Saturday, September 27, 2008

A Kind of Lostness



In response to a question about what being an American was like for him at the end of the 20th century, he told the online magazine Salon in 1996 that there was something sad about it, but not as a reaction to the news or current events.

“It’s more like a stomach-level sadness,” he said. “I see it in myself and my friends in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness.”



Wallace may have foreshadowed his own death in a 2005 speech to students at Kenyon College that spoke of the struggle with the mind.

“Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master. This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth,” he said.

“It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

[ source ]


"Hark ye yet again- the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event- in the living act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike though the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn- living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards- the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone. Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!- Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion."

"God keep me!- keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.





A new white humpback has been sighted off Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia.

The newcomer, which was filmed by a television news helicopter, has excited marine scientists who think it may be related to Migaloo - to date, the only known all-white humpback whale.

Migaloo is somewhat of a celebrity down under. Why? "Because as far as we know, he is globally unique," said Professor Peter Harrison from the Whale Research Centre, Southern Cross University.

It now seems that Migaloo, (whose Aboriginal name means "white fellow") might have competition.

Although predominantly white, the new whale does have some black markings near its head and tail. So who is the newcomer?

A white calf was spotted with a normal humpback mother in Byron Bay two years ago. Experts say the new whale could be the offspring of Migaloo but further tests need to be carried out.

A record number of humpbacks have been spotted off the Australian coast this year on their annual migration north to their breeding grounds.

One thing scientists do agree on is that this second white whale has never been seen in these waters before.






[ Thanks to J.G. ]

Monday, August 11, 2008

Extraordinary Mental Lucidity Towards the End

[ source ]

Ms Fico, who married Antonioni the year after his stroke, said that instead of more drastic means he had "simply stopped eating”, with "incredible willpower". He had eaten little or nothing from September 2006, just over a year before he died, she told La Stampa. "He came to table with me, to keep me company, but only ate a few spoonfuls". He had proved that "one's body continues to live even if you go month after month without eating".

She said that like the mystics who had similarly starved themselves, Antonioni had acquired "extraordinary mental lucidity" towards the end. He had put up with his decline and illness "gloriously", but "not to be able to see was for him truly unacceptable".

He had wanted to die "to free himself not so much from pain as from the body which was the origin of his suffering." She said his death "was a masterpiece as much as his cinematic works. He went in absolute peace, embracing the absolute, as if he were a mystic. He wanted to de-materialise".

Monday, August 04, 2008

Circe Wants to Keep Everything



Clever Circe, the enchantress who bewitches... and for what reason? She wants a Tower. A Tower so high that it can contain all knowledge. A Tower where Circe can keep the secrets and legends of every creature in the Universe. Her galactic library has no equal. From the dawn of time when clay tables were replaced by parchment, which was then replaced by print, then by videos. Circe wants to keep everything, to know everything. No spacecraft can escape the tower's gravitational pull. Once caught they remain here forever.

What happens to the crew?

The Thousand Spells of Circe keep them as slaves. They give her their knowledge and she gives them the power to forget the past. They place stone upon stone for her and so the Tower grows and grows.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Souvenirs From the Ten Month Dream: Sustained by the Mysterious Vapor of Imagination






However, as souvenirs remembrances are still susceptible to diverse modes of reception, which refetishize them into a wide array of meanings, according to the consumers'—and the market's—needs. Outstanding among these is the notion that an object is capable of transcending the limits of its own signification to represent, partially or fully, the whole event that gave it birth. Souvenirs, for example, condense the supposedly founding elements of a particular situation: a certain landscape or view, a famous person, the "typical" objects of a craft or region, an important moment.


The Souvenir, Celeste Olalquiaga



The hidden door that leads to paradise opens in a place without fissures where everything radiates, sustained by the mysterious vapor of imagination. It is inhabited by unicorns and charming princes. Without realizing it, time suddenly folds like a fan: the enormous red roses obscurely begin to putrefy, the ethereal bodies hang like golden skeletons, and the trees are invaded by stuffed birds and snakes whose skins short-circuit with every kiss. A girl escapes in terror, taking cover under the dry leaves and the barbed wire. She pretends she is an impenetrable rock, concealing herself so she can never be touched, and always longed for.



The World, Unfortunately, Is Real

[ source ]

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.
- Other Inquisitions