tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1958256562388806590..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Friedrich Hölderlin: Empedokles (Into the Volcano)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47168638202821402732014-02-03T04:54:54.037-08:002014-02-03T04:54:54.037-08:00Thanks, Michael, always a pleasure to hear from yo...Thanks, Michael, always a pleasure to hear from you. <br /><br />Perhaps you are the reader for whom Hölderlin has been waiting.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1943850865320618102014-02-03T02:55:36.573-08:002014-02-03T02:55:36.573-08:00Wonderful post, and the two other Hölderlin posts ...Wonderful post, and the two other Hölderlin posts too. Michael Peveretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17090710369630916194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-72149303347951794932014-01-31T07:09:49.346-08:002014-01-31T07:09:49.346-08:00Hello again. I wasn't suggesting that Rep. Gri...Hello again. I wasn't suggesting that Rep. Grimm's conduct was in the slightest justified due to Michael Scotto's extended family history or for any other reason. I simply have a hard time magnifying its ultimate importance beyond the current tabloid and MSNBC impact. It certainly didn't rise to the level of Rep. Bob Etheridge's in-broad-daylight physical assault on the two student reporters in Washington, D.C. several years ago, Sen. Harry Reid's impugning of American summer tourists to Washington D.C. for their terrible body odor, or more recently NBC Political Director Mark Murray comparing Barack Obama's life and work travails with the Afghanistan war experiences of Staff Sgt. Cory Remsburg. I guess what I'm saying is that I get it, it all stinks, but what possibly stinks worst is elected representatives continually voting on legislation that they are willing to publicly admit they haven't even bothered to read. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91290188687777979282014-01-31T06:40:34.101-08:002014-01-31T06:40:34.101-08:00Sorry Curtis, hadn't seen that till just now.
...Sorry Curtis, hadn't seen that till just now.<br /><br />I would agree that many will view Cong. Grimm, grown man and putative boy-breaker, in much the same unfavourable light they view New York pols in general. <br /><br />But you seem to be contending that conduct that is unacceptable elsewhere should be considered business as usual because it is going on in a part of a nation so accustomed to crude, boorish behaviour on the part of public officials that a veil of wink-wink permission falls like fairy dust over every sort of thing from routinely using public resources to target people you don't like (think Gov. Christie) to a Congressman who calls the President's speech "divisive", then one minute later proves to the world that any political party dumb enough to send him up as its representative is simply dead on its feet.<br /><br />By the way, as to the suggestion that a Congressman's dark mutterings of threats of death while on the job are somehow all in fun, somehow well deserved due to the reporter's family background, and in any case of no consequence "compared to Washington's current depredations and wall-to-wall failures... a kind of NYC/local color story and no more", that's an awfully generous expansion of the meaning of local color. <br /><br />Searching for the rich local color, I thought Mikey's order that everyone but blacks exit the building (i.e. the night club), leaving only the usual suspects, was really adorable. Bet his mom appreciated that one.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-62288431368464123112014-01-31T06:16:38.893-08:002014-01-31T06:16:38.893-08:00Hölderlin had several tries at composing a verse d...Hölderlin had several tries at composing a verse drama, The Death of Empedocles.<br /><br />The minimalist filmmakers Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub had five tries at a film version, completed in 1987. Bits can be found on Youtube. In a sun-drenched, rocky Sicilian landscape a despairing Empedocles, desolated by the increasing threat to the Earth posed by politician-priests, converses with his disciples on free will, life and death, finally forsakes philosophy and suicides at Etna.<br /><br />Still, I suspect from the evidence so far that the Hölderlin discussion just isn't going to light up our lava lamps, here. Pity, that.<br /><br />There is a small building adjacent to one of Etna's historic craters that is called The Tower of the Philosopher. It's been covered in ash and lava more than once.<br /><br />So much for philosophy.<br /><br />Therefore let us get back to Darwin, if we may.<br /><br /><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/01/michael-grimm-history-losing-temper.html" rel="nofollow">A Few Things To Know About Angry Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm: Joe Coscarelli, New York Magazine, 29 January 2014</a>.