Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Pindar, Pythian 3.107-109

May 10, 2015

Pindar, Pythian 3.107-109:

σμικρὸς ἐν σμικροῖς, μέγας ἐν μεγάλοις
ἔσσομαι: τὸν ἀμφέποντ᾽ αἰεὶ φρασὶν
δαίμον᾽ ἀσκήσω κατ᾽ ἐμὰν θεραπεύων μαχανάν.

*

[θεραπεύων a nominative masc. participle agreeing with subject ἀσκήσω]

*

Svarlien: “I will be small when my fortunes are small, great when they are great. I will honor in my mind the fortune that attends me from day to day, tending it to the best of my ability.”

William H. Race (Loeb): “I shall be small in small times, great in great ones;/ I shall honor with my mind whatever fortune attends me,/ by serving it with the means at my disposal.”

Piketty equations

May 3, 2015

α = r * β“first fundamental rule of capitalism” where α is the share of income from capital in national income; r is the rate of return on capital, and β the capital to income ratio. [pp.52]

β = s / g“second fundamental rule of capitalism” where β is the capital to income ratio; s is the saving rate; and g is the growth rate. [pp.166]

by = μ * m * β“annual economic flow of inheritances and gifts, expressed as a proportion of national income” (by) where μ is the ratio of average wealth at time of death to average wealth of living individuals, m is the mortality rate, and β is the capital to income ratio (here the total private wealth to national income).

r > g … rate of return on capital (r) is greater than economic growth (g).

‘Pluck’ in Measure for Measure

April 26, 2015

The word ‘pluck’ (as a verb) seemed to occur an unusual number of times in Measure for Measure, or at least to be used in unusual ways. In brief: Angelo ‘plucks down’ (closes) the brothels in Vienna; the Duke says “liberty plucks justice by the nose” in Vienna; a specific brothel is described as having been “plucked down”; Isabella claims that Angelo “plucks on others”, and later yearns to “pluck out” his eyes. Finally, Lucio, in the play’s last mention, claims falsely that he ‘plucked’ the friar (the disguised Duke) ‘by the nose’ for having spoken abusively of the Duke, (in fact, it was Lucio himself who’d insulted the duke.)
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Act I: “All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down” [1.2.95] (pompey); “liberty plucks justice by the nose” [1.3.29] (Duke);

Act II: “He, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs” [2.1.65] (Elbow); ” I know your virtue hath a licence in’t, Which seems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others” [2.4.146] (Isabella to Angelo);

Act III:

Act IV: “O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!” [4.3.119] (Isabella to disguised Duke, of Angelo).

Act V: “O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for thy speeches?” [5.1.345] (Lucio to Duke, disguised as friar.)

April 19, 2015

that “sighs are to thoughts as groans are to bodily aches” repetitive thoughts like repetitive motions and resulting in the degradation of mental parts like physical joints — the aching back more of an ooch the recurring thought more a blowing (a soundless o or tongueless sibilant)– to reflect upon: “motions are the thoughts of the body” — (why wouldn’t thoughts be the thoughts of the body?) — because motions are an emanation of the whole body and thoughts are an emanation of one part of it– “a great civilization coming from out of the mediterranean isn’t a mouth piece for the whole of the turning earth” […]

*

Peter Singer I don’t think can be right here. If giving is only for the transference of property from a party with more to a party with less I suppose he could be right, but doesn’t giving provide something to the giver as well? isn’t there a spiritual concern in the person of the giver that giving addresses? If that concern exists only because of the unequal distribution of goods, I suppose a universal tax on wealth and income would suffice to resolve it (despite the fact that it would substantially divorce one from the experience of giving). And I suppose, too, that it may be there are other ways to resolve such a spiritual concern besides giving; it may be that the spiritual concern of some people may lie rather in the direction of receiving; maybe we could feed and clothe everyone first, and afterwards focus on spiritual shortcomings, in whatever direction they may lie — put another’s material want above one’s spiritual want… What if it were the case (although I think this is not the case) that no one could address spiritual issues until everyone had been clothed and fed? if a precondition for any morality or prayer to be possible was that everyone who wants to be is clothed and fed?

*

perhaps the “precariously situated” boulder, as wikipedia has it, of the Course of Empire paintings achieves the same “repeating note” effect thought of here but visually

“rain drop”

April 12, 2015

….something that tries to connect and contrast (that tries to determine the underlying appeal of) the “repeating same note effect” that occurs in both “better git it…” and “heroin.” and maybe also the “raindrop prelude” [#15] — another question — is the “repeating same note effect” the same as the “repeating word effect” [a la]; that is, is the repetition of notes in musical works and of words in dramatical works comparable on the level of their effects? and (somewhat related) is there a comparison to be made between repetition, as it appears in the arts, and coincidence, as it occurs in the world? — another question — what is it that keeps repetition from becoming repetitive? How interesting would the “rain drop” prelude be if it were only its repeated note?

HORACE / plants in the odes and epodes

April 5, 2015

Plants by Book

(1) (2) (3) (4) (Ep.)

