[For information about the video, see the note at the bottom of this post.]
From whiskey river:
There is never anything more truthful
Than what you yourself make of it
Except the possibility that is always there
Behind you, at the back of the mirror,
Behind the brain, in back of the universe —
And that also as you will make it.
(Peyton Houston, from The Changes [source])
…and:
When you find yourself asking, irritably and rhetorically, “Why the hell does he keep doing that?!” — I strongly recommend you answer the rhetorical question. The causal story revealed in the answer, which always has roots outside the person, might reduce counter-productive blaming and contempt, and it will give you vital information about how the behavior might be changed.
(Thomas Clark, from Encountering Naturalism)
…and (italicized portion):
We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. “I came into this world.” “You must face reality.” “The conquest of nature.”
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not come into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated egos inside bags of skin.
(Alan Watts, from The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are)
Not from whiskey river:
What guarantee is there that the five senses, taken together, do cover the whole of possible experience? They cover simply our actual experience, our human knowledge of facts or events. There are gaps between the fingers; there are gaps between the senses. In these gaps is the darkness which hides the connection between things…. This darkness is the source of our vague fears and anxieties, but also the home of the gods. They alone see the connections, the total relevance of everything that happens; that which now comes to us in bits and pieces, the “accidents” which exist only in our heads, in our limited perceptions.
(Idris Parry, “Kafka, Rilke, and Rumpelstiltskin” in The Listener, quoted by Watts in The Book)
…and:
Litany
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine…
Jacques CrickillonYou are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and — somehow — the wine.
(Billy Collins [source])
_______________________________
About the video: This is a mashup of two separate media, clips from Terry Gilliam’s 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and a song, “Hoppípolla,” by Icelandic band Sigur Rós. Wikipedia describes them as “a post-rock band with melodic, classical, and minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound and lead singer Jónsi Birgisson’s falsetto.”
As for Gilliam’s film… Baron Münchhausen was a real historical figure, an 18th-century nobleman and soldier noted for the outrageous lies he supposedly told about his adventures abroad in the world. (The caricature shown here was created by Gustave Doré for an 1862 edition of the book of the Baron’s exploits. The Latin motto on the shield reads Mendace Veritas, that is, In falsehood, truth. As his Wikipedia article notes, most of the stories about his exaggerations were themselves exaggerations by others — even based on folk stories that had been popular for centuries.) Such a florid character, real or not, was almost bound to catch the eye of Terry Gilliam: all those surreal little between-the-skits animations he created as a member of the Monty Python troupe were practically mini-Münchhausen tales in their own right. I’d never seen his film until this year, and still haven’t finished it — DVRed it a few months ago, and grab little bits of it every now and then. It’s a big old beast of an experience, and I’m sure once I’ve seen it all I’ll remember it: even the incomprehensible bits practically jump out of the screen.
The creator of the Sigur Rós/Terry Gilliam video says at its YouTube page that he has no idea what the song’s lyrics mean; he just likes the way its tone — its sound — seems to go with the clips’ visuals. It turns out that the lyrics (here among many other places) indeed have pretty much nothing to do with the film as a whole or with these clips in specific, but I think he’s right about the tone.
whaddayamean says
ok, only harnessing a tiny bit of your post here, but…
re: five senses: have you read The Once and Future King? i liked what he had to say about the 6th and 7th senses, although it also made me sad.
John says
whaddayamean: Now I’m going to really be embarrassed — no, I have not read it. YET, not that that’s a real defense. I’ve been meaning for decades to read it; it’s one of my kid sister’s favorite books. (Used to be, anyhow, although I don’t think she’s mentioned it recently.)
A brief ramble around the Interwebs turned up an extended quotation, about the seventh sense (haven’t found much about the sixth yet). Excerpt:
And then, speaking of Guenever:
To which I can think of little to say, except: whoa.
whaddayamean says
haha. exactly.
marta says
If I start copying every poem and excerpt you post that I find meaningful and worth remembering, I shall soon have papered my entire apartment.
And now I have another book on my list–Watts’ “The Book.”
I read the Once and Future King in high school, though I should read it again because I can’t possibly have appreciated it.
John says
marta: A real complication in coming up with all those poems and excerpts is… I worry that I’m re-using favorites. I don’t go back and check to see if Poem X is a repeat from a post a couple years ago, or even last week. But I must say I like the idea of an apartment, even just a room, papered with them all.
