“I do not know whether I have told you already,” said Don Quixote, as he took leave of Don Lorenzo, “but if so I tell you again that, if you would spare yourself fatigue and toil in reaching the inaccessible summit of the temple of fame, all you need do is turn aside from the somewhat narrow path of poetry and take the still narrower one of knight-errantry. It is wide enough, however, to make you an emperor in the twinkling of an eye.” (Don Quixote, Book 2 chapter 18. Revised Ormsby translation.)

*

-No sé si he dicho a vuesa merced otra vez, y si lo he dicho lo vuelvo a decir, que cuando vuesa merced quisiere ahorrar caminos y trabajos para llegar a la inacesible cumbre del templo de la Fama, no tiene que hacer otra cosa sino dejar a una parte la senda de la poesía, algo estrecha, y tomar la estrechísima de la andante caballería, bastante para hacerle emperador en daca las pajas. [here]

ngrams: garbage can,recycling bin,bottled water ; dump,dumpster,landfill

” L’opium est la seule substance végétale qui nous communiqué l’etat végétal. Par lui nous avons une idee de cette autre vitesse des plantes.” (Cocteau as quoted by Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave.)

This is kind of interesting: nuclear is more associated with the word ‘power’ than with the word ‘energy’ (here) and solar more associated with the word ‘energy’ than with the word ‘power’ (here), though I suppose it is in part explained by the fact that we use ‘nuclear power’ to denote both energy derived from nuclear reactions and countries possessed of nuclear armaments, while there is no corresponding tic in usage in the case of solar that I can think of.

But what might be the reason for the huge divergence in mentions of power and energy circa 1980? –power over energy with respect to nuclear and energy over power with respect to solar? The oil crisis must be involved but I can’t think of why. Wind power,wind energy occurrences are also elevated in 1980 but there isn’t the same divergence between the two. Nor does power,energy tell us much: ‘energy’ reached its apex during the crisis, while ‘power’ was drifting towards its lows.

An interesting insight of Matisse found in Danchev’s Cezanne, a Life:

“The life of the artist is often a trial to the wife of the artist as Matisse himself remarked: ‘As for me, I remain an old fool, as Madame Paul Cezanne called her husband. They tell me that Madame Pissarro said the same of her husband. These women of humble origins had served their husbands according to their lights, judging their heroes as if they were simple carpenters who had taken it into their heads to make tables with legs in the air.’ Matisse was right. Even the humble and colossal Pissarro was accused of being a pie-in-the-sky fantasist by the long-suffering stout-hearted Julie. Hortense was in good company, company not confined to women of humble origins.“

Nora Barnacle, maybe, of a similar stripe.

Grouping of the passages from La Reserche I looked into —

On Art, Writing

Pouvoir être éclaircie, elle qu’on vit dans les ténèbres
Une Patrie Inconnue
Si l’art n’est que cela, il n’est pas plus réel que la vie
Ce milieu que nous ne voyons pas
Le gisement lui-même
(Knowledge and Art)

On Behavior / General

les autruches humaines
Le ton dubitatif pour les résolutions irrévocables
Water Lily passage (stupidity multiplier)
,,,parce que nous mourons nous-mêmes
Ces hécatombes de régiments anéantis
le défilé d’une armée compacte
Une sanglante barrière
Larivière
Fanés

ngrams viewer: creeped out ; creeped out, creeps me out, creeped me out ; creepy, spooky ; creepy, spooky, scary ; creepy , spooky, scary, weird ; creepy, spooky, scary, weird, bizarre ; creepy, spooky, scary,weird, bizarre, strange; creepy man, creepy woman, creepy dude, creepy person (Maybe interesting, ngrams returns no results for creepy animals of various sorts. Creepy spider ; creepy spider, creepy insect; creepy spider, creepy insect, creepy bug. creepy, creeped out).

WOW: creepy guy is way more popular than creepy man and creepy dude: creepy dude,creepy guy,creepy man. Creepy gal ‘is not found’ but creepy boy is: creepy boy,creepy man.

“Je n’étais pas un seul homme, mais le défilé heure par heure d’une armée compacte où il y avait, selon le moment, des passionnés, des indifférents, des jaloux — des jaloux dont pas un n’était jaloux de la même femme.” [Albertine Disparue 92]

“Les changements de l’atmosphère en provoquent d’autres dans l’homme intérieur, réveillent des « moi » oubliés, contrarient l’assoupissement de l’habitude, redonnent de la force à tels souvenirs, à telles souffrances.” [Albertine Disparue 93]

Was trying to remember the exact wording and provenance of this phrase through much of today:

I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

Here. Given the current political situation, it is refreshing, too, to find a distinction made between official duty and personal wish, particularly in a case where the latter is of a more generous kind than the former.