<br /><br />In related news....Science now informs us that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/29/fifth-neanderthals-genetic-code-lives-on-humans" rel="nofollow">a Fifth of Neanderthals' Genetic Code Lives On In Modern Humans</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-60657312910712240552014-01-31T05:57:08.149-08:002014-01-31T05:57:08.149-08:00The Florida School for Boys story is horrible. I ...The Florida School for Boys story is horrible. I cannot for the life of me understand why the local prosecutor would not proceed on this and I think the journalist's comparison of this situation with the Penn State affair and the investigative and prosecutorial actions there is a good one. <br /><br />As far as the Mikey Suits story goes, it will probably diminish me in some people's eyes for saying this, but compared to Washington's current depredations and wall-to-wall failures, I think of it as a kind of NYC/local color story and no more, a new and somewhat entertaining tale from the outer boroughs. Most policemen I've worked with professionally wouldn't act like that, but I have known some who are excitable when provoked and I guess it doesn't take a lot to provoke Rep. Grimm, who I expect can be successfully "primaried" at this point and replaced by a another Republican who will bring home the bacon and greater glory for Staten Island. And I will certainly credit Grimm the next time I threaten to break someone in half like a boy. (This sounds like something one of my grandfathers, or even my own father, might have said; it sounds like an expression handed down over centuries originating in a foreign tongue.) I mean, the congressman didn't hit the reporter and as useless and insincere as apologies often are, he did invite him to lunch. Anyway, you're probably onto this, but the New York City press has already covered what many consider the doubtful effectiveness in pursuing a member of the Scotto clan: <br /><br />http://pagesix.com/2014/01/29/rep-grimm-couldnt-intimidate-scotto/ <br /><br />This is in no way intended to impugn the undoubted good character of Michael Scotto or imply anything untoward about him. I hasten to add that the Scotto who ran afoul of the law, Anthony Scotto, Michael's uncle, later lectured on labor relations at Harvard Business School, an astonishing post-On The Waterfront<br />development.<br /><br />By the way, in the distant past when I used to try cases, I would occasionally visit Staten Island courts. They were pretty wonderful. It was immediately made clear to visiting "off-island" attorneys that because of their "off-island" status, there was zero chance of prevailing. This was always explained in a super-polite and friendly way over coffee and there wasn't any point in considering or seeking recourse. An easy day at the office bracketed by two glorious ferry rides. The best.<br /><br />CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46366829480791602002014-01-31T04:51:06.489-08:002014-01-31T04:51:06.489-08:00What I should have said up above there but forgot ...What I should have said up above there but forgot was:<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/holderlin-griechenland-greece.html" rel="nofollow">Hölderlin: Griechenland (Greece): Correspondences of Poetry and Madness</a><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/holderlin-reif-sind-ripe-are-fruits.html" rel="nofollow">Hölderlin: "Reif sind..." (Ripe are the fruits)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81804711018609370422014-01-31T04:33:11.616-08:002014-01-31T04:33:11.616-08:00And then, while we're here, there's also ...And then, while we're here, there's also this interesting little piece: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/04/congressman-michael-grimm-at-the-caribbean-tropics.html" rel="nofollow">Congressman Grimm and the Night Club: Evan Ratliff, The New Yorker, 28 April 2011</a>.<br /><br />But who knows... Grimm claims it's all a Fairy Tale.<br /><br />"On Wednesday, the journalist Evan Ratliff recalled interviewing the Republican representative in 2011 in his Washington office for a New Yorker piece he was writing about the FBI. During the interview, Grimm called Ratliff a liar and accused him of being on a 'chop job'.<br /><br />"The New Yorker piece that eventually emerged recounted an alleged incident in which Grimm, back in his undercover days, had got into a brawl at a Queens nightclub with the former husband of his date. In the course of the 1999 fracas, Grimm was reported to have said: 'I'll fuckin' make him disappear where nobody will find him,' before waving his FBI gun around the club.