What might it mean that “your body is inside you.” What do you make of that idea?

(It might mean that, while one is inclined to think of oneself as being within one’s body, the body being the seat of oneself, the body seeming the seat of oneself because everything one perceives seems to end there and because everything one projects seems to start there, to arise as it were from this seat; –nevertheless, maybe oneself is actually what is perceived as being oneself, that the image of oneself that others see is one’s true self. And one’s true self does not begin where one feels oneself to be –“within”– but where others see and perceive you, and where one doesn’t feel — “without”– in which case, one’s body could truly be said to be within oneself — that one’s body is within the image it projects.

[…] So: one’s image, like a TV image, like a publicity photo, would be one’s true self, and one’s body would be within that image, within it and making it possible, just like one’s anatomy is within one’s body and making the body possible. One’s body is to one’s image as one’s anatomy is to one’s body, though on reflection I’m not sure that image is quite right, that is the idea that first comes to mind when you say to me “my body’s inside me.”

But then another thought occurs to me, somewhat more obscure, which is this. I normally think of myself as being a sort of emanation of the head. Now, the head is at the top of the body, but “I” am at the top or at the surface of the head. A person looking at me would see my head, and not myself, when looking at my highest point, but I, experiencing myself, experience myself as somehow “being above the head,” as being the thing that is foremost and highest yet still only visible from that most high and foremost spot.

Now, granted that — what if I were to stop thinking of it that way? What if instead of thinking of myself as being on top of my body I were to think of my body as being within myself, that is, as being within my thoughts of myself? My body is something I think, a conception I have, and therefore within me: my body is to me, as far as I may experience it, only my conception of it, and conceptions are of course things inside me, or that I experience as such. To say it again: while I may or may not have a body, which is exterior to me, I can only have knowledge of my body through my conception of it, and conceptions occur only within me. This is an interesting idea to me, which may require further thought. It is the second thing your phrase makes me think.)

Joshua Cohen on PBS Newshour tonight, What the Internet’s free culture has cost us in art:

Now, I say credit, and not money, because the chief evil of piracy or intellectual property theft or whatever you choose to call it is not that it deprives me and other artists of a living, but that it deprives the audience and even the art itself of a life.

It’s my belief that culture has to be paid for, if not with money or even praise, then with time and attention. There are more things to hear and see and read than ever before, but the cheaper it is to get your hands on them, the cheaper your appreciation of them will be.

The cost of a thing is the care you give it. Fact is, you could rip off a million books, but they’re not truly yours if you’re not going to read them. Songs aren’t songs if they’re never heard. Films aren’t films if they’re never watched. Canons can’t survive, they can’t evolve if the memory they animate is your computers, and not your own.

Whitman was the self without objectification (true); Flaubert was the objectification without the self (very true); Joyce was the self, in history, through literature (true again); Proust was the self, as memory, and through literature (quite so); Kafka was the self, as dream, and through literature (yes); Beckett was the self, as daydream, in the present, and through history, as well as literature, (yes — of course yes.)

Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d’eux.

[…] Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher
[*]

chirography. Moby Dick, chapter 104.

For anyone interested in the Sorrentino Concordance, this is a list of the “citations” I made for each of the chapter titles. I made one for each title heading. So, if the concordance says that the Pearl Homburg appears in the “Pearl Homburg” chapter, there will be a link there to the citation below for both the chapters titled “Pearl Homburg”. I did it this way because I didn’t have the text to link to, and because this could be useful in making comparisons between chapters of the same name. (Do chapters of the same name feature themes of the same type? etc.) Note: a lot of these citations served mainly as placeholders and could use a little work.

…..

(1.1) IN THE BEDROOM (2.18)
(1.2.)…….. SUCCESS ……..(2.8)
(1.3)….. BORN AGAIN …..(2.13)
(1.4)……….. LOVERS*……..(2.4)
(1.5)….ANOTHER STORY….(2.3)
(1.6)………..MOVIES………..(2.12)
(1.7)…PAIR OF DEUCES…(2.5)
(1.8)….. IN DREAMS*…….(2.11)
(1.9)……ON THE ROOF…..(2.16)
(1.10)A FAMILIAR*WOMAN(2.15)
(1.11)…. IN THE DINER ….(2.23)
(1.12) …….HAPPY DAYS……. (2.1)
(1.13)………….CLAIRE…………(2.2)
(1.14). ROCKEFELLER C.. (2.19)
(1.15)………BROTHERS………(2.14)
(1.16). SMALL ADVENTURE. (1.9)
(1.17)..AN. S.ADVENTURE..(2.20)
(1.18)….. COLD SUPPER … (2.6)
(1.19)… P.G. HOMBURG… (2.10)
(1.20)… AN APARTMENT …(2.7)
…(1.21) SAT. AFTERNOON …(2.21)
(1.22) …. THE JUNGLE ….(2.17)
(1.23)…….. SNOW …………(2.25)
(1.24)………… RAIN …………(2.25)
(1.25)……The ALPINE…… (2.22)
(1.26) …… A WAKE …… (2.26)
……
……

