Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

Cold. Delicious. Illusory.

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[Image: “On Ice,” by Michael Pardo. (Found on Flickr; using it here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) As the title suggests, this is not a high-speed photo of water splashing, but (as the photographer says) a “strange formation” in his freezer. He adds: “This one looks a bit like a supine gecko holding an Allen key in its foot.” Not sure I get the gecko, but the Allen key: yeah!]

From whiskey river:

Happiness

A state you must dare not enter
with hopes of staying,
quicksand in the marshes, and all

the roads leading to a castle
that doesn’t exist.
But there it is, as promised,

with its perfect bridge above
the crocodiles,
and its doors forever open.

(Stephen Dunn [source])

…and:

I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution. I think of love as a force of nature — as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.

(Jeanette Winterson [source])

…and:

We’re told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It’s possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there’s nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution.

(Arundhati Roy [source])

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Pareidolia

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[Image: “Different perspective,” by Carlos ZGZ; found on Flickr, and of course used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!).]

From whiskey river:

We must assume our existence as broadly as we in any way can; everything, even the unheard-of, must be possible in it. That is at the bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm; the experiences that are called “visions,” the whole so called “spirit-world,” death, all those things that are so closely akin to us, have by daily paring been so crowded out of life that the senses with which we could have grasped them are atrophied….

For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed; it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence.

(Rainer Maria Rilke [source])

…and (from whiskey river’s commonplace book):

The Buddha described what we call “self” as a collection of aggregates—elements of mind and body—that function interdependently, creating the appearance of a woman or a man. We then identify with that image or appearance, taking it to be “I” or “mine,” imagining it to have some inherent self-existence. For example we get up in the morning, look in the mirror, recognize the reflection, and think, “Yes, that’s me again.” We then add all kinds of concepts to this sense of self: I’m a woman or a man, I’m a certain age, I’m a happy or unhappy person—the list goes on and on.

When we examine our experience, though, we see that there is not some core being to whom experience refers; rather it is simply “empty phenomena rolling on.” It is “empty” in the sense that there is no one behind the arising and changing phenomena to whom they happen. A rainbow is a good example of this. We go out after a rainstorm and feel that moment of delight if a rainbow appears in the sky. Mostly, we simply enjoy the sight without investigating the real nature of what is happening. But when we look more deeply, it becomes clear that there is no “thing” called “rainbow” apart from the particular conditions of air and moisture and light.

Each one of us is like that rainbow—an appearance, a magical display, arising out of our various elements of mind and body.

(Joseph Goldstein [source])

…and:

235

Here’s a message for the faithful
what is it that you cherish
to find the Way to see your nature
your nature is naturally so
what Heaven bestows is perfect
looking for proof leads you astray
leaving the trunk to search among the twigs
all you get is stupid

(Han Shan [source])

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Within the Darkness, the Close and the Holy

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[Image: “Guitarball (Holiday Linux Joke),” by John E. Simpson; #814 (December 19, 2019) in my #everydaybandw series. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

(A very quickly assembled post this week; holiday-travel day for me!)

From whiskey river:

The Word

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,

but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.

(Tony Hoagland [source])

…and:

Go back to knowing that it is simple. The fun is in the busy-ness as long as it’s fun for you. And when you see that it’s just more of the same stories, all about “me,” drop it. You can observe what goes on benignly, but keep going. From the position of observer, take that last step. Who’s the one observing ? Go there. Who is that ultimate, absolute observer, where “seeing itself” arises? Let attention rest there. Let it be ok that nothing has happened. Let the show be over, let the movie, the story of “I” as an individual person, be over. And see what happens. Truth will reveal itself, absolute clarity of how this matrix works, will show itself to be no more than a matrix. And somehow, a capacity to enjoy what ever is unfolding is always there. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to have good health, you don’t have to do it before your body dies, it’s got nothing to do with anything: it’s right now, place your attention behind any stories, any concepts. From there, freedom arises, beauty arises, love arises. But don’t take my word for it, do it. And prove me wrong, I’d be delighted. I’ll take on that challenge any day. Do it and find out. So blessings on all of us, who are pretending to be human.

