Without Lifting A Finger

And marks = tracks = poems remind me of Transtromer's "Further In": Walk in the tracks of the badger. * FURTHER IN It's the main highway leading in, the sun soon down. Traffic backs up, creeps along, it's a torpid glittering dragon. I am a scale on that dragon. The red sun all at once blazes in my windshield, pouring in, and makes me transparent. Some writing shows up inside me--words written with invisible ink appearing when the paper is held over a fire. I know that I have to go far away, straight through the city, out the other side, then step out and walk a long time in the woods. Walk in the tracks of the badger. Growing hard to see, nearly dark. Stones lie about on the moss. One of these stones is precious. It can change everything. It can make the darkness shine. It's the light switch for the whole country. Everything depends on it. Look at it . . . touch it . . . translated by Robert Bly 

Let's consider all of the people, above and below ground, in the country of Poland: Poles, Russians, Kashubes, Balts, Germans, Jews, Proto-Indo-Europeans, etc. Now let's consider the same people in another way (intimacy will perhaps move us closer to essence): Ania, Kasia, Andrzej, Wiktor, Katya, Vladimir, Anja, Ludwiga, Birgit, Konrad, Leopold, Abdiel, Abira, etc. * A History of Modern Poetry by David Perkins (Copyright 1987) touches on the '70s--with poets like Baraka, Ashbery, and Merrill--but is silent on Language poetry and its poets. What is Language poetry? Perhaps historical origins will give us a hint? An excerpt from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_poets ): There is more than one origin of this highly decentered movement. On the West Coast, an early seed of language poetry was the launch of This magazine, edited by Robert Grenier and Watten, in 1971. Coming out of New York, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E , edited by Andrews and B...

Given : 1 life; measure in whatever units you like: coffee spoons (T. S. Eliot), full moons (Paul Bowles), morning walks to Peets (R L Swihart). * Coffeehouse friends are a different brew: commerce can be as lean as greetings, first names, the names of authors and books. From one such friend I received an unexpected (though long expected) gift this morning: Rae Armantrout's Versed (Signed: For Rex, From Rae Armantrout, 3-12-2011 ). Other than a few glimpses I know next to nothing of Armantrout's poetry (see links below to Breytenbach's quote on "leaving a few marks"; to the reader reviews on Versed at Amazon), but eventually I'll try to post a fave poem(s) from this collection. An initial reaction to the cover art: Sci-Fi (some robotic sculpture with a view onto an apocalyptic landscape, or the mountains around San Diego). One of the four backcover blurbs: "Armantrout's poetry has always been turned to the present moment. Its forma...

With a little luck (how Irish) I'll be in Eire by this coming Sunday (the backup plan is England). We fly standby which, especially in summer, is a hard row to hoe. Been there before (from Joyce's tower to Yeats' Sligo and Drumcliff), but the girls haven't and I'm glad to go again. To that end I've decided to give John Banville's novel The Sea another try (I've got it on Kindle with a host of other Irish greats: Yeats, Joyce, Synge). I'd read his The Book of Evidence some while ago (I'd also read a blurb somewhere that compared him to Nabokov--which IMO is a big NOT)--I'll give it a "B"--and so thought The Sea would be a breeze (didn't it win the Booker?). When I initially downloaded it I believe I started reading it before Herta Muller's The Appointment . Long story short: I couldn't get into the flow of it (was it pushing too hard to be "literary"? was it me?) and switched over to her. Now I'm b...

Or at least that seems to be part of the point Coetzee is trying to make. Barton speaking to Foe:    You err most tellingly in failing to distinguish between my silences and the silences of a being such as Friday. Friday has no command of words and therefore no defense against being re-shaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others. I say he is a cannibal and he becomes a cannibal; I say he is a laundryman and he becomes a laundryman. What is the truth of Friday? You will respond: he is neither cannibal nor laundryman, these are mere names, they do not touch his essence, he is a substantial body, he is himself, Friday is Friday. But that is not so. No matter what he is to himself (is he anything to himself? -- how can he tell us?), what he is to the world is what I make of him. * Another good quote--very similar to something Coetzee has written elsewhere (I can't track it down--was it in Summertime, In the Heart of the Country, or Youth ?--and if the wor...

A little more than half way through Coetzee's Foe . The second part (more than half the book page-wise) is a marked departure from DeFoe's novel. It's largely about Susan Barton in England (Friday is with her; Cruso died on the way back), her give and take with Mr. Foe, perhaps something about Art and the process of writing. Through Barton we hear: Teasing and braiding can, like any craft, be learned. But as to determining which episodes hold promise (as oysters hold pearls), it is not without justice that this art is called divining. Here the writer can of himself effect nothing: he must wait on the grace of illumination.

