Wanted to plug a new Youtube channel I’m following…
The more things change…
Wanted to plug a new Youtube channel I’m following…
Category: Traces
All the wow I come across in the world of languaging assembled – heroic efforts discovered as they come to be unconcealed for me
Influence : Fragments from the Introduction : “Nothing is quite as real as nothing”
I am currently readingΒ Samuel Beckett: Anatomy of a Literary Revolution by Pascale Casanova, introduced by Terry Eagleton
Beckett has always been a favorite of mine – for economy, humor, profundity, examination and exploration. Β The following exemplify elements of this – quotations from simply the Introduction (by Eagleton) of this study…
“His work, in short, presents us with the scandal of a literature which no longer depends on a philosophy of the subject”
“every sentence of his writing keeps faith with our sense of powerlessness”
“nothing is quite as real as nothing”
“sublimity includes that which is barely visible as well as the immense and immeasurable, since both are equally ungraspable”
“there is no more truly historical phenomenon in art than form – which is quite as much saturated in social signification as so-called content”
Beckett presents “questions addressed by texts to themselves, queries about their own procedures and conditions of possibility”
“clear-eyed attempts at an exact formulation of the inarticulable…the extreme scrupulousness with which it sculpts the void”
“writing itself becomes for Beckett the very signifier of the failure which so gripped his imagination”
“places the very impediment to writing at the center of his writing, transforming the question of failure into the very form of his art, telling incessantly of the failure to tell”
Thanks Samuel.
Awarding Influence
1.Β award,Β n.Β c1386
…A decision after examination, a judicial sentence,Β esp.Β that of an arbitrator or umpire; the document embodying it….
2.Β award,Β v.1Β c1386
…To examine a matter and adjudicate upon its merits; to decide, determine, after consideration or deliberation.Β
1.Β influence,Β n.Β c1374
The action or fact of flowing in; inflowing, inflow, influx: said of the action of water and other fluids, and of immaterial things conceived of as flowing in. AlsoΒ concr.Β flowing matter.Β
2.Β influence,Β v.Β 1658
…trans.Β To exert influence upon, to affect by influence….
Etymology:Β < FrenchΒ influenceΒ (13th cent. in Hatzfeld & Darmesteter) emanation from the stars (also inflow of water; affluence)…
(Oxford English Dictionary)
In the first place, I thank you Madeline ScribesΒ for honoring me with this blogging award – I would think that any blogger is happy to hear that they have influence somewhere, somehow. Β As concerns its meaning – its effect in ongoing flow – I am thinking that our passing these awards along through the blogosphere is an aspect of recognizing that the world around usΒ mattersΒ – that what we encounter continuously throughout our days effectsΒ the flow of them. Β ToΒ award such influence must mean that, upon consideration, deliberation, we consider that influence to be of benefit or merit to the flow of our lives. Β To diminish the function and roles of these eminently reusable and transferable images by querying the authority, justification, compensation or some other arbitrary criteria of significance or import seems to me to miss the point and ideologically dismiss their networked purposes and potentials. Β I am very honored and very thankful for the effort and gift of recognition and assessment.
That being said – all of these awards (as with any gift) bring responsibilities…This particular badge indicates:
THE QUESTIONS:
1. Β What makes you happiest?
developing attachment with my wife and children; inquiring and creating new knowledge.
2. Β Do you love mountains or oceans more?
mountains
3. Β What has been a special moment in 2013?
reading has provided millions of them
4. Β What is your favorite quote?
Today?: βI love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.β
βΒ Marlene Dietrich
5. Β Do you like yourself?
sometimes
6. Β Do you stay up until midnight on New Years’ Eve?
rarely
7. Β Is there something you wish could be done ASAP?
global peace and cooperation
8. Β What is/was your favorite class in school?
philosophy/social science coursesΒ
9. Β What musical instruments do you / have you try/tried to play?
piano, saxophone, organ, drums, trumpet, harmonica, guitar, voice
10. Β Anything you wished you would have learned earlier?
the world’s complexity and the constancy of change
11. Β Do you like to do crafts, drawing or painting?
the effort extends and challenges me uniquely
And, given the reflective caveat above (that ALL we encounter influences us), I pass the award along to these fellow bloggers –
2 Things in absence of composition
My maker-wheels or whatever complex machinery sometimes con-fuses to generate documents of creative writing are apparently on the fritz. Β In lieu of some relatively originary textual flow (idiosyncratic dip into the semiotic waters of the resource of language) I forward along a poem that stands out to me from this weeks’ readings, and a plea that interest-piqued readers immerse themselves in a particular book regarding our co-creation and involvement with the rest of the world and one another…
First, the poem – from Bob Hicok‘s “Elegy Owed” – a fine collection:
and second a plug for a compelling study by Ian Hodder – “Entangled: An Archaeology of the relationships between humans and things”
Surround
recent posts and discussions with brilliant co-bloggers (e.g. multi-sense realism,Β Anacephalaeosis, unwanted advice, tocksinΒ and others) have reminded me how woven, interactive and co-constructed we are with our environment… which sounds something like this (the awareness and attention and presence of it) to me:
“In short – who will archive cultures in the future – the state, corporations, or the public?”
This article both combines and extends some of my favorite things to mull….
Archiving cultures – Mike Featherstone
coupled to concepts found in such texts as these:
“The archive fever is to attempt to return to the lived origin, the everyday experience, which is the source of the imperfect and distorted memories which are our archives and whose transience and forgetting makes us uncomfortable”
-Jacques derrida-
Troubling Identities, cont’d: Franz Kafka’s “The Burrow”
-please click image for textual content-
Troubling Identity in Writing – What Scribbling Does
As an addendum and prequel to writing anything/everything I wanted to share a couple of terrific essays on the strange elimination (or difficulty of perceiving) a “self” or “personality” or “identity” or any of those socially constructed concepts relating to human individuals. Β Prompted by the scribbling exercise of last week (see previous post) – the conundrum has long fascinated me and seems to be so well presented in texts like Jorge Luis Borges‘Β The Nothingness of PersonalityΒ (also perhaps available here)Β and this tremendous first essay – relating to Maurice Blanchot‘s writings – in Anne McConnell’sΒ Approaching Disappearance – (click image to read)
all help me to understand better why it often seems hard for writerlies to formulate or maintain “strong senses of self” – as the practice of entering language in such a way seems to dissolve the separations that might preserve that artificial construction.
Related…
“Yet if language gives no words for what happens…it nevertheless gives itself”
-Christopher Fynsk-
“Not to discover – not to be able to discover – the solution, is the general tragedy of all writing”
“To try to express oneself and to want to express the whole of life are one and the same thing”
-Jorge Luis Borges-
“Reality works in overt mystery”
-Macedonio Fernandez-
All my Words are Silent 