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The Hard, Mysterious Wisdom of What We Cannot Touch

Chuck Palahniuk, Jane Hirshfield, et al.: 'The Hard, Mysterious Wisdom of What We Cannot Touch'

[Image: “The Limits of Tenancy,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they…

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What It Means to Observe, and to Know It

David Hernandez, Marie Howe, et al.: 'What It Means to Observe, and to Know It'

[Video: Peter Frampton’s instrumental cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” recorded at a concert in Los Angeles last weekend. (Frampton was diagnosed several years ago with a muscular disease called inclusion body myositis, hence his performance in a chair throughout the concert.) Soundgarden’s original version of the song was released with a spectacularly surreal video which I thought of…

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The Practice of Counter-Inevitability

Lia Purpura, Jennifer Moxley, et al.: 'The Practice of Counter-Inevitability'

[Image: “Something Like (But Not the Same As) Inevitability,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: Probability Most coincidents are not miraculous, but way more common than we think —it’s the shiver of noticing being central in a sequence of events that makes so much seem wild and rare — because what…

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Digging Deep for Compassion When Cynicism Comes to Call

Yuan Kin, William Stafford, et al.: 'Digging Deep for Compassion When Cynicism Comes to Call'

[Image: On my first visit to downtown Durham, NC, in the fall of 2022, I was struck — moved — both by the obvious demographic diversity and by the displays of public art, especially murals. This mural (I haven’t been able to learn the artist’s name) commemorates (among other things) a particularly fraught moment in the history of that diversity: the establishment in the early 1970s of a…

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Picking Out the Surprises Behind the Mundane

Alan Watts, Nour Al Ghraowi, Imogen Cunningham, et al.: 'Picking Out the Surprises Behind the Mundane'

[Image: “Unmade Bed” (1957), by Imogen Cunningham. We saw this at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2022; for my purposes today, I found it here, at the site of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). Cunningham’s friend and fellow photographer Judy Dater once said of this photo, “She sometimes would give that photograph to people as a wedding present so that the husband would know that the wife was going to be busy, that she had things to do, and not to expect the bed to always be made.]

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The View out the Window of Meta-Perception

Ali Smith, Billy Collins, et al.: 'The View out the Window of Meta-Perception'

[Image: “Ghosts in the Skylight,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: I got up to get us a drink of water and as I stood in the kitchen in the early morning light, running the water out of the tap, I looked out at the hills at the back of the town, at the trees on the hills, at the bushes in…

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Seeing What We Want to See, Seeing What We Don't -- But Seeing, Regardless

Richard Feynman, Brenda Hillman, et al.: 'Seeing What We Want to See, Seeing What We Don’t -- But Seeing, Regardless'

[Image: “No Mowing (No Kidding),” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) I admit, I laughed when I saw this sign — planted, as it was, in the center of a large marshy area beside the path.] From whiskey river: One of the most impressive discoveries was the origin of the energy of the stars, that makes them continue…

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Awfully Far Out, but Not Yet Drowning

Charles Bukowski, Stevie Smith, et al.: 'Awfully Far Out, but Not Yet Drowning'

[Image: “Badlands Seascape,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: Dinosauria, We (excerpt) We are Born like this Into this Into these carefully mad wars Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness Into bars where people no longer speak to each other Into fist fights that end as shootings…

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The Twinkle in Old Grandpa's Eye

Toni Morrison, David Wagoner, et al.: 'The Twinkle in Old Grandpa's Eye'

[Video: “Down Under,” by Men at Work. The pleasure that the band and crew obviously experienced in making this little film was undermined by a controversy which followed, some 25 years later: the melody of the flute solo was ruled to have violated the copyright (still in force) on what’s known as “the kookaburra song” — you know, “Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree…” Funnily (?) enough, I was I was researching that kids’ song because the lyrics I remembered seemed to sum up the live-for-the-present message of today’s post…]

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Pruning the Topiary in the Gardens Between Our Ears

David Foster Wallace, Mary Karr, et al.: 'Pruning the Topiary in the Gardens Between Our Ears'

[Image: “The spirit of this world … Will heal … And rise,” by Guy Mayer. Found it on Flickr, and using it here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!) The caption under the photo there — actually something of an epigraph, from William Butler Yeats — reads, “Yet …. / Vast are the shadows / That straddle and strafe / And struggle in the darkness / That troubles my eyes.”] From whiskey river…

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Celebrate Increase. Make It Be Spring.

Susan Sontag, Denise Levertov, et al.: 'Celebrate Increase. Make It Be Spring.'

[Image: “It may be Winter,” by H.Kopp-Delaney (a.k.a. “Hartwig HKD”). I’ve used a good number of his Flickr images on RAMH over the years, so he easily qualifies as a favorite there. Found this one, also, on Flickr, and have used here (with a slightly trimmed black frame) under a Creative Commons License; thank you!] From whiskey river: Night’s Mardi Gras Night is the true democracy. When…

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The Sky May Be Falling... But You Are Not the Sky

Barbara Crooker, Lisel Mueller, et al.: 'The Sky May Be Falling... But You Are Not the Sky'

[Video: Rosemary Clooney sings “Swinging on a Star.” See the note at the end of this post for some background about the song.] From whiskey river (highlighted portion): Poem with an Embedded Line by Susan Cohen When the evening newscast leads to despair, when my Facebook feed raises my blood pressure, when I can’t listen to NPR anymore, I turn to the sky, blooming like chicory, its dearth of clouds, its vast blue endlessness.…

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Stumbling Along, Alone in the Dark

Herman Hesse, Lia Purpura, et al.: 'Stumbling Along, Alone in the Dark'

[Image: “Pedestrian Underpass, Las Vegas, Nevada (2022-03-04),” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within…

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Syllogisms for an Impatient World

Li-Young Lee, Octavio Paz, et al.: 'Syllogisms for an Impatient World'

[Image: For a book project I’m working on, I’ve been going through a bunch of old and half-remembered stories I’ve written over the last 30 years. I haven’t yet found the story from which this partial excerpt is taken, but I did (obviously) come across this photo I took, in November 2017, of the excerpt as it appeared onscreen. Now I’m curious…] From whiskey river: The Waiting (excerpt) Love, these lines accompany our want, nameless or otherwise, and our waiting...

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The Superior Usefulness of the Impractical

Edward Abbey, George Mallory, Jeanette Winterson, Jessica Greenbaum: 'The Superior Usefulness of the Impractical'

[Image: “Tangible Reasons,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast… a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not…

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Surprise Popping Out of Just What We Expected

Richard Feynman, Marie Howe, Mick Herron: 'Surprise Popping Out of Just What We Expected'

[Image: “What Was Lost Has Now Been Found (Badlands with Green Shoe),” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison…

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Time Passes. This Could Be the Start of Something Big, and/or of Something Small...

Octavio Paz/Elizabeth Bishop, Billy Collins, Alan Lightman: 'Time Passes. This Could Be the Start of Something Big, and/or of Something Small…'

[I recently came across a small, grimy tin box which had originally contained cough drops; folded up inside were several sheets of lined “notebook paper,” as we called it, obviously stashed there for safekeeping (if not posterity). That’s my “handwriting,” of course. To the best of my recollection, therefore, this would have been from around 60 years ago; by sometime in 1966, I’d switched to block printing…