*……………………*……………………* …………..*
*……………………….*……………………….* ………..*
*………….. Archibald Lampman…. cark …………..*
*…………….. stupe…///.………………………g ……………..*
*………………….Owens Valley ………………. e………………….*
*………………….. …..///.Omertà ……………….o …………………..*
*…………………….oriel…///…all over painting …………………….*
……………………… hatikvah…///.cantatrice . -_.. -‘-…………….|
*…………………….La ……………………………….. n …………………….*
*…………………..Llorona….syncope……….n …………………..*
*………………….inedia……….Porlock………. e………………….*
*……………..DalekINTP Merrill Gilfillan……………..*
*……………………….*……………………….* ………..*
*……………………*……………………* ………..*

. . . .
. . ………………… ………
The shop itself put into the grill
now to be removed from it. Less hot
will it be –as the tomatoes burst out,
(Lettuce like flames from the windows.)
Less hot will it be— (Onions visible
Less hot within the opened mouth.)
It was thus that Customer Saturn did eat and does eat still:
Less hot eyes glazed above the dilated nose,
Less hot forward lunge of the pinched opened face,
Less hot huge hands that hold the hot bread fast,
Less hot crumbs and grease on the rosy wide plate.

. . . .
. . ………………… ……… *
(Possible conclusory poem to Chance Sweepings, or maybe part of epigraph, anyway fit companion to preceding.)
. . . .

. . . .
. . . .
Making a sandwich of stone and steel;
if only the mouth’s groin vault could comprehend
the packages I wheel into it,

the unparalleled girders of flavor I impart,
this sandwich’s barrier would never be entered into
and would endure forever the saliva of time.
. . . .
. . ………………… ……… *
(Possible epigraph for Chance Sweepings.)
. . . .

.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

………..ἣ μὲ 0 63 23 90 (0); 100 54(1)
…………..ν γά 37 1) ;; 99 (090 **0
………………ρ θ᾽ 258 259, (0)267
………………… ὕδ ((1))166(1);
…………………..ατι 1545462
…………………….. λια (0)a
………………………..ρῷ 1
………………………….ῥέει
……………………………, ἀ
……………………………..μ
……………………………….φὶ
………………………………….δὲ κ
……………………………………απν
……………………………………………ὸς

They have been called into relief through the grammatical relation known as Chiasmus The Chiasmus of Time in which Powerlines toepaths walking bike paths are trainlines, rail tracks. ..

Chasm: Chasissimus. Chasmarion: nom or acc singular or plural of noun Chasm. Chiarscuro is genetic “particouple” of an entirely different word. Chiasmus is vocative of Chasm, as if one were to call out — CHASM! not as a warning but as an invitation or a call. (The valley the rail path runs up is, incidentally, such a chasm.)

People particle packets telegraph telephone power train poles: telephone is nominative singular of telegraph, but what is the root. It is a verb maybe.

People on bikes and people with dogs on what was formerly the rail-line. Joggers and walkers, in the chiasmus of time: people on trains: high voltage fonts types zeros ones .fast the links between the guy the.hitch ..,baby dog strollers wires. History doesn’t rhyme but suggests chiasmus, and perhaps other rhetorically considered Space & Time blocks (Or Space & SPACE blocks with TIME & time blocks) a line I myself am now crossing at right angles.

*

[A version of this to maybe appear in “Study of Sounds”, it concerns the point in my walk, which I think of as the midpoint, where I cross the WO&D, a bike path that was formerly a rail line. It envisions the bike path, now strung with power lines,  as a sort of “chiasmus of time”, the railway still there in some sense. A little silly, I like the sudden appearance of radically paratactic syntax in places, notably third paragraph.]

Burg had been thinking as he walked of how Jakakason walked (which became how his left foot stepped) and then of how Afamtee, who was deceased, had walked, (which became how his right foot stepped) and this had worked out alright for a while as those two had had rather complimentary gaits: Jakakason having had almost a severe duck walk (according to Adam) and Afametee also with the foot angled out more than the norm but most notably with a sort of pronounced planting of the heel, like the planting of an ice ax or alpenstock, almost as if he were traversing a vertical surface, digging the right heel in and drawing himself forward and upward with it, then digging in the left one to claw himself up.

