{"id":12041,"date":"2012-11-03T11:21:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T15:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=12041"},"modified":"2012-11-03T11:26:54","modified_gmt":"2012-11-03T15:26:54","slug":"everyday-sights-never-quite-seen-or-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/everyday-sights-never-quite-seen-or-remembered\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Sights, Never Quite Seen or Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Photo: “If they\u2019d only realized that the killer was right there in the crowd,” by Christopher Boffoli (from his book\/exhibition,\u00a0<\/em>Big Appetites<\/a>)]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

I once had a friend. He had been teaching a long time when I was just starting. He liked telling his students he’d seen them before. In another life, at another school, the same hairline, the same kid brother back home in eighth grade. In class, he gave them obituaries to read. And though we’re no longer close, here is consolation: I still believe in what he was up to: seeing if he could make them dizzy. Suggesting they write their way into or out of the disquieting facts he offered up. Offering the chance to find themselves breathless, to consider themselves a point on a circle falling and rising, falling\/drawn up, as the wheel moved, moves, is moving relentlessly on. He wanted them to feel conveyor<\/em> beneath their feet, when all along they’d assumed they were walking. To consider they might, somehow, for another, be a mark and a measure of vastness. A site…<\/p>\n

What does my friend want his students to say, what does he want them to stumble into, considering those obituaries? “Nothing in particular,” he’d answer, meaning “I have no plan.” No one thing in mind. Only for them to skid to a halt, to go breathlessly forth, for here is their chance to see: the patterns keep coming, all the lives theirs resemble — in the newspaper photo, the deceased at age twenty, the jaunty tilt of that head so like the tilt of their own. That they share the same name, the same birthday and interests. That the most basic, seismic events daily converge and include us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lia Purpura [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the Christian calendar, November 1st is the Feast of All Saints, a day honoring not only those who are known and recognized as enlightened souls, but more especially the unknowns, saints who walk beside us unrecognized down the millennia. In Buddhism, we honor the bodhisattvas — saints — who refuse enlightenment and return willingly to the wheel of karma to help other beings. Similarly, in Judaism, anonymous holy men pray the world from its well-merited destruction. We never know who is walking beside us, who is our spiritual teacher. That one — who annoys you so — pretends for a day that he’s the one, your personal Obi Wan Kenobi. The first of November is a splendid, subversive holiday.<\/p>\n

Imagine a hectic procession of revelers — the half-mad bag lady; a mumbling, scarred janitor whose ravaged face made the children turn away; the austere, unsmiling mother superior who seemed with great focus and clarity to do harm; a haunted music teacher, survivor of Auschwitz. I bring them before my mind’s eye, these old friends of my soul, awakening to dance their day. Crazy saints: but who knows what was home in the heart? This is the feast of those who tried to take the path, so clumsily that no one knew or noticed, the feast, indeed, of most of us…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Rose O’Reilley [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

All Hallow’s Eve<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the great silence of my favorite month,
\nOctober (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,
\nA clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),
\nI celebrated the standstill of time.<\/p>\n

The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:
\nAt the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.
\nBut I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.<\/p>\n

Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.
\nIt was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.<\/p>\n

I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.
\nA delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,
\nAnd dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Czeslaw Milosz [source<\/em><\/a> (2MB PDF)])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river:<\/em><\/p>\n

VII. Historical (The Bacchae)<\/strong>
\n(from\u00a0<\/em>Essay on Psychiatrists)<\/em><\/p>\n

Madness itself, as an idea, leaves us confused—
\nIncredulous that it exists, or cruelly facetious,
\nOr stricken with a superstitious awe as if bound<\/p>\n

By the lost cults of Trebizond and Pergamum …
\nThe most profound study of madness is found
\nIn the Bacchae of Euripides, so deeply disturbing<\/p>\n

That in Cambridge, Massachusetts the players
\nEvaded some of the strongest unsettling material
\nBy portraying poor sincere, fuddled, decent Pentheus<\/p>\n

As a sort of fascistic bureaucrat—but it is Dionysus
\nWho holds rallies, instills exaltations of violence,
\nWith his leopards and atavistic troops above law,<\/p>\n

Reason and the good sense and reflective dignity
\nOf Pentheus—Pentheus, humiliated, addled, made to suffer
\nAtrocity as a minor jest of the smirking God.<\/p>\n

When Bacchus\u2019s Chorus (who call him “most gentle”!) observe:
\n“Ten thousand men have ten thousand hopes; some fail,
\nSome come to fruit, but the happiest man is he<\/p>\n

Who gathers the good of life day by day”—as though
\nLife itself were enough—does that mean, to leave ambition?
\nAnd is it a kind of therapy, or truth? Or both?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Pinsky [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Whose Mouth Do I Speak With<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
\nHe worked in the woods and filled his pockets
\nwith golden chunks of pitch.
\nFor his children
\nhe provided this special sacrament
\nand we’d gather at this feet, around his legs,
\nbumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
\nOur skin would stick to Daddy’s gluey clothing
\nand we’d smell like Mumma’s Pine Sol.
\nWe had no money for store bought gum
\nbut that’s all right.
\nThe spruce gum
\nwas so close to chewing amber
\nas though in our mouths we held the eyes of Coyote
\nand how many other children had fathers
\nthat placed on their innocent, anxious tongue
\nthe blood of tree?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Suzanne Rancourt [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and (concerning mnemonomorphs — “someone who can manipulate memories”):<\/p>\n

The stories we could tell, the things no one ever remembers. It could make your head spin. But if you’ve had that strange feeling that you’re in a room and don’t know why, or felt that you should be doing something but can’t remember what, you can be pretty sure you’ve just had something erased. It doesn’t have to be big or anything, sometimes just a small part of a larger puzzle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died A Lot: A Thursday Next Novel<\/em>)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Aside, for regular readers:<\/strong> Yeah, this\u00a0whiskey river “Friday”<\/em> post is a day late. Blame it on our several days’ Internet outage here at home, which lasted through late yesterday. For what it’s worth, I have a feeling next Friday’s is going to be even… more different<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photo: “If they\u2019d only realized that the killer was right there in the crowd,” by Christopher Boffoli (from his book\/exhibition,\u00a0Big Appetites)] From\u00a0whiskey river: I once had a friend. He had been teaching a long time when I was just starting. He liked telling his students he’d seen them before. In another life, at another school, […]<\/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":[183,247,1393,250,5,36,251],"tags":[1045,1819,3249,3250,3251,3252,3253],"class_list":{"0":"post-12041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-czeslaw-milosz","14":"tag-jasper-fforde","15":"tag-christopher-boffoli","16":"tag-lia-purpura","17":"tag-mary-rose-oreilley","18":"tag-robert-pinsky","19":"tag-suzanne-rancourt","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-38d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041","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=12041"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12049,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041\/revisions\/12049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}