Without Lifting A Finger

These quotes are from Strong Opinions .  From an interview with Alvin Toffler (think I met/saw him once long long ago) which appeared in Playboy (January, 1964). *** You have also written that poetry represents "the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words." But many feel that the "irrational" has little place in an age when the exact knowledge of science has begun to plumb the most profound mysteries of existence. Do you agree?      This appearance is very deceptive. It is a journalistic illusion. In point of fact, the greater one's science, the deeper the sense of mystery. Moreover, I don't believe that any science today has perceived any mystery. We, as newspaper readers, are inclined to call "science" the cleverness of an electrician or a psychiatrist's mumbo jumbo. This, at best, is applied science, and one of the characteristics of applied science is that yesterday's neutron or today's truth dies tomorrow...

Pandora's Box (1904) ( Die Büchse der Pandora ) is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind . It forms the second part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays, the first being Earth Spirit (1895), both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". [1] G. W. Pabst directed a silent film version Pandora's Box (1929), which was loosely based on the play. Both plays together also formed the basis for the opera Lulu by Alban Berg in 1935 (premiered posthumously in 1937). In the original manuscript, dating from 1894, the 'Lulu' drama was in five acts and subtitled 'A Monster Tragedy'. Wedekind subsequently divided the work into two plays: Earth Spirit (German: Erdgeist , first printed in 1895) and Pandora's Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora ). It is now customary in theatre performances to run the two plays together, in abridged form, under the title Lulu . Wedekind is known to have taken his inspiration from ...

There's word golf and author golf. I got to Wedekind via Buchner. * Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (July 24, 1864 – March 9, 1918), usually known as Frank Wedekind , was a German playwright . His work, which often criticizes bourgeois attitudes (particularly towards sex), is considered to anticipate expressionism , and he was a major influence on the development of epic theatre . Works Wedekind's first major play, Frühlings Erwachen ( Spring Awakening , 1891), which concerns sexuality and puberty among some young German students, caused a scandal, as it contained scenes of homoeroticism , implied group male masturbation , actual male masturbation, sado-masochism between a teenage boy and girl, rape, and suicide , as well as references to abortion . In 2006, it was adapted into a successful Broadway musical , Spring Awakening . The "Lulu" plays Erdgeist ( Earth Spirit , 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora ( Pandora's Box , 1904) are probably his best k...

Lenz shuddered when he touched her cold limbs and saw her half-open glassy eyes. The child seemed to him so forlorn, and he himself so alone and isolated; he threw himself on top of the corpse; death frightened him, he was seized by an agony of pain, these features, this quiet face were going to rot away, he threw himself to his knees and with all the plangent ardour of despair he prayed that God might give him, weak and wretched creature that he was, a sign, and bring the child back to life; whereupon he huddled down in total concentration, focusing all his will-power on a single point, and thus he remained for a long time, quite rigid. Then he stood and, grasping the hands of the child, said loudly and firmly: 'Arise, and walk!' But the words echoed back from the sober walls as though in mockery, and the corpse stayed cold. 

Sturm und Drang ( German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʊʁm ʊnt ˈdʁaŋ] , literally "Storm and Drive", "Storm and Urge", though conventionally translated as "Storm and Stress") [1] is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klinger 's play Sturm und Drang , which was first performed by Abel Seyler 's famed theatrical company in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang , with Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , H. L. Wagner and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger also significant figures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Fri...

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (23 January 1751, or 12 January in the Julian calendar –4 June 1792, or 24 May in the Julian calendar) was a Baltic German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement. Life Lenz was born in Sesswegen (Cesvaine) , now Latvia , the son of the pietistic minister Christian David Lenz (1720–1798), later General Superintendent of Livonia. When Lenz was 9, in 1760, the family moved to Dorpat (Tartu) , where his father had been offered a minister's post. His first published poem appeared when he was 15. From 1768 to 1770 he studied theology on a scholarship, first at Dorpat and then at Königsberg . While there, he attended lectures by Immanuel Kant , who encouraged him to read Jean-Jacques Rousseau . He began increasingly to follow his literary interests and to neglect theology. His first independent publication, the long poem Die Landplagen ( "Torments of the Land" ) appeared in 1769. He also studied music, most likely with either the Ukrainian v...

