Facebook is as dead as a zombie plague tonight. Where is everyone? I'm afraid to turn on the TV. Might be a test-pattern on every channel. Then I really would be freaked. Maybe this is a conspiracy. Everyone messaged everyone else: "Hey, don't let anything go to the feed page. That'll mess with Tim's little mind."
Nah...everyone's probably out drinking vodka and smashing glasses on the floor. And doing the tango and the watusi. Having a blast.
I'll just go to bed now and dream, as usual, of stern looks from complete strangers. Of a pretty girl waving at me, except she's not. It's the Romeo standing behind me. There will be mud. From the flood that always shows up when I'm driving in a dream. Can't get across to the other side. And I don't even know why I'm driving or what my intended destination is. I'll end up in a godawful mess -- expected to perform on an exotic musical instrument. I will stall, deflect, prevaricate...until the dream people get bored and move on.
Then I'll wake up at 3 AM covered in moody sweat. Yank myself up, stagger to the bathroom. Stagger to another room. Scratch my head. Ask my cat what's on his mind. He will yawn.
Maybe eat cereal. Check Facebook. See if any of my geographically distant friends are up and typing. From across the ocean. There is no litter in Europe, I'm pretty sure. Israel never goes fully dark -- there's just no way to turn down that sun-blasted whiteness of those ancient rocks leaning toward the Mediterranean. No one sleeps across the ocean, I'm pretty sure. It's way too neat living over yonder to sleep and miss something. History is alive there. He scampers through the cities, weaving like a drunk through traffic. He ain't scared of nothing. He's seen it all. His beard is soggy with old tears, yet his burnished face carries a wrinkled smile, his eyes twinkle with absurd aplomb.
I'll see if Kris has anything new up. I never know where the hell he is. He seems to be geographically fluid, diffuse. He might even be made out of human-shaped plasma. Just show up anywhere. Like Swamp Thing -- who could navigate nation-wide through transformation, through reforming himself into basic vegetation and flying through underground root systems. Kris might be sort of like that. But I'm never sure if he's in the States or roaming around with headhunters in Samoa. He makes my mind quiver.
OK. Enough. I'm just typing straight from my head. Whatever drops out. Enough has dropped out. No one is reading this anyway. Sort of absurd. Sort of an existential caper...this typing for no reason except that my fingers won't stop. Enough...
.........
Just a little more.
I have a sweet friend who speaks French. And a secret language, not quite Martian and not exactly English. It's the only "foreign" language I can sort of decipher. My friend is beautiful. Has a voice I love. Has a mind that is telepathic. All I have to do is begin a confessional sentence, and *bam* -- all is known. And I'm at ease.
Yves Tanguy made paintings from the "other" side. I adore other-side people. My friend knows the other side. Knows that real art suggests, it doesn't show. My friend is going to be my friend for a long time. And good things have a way of catching up to people whose souls are textured with love, smiles, warmth, and deep awareness.
.........
True to form.
Made it through the night without waking up at 3 AM. But the dreams! As usual, so wrong-assed and spirit-draining. One of these nights it's going to be different.
I'll dream of Butterfly people who have come to me for help. To save their land from invasion by crazy-8s. Yes, human-sized 8s, bouncing around all over Flower Land...crushing flowers and making noise. Spreading panic and widespread depression (causes the Butterfly people's glorious, dappled wings to molt). The fairest of all the Butterfly girls will beseech me to rescue them all. I will be so cool. I'll amble into Flower Land like Kwai Chang Caine: swivel-kicking, shoulder-slinging, and just Kung-Fuing the shit out of those bombastic, chaotic 8s.
Their greatest warrior, Gol8th, will present his horrible self and laugh at me maniacally, as if he had hands on hips: an extra-large 8 made out of two over-sized ebony 8-balls. Battle ensues. I bounce off his surfaces. My attacks and counterattacks impotent against this hard billiard-ball creature. Bloodied and weary, I glance over at Butterfly girl. She flutters her eyelashes and the tips of her wings. A dewy teardrop hovers in her eyes.
