tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post787687021792852160..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Unwinding the Clock: Time in Tristram ShandyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10691138500998098962010-08-29T08:07:50.260-07:002010-08-29T08:07:50.260-07:00Tom and Curtis,
Yes, the captions count -- always...Tom and Curtis,<br /><br />Yes, the captions count -- always something to see (after when seeing the picture). I can imagine those 1,000 hours spent tracking such things down. . . .<br /><br />And Ed,<br /><br />No moon anymore here (though we had a few nights during the full moon), fog is back with a vengeance.STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-33307240708503342082010-08-29T06:19:44.153-07:002010-08-29T06:19:44.153-07:00Curtis, et all:
there
is
only
one
way
to
l oo k...Curtis, et all:<br /><br />there<br />is<br />only<br /><br />one<br />way<br />to<br /><br />l oo k<br />at the<br />moon<br /><br />look!Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51611206899410500322010-08-29T06:12:10.408-07:002010-08-29T06:12:10.408-07:00I do, in fact, care and really appreciate the capt...I do, in fact, care and really appreciate the captioning information. I think that the citations are really, really helpful also in constructing Beyond The Pale for maximum effect. That being said, I completely understand the other point of view that says not to caption and that captions can impede really seeing and beginning to understand something. Lately, because of the Wittgenstein postings I’ve been thinking about a friend of mine in college who was terribly insecure. Academic philosophy was the berth he selected and he was all bibliography, no understanding. This was apparent to his friends and we worried about him. When it came time to take the written and oral examinations required to graduate, he was “found out” by the visiting examiners and, I think, treated rather cruelly. Later on he discovered what he was really good at doing, exercised his powers of invention and became very successful. I’ll be catching up on my Sterne reading today.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-72557569089896655502010-08-29T00:39:15.745-07:002010-08-29T00:39:15.745-07:00....and lest we forget, the subject of a recent po.......and lest we forget, the subject of a recent post, Robert Bresson, adapted a self-contained anecdote, the story of Madame de La Pommeraye, from Jacques le Fataliste, for his 1945 film Les dames du Bois de Boulogne. <br /><br />The dialogue for Bresson's film was written by Jean Cocteau, so really it's Cocteau rewriting Diderot rewriting Sterne; though the chain of influence may end there, as in his romantic passages, there is the strong impression that Sterne, unhappy in marriage but never discouraged from continuing in the quest for the truths of the heart, was "writing from life"...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20756622385634265452010-08-29T00:27:17.231-07:002010-08-29T00:27:17.231-07:00John,
I take Sterne's work to be the most sal...John,<br /><br />I take Sterne's work to be the most salient (and interesting) example of interxtextuality in all literature.<br /><br />He cribbed unashamedly from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Rabelais (Gargantua and Pantagruel), Francis Bacon's essay Of Death, among other sources. Swift's Battle of the Books was very useful to him, and of course Locke's theory of the association of ideas was the donkey upon which he pinned the tails of countless jokes.<br /><br />And in turn Diderot appears to have felt little compunction in slapping whole passages of Tristram Shandy into Jacques le Fatalist, as those excerpts show.<br /><br />Of course things were different in those days, intelligent people had sophisticated senses of humour. Writers were brilliant and funny. Sterne may be called "Postmodern", but I believe that's a misnomer. Postmodernism is an academic term for academics being bored and capitalizing on boring other people. The 18th century would have seen right through that, and had a laugh.<br /><br />As for Sterne's own views on the subject of literary borrowing, one may read what one wishes into this:<br />“Tell me, ye learned, shall we forever be adding so much to the bulk — so little to the stock? Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?” (Tristram Shandy, V.I)<br /><br />For my part, I've always regarded Sterne as untouchable. That which is perfect can only be degraded by re-use. And in any case, the second temple is never like the first.<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/allee-dargenson.html" rel="nofollow">Diderot</a>, however, has always seemed to offer <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/message-from-captain.html" rel="nofollow">room for improvement</a>, all in the name of the advancement of Enlightenment, naturally.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68351973240266951132010-08-29T00:26:15.799-07:002010-08-29T00:26:15.799-07:00Curtis,