Finished Crusoe. Wondered about all the wolves they encounter going through France (the severe winter brought them down out of the mountains looking for food): Crusoe estimates 300 (says they killed "scores"). Apparently the wolves in France disappeared some time ago but are now making a comeback (possibly crossing into France from Italy). http://www.deseretnews.com/article/475084/WOLVES-RETURN-TO-FRENCH-ALPS-PITS-FARMERS-ANIMAL-LOVERS.html 

Is he mad or not? How will I know? Even a madman modifies his dress, changes his hair, becomes fat or thin, reads Kafka.

Perhaps Biutiful is a bit OTT (I never saw that side of Barcelona) in its portrayal of an urban dystopia, but it's hard to fault Bardem. Once I caught on (I'm slow but tenacious) I was especially taken with Bardem as a type of Charon (a spiritual medium who can communicate with and somehow help those who have passed on), and the gathering of dark moths = souls on his stained ceiling (once his own death is certain the moths disappear). 

Friday's salvation was a bit unbelievable but I still enjoyed it (suspending disbelief) and I know Crusoe needed someone to talk to. This morning I got a little more on the island's geography: I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the mighty river Orinoco, in the mouth or gulf of which river, as I found afterwards, our island lay; and that this land, which I perceived to be W. and NW., was the great island of Trinidad, on the north point of the mouth of the river. I also got the name of Friday's mountain god: He told me, "It was one Benamuckee, that lived beyond all;" he could describe nothing of this great person, but that he was very old, "much older," he said, "than the sea or land, than the moon or stars." The clergy who serve Benamuckee are also old: Friday called them "Oowokakee." And Benamuckee can be prayed to: "All things say O to him." Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday, ...

Begins and ends with the corner of 4th and Park: Filene's Basement twixt yellow house and curb. It's a lawn sale even though the sign says: GARAGE SALE. The construction at the edge of the driveway is a piece of art: seven or eight step ladders (all different), with pipes threaded through laterally at the tops to make racks for a rainbow of used clothes. I hope GARAGE SALE isn't a euphemism for the more final-sounding estate sale. That could mean the old lady (she is/was probably 90+) has passed away. Though kitty-corner from the action I couldn't see her shuffling about. She once gave me a huge persimmons from her loaded tree. Said she and her husband (an implied: he's already deceased) planted the tree back in the 40s or 50s. * Also, I'll mention the Colorado Lagoon (Colorado Lung) and a few of its early risers. There's the egret with yellow spats (elegantly pacing the low-tide shore); with waders and the whole nine yards: the urban...

A little surfing seems to say they're not a law (and they can also have a down side: e.g. plugging the pipes),  but I've always liked the fact (whether purely a psychological comfort or no) that California public restrooms tend to have toilet seat covers. As a consumer (porcelain pony rider) my biggest complaint is the design: I'd like to see someone do it better. You've got to time it just right--paper down, pants down: just so; quickly get on the seat--or the dang thing goes sliding in and you have to begin again. Anyone up for the challenge?

Although my hands are Foe I wanted to blogmark/blogbuoy this for when I reread The Real Life of Sebastian Knight . I know only a little bit about Nabokov's brother Sergei (gay, died in a concentration camp), but I didn't really know to look for him while reading the novel. The question is: How much of Sergei is in Sebastian? Nabokov hardly mentions his brother elsewhere. In Nabokov's Selected Letters Sergei occupies a half-line and a footnote (letter is written to Nabokov's sister Elena in 1945): "What a joy that you are well, alive, in good spirits. Poor, poor, Seryozha . . . !" I believe (but I won't comb my closet for it) he's also briefly mentioned in the Nabokov-Wilson letters. And of course he's "in every corner" of Speak, Memory . ( See also "The gay Nabokov": http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2000/05/17/nabokov/index.html?pn=1  )

Rilke is one example; Hesse another. For Hesse psychoanalysis--of the Jungian ilk--was an inestimable boon. From Joseph Mileck's Hermann Hesse: Life and Art : Toward the end of April, Hesse left for Sonnmatt, a private clinic near Lucerne. Here he was referred to J. B. Lang, an analyst who had been one of C. G. Jung's students. He was able to return to Bern at the end of May after some electrotherapy and but twelve three-hour analytical sessions. Sixty more visits to Lucerne took place from June 1916 to November 1917. Some of Hesse's anxieties were dispelled, he learned to cope more ably with his frustrations, and he slowly emerged from his deep depression.    Hesse's personal encounter with psychoanalysis had a profound effect upon his life and art. It provided him with the incentive necessary to appraise himself and his adjustment to life, and afforded him the insights needed to begin his long inward path ( Weg nach Innen ), that tortuous road t...

