The task obtaining redress will be replaced by forgetting. No one will redress the wrongs that have
been done, but all wrongs will be forgotten.
Kundera
Friday, May 9, 2008
Let Them Keep Company With Beasts
Good only for those who are so impatient that they think they waste their time when they spend it in studying the works of nature and acts of humans. Let them keep their company with beasts, let them have an entourage of dogs and other beasts of prey and live with them.
DaVinci
DaVinci
Tarkovsky on Hamlet
The most horrible thing for a person who senses that they are at a certain spiritual level is to lose it. Hamlet is about this very issue. in order not to break away from life, in order to live so as to be connected materially with this world, the Danish Prince had to lower himself to the level of the villains who lived around him in Elsinore. The tragedy is not in the fact that he dies, since death for him is an escape from his situation, but in the fact that although a spiritual man he becomes a murderer.
Kilgore Troute - Ideas
And here according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.
Akhmatova "Requiem" Intro
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
Progress
Progress is out of the question a narrow minded concept. you've got to think in terms of life's changes. When autumn becomes winter, when flowers die . . . is that progress?" But, he adds, "Inactivity is not what happens."
Ozymandias
OZYMANDIAS
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Two Great Masters of Egypt
Ibn Khafif Shirzi tells this story: "I heard that there were two great masters in Egypt, so I hurried to reach their presence. When I arrived, I saw two magnificent teachers meditating. I greeted them three times, but they did not answer. I meditated with them for four days. Each day I begged them to talk with me, since I had come such a long way. Finally the younger one opened his eyes. 'Ibn Khafif, life is short. use the portion that's left to deepen yourself. Don't waste time greeting people!" I asked him to give me some advice. 'Stay in the presence of those who remind you of your lord, who not only speak wisdom, but are that.' Then he went back into meditation." Ibn Khafif was being taught the importance of having his own experience of the unseen, and not to fret so much about the forms of greeting people, hearing wisdom, and about what we should be doing.
Nasruddin and the Beggar
As Nasruddin emerged form the mosque after prayers, a beggar sitting on the street solicited alms. The following conversation followed:
- Are you extravagant? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes Nasruddin. replied the beggar.
- Do you like sitting around drinking coffee and smoking? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes. replied the beggar.
- I suppose you like to go to the baths everyday? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes. replied the beggar.
- ...And maybe amuse yourself, even, by drinking with friends? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes I like all those things. replied the beggar.
- Tut, Tut, said Nasruddin, and gave him a gold piece.
A few yards farther on. another beggar who had overheard the conversation begged for alms also.
- Are you extravagant? asked Nasruddin.
- No, Nasruddin replied second beggar.
- Do you like sitting around drinking coffee and smoking? asked Nasruddin.
- No. replied second beggar.
- I suppose you like to go to the baths everyday? asked Nasruddin.
- No. replied second beggar.
- ...And maybe amuse yourself, even, by drinking with friends? asked Nasruddin.
- No, I want to only live meagerly and to pray. replied second beggar.
Whereupon the Nasruddin gave him a small copper coin.
- But why, wailed second beggar, do you give me, an economical and pious man, a penny, when you give that extravagant fellow a sovereign?
-Ah my friend, replied Nasruddin, his needs are greater than yours.
- Are you extravagant? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes Nasruddin. replied the beggar.
- Do you like sitting around drinking coffee and smoking? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes. replied the beggar.
- I suppose you like to go to the baths everyday? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes. replied the beggar.
- ...And maybe amuse yourself, even, by drinking with friends? asked Nasruddin.
- Yes I like all those things. replied the beggar.
- Tut, Tut, said Nasruddin, and gave him a gold piece.
A few yards farther on. another beggar who had overheard the conversation begged for alms also.
- Are you extravagant? asked Nasruddin.
- No, Nasruddin replied second beggar.
- Do you like sitting around drinking coffee and smoking? asked Nasruddin.
- No. replied second beggar.
- I suppose you like to go to the baths everyday? asked Nasruddin.
- No. replied second beggar.
- ...And maybe amuse yourself, even, by drinking with friends? asked Nasruddin.
- No, I want to only live meagerly and to pray. replied second beggar.
Whereupon the Nasruddin gave him a small copper coin.
- But why, wailed second beggar, do you give me, an economical and pious man, a penny, when you give that extravagant fellow a sovereign?
-Ah my friend, replied Nasruddin, his needs are greater than yours.