(Jac O’Keeffe [source])

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That Time of the Year, That Time of Your Life

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[Image: “Christmas Shopping 216 (DuPage Children’s Museum),” by Michael Kappel. (Found on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)]

From whiskey river:

Rule 8:
…for a Better Way to Live

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow.

(Og Mandino [source])

…and:

The Christmas Letter

Wherever you are when you receive this letter
I write to say we are still ourselves
In the same place
And hope you are the same.

The dead have died as you know
And will never get better,
And the children are boys and girls
of their several ages and names.

So in closing I send you our love
And hope to hear from you soon.
There is never a time
Like the present. It lasts forever
Wherever you are. As ever I remain.

(John N. Morris [source: nothing canonical; earliest other citation I could find is here — but evidently appeared in the poet’s collection, The Glass Houses])

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A Quirky Eclectic Christmas Mix (2019 Ed.)

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[Video: “Santa Claus Is Watching You,” by Ray Stevens. (Lyrics here and elsewhere.) Among its charms, the song has Santa’s sleigh towed not by eight, but by about two dozen reindeer, not all of them likely to be tiny. Rudolph isn’t among them, having been tasked with a surveillance project.]

Want to visit the pages for earlier playlists, which include videos, other songs, and some background material not in the “official” current list? Here y’go:

2008 2009
2010 2011
2012 2013
2014 2015
2016 2017
2018    

Welcome! Please dip your head when passing below the tacked-up greenery overhead here in the foyer — I’ve worked forever on that, and it just won’t stay in place…

As always beginning in 2008, I’ve added ten new songs; the list therefore now includes 120 songs (well, the first just a scrap of dialogue). Total time required to listen to the whole thing, start-to-finish: now around six-and-a-half hours of music. This means that — unless you’re interested in only this year’s ten — the best way to play the whole thing is in random order, as background so to speak. Then you can just close this window.

Yes, I know, bloggers are not really known for their eagerness to see you out the door. Consider it a holiday treat from me (heh).

So, first, here’s the complete playlist, presented in random order. Note: you can open it in a pop-out window by clicking (duh) the little “Popout” button at the top left (that’s the way to go, in my opinion) and if you don’t like this random order, just reload the page:  

…or, if you’re in a hurry, here are the ten 2019 selections only. Unlike the complete list, this player just runs through the songs in sequential order:

In either case, or even if you don’t want to listen at all, you might want to glance at the complete current list of song titles and performers. (Note: this is just a listing; you cannot play music from it.)

If you’re interested in why I recommend the random order, you can always check the 2018 post; it lays out my reasons in probably excruciating detail.

Enough of the mechanics, already: on to some thoughts which this year’s list engendered…

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Seeing It Whole, Savoring It Small

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[Image: “Athena’s Annex,” by John E. Simpson; #802 (December 8, 2019) in my #everydaybandw series. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

From whiskey river:

Early Morning In Your Room

It’s morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasplike
Coffee grinder, the neighbors still asleep.
The gray light as you pour gleaming water—
It seems you’ve traveled years to get here.

Finally you deserve a house. If not deserve
It, have it; no one can get you out. Misery
Had its way, poverty, no money at least.
Or maybe it was confusion. But that’s over.

Now you have a room. Those lighthearted books:
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Kafka’s Letter
to his Father, are all here. You can dance
With only one leg, and see the snowflake falling

With only one eye. Even the blind man
Can see. That’s what they say. If you had
A sad childhood, so what? When Robert Burton
Said he was melancholy, he meant he was home.

(Robert Bly [source])

…and (italicized portion):

Marrying, founding a family, accepting all the children that come, supporting them in this insecure world and even guiding them a little as well, is, I am convinced, the utmost a human being can succeed in doing at all. That seemingly so many succeeded in this is no evidence to the contrary, for, first, there are not many who do, in fact, succeed, and secondly, these not-many usually don’t “do” it, it merely “happens” to them; although this is not that Utmost, yet it is still very great and very honorable (particularly since “doing” and “happening” cannot be kept clearly distinct), And finally, it is not a matter of this Utmost at all, anyway, but only of some distant but decent approximation; it is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.