A favorite college professor had subscribed to The New Yorker for years; she once told me she’d papered a spare bathroom with NYer covers and (I think) periodically stripped and re-covered the walls with fresh ones. This inspired me to save the covers of all the issues I received, although I was never so practical as to actually use them. I’ve just got folders of NYer covers lying around, dating back to the 1970s. In this respect (not to say others), I probably long ago crossed the line between charming eccentricity and superstitious compulsion.
whaddayamean: The most haunting line in those excerpts: It is difficult to imagine her. Not least because White then proceeds, utterly virtuoso-style, to do just that.
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
WHOA is right – you’ve never read “The Once and Future King? To say I ‘m stunned is a serious understatement. But a fine revelation nonetheless and makes certain other manuscripts of yours take on even more impressive stature, IMHO, for having NOT read it.
Now the other senses beyond 5, you really need to check out my favorite architect’s (Charles Moore) writings in Body, Memory and Architecture on “Haptic Systems”, and their external references, too (Aristotle and the work of J.J. Gibson to name two). It’s far less poetic in the conventional notion of poetry, but makes a quite convincing call for respect for those other senses in knowing who we are, where we are, at any moment in time and how to best embrace this in making space. Without the senses beyond the 5, great Architecture (yes, capital ‘A’) probably couldn’t exist.
I would bet that the Haptic Sense is strong in Terry Gilliam from familiarity with all his stuff: Life of Brian, Jabberwocky, Brazil, Time Bandits, Baron M., The Fisher King (I bet HE read T.O.a.F.K.!). Combining that with Sigur Ros and the auditory was a brilliant linkage. Now as DJ Steve is a devout Sigur Ros fan, it’s also interesting to combine that sound with the Baron M. as a filmic enterprise, as I believe Steve also has an affinity for the Gilliam vision.
I remember renting Baron M. as a movie for a “nieces/nephews” weekend thingy once when they were all wee lads/lasses (was DJ Steve in that group?) and getting very curious looks from those wee lads/lasses as I was enjoying every second of the film. Maybe it was just that it was reallllllly long that they couldn’t stick with it. May suggest that Steve watch it again.
Thanks for the good diversion from MY norm.
John says
brudder: It turns out that Charles Moore’s Body, Memory, and Architecture is available in extended preview form on Google Books. The haptic sense seems similar to what I think is called “proprioception,” the inherent knowledge that you are one place and not another, surrounded by certain objects and environments but not others… except that the haptic sense involves touch. (I know you know all this, I’m just rattling on in my newfound knowledge.) There I found this:
And then this:
That last bit makes me wonder what Moore would make of the “experience your own phantom limb” experiment, which frankly blows my mind. (Really. I encourage anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about to read that page.)
And then there’s the question of Muppeteers, I guess they’re called — Jim Henson and his heirs, manipulating puppets’ bodies and mouths but not (directly) their hands, which are affixed to sticks and yet somehow manage to pick up and hold objects…
I can just see that moment with you and the niece/nephews. Ha!
The Querulous Squirrel says
Throughout the seventies and eighties my spouse would put on his series of Alan Watts cassettes like a Sunday sermon. We’d also listen to him on long car rides. His voice has that sort of soothing wisdom like Carl Sagan.
Nance says
JES, Q. Squirrel,
I love my Alan Watts CD’s, all of which are permanently loaded into my iPod. When the world gets crazy, I stuff those little ear pieces in and let Watts straighten it all back out again. I think I have all the lectures that his son released, which makes for many hours worth.
Watts and the wisdom of The Muppets; we need nothing more to make sense of the world.
John says
Squirrel: The college professor who introduced me to Watts had actually known him for a while. I never got a chance to press for details; all he told me was that AW was “very strange.” But it was said almost admiringly, not in derision.
A podcast (listen online or download as MP3) of at least some of his recordings is available here.
Nance: When the world gets crazy — you must listen to them a LOT. :)
cynth says
You have to believe me when I wrote back after your comment about not having read Once and Future King, but I swear I commented…I just don’t know where it went!! It’s such a lovely sad, enchanting, mind opening story, I hope you have a chance to read it soon.
And in what other place could you pair up the Muppets and Alan Watts.
I love reading these John!
John says
cynth: I would have been bitterly disappointed if you HADN’T commented on that “I’ve never read it” remark!
Watts and Muppets, right. Maybe I should start a new feature here. “Yes, boys and girls, it’s that time once again — time for another episode of [National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-style fluttering-lip drumroll] Running After My Attention Span!”