Dan Green’s remarks about Sorrentino (which inspired the concordance) can be found here. I also came upon this essay online by Joseph Conte, which drops the interesting hint that the fifty-two chapters strongly suggest a deck of cards (cards also being prominently featured in Strange Commonplace) a cut deck, you could even say. That idea has made me wonder if the chapters can be further grouped into suits of four — but I haven’t tried looking yet.

sebaga — friction
etelle-medo — the usual
arb — friday
bado nahoo? — is it empty?
*

sahan — plate
shuka — fork
imagay — take care
mnalbat — maybe

—
alle mar — where’s the honey?
boona beza — too much coffee
ferung megib — white food
*
kolf –key
metallo — I’ll be back.

U 111-112

ὣς εἰπὼν ἔμπνευσε μένος μέγα ποιμένι λαῶν,
βῆ δὲ διὰ προμάχων κεκορυθμένος αἴθοπι χαλκῷ.

Butler:

As he spoke he put courage into the heart of the shepherd of his people, and he strode in full armor among the ranks of the foremost fighters.

This is Apollo breathing courage into Aeneas. A more literal translation might, I think, be:

So speaking he inspired the shepherd of the people with great might then helmeted in gleaming bronze he strode among the foremost fighters .

Again — So saying he breathed great might into the shepherd of the host, and he strode amid the foremost fighters, harnessed in flaming bronze.

unmew / mew / mews — Keats (Endymion):

………… But let a portion of ethereal dew
………… Fall on my head, and presently unmew
………… My soul

Terrorists don’t think like army generals; they think like theatre producers…. (guardian).. this struck me as an important distinction but I can’t say why exactly, even excluding the idea of terrorism. — That is, how do generals think versus theater producers? (I suppose one creates a result –the bridge is taken– whereas the other creates an effect — it is “just like” the bridge has been taken.) And by (theatrically) beheading a number of people, it is “just like” the theater producers have achieved a tactical objective, “just like” they’ve landed a significant military blow.

La modération est une crainte de tomber dans l’envie et dans le mépris que méritent ceux qui s’enivrent de leur bonheur ; c’est une vaine ostentation de la force de notre esprit ; et enfin la modération des hommes dans leur plus haute élévation est un désir de paraître plus grands que leur fortune.

Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and contempt that those who are drunk on their happiness merit; it’s a vain ostentation of the force of our spirit; and, finally, the moderation of men in their most high elevation is a desire to appear still greater than their fortune.

[18]

to translate this with extreme liberty (my reading of it more than my translation) … moderation is a fear of being held in contempt as one who can’t control himself; moderation is a vain ostentation (for of course one can control oneself — but so what); and, in short, people prefer to present themselves as moderate than to, the appearances be damned, satisfy their desires.

The exchange between India and Bangladesh means that the world will not only lose one of its most unique borders, but it will also lose the only third-order enclave in the world – an enclave surrounded by an enclave surrounded by an enclave surrounded by another state. [POST]

***

El Salvador’s murder rate is among the highest in the world. Last month, a record 677 murders took place in the relatively small Central American country, making it the deadliest month since the nation’s brutal civil war ended in the early 1990s. During the first six months of 2015, there were 2,965 murders, up from 1,840 for the same period in 2014.… [POST]

* *
Pitcairn Islands, New Swabia
la finalité dernière ,Sobre las Olas
alto el fuego, una red encomiable

5 recycling stumpers old but interesting Slate article on recycling [3/23/10].

