…the boxes lose.
[hat tip: Eschaton]
_____________________
P.S. A follow-up video is called “The box which Maru can’t enter.” Oh, yes, Maru can.
Make Your World
[Above: an image designed to induce binocular rivalry: an attempt by one’s senses to forge a single thing from two conflicting images. See here for instructions on how to use.]
From whiskey river:
When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one’s self? Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us — and then it flows back again. I know that a large part of myself is in the dresses I choose to wear. I have a great respect for things! One’s self — for other people — is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps — these things are all expressive.
(Henry James [source])
…and:
We have to recognize that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception.
(Terence McKenna [source])
…and:
Kneeling
Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.
(R. S. Thomas [source])
Looking for a Writing Prompt?
Long-time RAMH friend Marta has started a new blog. It’s based on something other writers may have thought, from time to time: I bet in another world I’d be appreciated more than I am in this one…!
Marta’s taken it a step further: writing the blog as if her famous-mirror-counterpart — called simply “M.” — were writing it.
[In the following paragraph, both “M.” and “Marta” are fictional characters. “Marta” may be based on the real Marta, but there are probably points of difference, too.]The entries so far have described how she, Marta, first learned of the existence of M.: the arrival — obviously through some rupture in the space-time continuum — of a fan letter, to M., in response to the latter’s most recently published title. An interesting twist: M.’s book is not a book which Marta never heard of. It’s from one of Marta’s own manuscripts, which she hasn’t yet shown to anyone. M. has also done usual blog-type posts, given that she’s a blindingly successful novelist of course. In the most recent, she recounts how her editor has helped her shop for a place to live on what appear to be the streets of Greenwich Village. And she’s acquired a stalker.
Marta — the real one — is enlisting interested readers and writers in creating the new blog. She’s called for them to write fan (or other) letters to M., as if they were people who know (of) her in this alternate universe… real letters, preferably handwritten (real-world Marta seems to love all paper artifacts).
To participate, just drop her a line via the comments at that new blog — called Famous in Another Universe, btw — or at her regular place, writing in the water, and she’ll work out the details with you.
And of course, taking part in this project or not, you may enjoy just reading along as it grows. Start here (the post called “The Wormhole and the Envelope”) and just click the “next post” links below each entry.
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P.S. I haven’t cleared any of the above with Marta, so for any number of reasons this post may not hang around for long. :)
Victims of Fashion (Men’s Department)
Someone, no doubt, has taken a census of active bloggers and other social-media types, focusing on gender. I don’t know what the breakdown might be; maybe I’m stereotyping at least one sex, if not both, but I would not be surprised to learn that more women than men contribute to the ebb and flow of online conversation.
And I’m not complaining, not at all. Totally fine with it—
Well, one little corner of human existence goes sadly unremarked upon because of the gender imbalance. And because (at least in the West) gender-based cultural constraints forbid discussion of it.
I speak, of course, of men’s underwear. I speak in particular of… The Slot.
What’s in a Song: Body and Soul (1)
It starts in silence. By the end, the singer has thrown him- or herself melodramatically, almost operatically on the mercy of a lost love. It’s drenched in self-pity, but was written for and first performed by a woman once dubbed “Hollywood’s first maneater.” One of its most famous covers includes no vocal at all, and barely follows the tune. And it’s gone on to become, arguably, the single most-recorded pop standard in history.
Finding something to say about “Body and Soul” isn’t hard. What’s hard is shutting off the tap.
—-
John W. “Johnny” Green was a Harvard economics graduate working on Wall Street at the cusp of the Great Depression — not a great place to be building a career at that supremely wrong moment of history. Luckily, he didn’t care much about economics; his real interest was in writing music. Indeed, in 1928, at age 19, he’d already co-written (with Gus Kahn and Carmen Lombardo) a hit Broadway song, “Coquette.” With his father-in-law’s encouragement, Green started to establish working relationships with other musicians in New York.And right about then, in 1929, British actress Gertrude Lawrence sashayed into his life.
Alas, I couldn’t think of a way to crowbar the story into this post. But while researching it, I came across a fascinating 2009 article at the Mail (UK) Online site, looking back at Lawrence’s life and career. The image presented in the first few paragraphs alone may be burned into my brain for years.
—-
Transparent, or Just Unseen? Silent, or Just Unheard?
[About the image: one of several models of “bubble buildings” available from French firm BubbleTree. I originally found this written up at the DesignSwan site.]
From whiskey river:
A Suite of Appearances / iv
In another time, we will want to know how the earth looked
Then, and were people the way we are now. In another time,
The records they left will convince us that we are unchanged
And could be at ease in the past, and not alone in the present.
And we shall be pleased. But beyond all that, what cannot
Be seen or explained will always be elsewhere, always supposed,
Invisible even beneath the signs — the beautiful surface,
The uncommon knowledge — that point its way. In another time,
What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted
To say that language is error, and all things are wronged
By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be
Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.
(Mark Strand)
…and:
I am pleased enough with the surfaces — in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child’s hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of a friend or lover, the silk of a girl’s thigh, the sunlight on the rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind — what else is there? What else do we need?
