Without Lifting A Finger

Should finish Penelope's "opus" by the end of the weekend. Have also dipped into the "fragment" that started it all: Heinrich ( Henry) von Ofterdingen .     *         

Not a showcase of great writing (so I won't need to read more Penelope anytime soon), but I'm learning a little bit (mostly names and places) and I can appreciate the research (can't make everything up when it's "historical"). I can see, however, what at least one critic has said: Weak in terms of the philosophy behind the movement and the man. Perhaps her Blue Flower will inspire me to dig deeper? * 'But there is something else which I have written and which I want to read to you while I still have time,' Fritz told Karoline. 'It will not truly exist until you have heard it.'      'Is it then poetry?'      'It is poetry, but not verse.'      'Then it is a story?' asked Karoline, who dreaded the reappearance of Fichte's triads.      'It is the beginning of a story.'      'Well, we will wait until my Aunt Rahel comes back from the evening service.'   ...

    

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin ( / k r oʊ ˈ p ɒ t k ɪ n , k r ə - / ; [9] Russian : Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; December 9, 1842 – February 8, 1921) was a Russian geographer , economist, activist, philologist , zoologist , evolutionary theorist , philosopher, writer, and prominent anarchist . Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between workers. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops , and his principal scientific offering, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution . He also contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition . [From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin ]

Flip-flopping between Bernhard's Lime Works and Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower (via Bernhard, Kropotkin and Novalis, I got to Fitzgerald's "opus" -- wasn't sure about historical fiction, not my fave genre, but I figured it would be relatively short and informational: OK so far). * Anyway, Blue Flower kicked up Dr. John Brown. From Blue Flower : Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, had cured a number of patients by refusing to let blood, and by recommending exercise, sufficient sex, and fresh air. But he held that to be alive was not a natural state, and to prevent immediate collapse the constitution must be held in perpetual balance by a series of stimuli, either jacking it up with alcohol, or damping it down with opium. From the online Britannica : 

Same starting point as yesterday: Bucks on PCH. Just varied the path.                     

Of late he had become so desperate about this deadlock that he boldly called it an absolutely epoch-making scientific work. But she only laughed and said: Whatever it is that you have in your head, I'd rather not see it; if your head could be tipped over to empty out its contents, what is likely to fall out is some ghastly mess or other, some indefinable, horrifying, utterly worthless kind of dung or rot. Your so-called book -- this is how the Konrad woman dared to refer to her husband's work-in-progress toward the end -- is really nothing more than a delusion.

Down a Hogarthian path (similar to what's in Seal Beach). A curious little memorial garden (doubles as a smokers' hangout?). Housing: a mix of old and new. Multiple sandy paths to the beach. I left the Starbucks (PCH), passed the Old Guys Rule coffee and car park (is it only on Sundays?), crossed at the light. Went down to where Bolsa Chica Beach starts, then turned around and came back. *                                                           



                

We stayed at the Hotel de Arts on the corner of Rue de Charonne and La Belle Equipe. We happened to be there on June 21 (Fête de la musique) and La Belle was hoppin' (outside and in) when we returned around midnight from our Seine cruise with Bateaux Mouches .                         

Loyola High School of Los Angeles is a Jesuit preparatory school for young men. It is the oldest high school and continuously run educational institution in Southern California . Loyola is located in the Pico-Union neighborhood, 2 miles (3 km) west of downtown Los Angeles , and just north of Interstate 10 (the Santa Monica Freeway). It admits students from 220 ZIP codes in the greater Los Angeles area. * History Loyola High School of Los Angeles is the region's oldest educational institution, pre-dating the University of California system and the Los Angeles public schools. The school was founded in 1865 as St. Vincent's College at the behest of Archdiocese of Los Angeles Bishop Thaddeus Amat , a member of the Vincentian order. In 1919, the Vincentians agreed to transfer management of the school to the Jesuits . After several transitions, the school moved in 1927 to its current location on Venice Boulevard . Irish philanthropist Thomas P. Higgins provided the land...

Had never heard of the school (private, all boys). Turns out it's very close to where I teach in LA. Bob from Bucks educated me. Right across the street from a huge cemetery (kind of ugly looking -- sorry and RIP) on Venice Blvd. *       

        

Been busy with school but have been reading and writing quite a bit. Refuge. Recent reading: Nabokov, Coetzee, Coetzee, Nabokov, David Ferry (reread), Thomas Bernhard. Got Melville on the back burner, or I may reach for another Bernhard (we'll see). * From Bernhard's The Lime Works : Even though it was still referred to as the lime works, when it came up, it would after all be truer to speak of a shut-down or deactivated lime works, when referring to the lime works. People are always referring to all kinds of structures or mental complexes, Konrad is supposed to have said, that have long ceased to be the same structures or mental complexes they once were.





                      

Had an early dinner at Second & Saint. Pricey but good. Watched the little ones (and a few big ones) milling around in their costumes.     When I got home I tried to watch The Third Man (know I've seen it before), but I got too tired and went to bed. Had forgotten about the Graham Greene connection.     *