The account of The Staymaker given in the...Curtis,<br /><br />The account of The Staymaker given in the Tate catalogue would have us believe that the work was part of the Happy Marriage series and that the person enveloped in the capacious blue dressing gown is the squire. Hogarth of course would have been quite capable of this sort of joke. (As I suppose would Eric Fischl be, had he lived in an age of rational society.) On the other hand, without that (speculative) archival hint, I wonder if we would not be "reading" the painting entirely otherwise.... reminding me of the determining power of captions, and of an idea that came to me very long ago, while wandering through the Prado or the Uffizi or the Louvre some other of the great museums of Old Europe, that in order to actually have a "true" experience of art in a museum, one should not be allowed to see the captions, at least until one's second visit.<br /><br />(That said, I must confess to having sacrificed approximately a thousand hours of sleep over the past few years in the fastidious, probably entirely neurotic and certainly totally unrewarded quest of accurate captioning information for every one of the c. 4000 images I have posted... and whenever I realize that virtually no one inspects this information, I am overwhelmed with irrational disappointment... irrational, that is, because, as I keep having to be told over and over, "This is just the internet, nobody cares...")<br /><br />(And then I always feebly, and usually silently, counter, "Well, Curtis cares...")TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-14699543491631573732010-08-28T13:27:03.952-07:002010-08-28T13:27:03.952-07:00As I just read elsewhere (Graham Harman's Obje...As I just read elsewhere (Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Philosophy blog: "Now, back to the “nothing new” point… As Kant notes at the beginning of the Prolegomena, it’s always possible to find precursors for any given idea. In that sense we can never refute the “nothing new under the sun” maneuver by anyone who wants to use it badly enough."<br /><br />So I will have to half take back what I just wrote, because of course that's right ... too.John B-Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01041221232768939991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-24126629475861341532010-08-28T13:02:44.021-07:002010-08-28T13:02:44.021-07:00Regarding The Staymaker, it's extremely beauti...Regarding The Staymaker, it's extremely beautiful and pleasantly haunting. It draws you in and keeps you there. It's one of those pictures that I really would love to own (but since it's in the Tate, I suppose that's unlikely to happen). I would never have guessed that the figure in blue was male. Anyway, searching down information regarding The Staymaker, including the prints that were made based on it, pulled me away from the work I'm supposed to be doing for a very diverting 30 minutes or so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-86282299806832984662010-08-28T12:49:04.942-07:002010-08-28T12:49:04.942-07:00Thanks, Tom. I didn't realize Jacques was THAT...Thanks, Tom. I didn't realize Jacques was THAT much TS. <br /><br />And the late c20 thinks it invented something ... not to knock the times we've lived thru ... but it seems that Ecclesiastes was pretty well right in that nothing new under the sun bit ...John B-Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01041221232768939991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84773951907187652962010-08-28T10:29:06.764-07:002010-08-28T10:29:06.764-07:00Curtis,
The book is one long hallucination of inv...Curtis,<br /><br />The book is one long hallucination of invention, genius and wit, definitely revolutionary in that it sets a whole self-created universe in motion. Perpetuum mobile. I fear it's far too smart and funny and certainly far too brilliantly elaborated for our speed-dial epoch, in fact and alas. But one is said to be stubborn and so though times and climes were not particularly favourable, this set seemed worth sticking to one's popguns on...'twas a near-death experience in other words...all for a bit of a laugh. <br /><br />One hopes.<br /><br />The four "downstairs" posts (should you be wondering) were designed to feature the little known contemporary engravings by Henry Bunbury, which capture the spirit of the book and the period beautifully. I like them far better than the much better known work done in later editions by such master illustrators as Rowlandson and Cruikshank. The Shandy website (Italian academic) doesn't have the Bunburys. But there they were, along with a good many undigitized files of other work by the same artist, hidden deep in the large and infinitely fascinating British Cartoon Collection @ the LOC. <br /><br />(While on the visual side of things, Curtis, I fear I neglected to mention earlier that I much appreciated your leaving a good word on "Sterne: A White Bear" for the little Hogarth --"The Staymaker"-- at the bottom of that post. That is a painting which I find strangely wonderful and mysterious. It has an odd out-of-focus or off-key feeling that reminds of, of all things, Eric Fischl. The figure in the blousy blue woman's night dress, by the by, is a man...)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-35342729964051363142010-08-28T10:09:44.851-07:002010-08-28T10:09:44.851-07:00why wait! Salvador D. certainly didn't he con...why wait! Salvador D. certainly didn't he continued to wax his mustachio until he ran-out-of-time<br /><br />http://www.ilounge.com/gallery/wallpaper_contest/ilounge2web.jpg<br /><br />Dali also<br />ran out of pistachios ...<br /><br />as if to rhyme and <br />raison d'être... internallyEd Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38562083909336490482010-08-28T09:56:50.622-07:002010-08-28T09:56:50.622-07:00I can't wait to get into this. I've only ...I can't wait to get into this. I've only had time to gain an overview and gaze with amazement upon the images. Seeing the French Republic clock is hallucinatory enough for this morning. I'd seen calendars before, but not actual clock faces.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46221847926461436352010-08-28T09:34:34.478-07:002010-08-28T09:34:34.478-07:00"Thy punctuality be perfecto."