Plants in All Books (by type)

Arbutus (arbutus: (1.1.21); (1.17.5). Ash (ornus): (1.9.12); (2.9.8); (3.27.58). Ash (fraxinus): (3.25.16). Balsam (balanus): (3.29.4). Blackberry bush (rubus): (1.23.6). Citron (citreus): (4.1.20). Cypress (cupressus): (1.9.11); (2.14.22); (4.6.10); (Ep.5.17). Elm (ulmus): (1.2.9); (2.15.5). Endive (chickory) (cichorium): (1.31.16). Fig tree, wild (caprificus): (Ep.5.18).Fig (ficus): (Ep.16.46).Garlic (allium): (Ep.3.3).Grape-berry (uva): (1.20.10); (2.5.6); (2.6.16); (Ep.2.20). Grape-vine (vitis): (1.18.1), (1.20.11); (1.31.10; (1.38.8); (3.1.44); (3.23.6); (4.5.30); (Ep.2.9). Grass (gramen): (1.15.30); (2.3.6); (3.7.26); ((4.7.1), (4.12.9); (Ep.2.17).Hemlock (cicuta): (Ep.3.3).Ivy (hedera): (1.1.29); (1.25.17); (1.36.20); (4.11.4). Laurel (laurus): (2.1.15); (2.2.22); (2.7.19); (2.15.9); (3.4.19); (3.14.2); (3.30.16); (4.2.9); (Ep.15.5).Lily (lilium):(1.36.16). Linden tree (philyra): (1.38.2). Mallow (malva): (1.31.16); (Ep.2.68).Myrrh (myrrha): (murreus) (3.14.2). Myrtle (myrtum): “viridis“(1.4.9); (1.25.18); (1.38.5), (1.38.7); (2.7.25); (2.15.6); (3.4.19); (3.23.16). Oak (robur): (1.1.3). Oaken (robustus): (3.16.2). Oak (quercus): (1.12.12); quercetum (2.9.7); (3.23.10); (4.13.10). Oak (aesculus):(aesculetum) (1.22.14); (3.10.17). Oak (ilex): (3.13.14), (3.23.10); (4.4.57); (Ep.2.23); (Ep.10.8); (Ep.15.5), (Ep.16.47). Olive (oliva): (1.7.7),(1.8.8); (1.31.15); oliveta (2.15.7); (Ep.2.56); (Ep.16.45). Palm (palma): (1.1.5); (3.20.12); (4.2.18). Parsley/ celery (apium):(1.36.16); (2.7.24); (4.11.3). Pear (pirum): (Ep.2.19).Pine (pinus): (1.14.11); (2.3.9); (2.10.10); (2.11.14); (3.22.5); (4.6.10). Pine / Pitch-pine (taeda): (4.4.43. Plane Tree (platanus): (2.11.13); (2.15.4). Poplar (populeus): (1.7.23); (2.3.9); (Ep.2.10). Rose (rosa): (1.5.1), (1.36.15), (1.38.3); (2.3.14); (2.11.14); (3.15.15); (3.19.22); (3.29.3); (4.10.4). Rosemary (ros marinus): (3.23.15-16). Seaweed (alga): (3.17.10). Sorrel (lapathum): (Ep.2.57).Spikenard (costum): (3.1.44); (4.12.16), (4.12.17). Thyme (thymum): (1.17.6); (4.2.29). Tragopogon (come): (1.21.5); (4.7.2). Violet (viola): violarium (2.15.5). Willow (grove) (salictum): (2.5.6).

“Tree”

(arbor): “glory grows like” (1.12.45); (1.18.1); (1.22.18); “lyre once heeded by trees” (1.24.14); tree (arbos) almost killing Horace (2.13.3) same tree referred to as “truncus” in (2.17.27); [truncus again (2.19.11)]; (2.14.22; (3.1.30); (3.4.27); “almost sent to my grave by a–“(3.8.8); “unmarried” (4.5.30); (4.7.2); (Ep.2.56); tree on hillside (Ep.12.20), (Ep.16.46).

