{"id":18924,"date":"2017-02-10T06:02:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T11:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18924"},"modified":"2017-02-10T06:02:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T11:02:12","slug":"at-the-corner-of-imagined-and-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/at-the-corner-of-imagined-and-real\/","title":{"rendered":"At the Corner of Imagined and Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Time Traveler,” by user PINK\u00c9 on Flickr.com<\/a>. (Used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you<\/span>).) The photographer’s caption: “Chuck used his time machine to travel back in time. He was shocked to discover there wasn’t any air conditioning. He was glad to get back. July 2013.” Chuck seems to have had many adventures<\/a> in geography, although as far as I can tell this has been his only one in time.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (italicized lines):<\/p>\n

On Velvet Turf<\/strong><\/p>\n

I dash outdoors so I will know<\/em>
\na little more about the day—<\/em>
\nI stride forth filled with the whiff.<\/em>
\nWhat’s to know is always a little to the left,<\/em>
\ndeep in the vine-covered hole of a hedgehog down<\/em>
\nby the mossy stump. If something is impaled down there<\/em>
\nI want to know. I don’t mind throwing myself<\/em>
\ninto the cistern of the Middle Ages.<\/em>
\nWho knows, here once the embattled farmers stood,
\ntheir gallant foreheads broadly glistening.
\nI’ve read whole books standing up naked.
\nI’ve bragged all my life of the glories
\nI had in common with the rest of the world,
\nglories that fled through the windfields
\nand raked rivers, through the sere leaves
\nof the trees—
\nnow that the broken gravy boat will sail no more
\nand the electric fence electrify no one,
\nnow that the crepitating<\/span> rain has come
\nand the winter lilt departed, it is time
\nto come out of my hole—
\nthough the stars take me back
\nmore than I am willing to admit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Ruefle [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Art alone makes life possible—this is how radically I should like to formulate it. I would say that without art man is inconceivable in physiological terms. There is a certain materialist doctrine which claims that we can dispense with mind and with art because man is just a more or less highly developed mechanism governed by chemical processes. I would say man does not consist only of chemical processes, but also of metaphysical occurrences. The provocateur<\/em> of the chemical processes is located outside the world. Man is only truly alive when he realizes he is a creative, artistic being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Joseph Beuys [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Imaginary Countries: The Real World<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the real world
\nlovers part at morning with a kiss
\nand look back longingly
\nbefore they pass from sight.<\/p>\n

They go insouciant to work
\nand smile at times;
\ntheir life’s Vivaldi.<\/p>\n

Others bring what poetry they can into a life
\nby counting days
\nuntil employment comes again.
\nThey look at cherries in the fruit store and imagine
\nbiting in. They look so good.<\/p>\n

Children break from singing in the drill hall,
\nburst outside to toss their frisbees in the park.
\nA boy plays Satie on the piano;
\ntwo Americans embrace
\nas traffic whispers up the drive.
\nThey are embarking for the real world’s farthest shore.<\/p>\n

In the real world
\nsomeone signs petitions
\nevery moment, tidies other people\u2019s trash
\nand greets another who is loved by someone else.
\nThis is how the real world copes with being economics,
\nmathematics and ecology and botany
\nand waiting for the bus.<\/p>\n

Costumed people earn their living slipping
\nfrom the real world to persuade us to buy moon-cakes,
\nsupple skin and perfect hair.
\nWe smile to see them aping us.<\/p>\n

Gymnorhina tibicen<\/em><\/span> swoops low and boasts her turf:
\nthe children run and shout out, ‘Magpie’
\nwhile the bird recalls the day in mimic song;
\norder then restored, she dines alfresco on their scraps.<\/p>\n

And while we watch Magritte’s sky turn El Greco,
\nroofs de Chirico beneath the plastic clouds,
\na plane is pasted on a sudden patch of blue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and (italics in original):<\/p>\n

…as soon as we renounce fiction and illusion, we lose reality itself; the moment we subtract fictions from reality, reality itself loses its discursive-logical consistency<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Slavoj \u017di\u017eek [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Dreams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the geologists’ knowledge and craft,
\nmocking magnets, graphs, and maps—
\nin a split second the dream
\npiles before us mountains as stony
\nas real life.<\/p>\n

And since mountains, then valleys, plains
\nwith perfect infrastructures.
\nWithout engineers, contractors, workers,
\nbulldozers, diggers, or supplies—
\nraging highways, instant bridges,
\nthickly populated pop-up cities.<\/p>\n

Without directors, megaphones, and cameramen—
\ncrowds knowing exactly when to frighten us
\nand when to vanish.<\/p>\n

Without architects deft in their craft,
\nwithout carpenters, bricklayers, concrete pourers—
\non the path a sudden house just like a toy,
\nand in it vast halls that echo with our steps
\nand walls constructed out of solid air.<\/p>\n

Not just the scale, it’s also the precision—
\na specific watch, an entire fly,
\non the table a cloth with cross-stitched flowers,
\na bitten apple with teeth marks.<\/p>\n

And we—unlike circus acrobats,
\nconjurers, wizards, and hypnotists—
\ncan fly unfledged,
\nwe light dark tunnels with our eyes,
\nwe wax eloquent in unknown tongues,
\ntalking not with just anyone, but with the dead.<\/p>\n

And as a bonus, despite our own freedom,
\nthe choices of our heart, our tastes,
\nwe’re swept away
\nby amorous yearnings for—
\nand the alarm clock rings.<\/p>\n

So what can they tell us, the writers of dream books,
\nthe scholars of oneiric signs and omens,
\nthe doctors with couches for analyses—
\nif anything fits,
\nit’s accidental,
\nand for one reason only,
\nthat in our dreamings,
\nin their shadowings and gleamings,
\nin their multiplings, inconceivablings,
\nin their haphazardings and widescatterings
\nat times even a clear-cut meaning
\nmay slip through.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Wislawa Szymborska; translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

#4<\/a>:<\/strong> Human memory has little to do with what has happened. Mostly, it records what has been imagined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES, Maxims for Nostalgists<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Time Traveler,” by user PINK\u00c9 on Flickr.com. (Used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you).) The photographer’s caption: “Chuck used his time machine to travel back in time. He was shocked to discover there wasn’t any air conditioning. He was glad to get back. July 2013.” Chuck seems to have had many adventures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18927,"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":"Szymborska, Ruefle, Beuys, et al: 'At the Corner of Imagined and Real'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,405,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[442,583,921,1615,1737,2861,3075,3285,4491,4492],"class_list":{"0":"post-18924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-nature","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-dogs","15":"tag-fantasy","16":"tag-wislawa-szymborska","17":"tag-reality","18":"tag-small-dogs","19":"tag-michael-sharkey","20":"tag-mary-ruefle","21":"tag-maxims-for-nostalgists","22":"tag-slavoj-zizek","23":"tag-joseph-beuys","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/timetraveler_chuck_pinke_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C426&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Ve","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18924","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=18924"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18938,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18924\/revisions\/18938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}