Little more than half way through Robinson Crusoe . Crusoe first saw a single human foot mark; then he saw the body parts. He waffled like crazy re what to do, and then pretty much decided to play defense. Morally he had a hard time playing judge: I debated this very often with myself thus: "How do I know what God Himself judges in this particular case? It is certain these people do not commit this as a crime; it is not against their own consciences reproving, or their light reproaching them; they do not know it to be an offense, and then commit it in defiance of divine justice, as we do in almost all the sins we commit. They think it no more a crime to kill a captive taken in war than we do to kill an ox; or to eat human flesh than we do to eat mutton." *** Just started Coetzee's Foe and already I'm a third through (most of Coetzee's texts are quick reads). The curtain opens with three characters: Susan Barton (she gets thrown up on Cruso's island ...

Walked the wider circle today: Peets (where I breakfasted and read Crusoe )--along Second and Bay Shore--Marine Stadium and Park (everyone already had chairs and blankets down to reserve their spots for tonight's Municipal Band)--Colorado Lagoon and home again. Two names that seemed to coalesce into a single thought: Rilke and the biblical Jacob. As I recall Rilke forwent psychoanalysis largely because he didn't want his daemons--aka his poetic inspirations, both good and bad--exorcized. Here's to the Poet of Possibility (from The Book of Hours): Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen, die sich uber die Dinge ziehn. Ich werde den letzten vielleicht nicht vollbringen, aber versuchen will ich ihn. Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm, und ich kreise jahrtausendelang; und ich weiss noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm oder ein grosser Gesang. I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one b...

Undoubtedly Robinson Crusoe has been around for some time and he'll be around for some time to come: he's very much a part of us now. Even if we haven't read the story, we know the basic outline. Crusoe is shorthand for man-alone-on-an-island. * I forget--or have lost track of--where I first ran into the idea of a "lifelong Crusoe," but almost certainly it was in relation to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. From Mark Addis's Wittgenstein: A Guide for the Perplexed :    A controversial issue is whether a solitary individual could follow a rule. It should be observed that this is not the matter of whether an individual can follow rules which are particular to himself and unknown to the rest of the linguistic community. Instead the question is whether it is possible for an individual to follow a rule in the absence of a community. This problem is usually cast in terms of a lifelong Crusoe who is characterized as an individual isolated from bir...

I'm roughly half way through the book and Crusoe is in his eleventh year on the island. He tried to sail around the island but almost got carried out to sea by a strong current. Now he is contemplating the idea of how to raise goats because his ammunition is growing low.    But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I have said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive; and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with young. Image from the Wikimedia Commons

Katia is my oldest daughter and she has just turned 16 (July 2nd). She is also the young artist who has created the cover art for my forthcoming first book of poems. Other than the cover art, the two pieces below are IMO her best efforts to date (she is slated to take AP Studio Art next school year): 

Cannibalism, Brazil. Engraving by Theodor de Bry, 1562 (Image from Wikimedia Commons) Crusoe took a large part of his second year to explore the other side of the island. From the abundance of wild life (turtles, fowls of many kinds, including penguins) he concludes that he has taken up his lot "on the worst side of the island." On his way to the other side, past "the vale where his bower stood," Crusoe could view the sea to the west and see land--"whether an island or a continent I could  not tell." Further he posits that this land "must be near the Spanish dominions, and perhaps was all inhabited by savages." Lastly, he concludes that the inhabitants of this land could very well be the worst kind of savages: Besides, after some thought upon this affair, I considered that if this land was the Spanish coast, I should certainly, one time or other, see some vessel pass or repass one way or other; but if not, then it was the savage coast betw...

Miracles (strictly defined as events whose occurrence defy natural laws) and Providence are our ways of explaining the inexplicable. Which brought to mind Szymborska's lovely and miraculous "Miracle Fair." Miracle Fair The commonplace miracle: that so many common miracles take place. The usual miracles: invisible dogs barking in the dead of night. One of many miracles: a small and airy cloud is able to upstage the massive moon.   Several miracles in one: an alder is reflected in the water and is reversed from left to right and grows from crown to root and never hits bottom though the water isn't deep. A run-of-the-mill miracle: winds mild to moderate turning gusty in storms. A miracle in the first place: cows will be cows. Next but not least: just this cherry orchard from just this cherry pit. A miracle minus top hat and tails: fluttering white doves. A miracle (what else can you call it): the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m. and will set to...