Filled with a new, heroic passion and completely disgusted with Gol8th's arrogance, I try the move on him I've been holding in reserve: I whip out a calculator, hit a bunch of numbers, and get the result that mathematics has heretofore thought impossible. I have managed to divide Pi's first 8 digits by a secret, intuited fraction. My computation has quickly found the terminal number of Pi. And it is not 8. It is 9. I triumphantly step up to the glistening, now-bemused Gol8th. I show him the result. I tell him that 8 is not the transcendent, ontological answer. Rather it is 9!
He begins to tremble, his two black ball halves start spinning in opposite directions. A loud whine and whir fills the air. Finally...Gol8th explodes into billions of tiny octagon bits. All the other regular 8s flee mindlessly. Their great warrior is no more. Their philosophy has been annulled. With Flower Land free and peaceful once more, the king is happy. He declares a feast and celebration. That night Butterfly girl, with a strange combination of shyness and seduction, confronts me under the great Moon Flower. And what happens next will not be told here. Because I don't know. I just stopped typing.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Into Beethovian Myst
Most composers come to the concerto with two things in mind: 1) a dramatic con-flict between piano and orchestra; 2) a vehicle to showcase the pianist's skill and bravado. From Mozart on, there are examples in certain movements when neither of those apply, when the aim of composition is to trace poetic contours around life's mystery and melancholy.
For many years, I was attracted to classical music, but since I had grown up basically uncultured, I was always on the outside looking in. Yes, I was drawn to it but couldn't make the full transition to that world. Listening to a Mozart piano sonata or, say, Schumann's Spring Symphony, I felt that something vital was escaping my grasp. I never listened to it as background music...never sipped a glass of red wine while Vivaldi's Four Seasons wove blithe traceries around my head. I was serious about classical music, but I was still a philistine. Couldn't pierce the veil.
Years passed until one night I put on Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 – “The Emperor.” Was I in a special state of consciousness that evening? Had my emotions been strained to the breaking point, finally giving way so new sensual space could be opened? I'm not sure. That was over 15 years ago. But I do know that I crossed over that night. As a stunned initiate into full experience. And I remember that it was almost a synesthetic experience: the timbres from the various orchestral instruments could almost be tasted, and what Murray Perahia pulled from the piano reached my consciousness more as colors than notes. This was not about structure and form. This was pure sonic mesmerism. God, I wish I could find the words to describe this properly. So I could tell others. Unfold the map for them and point the way, so they can step over the border into wonderland as well.
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 is my favorite of all concertos. I have CDs by Vladimir Ashkenazy/Sir George Solti (Chicago), Arthur Rubinstein/Eric Leinsdorf (Boston), Emmanuel Ax/Andre Previn (Royal Philharmonic), and Anna Gourari/Sir Colon Davis (Staatskapelle Dresden). But my prized CD is the oldest – a 1940 recording (mono, of course) by Arthur Rubinstein/Arturo Toscanini (NBC Symphony Orchestra). What's odd about this is that Tosanini is not one of my favored conductors. He was always too strident and muscular in approach. Usually too fast for a given piece to bloom in sufficient rhythmic space. But he and his orchestra do okay in this recording. And they accompany a Rubinstein who was at the top of his game. This pianist had such a way of coaxing tone from the keys. He had a refined, noble aesthetic that could never be taught. It grew from the depths of early 20th-century European soil. Rubinstein was the exemplar in Chopin, and his Beethoven catalog is spotty – he never completed a traversal of the piano sonatas. But this Piano Concerto No. 3 is one for the ages, even with the archival sound.
There is a magical duration occurring in the first movement of this concerto that is unlike anything in all of music. It happens right after the extended cadenza, just before that movement's conclusion. It happens as a rapt moment of suspended time falls on the listener. It happens just as soft timpani strokes and a threnody of strings pulse in the background. Whenever this moment arrives, I am taken somewhere. It only lasts for 15 seconds. But in that brief span, one goes with Beethoven into uncharted spiritual space. Four measures of cascading arpeggio that create a mystical haze.
If you've been heartbroken, if you've grieved over a death, if the colors of summer flowers have ever brought you to trance and tears...for these 15 seconds, the unrequited heart will ease its palpitations, the mournful soul will find balm, the beauty-stricken eye will be daubed dry. These 15 seconds are as close to transcendence as I've ever come. A fragrance of Paradise is on these musical bars. An angel wing is brushing the keyboard ahead of Rubinstein's fingers.