John Cage - on Why?
I feel very When one becomes concerned with causation, the ego is overreaching its remit; like taste and classification, causal thinking is an indirection of our experience. "This question of asking 'why'," proposes Cage, "is the same as asking which is the most or which is the best. They are very closely related questions that enable you to disconnect yourself from your experience, rather than to identify with it."
The Spirit in Vibration
Everything in the world has its own spirit, and this spirit becomes audible by setting it into vibration.
Heaven of The Bhagavad Gita
It was a multiform, wondrous vision,
with countless mouths and eyes
and celestial ornaments,
brandishing many divine weapons.
Everywhere was boundless divinity
containing all astonishing things,
wearing divine garlands and garments,
anointed with divine perfume.
If the light of a thousand suns
were to rise in the sky at once,
it would be like the light
of that great spirit.
with countless mouths and eyes
and celestial ornaments,
brandishing many divine weapons.
Everywhere was boundless divinity
containing all astonishing things,
wearing divine garlands and garments,
anointed with divine perfume.
If the light of a thousand suns
were to rise in the sky at once,
it would be like the light
of that great spirit.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Madness
On that young nondescript face the smile seemed to come out of some old knowledge and it said, "I'll tell you why I'm smiling, but it will make you crazy."
Michel Foucault, "Madness and Civilization"
Michel Foucault, "Madness and Civilization"
Susan Sontag "War"
It is because the war in Bosnia didn't stop, because leaders claimed it was an intractable situation, that people abroad may have switched off the terrible images. It is because a war, any war, doesn't seem as if it can be stopped that people become less responsive to the horrors. Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing "we" can do--but who is that "we"?--and nothing "they" can do either--and who are "they"?--then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.
And it is not necessarily better to be moved. Sentimentality, notoriously, is entirely compatible with a taste for brutality and worse. (Recall the canonical example of the Auschwitz commandant returning home in the evening, embracing his wife and children, and sitting at the piano to play some Schubert before dinner.) People don't become inured to what they are shown--if that's the right way to describe what happens--because of the quantity of the images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The state described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration. But if we consider what emotions would be desirable, it seems to simple to elect sympathy. The imaginary proximity to the suffering inflicted on others that is granted by images suggests a link between the faraway suffers--seen close-up on the television screen--and the privileged viewer that is simply untrue, that is yet one more mystification of our real relations to power. So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all good intentions) an impertinent--if not an inappropriate--response. To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may--in ways we might prefer not to imagine--be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark.
And it is not necessarily better to be moved. Sentimentality, notoriously, is entirely compatible with a taste for brutality and worse. (Recall the canonical example of the Auschwitz commandant returning home in the evening, embracing his wife and children, and sitting at the piano to play some Schubert before dinner.) People don't become inured to what they are shown--if that's the right way to describe what happens--because of the quantity of the images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The state described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration. But if we consider what emotions would be desirable, it seems to simple to elect sympathy. The imaginary proximity to the suffering inflicted on others that is granted by images suggests a link between the faraway suffers--seen close-up on the television screen--and the privileged viewer that is simply untrue, that is yet one more mystification of our real relations to power. So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all good intentions) an impertinent--if not an inappropriate--response. To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may--in ways we might prefer not to imagine--be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark.
The Theater's Function
It is not the place of the theater to show the correct path, but only to offer the means by which all possible paths may be examined.
Before The Law
Before The Law, by Franz Kafka
BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him."
These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter.
The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet.
The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law.
Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him."
These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter.
The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet.
The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law.
Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
Thirteen Books For The Cross of The Sun
Thirteen Books to be Read Upon The Crossing of the Sun
1. The Brother's Karamazov - Dostoevsky (Translator: Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Peavers)
2. Collected Fictions - Borges
3. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea - Mishima
4. The Little Prince - Exupery?
5. The Histories - Herodotus
6. Popul Vuh (Translator - Dennis Tedlock)
7. Four Quartets - TS Eliot
8. Gurdjieff: An Approach to His Ideas - Michel Waldberg (Translator: Steve Cox)
9. The Book of Five Rings - Miyamo Musashi ( Translator: Ashikaga Yoshibaru)
10. His Master's Voice - Stanislaw Lem
11. Sculpting in Time - Tarkovsky
12. The Prophet - Khalil Gibran
13. Rising Up Rising Down - William T Vollmann
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