.v v iR v v
..e a …..,,,,.v a v
hl……………..,,,,,a i
..Limbs. of the. horse
..e. c …………,,,,,.v a
.m h ……….,,,,,.i r
.o iA aIva i r
.I.. y
/ B /…
F e T….
lacia……
r a a………
o i w…………
d o e……………
y t g……………….
y t..v v iR……….
..e a ……..,,,,,.v a v
e hl……………,,,,,a i
..ta…………..,,,. A R I
..e. c ………….,,,,,.v a
.m h ……….,,,,,.i r
.o. i v airvair
.….. A. a I

Written on the Wind, with its sports cars and oil rigs and derricks, reminds me very much of similar scenes from La Dolce Vita, made some four years later –the scene where Marcello and his girlfriend have a spat in the industrial park. (Oil rig replica conclusion of this movie also striking.)

Balzac (Vautrin): “Êtes-vous bêtes, vous autres ! n’avez-vous jamais vu de forçat ? Un forçat de la trempe de Collin, ici présent, est un homme moins lâche que les autres, et qui proteste contre les profondes déceptions du contrat social, comme dit Jean-Jacques, dont je me glorifie d’être l’élève. Enfin, je suis seul contre le gouvernement avec son tas de tribunaux, de gendarmes, de budgets, et je les roule.”

Krailsheimer: “How stupid you are, you lot. Haven’t you ever seen a convict before? A convict of Collin’s caliber, and here I am, is not such a coward as other men; he is protesting against the monstrous betrayals of the Social Contract, to use the words of Jean-Jacques, whose disciple I am proud to be. In a word, I stand alone against the government, with its pile of courts, policeman and civil budgets, and I get the better of them.”

………………………// . / \
………………………| ||||\
…………………... . / . /, | ||||\\|
………………//// . / \ \\||||\\
Lampedusa|Trial of The K\·ights Templar. moider.
Garum|ΎNok.Larentide Ice/| Sheet. tocsin.
knout |·paratactic; liana;/ϐ pleach; Morpheme.
februa·|Stalking horse offer\\ Ύvariation of the field
epigone. sedulity Verdelho\\\ Piero di Cosimo
…………//// . /· \ \Ύϐ\||· Ύ||\\
…………….· Ύ . / . /, | ·|ϐ ||·|\\|
……………..||··|||\ϐ ϐp 3. sti ll use the Kro ner?
……………../ϐ /. /· \ n armados armados ………eieie
…………../ϐ /. /· \…t armados armados ………usnt
…………/ϐ /. /· \…..o armados armados ………. E i
…………./ϐ /. /· \….de armados rmados …………da
…………/ϐ /. /· \…..embarrassmentandprivilege
…………/ϐ /. /· \…..la armados … ………………….um>tombolo (x);
…………/ϐ /. /· \…..ls arados ……………. ……………C
…………./ϐ /. /· \….Lenfrentamientos armados —
…………/ϐ /. /· \…..
…………./ϐ /. /· \….

Lucretius Book IV, translation Rolfe Humphries:

Of all the smellls there are
Some carry farther than others, but not one
Reaches as far as voice or sound or sight
(That last, I think, I hardly need to mention).
For odors come on wandering courses, slow
In their approach, are easily dispersed,
Fade in the air; one reason is, they start
From inner depths, and even seem to have
Some trouble in emerging; possibly
They even tend back to their source again.
We know that stronger odors emanate
From things when crushed, or ground, or burnt in fire,
And odors must be made of larger motes
Than voices, since they do not pass through stone
Where sound can penetrate, and it’s not easy,
At time, to find the whereabouts of a smell
Since ordors are no hot-foot messengers,
But dawdlers, and their trails grow cold in air,
Too vague, too wavering for the nosing hounds
Unless they pause and check and cast about.

After reading Infinite Jest again this past summer I made the experiment of posting a few things on the Reddit page devoted to the topic:

— Pretending to need to sniff
— Heads and Shoulders in the Room
— Squeaks: (1) (2)
— Neon

My experience of Reddit, though mainly limited to this, was that, though often the posts themselves are of a fairly basic or social character, the commentariat is quite helpful and often extremely knowledgeable, which most comes out when there are posts that ask the community about basic aspects of the book.

(As I think of it, I’ve had a similar experience with the ancient Greek “subreddit” — serious commenters, less serious posts.)

Probably this comment from commenter “ahighthyme” was the most personally enlightening to me, helping to explain Don Gately’s dream near the end of Infinite Jest:

The idea of digging up a head with some kid (he doesn’t yet know Hal, or anything about something believed to be buried in a dead guy’s head) is being put into Gately’s head by James’ wraith, just like the other ghost words he didn’t know. He’s simply baiting Gately to follow through by including naked Joelle and giant bags of corporate snacks—which Gately can’t resist—in order to prevent a Continental Emergency by showing AFR agent Wayne that the supposed master cartridge everyone’s trying to find was always just James’ head, which obviously no longer exists because it was blown to bits.