(Franz Kafka, Letter to my Father [source])

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Sightings in a Fractal Mirror

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[Image: “Self Described and Self Defined (1965) – Joseph Kosuth (1947)”; photograph by Pedro Ribeiro Simões of the work so titled. (Found the photo at Flickr, and use it here via a Creative Commons license — thank you!) Kosuth‘s contribution to this photo is the neon “sign” spelling out its own title; the photographer’s, as nearly as I can tell, is the double, not-quite-self-referential layer of photograph superimposed on it: it’s one of those “pictures of someone taking a picture of someone else.” This would be such a dull photo if the wall behind the woman were blank — or displayed almost any other work of art!]

From whiskey river (italicized passage):

What gets called “the sixties” left a mixed legacy and a lot of divides. But it opened everything to question, and what seems most fundamental and most pervasive about all the ensuing changes is a loss of faith in authority: the authority of government, of patriarchy, of progress, of capitalism,of violence, of whiteness. The answers—the alternatives—haven’t always been clear or easy, but the questions and the questioning are nevertheless significant. What’s most important here is to feel the profundity of the changes, to feel how far we have come from that moment of Cold War summer. We inhabit, in ordinary daylight, a future that was unimaginably dark a few decades ago, when people found the end of the world easier to envision than the impending changes in everyday roles, thoughts, practices that not even the wildest science fiction anticipated. Perhaps we should not have adjusted to it so easily. It would be better if we were astonished every day.

(Rebecca Solnit [source])

…and:

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

(Stanley Kunitz [source])

…and (from whiskey river’s commonplace book):

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when you find out that something is not what you thought. Nothing is what we thought. Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear. Compassion. Love. Courage. These are code words for things we don’t know in our minds, but any of us could experience. These words point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment.

(Pema Chödrön [source])

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What We Think We Want, and What the World Thinks About That

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[Image: photo by Pedro Ribeiro Simões of a portion of an exhibit (2015-16) at Lisbon’s Centro Cultural de Belem, by Colombian artist Nicolás Paris. The exhibit was called Four variations on nothing or talking about that which has no name, which — depending on your point of view — might say everything or nothing, or, really, anything in between. Quite a title, eh? (Found the photo on Flickr, naturally enough, and use it here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)]

From whiskey river:

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed.

If you, not just you in this room tonight but in all the thousands of other rooms like this one about the world today and tomorrow and next week, will do this, not as a class or classes, but as but individuals, men and women, you will change the earth.

In one generation, all the Napoleons and Hitlers and Caesars and Mussolinis and Stalins, and all the other tyrants who want power and aggrandizement, and all the simple politicians and time-servers who themselves are merely baffled or ignorant or afraid, who have used, or are using, or hope to use, man’s fear and greed for man’s enslavement, will have vanished from the face of it.

(William Faulkner [source])

…and:

If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows.

And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge.

(Hannah Arendt [source])

…and:

What We Want

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

(Linda Pastan [source])

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Multiplicative Wonder

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[Image: “Stuttering Flashmob,” by John E. Simpson; #741 (October 7, 2019) in my #everydaybandw series. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) No trick photography involved: this was just a glassed-in exhibit under construction at Epcot — I just turned around and there it was. Although it appears to show several reflections of the scene, there are really only two (see the light poles and tree trunks?) — all the others, I’m pretty sure, seem to be there just because there are a good number of human figures, close together and moving in the same direction.]

From whiskey river:

To Live in This World Requires

To live in this world requires
that you leave your house every morning
and step into the wind
Every morning: with all your memories
on file and the future pinned to some wall
you will have to build and tear down and
build again. If you get there. If. If.