The problem for Burg was that after having walked for a bit with Jakakason serving as the model for his left step and Afamtee serving as the model for his right, he had the idea of switching the two (so as to even out the wear on his shoes soles) which turned out not to be, as he had initially supposed, a simple matter of doing with the right foot what he had been doing with the left, and vice versa, but required an actual transition or transfer of the idea of the left over to the right and of the idea of the right over to the left (which was something akin, if you can envision it, to a situation in which the actual Jakakason and Afamtee had been asked to switch positions in the back seat of a moving car, clambering over each other in a tight spot, only with the “car”, in this instance, being Burg’s mind); during which transference, the ideas became mixed up, which in turn lead Burg not to trip or to stumble exactly, as he had initially claimed when recounting this, but he did come near enough to losing his balance that he did briefly consider, as a precaution, coming to a complete stop, though in fact he only slowed.

[From a novel never to published or finished, tentatively known as The Beings, in which people walk around within a large gym-like structure, somewhat in each other’s company.]

Came across this the other day, Sura 34 (“Sheba”), verses 15-17, pp. 273 in my translation, M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.

There was a sign for the people of Sheba, too, in their dwelling place: two gardens, one on the right, one on the left: ‘Eat from what you Lord has provided for you and give Him thanks, for your land is good, and your Lord most forgiving.’ But they paid no heed, so We let loose on them a flood from the dam and replaced their gardens with others that yielded bitter fruit, tamarisk bushes and a few lote trees. In this way We punished them for their ingratitude — would We punish anyone but the ungrateful?

The second of the things I knew was that I was in ancient Greece. That is, I was in what I took to be ancient Greece. It certainly wasn’t modern Greece. And yet it may have been some other country, or it may have been no country at all, that is, not a recognized or organized one. It may have been a no-man’s land or disputed zone.

And I don’t know what caused me to say this was Ancient Greece necessarily because there were none of the usual hallmarks (what is a “hallmark” by the way, that word?) or attributes I associate with that place and time: there were, for example, no fluted marble columns, there were no marble structures at all, no crepidoma, if that’s the word (why would I have a word in my head like that one, like crepidoma?); there were no orchards of olive trees, there were no olive-skinned archaic types; there were no white flowing togas or tunics; there were no upstart Phoenicians, there was no one named Alcibiades, there were no phallanxes or horse-hair helmets, no orators, arches, aqueducts, forums, gates, walls…

(And now I must freely admit that quite a few things I associate with Ancient Greece, and by which I might identify Ancient Greece, had never been a part of that culture, so far as any of us know. I have quite a few peculiar ideas about Ancient Greece, it may turn out.)

Ancient Greece, in short, had come to mean so much to me that, under the right conditions, I could be fooled into thinking that almost anywhere I was was Ancient Greece, which I imagine must have been the case presently.

And I very much enjoyed this new place where I was, with its mild climate, I must say.

I never saw another person, I never saw another building, I never heard, for example, a plane overhead, nor ever saw any technology, ancient or modern, beyond a few crude eating utensils and garden implements. There was a shovel, in fact there was a whole rack of shovels — whoever’s dwelling this is, I thought to myself at the time, they must be a merchant in this trade, as there must be upwards of fifty shovels in that rack. And this was another thing that put in mind that this might not be Ancient Greece, for while I did not doubt the Greeks of this period used shovels, nevertheless, whenever you see things in that kind of quantity, be they shovels or anything else, your mind immediately turns to modernity (although one can easily imagine Greek warriors having had cumulatively thousands of swords, and so why couldn’t one imagine Greek workers having had cumulatively thousands of shovels?)

(How did I get here, I’m suddenly thinking, which is first of all a place with no roads and second of all a place that I’m very much inclined to imagine is, of all places, Ancient Greece?)

But on the whole, the absence of all but the most basic and mechanical forms of technology doubly confirmed me in the supposition that I was no longer in the present (that is, of course, if I was ever in the present). Or if, in the unlikely event I was still in the present, if at any moment I was about to hear the oven-timer for my croissant to go off, and rise to fetch it, it was in a geographic location of the present that was very much like that of an earlier and more rustic or glorious time, of which I had no doubt there were some few places left in our own historical period, places untouched not by people per se but untouched by people en masse per se, though they were becoming more and more remote from each other.

For the record I have no, or very little, knowledge of Greece, Rome, history, the history of technology, crepidoma, the Isthmus of Corinth… I suspect it is only that I’ve just read a shrewdly written philosophical tract which has momentarily disoriented me, turned me around, left me with a vacant stare, for which I must apologize. I suspect that soon I will look down to my lap, start reading the next sentence, and find myself securely where I was, in my actual present location, which is, most likely, very much like your present location, with a chair, for example, and some kind of light source. Or else I’ll wake to find I’m opening a tin of cat food and spooning it out. Or else I’ll hear the oven-timer go off, and rise to get my croissant.

