Dog

"All I was capable of seeing was the dog becoming iridescent; an intense light radiated from his body.  I saw again the water flowing through him, kindling him like a bonfire.  I got to the water, sank my face in the pan, and drank with him.  My hands were in front of me on the ground and, as I drank, I saw the fluid running through my veins setting up hues of red and yellow and green.  I drank more and more.  I drank until I was all afire; I was all aglow.  I drank until the fluid went out of my body through each pore, and projected out like fibers of silk, and I too acquired a long, lustrous, iridescent mane.  I looked at the dog and his mane was like mine.  A supreme happiness filled my whole body, and we ran together toward a sort of yellow warmth that came from some indefinite place.  And there we played.  We played and wrestled until I knew his wishes and he knew mine.  We took turns manipulating each other in the fashion of a puppet show.  I could make him move his legs by twisting my toes, and every time he nodded his head I felt an irresistible impulse to jump.  But his most impish act was to make me scratch my head with my foot while I sat; he did it by flapping his ears from side to side.  This action was to me utterly, unbearable [sic] funny.  Such a touch of grace and irony; such mastery, I thought.  The euphoria that possessed me was indescribable.  I laughed until it was almost impossible to breathe." 

From The Teaching of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda.

Potraying the Dead

William IV, Duke of Bavaria, by Hans Muelich. (33 by 25 cm). Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich.

"This picture... shows a face distorted by agony as of a drowning man emerging from the wave-like folds of pillow and blanket.  The painful asymmetry of the open right eye and the closed left eye, of the sunken right cheek and the oedematous left cheek, the spoon-like protrusion of the lower lip are a mockery of all princely dignity.  Such ruthlessly realistic representation, instinct with deliberate horror, is surely without a parallel in the pictorial art of the whole western world;  hence this small painting belongs at least as much to the domain of forensic medicine as to the history of art.  We must point out, incidentally, that, according to a belief prevalent among practically all peoples of Europe, the open eye and mouth are an indication of the dead person expecting somebody, hence of an early death among the relatives."

From Anton Pigler's "Portraying the Dead: Graphic Art" which appeared in Acta Historiae Artium: Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, vol. IV; Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest, 1956; picture: pg. 10; text: pg. 11-12.

The shrimp f*cks to fry the cabbage

What wonderful fun in the land of mistranslation!

BUY! BUY! Buy... please.

Generation Sell by William Deresiewicz; New York Times, November 12, 2011.

"Today’s polite, pleasant personality is, above all, a commercial personality. It is the salesman’s smile and hearty handshake, because the customer is always right and you should always keep the customer happy."

Full Article.

Going In

The Joy of Quiet by Pico Iyer (New York Times, Sunday January 1, 2012)

"I just take walks and read and lose myself in the stillness, recalling that it's only by stepping briefly away from my wife and bosses and friends that I'll have anything useful to bring to them."

You should read the entire article.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon

"The twittering yellow thrush rests on the corner of the mound. If a man fails to rest in the place meant for him, does it mean that he is inferior to this bird?"

Eco

From Paris Review, interview with Umberto Eco (185, Summer 2008)

INTERVIEWER

You are one of the world’s most famous public intellectuals. How would you define the term intellectual? Does it still have a particular meaning?

ECO

If by intellectual you mean somebody who works only with his head and not with his hands, then the bank clerk is an intellectual and Michelangelo is not. And today, with a computer, everybody is an intellectual. So I don’t think it has anything to do with someone’s profession or with someone’s social class. According to me, an intellectual is anyone who is creatively producing new knowledge. A peasant who understands that a new kind of graft can produce a new species of apples has at that moment produced an intellectual activity. Whereas the professor of philosophy who all his life repeats the same lecture on Heidegger doesn’t amount to an intellectual. Critical creativity—criticizing what we are doing or inventing better ways of doing it—is the only mark of the intellectual function.

Full Interview

Michaels

from Paris Review interview (184, Spring 2008)

Interviewer

I notice this place is full of old tools. What about them appeals to you?

Michaels

Years ago, I bought a scythe in New England, and I came home with it to my parents’. The minute I walked in the door, my father said, What did you spend money on a piece of junk like that for? He took it away from me and began to swing it around in the air, saying, Why would you want something this silly? This is a barley scythe, a left-handed barley scythe. I used one like this as a child in Poland. Why would you be interested in such a thing? How much did you spend? Ten dollars, fifteen dollars? Whatever it was, it was too much. This is a left-handed barley scythe that was handmade. I used on just like this as a child.

There was an extraordinary confusion in his excitement. He was obviously very taken with the scythe, but trivializing it every minute. How I had wasted money. What absurd preciosity I had succumbed to. And yet, what I brought home to him was his childhood.

Oe

from interview in Paris Review (183, Winter 2007)

Talking about his childhood...

“One time in the forest I was sketching trees and trying to learn their names. I caught a cold. I was in bed and it did not seem like I would live long. Will I die? I asked. My mother said, Even if you die I will give birth to you again. I asked, Wouldn’t it be a different child? And she said, I will teach that child all of the things that you know, all of the books you’ve read.”

Full interview

Achtung!

There will be some fresh blood coming into the blog... more activity, a new design, variety.

There are many topics which I have wanted to post about, so please excuse such posts of belatedness; and please forgive me, defenders of chronology, hold still your cudgels, and open your hearts to the non-linear.

Lastly, many thanks to Patrick for his assistance.