mere Mag..."Thy punctuality be perfecto."<br /><br />mere Magic of the <br />moment-teeto, my dear!<br /><br />I don't "plan" this shit... I just drink a jug of Pure (unsweetened) Prune Juice to get things thusly and<br />variously <br /> ;I learned about Prune Juice from Rudd FlemingEd Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38746543308765997732010-08-28T09:30:00.499-07:002010-08-28T09:30:00.499-07:00... and I can certainly
as when I "drooped-ba...... and I can certainly<br />as when I "drooped-back-in"<br />to begin-again<br />writing in 1998<br /><br />began with NEIGHBORS<br />which ran it s run to 6 Books about 254 pps<br />then to G OO DNIGHT about 70 pages<br />the to and through Stone Girl E-pic exactly 515 = one pages<br />taking me to about 2003<br /><br />then De:sire Is and<br />I got to 2004 with THAT<br /><br /> what? six years? plus what-else erupted<br />so so now 1998 to today (August 28, 2010) have been?<br /><br />I can certainly certainly appreciate Sterne's' "run"<br /><br />w/through Tristram Shandy<br /><br />anyway,<br /><br />I ordered a copy of Tristram Shandy so to read I once had <br />a copy but it is gone..<br /><br />I have yet to read it...<br /><br />well, enough about Larry Sterne... let's talk about me!<br /><br />SG E-PIC is coming ...Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20660850041717879542010-08-28T09:11:46.462-07:002010-08-28T09:11:46.462-07:00Ed,
Thy punctuality be perfecto.
Accounts to rec...Ed,<br /><br />Thy punctuality be perfecto.<br /><br />Accounts to reconcile:<br />Anecdotes to pick up:<br />Inscriptions to make out:<br />Stories to weave in:<br />Traditions to sift:<br />Personages to call upon...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84287809026111408282010-08-28T08:47:15.195-07:002010-08-28T08:47:15.195-07:00I just inhaled this... thanks...
I re:fin...I just inhaled this... thanks...<br /> I re:find my roots<br />and never to prune the with a dull ins-true-meant.<br /><br />"In short there is no end of it."<br /><br />where the private is public and in the public<br />is where we behave? (as I recall CO said something like this, on April 19, 1956, at precisely 6:15.357 p.m. Mean Greenwich Time)<br /><br />"Panegyricks to paste up at this door;<br />....Pasquinades at that:-----"<br /><br />TC... thanks again and againEd Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-64415400676925408822010-08-28T08:41:46.232-07:002010-08-28T08:41:46.232-07:00... and here's Sterne, writing six years earli...... and here's Sterne, writing six years earlier:<br /><br />King William was of an opinion, an' please your honour, quoth Trim, that every thing was predestined for us in this world; insomuch, that he would often say to his soldiers, that "every ball had it's billet.'' He was a great man, said my uncle Toby...<br /><br />...the number of wounded was prodigious, and no one had time to think of any thing, but his own safety...<br />But I was left upon the field, said the corporal. Thou wast so; poor fellow! replied my uncle Toby-----So that it was noon the next day, continued the corporal, before I was exchanged, and put into a cart with thirteen or fourteen more, in order to be convey'd to our hospital.<br /><br />There is no part of the body, an' please your honour, where a wound occasions more intolerable anguish than upon the knee-----<br /><br />Except the groin; said my uncle Toby. An' please your honour, replied the corporal, the knee, in my opinion, must certainly be the most acute, there being so many tendons and what-d'ye-call-'ems all about it.<br /><br />It is for that reason, quoth my uncle Toby, that the groin is infinitely more sensible-----there being not only as many tendons and what-d'ye-call-'ems (for I know their names as little as thou dost)-----about it-----but moreover * * * ----- ...<br /><br />THE anguish of my knee, continued the corporal, was excessive in itself; and the uneasiness of the cart, with the roughness of the roads which were terribly cut up---making bad still worse---every step was death to me: so that with the loss of blood, and the want of care-taking of me, and a fever I felt coming on besides-----... all together, an' please your honour, was more than I could sustain.<br /><br />I was telling my sufferings to a young woman at a peasant's house, where our cart, which was the last of the line, had halted; they had help'd me in...