     In the tiny churchyard the snow was gone, dark moss amongst the black crosses, a cluster of late roses leaning against the churchyard wall, late flowers, too, peering from the moss, sometimes sunlight, then shadow again. The service began, the voices of the people merged in bright pure harmony; it was like gazing into pure clear water from a mountain spring. The sounds of the singing died away, Lenz began to speak, he was shy, thanks to the music his numbness was gone, all his pain awoke and filled his heart. A sweet sensation of endless well-being crept over him. He spoke simply to the people, all shared his suffering, and it was a comfort to him if he could bring sleep to weeping tired eyes and peace to tortured hearts, if in the face of this existence racked by material needs he could guide this silent suffering towards heaven. He had found more strength by the time he finished, then the voices began to sing again: Let in me the sacred passion ...

An old friend brought up Nietzsche, the silver fox of a philosopher (or man-on-the-street) mumbled something about Chomsky, and something at work this week made me think of Richard Rorty. What do I understand about philosophy? Next to nothing. And yet I sometimes dabble, choosing this person or that primarily on the way that he/she shuffles words. Anyway, I dug up the Rorty text that I was thinking of and will jot down just a couple of passages I highlighted long long ago. * From Rorty's introduction to Essays on Heidegger and Others: Consider sentences as strings of marks and noises emitted by organisms, strings capable of being paired off with the strings we ourselves utter (in the way we call "translating"). Consider beliefs, desires, and intentions -- sentential attitudes generally -- as entities posited to help predict the behavior of these organisms. Now think of those organisms as gradually evolving as a result of producing longer and more complicate...

Finally decided to sit still for me, down at the Colorado Lagoon. 

Plaque to Brian O'Nolan/Myles Na Gopaleen/Flann O'Brien in Strabane , a photo by Strabanephotos on Flickr.

Had the boiled Irish meal over the weekend, so tonight it's pizza and Smithwick's (instead of Guinness). I also want to throw de Selby into the mix: he deserves a footnote. * De Selby is a fictional character originally invented by Flann O'Brien for his novel The Third Policeman . In this novel the character is known as "de Selby", with the latter capital D appearing in use in O'Brien's The Dalkey Archive . De Selby does not actually appear in the plot of the novel, but only in references and frequent footnotes, where his unorthodox theories and areas of research are, however tenuously, linked to the plot. [ 1 ] De Selby is heavily referenced in footnotes in this book, the longest of which takes up the bottom halves of eight pages and ends on a completely different note from the one on which it began. De Selby has a host of critical analyzers – the narrator among them – many of whom have highly conflicting opinions of his esoteric thoughts. Alth...

From the Intro by John Reddick: No other writer is more enthusiastically hailed by his present-day successors: Heinrich Boll has spoken of his 'remarkable relevance', Gunter Grass of his 'incendiary' force; for Christa Wolf, 'German prose begins with Buchner's Lenz ' -- which constitutes her 'absolute ideal', her 'primal experience' in German literature; Wolf Biermann has gone so far as to describe him simply as Germany's 'greatest writer'.

Ran into her in Danton's Death .   [From Wikimedia Commons]     ***   The Venus Callipyge , also known as the Aphrodite Kallipygos ( Greek : Ἀφροδίτη Καλλίπυγος ) or the Callipygian Venus , all literally meaning "Venus (or Aphrodite) of the beautiful buttocks", [2] is an Ancient Roman marble statue, thought to be a copy of an older Greek original. In an example of anasyrma , it depicts a partially draped woman, raising her light peplos to uncover her hips and buttocks, and looking back and down over her shoulder, perhaps to evaluate them. The subject is conventionally identified as Venus ( Aphrodite ), though it may equally be a portrait of a mortal woman. The marble statue extant today dates to the late 1st century BC. [3] The lost Greek original on which it is based is thought to have been bronze , and to have been executed around 300 BC, towards the beginning of the Hellenistic era . [3] The provenance of the marble copy is unknown, bu...

