum, or rather, since that is a contradiction in terms, over a former plenum, in terms of yourness. You are, essentially, in my power. I suggest an unlisted number.

Yours faithfully,
Jane

Donald Barthelme, Snow White

the barber's unhappiness

2006-05-25T23:22:00.000-05:00

“What I was just saying was that, our aim is, we’re going to be looking at some things or aspects, in terms of driving? Meaning safety, meaning, is speeding something we do in a vacuum, or could it involve a pedestrian or fatality or a family out for a fun drive, and then here you come, speeding, with the safety or destiny of that family not held firmly in your mind, and what happens next? Who knows?”

“A crash?” said someone.

“An accident?” said someone else.

“Crash or accident both could,” said the instructor. “Either one might or may. Because I’ve seen, in my CPR role, as a paramedic, when many times, and I’m sorry if you find this gross or too much, I’ve had to sit in our rescue vehicle with a cut-off arm or hand, even of a kid, a really small arm or even limb, just weeping as if I hadn’t been thoroughly trained, as I know none of you have, but I have, and why was I holding that small arm or limb and bawling? Because of someone like you yourselves, good people, I know you are, I’m not saying that, but you decided what? What did you decide? Or they. That person who cut off that kid’s arm I was carrying that day I was just saying?”

No one knew.

“They decided to speed is what you did,” said the instructor sadly.

George Saunders, “The Barber’s Unhappiness”

joseph andrews

2006-05-23T15:49:00.000-05:00

O Vanity! How little is thy force acknowledged, or thy operations discerned? How wantonly dost thou deceive mankind under different disguises? Sometimes thou dost wear the face of pity, sometimes of generosity : nay, thou hast the assurance even to put on those glorious ornaments which belong only to heroick virtue. Thou odious, deformed monster! whom priests have railed at, philosophers despised, and poets ridiculed : is there a wretch so abandoned as to own thee for an acquaintance in publick? yet, how few will refuse to enjoy thee in private? nay, thou art the pursuit of most men through their lives. The greatest villanies are daily practised to please thee : nor is the meanest thief below, or the greatest hero above thy notice. Thy embraces are often the sole aim and sole reward of the private robbery, and the plundered province. It is, to pamper up thee, thou harlot, that we attempt to withdraw from others what we do not want, or to with-hold from them what they do. All our passions are thy slaves. Avarice itself is often no more than thy hand-maid, and even Lust thy pimp. The bully Fear like a coward, flies before thee, and Joy and Grief hide their heads in thy presence.

I know thou wilt think, that whilst I abuse thee, I court thee; and that thy love hath inspired me to write this sarcastical panegyrick on thee : but thou art deceived, I value thee not of a farthing; nor will it give me any pain, if thou should’st prevail on the reader to censure this digression as errant nonsense : for know to thy confusion, that I have introduced thee for no other purpose than to lengthen out a short chapter; and so I return to my history.

Henry Fielding, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, And of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams

i sing the body electric

2006-02-25T14:58:00.000-06:00

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric”

l'amoureuse

2006-02-14T01:49:00.000-06:00

She stands on my eyelids
And her hair is in my hair,
She has the shape of my hands,
She has the color of my eyes,
She is engulfed by my shadow
Like a stone against the sky.

Her eyes are always open
And never let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Melt away the sun,
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Talk when there’s nothing to say.

Paul Eluard, “L’Amoureuse”

the banquet years

2006-02-05T01:04:00.000-06:00

“Monsieur Jarry?”

“On the third floor and a half,” answered the concierge.

The answer astonished me. But I climbed up to where Jarry lived—actually on the third floor and a half. The ceilings of the building had appeared wastefully high to the owner and he had doubled the number of stories by cutting them in half horizontally. This building, which is still standing, had therefore about fifteen floors; but since it rose no higher than the other buildings in the quarter, it amounted to merely the reduction of a skyscraper.

It turned out that Jarry’s place was filled with reductions. This half-floor room was the reduction of an apartment in which its occupant was quite comfortable standing up. But being taller than he, I had to stay in a stoop. The bed was the reduction of a bed; that is to say, a mere pallet. Jarry said that low beds were coming back into fashion. The writing table was the reduction of a table, for Jarry wrote flat on his stomach on the floor. The furniture was the reduction of furniture—there was only the bed. On the wall hung the reduction of a picture. It was a portrait [of Jarry by the Douanier Rousseau], most of which he had burned away, leaving only the head, which resembled a certain lithograph I know of Balzac. The library was the reduction of a library, and that is saying a lot for it. It was composed of a cheap edition of the Bibliothèque rose. On the mantel stood a large stone phallus, a gift from Félicien Rops. Jarry kept this member, which was considerably larger than life size, always covered with a violet skullcap of velvet, ever since the day the exotic monolith had frightened a certain literary lady who was all out of breath from climbing three and a half floors and at a loss how to act in this unfurnished cell.

