{"id":13022,"date":"2013-03-29T12:19:50","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T16:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=13022"},"modified":"2017-04-05T06:00:54","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T10:00:54","slug":"mysteries-of-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/mysteries-of-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysteries of Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Alternate-reality<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: a “mood board” generated by a team brainstorming the design of an alternate-reality game (ARG). Found it here<\/a>. Click to enlarge.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they ignite? We don’t know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Dillard [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Unwritten<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inside this pencil
\ncrouch words that have never been written
\nnever been spoken
\nnever been taught<\/p>\n

they’re hiding<\/p>\n

they’re awake in there
\ndark in the dark
\nhearing us
\nbut they won’t come out
\nnot for love not for time not for fire<\/p>\n

even when the dark has worn away
\nthey’ll still be there
\nhiding in the air
\nmultitudes in days to come may walk through them
\nbreathe them
\nbe none the wiser<\/p>\n

what script can it be
\nthat they won’t unroll
\nin what language
\nwould I recognize it
\nwould I be able to follow it<\/p>\n

to make out the real names
\nof everything<\/p>\n

maybe there aren’t
\nmany
\nit could be that there’s only one word
\nand it’s all we need
\nit’s here in this pencil<\/p>\n

every pencil in the world
\nis like this<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(W.S. Merwin [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday<\/em>
\nFigure out what to wear — white dress?
\nPut hair in bun
\nBake gingerbread for Sue
\nPeer out window at passersby
\nWrite poem
\nHide poem<\/p>\n

Tuesday<\/em>
\nWhite dress? Off-white dress?
\nFeed cats
\nChat with Lavinia
\nWork in garden
\nLetter to T.W.H.<\/p>\n

Wednesday<\/em>
\nWhite dress or what?
\nEavesdrop on visitors from behind door
\nWrite poem
\nHide poem<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/em>
\nTry on new white dress
\nGardening — watch out for narrow fellows in grass!
\nGingerbread, cakes, treats
\nPoems: Write and hide them<\/p>\n

Friday<\/em>
\nEmbroider sash for white dress
\nWrite poetry
\nWater flowers on windowsill
\nHide everything<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Andrea Carlisle [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

I have thought often of old Mary Macarthur, and of her dream of holy St. Bride, and of that older Brighid of the West, Mother of Songs and Music — she who breathes in the reed, on the wind, in the hearts of women and in the minds of poets. For I too have my dream, my memory of one whom as a child I called Star-Eyes, and whom, later, I called “Banmorair-na-mara,” the Lady of the Sea, and whom at last I knew to be no other than the woman that is in the heart of women. I was not more than seven when one day, by a well, near a sea-loch in Argyll, just as I was stooping to drink, my glancing eyes lit on a tall woman standing among a mist of wild-hyacinths under three great sycamores. I stood, looking, as a fawn looks, wild-eyed, unafraid. She did not speak, but she smiled, and because of the love and beauty in her eyes I ran to her. She stooped and lifted blueness out of the flowers as one might lift foam out of a pool, and I thought she threw it over me. When I was found, lying among the hyacinths, dazed, and, as was thought, ill, I asked eagerly after the lady in white and with hair “all shiny-gold like buttercups,” but when I found I was laughed at, or at last, when I passionately persisted, was told I was sun-dazed and had been dreaming, I said no more. But I did not forget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(“Fiona MacLeod” (pseudonym of William Sharp<\/a>) [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

He remembered a Chinese fable Ellen had once told him about a man who falls off a cliff, saves himself by clutching at a plant, and then notices that two mice are gnawing away the branch on which his life depends. There is a fruit growing on the branch, which the man plucks and eats. The fruit tastes wonderful.<\/p>\n

“How did the mice come to be halfway down a cliff in the first place?” he had asked her. “And why didn’t they eat the fruit themselves?”<\/p>\n

He couldn’t see the point of the story at all, but Ellen refused to explain.\u00a0“You must experience it,” was all she would say. “One day it\u2019ll suddenly hit you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Michael Dibdin [source<\/em><\/a>])
\n<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

I think I’ve always been a sucker for good<\/em> reimaginings: familiar stories (often mythic or epic in scale) reworked and remolded, sometimes into unrecognizability, by writers unafraid to monkey with tradition (often sacred) and talented enough to pull the whole thing off. The first time I became at all aware that such a practice existed, I think, the writers had tackled one of the biggest sacred epics of all in Western civilization, to produce\u00a0Jesus Christ Superstar<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Back then (1969-70) — in the days when the work hadn’t yet been staged or filmed, simply recorded as a double-LP rock opera — my experience might be described as “profane titillation.” I liked the music well enough. But I think what most hit me, embarking as I was upon the era of making my own decisions (and of course my own mistakes), was the little\u00a0frisson<\/em> of blasphemy surrounding the story as told therein. The writers had shifted the emphasis away from Jesus, towards Judas — not quite making of him a hero, but (to me) unquestionably\u00a0the protagonist. They overturned the only version of events I knew, practically by heart: the apostles had become a gang of goofy ne’er-do-wells, Mary Magdalene an unrequited lover, and Herod an almost unbearably witty interrogator.<\/p>\n

With time, though, I think my favorite thing about\u00a0Jesus Christ Superstar<\/em> is how its makers simply cut off the storyline at Jesus’s death. They took no side, ultimately, on the whole Easter story (which I can see, true, as either a cop-out or an act of bravery). Indeed, the last song on the album was a simple two-minute instrumental titled “John Nineteen Forty-One,” referring to a New Testament verse which goes like this (King James Version):<\/p>\n

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that was it.<\/p>\n\n

After all the sometimes raucous melodrama of preceding events, and the music written around them, this feels like closing on a breeze of fresh air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: a “mood board” generated by a team brainstorming the design of an alternate-reality game (ARG). Found it here. Click to enlarge.] From\u00a0whiskey river: We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is […]<\/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":[38,247,1393,74,5,251],"tags":[295,351,2227,3425,3426,3427,3428,3429,3430],"class_list":{"0":"post-13022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-music","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-annie-dillard","13":"tag-ws-merwin","14":"tag-mystery","15":"tag-parn","16":"tag-alternate-reality-games","17":"tag-andrea-carlisle","18":"tag-fiona-macleod","19":"tag-michael-dibdin","20":"tag-jesus-christ-superstar","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3o2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022","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=13022"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19023,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions\/19023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}