A piano concerto! Not a string quartet or sonata. Who would have ever expected such a thing?
[This CD is now out of circulation, but can be found for a reasonable price. Many other performances are worthy and convey much of the magic in those 15 seconds. I still return to the old one.]
For many years, I was attracted to classical music, but since I had grown up basically uncultured, I was always on the outside looking in. Yes, I was drawn to it but couldn't make the full transition to that world. Listening to a Mozart piano sonata or, say, Schumann's Spring Symphony, I felt that something vital was escaping my grasp. I never listened to it as background music...never sipped a glass of red wine while Vivaldi's Four Seasons wove blithe traceries around my head. I was serious about classical music, but I was still a philistine. Couldn't pierce the veil.
Years passed until one night I put on Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 – “The Emperor.” Was I in a special state of consciousness that evening? Had my emotions been strained to the breaking point, finally giving way so new sensual space could be opened? I'm not sure. That was over 15 years ago. But I do know that I crossed over that night. As a stunned initiate into full experience. And I remember that it was almost a synesthetic experience: the timbres from the various orchestral instruments could almost be tasted, and what Murray Perahia pulled from the piano reached my consciousness more as colors than notes. This was not about structure and form. This was pure sonic mesmerism. God, I wish I could find the words to describe this properly. So I could tell others. Unfold the map for them and point the way, so they can step over the border into wonderland as well.
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 is my favorite of all concertos. I have CDs by Vladimir Ashkenazy/Sir George Solti (Chicago), Arthur Rubinstein/Eric Leinsdorf (Boston), Emmanuel Ax/Andre Previn (Royal Philharmonic), and Anna Gourari/Sir Colon Davis (Staatskapelle Dresden). But my prized CD is the oldest – a 1940 recording (mono, of course) by Arthur Rubinstein/Arturo Toscanini (NBC Symphony Orchestra). What's odd about this is that Tosanini is not one of my favored conductors. He was always too strident and muscular in approach. Usually too fast for a given piece to bloom in sufficient rhythmic space. But he and his orchestra do okay in this recording. And they accompany a Rubinstein who was at the top of his game. This pianist had such a way of coaxing tone from the keys. He had a refined, noble aesthetic that could never be taught. It grew from the depths of early 20th-century European soil. Rubinstein was the exemplar in Chopin, and his Beethoven catalog is spotty – he never completed a traversal of the piano sonatas. But this Piano Concerto No. 3 is one for the ages, even with the archival sound.
There is a magical duration occurring in the first movement of this concerto that is unlike anything in all of music. It happens right after the extended cadenza, just before that movement's conclusion. It happens as a rapt moment of suspended time falls on the listener. It happens just as soft timpani strokes and a threnody of strings pulse in the background. Whenever this moment arrives, I am taken somewhere. It only lasts for 15 seconds. But in that brief span, one goes with Beethoven into uncharted spiritual space. Four measures of cascading arpeggio that create a mystical haze.
If you've been heartbroken, if you've grieved over a death, if the colors of summer flowers have ever brought you to trance and tears...for these 15 seconds, the unrequited heart will ease its palpitations, the mournful soul will find balm, the beauty-stricken eye will be daubed dry. These 15 seconds are as close to transcendence as I've ever come. A fragrance of Paradise is on these musical bars. An angel wing is brushing the keyboard ahead of Rubinstein's fingers.
A piano concerto! Not a string quartet or sonata. Who would have ever expected such a thing?
[This CD is now out of circulation, but can be found for a reasonable price. Many other performances are worthy and convey much of the magic in those 15 seconds. I still return to the old one.]
a daydreaming American "goes" to Russia
Several years ago, I ordered a CD of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 (1953), with Neeme Järvi conducting the Scottish National Orchestra (CHANDOS #8630). I was, as they say, blown away. The strident, percussive second-movement Allegro (a musical depiction of Stalin after the dictator's death), definitely blew back the hair on the inside of my skull. I was not familiar with the coupled item – Shostakovich's Ballet Suite No. 4 (1953). I was completely entranced with this wonderful piece of music.
I don't know if the suite was written for a particular ballet or simply a use of the form to compose spontaneously. I tend to think the latter, since there is nothing else mentioned in the CD booklet.
