Without Lifting A Finger

On a tip from our waiter (thanks Anon), we walked out along the harbor after dinner and saw the early show (9:00 P.M.): a little band got the crowd hoppin' and then counted down to the blast off. We watched 90% of the fireworks before walking back to our car.                        

                                                                

New Year Numerals 13 for New Year's Eve in Times Square , a photo by NYC♥NYC on Flickr. Almost my lucky number.

Decided to take up Broch again: this time his The Sleepwalkers . Re Joachim's passion for Ruzena (Bohemian/Czech girl he met at the casino):  Love meant to take refuge from one's own world in another's . . . Re "conventional feeling" and Joachim's brother's death from a duel:  Bertrand went on: "We take it quite as a matter of course that two men, both of them honourable--for your brother would not have fought with a man who was not honourable--should of a morning stand and shoot at each other. And the fact that we put up with such a thing, and that they do it, shows how completely imprisoned we all are in conventional feeling. But feelings are inert, and that's why they're so cruel. The world is ruled by the inertia of feeling."  

Last year it was Tahoe; this year a piece of Arizona. Always a good thing to get the year started. Why? To say we saw the lay of the land. Lord willing and the creek don't rise. 

     The Man Without Qualities is a matchless existential encyclopedia about its century; when I feel like rereading this book, I usually open it at random, at any page, without worrying what comes before and what follows; even if there is "story" there, it proceeds slowly, quietly, without seeking to attract attention; each chapter in itself is a surprise, a discovery. The omnipresence of thinking in no way deprives the novel of its nature as a novel; it has enriched its form and immensely broadened the realm of what only the novel can discover and say.

Started his The Death of Virgil long ago: can't remember at what point I put it down. Perhaps I was too young. After warming up with Musil maybe I'll try Broch again ( Virgil or Sleepwalkers ). *** Hermann Broch (November 1, 1886 – May 30, 1951) was a 20th century Austrian writer, considered one of the major Modernists . Life Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family and worked for some time in his family's factory, though he maintained his literary interests privately. He was predestined to work in his father’s textile factory in Teesdorf , therefore, he attended a technical college for textile manufacture and a spinning and weaving college. In 1909 he converted to Roman Catholicism and married Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted manufacturer. [ 1 ] The following year, their son Hermann Friedrich Maria was born. Later, Broch began to see other women and the marriage ended in divorce in 1923. He was acquainted with Robert Mu...

I remember Kundera making a big deal about "kitsch" in one of his novels (I won't bother looking up which one). Anyway, he returns to it in Curtain: The word "kitsch" was born in Munich in the mid-nineteenth century; it describes the syrupy leftover of the great Romantic period. But Hermann Broch, who saw the connection between Romanticism and kitsch as one of inverse proportions, may have come closer to the truth: according to him, kitsch was the dominant style of the nineteenth century (in Germany and in Central Europe), with a few great Romantic works separating out from it as phenomena of exception.   *** Which led me to think: And what's the difference between "kitsch" and "poshlust"? Kundera likes to talk about kitsch, Nabokov attacked poshlust. Certainly there's some semantic overlap. A quick google came up with:   [From http://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/16116/ ]   

In The Curtain Kundera brings up the feud between two war-time friends: Sartre and Camus. Re Sartre's attack on Camus he writes:      After the political anathema Sartre had cast upon Camus, after the Nobel Prize that brought down jealousy and hatred on him, Camus felt very uncomfortable among the Paris intellectuals. I am told that he was further distressed by labels of "vulgarity" attached to him personally: his lowly origins, his illiterate mother; his situation as a pied noir (a Frenchman from Algeria) sympathetic to other pieds noirs --people so "overfamiliar"(so "crass"); the lightweight philosophy of his essays; and so on. Reading the articles in which such lynching occurred, I note this passage: Camus is "a peasant dressed up in his Sunday best,... a man of the people with his gloves in his hand and his hat still on his head, stepping for the first time into the drawing room. The other guests turn away, they know whom they are dealing ...

Pretty much finished with the selection of Pinter's plays (volume 4): just a few more pages of Family Voices . Started Kundera's The Curtain (forgot that I had it). It's subtitled An Essay in Seven Parts . I read his The Art of the Novel years ago; and a big chunk of his fiction years before that. Haven't gotten too far into it yet (though like many of his recent books, it's a shorty), but I thoroughly enjoyed "The Beauty of Death" which starts with the question: "Why does Anna Karenina kill herself?" and compares Tolstoy and Joyce: "Tolstoy and Joyce were haunted by the same obsession: to seize what occurs in a person's head during a present moment and a moment later will be gone forever. But there is a difference: with his interior monologue, Tolstoy examines not, as Joyce will do later, an ordinary, banal day, but instead the decisive moments of his heroine's life. And that is much harder, for the more dramatic, unusual, grave...

