{"id":11726,"date":"2012-09-07T11:10:23","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T15:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11726"},"modified":"2012-09-07T11:10:23","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T15:10:23","slug":"good-heavens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/good-heavens\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Heavens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7aZl-uBcufM?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: Rita Wilson discusses why a movie whose emotional peak involves the Empire State<br \/>\nBuilding is beautiful; Tom Hanks and Vincent Garber prefer a more&#8230; <\/em>prosaic<em> sort of beauty.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From\u00a0<a title=\"whiskey river: excerpt from 'The Blue Bouquet,' a story by Octavio Paz\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/i-thought-that-world-was-vast-system-of.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (italicized portion):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I shrugged my shoulders, muttered &#8220;back soon,&#8221; and plunged into the darkness. At first I couldn&#8217;t see anything. I fumbled along the cobblestone street. I lit a cigarette. Suddenly the moon appeared from behind a black cloud, lighting a white wall that was crumbled in places. I stopped, blinded by such whiteness. Wind whistled slightly. I breathed the air of the tamarinds. The night hummed, full of leaves and insects. Crickets bivouacked in the tall grass. I raised my head: up there the stars too had set up camp. <em>I thought that the universe was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket&#8217;s saw, the star&#8217;s blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?<\/em> I threw my cigarette down on the sidewalk. Falling, it drew a shining curve, shooting out brief sparks like a tiny comet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Octavio Paz [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Selected Poems,' by Octavio Paz (translated by Eliot Weinberger)\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=b_EgaARVgNYC&amp;pg=PA12#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'The Ant,' by Robert Bly\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/you-and-i-have-spent-so-many-hours.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The Ant<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The ant moves on his tiny Sephardic feet.<br \/>\nThe flute is always glad to repeat the same note.<br \/>\nThe ocean rejoices in its dusky mansion.<\/p>\n<p>Often bears are piled up close to each other.<br \/>\nIn their world it\u2019s just one hump after another.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s like looking at piles of many melons.<\/p>\n<p>You and I have spent so many hours working.<br \/>\nWe have paid dearly for the life we have.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s all right if we do nothing tonight.<\/p>\n<p>I am so much in love with mournful music<br \/>\nThat I don&#8217;t bother to look for violinists.<br \/>\nThe aging peepers satisfy me for hours.<\/p>\n<p>I love to see the fiddlers tuning up their old fiddles,<br \/>\nAnd the singer urging the low notes to come.<br \/>\nI saw her trying to keep the dawn from breaking.<\/p>\n<p>You and I have worked hard for the life we have.<br \/>\nBut we love to remember the way the soul leaps<br \/>\nOver and over into the lonely heavens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Robert Bly [<a title=\"The Atlantic (July\/August, 2010): 'The Ant,' by Robert Bly\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2010\/07\/the-ant\/308124\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from\u00a0<em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Taken all in all, the sky is a miraculous achievement. It works and for what it is designed to accomplish it is as infallible as anything in nature. I doubt whether any of us could think of a way to improve on it, beyond maybe shifting a local cloud from here to there on occasion. The word &#8220;chance&#8221; does not serve to account well for structures of such magnificence. There may have been elements of luck in the emergence of chloroplasts, but once these things were on the scene, the evolution of the sky became absolutely ordained. Chance suggests alternatives, other possibilities, different solutions. This may be true for gills and swimbladders and forebrains, matters of detail, but not for the sky. There was simply no other way to go.<\/p>\n<p>We should credit it for its sheer size and perfection of function, it is far and away the grandest product of collaboration in all of nature. It breathes for us, and it does another thing for our pleasure. Each day, millions of meteorites fall against the outer limits of the membrane and are burned to nothing by the friction. Without this shelter, our surface would long since have become the pounded powder of the moon. Even though our receptors are not sensitive enough to hear it, there is comfort in knowing that the sound is there overhead, like the random noise of rain on the roof at night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Lewis Thomas [<a title=\"scribd.com: 'Lives of a Cell,' by Lewis Thomas\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/56413568\/lives-of-a-cell#page=81\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Even as a child, [Pellegrino] said, he knew he belonged up in the sky, not on the ground, and I quote: &#8220;&#8230;just as a fish flopping on a riverbank knows it belongs in the water.