Without Lifting A Finger

Captain Delano crossed over to him, and stood in silence surveying the knot; his mind, by a not uncongenial transition, passing from its own entanglements to those of the hemp. For intricacy, such a knot he had never seen in an American ship, nor indeed any other. The old man looked like an Egyptian priest, making Gordian knots for the temple of Ammon. The knot seemed a combination of double-bowline-knot, treble-crown-knot, back-handed-well-knot, knot-in-and-out-knot, and jamming-knot. At last, puzzled to comprehend the meaning of such a knot, Captain Delano addressed the knotter: — "What are you knotting there, my man?" "The knot," was the brief reply, without looking up. "So it seems; but what is it for?" "For some one else to undo," muttered back the old man, plying his fingers harder than ever, the knot being now nearly completed.

Christmas Morning. The kids are too old to have sugar plums dancing in their heads, but they're still sleeping. Rain not snow. I'm having coffee and hoping to return once again to see the Breakfast Club (redubbed here the Christmas Gang) in action. Somewhere CA. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!❤️🎁❄️ #rlswihart13 #somewhereca #christmasday2021 #birdsofchristmas #christmasgang #breakfastclub #housefinch #spottedtowhee #nature #poetry #beauty #readmorepoetry2021 #greentailedtowhee #whitecrownedsparrow

So true it is, and so terrible, too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.

  Common Loon @ Colorado Lagoon. Hard to get close but fun trying and fun to watch. Haven't seen him the last two days, but that doesn't mean he's gone. 🤞 #rlswihart13 #longbeachcalifornia#coloradolagoon##birdsofinstagram #loon #commonloon #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

 Not as poetic or "theological" as Moby Dick, but an interesting story with some good "bits": With the measured step and calm collected air of an asylum-physician approaching in the public hall some patient beginning to show indications of a coming paroxysm, Claggart deliberately advanced within short range of Billy, and mesmerically looking him in the eye, briefly recapitulated the accusation.

The Mexican Duck @ Carr Park in Huntington Beach. Not a BIG THRILL but small thrills add up. Thanks to @just.birdies for the tip. #rlswihart13 #huntingtonbeach #carrpark #ducksofinstagram #mexicanducks #nature #smallthrills #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

 No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was. — Most miserable!

While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above supposition.

Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and ...

From MD Ch. 56. I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins's is far better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is the best. All Beale's drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. &&& From Beale's "Natural History" (which I found -- in toto? -- online.

Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to colour, and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; — Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as...

Brown Creeper near Hummock Pond, Nantucket. I was shooting some swans at the edge of  a lawn and when I went back to the road he went from hide and seek in the mossy tree to perfect poses on my side of the tree. Yippie. Lifer. #rlswihart13 #nantucket #hummockpond #birdsofnantucket #birdsofinstagram #browncreeper #nature #beauty #mossytrees #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

 A visit to Nantucket got me start thinking about Melville (we stayed in the Jared Coffin House) -- I've always been a fan of Bartleby -- and now I'm attempting Moby Dick for the second time. So far so good but it's early (Ch. 26): "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

Every so often I get to give my Kindle Ebooks away (you'll have to spend your $$$ for the paper). Consider this an early Christmas/Holiday gift. From midnight tonight (Friday 12:00 AM) to midnight on Nov. 16, you should be able to download all three books for free @ Amazon.com. Merry Christmas!!! 🧑‍🎄🧑‍🎄🧑‍🎄 #rlswihart13 #frommyhousetoyours #merryxmas #amazon #rlswihart #thelastman #matmanandtestudo #woodhenge #poetrygiveaway #readmorepoetry2021

In The Murders of the Rue Morgue , Poe opted for the older spelling of clue: "clew" is the older "clue." Once a ball of thread it became "by way of" Ariadne's ball of thread the "clue" of detective stories

Mandarin Ducks @ TeWinkle Park in Costa Mesa. Two pairs this morning, the only other "shooter" said yesterday there were three pairs. Little else there -- beautiful park, Canada Geese, Egyptian Geese, Mallards, Muscovy Ducks -- but maybe I'll return tomorrow. Maybe I'll catch the third pair. Catch them flying. Anyway, maybe the most beautiful duck I've "shot" thus far. Shame on you, hunters.  #rlswihart13 #costamesa #tewinklepark #ducksofinstagram #mandarinducks #ducks #beauty #waterfowl #wildlife #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

