{"id":11656,"date":"2012-08-24T10:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11656"},"modified":"2012-08-24T07:54:41","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T11:54:41","slug":"alternative-seeings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/alternative-seeings\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative Seeings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: Rembrandt, <\/em>Portrait of Jan Six (etching, 1647). You can trace this etching’s progress\u00a0through<\/em>
\nseveral other versions — six, actually — using a little slideshow at the site of the Rijksmuseum<\/a> in Amsterdam.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river:<\/p>\n

Entrance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
\nOut of the room that lets you feel secure.
\nInfinity is open to your sight.
\nWhoever you are.
\nWith eyes that have forgotten how to see
\nFrom viewing things already too well-known,
\nLift up into the dark a huge, black tree
\nAnd put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
\nAnd you have made the world and all you see.
\nIt ripens like the words still in your mouth.
\nAnd when at last you comprehend its truth,
\nThen close your eyes and gently set it free.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Dana Gioia (after Rilke), from\u00a0Interrogations at Noon<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Elie Wiesel [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river:<\/p>\n

Entrance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whoever you are: in the evening\u00a0step
\nout of your room, where you know everything;
\nyours is the last house before the distant:
\nWhoever you are.
\nWith your eyes, which wearily
\njust free themselves of the worn-out threshold,
\nvery slowly you raise one black tree
\nand set it against the sky: slender, alone.
\nAnd you’ve made the world. And it’s immense
\nand like a word ripening in silence.
\nAnd as your will reaches for its meaning,
\ntenderly your eyes let let it go…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Six, Sex, Say<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you think they wanted sex?<\/em> asks the naive girl
\nin the film about a femme fatale<\/em> who betrays <\/span>
\njust about everyone stupid enough to get involved
\nwith her, but since they are in New Zealand <\/span>
\nit sounds like, Do you think they wanted six?<\/em>
\nwhich is another question altogether, <\/span>
\nand I know if I were doing drugs I would think
\nthis was possibly a key to unraveling <\/span>
\nthe mysteries of the universe, because six in French
\nis cease<\/em>, which could mean stop <\/span>
\nto one of another linguistic persuasion,
\nas in cease and desist, though it could mean six <\/span>
\nand desist, and you don\u2019t have to study the Kabbala
\nto know numbers are powerful, or how to explain <\/span>
\na system invented by Phoenician traders to keep track
\nof inventory being used by Einstein, <\/span>
\nDirac, Bohr to describe the mechanics of the universe,
\nand even the Marquis de Sade in his long exile <\/span>
\nin the Bastille and other dungeons invented
\na numerical code to hide his hideous imagination <\/span>
\nfrom the thought police in that particular patch
\nof hell. Six<\/em>, he might cry, but what would he mean, <\/span>
\nespecially if addressing his pregnant Italian
\nmistress, because six is s-e-i<\/em> in Italian, <\/span>
\npronounced say<\/em>. Say what?<\/em> you might say. Girlfriend,<\/em>
\nyou don\u2019t need drugs<\/em>, and you\u2019re absolutely right, <\/span>
\na conclusion I myself came to rather quickly,
\nbecause I\u2019m crossing the Alps now like Psyche<\/span>
\non Cupid\u2019s wings, and in German it\u2019s s-e-c-h-s<\/em> or sex again,
\nin other words, sex of one, half a dozen of another, <\/span>
\nwhich for not-so-unfathomable reasons recalls
\nRembrandt\u2019s etching of his friend Jan Six <\/span>
\nwho later became mayor of Amsterdam, a bustling port
\nin those days, and visited by one of the last ships <\/span>
\nto leave Japan before it closed itself to the outside
\nworld, and Rembrandt buying the final shipment <\/span>
\nof Japanese paper in the west for 200 years. I see
\nhim in his studio, counting each lovely sheet, <\/span>
\nJan Six perhaps in the next room smoking a pipe,
\nand I don\u2019t know what six is in Dutch<\/span>, <\/span>
\nbut it\u2019s taking its place in the circle of sixes
\ngirdling the globe, the Satanic triple six, <\/span>
\nthe two sixes in my college telephone number, the hidden
\nsixes in every deck of cards. Two plus four, <\/em><\/span>
\n three plus three<\/em>, chant the six-year-olds of the world,
\nall their sixes adding up to something, or why <\/span>
\nwould the psychic have told my friend
\nhe would never have any money until his address <\/span>
\nadded up to six, because six is the money number,
\nthe mysterious key to regeneration, <\/span>
\nif not the alpha then the omega, and I who am living
\nat 15 quai de Bourbon know that one and five are six, <\/span>
\ncease, sex, say, I\u2019m in the money, if the money
\nis Paris and I\u2019m a fool walking her golden streets.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Barbara Hamby [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

The Missus, The Pooch, and I will be on our way out of town by the time this post appears — for a long weekend at the Florida Atlantic coast. We’ve got a first-floor room in an oceanfront B&B, a room which faces the dunes. (This will be of interest primarily to The Missus; The Pooch and I tend to be creatures of shadow and artificial lighting; our ideal vocations, tour guides at, oh, say, Carlsbad Caverns.) We’re seriously toying with the idea of going computer-less for the next few days. A radical notion, on the face of it: we (the two humans, anyhow) are so invested in keyboards, displays, and CPUs, we may feel like we’re gripped in a three-day power outage…<\/p>\n

Maybe for obvious reasons, I had a feeling I might include “Under the Boardwalk” with today’s post (although there’s no boardwalk where we’ll be). What I didn’t know was that it was recorded not just by the Drifters, Tom Tom Club, Bruce Willis<\/em> for gods’ sake, and…\u00a0the Rolling Stones<\/em>. Say what?<\/p>\n