Peu de gens connaissent la mort. On ne la souffre pas ordinairement par résolution, mais par stupidité et par coutume ; et la plupart des hommes meurent parce qu’on ne peut s’empêcher de mourir.

Few people understand death. One doesn’t suffer it ordinarily through resolution, but through stupidty and custom; and most people die simply because they can not prevent dieing.

[23]

Susanna Hall:

Witty above her sex, but that’s not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,
Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this
Wholly of him with whom she’s now in blisse.
Then, passenger, hast nere a tear
To weep with her that wept with all
That wept, yet set herself to chere
Them up with comforts cordiall?
Her love shall live, her mercy spread
When thou hast nere a tear to shed.

For a couple years I’ve been wondering how I might transform my idle “designs” (e.g.) into legitimate kalligrams, or objet d’art (or just into more interesting shapes) and this year I had a couple ideas, albeit somewhat vague and not yet acted upon ideas. (Note. These shapes can appear different than intended on different computer configurations — something I only dimly understand).

The first was to look at the Shapes as being avatars of a sort: I was to imagine them as markers of myself (or of somebody else) and around them I would need to put evidence of their interacting with the conceptual, and/or physical, and/or digital world, of which they were part. (To state it as a question: if the character of a person took this appearance, how must the character of the world that person exists in appear?)

The second idea was that I would start using something like this as the central image:

ar mad os armados Se e’rThe See’rThe See’rT he See’rThe See’r
…a””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;pC B
.d””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;bse
..e””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;eNol
l””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;rie
..a””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;Gslm
..n””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;eieie
..t””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;usnt
.o””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; E i
de””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;da
la””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;um
>s””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;C
enfrentamientos armados

This was to be my “viewing screen of perception”, as it were, a clearly framed and extremely simplified slide or core sample taken of my perceptions at a given time — which I will think of as having about the same level of graphics as the earliest video games, like Pong. For example, this is how I might represent my perception of a crosswalk:

ar mad os armados Se e’rThe See’rThe See’rT he See’rThe See’r
…a””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;pC B
.d””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;bse
..e””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;eNol
l””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;rie
..a””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;Gslm
..n; “”; “”;”crosswalk “”;eieie
..t””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;usnt
.o””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; E i
de””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;da
la””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;um
>s””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;C
enfrentamientos armados

while, around the perimeter, perhaps intruding in, perhaps suggestive of viewing screens not one’s own, there would be things that exist but not necessarily as perceptions, mainly thoughts and thought fragments and perhaps also factual truths of which I was not directly conscious (geographic, meteorological, historical, biographical truths: heart rate, longitude and latitude, relative humidity, etc.)maybe also digital-physical things.

These ideas would seem to imply that I think the difference between a idle design and legitimate artwork is that the former is a thing perceived while the latter is the thing perceived plus information on the limits of perception, which I’m not sure about. But perhaps such prompts can be useful in taking the Shapes to another level.

….^
..t….l
..t……..A
..s…………y
..e…………….d
..h…………………o
..t…………………….wn
….BubbsaltpanBubb
….Bubbetyc.ooBubb
………..Icomminat y
………..n……………. e
………..d…………… l
………..e………….. l
………..f…………. e
………..e……….. h
………..n……… s
………..s…….. t
………..e…… e
………..o…. i
………..f… r
……./ B /
..F e T
lacia…
r a a…….
o i w…………
d o e……………
y t g……………….
The See’r The See’rThe SeeThe See’rThe See’r………
b……………\….n………pC B
r…………..\….e …….bse
ot…………\…...t…..eNol
he r...la…. ..ri e……..

Phaedo/ Plato

Phaedo [91ξ–δ] (english)

ἀλλ᾽ ἰτέον, ἔφη. πρῶτόν με ὑπομνήσατε ἃ ἐλέγετε, ἐὰν μὴ φαίνωμαι μεμνημένος. Σιμμίας μὲν γάρ, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, ἀπιστεῖ τε καὶ φοβεῖται μὴ ἡ ψυχὴ ὅμως καὶ θειότερον καὶ κάλλιον ὂν τοῦ σώματος προαπολλύηται ἐν ἁρμονίας εἴδει οὖσα: Κέβης δέ μοι ἔδοξε τοῦτο μὲν ἐμοὶ συγχωρεῖν, πολυχρονιώτερόν γε εἶναι ψυχὴν σώματος, ἀλλὰ τόδε ἄδηλον παντί, μὴ πολλὰ δὴ σώματα καὶ πολλάκις κατατρίψασα ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ τελευταῖον σῶμα καταλιποῦσα νῦν αὐτὴ ἀπολλύηται, καὶ ᾖ αὐτὸ τοῦτο θάνατος, ψυχῆς ὄλεθρος, ἐπεὶ σῶμά γε ἀεὶ ἀπολλύμενον οὐδὲν παύεται. ἆρα ἄλλ᾽ ἢ ταῦτ᾽ ἐστίν, ὦ Σιμμία τε καὶ Κέβης, ἃ δεῖ ἡμᾶς ἐπισκοπεῖσθαι;