Providence (SOED): The foreknowing and protective care and government of a spiritual power; spec. (a) that of God; (b) that of nature. * Robinson Crusoe (in some sense an Everyman) is constantly turning to Providence to explain his circumstances. In one instance he resorts to list-making (using the rubrics of Evil and Good) to help himself see the good in Providence (see two examples below): Evil                                                                 Good I am cast upon a                            ...

Apparently in some lectures delivered in Trieste, Italy (1912) Joyce had this to say about DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe and how it reflects the English mindset: . . . the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow but effective intelligence, the sexual apathy, the practical and well-balanced religiosity, the calculating silence [of Robinson Crusoe ]. And further: The true symbol of the British conquest is Robinson Crusoe, cast away on a desert island, in his pocket a knife and a pipe, becomes an architect, a knife-grinder, an astronomer, a baker, a shipwright, a potter, a saddler, a farmer, a tailor, an umbrella-maker, and a clergyman. He is the true prototype of the British colonist, as Friday (the trusty savage who arrives on an unlucky day) is the symbol of the subject races. The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe. * NB: These quotes are translations from Italian originals. Ergo alternate translations exist. See the following link for further (if ...

He had been prospering in Brazil, but had agreed to sail to the coast of Africa (Guinea) to obtain slaves for himself and other plantation owners. By his own account when the storm hits he is around the mouth of the Orinoco River (northeast coast of Venezuela) and within sight of Tobago. This would seem in accord with what he "roughly" reckons later on the island (making use of the autumnal equinox): . . . ; for I reckoned myself, by observation, to be in the latitude of nine degrees twenty-two minutes north of the line. *** Though Crusoe is fiction he may be partly based on a real castaway by the name of Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk was stranded for four years on an island, Mas a Tierra (since renamed Robinson Crusoe Island), off the coast of Chile. Due west of Santiago this island of course does not accord with the details given in the novel.  

Finished with Pale Fire . If I wait another 5 to 10 years, I'll have forgotten much of it and it'll read like a brand new story. That's the richness of Nabokov. * Have begun a Kindle version of DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe (I've never read it; never thought to read it until now) as prep/preface to Coetzee's Foe (apparently DeFoe's surname was originally just Foe). I'll read a good chunk of the first before dipping into the second. So far there's a lot about listening to your father and taking the middle path (safer; better chance for happiness) and Crusoe's desire for sailing and adventure, despite the dangers. The only bit I've highlighted in my Kindle thus far is a few interesting lines re Crusoe's observations on mankind, especially youth: --viz. that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be estimated fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only ...

I'm almost at the end (and the end is somewhat coming back to me: Memory says: Now I remember): Gradus (Mr. Gray) has fired and hit Shade instead of Kinbote = Commentator = Zemblan King (once he's recovered, with the help of a good-looking gardener, Kinbote dials 11111). I think today I'll just highlight a few fantastic phrases (why I keep coming back to Nabokov) I've highlighted via Kindle (great for that and notetaking). Re the writing process (specifically Shade's): . . . so that he could plunge back into his chaos and drag out of it, with all its wet stars, his cosmos? Re history: Shade: "True, sir. In due time history will have denounced everybody. . . ." Re Lines 939 - 940: Man's life, etc.: . . . our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece. Re Gradus and a cup of coffee (he's on his way; he's in the Big Apple): He had a brimming cup and half a saucerful of coffee at...

I know there's a  connection. Didn't early Nabokov translate Alice into Russian? (I want to say somewhere--perhaps Strong Opinions --Nabokov claims there's a photo that definitively proves Carroll a pedophile. Or am I wrong?) Anyway, seems in word golf (aka's are word ladder, word-links, and doublets) we have another connection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_ladder Lewis Carroll 

Et in Arcadia ego by Poussin  * On a more practical note Art = Play = Stratagem may keep Alzheimer's at bay. Example #1 (Kinbote): A newspaper account of a Russian tsar's coronation had, instead of korona (crown), the misprint vorona (crow), and when next day this was apologetically "corrected," it got misprinted a second time as korova (cow). The artistic correlation between the crown-crow-cow series is something that would have, I am sure, enraptured my poet. I have seen nothing like it on lexical playfields and the odds against the double coincidence defy computation. Example #2 (Kinbote): My illustrious friend showed a childish predilection for all sorts of word games and especially for so-called word golf. He would interrupt the flow of a prismatic conversation to indulge in this particular pastime, and naturally it would have been boorish of me to refuse playing with him. Some of my records are: hate-love in three, lass-male in four, and live-dead i...

