#objective truth is lurching towards oblivion

[thoughts-reasons]

practice makes permanent

[gingrichvisualnarrative17]

reading response 3/11

THE VOICE OF THINGS

~thinking about;; general impossibility of accurate conceptual translation when a text is so fully about the richness of its language— the general (obvious) difficulty of translating poetry to get meter and definitions to match

~”Disclaiming any taste or talent for ideas, which disgust him because of their pretension to absolute truth, he abandons ideas and opts for things.” Are these mutually exclusive? Are ideas necessarily rooted in a presumption of truth?

~poems in paragraph form, not a form I’m used to seeing.. addressed in into though, “Written in prose, the orderly lines, grouped familiarly on the page in everyday paragraphs, suggest immediate communication. Even the language, at first glance, seems to be the language of everyday. “

~thinking about;; the importance of titles in poetry

~”It is within this seed that one finds —after the sensational explosion of the Chinese lantern of flavors, colors and perfumes which is the fruited ball itself—the relative hardness and greenness (not entirely tasteless, by the way) of the wood, the branch, the leaf; in short, the puny albeit prime purpose of the fruit. “

~Fire: “Fire has a system: first all the flames move in one direction . . . (One can only compare the gait of fire to that of an animal: it must first leave one place before occupying another; it moves like an amoeba and a giraffe at the same time, its neck lurching, its foot dragging) . . . Then, while the substances consumed with method collapse, the escaping gasses are subsequently transformed into one long flight of butterflies. “

~”I am easily convinced, easily dissuaded. And when I say convinced, I mean if not of some truth, then at least of the fragility of my own opinion.” — such a good distinction

~”Passing off one's opinion as objectively valid, or valid in the absolute, seems to me as absurd as maintaining, for example, that blond curly hair is truer than straight black hair, that the song of the nightingale is closer to the truth than the neighing of a horse.” Is preference tied to truth? It seems it doesn’t have to be, but maybe I’m just being dense??

~”Why is there this difference, this unthinkable margin between the definition of a word and the description of the thing designated by the word?” That idea of a word as representation of a concept— Plato’s theory of forms, the word is not the thing, but a representation of it, therefore imperfect, incomplete, and open to interpretation. Also language/definitions are cultural (speaking within a language, not between different languages) the definitions and understandings of words are in as much flux as ideas are, the language is constantly shifting, people’s experiences shape their understanding of words, and slang/vernacular move language and definitions forward. Not just in adding words but in adapting preexisting words.

BLUETS

~thinking about;; use of italics— creating a code or system for your writing that isn’t necessarily on the same page as typical use, but also not so far from it it becomes indecipherable

~”I admit that I may have been lonely. I know that loneliness can produce bolts of hot pain, a pain which, if it stays hot enough for long enough, can begin to simulate, or to provoke-take your pick-an apprehension of the divine.” — divinity in the pain of loneliness— very romantic

~thinking about;; I love this text!!?! this is beautiful and sad and so so TANGIBLE in a way I can’t totally explain??? I wish I could be more eloquent and maybe later I will be able to but currently I can only articulate that I love this text and can feel it in my body and through my blood and I don’t know why

~”On my cv it says that I am currently working on a book about the color blue. I have been saying this for years without writing a word. It is, perhaps, my way of making my life feel "in progress" rather than a sleeve of ash falling off a lit cigarette.” yesyesyes

~”But why bother with diagnoses at all, if a diagnosis is but a restatement of the problem?”

~numbering sections— makes it a cohesive piece that clearly has an order but also allows it to be parsed out and taken in bits and pieces, while always keeping in mind that it does exist in a greater continuous context, but is not fully reliant on its situation within the larger whole

~”It was around this time that I frst had the thought: we fuck well because he is a passive top and I am an active bottom. I never said this out loud, but I thought it often. I had no idea how true it would prove, or how painful, outside of the fucking.”

~"What are all those I fuzzy-looking things out there? I Trees? Well, I'm tired I of them" — incredible last words

~”And what kind of madness is it anyway, to he in love with something constitutionally incapable of loving you back?”

~”If he hadn't lied to you, he would have been a different person than he is. She is trying to get me to see that although I thought I loved this man very completely for exactly who he was, I was in fact blind to the man he actually was, or is.” amazing !!!

~”that if what I was feeling wasn't love then I am forced to admit that I don't know what love is, or, more simply, that I loved a had man. How all of these formulations drain the blue right out of love and leave an ugly, pigment-less fish flapping on a cutting hoard on a kitchen counter. “

~”What seems clear enough: in 304 AD Lucy was tortured and put to death by the Roman emperor Diocletian, and thus martyred for her Christianity. What is unclear: why, exactly, she runs around Gothic and Renaissance paintings holding a golden dish with her blue eyes staring weirdly out from it.”

~I just bought Maggie Nelson’s book Argonauts on Amazon— I swear I saw it before but I forget the context?? Maybe when I was looking up queer lit to buy for Sarah…

~"What good is my peek at her pubic hair if I must also see the red lines made by her panties, the pimples on her rump, broken veins like the print of a lavender thumb, the stepped-on look of a day' s-end muff ? I've that at home." << what a gross thing to say, William Gass !!

~”Loneliness is solitude with a problem.”

~”Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.”

~”Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping-its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair. (Can a reflection be a witness? Can one pass oneself the sponge wet with vinegar from a reed?)” !!!!!!

~ I love the word cogent

~”the romance of seeking”

~I just bought this book on Amazon even though I am reading the PDF right now— why do I do this

~”to see blue in deeper and deeper saturation is eventually to move toward darkness.”

~”The Oblivion Seekers” by Isabelle Eberhardt