General References

Flower (flos) (1.4.10); grove (lucus) (1.4.11); grove (lucus) (1.7.13); orchard (pomarius)(1.7.14); garland (corona) (1.7.23); woods (sylvae) (1.9.3), logs (lignum) (1.9.5); “carpe diem” (carpe has of ‘pluck’) (1.11.8); woods (sylvae) (1.12.8), grove (lucus) (1.12.60); “rosy” (1.13.2); sylvae (1.14.11); woodland (nemus) (1.17.5), “garland” (1.17.27), leaves (frons) (1.18.12); turf, cut sod (caespes) (1.19.14); Sacred Bough (verbena): (1.19.14); woodland (nemus) (1.21.5), silva & viridis (1.21.8); Sabine wood (sylva) (1.22.9); sylva (1.23.4), leaf (folium) (1.23.6); leafy branch (frons) (1.25.19); flower (flos) (1.26.7), garland (1.26.8); “woods of Venusia” (1.28.27); cornfield (seges) (1.31.4); garland (1.38.2); branches (ramus) (2.3.11); “blooms” (flos)(2.3.14); “woodland” (saltus)(2.3.17); “green meadows” (virentis compos) (2.5.6); “berry, round fruit” (baca) (2.6.16); garland/ garlanded (2.7.7/24); leaves (folium)(2.9.8); flowers (flos) (2.11.9); lumber (lignum) (2.13.3); branches (ramus) (2.15.9); thyrsus (2.19.11). arbustum (3.1.10); vineyard (vinea) (3.1.29); grove (lucus)(3.4.7); leaves (frons) (3.4.12); “glade” (saltus) (3.4.15); “trunks” (truncus)(3.4.55) [see entry for “tree” in book ii]; thicket (dumetum) (3.4.63), woods (silva) (3.4.63); Flower (flos) (3.8.2); turf (caespes) (3.8.4); cork (cortex) (3.8.10); cork (cortex) (3.9.22); nemus, satum (3.10.5-6); woods (sylva) (3.11.13; thicket (fruticetum) (3.12.12); Flower (flos) (3.13.2); “garland” (corona and vitta) (3.14.8,17); flos (3.15.15); silva (3.16.29); woodland (nemus) (3.17.9), leaf (folium) (3.17.9), firwood (lignum) (3.17.14); “grassy” herbosus) (3.18.9), woods, leaves (sylva, fronds) (3.18.14); “Rosy” (Rhode) (3.19.27); woodland (nemus) (3.22.1); fruit (frux) (3.23.4), fruit bearing (pomifer) (3.23.8), crop (seges) (3.23.6), herbage (herba) (3.23.11), “a sort of grain” (far) (3.23.20); fruit (frux) (3.24.13), Ceres (3.24.13); woodland (nemus) (3.25.2); vine-leaf (pampinus) (3.25.20); Flower (flos)/ garland (corona) (3.27.29-30), pluck (carpere) flowers (flos), (3.27.44), sap (sucus) (3.27.54); flos (3.29.3), Sylvanus, thickets (dumetum) (3.29.23), stock, stem (stirps) (3.29.37).flos (4.1.32); nemus (4.2.30); leaves (frons) (4.2.36); herba (4.2.55); folium (4.3.7), nemus (4.3.11); frons (4.4.58); Ceres (4.5.18); “crops” (frux) (4.6.39); pomifer, frux (4.7.11); vine-leaf (pampinus)(4.8.33); “blossom, flower” (flos) (4.10.4); garden (hortus) (4.11.2) leafy twig (verbena)(4.11.7); slip, shoot (propago) (Ep.2.9); branches (ramos) (Ep.2.13); fruit tree (pomus) (Ep.2.17), woods (silva) (Ep.2.17), fire wood (lignis) (Ep.2.43), branches of trees (ramis arborum)(Ep.2.56), “blades, leaves” (herba)(Ep.2.57); “salad” (herbis) (Ep.3.7); herba (Ep.5.21), herba and root (radix) (Ep.5.67-68); woods (nemus) (Ep.6.9); woods (silva) (Ep.11.6); woods (silva) (Ep.13.2), “nard” (nardus) (Ep.13.2); Ceres, floreo (Ep.16.43-44), vine-garden (vinea) (Ep.16.44), branch (termes) (Ep.16.45), seed (semen) (Ep.16.55).

Some Concordances of a Similar Stripe on this Website

hats in Against the Day, Nothing in Lear, Beautiful in Golden Bowl… most recentlyLate Spring

Gudgeon

March 30, 2015

Gudgeon. Brothers Karamazov, book 2, section 8:

“I don’t like falsehood, fathers, I want the truth. But the truth is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud!”

Pulp Fiction Notes

March 23, 2015

(Random notes after a recent viewing…)

Excretory

Vincent is shitting when Ringo and Yolanda hold up the coffee shop.

Vincent is shitting when Butch comes into his apartment (the one Vincent is guarding) to retrieve the watch.

(The watch itself is said to have been concealed in the rectum of Butch’s father’s friend.)

Yolanda says (in a moment of fear during the coffee shop hold-up, when Jules is threatening Ringo’s life) “I need to pee.”

Jules (having returned from the episode of the coffee shop and brief case, when Vincent is discussing his upcoming date with Mia with Paul) says — “I’m gonna piss.”

Vince, at Mia’s, says he’s gonna take a piss.

(Doesn’t Ringo tell Yolanda they’ll “catch them with their pants down”? This is literally the case with Vince. Vince is also “caught with his pants down” with Butch.)

“Through Vince…we see the contemporary world as utterly contingent, transformed, disastrously, in the instant you are not looking.” (wiki)

International

Esmerelda is Colombian; Fabienne is French; Vincent Vega suggests Italian; Mia (maybe Italian); the Wallace home decorated in African Icons, (“Marsellus” suggests Ancient Rome); Vincent has just returned from a three-year stay in Amsterdam; Mia reports that she will go to Amsterdam on a yearly basis; Butch and Fabienne plan to escape to South East Asian locations; (Marsellus remarks that, even should Butch go to French Indo China, he will find him); (the only way Butch can save himself from Marsellus is by saving Marsellus from white male rapists); Wolf I guess suggests Germany; ethnic tension between Butch (Polish) and Vincent (Italian) which is also a tension about who will and who will not do certain things for Marsellus; Antwan Rockamora (Tony Rocky Horror) is 1/2 black 1/2 Samoan.

The movie begins with Internationals: two British persons discussing other immigrants in America (Vietnamese, Koreans) “If it’s not the gooks it’s the fucking jews.” The movie’s second scene involves an American’s discoveries abroad…

White/ Black

Bonnie apparently African American; Jules and Vincent another clear Black/ White correspondence; Vince doesn’t deal well with Butch, a white polish person to his white Italian person, but Vince enjoyed Amsterdam… The wife of Marsellus is white. Vincent and Jules are black and white; Marsellus and Butch are black and white; Marsellus and Mia are black and white; Jimmie and Bonnie are black and white… Winston, Brett, the drug dealers, Maynard and Zed, and the store robbers, are white. [See also.]

Sequence of Events
(but have to check this)

first, J&V go to get the brief case; second, the bonnie situation & marvin incident; third, the attempted coffee shop heist; fourth, the bar where they see butch; fifth, the night out of mia and Vincent; sixth, the boxing match; seventh, death of Vincent & escape of Butch.