“Is that a cast?” the lady asked.

“No,” said Jarry. “It’s a reduction.” (Guillaume Apollinaire, Il y a.)

The ceiling of the room was so low that the top of even Jarry’s head brushed against it as he walked about, and he collected the flaky plaster like a severe case of dandruff. It was said that the only food that could be eaten conveniently in the place was flounder.

Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years

ancient music

2005-12-08T20:40:00.000-06:00

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
                                        Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
                                        Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
                                        So ’gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Ezra Pound, “Ancient Music”

the prose edda

2005-10-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

Ægir asked again: ‘Where did the accomplishment known as poetry come from?’

Bragi answered: ‘The beginning of it was that the gods were at war with the people known as the Vanir and they arranged for a peace-meeting between them and made a truce in this way: they both went up to a crock and spat into it. When they were going away, the gods took the truce token and would not allow it to be lost, and made of it a man. He was called Kvasir. He is so wise that nobody asks him any question he is unable to answer. He travelled far and wide over the world to teach men wisdom and came once to feast with some dwarfs, Fjalar and Galar. These called him aside for a word in private and killed him, letting his blood run into two crocks and one kettle. The kettle was called Óðrörir, but the crocks were known as Són and Boðn. They mixed his blood with honey, and it became the mead which makes whoever drinks of it a poet or scholar. The dwarfs told the Æsir that Kvasir had choked with learning, because there was no one sufficiently well-informed to compete with him in knowledge.

‘Then the dwarfs invited a giant called Gilling to their home with his wife, and they asked him to go out rowing on the sea with them. When they were far out, however, the dwarfs rowed on to a rock and upset the boat. Gilling could not swim and was drowned, but the dwarfs righted their craft and rowed ashore. They told his wife about this accident and she was very distressed and wept aloud. Fjalar asked her if she would be easier in her mind about it if she looked out to sea in the direction of where he had been drowned. She wanted to do this. Then he spoke with his brother Galar, telling him to climb up above the door when she was going out and let a millstone fall on to her head; he said he was tired of her wailing. Galar did so. When Gilling’s son, Suttung, heard of this, he went to the dwarfs and seized them and took them out to sea and put them on to a skerry covered by the tide. They begged Suttung to spare their lives offering him as compensation for his father the precious mead, and that brought about their reconciliation. Suttung took the mead home and hid it in a place called Hnitbjörg and he appointed his daughter Gunnlöð as its guardian.

‘This is why we call poetry Kvasir’s blood, or dwarfs’ drink or intoxication, or some sort of liquid of Óðrörir or Boðn or Són, or dwarfs’ ship, because it was that mead which ransomed from death on the skerry, or Suttung’s mead or Hnitbjörg’s sea.’

Then Ægir spoke: ‘It seems to me that to call poetry by these names obscures things.’

Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda

causa

2005-07-14T09:17:00.000-05:00

I join these words for four people,
Some others may overhear them,
O world, I am sorry for you,
You do not know these four people.

Ezra Pound, “Causa”

the sea crabb

2005-05-05T18:07:00.000-05:00

Itt: was a man of Affrica had a ffaire wiffe,
ffairest that euer I saw the days of my liffe :
with a ging, boyes, ginge ! ginge, boyes, ginge !
tarradidle, ffarradidle, ging, boyes, ging !

This goodwiffe was bigbelleyed, & with a lad,
& euer shee longed ffor a sea crabbe.
    ginge &c.

The goodman rise in the morning, & put on his hose,
he went to the sea syde, & ffollowed his nose.
    ginge &c.

Sais, “god speed, ffisherman, sayling on the sea,
hast thou any crabbs in thy bote for to sell mee ?”
    ginge &c.

“I haue Crabbs in my bote, one, tow, or three;
I haue Crabbs in my bote for to sell thee.”
    ginge &c.

The good man went home, & ere he wist,
& put the Crabb in the Chamber pot where his wiffe pist.
    ginge &c.

The good wiffe, she went to doe as she was wont;
vp start the Crabfish, & catcht her by the Cunt.
    ginge &c.

“Alas!” quoth the goodwiffe, “that euer I was borne,
the devill is in the pispott, & has me on his horne.”
    ginge &c.

“If thou be a crabb or a crabfish by kind,
thoule let thy hold goe with a blast of cold wind.”
    ginge &c.

The good man laid to his mouth, & began to blowe,
thinkeing therby that they Crab wold lett goe.
    ginge &c.

“Alas!” quoth the good man, “that euer I came hither,
he has joyned my wiffes tayle & my nose together!”
    ginge &c.

They good man called his neigbors in with great wonder,
to part his wiues tayle & his nose assunder.
    ginge &c.

ffinis.