Well...heck...why not? Let's go ahead and conjure up a stage production for this wonderful music. Dimitri shouldn't mind. He's dead. And purists can just stew in their own aesthetic juices.
The Ballet is for me a song of Russia, a sweeping parade of images. Yes, I can visualize a stage, with colorfully costumed dancers. They are embodiments of the land, moving (in both senses) depictions of soulful essence rising from soil and stream.
I. Introduction [Variation] (5:52)
To set the scene, imagine an idyllic forest – tall, fake monumental trees, shadows deep and dark (we'll need a good lighting technician), a faux-glittering stream babbling implicitly. In a clearing, sits our Pagan group...a fur-clothed assemblage borrowed from Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps. No borders yet divide what will become Russia from Ukraine.
Alarm, confusion breaks out! A scurrying of the folk, as distant horns herald the arrival of invaders from the Eastern Steppes – Magyars, Huns, and the hawk-eyed Cossacks! Enter stage right: horses bearing the wild, hat-plumed encroachers. Things will never be the same.
Centuries roll, and that which was altered is now a new normality. The complexion of the people has changed, as different arteries have contributed their bloodlines to the changed land. A flute sends trilling bird-notes across the dawn-steamed valleys, into the pine-textured hillsides, over the wild flower meadows. Towns are rising. The folk are laughing. Loves are blooming.
But very deep in the forest, a tribe is untouched – that group who anciently survived, owing to a sacrificial dance. This bloodline still flows with the minerals and fragrance of hidden brooks. And do you see her? That face is in the music. Beauty to steal the breath. She has reappeared over millennial cycles. In the background -- while time is marching down vodka roads (envision a procession of peasants) and culture is advancing (now, the carts and noise of merchants) – she swirls in rhythmic glissades, bourréees, pirouettes, and sissonnes to the movement of stars and moons. Our gown-clad human fairy bears the intelligence of the woods into the future, and her gestures touch us in places we knew not were there. Time will also subsume her tissues into different heredity, but the magical Slavic essence will remain evergreen.
II. Waltz (3:32)
The circus has arrived in Moscow! Do you see the large tents slowly going up? The glowing night arrives, with fireworks exploding over the large barren field, as crowds stream into venues of thrilling display. Dancing bears, clowns, acrobats to amaze young and old! Smiles abound, and couples hold hands. Tomorrow will bring the audience back to drudgery and the conventions of society's strata. But tonight! Tonight, dreams live and breathe and tumble on the warm, jestering breezes that waft up into the stands.
III. Scherzo (3:29)
Napoleon is quickly refuted in the mini-battle and retreat on stage (canons and smoke, hectic skirmish and valiant charge). Pride is restored, as seen in the celebratory chorus dance. But the friction of encounter has left its traces. By osmosis, the Mother Land is absorbing things of the West. Ideas abound. Screeds proclaim. Serfs freed. Everywhere, a new energy, propelling the land toward a rendezvous with scoundrels. Toward dogma twisted from a thoughtful source. But how do you stop a run-away locomotive fueled by passion and sincere hope?
The music ends. The audience sits in silence. A final curtain is drawn to reveal the river mist once again drifting through glade and dell. And there she is: that wondrous daughter of larger Russia. Moving alone to music only she hears. Taking the ancient soul of this world with her into other realms, new mysteries of time.
Admittedly, a time paradox is involved here: how to stage all this action in such a short piece of music. In my head, time is very fluid and flexible.
Here's a Youtube of the Introduction by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dimitri Yablonsky:
Ballet Intro
And here's the CD:
I don't know if the suite was written for a particular ballet or simply a use of the form to compose spontaneously. I tend to think the latter, since there is nothing else mentioned in the CD booklet.
Well...heck...why not? Let's go ahead and conjure up a stage production for this wonderful music. Dimitri shouldn't mind. He's dead. And purists can just stew in their own aesthetic juices.
The Ballet is for me a song of Russia, a sweeping parade of images. Yes, I can visualize a stage, with colorfully costumed dancers. They are embodiments of the land, moving (in both senses) depictions of soulful essence rising from soil and stream.