Automobiles

Vince’s car (a Malibu?) has been “fucked with” (keyed), we see him high on heroin driving his car, we see him with Mia seated at a dining table shaped like an automobile, we see him driving his car recklessly into trash cans (outside of the drug dealer’s); Mr. Wolf drives an Acura; the Nova, which has been messed up through gangster activity, is remade with the blankets, quilts of the suburbs; “I’m sorry baby I had to crash that honda,” (Butch crashes Fabienne’s Honda); Zed’s bike; Esmerelda’s taxi…

March 16, 2015

There is no longer a Hardee’s in Red Oak — it closed years ago — just as there is no longer an economy where part-time ­fast-food jobs are remembered as a stop on a journey. But the biscuit ovens at the Hardee’s in Creston, 50 miles east on Highway 34, are still firing up every morning at 5.Anne Hull, POST. [Creston]

March 15, 2015

xx . .x ..y t gx.x .x.x . X
|……………|……………|
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|_ _ _ _ _|

…………………………… -_ _ _ – \
…………………… _/ -… ..- . — -\ _ _ ___ *
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Draft of a partial concordance of “A Strange Commonplace” (Gilbert Sorrentino)

March 8, 2015

CLOTHING

Suits: Napoleon’s (1.2); woman’s (2.8); powder blue tropical worsted suit (1.7); young black man’s dark suit, suit jacket (1.8); pale blue silk suit (2.11); oxford gray (1.9); “dark suit” (2.16); woman’s gabardine suit (1.10); one button lounge suits (2.24): dirty dark suit (young black man) (1.16); woman’s office clothes, dark suit (2.20); oxford gray shadow stripe suit (1.19); black gabardine suits (2.10); card “suits” (2.7); ill fitting Hugo Boss or Armani suit (1.26); dark gray suit, badly fitting suit (1.26);

Dresses: green dress, dressed slipped up (2.18); skirt (2.8); dress and slip (1.3); white sun dress (1.7); nurse’s white outfit, waitresses pink outfit (2.11); skirt (2.16); purple velvet dress, long flowered skirt (1.10); skirt (2.15); “magical” black dress with gold things (2.23); skirt (1.12); skirt (2.2); black velour with silver stitching (1.14); skirt (1.16); skirt (1.16); black dress with gold threads (1.18); sweaty dirty dress (2.8); flowered skirt (2.10); [not a dress but the flower print motif returns on a housecoat and kitchen floor in (1.20)]; black and silver evening dress that needs cleaning (1.24); [“dressed to look like moms”] (2.25); skirt made of hides and leaves (2.22); purple velvet dress with black silk jacket, black gabardine suit (1.26); black dress, purple velvet dress, little black dress,

Lingerie: (1.1); (1.3); (2.5); white brassiere (1.8); “nothing but her slip” (2.11); half slip, brassiere, panties (2.16); slip (2.2); slip, panties (1.16); underwear off “naked beneath her skirt” (1.16); not wearing underwear but a hat and scarf (1.17); her “best underwear” (1.18); a pink two way stretch girdle (1.20); aluminum crotch of jeans (1.22);

Other Undergarments: (1.1); chemise (1.3); (2.5); white brassiere (1.8); slip, anklettes (2.11); brassiere, half slip,(2.16); slip on and off (2.2); taking them off beforehand (2.9); no underwear but hat and scarf (1.17); “best” (1.18); shared underwear, left stockings and garter, packaged of Hanes briefs (2.10); pink girdle (1.20);

Hats: homburg, fedora (1.1); borsalino, baseball caps (1.7); black watch cap (1.8); homburg (1.9); fedora (2.23); (2.1); homburg (2.19); stained homburg (1.15); “hat and scarf” (1.17); pearl gray homburg (1.19); pearl gray homburg (2.10); pearl gray homburg (1.23)

White shirt/ blouse: gleaming white shirt (1.2); blouse (2.8); “white chemise” (1.3); white sun dress (1.7); starched white shirt (1.8); (1.9); white shirt (2.16); snow white scarf (2.23); dirty shirt (1.16); (2.20); (1.26)

Camel hair coat: [2.19]; “aluminum jeans” : (1.22); Scarf: white silk blue polka dots (1.1), “a silk scarf, snow-white with blue polka dots” (2.23); silk scarf, a Christmas gift (“made in Italy, B.Altman’s, the works”) (2.1); “hat and scarf” (1.17); “hat and scarf” (2.25); (1.25). Green Dress: (1.1). Green skating outfit (2.25). black blouse (2.25). Suede Jacket: (1.5); (2.5); woman’s (1.10). Suede gloves: (1.8). Shorts: (1.10).

NAMED CHARACTERS

Al: husband of Janet (2.16); ex-husband of Dottie (2.9);

Anna: long suffering housewife of Jack, mother of Joey (2.18); ex-wife of Jack mother of Charlie (2.6); mutual friend to Clara and Ray (2.3); is she Anna or Cora? (2.17); Anna, ex-wife and/or girlfriend of deceased, “twin” of Irene (2.26).

Bill: stoner musician, lover of Inez (2.13); former husband of Irene Greenleaf; Bill Greenleaf, salesman of the year at Ray’s firm (2.3); husband of Jenny, lover of Inez (2.5);

Blackie: old man (1.7); real name Pierre: husband to Janet, lover of Maureen, father to Clara (2.1);

Carson: married man interested in coworker (1.2)

Claire: wife of napoleon (1.2); “unsettlingly placid” “beautiful” old friend of Inez (maybe) (2.13); Clara (1.4); Clara, Ray’s wife, Maureen’s mother (2.3); (1.8); two Claires who are dental patients, first of which “Claire Page” (2.15); Clara, daughter of “Blackie” (Pierre) and Janet (2.1); niece of Ray (1.13); wife of Napoleon? (2.2); niece of unnamed old man (1.19); is she Claire or Inez? (2.17)

Charles: (1.8)

“Claudia”: (1.3); fiance of Warren (2.21)

Charlotte: secretary then mistress and then wife of Bill(2.4)

Connie Moran: lawyer (2.3).