<br /><br />"According to the article, Grimm later came back to the nightclub with FBI and NYPD reinforcements, forced all the white customers to quit the premises, lined everybody else up against the wall and declared: The FBI is in control.'<br /><br />"Grimm denied the New Yorker's account. When asked by Ratliff whether he had threatened to kill anybody, he is reported to have replied: 'That's not my personality. I don't need to speak that way. A guy with a gun who knows how to use it doesn't need to say anything.'<br /><br />"It is fair to say that Grimm is fond of guns. One of his first acts as a freshman congressman in 2011 was to propose to the Republican leadership that they legislate to allow representatives to carry concealed weapons on the floor of the House. Asked by his local Brooklyn paper to expand on the idea, Grimm waxed lyrical: 'If somebody pulls out a knife to attack you and you draw a gun, they’re likely going to drop it,' he said. 'But you have to be prepared to kill; it’s not for everyone.'”<br /><br />(Guardian, 29 January 2014)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46675228885515893952014-01-31T04:30:49.062-08:002014-01-31T04:30:49.062-08:00Curtis,
Yes, the fate of Empedokles will remain ...Curtis,<br /> <br />Yes, the fate of Empedokles will remain one of the Many Mysteries, as is probably fitting and certainly better than imagining the poor old pre-Socratic having a dip in the boiling lava. Very hard on the comlpexion they say.<br /><br />The Congressman, though -- maybe it's strictly Unwishful Kyoto Effect Thinking, or maybe it's the fresh back injury, bad bus ride earlier & c -- but that story got into the cortical cement mixer along with the awful story of the Florida Boot Hill Camp for Boys (Manik's link) and rolled and rocked unpleasantly there, all though the night.<br /><br />And as for the Congressman's grimly-clenched, belated de rigueur forced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPNWsp7OnoM" rel="nofollow">pseudo "apology"</a>, a supreme document of corridor-dashing Grace(lessness) under Pressure -- Fuhgeddaboudit!<br /><br />Perhaps boys will be boys and boys will bust out of the weight room after a session of heavy lifting and break boys in half at boot camp or in boys school or even right up there on The Hill, when and as they please, but here's a question that should be easier than the Empedokles question: does Congressional membership provide impunity when <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/29/michael-grimm-fbi-agent-congressman-behaviour" rel="nofollow">a member of Congress ("former FBI agent and Marine with history of fiery behaviour")</a> threatens grave physical harm to a licensed member of the press, right there on the hallowed premises?<br /><br />I mean, do you suppose you or I or Manik or anybody not in Congress could walk away quite so easily from this little Staddon-Island-accented <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98sNzxfovC0" rel="nofollow">Waste Management</a> type exchange? <br /><br />Transcript via Time Warner cable News:<br /><br />Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm physically threatened NY1 political reporter Michael Scotto at the conclusion of an interview in the Capitol Rotunda following Tuesday night's State of the Union address.<br /><br />Grimm's threats came at the end of a brief interview in which he discussed the president's speech, calling the address "divisive."<br /><br />Scotto then tried to ask the congressman about the ongoing federal investigation into his 2010 campaign fundraising:<br /><br />"And just finally before we let you go, we haven't had a chance to talk about some of the..." Scotto began before Grimm cut him off.<br /><br />"I'm not speaking to you off-topic, this is only about the president," said Grimm, before walking off camera.<br /><br />"So Congressman Michael Grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances," Scotto said before tossing back to the station. But as the camera continued to roll, Grimm walked back up to Scotto and began speaking to him in a low voice.<br /><br />"What?" Scotto responded. "I just wanted to ask you..."<br /><br />Grimm: "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this f-----g balcony."<br /><br />Scotto: "Why? I just wanted to ask you..."<br /><br />[[cross talk]]<br /><br />Grimm: "If you ever do that to me again..."<br /><br />Scotto: "Why? Why? It’s a valid question."<br /><br />[[cross talk]]<br /><br />Grimm: "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy.<br /><br />__TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51974557797566374122014-01-31T02:45:28.229-08:002014-01-31T02:45:28.229-08:00"Jumped, fell, was broken in half like a boy ..."Jumped, fell, was broken in half like a boy and pushed off the lip of "the f-ing crater" -- or totally apocryphal story?" That's a lot of questions! My answer to the Empedokles mystery, which I thought about all day yesterday, actually, was (unsatisfyingly), "partially apocryphal story," i.e., "something" happened, but we'll never know exactly what, and so it's good to have the artists to try to help us imagine what it might have been. The story about the congressman was so very weird, but my entire take on modern US (at a minimum) civics goes back to my original feelings about student government types. People of all political stripes choose to sit in close proximity to the Treasury for basically the same reason, which Willie Sutton understood very well. We will understand and be able to fully clarify all of the above much sooner, however, than we will be able to resolve what goes on with Google stats, Facebook anything and Twitter. I knew things were approaching "over" when I first heard the phrase "thought leader" used without a hint of irony in a sentence by someone I knew I was required to listen to, speak to again, smiling and cooperating all the while. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91900943420902310942014-01-31T00:34:57.499-08:002014-01-31T00:34:57.499-08:00Thanks for your interest in Planet Earth, Curtis a...Thanks for your interest in Planet Earth, Curtis and Manik.<br /><br />Manik, that story about the former Florida School for Boys is ghastly indeed. Was prompted to think of Tuesday's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeJhXaC5WPg" rel="nofollow">charming threat by a NY Congressman (endearingly nicknamed "Mikey Suits"), faced with an inconvenient question, to "throw [the enquiring reporter] off the fucking balcony", and to "break [him] in half like a boy"</a>.<br /><br />(Well, at least he didn't say, "break you in half like a boy and, now that the Florida School for Boys is unfortunately out of service, throw you into a volcano like Empedokles".)<br /><br />I must admit to being repeatedly guilty of boyishly following the continuing belches and hiccups of Etna, being duly enthralled and scarified, and always left in awe.<br /><br />Curtis, I don't think Google cares what goes on around here, as long as nobody rocks the Megayacht of their Total Imperial Hegemony.<br /><br />Nor for that matter does anyone else as it seems -- if there are no *American poet names* (think: "gossip tags") in the title of the post.<br /><br />Too bad American poetry is currently so much less interesting than Planet Earth.<br /><br />Anyhow, there are ways of keeping up. For one, there is this handy bank of <a href="http://webcams.volcanodiscovery.com/Etna" rel="nofollow">Etna webcams</a>.<br /><br />And for the longer view, there's always the Big Unblinking in the Sky.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/10709066123/in/photostream/" rel="nofollow">Satellite view of twin volcanic plumes (one smoke, one ash), rising from Mt. Etna as the latest round of paroxysms begins, 26 October 2014</a><br /><br />Hölderlin, odd bird that he was, seems also to have been not much concerned with gossip as we know it, and at the same time afflicted with a fatal preference for the mysteries of Earth, and the history of its thought, going all the way back to that pre-recorded period prior to the birth of Mark Zuckerberg.<br /><br />As for me, given that during periods of paroxysm on Etna the steep conical slopes leading up to the crater are a cauldron of hot ash and boiling lava, it's a bit difficult to imagine Empedokles being able to clamber up close enough to reach the lip and hurl himself in, å la Sigourney Weaver after inadvertently conceiving an Alien. <br /><br />So what DID happen?<br /><br />Chet Baker, Donny Hathaway, Empedokles, all these question marks.<br /><br />Jumped, fell, was broken in half like a boy and pushed off the lip of "the f-ing crater" -- or totally apocryphal story?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17966902794428988342014-01-30T20:13:57.148-08:002014-01-30T20:13:57.148-08:00Into the volcano..
And now coming out
I read this...Into the volcano..<br /><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prosecutors-are-failing-the-victims-of-floridas-notorious-reform-school.html" rel="nofollow">And now coming out</a><br /><br />I read this story only today,and then all about it over the internet.Shocking. I have personally experienced something like it. But not to such grave extent.<br /><br />Great post,nonethelessmanik sharmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18055072451804840121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67509829878760521792014-01-30T19:24:13.476-08:002014-01-30T19:24:13.476-08:00I wonder if odd Google-Blogger is shunting comment...I wonder if odd Google-Blogger is shunting comments off into a virtual Etna. I wanted to say a simple thank you for this, which gave me great pleasure and increased knowledge (in several areas) today. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.com