Without Lifting A Finger

Certainly democracy is the great leveller. Reading anything is better than reading nothing. If it's point-and-shoot or apes reality TV, how can it be great art? For the few people with "strong opinions" about such things (I suppose I'm one of them), the world is drowning in kitsch. And yet: the times they are a changin... * Peeting essentials: a good cup of coffee and maple scone (in lieu of madeleines and tea); some reading apparatus (paper or Kindle); something good to read (Kafka's Trial will do). Before I get started, I look at a message from Amazon (something I rarely do, as they're usually just pushing more of what I've recently chosen myself--in this case Thomas Bernhard--or something I have little interest in). Knausgaard (a name I've never heard of) is linked to Bernhard (and, after a series of clicks and glimpses: to Proust). * I'll reserve judgment (for now) and let the pot simmer. Maybe eventually I'll sample more (what I...



                            

Dickinson House -- a pitch for a friend. Sounds like a great idea and a labor of love. Check it out: http://dickinsonhouse.be/possibility/about/

Finished The Loser (will probably hit TB up again real soon) and have returned to Kafka: The Trial . Though certainly school has taken a toll on reading and writing. Drib-drab. Here-there. Lots of good biographical info in the Afterword (Mark M. Anderson) of The Loser , but I've chosen this bit because I found it quite telling and near the mark: Bernhard later noted that it was his grandfather who instilled in him a fierce intellectual independence, warning him, for instance, not to take school seriously or to believe his teachers.

I suppose it says something. Just not sure what. 

Beer-truck drivers have fascinated me since my earliest childhood, so too that day. I was fascinated by the way they unloaded the beer kegs and rolled them through the lobby, then tapped the first one for the innkeeper and sat down with her at the next table. As a child I had wanted to become a beer-truck driver, admired beer-truck drivers, I thought, couldn't look often enough at beer-truck drivers. Sitting at the next table and watching the beer-truck drivers I again fell prey to this sentiment from my childhood, but I didn't dwell on it for long, instead I got up and left the Dichtel Mill for Traich, not without having told the innkeeper that I would be back toward evening or even earlier, depending , and that I was counting on an evening meal. While going out I heard the beer-truck drivers ask the innkeeper who I was and since I have sharper ears than anybody I also heard her whisper my name and add that I was a friend of Wertheimer's, the fool who'd killed himsel...

      

Wasn't as friendly this morning and was in front of the new Rite Aid. I understand privacy, especially around breakfast time.   

Apophatic Theology  (from Ancient Greek : ἀπόφασις , from ἀπόφημι – apophēmi , "to deny")—also known as negative theology , via negativa or via negationis [1] ( Latin for "negative way" or "by way of denial")—is a theology that attempts to describe God , the Divine Good, by negation , to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God . [2] It stands in contrast with cataphatic theology . A startling example can be found with theologian John Scotus Erigena (9th century): " We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being. " In brief, negative theology is an attempt to clarify religious experience and language about the Divine Good through discernment, gaining knowledge of what God is not ( apophasis ), rather than by describing what God is. The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with th...

Was waiting for this. Not as impressive as some years (maybe there's more to come). Didn't catch the theme (maybe there wasn't one).                          



      



Re Thomas Bernhard's "ovular logic": still enjoying it. Only now it'll have to be in smaller bites: Summer is over (too soon). * Excerpt #1: The trip from Vienna to Chur took thirteen hours, Austrian trains are a disaster, their dining cars, assuming there is one, serve only the worst food. A glass of mineral water set in front of me, I planned to reread after twenty years Musil's The Confusions of Young Torless , which however I didn't manage, I no longer tolerate stories, I read a page and can't read further. Excerpt #2: The mind, wherever it makes its claims felt, is finished off and locked up and of course immediately branded as mindless , he said, I thought while looking up at the restaurant ceiling. But everything we say is nonsense, he said, I thought, no matter what we say it is nonsense and our entire life is a single piece of nonsense. I understood that early on, I'd barely started to think for myself and I already understood that, ...

Inspector A: None of this is going to show up very well in the record, Mr. K. My men say you even tried to stop them from putting this down [ points to notebook ]. Josef K.: Well, I tried to stop one of them from making a fool of himself. [ pointing ] Yes, yes: ovular. Inspector A:  What’s that? Josef K.: Ov-u-lar. Inspector A:  There’s no such word.





On the east side of the 405. I'd say within hopping distance from Marie Callender's. He/she (I've never asked) was out browsing for breakfast when I walked by.   

Rarely catch such things, but for some reason "Mauritius" jumped out. Hope they found what they were looking, if they were looking, but even a random hit from Mauritius is significant. * Mauritius ( i / m ə ˈ r ɪ ʃ ə s / ; French : Maurice ), officially the Republic of Mauritius ( French : République de Maurice ), is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) off the southeast coast of the African continent . The country includes the island of Mauritius, Rodrigues (560 kilometres (350 mi) east), the islands of Agalega and the archipelago of Saint Brandon . The islands of Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Réunion 170 km (110 mi) south west, form part of the Mascarene Islands . The area of the country is 2040 km 2 . The capital and largest city is Port Louis . Mauritius claims sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago from the United Kingdom and Tromelin island from France. The United Kingdom excised the Chagos Archipelago from Maur...



Had a few loose ends to tie up this morning (San Pedro), then stopped at the pier to walk. I was a little surprised at the shabbiness of the pier (ok, that's to some degree what fishing piers look like), the riff-raff (ok, a good place to hang out if you're homeless), and crumbling concrete (hope some city engineer has his eyes on that). Tried to focus on the beauty. *                 

Novalis ( German: [noˈvaːlɪs] ) was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (May 2, 1772 – March 25, 1801), a poet, author, and philosopher of early German Romanticism . Writing Novalis, who had great knowledge in science, law, philosophy, politics and political economy, started writing quite early. He left an astonishing abundance of notes on these fields of knowledge and his early work shows that he was very educated and well read. His later works are closely connected to his studies and his profession. Novalis collected everything that he had learned, reflected upon it and drew connections in the sense of an encyclopaedic overview on art, religion and science. These notes from the years 1798 and 1799 are called Das allgemeine Brouillon , and are now available in English under the title Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia . Together with Friedrich Schlegel , Novalis developed the fragment as a literary form of art. The core of Hardenberg’s literary w...

Excerpt from Correction : I'm no philosopher, he'd always said. He had a preference for old clothes, early rising, and washing in cold water. He placed Novalis above everything. Nature, not yet polluted by human beings, hence his early rising. A minimal breakfast, thick socks his sister had knitted from raw, untreated wool, and one of Novalis's ideas. Time was to him only a means toward the constant study of time.



Call it a miracle or just climate change, it was a wonderful experience...           

    

    

  " Gustav Klimt 055 " by Gustav Klimt - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202 . Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons .