TOM CLARK: Condor Wing 8: about mary (Into the Future) / Wittgenstein's Wristwatch / Message from the Captain

Untitled: photo by Sasikumar Ramachandran, 11 December 2017

Untitled: photo by Sasikumar Ramachandran, 12 December 2017

2009.05[10] Zhejiang Donglin Town 浙江东林镇-15 | by 8hai - photography

2009.05 [10] | Zhejiang Donglin Town: photo by Bahai Yang Hui, March 2009

Pickpocket |a pickpocket got caught red handed by fellow Taiwanese tourist. (City Hall, Copenhagen): photo by Paul Swee, 5 May 2016

8th Street, R Train, Broadway, New York, NY | by M. Chaussettes

8th Street, R Train, Broadway, New York, N.Y.: photo by M. Chausettes, 28 November 2017

2009.05[10] Zhejiang Donglin Town 浙江东林镇-47 | by 8hai - photography

2009.05 [10] | Zhejiang Donglin Town: photo by Bahai Yang Hui, March 2009

Untitled [West End, Augusta, Georgia]: photo by Patrick, 13 December 2017

Élévation de la foi: photo by Robert Saucier, 25 June 2007

Laundry service | Ganges river Varanasi, India: photo by Paul Swee, 19 November 2017

SantaConsequences [santacon, SF]: photo by Erik Wilson, 9 December 2017

perfect wash: photo by markos kyprianos, 1 April 2015

about mary [Hamburg St Pauli]: photo by Rodney Troy, 19 May 2017

about mary [Hamburg St Pauli]: photo by Rodney Troy, 19 May 2017

The unbearable lightness of indifference | by mws141

The unbearable lightness of indifference: photo by michael weiss, 1 December 2017

Palestinian Home near Beirut - Lebanon Nov 1982 | by cactus.design

Lever le voile. Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Quand des écolières musulmanes quittent leur classe et arpentent les rues de Stone Town à Zanzibar, les tissus soyeux de leurs voiles donnent l'impression d'un ballet fantomatique qui fait la vague, générant des remous de questions sans réponse.: photo by Michel Groleau, 12 December 2017

Gold panners | Madagascar: photo by Etienne, 15 August 2017

a beautiful day [Hamburg St Pauli]: photo by Rodney Troy, 19 May 2017

Nella capanna Himba - Namibia 2017 | by francesco.congedo

Nella capanna Himba - Namibia 2017: photo by francesco congedo, 12 August 2017

Starvation [G20 Toronto]: photo by John Bauld, 28 June 2010

Bali: photo by Jaanus Soots, 14 November 2017

Petshelter [russia]: photo by vadim braydov, 12 December 2017

Arvada, CO: photo by Michael Ellis, 12 December 2017

It's all about achieving a balance | by postboxes

It's all about achieving a balance. Seoul, likely Seoul Metro Line 4.: photo by postboxes, 9 November 2017

P1040802 | san telmo tango: photo by massimo dalmonte, 11 October 2011

Tokyo street 2017: photo by HIROKI FUJITANI, 27 November 2017

Toni Martin im Regen | Tour de France 2017 in Düsseldorf: photo by Gerhard Stanke, 17 July 2017

Lohargol kund | Rajasthan: photo by Niraj Goswami, 5 August 2017

Price Point | Ethiopia 2017: photo by Rod Waddington, 9 December 2017

South Africa - Into the Future | by tatzlum.photo

South Africa - Into the Future. Candid portrait on the beach front. Seapoint, Cape Town, South Africa.: photo by patzlum.photo, 12 November 2014

Hubert Selby, Jr.: from The Room

Time seemed stationary, yet the painful pressure of time was constantly felt. If only the pressure would crush the life out of him and allow him simply to sink into the inviting movement of clock hands or feel the passing of time he could then feel he was getting closer to something or at least further away from something, it didnt really matter which. Nothing really mattered. If only there were some kind of movement. But everything remained motionless, the body not even moving on the bed, while feeling the tearing pressures from all sides in all directions. Feeling deep within him in that pit where there lived the violent and contorting pain of maggots crawling through your guts between the rusty cans and broken bottles and the screaming urgency to get time to move, to just move before every FUCKING GODDAMN PART OF YOUR BODY SCREWS UP INTO A FUCKING BALL AND YOUR WHOLE FUCKING BODY DISINTEGRATES, JUST SHATTERS and there was no escape, even with the lack of consciousness, for with it came dreams of wakefulness. There was no escape from the past. The struggle against it only entangled him deeper in the fear of the future. There was no place for him to go. No place he could hide. No place where his enemy didnt exist. No escape from unconscious wakefulness. There was no rest.

Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004): from The Room (1971)

26 painted tires, New & Used | by ADMurr

26 painted tires, New and Used [Baltimore]: photo by Andrew Murr, 9 December 2017

Wittgenstein: On the Myth of The Time Goddess

Portrait of Dr. Johannes Cuspinian (detail): Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1502 (Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur)

Listen Fates, who sit nearest of gods to the throne of Zeus, and weave with shuttles of adamant, inescapable devices for councels of every kind beyond counting, Aisa, Clotho and Lachesis, fine-armed daughters of Night, hearken to our prayers, all-terrible goddesses, of sky and earth.

Pindar: Fragmenta Chorica Adespota, 5

Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of the stone?
Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her lord?
Men call you merciful, but there is no trace of mercy in you, Mother.
You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as a garland around your neck.
It matters not how much I call you "Mother, Mother." You hear me, but you will not listen.

Rāmprasād Sen (1718-1785), in David R. Kinsley: Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religions, 1988

If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,
I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,
I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.
I will bring up the dead to eat the living.
And the dead will outnumber the living.

"Descent of the Goddess Ishtar into the Lower World", in Morris Jastrow, The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, 1915

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Our life has no end in just the way our visual field has no limits.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1921

Where now O Captain (Albertine's Memory)

A simple snip and nothing remains but
Time
Paving the roads of deep space with
A soft blue dust
Left by the memory of light

Time is nothing but

A word

Time is hers
Atropos
No turning (forward or back)

A word

It's in her hands
Always paying out
The turning chain

A ship's anchor dragging behind

"He's got a lot of nerve"

But there's a difference

Between courage and nerve

Courage has heart in it a red mark
Stamped into the silvery turning of the chain

Atropos (Ἄτροπος, "inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning, without turn"), in Greek myth one of the three Moirai, goddesses of Fate: Asmus Jacob Carsten (model), 1794 (Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt)

The Triumph of Death, or The Three Fates. The Three Fates, Clotho (right), Lachesis (centre) and Atropos (left), who spin, draw out and snip the thread of Life, represent Death, triumphing over the fallen body of Chastity, in this tapestry illustrating the third subject in Petrarch's poem The Triumphs (first, Love triumphs; then Love is overcome by Chastity, Chastity by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by Time and Time by Eternity): Flemish tapestry, probably Brussels, c. 1510-1520; image by Wilhem Meis, 5 December 2004

Bas relief of Atropos cutting the thread of life: photo by Tom Oates, 18 June 2008

The Three Moirai (Greek "apportioners", l. to r. Clotho, Atropos, Lachesis), tomb of Prince Alexander von Mark: Johann Gottfried Schaddow, 1788-1789); image by Andreas Praefcke, February 2006 (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin)

Ishtar, Queen of Night: Old Babylonian period baked clay relief panel; image by BabelStone, 24 June 2010 (British Museum)

Representation of the goddess Ishtar, Queen of Night (Inana/Inanna), winged and wearing a version of the horned cap of divinity: detail of ancient Mesopotamian so-called "Ishtar Vase" (vase d'Ishtar), terracotta with cut, moulded, and painted decoration, from Larsa, early 2nd millennium BC.; image by Jastrow, 2009 (Department of Near Eastern Antiquities, Musée du Louvre, Paris)

Ishtar, Queen of Night, holding her weapon: terracotta relief, early 2nd millennium BC. From Eshnunna; image by Marie-Lan Nguyen, 14 January 2009 (Department of Near Eastern Antiquities, Musée du Louvre, Paris)

Triumph of Kali Devi (Hindu Goddess Kali): Richard B. Godfrey, 1770 (South and Southeast Asian Art Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Inside construction of typical HC49 case quartz crystal: photo by Altzone, 2006

Visualization of the past light cone, the present and the future light cone, in 2D space: image by K. Aainsqatsi, 2007

Hindu Time Goddess Kali with inscription (invitation for kalipuja -- festival), near Kolkata (to left, election mural of the Indian Communist Party of India): photo by Christine Kundu, 2005

Now if it is not the causal connections which we are concerned with, then the activities of the mind lie open before us. And when we are worried about the nature of thinking, the puzzlement which we wrongly interpret to be one about the nature of a medium is a puzzlement caused by the mystifying use of our language. This kind of mistake recurs again and again in philosophy; e.g. when we are puzzled about the nature of time, when time seems to us a queer thing. We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can't look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case. It is not new facts about time which we want to know. All the facts that concern us lie open before us. But it is the use of the substantive "time" which mystifies us. If we look into the grammar of that word, we shall feel that it is no less astounding that man should have conceived of a deity of time than it would be to conceive of a deity of negation or disjunction.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): from The Blue Book (1930s Cambridge lecture notes as circulated by students), 1958

