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a frieze of lint,
scarred and tired dust,
mounted by an old bug

A “walking meditation”: To adopt the practices of the Far East but not as an American would, but as an African would. “To adopt the practices of the Far East as an African would adopt them, should be the goal,” I reiterate, “for my American motives are somehow uncentered.” Africa a filtration device, a cultural purifier, it is conceived, through which cultures get rid of just enough of themselves to see other cultures. Africa, the purifying lens. Africa, the technology of minds.

A sort of plan takes hold: first become African, then become Afro-Asian, then become Asian American, then become oneself. “I believe in myself and the spirit that’s in me,” said Tolstoy. A sort of idea, which is unrelated, then comes forth: that History is a line upon a sphere. The line is trying to get to the center of the sphere (which may also be the center of the earth, which may also be the center of ourselves, or of Time) but cannot ever penetrate it, even a little. And yet, in the effort to penetrate it, as the felt-tip marker of ourselves, so to speak, of humanity, is pressed down on this sphere, this balloon, the balloon-sphere slips — slips beneath the ever frustrated force of the marker of history to reach its end and meaning — and thus is caused its various squiggles, regressive, progressive and looping.

“Just as my steps,” I think, “exist beneath these thoughts, so does the core of history exist beneath its globular surface. My thoughts will never reach my feet.” (Thinking, though, that maybe my breath at least *can* reach my feet, as in a way it does without me trying — so I try and focus on my breathing. “Maybe if I know I have lungs I will know I also have feet. Maybe I will make my feet and my mind reach each other through knowing them both. And maybe *that* will be the end of history.”

He was late, early, on time. He was late, very late, he must rush, he arrived on time. Late, very very late: he must employ an ungenteel haste to arrive on time. He was so often early, so improbably punctual, it indicated, as Larry Summers once quipped, improper time management. Punctuality was the virtue of the bored, had quipped Oscar Wilde. (He was bored. I’m bored, she had said, he had mouthed. He was bored.)

The shadow of him goes again, through Bush, Obama, Frost, sun, slush, the year 12 A.D, huge dinosaur ammonites and ferns that are not present, thinking Solar Panels and The Mild Wind might be a good name for a band. Thinking ooloo in Amheric means “everything”, while Omoo is the 19th century American novel. Ducking from the hailing, running from the lightning, bending beneath cold hard rain, dressed appropriately and not in the deep sudden snow. 5 days a week and 52 weeks and three miles times 2 times very many years equals feet that could yield headaches.

Many years in tennis shoes, running shoes, boat shoes, hiking boots, snow boots, dress attire, work shoes, sandals; in single, double and triple socks; inserts of various models and makes; with theories as to which type sock goes with which type shoe and with what type of insert and for just how long; WHY (of the many good reasons to do this, she knows not for which one he does this.) WHY (He believes there might even be a bad reason she does this.) (I suspect it may be for a bad reason he does this.) She ought to make better use of her time, it is thought, in 2800 AD.

Other things, a thousand things, Igneous Sleep, civic behavior, Gravelly Point, Maffic Dream, bottle in the stream’s swift current, eye (the rock, the blankets, “sedimentary”) running out (clouds and rain) running in (the wind and blue skies.)

Cats uncovered. Red moss and red mass. Ribs, ridges, troughs, curbs, The Holocene, a Trowel, a military jet that is tiny in its altitude, its sound “a layer of harsh concrete over all the other sound.”

Feeling the heat of an oven when it’s not time to open it yet. Like in a bad movie, standing alone in a wide, windswept, open public area, with litter tumbling about. Children’s colors, children’s drawings and shapes on a paper tumbling. One child tried to kick at something and missed it and he tumbled. And there were many such things.

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Homer today: βάν ῥ᾽ ἴμεν ὥς τε λέοντε δύω διὰ νύκτα μέλαιναν/ ἂμ φόνον, ἂν νέκυας, διά τ᾽ ἔντεα καὶ μέλαν αἷμα.

They went like two lions through the black night/ through the slaughter through the corpses through the equipment and black blood

[Although inclined to the view that Book 10 is an organic part of the whole Iliad rather than a later insertion, something about the syntax here suggests to me the opposite.]

I was looking today at the curious extended simile surrounding Menelaos’ arrow wound, in which his blood-covered legs are compared to colored cheek pieces for horses. Let’s see how Pope does with this. This is Iliad Book 4, around 150.

As when some stately trappings are decreed
To grace a monarch on his bounding steed,
A nymph, in Caria or Mæonia bred,
Stains the pure ivory with a lively red;
With equal lustre various colours vie,
The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye:
So, great Atrides! shewed thy sacred blood,
As down thy snowy thigh distilled the streaming flood.

(Well, this is not at all literal, of course, and this is not Pope at his poetic best, but I think it brings into relief the essential meaning of the simile that there is something special about royal blood being spilled.)