Into the wind: first you walk the dog whose
blessed face belies the beast it is built upon
Millennia behind you, that beast enters a cave
and decides whether or not to kill a child sleeping
by a fire. It does not kill the child
because its heart has been surprised by love
Both softened and sharpened by it, inexplicably
Inexplicably, to this day

And on this day, the wind relents
The morning star lifts itself into a changeable sky
and you, carrying extra weight, wearing
last year’s clothes, start walking towards the train
Seeds that grew from ancient science digest in your stomach;
your bones begin to separate because science did not plan
this length of life; your heart slows down and you feel
the pressure of dragging a million, billion years
behind you. A million, billion lie ahead that you
will know nothing about

Thus, harnessed to time, facing the inevitable,
constructed by science and fed on inexplicable events
taking place somewhere in the middle of history,
your day goes by. Miles away, the ocean
murmurs to its own beloved creatures, a mountain
applies pressure to the weaving of a golden seam
And in your house, the dog wonders
if you will make it home again. And each day,
despite or because the performance of this feat
is both a mystery and a triumph, somehow
you will. You do

(Eleanor Lerman [source])

…and (from whiskey river’s commonplace book):

I have learned to be happy where I am. I have learned that locked within the moments of each day are all the joys, the peace, the fibers of the cloth we call life. The meaning is in the moment. There is no other way to find it. You feel what you allow yourself to feel, each and every moment of the day.

(Russ Berrie [no definitive source, but see here for one citation])

…and (italicized portion):

In the course of our development, red begins to attract public and private meanings to itself.

Red flag, red-light district, red-blooded, Red Cross, red herring, red-bait, red- eye, red man, red-hot, red-faced—these are all variations on a theme that goes far beyond the simple association of color and word. To make these images, we must pass the words through our own consciousness and particularity. And in this act of trying to know something else in its specificity, our own particularity is likewise revealed.

Some people fear seeing or feeling anything about which there is no general agreement. For others, it is thrilling to be aware of innuendo, shading, complexity. For those who do not wish to step away from consensus, the creative is useless at best; at worst, it is dangerous. But for those who are intrigued by the multiplicity of reality and the unique possibilities of their own vision, the creative is the path they must pursue.

(Deena Metzger [source])

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Poured Water, Struck Match

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[Image: “The Greatest Transformation in My Life,” by Irmeli Hasanen. (Found it on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!) The title of the photo is an excerpt from a quotation ascribed to William James. For more about this quotation, see the About the image note at the bottom of this post.]

From whiskey river:

Transformation

I haven’t written a single poem
in months.
I’ve lived humbly, reading the paper,
pondering the riddle of power
and the reasons for obedience.
I’ve watched sunsets
(crimson, anxious),
I’ve heard the birds grow quiet
and night’s muteness.
I’ve seen sunflowers dangling
their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman
had gone strolling through the gardens.
September’s sweet dust gathered
on the windowsill and lizards
hid in the bends of walls.
I’ve taken long walks,
craving one thing only:
lightning,
transformation,
you.

(Adam Zagajewski [source])

…and:

We all got holes in our lives. Nobody dies in a perfect garment. We all got to face the nothingness before us and behind. Call it sleep. We all begin in sleep and that’s where we find our end. Even in between, sleep keeps trying to claim us. To stay awake in life as much as possible—that may be the point…

Pain comes to us from deep back, from where it grew in the human body. Pain sucks more pain into it, we don’t know why. It lives and we harbor its weight. When the worst comes, we will not act the opposite. We will do what we were taught, we who learnt our lessons in the dead light. We pass them on. We hurt, and hurt others, in a circular motion…

There is no trace where we were. No arrows pointing to the place we’re headed. We are the trackless beat, the invisible light, the thought without a word to speak. Poured water, struck match. Before the nothing, we are the moment.

(Louise Erdrich [source])

…and (third stanza):

Leaves

1

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it’s not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony
isn’t lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it’s about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
the trees don’t die, they just pretend,
go out in style, and return in style: a new style.

2

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far
enough away from home to see not just trees
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks
like rain, or snow, but it’s probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder,
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the
most color last year, but it doesn’t matter since
you’re probably too late anyway, or too early—
whichever road you take will be the wrong one
and you’ve probably come all this way for nothing.

3

You’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won’t last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You’re on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won’t last, you don’t want it to last. You
can’t stand any more. But you don’t want it to stop.
It’s what you’ve come for. It’s what you’ll
come back for. It won’t stay with you, but you’ll
remember that it felt like nothing else you’ve felt
or something you’ve felt that also didn’t last.

(Lloyd Schwartz [source])

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