Atropos (The Fates): Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, 1821-1823, oil on plaster mounted on canvas (Museo del Prado, Madrid)

Message from the Captain

Swissair Flight 111 (crashed after an in-flight fire, 2 September, 1998): image by Anynobody, 2008

Not much time before landing, might as well say all this at last. A little wrath gave me a place to hide my face in, but when that passed and I looked in the eyes of those I'd left here to wander alone under the low ceiling of the empty sky, mercy measured the extent of my great openness, and I said: I won't say one more word; and I dashed my headset to the cockpit floor.

Nothing mars the clarity of this calm desert night until I will it. There's a lot of cloud cover as we go down. The departure of the mountains and the removal of the hills may well ensue, but not the ending of this feeling of deep peace waiting at the end of the landing strip; into which, as on a ship drifting after being wrecked in a storm, one must belatedly and unexpectedly happen. I think I can make out the runway lights.

Night, Ust-Kut Airport, Irkutsk oblast, Russia: photo by Lucky Fighter, 27 November 2009

Moonlit overcast seen from en route from Sal (Cape Verde) to Lisbon in A320 CS-TNS: photo by Mathieu Neuforge, from pics from the office, 4 January 2012

Minsk, capitol of Belarus, seen on a clear night en route from Lisbon to Moscow in A320 CS-TNS: photo by Mathieu Neuforge, from pics from the office, 21 February 2012

Athens by night seen just after takeoff from runway 03L in A320 CS-TNT: photo by Mathieu Neuforge, 30 November 2011

Runways of former Galeville Air Base, now Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife refuge. Yellow cross indicates to aircraft that airport is officially closed.: photo by Daniel Case, 19 July 2007

Machine shop [Memphis]: photo by Andrew Murr, 12 December 2017

Lower Ninth, foundation [NOLA, post Katrina]: photo by Andrew Murr, 14 December 2017

20s cityscape [Hollywood]: photo by Andrew Murr, 13 December 2017

Vancouver - 1977: photo by POP SNAP, 14 December 2017

Brussels, Belgium, August 2014 | by daily-life.photography

Brussels, Belgium, August 2014: photo by Fabrício Santos, 8 April 2015

5 comments:

Stuart Ross16 December 2017 at 09:11
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
TC16 December 2017 at 23:45
This comment was eaten by the machine.

Stuart Ross has left a new comment on your post "Condor Wing 8: about mary (Into the Future) / Witt...":

Continuing gratitude to you, Tom, for your curation, thought, sensibility; for making me look at writings by the likes of Hubert Selby Jr in jarringly new ways; for reminding me day after day that there is a vastly different world out there from the one I inhabit in Ontario, Canada.

Stuart Ross

A living being says Thank you, Stuart!
TC16 December 2017 at 23:47
I don't know why that happened. I don't know why anything happens.

Not dear Stuart's fault!!
TC16 December 2017 at 23:56
Some (most) days there is nothing I would rather do than inhabit a vastly different world. Donors of vastly different worlds, apply to this space.

Unless there's a blistering wind that blows right through the soul and then out again the other side, taking the bones away with it, like the one blowing down the ghost freeway feeder at the moment, in Ontario, Canada, Ontario, Canada, for example, would do quite nicely.

Cubby Selby was in the slammer, by the way. (Among the reasons why he was feeling kind of trapped.)
TC17 December 2017 at 00:16
It will be apparent from the bit I've quoted that The Room is a truly scary book. It's honest in ways writers aren't supposed to be honest... uncomfortable-making ways, that is. Selby said it took him ten years after publication to get up the nerve to read it. That is not hard to understand.

‘Well, anyway, time has to pass. But sometimes its so goddamn long. Sometimes it just seems to drag and drag and weigh a ton. And hang on you like a monkey. Like its going to suck the blood out of you. Or squeeze your guts out. And sometimes it flies. Just flies. And is gone somewhere, somehow, before you know it was even here. As if time is only here to make you miserable. Thats the only reason for time.”

Friday, 15 December 2017

Condor Wing 8: about mary (Into the Future) / Wittgenstein's Wristwatch / Message from the Captain

Hubert Selby, Jr.: from The Room

Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004): from The Room (1971)

5 comments: