novel
nothing will have taken place but the place
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"Tom Waits, I Hate You--" the way your voice snags my skin when I'm waltzing through a coffee shop, for the thousand crows caught in your throat, how it rains every time I play "Tom Traubert’s Blues." I hate you for every Valentine you never sent. Call me indigo, azure, cerulean; call me every shade of blue for being born two decades after you. I hate you for every cornfield, filling station, phone booth I've passed with my feet on the dash, listening to you pluck nightingales from a piano; writhing as if it were my ribcage being played beneath a moon that is no grapefruit, but the bottom of a shot glass. For every bad relationship, every dead pet, and every car I've wrecked into light posts trying to tune you out; for all the lost radios, Walkmans tossed over bridges--still the sound of you rising from water like a prayer at midday, or the ragged song of cicadas tugging frogs out of watery homes. For every lounge lizard, raindog, barfly I've met; for every vinyl booth I've been pushed into by a boy with a bad haircut; for every man I've fucked according to the angle of his chin or the color of his coat. Tom Waits, I hate you. Well, the night is too dark for dreaming; the barman bellows out last call; and you've turned me into a gun- street girl with a pistol and a grudge and an alligator belt, a pocket full of love letters that have never been sent. Simone Muench |
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Wittgenstein, Philosophical InvestigationsPlumb apple, smooth banana, melon, peach, gooseberry . . . How all this affluence speaks death and life into the mouth . . . I sense . . . Observe it from a child's transparent features while he tastes. This comes from far away. What miracle is happening in your mouth? Instead of words, discoveries flow out from the ripe flesh, astonished to be free. Dare to say what "apple" truly is. This sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense at first; then, exquisitely lifted in your taste, grows clarified, awake and luminous, double-meaninged, sunny, earthy, real--: Oh knowledge, pleasure--inexhaustible. Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus 1.13 |
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April 30, 1997 As I eat I look into the sun glaring on the big windows. I look until there is a large black spot in my eye. I believe this spot is God. God never speaks--It's just there, a dead spot in the mechanism that reminds me it is a mechanism. I sleep there, in God, until It fades away, until the mechanism heals and again there is no God. Then I go back and look into the glare. May 13 1997 I refuse to entertain, as I have said, the simplistic notion of the visit itself. To entertain such an idea is to assume a historical scene wherein images are definite and definitely affixed to real substances. Such a definite affixing is the habit of lazy brutal folks--not me. For me, a visit occurs when imagery coheres with reality in such a way as to make definition start all over. May 28, 1997 At any given "point," one can look "back" and say, what was that? But then one can never answer sufficiently. One can say, "I had a burger, there was a woman with a hump, cold sweat made me itch," and still one hasn't summed up why one existed or where. This why and this where in fact become obscured by every seeking of them. In speaking, we only ever lose where we are--we do not secure it. June 3, 1997 I took my Frosty into the bathroom and sat it on the floor. I pulled my pants down, got down on all fours, and buried the tip of my cock in the cold brown swirl. Then I forced my cock and balls all the way into the cup, Frosty spilling on to the floor. Then I thought sexy thoughts. My erection slowly forced more Frosty on to the floor. This is the real test of a drink's thickness. Joe Wenderoth, Letters to Wendy's |
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...and that which sounded was more than song, more than the striking of the lyre, more than any tone, more than any voice, since it was all of these together and at once, bursting out of the nothing as well as out of the universe, breaking forth as a communication beyond every understanding, breaking forth as a significance above every comprehension, breaking forth as the pure word which it was, exalted above all understanding and significance whatsoever, consummating and initiating, mighty and commanding, fear-inspiring and protecting, gracious and thundering, the word of discrimination, the word of the pledge, the pure word; so it roared thither, roaring over and past him, swelling on and becoming stronger and stronger, becoming so overpowering that nothing could withstand it, the universe disappearing before the word, dissolved and acquitted in the word while still being preserved in it, destroyed and recreated forever, because nothing had been lost, nothing could be lost, because end was joined to beginning, being born and giving birth again and again; the word hovered over the universe, over the nothing, floating beyond the expressible as well as the inexpressible, and he, caught under and amidst the roaring, he floated on with the word, although the more he was enveloped by it, the more he penetrated into the flooding sound and was penetrated by it, the more unattainable, the greater, the graver and more elusive became the word, a floating sea, a floating fire, sea-heavy, sea-light, notwithstanding it was still the word: he could not hold fast to it and he might not hold fast to it; incomprehensible and unutterable for him: it was the word beyond speech. Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil |
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Orpheus may have succeeded in quieting barking dogs and beguiling sinister forces, but on the return trip he should have been chained like Ulysses or as unperceiving as his sailors. In fact, he was the hero and his crew combined in a single character: he was seized by the forbidden desire and untied himself with his own hands, letting the invisible face disappear into the shadows, just as Ulysses let the song he did not hear vanish in the waves. Each of their voices is then freed: Ulysses' with his salvation and the possibility of telling the tale of his marvelous adventure; Orpheus' with his absolute loss and never-ending lament. But it is possible that behind Ulysses' triumphant narrative there prevails the inaudible lament of not having listened better and longer, of not having ventured as close as possible to the wondrous voice that might have finished the song. And that behind Orpheus' laments shines the glory of having seen, however fleetingly, the unattainable face at the very instant it turned away and returned to darkness--a nameless, placeless hymn to the light. Foucault, "The Thought of the Outside" DAN: Tell me what happened. ALICE: Nothing happened. DAN: But He came to the club. ALICE: Lots of men come to the club. You came to the club... The look on your face. DAN: The look on your face. What a face. What a wig. I saw this face, this vision, when you stepped into the road. It was the moment of my life. ALICE: This is the moment of your life. DAN: You were perfect. ALICE: I still am. DAN: On the way to the hospital, I kissed your forehead. ALICE: You brute. DAN: The cabby saw me kissing you, he said, "Is she yours?" I said, "Yes, she's mine." She's mine... DAN: So, he came to the club, watched you strip, you had a little chat, and that was it? ALICE: Yes. DAN: You're not trusting me. I'm in love with you. You're safe. You had every right, I just want to know. ALICE: Why? DAN: Because I want to know everything. Because I'm a lunatic. Tell me. * * * ALICE: I don't love you anymore. DAN: Since when? ALICE: Now. Just now. I don't want to lie, I can't tell the truth so, it's over. DAN: It doesn't matter. I love you. None of it matters. ALICE: Too late. I don't love you anymore. Goodbye... Here's the truth, so now you can hate me. Larry fucked me all night. I enjoyed it. I came. I prefer you. Now go. DAN: I knew that. He told me. ALICE: You knew? DAN: I needed to hear it from you. ALICE: Why? DAN: Because he might have been lying. I had to hear it from you. ALICE: I would never have told you, because I know you'd never forgive me. DAN: I would. I have. ALICE: Why did he tell you? DAN: Because he's a bastard. ALICE: How could he? DAN: Because he wanted this to happen. ALICE: But why test me? DAN: Because I'm an idiot. ALICE: Yes. I would have loved you... forever. Now, please go. Closer |
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Writing is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scribbling in ink this pidgin script. I sing with nihilistic witticism, disciplining signs with trifling gimmicks -- impish hijinks which highlight stick sigils. Isn't it glib? Isn't it chic? I fit childish insights within rigid limits, writing shtick which might instill priggish misgiv- ings in critics blind with hindsight. I dismiss nit- picking criticism which flirts with philistinism. I bitch; I kibitz -- griping whilst criticizing dimwits, sniping whilst indicting nitwits, dismissing simplis- tic thinking, in which phillippic wit is still illicit. Christian Bök, Eunoia |
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Win a date with Jessica Biel A date with Jessica Biel will be up for bid next week to help raise money for a teenager who lost her leg in a prom night limousine accident, Denver newspapers reported this week. The event dubbed "Mollypalooza" to help Molly Bloom's family with medical expenses is scheduled for Tuesday at the Rock Island Club, organizers told The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. The News described the date as a lunch date. ( Cut and run ) What catches my attention here? Not the date with Jessica Biel, not the losing a leg in a horrific prom accident, just the name: Molly Bloom. I would however be amused if someone lost their leg in a horrific pr0n accident. In fact I'd buy the DVD. |
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And just as one who unwills what he wills and shifts what he intends to seek new ends so that he's drawn from what he had begun, so was I in the midst of that dark land, because with all my thinking I annulled the task I had so quickly undertaken. Dante, Inferno |
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Those men who cuddle whores for love Are sated by their darlings' charms, But I have only tired arms From having hugged the clouds above. Thanks to the stars, the matchless ones That flame within the depths of skies, All I see with burnt-out eyes Are dark remembrances of suns. Baudelaire, "Lament of an Icarus" For the void--the whole that, at any point, is burned out by the return of the flame of any sign, the meaninglessness that makes for seduction's unexpected charm--also lies in wait, without illusion, for production once the latter has reached its limits. Everything returns to the void, including our words and gestures. But before disappearing, certain words and gestures, by anticipating their demise, are able to exercise a seduction that the others will never know. Seduction's secret lies in this evocation and revocation of the other, with a slowness and suspense that are poetic, like the slow motion film of a fall or an explosion, because something had the time, prior to its completion, to make its absence felt. And this, if there is such a thing, is the perfection of "desire." Baudrillard, Seduction |