Shelby County v. Holder (*) / citizens united/ MCCUTCHEON ET AL. v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Plain of Jars vair los portaaviones estadounidenses “the greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms”

whylom / * * letter pound to crane You Are Everything The number of animals killed in the United States is estimated at a million per day… roadkill

Patras; The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz; comorbities; The March To The Sea. Brod. sublation — Moby Dick (production) — RamapoO valley —labile— * A new anti-Semitism rising in France (WP)

lapallissades. glassine.gehenna — Vauban —Oxus ; Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world [*] — Zosima teaches that people must forgive others by acknowledging their own sins and guilt before others: no sin is isolated, so everyone is responsible for their neighbour’s sins (Zizek)

This is the clearest description I’ve come across of the snap-back/ terms of access provision of the proposed treaty with Iran, which (as it’s described) sounds pretty reasonable:

Iran will also immediately adhere to the Additional Protocol of the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows IAEA inspectors to demand access to any site in the country, including military facilities.

Once it submits a request to Iran to visit an “undeclared” facility, the IAEA and Iran will have 14 days to agree on the terms of access. If IAEA concerns are not met within that period, a joint commission made up of the seven negotiating countries — Iran and the United States and its partners — plus the European Union, will have up to seven days to review the dispute and decide what Iran needs to do.

Only five of the eight members need to agree, effectively ensuring that Iran, Russia and China cannot prevail if they vote together. Iran then has three days to implement the decision. If it does not, “then we can begin snap-back” of sanctions, an administration official said.

[Elsewhere: “a good deal“]

…..INFERIOR…....
……ORBITAL………
…….FISSURE…….…
N……..Infra-……..….
u………orbital…………
d……….foramen……….…
ie………..Bannana………..
suit…………Massacre………….
………….Charles…………..
HODDEN………Did…….curseof…
GRAY……………bin………capist………
strid…………….ca………..tranoul…...
ation……………..pi..tow is………………
land………………s…XILLA…………………
MA……………………….c…..FLOATING…………..…….
20………….um………………..……..
……………….……………….………

Life is good; mistakes are made; forgiveness should be often asked for and accepted. Love Life. Life is God.

War and Peace, 1956 w/ Audrey Hepburn (as Natasha), Henry Fonda (as Pierre), and Mel Ferrer (as Prince Andrew — “I was a hater of life”). (Mel Ferrer died in June of ’08 and I recently saw him also as Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises). Also starring Vittorio Gassman and Anita Ekberg, with Herbert Lom, Oskar Homolka, Helmut Dantine, Tullio Carminati, Barry Jones, Milly Vitale, Anna-Maria Ferrero, Wilfrid Lawson, May Britt, Jeremy Brett and John Mills.

Was talking with someone why Absolom was repeated in the title to Absolom Absolom! but the repetition is the bible’s [for example. Sam II; 19:4]:

And the king hid his face; and the king cried out in a great voice, saying, my son Absolom, Absolom my son!

Septuagint (which doesn’t add any thing but still nice to see):

Και ο βασιλευς εκρυψε το προσωπον αυτου και εκραξεν ο βασιλευς φωνη μεγαλη, λεγων, υιε μου Αβεσσαλωμ, Αβεσσαλωμ υιε μου.

One idea: that A Strange Commonplace is essentially a form of picaresque novel –that it is nothing other than an interesting collection of unrelated vignettes– and the “repetitions” serve the same purpose as the hero/ protagonist of the typical picaresque novel, that of tying the various adventures together. In other words, the repetitions serve a structural purpose, and are what make A Strange Commonplace plausible as a single book. (Which may be close to the same as saying — the repetitions are Macguffins.)

Another idea: is that while, as in the forgoing, A Strange Commonplace is essentially a picaresque novel –one unrelated tale followed by another and having “repetitions” instead of a central protagonist– the repetitions were not added after the fact, to provide the structure, but were rather used before the fact, in order to create the vignettes in the first place — as part of a method of composition.

[In this view, Sorrentino, instead of saying, “I’m going to add a borsalino hat to this story so as to suggest a tie-in with this other story with a borsalino,” has established before writing the story, as a formal or informal rule of its composition, that it is to include one or more of these repeated elements. So they are essentially writing prompts for him: objects like the homburg hat and the gabardine dress located Sorrentino among the field of things he is capable of writing of, and so became his staring point.]

In what sense a symbol: I don’t entirely discount the idea of the repetitions serving a more traditional symbolic function, but would argue, first, they are more “signs” which we come to identify with certain ideas (the Grey Homburg, for example, with some sort of male sexual misdeed) than symbols of bottomless significance or “meaning.” And, second, that some sort of accounting needs to be made for the fact that human characters don’t seem to enjoy a privileged existence over objects with respect to their symbolism: that is, if the “grey homburg” is a symbol of something, so is “Claire.” One is not more or less symbol than the other, one is not more or less character than the other.

*

Elsewhere on this site: a Commonplace concordance.