-----So I was telling her, an' please your honour, the anguish I was in, and was saying it was so intolerable to me, that I had much rather lie down upon the bed, turning my face towards one which was in the corner of the room---and die, than go on-----when, upon her attempting to lead me to it, I fainted away in her arms. She was a good soul! as your honour, said the corporal, wiping his eyes, will hear...<br /> <br />By the persuasion of the young woman, continued the corporal, the cart with the wounded men set off without me: she had assured them I should expire immediately if I was put into the cart. So when I came to myself-----I found myself in a still quiet cottage, with no one but the young woman, and the peasant and his wife. I was laid across the bed in the corner of the room, with my wounded leg upon a chair, and the young woman beside me, holding the corner of her handkerchief, dipp'd in vinegar to my nose with one hand, and rubbing my temples with the other.<br /><br />Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume VIII (1767), Chapters XX/XXITChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63946574869153059312010-08-28T08:39:32.265-07:002010-08-28T08:39:32.265-07:00Er... one final bit of Shandiana for John B-R, who...Er... one final bit of Shandiana for John B-R, who a few days back, on the first Sterne post (A White Bear) brought up Jacques le Fataliste: aptly enough because Diderot copied not only the style of that book but many incidents, more or less verbatim, from Tristram Shandy. (Diderot was writing four years after Sterne's death.)<br /><br /> Here's Diderot, opening pages::<br /><br /> jacques.<br /><br /> Mon capitaine ajoutait que chaque balle qui partait d’un fusil avait son billet.<br /><br /> le maître.<br /><br /> Et il avait raison…<br /><br /> jacques.<br /><br /> Nous en étions, je crois, à la déroute de l’armée ennemie. On se sauve, on est poursuivi, chacun pense à soi. Je reste sur le champ de bataille, enseveli sous le nombre des morts et des blessés, qui fut prodigieux. Le lendemain on me jeta, avec une douzaine d’autres, sur une charrette, pour être conduit à un de nos hôpitaux. Ah ! Monsieur, je ne crois pas qu’il y ait de blessures plus cruelles que celle du genou.<br /><br /> le maître.<br /><br /> Allons donc, Jacques, tu te moques.<br /><br /> jacques.<br /><br /> Non, pardieu, monsieur, je ne me moque pas! Il y a là je ne sais combien d’os, de tendons, et bien d’autres choses qu’ils appellent je ne sais comment…<br /><br /> Assurément! Je perdais tout mon sang, et j’étais un homme mort si notre charrette, la dernière de la ligne, ne se fût arrêtée devant une chaumière. Là, je demande à descendre; on me met à terre. Une jeune femme, qui était debout à la porte de la chaumière, rentra chez elle et en sortit presque aussitôt avec un verre et une bouteille de vin. J’en bus un ou deux coups à la hâte. Les charrettes qui précédaient la nôtre défilèrent. On se disposait à me rejeter parmi mes camarades, lorsque, m’attachant fortement aux vêtements de cette femme et à tout ce qui était autour de moi, je protestai que je ne remonterais pas et que, mourir pour mourir, j’aimais mieux que ce fût à l’endroit où j’étais qu’à deux lieues plus loin. En achevant ces mots, je tombai en défaillance. Au sortir de cet état, je me trouvai déshabillé et couché dans un lit qui occupait un des coins de la chaumière, ayant autour de moi un paysan, le maître du lieu, sa femme, la même qui m’avait secouru, et quelques petits enfants. La femme avait trempé le coin de son tablier dans du vinaigre et m’en frottait le nez et les tempes.<br /><br /> Denis Diderot: Jacques le Fataliste, 1773TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-74405868554234626282010-08-28T07:45:02.715-07:002010-08-28T07:45:02.715-07:00Tom,
Thanks for this, such a treasure trove from ...Tom,<br /><br />Thanks for this, such a treasure trove from Tristram, more to read than time (now) permits, but note echo here of Calvino's ("straight line is a shortest distance between two points" in this --- <br /><br />8.28<br /><br />blinding silver edge of sun above still<br />shadowed ridge, red-tailed hawk calling<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> theory of surfaces, based on<br /> distance between points<br /><br /> in the first place, measured,<br /> spectral lines of light<br /><br />blue-white of sky reflected in channel,<br />line of pelicans flapping toward pointSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com