Ineluctable modality of the visible .... Eric Beck quotes.
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Okay, the ineluctable modality of the visible, but to what end?
By some coincidence I was thinking about Joyce ... I had been arguing with a friend who was (is) trying to write a novel. He likes Joyce. I do and don't. The good, the bad, and ugly of Joyce. So, yesterday afternoon I was meditating on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam ... thinking about their vastly different modes of being. I was thinking about Portrait of the Artist, the section where Stephen is in the infirmary at night trying to sort out the meaning of the Euchrist as he stares up at the ceiling with its flickering light, then later when he is remembering this during a sermon about hell. It is supposed to be a kind of transcendence. I was then thinking about my own experiences as a kid with religion, especially in Mexico in a cathedral where a re-dressing cerimony was going on over a dried brown corpse in baby blue satin with a bishop had, white and gold vestments, a glass coffin surrounded by white flowers in cups, incense burners and chants by a crowd of peasants, mostly women, some very old. I was nine and had never seen anything like this, never felt anything like this. It was staggering. I went outside and sat on the steps in the shade of a hot brilliant afternoon. There was a bad smell coming from the market on the other side of the square.
``Today is Bloomsday.'' Gar Lipow.
Well, now there's a cheery note. Best news I've read in months. My Irish alcoholic stepfather once sent me a photo of himself standing next to O'Connell bridge, his name being O'Connell... they were on vacation from Japan.
Here. Damn. Dennis Claxton quotes J.G. Ballard.
So, I clicked on the link and started reading. Amazing. There is no point to finishing this post. Just read the Ballard version.
I disagree with this part, ``Reading them at too early an age, long before I had the experience to understand them, was probably another mistake.'' While literally true, there is a real treat in store, when you go back and re-read them. You get to remember yourself as you were when you first read them. You have a re-experience. It's quite an insight into how you change over time and don't realize it. One of coolest things, I think around, is to discover you actually continue to grow up over the whole course of your life. Nietzsche wrote something to the effect that Jesus Christ died too young. I always thought it was a shame he died virgin---well theoretically. What a terrible thing to wish for or emulate. You also miss all those goodies, and they are considerable, of being a parent.
Just a last note. Shlomo Sand's book arrived today. I was just looking at the introduction. Wow. This guy is a good writer. Opens, talking about autobiographies and the theory of writing, and writing history.
CG