I. Introduction [Variation] (5:52)
To set the scene, imagine an idyllic forest – tall, fake monumental trees, shadows deep and dark (we'll need a good lighting technician), a faux-glittering stream babbling implicitly. In a clearing, sits our Pagan group...a fur-clothed assemblage borrowed from Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps. No borders yet divide what will become Russia from Ukraine.
Alarm, confusion breaks out! A scurrying of the folk, as distant horns herald the arrival of invaders from the Eastern Steppes – Magyars, Huns, and the hawk-eyed Cossacks! Enter stage right: horses bearing the wild, hat-plumed encroachers. Things will never be the same.
Centuries roll, and that which was altered is now a new normality. The complexion of the people has changed, as different arteries have contributed their bloodlines to the changed land. A flute sends trilling bird-notes across the dawn-steamed valleys, into the pine-textured hillsides, over the wild flower meadows. Towns are rising. The folk are laughing. Loves are blooming.
But very deep in the forest, a tribe is untouched – that group who anciently survived, owing to a sacrificial dance. This bloodline still flows with the minerals and fragrance of hidden brooks. And do you see her? That face is in the music. Beauty to steal the breath. She has reappeared over millennial cycles. In the background -- while time is marching down vodka roads (envision a procession of peasants) and culture is advancing (now, the carts and noise of merchants) – she swirls in rhythmic glissades, bourréees, pirouettes, and sissonnes to the movement of stars and moons. Our gown-clad human fairy bears the intelligence of the woods into the future, and her gestures touch us in places we knew not were there. Time will also subsume her tissues into different heredity, but the magical Slavic essence will remain evergreen.
II. Waltz (3:32)
The circus has arrived in Moscow! Do you see the large tents slowly going up? The glowing night arrives, with fireworks exploding over the large barren field, as crowds stream into venues of thrilling display. Dancing bears, clowns, acrobats to amaze young and old! Smiles abound, and couples hold hands. Tomorrow will bring the audience back to drudgery and the conventions of society's strata. But tonight! Tonight, dreams live and breathe and tumble on the warm, jestering breezes that waft up into the stands.
III. Scherzo (3:29)
Napoleon is quickly refuted in the mini-battle and retreat on stage (canons and smoke, hectic skirmish and valiant charge). Pride is restored, as seen in the celebratory chorus dance. But the friction of encounter has left its traces. By osmosis, the Mother Land is absorbing things of the West. Ideas abound. Screeds proclaim. Serfs freed. Everywhere, a new energy, propelling the land toward a rendezvous with scoundrels. Toward dogma twisted from a thoughtful source. But how do you stop a run-away locomotive fueled by passion and sincere hope?
The music ends. The audience sits in silence. A final curtain is drawn to reveal the river mist once again drifting through glade and dell. And there she is: that wondrous daughter of larger Russia. Moving alone to music only she hears. Taking the ancient soul of this world with her into other realms, new mysteries of time.
Admittedly, a time paradox is involved here: how to stage all this action in such a short piece of music. In my head, time is very fluid and flexible.
Here's a Youtube of the Introduction by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dimitri Yablonsky:
Ballet Intro
And here's the CD:
you don't always get what you pay for
Years ago, I was in the market for an alternate CD of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, the "Pathétique." I wanted to supplement the old Ormandy/Philadelphia recording. Being a subscriber to a classical music review magazine -- The American Record Guide -- I would spend months reading and thinking about a CD before purchase. Not having a lot of money, I couldn't take a chance on buying anything that was not the best. There were three or four staff reviewers whose judgment I learned to trust. Their taste seemed to always match my own.
I kept coming back to one review of the symphony. But I hesitated time and again. The review was glowing, but what the hell? The reviewer was strongly recommending Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra on an extreme budget label -- ENCORE, a subsidiary of EMI. I was used to laying out $18 for the finest performances in the best sound. This thing only cost $3.98!
Well, finally snobbish reluctance gave in to trust in the reviewer's words. I ordered it. When I opened the package, I wasn't sustained in my trust. The cover image of a large ugly pink flower bloom screamed: "I am going to suck extra bad!"
