E. E. E. E. E. E.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
E.E. Cummings
Forever
The greatest of my gifts for which I thank the gods is that I may split such a bright and fair day into a million parts with the speed and multiplicity of my thoughts, and form from it a little eternity.
The greatest of gifts for which I thank the gods is my ability to split such a bright and beautiful day into a million parts with the speed and multiplicity of my thoughts, and turn the day into a little forever.
Letter from Goethe to Charlotte von Stein, the night of September 12th. (WA IV, 4, 287)
Dann ist die grösste Gabe für die ich den Göttern dancke dass ich durch die Schnelligkeit und Manigfaltigkeit der Gedancken einen solchen heitern Tag in Millionen Theile spalten, und eine kleine Ewigkeit draus bilden kan.
Victor Hugo en voyage
‘All that was neither a city, nor a church, nor a river, nor color, nor light, nor shadow: it was reverie.
For a long time, I remained motionless, letting myself be penetrated gently by this unspeakable ensemble, by the serenity of the sky and the melancholy of the moment. I do not know what was going on in my mind, and I could not express it; it was one of those ineffable moments when one feels something in himself which is going to sleep and something which is awakening.’
Victor Hugo, En Voyage: France et Belgigue
Dew
From the OED
1932 W. Faulkner Light in August vii. 149 Against the dewgray earth‥fireflies drifted.
1820 Shelley Prometheus Unbound iii. iii. 108 The dew-mists of my sunless sleep.
1885 W. B. Yeats in Dublin Univ. Rev. Apr. 56/2 And from the dew-drench’d wood I’ve sped.
1850 E. B. Browning Poems II. 165 Descend with sweet dew silence on my mountains.
1756 T. Birch Hist. Royal Soc. I. 246 It did not dew upon those parts, where trees lay buried under ground.
1648 R. Herrick Hesperides sig. F5v, The light Hangs on the Dew-locks of the night.
1872 R. Browning Fifine xxxiii, Though dew-prime flee.
1820 Shelley Prometheus Unbound ii. i. 70 As dew-stars glisten Then fade away.
1817 T. Moore Fire-worshippers in Lalla Rookh (1854) 235 She who leans‥pale, sunk, aghast, With brow against the dew-cold mast.
1593 T. Nashe Christs Teares f. 1, O dew thy Spyrit plentifully into my incke.
1812 G. Colman Poet. Vagaries 98 Dew-dript Evening.
1658 W. Johnson tr. F. Würtz Surgeons Guid i. viii. 34 Wounds that are thus compelled to dew, will hardly come to healing.
1727 J. Thomson Summer 14 Aslant the Dew-bright Earth, and colour’d Air.
The E.B. Browning one is my favorite.
Word Dreamer
‘I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.’
- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie, Trans. Daniel Russell, p. 17
Sense, Sensation, Sensationalism
I’ve been thinking about feeling and sensation (and their absence) lately, and I started to consider how the word ‘sensation’ is also used to refer to something that arouses large popular interest, e.g. ‘it was an immediate sensation all over the country’. When you mix the two usages, you might say that these sensational events are intriguing/meaningful/(in)famous because they make themselves felt.
This also seems true with regard to the way that sensational events are always (as opposed to ‘often’) accompanied by ‘sensationalism’ skillfully geared toward and rabidly taken part in by many, many people who judging by their open-armed embrace of this pure ridiculousness are clearly desperate to feel anything at all.
Whats going on? why are our senses and feelings so hard to reach? what does it mean that we require increasingly drastic stimuli just to orient ourselves in the world around us? why is sensationalism (in its many forms) so often required for having any access to our senses at all?
Whoops
Definitely didn’t mean to post the throwaway from what I’m working on at the moment.
Forget!
Anticipations
1. That intensity, with which we as children gather up the world, pictures and rhymes etc – could there not be an element of excited anticipation mixed in with it? Such that much remembering we do in later life isn’t so much remembrance of actual scenes, but of anticipations.
2. We gather up the world, pictures and rhymes with such intensity in childhood – but might there not be something of anticipation mixed with that intensity? Such that much remembering we do in later life isn’t so much remembrance of actual scenes as it is remembrance of anticipations.
Walter Benjamin
Gesammelte Schriften VI, 204
Benjamin, you’re consuming my mind. Stop it!
Sollte nicht der Intensität, mit der wir als Kinder die Welt, aber auch Bilder, Reime etc aufnehmen, sich etwas von Vorahnung beimischen? So daß vieles im spätern Leben, was uns erinnert, nicht sowohl an wirkliche Situationen als an Vorahnungen uns erinnert. (fr 174)
Before the Light Takes Us – Metalscape Review
Here’s a review I did a little while back (and extended a bit just now) for a Heavy Metal Podcast called Metalscape.
So I’m sure that people around here have heard about this new Black Metal documentary ‘Until the Light Takes Us’. It debuted at Film Festivals a year or two ago and has been playing for limited stretches at limited numbers of Cinemas ever since then. It was playing at Cinéma du Parc here in Montreal so I decided to check it out.
First of all, anyone who has a limited knowledge about the History of Black Metal won’t learn very much from this film. The only new historical (as it were) bits that I took away from it were a few juicy anecdotes, that were however so juicy that they were almost worth the ticket price – namely Varg’s very detailed (and in parts predictably untruthful) account of Euronymous’s murder. The film presents its overriding argument well though; it shows the ways in which the ideology of Black Metal was essentially misrepresented to the world by the media – and not represented musically at all; that Black Metal, in its essence, is still unknown to all save for a relatively small group of people. True Black Metal, or more precisely it’s spirit, still survives as an esoteric phenomenon because it was never in essence revealed to the world. It’s an optimistic message to an underground mentality. And its this underground mentality – what Fenriz describes as “individualism above all and ‘unfortunately’ a childish self-centeredness” – that I think makes BM so interesting. It is a fierce and selfish shutting out of the world, a conviction that it has access to something really good, and that it would just be tarnished if anyone else was to discover it. I’ve often wondered if there’s actually anything being kept safe behind that austere veil of authenticity, but I think now that its missing the point to ponder such things. All that Black Metal expresses is its flat refusal to express anything. It’s completely and purely negative art form, and it’s awesome in an absurd way.
oh god
The new 27 volume collected edition of Knut Hamsun from Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.
HNGH.
