I may have inadvertently struck upon my writing ideal — the ideal state in which to write– which is to bring oneself first to the point of actually crying with boredom. This is the state one needs to be in, weeping, blubbering with the tedium one has faced and has yet to face; perhaps there is a universal application.

The idea of dealing with, as opposed to alleviating boredom, has been inherent to Modernism from the start, I think, but most recently and forcefully appeared in Wallace’s novels –there, almost as an ethic.

Infinite Jest shows how trying to alleviate boredom –through distraction– if taken to its logical end, must result in boredom of another sort — in addiction. While the posthumous novel (its name not arising just now) shows the heroism involved in superhuman focus upon the tedious. Not a winking and nodding involvement but a wholehearted plunge into the dull, an acknowledgement of the deep seriousness of dull things….

Boredom is seeming death while distraction is the real thing, I want to say.

Imagine everything that tears are to compassion. Bring that same power to boredom and perhaps we will have achieved our “breakthrough.”

s.ag.i
ingsi. sad
Maryopthami
rrida bashitru Mar
gUAr dnnelS o-da
.BubbsalnB bb..
..Bub.ooBubb….
an g in es
\The See’r siron sa \The See’r
b……………\ yof Eg b……………\
r…………..\ a bas r…………..\
otttttttttt\ S o ttttttttt\ot
The See’r The See’rThe See’rThe See’rThe See’r………
b……………\….n………pC B
r…………..\….e …….bse
otttttttttt\ttttt…..eNol

*

The one after that I mistranslated too. Looked up whether ‘hand’ could take the plural. I looked up the Greek also for the phrase I had seen translated as “wind eggs” at the end of the Theaetetus. In the Greek word, which I can’t remember now, I saw evidence of “wind” but nothing at all that suggested the idea of “eggs”. Yet I couldn’t recall the Greek word for eggs.

I was struck by the conclusion of the Theaetetus: in the end we are better people for realizing we don’t know much of anything. Not the same but a similar feeling on reading this one section of The Pale King recently — Wallace portraying some young men realizing that people are cool are not necessarily people of value. People realizing that intelligence exists and they don’t have it. (Reading this seemed to melt away some of my own unintelligence. And unintelligence –strangely, as I think the Theatetus brings up– has to do with presuming one’s own intelligence — that one, simply by virtue of being one’s extraordinary self, knows everything already more or less well enough.)

Maybe part of the pleasure of reading a book is that of of having a part of one’s intelligence melted away — and the reason this is a pleasure is that, at the same time, it’s understood — that this has not actually been intelligence. This has been some imposter intelligence you’ve been cozening, all this while.

.
What if the combination of democracy and capitalism is given to increasing individuals’ sense of self importance? (That is, to the vast majority of individuals). Democracy giving the feeling to people: they are somebody. Capital giving to people the idea: they have no one.

38. eng.
καὶ ὅκου ἔνι τοῦ σώματος ἱδρὼς, ἐνταῦθα φράζει τὴν νοῦσον.

“Where are the Republicans who know in their heart the president is giving away the store to Vladimir Putin?” Schumer said on Capitol Hill. “The best people to check him are not Democrats but his fellow Republicans.” […] This echoes Adam Schiff from some weeks earlier telling Congressional Republicans to “wake up and do their jobs.”… “This is not oversight, this is collaboration” … It appears that only Republicans can make this right, and they –can’t, won’t; are befuddled or supine; defiant and indifferent; don’t know how to / kinda like him.

*

Asking myself what literature can do in political crises, I think mainly of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence as being literary responses to political crises: that, insofar as literature has a place in American democracy, it is embodied now in the writings of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Though of course oratory can be literary –the Funeral Oration, the Gettysburg Address– and the court itself has developed, in the last couple decades, a less literary, more “news watching” feel.) (This is to say, I suppose, that I think of literature as being slow to influence, but with a lasting effect; and the opposite of say advertising.)

Other than this one wonders, might a magic word be spoken? one that could bring an ax to the “frozen seas” of this nation?

Lens comes from lentil, and has also a geology-specific meaning. (I was inspired to look this up having seen it, in the geologic sense, spelled lense.)

……..………………………………………..……. A. a I
……..………………………………………..…v v ………iR
……..………………………………………...e a ……..,,,,,.v a v
……..……………………………………….. hl ……………,,,,,a i
……..………………………………………..ta ……………,,,,. A R I
……..………………………………………..e. c ……………,,,,,.v a
……..………………………………………..m.. h ……………,,,,,.i r
……..………………………………………..o… i …………….,,,,,.vair
….…………………………………………….r…. p
……..………………………………………..d….. a
……..………………………………………..r……. p
….……………………………………………..i………. e
……..………………………………………..h……….. r

e See’rThe See’he See’rT
The See’rThe SeThe See’r
b……………\….n………pC B
r…………..\….e …….bse
ot…………\…...t…..eNol
her………\….….la…rie
‘s…..\….……...Gslm
P……………..eieie
o….………..usnt
em.……….. E i
\\\……… da
umtlo(x;
Curius….
………………………………………..………….

Approaching from far away, the future has arrived and made me ashamed of my deep debt.

ἕκαθεν γὰρ ἐπελθὼν ὁ μέλλων χρόνος
ἐμὸν καταίσχυνε βαθὺ χρέος.

< Olympian 10.6, English, Svarlien

I do see, smiled Garvey. (Bilby was somewhat disturbed by how Garvey articulated this sentence, for Garvey had laid the stress on the word ‘see’, rather than on the word ‘do’, which is where Bilby would have laid the stress were he the one to have made that comment.)[*]

slosh slash slush splash splish splosh … Most of these are imitative. Slash is from the same word as slat (slash as punctuation mark not til 1960s.)

Stomachion would I guess imply “mouth battle” but is a corruption or misspelling of ostomachion — Wikipedia:

The word Ostomachion has as its roots in the Greek Ὀστομάχιον, which means “bone-fight”, from ὀστέον (osteon), “bone” and μάχη (mache), “fight, battle, combat”. Note that the manuscripts refer to the word as “Stomachion”, an apparent corruption of the original Greek….

The word stomach does indeed come from stoma (mouth). Bone-fight somewhat suggest bone wars, which I recently came across.