When I put it in the player, I could not believe what was happening. With my eyes open, a huge raised stage appeared in front of me. I was sitting about 20 rows away in an auditorium seat. The orchestra was RIGHT THERE! The sound was so full, pervading, resonant. Every detail emerged in sparkling clarity. This wonderful symphony was being performed by ghostly doppelgangers right freaking there in my room. I had never really heard this symphony until then. Not like that. Pastel and primary colors leapt from the speakers, taking the melodic lines into chromatic space. And propelling those lines in rhythmic aural dance. I'm talking real magic here, folks. And again, the fullness, the warmth, the power. Yes, the crescendos were explosions of sonic bliss.
I think I'm going to listen to this thing again before I go to bed tonight!
I just checked Amazon.com, and my CD is no longer available. But it looks like the same performance is now issued by EMI in a two-disc set. Besides the 6th Symphony and Romeo and Juliet (from my disc), you also get the 2nd Symphony with Francesca Rimini. Sounds damn good to me for the asking price of $8.97. And the CD cover is really nice this time:
I kept coming back to one review of the symphony. But I hesitated time and again. The review was glowing, but what the hell? The reviewer was strongly recommending Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra on an extreme budget label -- ENCORE, a subsidiary of EMI. I was used to laying out $18 for the finest performances in the best sound. This thing only cost $3.98!
Well, finally snobbish reluctance gave in to trust in the reviewer's words. I ordered it. When I opened the package, I wasn't sustained in my trust. The cover image of a large ugly pink flower bloom screamed: "I am going to suck extra bad!"
When I put it in the player, I could not believe what was happening. With my eyes open, a huge raised stage appeared in front of me. I was sitting about 20 rows away in an auditorium seat. The orchestra was RIGHT THERE! The sound was so full, pervading, resonant. Every detail emerged in sparkling clarity. This wonderful symphony was being performed by ghostly doppelgangers right freaking there in my room. I had never really heard this symphony until then. Not like that. Pastel and primary colors leapt from the speakers, taking the melodic lines into chromatic space. And propelling those lines in rhythmic aural dance. I'm talking real magic here, folks. And again, the fullness, the warmth, the power. Yes, the crescendos were explosions of sonic bliss.
I think I'm going to listen to this thing again before I go to bed tonight!
I just checked Amazon.com, and my CD is no longer available. But it looks like the same performance is now issued by EMI in a two-disc set. Besides the 6th Symphony and Romeo and Juliet (from my disc), you also get the 2nd Symphony with Francesca Rimini. Sounds damn good to me for the asking price of $8.97. And the CD cover is really nice this time:
inside the human head
Beyond the blood and bone, nerves and dendrites, there is a magic kingdom. A palace of feeling. Darkness hangs over the castle for many and for long duration. For others, soft fairy lights chase away the shadows, leaving the courtyard a-glimmer with contentedness...at least for a while.
Materialists have no doubt that one day, the kingdom will be broken into and disenchanted. That science will eventually know the weight of experience and the texture of its sublimation. And that feeling will be given its proper place amid the spectra of an organism's mechanistic palpitations.
I don't buy it.
A trillion shards of time have gone into the subtle make-up of a person's inner self. No instrument and no form of analysis is capable of tracking the elusive reflections of time-shards from the mirror of a human soul. The eyes have it. At least they project some of it. They turn time into something nearly physical, but not quite. You can almost touch the time in a person's eyes, but not quite.
The eyes speak silently of feeling. They remind us that the world is haunted by personalities, not just populated with them. Any moment -- any encounter -- can generate an untold number of impressions. There are not enough stars in the universe or grains of sand on all the planets' beaches to act as place-holders for a single person's impressions. These are beyond calculation, beyond arithmetic. Beyond the physical. Because if I've got my science right, information requires a physical substrate on which to ride through reality's grand Mardi Gras. But time has no physical skin. It's wild and free. It is pure anarchy, and it loves to dance with us. Loves to tango and waltz. And from those dances, it weaves us deeper into the sad smile of God.
We are spirits, temporarily caught in the gravity of flesh.
We are creatures of time.
Alfred Jarry said this on December 10, 1896...
...in a speech at the premiere of his play Ubu Roi:
The Swedenborgian philosopher Mésès has excellently compared rudimentary creations with the most perfect, and embryonic beings with the most complete, in that the former lack all irregularities, protuberances and qualities, which leaves them in more or less spherical form, like the ovum and M. Ubu, while the latter have added so many personal details that they remain equally spherical, following the axiom that the most polished object is that which presents the greatest number of sharp corners.
