tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post4120426700595699483..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Impending: Hölderlin's BrevityUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-34614886878782641942014-02-10T00:01:25.871-08:002014-02-10T00:01:25.871-08:00Soon Come<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcvo3rSTzE" rel="nofollow">Soon Come</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-62628637023632443242014-02-09T23:26:09.810-08:002014-02-09T23:26:09.810-08:00You are a slave
From the executive suite to the sw...You are a slave<br />From the executive suite to the sweeper on the street<br />Slaves all<br />Your wage might buy you some vacations on crowded airplanes in USA EU <br />Maybe only some overpriced toxic food in the markets<br />In Poland the markets may be rich or poor<br />You go to the appropriate one in the rain<br />In the night<br />After work<br />Work is an honor/blessing/privilege<br />It allows you to be a slave <br />You do not want to join the useless<br />Non-slaves<br />Chattle<br /><br />A photograph at night reveals wobbly legs over large rectangular bricks<br />Anonymous legs hurrying to market or some other slave destination<br />The lines of the brick pattern reveal<br />Regimentation<br />Everywhere is boxy perpendicularity<br />You can buy boxes of cereal in the market<br />Hurry<br />It’s closing time<br /><br />Harris SchiffUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15235344408979987198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-54916457062922225012014-02-08T07:02:00.370-08:002014-02-08T07:02:00.370-08:00"Fate is another way, the classical way, to s..."Fate is another way, the classical way, to speak of probability -- chance, fortune, hazard -- Hölderlin’s 'luck.'"<br /><br />Well. I heard "luck" in "Glück" -- always squinting to make out the brighter side, these nights.<br /><br />Keats (Hölderlin's contemporary) said the setting sun always put him to rights.<br /><br />"the ungainly bird of night flutters down" -- it was being able to bring along that bit that gave me to the nerve to crash the party, here. <br /><br />"shield" helped. The fear, the dread of the dark smothering night bird. <br /><br />Chris, maybe having no money is the easy part. The hard part is hearing the scarecrow... that is, cockcrow, when it comes. <br /><br />Speaking of scarecrow -- let this post not pass without my expressing my great debt to the outstanding American artists who took the photographs.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82098002749305971712014-02-07T15:11:05.924-08:002014-02-07T15:11:05.924-08:00The juxtaposition of Hölderlin and Wittgenstein ma...The juxtaposition of Hölderlin and Wittgenstein makes me think of the former's lovely remark in a letter to his brother:<br /><br />"Philosophie musst Du studieren, und wenn Du nicht mehr Geld hättest, als nötig ist, um eine Lampe und Öl zu kaufen, und nicht mehr Zeit als von Mitternacht bis zum Hahnenschrei."Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214178206307289834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68433562091938555402014-02-07T13:18:19.185-08:002014-02-07T13:18:19.185-08:00to be brief - i've read, in one of idries shah...to be brief - i've read, in one of idries shah's books - <br /><br />there is such a thing as destiny, but continue with your own plans - and if they are in accordance with destiny, you may reap a rich rewardmistah charley, ph.d.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06303695341246058680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-16655825271414008542014-02-07T10:28:02.603-08:002014-02-07T10:28:02.603-08:00Thoughts loom like those mesmerizing lenticular cl...Thoughts loom like those mesmerizing lenticular clouds, or the bridge tower in the Portland photo. I’m less certain about the distinction that Wittgenstein draws between fate and natural law. Rather than opposition, there's a relationship. Fate is another way, the classical way, to speak of probability—chance, fortune, hazard—Hölderlin’s “luck.” Fate is operational; it impinges on actions or states, whether it’s gods or physical forces at play. It’s in the way things interact. Natural laws then, would also be subject to fate; that is, to probability. David Bohm, physicist and philosopher, postulates that nothing exists in and of itself, but only in context, only in relationship to other things, to the universe. An object, person, or event is, to use his marvelous phrase, an “invariant relationship” whose outlines are inconstant, always in flux.