τῶν φυσίων αἱ μὲν πρὸς θέρος, αἱ δὲ πρὸς χειμῶνα εὖ ἢ κακῶς πεφύκασιν.

Hippocrates: some people (natures) are more inclined toward Summer, others toward Winter. (x)

What did Isaac Newton do for entertainment? Question arises because of my anecdotal observation that the “smart people” of today, though paying homage to it, don’t seem particularly interested in high culture. (Interested in Star Trek, genre fiction, folk music, not in opera or poetry.) And so the question becomes — thinking here of smart people as being people with an aptitude for advanced math or logic — did smart people ever like high culture. What for example did Isaac Newton enjoy?

Glancing over a catalogue of his library, I’m reminded that for many people, then and today, their first and primary exposure to literary matters is through religion, but I didn’t see any indication of what he might have read during his leisure time. Perhaps it is a mistake to identify what I am calling “smart people” with what I would call “cultured people” (and perhaps “cultured people” are simply “rich people”, though I don’t have anecdotal data on that. Also, perhaps high culture is simply passed, and in a Democratic age, the most cultured are those who have looked most deeply into popular culture — Rock critics.)

THE PREFACE

………. The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

……….The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

………..Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

………..There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

………..The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

………..The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

………..All art is quite useless.
OSCAR WILDE [@Gutenberg]

Irregular stack of dirty plates on the sink side, …. the way they were stacked something particularly displeasing… a burdensome thought “stacked” upon another burdensome thought, a “soiled” thought; the thought of the unseemly soiled plates: it is a disorderliness on top of a dirtiness, an ordinariness on top of a disorderliness, it is an inevitability upon a randomness (things always messed up and off in precisely this fashion) … Overcoming this revulsion (which was, again, not for the extent or degree of dirtiness, or the work it implied, but for its particular arrangement and type, and for the vague awful thought it implied)… the whiteness of the whale, the disorder of the stack…

The white “Avon anniversary plate” between two rose-colored dinner plates, (a plate of smaller diameter between two of the same diameter: why not two dirty plates of the same diameter beneath a third dirty plate of a smaller diameter?), cream cheese on the sides of the bottom-most rose-colored dinner plate (why not cream cheese on a bagel plate, a plate on which items with cream cheese are served?); soup bowl on top of the higher of the two rose plates; another rose colored plate on top of the soup bowl; and a white bagel plate upon that (something very frustrating, to the point of being maddening, about the sight of a plate on top of a bowl. I would much sooner have a bowl facing down upon a bowl that is facing up –which there can be no reason at all for and is totally absurd– than having the bottom of a plate on the top of a bowl.)

I harpooned this “white whale” with these “two harpoons”, my left and right hands, and set it to rites in the dish sink, with the “spume well a-flowin”; yet the ghastly agglomerate of dish and utensil –a green-tinged potato chip projecting from some unfinished quiche– has endured, immitigable in memory, swimming free.

o you a
u …… ke
h …… i
a …… l
v …… ml
e …… he
nt …… t
o …… t
v …… h
er …… c
co …… oa
m …… r
ey …… p
our …… p
f …… a
e …… u
a …… o
rs …… Y
.v v iR v v

At the Louvre, looking at what random things a search for Delacroix brings up….

Palette ayant appartenu à Delacroix, (2), (3),  Secrétaire de Delacroix. among images: Paysage Afrique du Nord. (Enjoy the sequestration of that.)

Hippocrates 4.72 / English. “Ὁκόσοισιν οὖρα διαφανέα λευκὰ, πονηρά: μάλιστα δὲ ἐν τοῖσι φρενιτικοῖσιν ἐπιφαίνεται.”

(φρενιτικοῖσιν=phrenitis.) White clear urine is bad, and especially appears in those with phrenitis.

Ethics, Book III, prop 39. Scholia. (Edwin Curley translation.) “Further, this affect, by which a man is so disposed that he does not will what he wills, and wills what he does not will, is called Timidity, which is therefore nothing but fear insofar as a man is disposed by it to avoid an evil he judges to be future by encountering a lesser evil (see Prop 28). But if the evil he is timid toward is Shame, then the timidity is called a Sense of shame. Finally, if the desire to avoid a future evil is restrained by a Timidity regarding another evil, so that he does not know what he would rather do, then the Fear is called Consternation, particularly if each evil he fears is of the greatest.”

Delacroix: other people are able to occupy themselves productively while waiting for inspiration to come, but I can only sit around and be bored.