Cora: Anna or Cora? (2.25)

Dottie: ex-wife of Al (2.9);

Elaine: friend, rival and near twin of Jenny (2.10)

Estelle: (1.9); Al’s lover, (2.9); in list of women’s names (2.25)

Ferlon Grevette: see Napoleon.

Inez: married to Ralph (2.13); married to Ralph, lover of Bill (2.5); wife and nurse of Dr. Ralph Greenleaf (2.15) “Is she Claire or Inez?” (2.25)

Irene Greenleaf: (2.4); mistress of Jack (husband of Anna) (2.8); ex-wife and/or girlfriend of deceased, double of Anna (1.26).

Ingebretsen: Pastor (2.3)

Jack: unfaithful husband of Anna (wife beater, rapist), father of Joey (“slow”), mistress of Jenny (2.18); “Jack Walsh” Janet’s former boss (2.3); Italian ethnicity, wife of Anna, father of Charlie (“cockeyed”), affair with Irene (2.6); son of Janet, grandson of unnamed (2.21).

Janet: cousin of unnamed woman (1.1); secretary and mistress of Ray (2.3); of “Jack Walsh” (2.3); wife of Al (2.16); wife of Blackie (Pierre), mother of Clara (2.1); daughter of unnamed, mother of Jack, sister of Warren (2.21).

Jenny: mistress of Jack (2.18); old girlfriend of unnamed person in San Fran. (1.5); married to Bill (in San Fran) mistress of Ralph [2.5]; associated with Warren and Poppa (2.20); friend, rival and near twin of Elaine (2.10)

[Forgot Joey]

Katy: a go-between between Ray and Clara (2.3)

Marty: Lover of Inez Greenleaf (2.15).

Maureen: daughter of Ray and Clara (2.3); lover of Blackie (Pierre) (2.1);

Napoleon: (1.2); a “young black man involved in the movie business” (or maybe real estate) married to Clara (1.4); “handsome young black man” in real estate business (1.8); a black man –no mention of age– that looks like a bank manager (2.16); (historical figure mentioned (1.12); Doctor Napoleon — young black man– Ferlon Grevette (2.2); “young black man” in a suit (1.16).

Pierre: [missed some here]; is he Pierre? (2.25)

Ralph: friend of unnamed husband (1.1); married to Inez (2.13); friend of Ray’s (2.3); married to Inez, lover of Jenny (2.5); Ralph Greenleaf, dentist, married to his nurse receptionist Inez, with two kids, (later divorced, marries another nurse) (2.15);

Ray: “dim bulb” brother of Claire (2.13); uncle of Clara (1.4); unfaithful husband of Clara, father of Maureen, with mistress Janet (2.3); old man (1.7); witness to shooting outside diner (or shot himself?) (1.11); uncle of Claire (1.13); brother of Warren father of another Warren (1.15); brother of Warren (2.24); Claire’s husband who her sister married? The brother of Pierre? or of Warren? Are Ray and Pierre and Warren all brothers (2.17).

Red Head: [started at 1.8]; (1.8); (1.9); (2.16); with binder (1.16);

Warren: (1.3); old man (1.7); brother of Ray, son of Ray (1.15); brother of Ray (2.24); associated with Jenny (2.20); fiance of Claudia, brother of Janet, Uncle of Jack, son of unnamed (2.21); Claire’s husband who her sister married? The brother of Pierre? or of Warren? Are Ray and Pierre and Warren all brothers (2.25)

Famous: Meryl Streep (2.8); Groucho Marx (2.13); Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale (2.4); assorted Hollywood actors from the narrator’s youth (1.6); Meryl Streep (1.8); John Cusack (1.12); Irene Dunne (1.13); Mickie & Minnie (2.2); Clark Gable, Gregory Peck (2.19); James Cagney, Jack Carson (1.15); Charlie Parker an other bepop era Jazz figures (2.24); movie stars named (2.8); Freud, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi (2.25); Charlie Parker, Daredevils of the red circle (1.24); Snow white, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc. (2.25); Dick Tracy, Daredevils of the Red Circle (1.25); Moon Mullins, Dagwood (1.26).

OTHER
(mentions of literature, rape, Tarzan, Worchestershire
sauce, New York/ California, Alcohol/ Tobacco, etc.
)

New York: Gerritsen Avenue (1.1); Nassau country, East Flatbush, Canarsie, Chinatown (2.18); Chelsea/ Williamsburg (1.2); diner in Bay Ridge (1.4); [Papa Joe’s, Our Lady of Perpetual Help] (2.4); Rego Park (2.3) (?); “The Alpine” (Bayridge?) (1.6); Gun Hill Road (1.7); “he should have met her back in New York” (2.5); Brooklyn, Manhattan, [“Parkcrest West” doesn’t seem to be a real NY location]; Coney Island and the Rockaways (1.9); Central Park (2.15); Daily News (1.11); (New York) Times (1.12) [?]; Union City (New Jersey) (2.1); Sunset Park (1.13); “New York Clothes”, Chelsea (2.2); Bronx, Rockefeller Center, Prometheus (1.14); Rockefeller Center, 5th and 6th Avenues, New Jersey (2.19); Sheepshead Bay (1.15); Rockefeller Center, 3 deuces (52nd between 5th and 6th), Father Duffy Square (2.24); “so close to the park” (1.16); Queens, Con Ed, Elmhurst, Coney Island, Scoville’s (2.9); Fritz’s bar and grill/ Papa Joe’s [?] (2.8); eighth street, the Village, (2.10); Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech. (2.21); Bohack’s (*); Rockefeller Center, Broadway, Vanderbilt Avenue, 42nd street (2.25); Rockefeller Center, 165 W. 46th Street, Three Deuces, Father Duffy Square, 49th street (1.24); list of nine NY neighborhoods which includes Sunset Park, Washington Heights, and Bay Ridge (2.25); The Alpine (Bay Ridge) (1.25); The Alpine, Holsten’s, White plains, Washington Heights, Yonkers (2.22); Whitehall street subway station, DeRosa funeral home (de Riso?)(1.26); same funeral home, Budd Lake (there are Budd Lakes both in NJ and CA)(1.26).