I'VE BOUGHT TO MUCH, THEREFORE I DIE . Death of Marat in shopping city of Voitsberg/Styria , a photo by LitterART on Flickr. Once classic, you're bound to be reinterpreted, commercialized, abused. It's tough at the top.

29. Jacques Louis David, The Death of Marat (1793) Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels) , a photo by vizcult on Flickr. Danton is chockfull of revolutionary dudes. The footnotes are very helpful in sorting out the details, and also a good read "unto themselves."

Casting around for something new to read, I hit on Buchner. His works (very few in number) were on Kindle, so I thought: Why not reread Georg. OK, so I had to shell out a little cash (freebies were only in German). I remembered liking him very much in paper. Currently reading his play,  Danton's Death . *** Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was also a revolutionary, a natural scientist, and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. His literary achievements, though few in number, are generally held in great esteem in Germany and it is widely believed that, had it not been for his early death, he might have joined such central German literary figures as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller at the summit of their profession. Life and career Born in Goddelau (now part of Riedstadt ) in the Grand Duchy of Hesse as the son of a physician, Büchner attended a human...

We always make choices. I took the wrong way home yesterday. Traffic: stop-and-go all the way to Long Beach. I took a few pictures. *                     



STRANGER. So you're here? TEMPTER. I'm always everywhere, where it smells of quarrels. And in love affairs there are always quarrels. STRANGER. Always? TEMPTER. Always! I was invited to a silver wedding yesterday. Twenty-five years are no trifle -- and for twenty-five years they'd been quarrelling. The whole love affair had been one long shindy, with many little ones in between! And yet they loved one another, and were grateful for all the good that had come to them; the evil was forgotten, wiped out -- for a moment's happiness is worth ten days of blows and pinpricks. Oh yes! Those who won't accept evil never get anything good. The rind's very bitter, though the kernel's sweet. STRANGER. But very small.

Günter Grass e Christa Wolf , a photo by Germanofili on Flickr. I posted a photo earlier (sometime last year) of Christa Wolf, but it apparently was blocked or taken off Flickr. Here's another one (Christa is on the right) with Gunter Grass (I don't think I've ever posted a photo of him). Two birds one stone.

According to Urban Dictionary , Anthony Burgess gets first coinage: in Nadsat  peeting means "drinking." Dim, Georgie, and I were peeting the old moloko at the Korova Milkbar. * I'm not planting my flag anywhere, but certainly I've given it the meaning: "going to Peets," "stopping in at Peets," "breakfasting at Peets," etc. I'll be peeting tomorrow around 5:30.

Even the flowers think it's spring.                   

Was recently contacted (at a near-dead e-mail I rarely check) by a Joseph Morsman re the art and identity of Jason Herron, the female artist with a man's name whom I uncovered last school year at Belmont High School: Her buff basketballer sits (or did at least while I was there) right at the front door of the school. Anyway, without inserting the exact contents of his e-mail, I want to add what I found related to Joseph and his sounds-like-a-labor-of-love book, working title: Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists in California, 1860 - 1960. Hope it gets published!   According to Joseph, the book will have 10 images of Jason (Jessie) Herron's work. ***   [From: http://bbhgallery.com/BBH_Gallery_Monthly_aug_13.html ] 

This excerpt is from the third part of the trilogy: CONFESSOR. I think you're entangling yourself in contradictions. STRANGER. I think so, too! For the whole of life consists of nothing but contradictions. The rich are the poor in spirit; the many little men hold the power, and the great only serve the little men. I've never met such proud people as the humble; I've never met an uneducated man who didn't believe himself in a position to criticize learning and to do the unpleasantest of deadly sins amongst the Saints: I mean self-complacency. In my youth I was a saint myself; but I've never been so worthless as I was then. The better I thought myself, the worse I became. CONFESSOR. Then what do you seek here? STRANGER. What I've told you already; but I'll add this: I'm seeking death without the need to die!