He never tired of denouncing/poking fun of Freudians or other Quacks. Through Kinbote: Alas, I find only two items preserved in my notebook:    By picking the nose in spite of all commands to the contrary, or when a youth is all the time sticking his finger through his buttonhole . . .  the analytic teacher knows that the appetite of the lustful one knows no limit in his phantasies.         (Quoted by Prof. C. from Dr. Oskar Pfister, The Psychoanalytical Method, 1917, N.Y., p. 79)    The little cap of red velvet in the German version of Little Red Riding Hood is a symbol of menstruation.         (Quoted by Prof. C. from Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language, 1951, N.Y., p. 240)    Do these clowns really believe what they teach?

Twice now I've missed incredible moons. When was it--some time in spring--that I missed, except in poem, the perigee moon (driving down 4th early in the morning I thought I'd be crushed). Last night I was walking the dog and an incredible waning crescent moon--west on 4th,  low on the horizon--was begging to be captured. The dog took forever (yes, Lucie), and by the time I returned with my camera it was gone. I walked all the way to the corner liquor store hoping to get a shot. No luck.  

Nabokov was a Cynic (a good thing IMO)--in the sense that he shunned group affiliations and was never shy about questioning accepted beliefs. Though it's always dangerous to equate author and author's creation, certainly parts of Emma are Flaubert and parts of Shade and Kinbote are Nabokov. Connecting all the dots of course is impossible. Here's Kinbote on a good Zemblan Christian: In fact, a good Zemblan Christian is taught that true faith is not there to supply pictures or maps, but that it should quietly content itself with a warm haze of pleasurable anticipation. Here's Shade on the afterlife: SHADE: Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. And here's Kinbote again (only a fraction of the whole foray), gently pushing against the idea of suicide as sin: The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off-- shootka (little chute)...

History = God has lauded them both--one for perfecting a single method, the other for passionately seeking "another method." [Of course the above is overly facile (I will always be a novice). I'm just giving voice (coalesced in me) to something expressed by a friend long ago.] 

Of course I only imagine an easter egg. What if Nabokov somehow had a sneakpeek at O'Brien's masterpiece? From Pale Fire : After the last guest had gone (on bicycle), and the ashtrays had been emptied, all the windows were dark . . . The imagined easter egg is buried in the deep grass of a parenthetical: on bicycle . * Speaking through Shade and Kinbote, Nabokov reveals loads about his personal tastes and intolerances. For example, here is Shade (poet/prof) discussing with Kinbote the grading of students' papers. "I am generally very benevolent [said Shade]. But there are certain trifles I do not forgive." Kinbote: "For instance?" "Not having read the book. Having read it like an idiot. Looking in it for symbols; example: 'The author uses the striking image green leaves because green is the symbol of happiness and frustration.' 

I think I can answer the first question now: Yes, Pale Fire is very much connected to Nabokov's work in translating "Eugene Onegin." I dug up this lengthy essay (by Molly Lehman) pointing to that conclusion rather quickly: http://mollylehman.wordpress.com/literary-criticism/vladimir-nabokovs-pale-fire-and-the-role-of-the-literary-annotation-in-reading/ A quote from her text: We can begin to see, then, how Nabokov’s exploration of the literary footnote in Eugene Onegin could expand itself into a fictional work like Pale Fire. The novel appeared in print for the first time in 1962, five years after he finished the translation, and indeed, John Lyons has noted that “He [Nabokov] worked on his edition of Eugene Onegin and Pale Fire simultaneously, and no doubt the first was in large part the inspiration of the second.”  For Nabokov, spurred by his work on Eugene Onegin to experiment further with the possibilities of literary annotation, Pale Fire seems to have been a wa...

Just a great image: The pool of opalescent ditch water had grown in length; along its edge walked a sick bat like a cripple with a broken umbrella. * And a nice bit re the "other reality" of Art: Eystein had also resorted to a weird form of trickery: among his decorations of wood or wool, gold or velvet, he would insert one which was really made of the material elsewhere imitated by paint. This device which was apparently meant to enhance the effect of his tactile and tonal values had, however, something ignoble about it and disclosed not only an essential flaw in Eystein's talent, but the basic fact that "reality" is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye.

Question #1: Did the lengthy commentary of "Eugene Onegin" inspire, plant the seed for,  Pale Fire = Poem + Commentary? Questioin #2: Did Flann O'Brien's De Selby (whose footnotes eventually dominate the page) contribute to the genesis of  Pale Fire ? Answers: I have none. Rereading Pale Fire brought these questions to mind. I have no idea if there's evidence out there to take a stab at the answers. Certainly Nabokov liked to claim: No influences. I'll get back to it if I can dig anything up.