California: L.A. (1.2); San Francisco “land of heart’s desire” (2.13); Los Angeles, San Francisco (Baker, Dolores, Post streets, Capwell’s) (1.5); (2.5); Los Angeles (2.2); Marina del Rey (Los Angeles) (2.7); Riverside Drive, Bank Street (2.17); “In California it’s called copulation” (1.26).

Drinks: cheap whiskey (1.1); whiskey, 7 and 7, milk (2.18); white wine (1.2); “just a drink” (2.8); iced tea (1.3); margarita, vodka, whiskey sour (2.4); “was he still a drunk?” (1.5); “too much to drink at the salesman of the year party” (2.3); saloon that was now a mosque/ cheap booze (1.6); brandy stupor (2.12); (1.7); scotch and water, gin (2.5); coffee (2.11); cold beer (1.9); straight whiskey (2.16); (1.10); milk (2.23); “his alcoholism was prelude…” (1.12); coffee (2.1); half-drunk on New Year’s Eve (1.14); (2.19); (2.24); estelle and the con ed man (2.9); (1.17); tumblers of straight blended whiskey (2.20); Wilsons whiskey; J.W. Dant, draft beer, pink gin (2.10); bourbon, bourbon and water (2.7); “probably drunk, but she may be dead”, a quart cardboard container of beer (1.20); “stopped drinking the way she’d been drinking”, California Cabernet, Hennessey V.S.O.P, Rum baba, strong coffee (2.21); smell of whiskey (1.23); majorska vodka (Ok! soft drink) (1.22); “the fathers would sit with their beer and their whiskey” (2.25); Fleischmann’s (whiskey) and beer chaser, “Tarzan’s World” (2.22);

Cigarettes: chesterfields (2.18); Gitanes (1.2); “smoker of marijuana, hashish […]” (2.13); “can you, she said, lighting a cigarette, get a goddammed ash tray…” (2.4); (2.5); “smoking two fat joints of hash” (2.16); major theme of this chapter (2.2); unopened pack of Lucky Strikes (1.15); “You smoke like a fucking chimney” (2.24); (2.9); (2.20); Phillip Morris, Lucky Strikes (2.8); (2.10); (1.20); (1.21); (2.25); stopped smoking a month ago (2.25); Wings (1.24); Camels, Luckies, Chesterfields (2.25); (2.22).

Rape: (2.18); falsely alleged (2.13); and sodomy (2.11); and sodomy (2.16); attempted (dentist and patient) (2.15); and incest (1.13); mickey (1.17); maybe (2.25).

Pregnancy: (2.13); (1.4); (1.13); miscarried (1.15).

Family of three: (1.1); (2.18); (1.3); (2.3); (1.6); (2.12); (2.5); (1.8); (1.9); (2.23); (2.1); (1.13); (1.15); (2.9); (1.18); (2.8); (1.21); (2.21); (1.23); suggested (2.25); suggested (1.25); (2.22).

Bomba / Tarzan: (1.3); (1.5); (1.6); (1.8); (2.8); (1.22); among other named movie figures (2.25).

Writer: memoirist (1.2); (2.12); “his book” (1.8); gesturing with a ballpoint pen (2.11); (1.12); memoirist (2.2); redhead with black spring binder crammed with tattered pages (1.16); “writer bastard” (1.17); (2.10); (books) (1.21); (books) (2.21); (1.25); (2.22).

Letter/ note: (1.1);(1.3); (2.3); thinks about it (2.9); to grandpa (1.21).

Literary: Freud, Interpretation of Dreams (2.8; (1.3); Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (1.4); “any book that was not what he considered serious” (1.5); carrying “a Great Book through the Mean Streets” (2.12); Pierre (1.8); The Sacred Fount (1.10); unspoken fantasies of the Pulitzer (1.12); Helen and Paris (1.13); Saroyan (1.14); Jung (2.19); “crudely literary” (2.24); Ulysses, Sacred Fount, Pierre, Confidence Man, The Plumed Serpent, Lorca …(2.10); Land of Heart’s Desire (2.13); Hardy’s collected poems and the The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (Janet), Ficciones (Warren), In Cold Blood (Claudia) (2.21).

Worcestershire / Ketchup: Worcestershire (1.1); ketchup (2.11); Worcestershire and ketchup (2.23); Worcestershire (1.18); Worcestershire with what looks like a blood stain (1.20); (1.23).

***

HAT BREAKDOWN

Borsalino: (1.7). Homburg: (1.1); (1.9); & “Adam hat” (2.19); stained (1.15); (1.19); (2.10); (1.23). Fedora: (1.1), (2.23). Watch cap: (1.8) (this is the same information, differently presented, as is in the ‘hats’ entry above.)