“Good morning, mister fisherman, I wish you well.
Good morning, mister fisherman, I wish you well.
Please tell me have you any sea crabs to sell?”
    Mush a ding eye, mush a toodle eye day.

“Yes, I have got sea crabs, one, two, and three.
Yes, I have got sea crabs, one, two, and three.
Take any you want; it makes no matter to me.”
    Mush a ding eye, mush a toodle eye day.

When the old man got home, the old wife was asleep,
When the old man got home, the old wife was asleep,
So he put him in the pisspot just for to keep.
    Mush a ding eye, etc.

The old wife got up for to take a long shit.
The old wife got up for to take a long shit.
The God damned old sea crab grabbed her by the slit.
    Mush a ding eye, etc.

“Husband, oh, husband, now what shall I do?
Husband, oh, husband, now what shall I do?
The devil’s in the pisspot and he’s got me by the flue.”
    Mush a ding eye, etc.

The old man ran over and lifted her clothes,
The old man ran over and lifted her clothes,
And he took his other pincher and he grabbed at his nose.
    Mush a ding eye, etc.

“Now, Johnny, have the doctor hitch his horse and cart,
Now, Johnny, have the doctor hitch his horse and cart,
Come get your father’s nose and your mother’s cunt apart.”
    Mush a ding eye, etc.

It tickled the children right down to their soul
It tickled the children right down to their soul
To see their pa’s nose in their mother’s peehole.
    Mush a ding eye, etc.

Traditional, “The Sea Crabb” (two versions, both undated)

sumer is icumen in

2005-04-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springeþ the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!

Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calve cu,
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke ferteþ.
Murie sing, cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes þu, cuccu.
Ne swik þu naver nu!

Sing cuccu nu, sing cuccu!
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu nu!

Anonymous, “Sumer is icumen in”

pointy birds

2005-03-19T11:44:00.000-06:00

O pointy birds, O pointy pointy,
Anoint my head, anointy-nointy.

John Lillison, “Pointy Birds”

jacques the fatalist and his master

2005-03-12T12:01:00.000-06:00

— Where? — Where?

Reader, your curiosity is extremely annoying. What the devil does it have to do with you? If I told you that it was Pontoise or Saint-Germain or Loreto or Compostella, would you be any the wiser?

If you insist I will tell you that they made their way towards… yes, why not? …towards a huge château, on whose façade were inscribed the words: ‘I belong to nobody and I belong to everybody. You were here before you entered and you will still be here after you have left.’

— Did they go into this château?

No, because either the inscription was a lie, or they were there before they went in.

— Well, did they manage to leave, at least?

No, because either the inscription was a lie, or they were still there after they left.

— And what did they do there?

Jacques said whatever it was written up above that he would say and his master whatever he liked. And they were both right.

— What kind of people did they find there?

A mixture.

— What did they say?

A few truths and a lot of lies.

— Were there intelligent men there?

Where are there not some? And damned questioners whom they avoided like the plague.

Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master

the two sisters

2005-03-01T23:36:00.000-06:00

Was two sisters loved one man,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

He loved the youngest a little the best,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

Them two sisters going down stream,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

The oldest pushed the youngest in,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

She made a fiddle out of her bones,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

She made the screws out of her fingers,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

She made the strings out of her hair,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

The first string says, “Yonder sets my sister on a rock tying of a true-love’s knot.”
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

The next string says, “She pushed me in the deep so far.”
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o’er
The rose marie.

Sung by Mrs. Samuel Harmon, Cade’s Cove, Blount County, Tennessee, “The Two Sisters” (Child 10)

interview with pacifica radio, 1975

2004-12-14T10:49:00.000-06:00

Charles Ruas: Are you working on a novel now?
Barthelme: Yes. Interestingly, interesting to me anyhow, writing The Dead Father—and this has never happened to me before—told me, if not what, at least how to begin writing the next one.
Judith Sherman: Which is how?
Barthelme: I’m not going to tell you, because it’s a secret.
Sherman: From whom?
Barthelme: From youm.

Donald Barthelme, interview with Pacifica Radio, 1975

the real life of sebastian knight

2004-11-16T10:29:00.000-06:00

After a while I went on with my business, examining and roughly classifying the contents of the drawers. There were many letters. These I set aside to be gone through later. Newspaper cuttings in a gaudy book, an impossible butterfly on its cover. No, none of them were reviews of his own books: Sebastian was much too vain to collect them; nor would his sense of humour allow him to paste them in patiently when they did come his way. Still, as I say, there was an album with cuttings, all of them referring (as I found out later when perusing them at leisure) to incongruous or dream-absurd incidents which had occurred in the most trivial places and conditions. Mixed metaphors, too, I perceived, met with his approval, as he probably considered them to belong to the same faintly nightmare category. Between some legal documents I found a slip of paper on which he had begun to write a story—there was only one sentence, stopping short but it gave me the opportunity of observing the queer way Sebastian had—in the process of writing—of not striking out the words which he had replaced by others, so that, for instance, the phrase I encountered ran thus: “As he a heavy A heavy sleeper, Roger Rogerson, old Rogerson bought old Rogers bought, so afraid Being a heavy sleeper, old Rogers was so afraid of missing to-morrows. He was a heavy sleeper. He was mortally afraid of missing to-morrow’s event glory early train glory so what he did was to buy and bring home in a to buy that evening and bring home not one but eight alarm clocks of different sizes and vigour of ticking nine eight eleven alarm clocks of different sizes ticking which alarm clocks nine alarm clocks as a cat has nine which he placed which made his bedroom look rather like a”

I was sorry it stopped here.

Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

a portrait of the artist as a young man

2004-11-04T09:30:00.000-06:00

He was for Ireland and Parnell and so was his father: and so was Dante too for one night at the band on the esplanade she had hit a gentleman on the head with her umbrella because he had taken off his hat when the band played God save the Queen at the end.

Mr Dedalus gave a snort of contempt.

— Ah, John, he said. It is true for them. We are an unfortunate priest-ridden race and always were and always will be till the end of the chapter.

Uncle Charles shook his head, saying:

— A bad business! A bad business!

Mr Dedalus repeated:

— A priest-ridden Godforsaken race!

He pointed to the portrait of his grandfather on the wall to his right.

— Do you see that old chap up there, John? he said. He was a good Irishman when there was no money In the job. He was condemned to death as a whiteboy. But he had a saying about our clerical friends, that he would never let one of them put his two feet under his mahogany.

Dante broke in angrily:

— If we are a priest-ridden race we ought to be proud of it! They are the apple of God’s eye. Touch them not, says Christ, for they are the apple of My eye.

— And can we not love our country then? asked Mr Casey. Are we not to follow the man that was born to lead us?

— A traitor to his country! replied Dante. A traitor, an adulterer! The priests were right to abandon him. The priests were always the true friends of Ireland.

— Were they, faith? said Mr Casey.

He threw his fist on the table and, frowning angrily, protruded one finger after another.

— Didn’t the bishops of Ireland betray us in the time of the union when Bishop Lanigan presented an address of loyalty to the Marquess Cornwallis? Didn’t the bishops and priests sell the aspirations of their country in 1829 in return for catholic emancipation? Didn’t they denounce the fenian movement from the pulpit and in the confession box? And didn’t they dishonour the ashes of Terence Bellew MacManus?

His face was glowing with anger and Stephen felt the glow rise to his own cheek as the spoken words thrilled him. Mr Dedalus uttered a guffaw of coarse scorn.

— O, by God, he cried, I forgot little old Paul Cullen! Another apple of God’s eye!

Dante bent across the table and cried to Mr Casey:

— Right! Right! They were always right! God and morality and religion come first.

Mrs Dedalus, seeing her excitement, said to her:

— Mrs Riordan, don’t excite yourself answering them.

— God and religion before everything! Dante cried. God and religion before the world.

Mr Casey raised his clenched fist and brought it down on the table with a crash.

— Very well then, he shouted hoarsely, if it comes to that, no God for Ireland!

— John! John! cried Mr Dedalus, seizing his guest by the coat sleeve.

Dante stared across the table, her cheeks shaking. Mr Casey struggled up from his chair and bent across the table towards her, scraping the air from before his eyes with one hand as though he were tearing aside a cobweb.

— No God for Ireland! he cried. We have had too much God In Ireland. Away with God!

— Blasphemer! Devil! screamed Dante, starting to her feet and almost spitting in his face.

Uncle Charles and Mr Dedalus pulled Mr Casey back into his chair again, talking to him from both sides reasonably. He stared before him out of his dark flaming eyes, repeating:

— Away with God, I say!

Dante shoved her chair violently aside and left the table, upsetting her napkin-ring which rolled slowly along the carpet and came to rest against the foot of an easy-chair. Mrs Dedalus rose quickly and followed her towards the door. At the door Dante turned round violently and shouted down the room, her cheeks flushed and quivering with rage:

— Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend!

The door slammed behind her.

Mr Casey, freeing his arms from his holders, suddenly bowed his head on his hands with a sob of pain.

— Poor Parnell! he cried loudly. My dead king!

He sobbed loudly and bitterly.

Stephen, raising his terror-stricken face, saw that his father’s eyes were full of tears.

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

2004-10-29T14:23:00.000-05:00

ygUDuh

  ydoan
  yunnuhstan

  ydoan o
  yunnuhstand dem
  yguduh ged

      yunnuhstan dem doidee
  yguduh ged riduh
  ydoan o nudn

LISN bud LISN

      dem
      gud
      am

      lidl yelluh bas
      tuds weer goin

duhSIVILEYEzum

E.E. Cummings, “ygUDuh”