Thucydides 1.2.2

τῆς γὰρ ἐμπορίας οὐκ οὔσης, οὐδ᾽ ἐπιμειγνύντες ἀδεῶς ἀλλήλοις οὔτε κατὰ γῆν οὔτε διὰ θαλάσσης, νεμόμενοί τε τὰ αὑτῶν ἕκαστοι ὅσον ἀποζῆν καὶ περιουσίαν χρημάτων οὐκ ἔχοντες οὐδὲ γῆν φυτεύοντες, ἄδηλον ὂν ὁπότε τις ἐπελθὼν καὶ ἀτειχίστων ἅμα ὄντων ἄλλος ἀφαιρήσεται, τῆς τε καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἀναγκαίου τροφῆς πανταχοῦ ἂν ἡγούμενοι ἐπικρατεῖν, οὐ χαλεπῶς ἀπανίσταντο, καὶ δι᾽ αὐτὸ οὔτε μεγέθει πόλεων ἴσχυον οὔτε τῇ ἄλλῃ παρασκευῇ. [thucydides. 1.2.2]

Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital, never planting their land （for they could not tell when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls to stop him, thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. [J.M Dent]

..saltpan...
..Bubbetyc.ooBu….
………edirhang……..mobonneyillsuion
……………….bone………..hapicontinentall
rawnbenthicspal..
Soda-l….eguard..
.staffq……….gord..
.sh.au…………rair..
lia……b…….vel
swin…ang…ines
gg..siron.. sd
Maryof Egyp
ar mad os armados The e’r….he “”; “”;SeThe See’rT he See’rThe See’r
e’r; “”; “”; ee
os………. …ThThe Se ; “”; “”; “”; “”; ” TheSeerT eerTS
…a””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;pC B
.d””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;bse
..e””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;eNol
l””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;rie
..a””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;Gslm
..n””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;eieie
..t””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;usnt
.o””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; E i
de””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;da
la””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;um
>s””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;C
enfrentamientos armados

“It is not even that he plays the role of a useful idiot as he kowtows to Putin yet again. The worst part, by far, is that a hostile power is engaged in an ongoing attack on America’s political system and Trump is deliberately stripping the nation’s defenses bare and leaving us exposed to future assaults. It is unilateral disarmament, plain and simple. We have never seen this type of weakness in a U.S. president before.” (politico)

Having been rendered hand-mention-sensitized, as it were, by my concordance of hands in Winesburg, Ohio, I immediately stood upright when John Unterecker, in his biography of Hart Crane, called attention to Crane’s early poem “Episode of Hands.”

This poem could easily describe a situation in Winesburg, (a worker bandages another worker’s injured hand, which is a point of personal connection between them), and the plot thickens a bit because Crane had certainly read the Winesburg stories and was indeed a correspondent of Anderson’s.

The question consequently arose: Did this poem reveal a conscious or unconscious lifting of the hand motif from Winesburg?

The answer is — probably no. At least, this doesn’t appear to have occurred to Anderson himself, to whom Crane sent the poem, and who was severely critical of it on separate grounds. (This is discussed by Unterecker on pp.167-168 of Voyager.)

I suppose it would have interested me to know that either Crane or Anderson were conscious of those Winesburg hand repetitions, but there is no evidence of anything of that kind here. It would be interesting, nevertheless, to see Anderson’s full response to the poem.

……………….A……………….………………

L……………….……………….N………………

The Unanswered Question…………….

A……………….……………….D………………

E……………….……………….,

Against the Day, pp. 601:

… who hoped to define here among the dueling clubs of Gottingen a “control group” for examining the deeper meanings of facial inscription, especially as practiced among northern tribes of the Andaman Islands

Island chain in the Bay of Bengal. maps, wiki.

.. . .

His thought was that there was a small ring in himself, envisioned as an unadorned wedding band, through which all his behavior and each of his thoughts must pass, every impulse to action and expression, in order to authentically be itself and be truly appropriate to himself. The ring was what made his behavior authentic….The Nature of The Ring, its Position and Cruelty

Random Amheric

fee-uh, goat….Digame, refill … *** Bair… door (not burrr — money). Bottle: Thairmus (thermos with eta for e, theta for th) Cup: coo — bi — ya. Mirror (or glass — window): mustaught (muhstalt) . Soft — sounds like sooft or so.. *** yermigernagar… strange / yemigern… (incredible) … aschagaray… (strange) t(h)ahmumma… (sort of insult, “negative”) …
dena-derachu … good morning (to a group) denansh … to a woman.

Random James Cleveland

James Cleveland / “Where Is Your Faith In God” – Rev. James Cleveland– –Peace Be Still

.. . .