He liked absolutely any person who introduced an element of rebellion or, at the very least, mischief, into the world—up to and including maniacs and arsonists, whom he wrote about extensively and was happy to talk about for hours on end. He was a bit of an arsonist himself. Not once did I ever see him put out a match after lighting a cigarette: he would invariably throw the match away unextinguished. After lunch or during his evening tea, when the ashtray would be filled with a sufficient quantity of cigarette butts, matches, and papers, he made it his cherished habit to furtively shove a lit match inside the pile. After doing so, he would attempt to distract the attention of those around him—while he himself cast cunning glances over his shoulder at the blazing bonfire. It seemed that these “little family fires,” as I once suggested calling them, took on a certain wicked and joyful symbolic meaning in his eyes. He felt great respect for the experiments being done in atomic fission; h...

 I lived a good distance away from Gorky. Walking the streets at night was exhausting and not without its dangers: a person could get robbed. For this reason, it was not uncommon for me to stay the night; a bed would be made up for me on the divan that stood in the dining room. Late in the evening, the hustle and bustle would die down. The hour would arrive for the family to take their tea. I served as an audience for Gorky’s much-loved reminiscences, the ones that he always trotted out when he wished to “charm” his new acquaintances. Later on, I would learn that these stories were rather limited in number and that, though they retained the appearance of improvisations, they would repeat themselves verbatim, year after year. More than once, I came across character sketches written by people who had happened to visit Gorky’s at one time or another and each time I would laugh when I arrived at the stereotypical phrase: “Alexei Maximovich’s thoughts unexpectedly turn toward the past, ...

 In 1917, Klyuev’s influence, which essentially resonated with Esenin’s own worldview, gave way to the influence of the left-wing SRs. It was at that time that the SRs explained to Esenin that the Rus’ that was to come, the one he had been dreaming of, was, in fact, the new state. This new state would also be built on a religious foundation: not on a pagan or a Christian foundation, but, rather, on a socialist one; not on a faith in redeeming gods, but on faith in the self-organized human being. They explained to him that “there is socialism and then there is Socialism”—that socialism with a lowercase letter is merely a social and political program, but that there is Socialism with a capital letter, too: a “religious idea, a new faith and a new knowledge to which the knowledge and old faith of Christianity are giving way…The best even of professional Christian theologians see this, know this.” “The new universal idea (Socialism) will act as dynamite; it will break the chains that C...

 Three videos (Lumix FZ300 4K Burst) from this morning @ Bolsa Chica. While the videos are "passable" the still "extracts" are not. I tried. At that time of the morning (6 - 8), and with a marine layer, that's the lay of the land. Coyote, Kingfisher, Juvenile Cowbirds. #rl_swihart13 #huntingtonbeachca #bolsachicareserve #coyote #kingfisher #juvenilecowbird #nature #beauty #earlymorning #poetry #videos #readmorepoetry2021

Sorta an anti-poem poem: Notes on "Description of a Struggle." Perhaps towo many allusions for most. Give it a look anyhoo. I have some "simpler" poems coming out eventually. Thanks to Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg @ Offcourse. Simply the best. https://www.albany.edu/offcourse/issue86/swihart_rl.html

Been jumping around a bit, but one constant has been rereading Nabokov: Speak Memory, Glory (first time and I got a bit bored), Sebastian Knight.  In rereading Knight I thought how wonderfully Nabokov draws from (always tweaking) his own bio. I also (not totally out of the blue) thought of Khodasevich, who I hadn't read (I only know a few poems via Nabokov) or read about for some while. I scratched the itch (this morning) and long story short: I downloaded his Necropolis (prose, memoirs, The Symbolists) and am reading the first "essay" on Nina Petrovskaya: Nina Petrovskaya was not attractive. But in 1903 she was young—and that makes quite a difference. She was “rather smart,” as Blok said, and she was “sensitive,” as they might have said if she had lived a century earlier. Most importantly, she was very good at “matching pitch.” She immediately became the object of a number of loves.

White Point Beach. Send in the clowns. It was a thrill to  cross the gap between mainland and "island" (my shoes usually got wet but I took that as a plus), nod to the sentinel gull (on a large rock overlooking the breakfast table), and watch the oystercatchers (blacks & hybrids) playing their breakfast game. I had so much fun I'll probably go back. Though hybrids are beautiful too, I'd love to see a true American oystercatcher drilling in the sand.:) #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #sanpedro #whitepointbeach #birdsofinstagram #breakfastclub #tidepools #seafoodbuffet #oystercatchers #blackoystercatchers #sendintheclowns #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

Rock Wren @ White Point Beach. Took me three walks (past the restroom and along a thin path -- like no path -- 'twixt cliff and rocky shore) to get a decent pic of this little guy, but yesterday it was as though he were waiting for me, sitting so quietly on a log.  #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #sanpedro #whitepointbeach #birdsofinstagram #wrensoftheworld #wrens #rockwrens #stonybeaches #beauty #nature #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

  Another Juvenile Cooper's Hawk. I was in Cerritos, on the west side of the San Gabriel River, and a man with his dog pointed him out to me. The beautiful teenager had settled on a chimney (#3 to #5). From there he "jumped" to the metal "helmet" of a cable junction (#1 and #2) near the same house. Keep 'em comin'. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #cerritos #sangabrielriver #hawksofinstagram #hawks #juveniles #coopershawk #nature #beauty #mornings #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

Didn't do much in terms of "serious birding" today -- maybe tomorrow. Walked around the lagoon (balmy weather, next to zero birds), saw a bunch of starlings on a utility line and ran into a pair of the local mitred parakeets (twice and on the other side of the fence).  #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #longbeachca #neighborhood #birdsofinstagram #parakeetsofinstagram #southlandparakeets #mitredparakeets #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

Oliver & Fred (Again) from Grey Heron Colony (Graureiherkolonie) in Bramfelder See, Hamburg. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #germany #hamburg #bramfeldersee #graureiherkolonie #greyherons #herons #reiher #birdsofinstagram #nature #travel #beauty #readmorepoetry2021

  #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #huntingtonbeach #bolsachica #birdsofinstagram #hummingbirdsofinstagram #nature #birds #hummingbirds #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021 #thelastman #otoliths

 I do remember, however, with heartbreaking vividness, a certain evening in the summer of 1917 when, after a winter of incomprehensible separation, I chanced to meet Tamara on a suburban train. For a few minutes between two stops, in the vestibule of a rocking and rasping car, we stood next to each other, I in a state of intense embarrassment, of crushing regret, she consuming a bar of chocolate, methodically breaking off small, hard bits of the stuff, and talking of the office where she worked. On one side of the tracks, above bluish bogs, the dark smoke of burning peat was mingling with the smoldering wreck of a huge, amber sunset. It can be proved, I think, by published records that Alexander Blok was even then noting in his diary the very peat smoke I saw, and the wrecked sky. There was later a period in my life when I might have found this relevant to my last glimpse of Tamara as she turned on the steps to look back at me before descending into the jasmin-scented, cricket-mad ...

Re Nabokov's boyhood (then manhood) wonder with butterflies and nature in general: When a butterfly has to look like a leaf, not only are all the details of a leaf beautifully rendered but markings mimicking grub-bored holes are generously thrown in. “Natural selection,” in the Darwinian sense, could not explain the miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect and imitative behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of “the struggle for life” when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator’s power of appreciation. I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception.

Reading Nabokov's "Speak, Memory" for the third time: “Oh, yes,” she would say as I mentioned this or that unusual sensation. “Yes, I know all that,” and with a somewhat eerie ingenuousness she would discuss such things as double sight, and little raps in the woodwork of tripod tables, and premonitions, and the feeling of the déjà vu. A streak of sectarianism ran through her direct ancestry. She went to church only at Lent and Easter. The schismatic mood revealed itself in her healthy distaste for the ritual of the Greek Catholic Church and for its priests. She found a deep appeal in the moral and poetical side of the Gospels, but felt no need in the support of any dogma. The appalling insecurity of an afterlife and its lack of privacy did not enter her thoughts. Her intense and pure religiousness took the form of her having equal faith in the existence of another world and in the impossibility of comprehending it in terms of earthly life. All one could do was to glimpse,...

Saw the whiny teenager yesterday @ Point Fermin. And my has he grown! He let us (just me and a faithful photog with a cannon) take a few shots and he was gone. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart  #sanpedroca #pointfermin #birds #birds_instagram #peregrinefalcons #juvenile #nature #beauty #summer #poetry #readabook #thelastman

Vermillion Flycatcher @ Prado Regional Park. Shot one back in the winter (scroll down) and it was a thrill. This one was no less a thrill. Gave me three shots, this one is the best. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #chinohills #pradoregionalpark #birds_instagram #flycatchers #birdpics #vermillionflycatcher #nature #color #beauty #poetry #thrills #readmorepoetry2021