The Swedenborgian philosopher Mésès has excellently compared rudimentary creations with the most perfect, and embryonic beings with the most complete, in that the former lack all irregularities, protuberances and qualities, which leaves them in more or less spherical form, like the ovum and M. Ubu, while the latter have added so many personal details that they remain equally spherical, following the axiom that the most polished object is that which presents the greatest number of sharp corners.
fever chills, afternoon nap, and a dream
Robin Willhite (Gothic Rangers guitarist and my dear friend) and I were driving steadily uphill through a moon-haunted night way out in the wooded boondocks of central Arkansas. We finally pulled over and stopped at a weird convenience store on the right. Inside, a German couple was sitting on a bench, looking very forlorn. They asked me if I knew anything about cars and coolant systems. I was so pleased at being asked that I faked it and said "Sure."
They told me how their car was broke down outside. I confirmed their hunch that something was terribly wrong, that indeed the exhausting of coolant fluid from the tailpipe was bad. And yes, the hydraulic imbalance would cause their car to suddenly lurch forward in big, dangerous hiccups on the road.
At that point, Robin stepped up, with jacket zipped tight to this chin and ball cap pulled down tight on his head. A fiercely confident and looming presence. He unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket and produced a pencil. He wrote down his phone number and handed it to the German man and said: "I know someone who is an expert on coolant systems. So the next time you're here, give me a call, and I'll bring my friend to help you out." This news cheered up the hapless foreign couple. And in this dream, it was perfectly in order that the present coolant-system break down could somehow be deferred to a next coolant-system break down.
Robin and I paid for whatever we had selected, and I skipped out the door way ahead of him. Some kind of odd logic was at work, because we both knew then that our car was also broke down and unusable. Ahead of Robin, I retrieved a child's wooden sled from the trunk, made a running start, then jumped on it. Snowless sledding back down the miles of gently descending road would be our mode back home. Robin sprinted up behind me and jumped on back of the sled, with me steering up front by yanking a rope this way and that. I moaned miserably that it would take us hours and hours and hours to get back home.
Robin, still somewhat cheerfully, remarked: "Well, as I left the store, I almost stole a pumpkin pie out from under the noses of two vicious guard dogs at that little house back there." When he said that, my misery increased exponentially. Instantly, I was starving my wit's out. So I yanked on the steering cord, sending us flying through the woods and very near the edge of a steep ravine. That path would be something of a shortcut.
As the dream faded and I began to slip into consciousness, I pictured myself finally back home. And eating every single thing in the refrigerator.
They told me how their car was broke down outside. I confirmed their hunch that something was terribly wrong, that indeed the exhausting of coolant fluid from the tailpipe was bad. And yes, the hydraulic imbalance would cause their car to suddenly lurch forward in big, dangerous hiccups on the road.
At that point, Robin stepped up, with jacket zipped tight to this chin and ball cap pulled down tight on his head. A fiercely confident and looming presence. He unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket and produced a pencil. He wrote down his phone number and handed it to the German man and said: "I know someone who is an expert on coolant systems. So the next time you're here, give me a call, and I'll bring my friend to help you out." This news cheered up the hapless foreign couple. And in this dream, it was perfectly in order that the present coolant-system break down could somehow be deferred to a next coolant-system break down.
Robin and I paid for whatever we had selected, and I skipped out the door way ahead of him. Some kind of odd logic was at work, because we both knew then that our car was also broke down and unusable. Ahead of Robin, I retrieved a child's wooden sled from the trunk, made a running start, then jumped on it. Snowless sledding back down the miles of gently descending road would be our mode back home. Robin sprinted up behind me and jumped on back of the sled, with me steering up front by yanking a rope this way and that. I moaned miserably that it would take us hours and hours and hours to get back home.
Robin, still somewhat cheerfully, remarked: "Well, as I left the store, I almost stole a pumpkin pie out from under the noses of two vicious guard dogs at that little house back there." When he said that, my misery increased exponentially. Instantly, I was starving my wit's out. So I yanked on the steering cord, sending us flying through the woods and very near the edge of a steep ravine. That path would be something of a shortcut.
As the dream faded and I began to slip into consciousness, I pictured myself finally back home. And eating every single thing in the refrigerator.
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