Author: Alias Harlequin
"Arrange whatever pieces come your way" - Virginia Woolf
"Thinking about language, while thinking IN language, leads to puzzles and paradoxes" -James Gleick
"a word is a bridge thrown between myself and another...a territory shared" - V.N. Volosinov
"How words are understood is not told by words alone" - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Silence
Greetings all – thank you for continuing to visit, care, find, read the polysemic stupor this site has been for me. I have felt that I should respond to my extended quiet and lack. As with everyone, much transpires within-without always/all ways… for now I can report that after years of PhD studies into the concept of “nothing”, an ever-expanding and extending fertile void…
Has drawn me toward pondering more intensely what silence might evoke or emit… I should like to say that I have been interactive, con-fused, com-municative, alive/immersed in much (empty-full) space(s). Here’s a card of greeting, thanksgiving, and hello again:
Words of Silence
…dreamt to hush you,
like “now”
or some othered ‘then,’
“here” “you” “?”
It is time now, I said,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit
among the flux of happenings.Something had pestered me so much
I thought my heart would break.
I mean, the mechanical part.I went down in the afternoon
to the sea
which held me, until I grew easy.About tomorrow, who knows anything.
Swimming, One Day in August – Mary Oliver
Except that it will be time, again,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit.
“Most of the time, to give oneself to language is to abandon oneself.”
–Maurice Blanchot–
“A word’s reach extends a speaker’s grasp, or what’s a language for?”
–Stanley Cavell–
“Some Blind Alleys: A Letter” (or, a complex “lesson in perplexity”)
Should you have the time…and it requires a bit…I would love to hear responses to the following essay by E.M. Cioran from all you interesting minds I …
“Some Blind Alleys: A Letter”
Someone brought this again to my attention… and again it seems terrifically timely… and may in many ways account for my recent growing silences… and work at ascesis
Mysteries – Words Flesh
Terrific collection of attempts at languaging mystery around incarnate language: https://maney.us/blog/2014/12/28/meditations-on-the-incarnation-from-select-church-fathers-and-doctors/
St. John Chrysostom: Homily on Christmas Morning
This is another post I made during Advent four years ago, which bears repeating. I have read this sermon by St. John Chrysostom (late fourth century …
St. John Chrysostom: Homily on Christmas Morning
the songs i do not know (iii)
Tell me the songs you don’t know
Dan Beachy-Quick, Of Silence and Song
Light…makes some things seen, makes some things invisible
-SIR THOMAS BROWNE, IN B-Q, OF SILENCE AND SONG
iii. inside the other
.
i walked
caves, hollows, holes
reaching in
wondering, wandering,
exploring
.
wherefore?
in whom?
this forest-stream-mountain
rain
cloud or animal
species
perhaps kind
world
.
else
.
eye, crotch, finger, part
leg, mouth, buttocks, cleave
begin
in prayer
darklight arithmetic
and and and
also
more
.
a line
emotion
an happening
or even
event
what is called
beginning
again
what feels like
entering, entrance
entry
way
.
fuel
to the opening
.
i walked
in prayer
singing
nothing
known
listening
still
to answer
.
call
response
(“Tell me,” she said)
of songs
you do
not know
(“i don’t,” i said
i do
.
begin
again
before
where now
already
The Songs I do not Know (ii)
Tell me the songs you don’t know
Dan Beachy-Quick, Of Silence and Song
Light…makes some things seen, makes some things invisible
-Sir Thomas Browne, in B-Q, Of Silence and Song
ii. “Tell me…”
bluebell. jay.
joy. blank. block.
blur. when.
what?
how. where. ever why.
now
it is very
most unknown
not knowing –
i don’t;
breathe
.
cerulean. youth.
abstract. asunder.
i wonder
what for
then
when now?
how does
one tell
not knowing
unknown
always
it sings
knowing
(its’ icon)
and melody
The Songs I Do Not Know (1)
“Tell me the songs you don’t know.”
Dan Beachy-Quick, Of Silence and Song
“–knowledge is made by oblivion.”
Sir Thomas Browne, in B-Q, Silence & Song
clips, or snippets,
the known as partial
notes
signifying
the experienced
gesturing
hymning (nearly celebrating)
its reverse –
everything
unknown
i didn’t know
the sounds of
as they were
always changing –
ever never
.
so i made noise
my shapes
transparently novel (novice)
windows
framing, marking, visibling
all i do not know –
every word an icon
view-finding
all it’s not
.
Image
Sound
Landscape
Intention
Meaning
Clarity of
.
definition
None
.
thus every song i sing
i sing of what i do not know
or hear or dream or feel
i think
but do i tell of songs
i do not know
or sing not knowing?
.
would i recognize
unknown
song?
do i?
sing?
.
it’s hard to tell
meaningful questions
from questioned
meanings,
meaning
tones
notion
her eyes
the water
sky
adroit
wonder
or passion
.
not known
i sing.
Language/Life
This is the same struggle – (LanguageLife)
this mis-match, trans-mesh, between media (their mediums)
.
A woman arrived – beautiful.
First thought: why isn’t language like her?
no – why isn’t language Her.
The difference. Media.
Eventually I felt this about music, painting, photography.
Eventually I felt this about perception, expression, myself.
.
i.e. Why isn’t one thing another to the same effect? Why doesn’t one temporally unified multiplicity (perception) correlate adequately in another?
.
My writing, these shapes, lines, movements, and possible sounds and touches and sayings are ever as real as hers, (equal), but not her (different) <in so many ways, sort of> <and not many ways, kind of>
.
There is animated material in motion with layers of perception – interpretation – impression / meanings. And here as well.
But they are not the same,
metaphorically, experientially, actually.
And they are.
(We are, species-level, carrying similar realities in similarly leaky containers).
And we aren’t.
- Effect (1)
- Affect (2)
- Mode (0)
- Artifice (N+1 / N-1)
- Occurrence Happening Being (=)
We are.
And aren’t.
Same Difference
.
Language lives. is alive. is not life. is life.
As also language.
And not.
She and I are. And are modally identified. Materially.
And are categorically for many striations,
same.
And not.
Effect. Affect. Also same difference, everywhere within scales. Eventually, no difference?
Eventually…only same? In a thin layer, deep and thickly.
Undone. Coordinated.
Same difference.
eventuates:
AND – – – – OR – – – – NOT
(same differencings, as each require equal potentialities)
.
Endless.
This is a slippery slope of a flat plane.
.
Therefore I love the “Book of Idolatry,” “truth,” empirical methods! Same differences, endlessly, potential, infinite variation and similitude. Swerving curves of identity deranged.
Lo how the mirror distorts in its clarity.
The painting clarifying distorted.
Voila.
Another.
The same.
Again.
Differently.
.
One might suppose differing due to activity – close circle – if static could be posited or possible we’d see (as we are seen). But seeing is active. As is that seen.
therefore, indeterminate
that is, knowably unknowable
i.e. uncertain in its certainty
Voila!
What?
same difference
BEING
matters