Contamination and recycling

March 6, 2015

Looked into this recently, having gotten the idea I was doing it wrong (recycling). I am now not confident I am doing it right, maybe throwing away more than I was before, and more than I should, but I am giving this whole thing a more thorough review.

contamination and recycling: (*) (*) (*) no used tissues or paper towels, no pizza boxes, no frozen food boxes… a lot more poses a problem than I’d thought.

With glass recycling, food does not seem to be a contamination risk. (*,*) [more]

“Relatively Abstract”

March 1, 2015

I thought this was an interesting point made by Piketty, that so many people not only are without wealth themselves, but have so little exposure to anyone who is, it makes of wealth something other-worldly and mysterious. One could imagine that this is why various conspiracy theories involving wealth and the wealthy arise. (Capital in the Twenty-first Century, Thomas Picketty, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, pp.259.:)

“For this half of the population, the very notions of wealth and capital are relatively abstract. For millions of people, ‘wealth’ amounts to little more than a few weeks’ wages in a checking account or low-interest savings account, a car, and a few pieces of furniture. The inescapable reality is this: wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence, so that some people imagine that it belongs to surreal or mysterious entities. That is why it is so essential to study capital and its distribution in a methodical, systematic way.”

February 22, 2015

Vinkensport; triolet; croft; glebe, kopje, Rappahannock river map; hiroshige/ 100 famous views [*] … Melville to Hawthorne letters. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Magi.

A Broken Appointment (Hardy)

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
-I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me.

Anthology — 5.67

February 19, 2015

(pp.160)Καλλος ανευ χαριτων τερπει μονον, ου κατεχει δε, ως ατερ αγκιστρου νηχομενον δελεαρ

*
τέρπω, delight, cheer. καταχέω, pour down upon, pour over. ἄτερ, without, apart from. ἄγκιστρον, fish hook. νήχω, swim. δέλεαρ, bait (neut. nom or acc.).
*

beauty without grace only cheers, without overwhelming, like bait dangled without a hook.

*
W.R Paton. Beauty without charm only pleases us, but does not hold us; it is like a bait floating without a hook.

Tatterdemalion

February 16, 2015

Herman Melville, The Encantadas:

Its sides are split with dark cavernous recesses, as an old cathedral with its gloomy lateral chapels. Drawing nigh one of these gorges from sea, after a long voyage, and beholding some tatterdemalion outlaw, staff in hand, descending its steep rocks toward you, conveys a very queer emotion to a love of the picturesque.

Tatterdemalion.

1.26 / 2.26

February 13, 2015

“A Wake”
Book 1, chapter 26; Book 2, chapter 26

Characters

1.26 Former love or wife of a man who has recently died (unnamed).

2.26 Dead man (unnamed) with ex-wife Anna/ Irene and girlfriend Anna/ Irene, and ex-wife’s young boyfriend with a pony tail (unnamed)

General Subject/ Plot

1.26: Jealousy,/ envy. While trying to decide whether to go to a former lover’s funeral, a woman’s thoughts revolve around her lover’s first wife.

2.26: Twins, death, sex. Told in the form of dream or out-of-body experience, a man attends his own wake.

Motifs

1.26 “as they liked to put it,” movies, Christ, suit, purple velvet dress, black silk jacket, black gaberdine suit, DeRosa

2.26 DeRosa, pony tail, clothing (purple velvet dress), bluchers, ” as they newspapers put it”,

Notes

Moon Mullins…The “Wakes” especially heavy on the authorial asides (“as they put it”, “as the newspapers called them,” etc.). 2nd: Recalls “Dreams” (in its oddity); The “Familiar Women,” the first “Apartment,” and the second “Homburg” (in its twin-women); the first “Familiar Woman” in particular (for its clothes); the first “Brothers” (for the floral spray). The addition of the idea of patriotism, the President, is surprising. Whitehall is at the most southern tip of Manhattan. 1st: one of the “twin women” seems to contemplate attending the event described in the second “Wake”, in the process revealing her jealousy toward a rival (a jealous which is the man’s in the second “Alpine” and second “Wake”). Her “let the dead bury the dead” rings out against the dead man’s “dead with himself alone.” Just because of the mention of lower Manhattan I’m tempted to explore the influence of 9/11 on this (twin towers — what if this were a sort of parable of an historical moment.) Unlike the preceding, no kids at all in these concluding chapters.

1.25 / 2.22

February 12, 2015

“The Alpine”
Book 1, chapter 25; Book 2, chapter 22

Characters

1.25 No individuals. The children of neglectful fathers.

2.22 A divorced father, his former wife, their child, the wife’s boyfriend (all unnamed).

General Subject/ Plot

1.25: Children neglected by fathers (who are themselves betrayed by their lovers.) Children expected to go to the movies and enjoy them in certain well worn ways and to love their father for taking them, but in the event the father’s more interested in meeting with his girlfriends than with his children.

2.22: A man argues with his ex-wife for taking their son on a special trip when it’s supposed to be the father’s day to have him — but in reality it is probably just as well.

Motifs

1.25 Saturday afternoons, Tarzan, daredevils of the red circle, Charms, movies, “expectation”

2.22 Saturday afternoons, Tarzan, alcohol, movies,

Notes

Another Saturday. What is supposed to happen is that the children are taken by their fathers to the movies, and frightened by what they see and then consoled by the fathers. What instead happens is that the fathers, chasing women, gradually disappear from their lives.

The titles of the chapters seem especially meaningful here: The Jungle and The Alpine stand out as being climactic zones: Rain is the precipitation of the Jungle, Snow is the precipitation of the mountains. The Alpine is a movie theater, a “cardboard jungle” is seen in a movie. (The fathers appear neither in the movies or in the theaters, first Alpine).