&#8221; As soon as he was old enough, he went up in the sky at the controls of all sorts of airplanes, from World War I Jennies to commercial transports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I felt like an invader, an alien up there, tearing up the sky with my propellers, dirtying it up with my noise and exhaust,&#8221; he went on. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t go up in a balloon until I was thirty-five. That was a dream came true. That was Heaven, and I was alive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I became the sky.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(from an &#8220;interview&#8221; by Kurt Vonnegut of the late <a title=\"New York Times (April 5, 1999): obituary for Peter Pellegrino, balloonist\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1999\/04\/05\/us\/peter-pellegrino-82-authority-on-ballooning.html\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Pellegrino<\/a>, a famous balloonist [<a title=\"Google Books: 'God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian,' by Kurt Vonnegut (note: this excerpt not previewable)\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/God_Bless_You_Dr_Kevorkian.html?id=zLBjx5fQvfwC\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Once, Driving West of Billings, Montana<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I ran into the afterlife.<br \/>\nNo fluffy white clouds. Not even stars. Only sky<br \/>\ndark as the inside of a movie theater<br \/>\nat three in the afternoon and getting bigger all the time,<br \/>\nexpanding at terrific speed<br \/>\nover the car which was disappearing,<br \/>\nflattening out empty<br \/>\nas the fields on either side.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 12em;\">It was impossible to think<\/span><br \/>\nunder that rain louder than engines.<br \/>\nI turned off the radio to listen, let my head<br \/>\nfill up until every bone<br \/>\nwas vibrating&#8212;sky.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 8em;\">Twice, trees of lightning<\/span><br \/>\nbroke out of the asphalt. I could smell<br \/>\nthe highway burning. Long after, saw blue smoke twirling<br \/>\nbehind the eyeballs, lariats<br \/>\ndoing fancy rope tricks, jerking silver<br \/>\ndollars out of the air, along with billiard cues, ninepins.<\/p>\n<p>I was starting to feel I could drive forever<br \/>\nwhen suddenly one of those trees was right in front of me.<br \/>\nOf course, I hit it&#8212;<br \/>\nbranches shooting stars down the windshield,<br \/>\npoor car shaking like a dazed cow.<br \/>\nI thought this time for sure I was dead<br \/>\nso whatever was on the other side had to be eternity.<\/p>\n<p>Saw sky enormous as nowhere. Kept on driving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Susan Mitchell [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'Oce, Driving West of Billings, Montana,' by Susan Mitchell\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/177804\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Frankly, I was so entranced &#8220;seeing&#8221; that I did not think about the sight. If there was a subconscious thought of it, it was in the nature of gratitude to God for having given the blind seeing minds. As I now recall the view I had from the Empire Tower, I am convinced that, until we have looked into darkness, we cannot know what a divine thing vision is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I will concede that my guides saw a thousand things that escaped me from the top of the Empire Building, but I am not envious. For imagination creates distances and horizons that reach to the end of the world. It is as easy for the mind to think in stars as in cobble-stones. Sightless Milton dreamed visions no one else could see. Radiant with an inward light, he send forth rays by which mankind beholds the realms of Paradise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Helen Keller, on what she &#8220;saw&#8221; from the top of the Empire State Building [<a title=\"Letters of Note: Helen Keller, on 'seeing' from the Empire State Building\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lettersofnote.com\/2012\/03\/empire-state-building.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: Rita Wilson discusses why a movie whose emotional peak involves the Empire State Building is beautiful; Tom Hanks and Vincent Garber prefer a more&#8230; prosaic sort of beauty.] From\u00a0whiskey river (italicized portion): I shrugged my shoulders, muttered &#8220;back soon,&#8221; and plunged into the darkness. At first I couldn&#8217;t see anything. I fumbled along the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,95,53,251],"tags":[1395,1595,2023,2340,3170,3171,3173,3174,3175],"class_list":{"0":"post-11726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-science-medicine","9":"category-movies-media","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"tag-robert-bly","12":"tag-octavio-paz","13":"tag-lewis-thomas","14":"tag-kurt-vonnegut","15":"tag-sleepless-in-seattle","16":"tag-the-sky","17":"tag-susan-mitchell","18":"tag-heaven","19":"tag-empire-state-building","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-338","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11726"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11742,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726\/revisions\/11742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}