Dimanche 13 juin. “Tant que l’inspiration n’y est pas, je m’ennuie. Il y a des gens qui, pour échapper à l’ennui, savent se donner une tâche et l’accomplir.” (x)

Not the focus of this essay, but interesting to me, it puts forward that Conrad’s political conservatism is to be understood not as something Old World and Deeply European (which, whatever that may mean, I suppose I’d assumed) but as that of an immigrant to England from Central Europe, anxious to prove he belonged, a framework I’d not thought of at all.

Idea that the political problems of our time are of an essentially non-political nature, and that only people of the opposite faction are able to see the imbecility and inefficacy of our own faction’s political attempts to solve it.

That’s different from the Trump-Dylan-thought that conservatives are responding to a cultural problem through politics while liberals, not seeing a cultural problem, are responding to problems of politics through legislation.

(The Trump-Dylan-thought is that populism from the right is subverting political institutions while populism from the left is subverting cultural institutions — Dylan winning the Nobel prize.)

It is also a different thought from what seems straight-forwardly the case reading the news, that Republicans are to blame. This would be a truly both-sidist view, not to suggest such a thing is inherently desirable, which proposes the total impenetrability of seeing through a political lens what has created the problem in politics. The person on the left can easily see the imbecility of having Trump for a President, for example, but is totally incapable of seeing its own imbecility, whatever that might be, with respect to this most central problem.

As to what sort of problem this “most central problem” might be –a problem that creates the appearance of being political but admits of no direct political solution– it could be literally the drinking water, an environmental issue, a philosophical problem, race… the most likely suspect would be Technology, and all of its ramifications to trade and social media and income distribution … while an outside of the box example, not perhaps unrelated to that, would be infantilization: that we know for some reason we are lesser figures than our parents, lacking gravitas and stature and what have you; and they of their parents, and so on; and in some effort to arrest this progress of diminishment, we embrace politics, feel intensely we must “change the world..”

But maybe the fever has broken. And that period between Reagan and Trump, between the Republican Revolution and the storming of the capitol, so aggravating and incomprehensible to those who lived them, is finally over. Without having really resolved anything, we’ve just moved on.

Customer said newly purchased running shoes, while heavier, had more support. Customer said Vietnamese diacritical marks indicated raising or lowering of pitch, while another mark signaled an abruptness to the word’s pronunciation — phhhht! (System devised by French monks.)

Customer said it was good to have gotten his exercise out of the way early. Customer said that, exercising in the heat, you limit the benefit of your cardiovascular work out. (Body expends so much energy cooling down.) Customer ordered small cap with whole milk on way to get hair done. Precise rectilineal angles characterized the thighs and crotches of the two seated men. Customer “must have been teacher”: had left behind multiple corrected tests. Customer observed that he was drinking water from a Styrofoam cup and drinking coffee from a treated paper cup, which were at odds with his expressed environmental views. Customer said political canvassing was definitely outside her comfort zone yet was glad they’d managed to flip the seat.

Dust pile on the tile floor became “more and more obnoxious” to attendant (“Pilus interruptus” diagnosed wherein the attendant has swept refuse into a pile but has been prevented from sweeping it up. There it lies in the center of the floor, among so many steps, this way and that, of unrealizing customers.)

(Attendant the worried shopkeeper of the movie, not the hero of the movie, and so must have his eyes out for the hero. Of these people he encountered, who was the hero?)

Back Windows — these were museum display cases — the telephone box or transformer among the trees and the wires that came out of it, suffused with embalming daylight.

Customer’s focus interrupted by removal, swift and unannounced, of the napkin that lay by his mouse pad.

Being Haunted by The Unlikely

Curiosity: why did attendant feel his thought that the customer, who’d left behind him multiple corrected tests must have been a teacher, was a stupid thought? Response to query: because he supposed the smart person would say, he was obviously a teacher. To the attendant, not as daft as he could seem but testing around the middle of the pack, the improbable always had a 50 percent chance of occurring. It loomed large before him that you could imagine some reason a non-teacher would leave behind corrected school tests.

Attendant now quite in interested in this, which could be even a larger problem for customers, this problem of being haunted by the unlikely . . . Why would a customer not think that, for example, a surgery’s ninety-five percent success rate would be worth trying to ease his crippling pain? Because he thinks there is a ninety percent chance that he’ll be among the five percent, for whom it doesn’t work, and a pretty good chance he’ll be among the one percent who die. (And if you dig into who the five percent are, certain customers might not be wrong about that.) Conversely the same customer might think nothing of dropping fifty dollars on a dietary supplement, which has no chance of working, on the outside chance that it just might, that it “at least can’t hurt.”

(Chance Sweepings)