Greek:

ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε τίς τ᾽ ἐλέφαντα γυνὴ φοίνικι μιήνῃ
Μῃονὶς ἠὲ Κάειρα παρήϊον ἔμμεναι ἵππων:
κεῖται δ᾽ ἐν θαλάμῳ, πολέες τέ μιν ἠρήσαντο
ἱππῆες φορέειν: βασιλῆϊ δὲ κεῖται ἄγαλμα,
ἀμφότερον κόσμός θ᾽ ἵππῳ ἐλατῆρί τε κῦδος:
τοῖοί τοι Μενέλαε μιάνθην αἵματι μηροὶ
εὐφυέες κνῆμαί τε ἰδὲ σφυρὰ κάλ᾽ ὑπένερθε.

etymology of “interest,” literally to be between, and hence a thing of importance.

Food pantry. The all-star diaper lady, after an injury, was back after two months, and I found myself asking her what her favorite parts of the Bible were. (The pantry is in a church, of which she’s a member.) The historical parts, she said, Kings, Chronicles, Samuel…

I asked her, why was it the Israelites abandoned having judges in favor of adopting a king? And why was it thought a bad thing for them to have adopted a king? (As I think of literary comparisons to the U.S.’s adoption of Trump, the Israelites’ adoption of Saul will first come to mind.)

Diaper lady said that her opinion was that God was always trying throughout the Old Testament to make the Israelites more responsible for themselves, and having a king was a step in the opposite direction.

The King was responsible, not them, was what was desirable to the Israelites about having a king, she said, and that was the problem.

It was the problem of Saul and the problem of Trump.

jointure: (law) An estate settled on a wife, which she is to enjoy after her husband’s death, for her own life at least, in satisfaction of dower.

renitent: resistance to pressure, compulsion; unyielding, recalcitrant.

Curious elements of last night’s dream:
— I was not a protagonist of a large part of the dream, a friend was
— the dream was, as it were, a multi-media event: it now seemed a dream, now a “movie dream,” now a book, now a video game
— I told a joke that made someone laugh in the dream
— I ordered a double caramel latte with skim milk in the dream (whereas in real life I order almost exclusively a small black coffee.)
— finally, in the train car, I’d asked “what is reality?” meaning the basic question “what is reality versus our perception on it” but people took it to mean “what is reality versus what our politicians claim it to be” and the crowd on the train car got uneasily quiet.
— finally finally I’ve been noticing how I’m oriented with respect to people in my dreams (are they to the left or to the right) and I find almost always, even when we’re face to face, I experience them as being to the right.

No not *that sort* of “good person” but the sort we haven’t identified yet

A sense that my Virtue was cared about by Lawrence Sterne

Catalogues, lists. Preventing myself from making another chart. Preventing myself from contemplating my stuckness (which is an aspect of the stuckness, it’s believed, for when have we not been both stuck and thinking of it?)

Dad has been mixing his food together. Today he put iced tea on his salad. Next time bring a condiment

Falsely grave

Seeing things as they are

You appear to be reasoning toward an answer you already know, and we are unsure if you don’t know that you know, or just don’t want to say…?

No action without an associated sentence

Don’t *tell me* your a Christian, Christian customer had said, *show me* you’re a Christian… It seemed to me this passage I had just written was showing me something of that kind: a gentle spirit, I could almost look at as an example to follow

Art a means by which to locate your gentle temperament and best self

Once again it’s revealed you’ve been dwelling in a kingdom of hypotheticals, whose borders, despite many battles, you can’t manage to extend toward the ground

This is not me anymore — and it might not have ever been anything — and without it I’m nothing

Ah well, not the end.

“Let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.” (Augustine)

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opacular: obsolete for ‘opaque.’

Was looking today at the passage where Odysseus strikes Thersites, Iliad book II 265-269, noticing that “tear,” “back,” and “scepter” are all repeated in similar parts of the line. (“Scepter” toward the front, “back” toward the middle, “tear” toward the end, which, incidentally, rather indicates the order of events when Odysseus strikes Thersites.) I like how “blood-red welt” contrasts with “golden scepter” which occurs in the same position of the line that follows it. The gold of the scepter corresponds with the goriness of the welt, as if the goldenness created the redness: the scepter made the welt but the goldenness made the welt red.

ὣς ἄρ᾽ ἔφη, σκήπτρῳ δὲ μετάφρενον ἠδὲ καὶ ὤμω
πλῆξεν: ὃ δ᾽ ἰδνώθη, θαλερὸν δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε δάκρυ:
σμῶδιξ δ᾽ αἱματόεσσα μεταφρένου ἐξυπανέστη
σκήπτρου ὕπο χρυσέου: ὃ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἕζετο τάρβησέν τε,
ἀλγήσας δ᾽ ἀχρεῖον ἰδὼν ἀπομόρξατο δάκρυ.

I’m reminded of that zipper beating against the pocket of my windbreaker that sounds exactly like a jogger behind me, who is always catching up to but never passing me, by the sounds of this jogger who is actually catching up to and now passing me.

Être un homme utile m’a paru toujours quelque chose de bien hideux. (*)

hide a stone among stones and a man among men — says Hidden Fortress.