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25741706917303070762014-02-07T09:14:04.706-08:002014-02-07T09:14:04.706-08:00Black and white, twilight and ice - Hölderlin seem...Black and white, twilight and ice - Hölderlin seems a good guide to these badlands. That bird isn't one you want to have trapped in your bedroom. Funny that texting feels so much like bad brevity in this context - like if the young knew there'd be a time when brevity will be imposed on them, come at them like a trapped bird filling the room, maybe they'd embrace loquaciousness a little, while they can. Language, it's wasted on the young.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48834748840199561242014-02-07T09:13:42.514-08:002014-02-07T09:13:42.514-08:00Infancy is what is eternal, and the rest, all the ...<i>Infancy is what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity.</i><br /><br />--Antonio Porchia, from <i>Voices</i>vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-56543203353330664622014-02-07T07:56:14.098-08:002014-02-07T07:56:14.098-08:00"And conversely the utterance of a command, s..."And conversely the utterance of a command, such as 'Don't be resentful', may be like the affirmation of a truth." It is the natural course that youth and the full throatedness of our song is brief. Also that we are surrounded by dunderheads. Twas ever thus. Resentment undoes us totally. <br /><br />HarrisUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15235344408979987198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-779262263907723232014-02-07T06:58:32.155-08:002014-02-07T06:58:32.155-08:00Well, then. I absolutely know how Holderlin feels...Well, then. I absolutely know how Holderlin feels (although I wish I didn't), but I've never seen the sentiment and thoughts that goes with it so well and memorably expressed. I think I know how Wittgenstein feels also, i.e., extremely confused and confounded by blind, blocked alleys. It's a remarkable composition of remarkably composed photographs also. There's a funny remark in the movie 21 Jump Street occasioned by one of the male leads (played by Jonah Hill) telephoning a girl he's interested in. She's surprised that he's phoned, rather than texted her, and she tells him: "Oh! Hey, man! Uh...so weird that you're calling me. I pretty much text, except for when a random old relative calls." I hate texting and beg Jane not to text me. As you might imagine, my begging has been to no avail, as begging usually is. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10450756446722039292014-02-07T05:58:03.643-08:002014-02-07T05:58:03.643-08:00Yes, that bird is scary indeed, and scared or no, ...Yes, that bird is scary indeed, and scared or no, I suppose we all should learn to be brief. <br /><br />In this university town that plays host, however unwillingly by some at this late date, to persons from all corners and nooks and crannies of the globe, the default behaviour of young persons (as observed by those ever so reliable witnesses, creepy old invalids on night buses), when not actively engaged on career or fun track, is flipping open one of those handheld thingies, and losing the anyway apparently hollow self in a world of blankness, pointlessness, and the sort of pinhead text-message brevity characteristic of the communications of single-cell organisms.<br /><br />But wait, how do single-cell organisms communicate, while holding mobile devices? -- argues for the need of another cell right there.<br /><br />Of course, freewill doesn't even enter into this particular realm of phantasmagoria, because anybody who owns one of those devices is no longer an autonomous entity, but simply another working part in a much larger form of social organization designed for the profit of individuals whose portfolio includes, among other things, not letting us know where we might find them, in the odd event we might have a question or two to pose.<br /><br />So I suppose this reverts to the archaic concept of the gods, remote cavalier weirdos at whose wont earthquakes and plagues and climate alterations could happen every time the mood ring message app came up on their smartphones. <br /><br />Determining our fates, in brief.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-21684144548885557492014-02-07T04:50:21.727-08:002014-02-07T04:50:21.727-08:00I love the poem, love the ungainly bird of night f...I love the poem, love the ungainly bird of night fluttering down too near. Love the image, that is, though not the feeling it gives. Like the entry about FATE. It's always an interesting one for me, that argument between fate and free will and all its permutations. I think the bigger question is not free will but free-wheeling idiocy that rules. But then I should be brief these days . . . Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.com