Expressionist plays often dramatise the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists and are referred to as Stationendramen (station dramas), modeled on the episodic presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross . August Strindberg had pioneered this form with his autobiographical trilogy To Damascus (1898-1904). The plays often dramatise the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority, often personified in the figure of the Father. In Reinhard Sorge 's The Beggar ( Der Bettler ), the young hero's mentally ill father raves about the prospect of mining the riches of Mars and is eventually poisoned by his son. In Arnolt Bronnen 's Parricide ( Vatermord ), the son stabs his tyrannical father to death, only to have to fend off the frenzied sexual overtures of his mother. In Expressionist drama, the speech is heightened, whether expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic. Director Leopold Jessner becam...

Harriet Sofie Bosse (19 February 1878 – 2 November 1961) was a Swedish – Norwegian actress. A celebrity in her own day, Bosse is today most commonly remembered as the third wife of August Strindberg , an influential playwright. Bosse began her career in a minor company run by her forceful older sister Alma Fahlstrøm in Kristiania (now Oslo , the capital of Norway). Having secured an engagement at the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Sweden's capital Stockholm , Bosse caught the attention of Strindberg with her intelligent acting and exotic "oriental" appearance. After a whirlwind courtship, which unfolds in detail in Strindberg's letters and diary, Strindberg and Bosse were married in 1901, when he was 51 and she 22. Strindberg wrote a number of major roles for Bosse during their short and stormy relationship, especially in 1900–01, a period of great creativity and productivity for him. Like his previous two marriages, the re...

  [Photo fro Wikimedia Commons] 

To Damascus ( Swedish : Till Damaskus ), also known as The Road to Damascus , is a trilogy of plays by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg . [1] The first two parts were published in 1898, with the third following in 1904. [2] It has been described as "Strindberg's most complex play" and as "his greatest play," due to its "synthesis of a wide variety of myths, symbols and ideas with a profound spiritual analysis in a new dramatic form." [3] Writing Process Strindberg began writing Part 1 in January 1898 in France and by 8 March he had completed the manuscript. [4] This marked the first time that Strindberg had written drama in five years. [4] "If you find it good," he wrote to Gustaf af Geijerstam , "chuck it in at the theatre. If you find it impossible, hide it away." [4] At this time, he considered the first part to be complete in itself; he did not originally intend to follow it with two sequels. [4] He began w...

    

Thought about this poem this week: mostly the last line, which I love. Not a big fan of his work in general, but I've always liked this one. Don't even care what it means. *** Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly Asleep on the black trunk, Blowing like a leaf in the green shadow. Down the ravine behind the empty house, The cowbells follow one another Into the distances of the afternoon. To my right, In a field of sunlight between two pines, The droppings of last year’s horses Blaze up into golden stones. I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on. A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. I have wasted my life.

Finished with Kafka and Felice. He gets diagnosed with tuberculosis toward the end of the correspondence. Was sort of in between texts (still am but I think I'll return to Strindberg), so I read the appendices of the Letters to Milena  (I've read the letters thrice but my new Kindle version included some extra goodies: some letters from Milena to Max Brod, some of Milena's articles/essays, and the obit she wrote for Kafka). These bits are from letters Milena wrote to Max: I really was very shocked; I didn't know that Franz's illness was so serious -- he was really quite healthy here, I didn't hear him cough at all, he was bright and cheerful and slept well. He doesn't understand the simplest things in the world. Were you ever in a post office with him? After he composes a telegram and picks out whatever little counter he likes best, shaking his head, he then drifts from one counter to another, without the slightest idea to what end or why, until he f...