Both the “Alpines” seem to refer to the second Cold Supper. In that story the father won’t take the kid to the movies because, he claims, the child is afraid of the movies (whereas, in the first Alpine, the child is expected to be afraid at the movies.) In that story, too, the father blew off his weekly Saturday visit with his son to be with his girlfriend instead; whereas, in the second Alpines, he’s flown into a rage that her mother has made other arrangements this saturday, as a special occasion.

Tarzan, in the second Alpine, is, like in the first The Jungle, associated with drinking: alcohol recreates Tarzan’s world. The simple sexual and marital life of Tarzan and Jane is yearned for. The father’s dwelling on his ex-wife sex life is also cast in relief in this chapter, and the promiscuity of his former wives remains a theme in the “Wakes”.

“Bright, candid scarves” is an unusual formulation and reminds of the “dazzle of candor” of the second “Rain.”

1.24 / 2.25

February 11, 2015

“Rain”
Book 1, chapter 24; Book 2, chapter 25

Characters

1.24 Protagonist (unnamed man apparently dream), guy possibly named “Mickey”, and a shadowy crowd.

2.25 none exactly, but topic of the meditation is Fathers

General Subject/ Plot

1.24: [Maybe…] Religiousness [catholics/ prisoners of love] is contrasted with art [charlie parker].

2.25: a meditation on how completely the bond between child and father is dissolved through time, after so much has been experienced.

Motifs

1.24 Three Deuces, Wings/ Charms, Shoes, Rockefeller Center, Prisoners of Love, black and silver evening dress, Charlie Parker, elevator, rain,

2.25 rain, Charms, Tarzan, Saturdays, Jesus, wakes, cigarettes, alcohol

Notes

Serial film. I’d been thinking of the chapters of A Strange Commonplace as vignettes, but perhaps serials would be more appropriate:

Each chapter was screened at the same theater for one week, and ended with a cliffhanger, in which the hero and heroine found themselves in a perilous situation with little apparent chance of escape.

Daredevils of the red circle. The first “Rain” through its dreaminess seems most evoke the first “In Dreams” but from its allusions (to Charlie Parker, Charms lollipops, The Three Deuces, etc) most to the second brothers. Other familiar items: Rockefeller Center, Prisoner of Love, rain, shoes, lost shoes… There’s something surprising about this chapter’s direct mention of Catholicism, which I think we’re intended to associate with the saintliness of the wife, an idea which is expressed with sarcasm in other chapter. (There’s a mosque in the first “Movies” — the “Born Again” chapters — and the frequent repetitions of “Jesus” as an exclamaition or oath –are other references to religion.) 165 W 46th is by Times Square and St. Mary the Virgin church.

2nd rain: ruined shoes in the rain again, saturdays are the days when the divorce fathers have custody over their sons, and it seems always to be raining. The fathers take the sons to the movies, but would really rather be somewhere else (drinking, with their new girlfriends) and the children sense this. And what do the father’s want, but to be as children themselves when all that was demanded of them was that they be themselves. Perhaps this is actually the source of the “curious sadness” in the second “Saturday Afternoon”:

(…) after all this, the doomed, the hated Saturdays, again and again, the fathers remembered, in a dazzle of candor, the specific moments when the last tenuous links between them and their restless and distracted children began to dissolve, disintegrate, remembered their children in the act of fading away from them, fading into their actual lives: to which the fathers had no access, of which the fathers knew nothing at all and never would.

1.22 / 2.17

February 9, 2015

“The Jungle”
Book 1, chapter 22; Book 2, chapter 17

Characters

1.22 56 year old man (unnamed)

2.17 unnamed woman (probably) (spose it could be a man.)

General Subject/ Plot

1.22: Commercialism. Older or middle-aged man watching golden era hollywood movie is disturbed by blatantly sexual and futuristic commercial for a soda…

2.17: a woman, probably having suffered a traumatic episode, attempts to solve basic questions about her identity and predicament.

Motifs

1.22: Tarzan, cardboard, alcohol (“majorska” vodka),

2.17: bathroom, smoking, tiled floor, raining, black man, detective, (Ray, Warren, Claire, Pierre, Inez, Cora…)

Notes

In the first “The Jungle” the jungle referred to is the “cardboard jungle” of the broadcast of a Hollywood production of Tarzan. (For “cardboard” see first “Apartment”).

In the second, the idea of the jungle directly refers, in a figurative sense, to the extreme confusion of a character who has been drugged (we think of the woman in the first “Another Small Adventure”), and indirectly (I suppose) to the maziness of the narrative itself — the reader has many of the same confusions as the character. (And we remember from that first “Another Small Adventure” that it was that “writer bastard” who had given the girl the drug.) (Perhaps the book itself, a papery representation of something bewildering, is a sort of cardboard jungle.)

Perhaps Sorrentino contrasts here also the fake jungle of Hollywood with the bewildering jungle of real life or of his novel.

The robot, contrasting with the primitiveness of Tarzan, suggests to me the ‘hi-tech’ of the second “Saturday Afternoon” and the specific age given to the character makes me curious too (fifty-six? the eleven of the second “Saturday”?) — santa was selling soda on TV in the second “pair of deuces.”

Like a number chapters (second in the diner, second saturday afternoon) the first jungle involves a man trying to understand an obscure fleeting emotion he has: but I can no more say what’s troubling the man than he can. Is it what troubles the father in the second “saturday afternoon” who was also watching an old movie? (That man had rented his movie.)