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Just before an airplane breaks the sound barrier, sound waves become visible on the wings of the plane. The sudden visibility of sound just as sound ends is an apt instance of that great pattern of being that reveals new and opposite forms just as the earlier forms reach their peak performance. Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium Is the Message" |
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9 I grow old in the design. Prophecies become fulfilled, though never as expected, almost accidentally, in fact, as if to conform to some alien order. But I am concerned with my own knowledge that the design is everywhere ethical and harmonious: circles start to close, lines to balance. 10 The art of designing life is no excuse for that life. People will forget Shakespeare. He will lie with George Formby and me, here where the swine root. Later, the solar system will flare up and fall into space, irretrievably lost. For the loss, as for the life, there will be no excuse, there is no justification. Thom Gunn, "Confessions of the Life Artist" Mallarmé, "Crise de vers" |
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There is no Life or Death Only activity And in the absolute Is no declivity. There is no Love or Lust Only propensity Who would possess Is a nonentity. There is no First or Last Only equality And who would rule Joins the majority. There is no space or time Only intensity, And tame things Have no immensity. Mina Loy, "There is no Life or Death" (Untitled) |
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Th never as one who possesses, but like someone dying who, bending into the moist breeze of an evening in March, loses the springtime, alas, in the throats of the birds. Far too much you belong to grief. If you could forget her-- even the least of these figures so infinitely pained-- you would call down, shout down, hoping they might still be curious, one of the angels (those beings unmighty in grief) who, as his face darkened, would try again and again to describe the way you kept sobbing, long ago, for her. Angel, what was it like? And he would imitate you and never understand that it was pain, as after a calling bird one tries to repeat the innocent voice it is filled with. Rilke, Duino Elegies, omitted fragment from a draft of "The Tenth Elegy" The hero is strangely close to those who died young. Permanence does not concern him. He lives in continual ascent, moving on into the ever-changed constellation of perpetual danger. Few could find him there. But Fate, which is silent about us, suddenly grows inspired and sings him into the storm of his onrushing world. I hear no one like him. ... For whenever the hero stormed through the stations of love, each heartbeat intended for him lifted him up, beyond it; and, turning away, he stood there, at the end of all smiles,--transfigured. "The Sixth Elegy" |
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No criticism here. It's just that we, Like Stanislavsky's actors, try to be The rose, the ingot...Empathy is art. Strange, though, to zero in upon the heart Of matter only--when smoke clears--to find another antechamber of pure mind. Knocking on doorlessness, on fictive space, Leads to the absurdest loss of face. James Merrill, The Changing Light at Sandover, Mirabell, Book 7 |
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The appearance of art as something historical can be described as the delusion of a culture that holds that only what is already familiar to us from our cultural tradition is significant. The appearance of art as something progressive, on the other hand, is sustained by the delusion of the critique of ideology. It claims that history should begin anew, since we are already thoroughly familiar with the tradition in which we stand and can safely leave it behind. But the riddle that the problem of art sets us is precisely that of the contemporaneity of past and present. Gadamer, "The Relevance of the Beautiful" |
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Perhaps it isn't as we like to think, the last resort, the end of something, thwarted choice or attempt, but rather the ever-recurring beginning, the faithful first to mind, the very image of endeavor, so that even the most patently meaningless difficulities, a badly started nail, a lost check, not to speak of the great and irresolvable emotional issues, would bring instantly to mind that unfailingly reliable image of a gesture to be carried out for once with confidence and grace. It would feel less like desperation, being driven down, ground down, and much more a reflex, almost whim, as though the pestering forces of inertia that for so long had held you back had ebbed at last, and you could slip through now, not to peace particularly, not even to escape, but to completion. C. K. Williams, "Suicide: Anne" |
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I am one of you and being one of you Is being and knowing what I am and know. Wallave Stevens, "Angel Surrounded by Paysans" |
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