Don't get up that way (anymore) often enough. Took a few old friends with me: A, B, and C. C. was the first to spot a spout. We finished the day at Malibu Seafood (OK food, great view) and then suffered a bit with the traffic back to Long Beach. A beautiful day. Still wielding the Nokia.                                             

I guess it's already been superceded (is that why finding a cover is so difficult), but it's lightyears (in terms of gadgetry) beyond my old phone (and to think I wanted no cell phone and still view the cell-less past as the golden age). *   From my drive into work: The City:                 My view from my classroom (OK, I'll admit it: my naked eye could see the HOLLYWOOD sign and observatory better):           A few shots I took at the Bolsa Chica Reserve (on Monday), including the gun mounts from WWII (which I'd never seen until now -- a friend had spotted them on an earlier walk so I went up to take a few pics):                      

Harold Pinter , a photo by photarist on Flickr.

Started (just a night or two ago) reading the 4th volume of his "complete works" (Grove Press). The book contains: Old Times, No Man's Land, Betrayal, Monologue, and Family Voices . *** Harold Pinter , CH , CBE (10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a Nobel Prize -winning English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted to film. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works. Pinter was born and raised in Hackney , east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School . He was a sprinter and a...

Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Project, Berlin , a photo by glen.h on Flickr. A variation of this photo appears as the frontispiece to Roth's "Skyscrapers."

Karstadt - Berlin Hermannplatz 1930's , a photo by Oldimages on Flickr. An image similar to the one included with Roth's "The Very Large Department Store." OK, there's a bit of a difference: the one in the book is darker, doesn't show the complete store, has a streetcar in the forefront, and has swastikas flying (1939).

From the end of "Affirmation of the Triangular Railway Junction" ( Frankfurter Zeitung, July 16, 1924 ): So vast are the dimensions of the new life. That the new art which is to shape it cannot find a form for it is perfectly understandable. The reality is too overwhelming to be adequately represented. A faithful "depiction" is not enough. One would have to feel the heightened and ideal reality of this world, the Platonic ideal of the triangular railroad junction. One would have to affirm its harshness with enthusiasm, see the operation of "Ananke"* in its deadly effects, and prefer destruction by its laws to happiness by the "humane" laws of the sentimental world.      The world to come will be like this triangular railroad junction, raised to some unknown power. The earth has lived through several evolutionary stages--but following always natural laws. It is presently experiencing a new one, which follows contructive, conscious, and no less...

Joseph Roth , born Moses Joseph Roth (September 2, 1894 – May 27, 1939), was an Austrian - Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March (1932) about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , and for his novel of Jewish life, Job (1930) as well as the seminal essay 'Juden auf Wanderschaft' (1927; translated into English as The Wandering Jews ), a fragmented account about the Jewish migrations from eastern to western Europe in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution . [1] In the 21st century, publications in English of Radetzky March and of collections of his journalism from Berlin and Paris created a revival of interest in the author. [2]      [From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Roth ] ***     I'm currently reading Roth's What I Saw: Reports from Berlin (1920 - 1933).  First thing I've ever read by him. Feuilletons that originally appeared in various ...

Nearing the end of Volume 1: A Sort of Introduction and Pseudoreality Prevails, I suppose there is a sense of closure: just a little bit. Clarisse attempts to seduce Ulrich: "I want the child from you!" Clarisse said. Ulrich whistled through his teeth in surprise. She smiled like an adolescent who has misbehaved with deliberate provocation.  Ulrich prepares to go to the train station because of his father's death: He remembered saying casually that he would probably have to either write a book or kill himself. But the thought of death, thinking it over at close range, so to speak, did not in the least correspond to his present state of mind either; when he explored it a little and toyed with the notion of killing himself before morning instead of taking the train, it struck him as an improper conjunction at the moment he had received the news of his father's death! *** After I take a little detour, or is it breather (I'm currently reading Joseph Rot...

     And now they had one of their "terrible scenes," of which this marriage had seen so many. They were all on the same pattern. Imagine a theater with the stage blacked out, and the lights going on in two boxes on opposite sides of the proscenium, with Walter in one of them and Clarisse in the other, singled out among all the men and women, and between them the deep black abyss, warm with the bodies of invisible human beings. Now Clarisse opens her lips and speaks, and Walter replies, and the whole audience listens in breathless suspense, for never before has human talent produced such a spectacle of son et lumiere, sturm und drung. . . . Such was the scene, once more, with Walter stretching out his arm, imploring her, and Clarisse, a few steps away from him, with her finger wedged between the pages of her book. Opening it at random, she had hit on that fine passage where the master speaks of the impoverishment that follows the decay of the will and mani...

Egon Schiele "Selbstbildnis" / "Self-portrait" , a photo by KUUNSTKUULTUR on Flickr.

Krumlov panorama , a photo by Alina Zanina on Flickr. Cesky Krumlove is a dream destination for me (not only because of the Schiele Museum). Seeing it in snow would be magical.

Egon Schiele art centrum , a photo by Alina Zanina on Flickr. Had to counter Klimt with Egon Schiele.

The Beethoven Frieze is a painting by Gustav Klimt on display in the Secession Building located in Vienna , Austria . Description In 1902, Klimt painted the Beethoven Frieze for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition, which was intended to be a celebration of the composer and featured a monumental polychrome sculpture by Max Klinger . Meant for the exhibition only, the frieze was painted directly on the walls with light materials. After the exhibition the painting was preserved, although it did not go on display again until 1986. The Beethoven Frieze is now on permanent display in the Vienna Secession Building . The frieze illustrates human desire for happiness in a suffering and tempestuous world in which one contends not only with external evil forces but also with internal weaknesses. The viewer follows this journey of discovery in a stunning visual and linear fashion. It begins gently with the floating female Genii searching the Earth but soon follows the dark, sinist...

beethoven frieze , a photo by crown ☁ gun on Flickr.

The Golden Knight Beethoven Frieze , a photo by CheBella2012 on Flickr.

Beethoven Frieze Detail 2 , a photo by steve.wilde on Flickr.

Beethoven Frieze Detail 1 , a photo by steve.wilde on Flickr.

Klimt's Beethoven Frieze , a photo by jonfholl on Flickr. Though preferring Schiele to Klimt, I too remember this frieze as being quite impressive. I'm not sure that any of my photos have survived.

          

In my mind (always faulty) she had a hoop. Guess I was wrong (though a ghost hoop seems possible)--or confusing this little girl with de Chirico's or Renoir's or ??? 

Or a few Musil-bullets: In love as in business, in science as in the long jump, one has to believe before one can win and score, so how can it be otherwise for life as a whole? There are so many inexplicable things in life, but one loses sight of them when singing the national anthem. It is only fair to say that whenever their higher selves relaxed a bit, the Kakanians breathed a sigh of relief and, born consumers of food and drink as they were, looked with amazement upon their role as the tools of history. The truth is not a crystal that can be slipped into one's pocket, but an endless current into which one falls headlong.

There could be no doubt that if God returned this very day to set up the Millennium on earth, not a single practical, experienced man would take any stock in it unless the Last Judgment came fully equipped with a punitive apparatus of prison fortresses, police, armies, sedition laws, government departments, and whatever else was needed in order to rein in the incalculable potential of the human soul by relying on the two basic facts that the future tenant of heaven can be made to do what is needed only by intimidation and tightening the screws or else by bribery--in a word, by "strong measures."      But then Paul Arnheim would step forward and speak to the Lord: "Lord, why bother? Egotism is the most reliable factor in human life. It enables the politician, the soldier, the king, to keep order in the world by cunning and force. Mankind dances to its tune, as You and I must admit. To do away with force is to weaken the world order. Our task is to make man capable o...

Or a few Musil-bullets: "How things might turn out! That's always the way with you; it would never occur to you to wonder how things should be." It was essentially the same conversation he had had with Diotima, with only superficial differences. Nor did it make much difference which woman happened to be sitting there facing him; a body, introduced into a given magnetic field, invariably sets certain processes in motion. "Why on earth should I feel called upon to write a book?" Ulrich objected. "I was born of my mother, after all, not an inkwell." In this fashion Arnheim spoke with disapproval of desire, even as he felt it struggling like a blinded slave in the cellar. The moment we speak, certain doors begin to close; language works best for what doesn't really matter; we talk in lieu of living. . . ."

  [From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers ]       The illustration above demonstrates the law of large numbers using a particular run of rolls of a single die. As the number of rolls in this run increases, the average of the values of all the results approaches 3.5 [the average value of all faces: (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6)/6]. Though early on in the run (at left) the mean value may fluctuate wildly, over a large number of rolls (at right) the mean value will move closer and closer to the expected (theoretical) value of 3.5.     

     At this point Gerda's resistance tried to break through. "Are you trying to explain progress to me?" she cried out, doing her best to sound sarcastic.      "But of course," Ulrich came back at her, without breaking stride. "It's called the law of large numbers, a bit nebulously. Meaning that one person may commit suicide for this reason and another for that reason, but when a great number is involved, then the accidental and the personal elements cancel each other out, and what's left . . . but that's just it: what is left? I ask you. Because  you see, what's left is what each one of us as laymen calls, simply, the average, which is a "something," but nobody really knows exactly what . Let me add that efforts have been made to find a logical and formal explanation for this law of large numbers, as an accepted fact, as it were. But there are also those who say that such regularity of phenomena which are not casually related ...

Imperial and Royal The German phrase kaiserlich und königlich ( pronounced [ˈkaɪzɐlɪç ʔʊnt ˈkøːnɪklɪç] , Imperial and Royal ), typically abbreviated as k. u. k. , k. und k. , k. & k. or Hungarian: cs. és k. (in all cases the "und" is always spoken unabbreviated), refers to the Court of the Habsburgs in a broader historical perspective (see below). Some modern authors restrict its use to the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. During that period, it indicated that the Habsburg monarch reigned simultaneously as the Emperor of Austria and as the King of Hungary , while the two territories were joined in a real union (akin to a two-state federation in this instance). The acts of the common government, which only was responsible for the Imperial & Royal ("I&R") Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the I&R Ministry of War and the I&R Ministry of Finance (financing only the two other ministries), were carried out in the name of "H...

Gustav Jagerspacher: Portrait of Peter Altenberg 1909 , a photo by deflam on Flickr. A portrait I dug up on Flickr. No idea (yet) who Jagerspacher is. Very interesting and, yes, the hands are creepy.