(Edward Abbey)
Emerging, Blinking, into the Sunlight
If you’ve been visiting RAMH for more than a few months, you probably know I’ve been a bit… distracted recently. And it’s probably going to happen again in a few weeks, when I again take up my rock hammer, rope, and lanterned helmet, wandering back into Seems to Fit for the Nth and final time.*
In the meantime, I’ve got some sprucing up to do — in the real world, for sure:
Heaps of printouts, notes (sticky and otherwise), fruit-and-grain-breakfast-bar wrappers, reference books, recorded but unlabeled CD-ROMs — all of that will vanish from within a dozen feet of my elbows. [Hmm. “Feet of my elbows” — now there’s a phrase I don’t think I’ve even seen before. And probably with good reason.] I’ll add things back into the daily home routine that I’d put aside; maybe I can again watch an occasional movie on a weeknight, and sleep in a little in the morning before getting ready for work. Maybe The Missus and I can play some cards. And maybe I can once again read for more than five minutes before dropping off to sleep.
I’ve also got some dusting and renewal to take care of around Running After My Hat. This won’t necessarily involve changing the look itself — replacing the “theme” — but I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve got a bunch of draft posts in the hopper on favorite but time-sucking topics, posts in the What’s in a Song and Perfect Moments categories especially.
(My erstwhile but long absent co-blogger has even knocked plaintively on my window a couple of times, signing to me through the glass, waggling granite fingers as though manipulating an invisible keyboard. He seems to long for personal expression.)
And finally, I’ll be trying to spend more time and care in visiting other people online. Yes, I know why I’ve been too preoccupied to do more than look through so many windows in passing. It couldn’t have been otherwise, and I won’t say I regret it, exactly. But I’ve missed the back-and-forth at some favorite blogs. It’s past time to go rapping on their windows, too.
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* Er, well, the Nth and final time of my own choosing. After which, others will start to chime in. They may have no suggestions at all, but I don’t count on it.
Getting Through the Day (and Knowing It)
[Image: xkcd.com #324. The image’s title attribute there says, “Sometimes the best fun looks like boredom.” (Click image to enlarge.)]
From whiskey river:
Questions Before Dark
Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?
(Jeanne Lohmann, from The Light of Invisible Bodies)
…and:
There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it. Between one point on the map and another point on the map, there was the being alone in the car in the rain. They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren’t any other people there wouldn’t be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. That is a very comforting thought when you are in the car in the rain at night alone, for then you aren’t you, and not being you or anything, you can really lie back and get some rest. It is a vacation from being you. There is only the flow of the motor under your foot spinning that frail thread of sound out of its metal gut like a spider, that filament, that nexus, which isn’t really there, between the you which you have just left in one place and the you which you will be when you get to the other place.
(Robert Penn Warren, from All the King’s Men [source])
Midweek Music Break: Jazzy Joni
Joni Mitchell, or so I thought around the time I first heard of her, epitomized the sweet-and-fragile visuals of hippie-folk culture.
(With her long straight blonde hair, oh-so-slender frame and a voice to match, with her acoustic guitar and simple attire, she seemed a Mary Travers wannabe — maybe her gawky delicate second or third cousin, who admired her from a distance at family reunions and weddings.)
Sometimes her songs seemed to come out of that culture, too, especially the hits like “Both Sides Now” and “Big Yellow Taxi.” They cemented (in my mind) the image of a dreamy mystic tinged with social consciousness. I saw her in person in 1969, at the Atlantic City Pop Festival held a couple weeks before Woodstock; that restive crowd, especially in the context of her preference for small clubs, drove her from the stage in tears before she’d even finished a single song. (I vaguely remember thinking something adolescent-male shallow like, What the heck is her problem?!?) Obviously — obviously — she was way too delicate and inconsequential to have much staying power in the rough-and-tumble of rock…
Haha. Yeah, I know: what a jerk.
Eventually it sank in that her songs were complex little bundles of sound and sense, which only seemed simple if, like me, you had never really listened to them. Even when it’s just her and her guitar or piano, she interacts with her music, plays with it, responds to it — especially when she moves out of contemplative mode, relaxes, and takes up the rhythms of jazz.
Her first song which hit me that way was “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio,” from 1972’s For the Roses. The grinning-over-her-shoulder, winking lilt fits the lyrics like a saddle. “If your head says forget it / But your heart’s still smoking”: oh, what I’d give to have written such a poised, nuanced line!
[Below, click Play button to begin You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:39 long.]
[audio:youturnmeonimaradio_jonimitchell.mp3|titles=’You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio’|artists=Joni Mitchell]
Lyrics:
You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio
(Joni Mitchell)If you’re driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who’s bound to love youOh honey you turn me on
I’m a radio
I’m a country station
I’m a little bit corny
I’m a wildwood flower
Waving for you
Broadcasting tower
Waving for youAnd I’m sending you out
This signal here
I hope you can pick it up
Loud and clear
I know you don’t like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don’t like strong women
‘Cause they’re hip to your tricksIt’s been dirty for dirty
Down the line
But you know
I come when you whistle
When you’re loving and kindBut if you’ve got too many doubts
If there’s no good reception for me
Then tune me out, ’cause honey
Who needs the static
It hurts the head
And you wind up cracking
And the day goes dismalFrom “Breakfast Barney”
To the sign-off prayer
What a sorry face you get to wear
I’m going to tell you again now
If you’re still listening thereIf you’re driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who’s bound to love youIf you’re lying on the beach
With the transistor going
Kick off the sandflies honey
The love’s still flowing
If your head says forget it
But your heart’s still smoking
Call me at the station
The lines are open
Not “The End,” But Maybe The End
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