{"id":19489,"date":"2017-07-21T09:44:04","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T13:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19489"},"modified":"2017-07-21T09:44:04","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T13:44:04","slug":"in-the-spaces-scattered-among-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/in-the-spaces-scattered-among-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Spaces Scattered Among Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Self-Portrait: Me First, Safety Last #3<\/a>,” by user MattysFlicks on Flickr<\/a> (used here under a Creative Commons license; thank you!). This is actually a composite photo — multiple exposures: “one of the scene, one of myself with the hammer, one of my pried open eye while leaning over my workbench and a bunch of photos of a pair of safety glasses that I cut up using a pair of cable cutters and lineman’s pliers…\u00a0 I brought everything into Photoshop, assembled the scene, and added some motion blurs, some blood, an umbilical cord, and some babes.” The photographer has posted several more of these staged accidents at Flickr — each capturing an apparent split-second while actually requiring hours of in-between time.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Even in childhood I watched the hours flow, independent of any reference, any action, any event, the disjunction of time from what was not itself, its autonomous existence, its special status, its empire, its tyranny. I remember quite clearly that afternoon when, for the first time, confronting the empty universe, I was no more than a passage of moments reluctant to go on playing their proper parts. Time was coming unstuck from being—at my expense<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Emil Cioran [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Evening Talk<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything you didn’t understand
\nMade you what you are. Strangers
\nWhose eye you caught on the street
\nStudying you. Perhaps they were the all-seeing
\nIlluminati? They knew what you didn’t,
\nAnd left you troubled like a strange dream.<\/p>\n

Not even the light stayed the same.
\nWhere did all that hard glare come from?
\nAnd the scent, as if mythical beings
\nWere being groomed and fed stalks of hay
\nOn these roofs drifting among the evening clouds.<\/p>\n

You didn’t understand a thing!
\nYou loved the crowds at the end of the day
\nThat brought you so many mysteries.
\nThere was always someone you were meant to meet
\nWho for some reason wasn’t waiting.
\nOr perhaps they were? But not here, friend.<\/p>\n

You should have crossed the street
\nAnd followed that obviously demented woman
\nWith the long streak of blood-red hair
\nWhich the sky took up like a distant cry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Charles Simic [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I’m coming to believe it’s in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Shauna Niequist [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

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

I am always interested in the people in films who have just had a drink
\nthrown in their faces. Sometimes they react with uncontrollable rage,
\nbut sometimes—my favorites—they do not change their expressions at
\nall. Instead they raise a handkerchief or napkin and calmly dab at the
\noffending liquid, as the hurler jumps to her feet and storms away. The
\nother people at the table are understandably uncomfortable. A woman
\nleans over and places her hand on the sleeve of the man\u2019s jacket and
\nsays, “David, you know she didn\u2019t mean it.” David answers, “Yes,” but
\nin an ambiguous tone—the perfect adult response. But now the orchestra
\nhas resumed its amiable and lively dance music, and the room is set in
\nmotion as before. Out in the parking lot, however, Elizabeth is setting
\nfire to David\u2019s car. Yes, this is a contemporary film.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ron Padgett [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

A year or two ago, my wife took me to the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville to see a film about comic books. Titled Super<\/em>, the film was about a guy who’s read one too many comics and decides to stand up to injustice. I didn’t particularly enjoy the movie, but one scene eloquently expressed this idea of waiting and how it fits in with the rest of life.<\/p>\n

In the scene, the main character, Frank, who runs around town killing bad guys with an oversized monkey wrench, is sitting with his self-appointed teenage sidekick, Libby. They’re waiting for an opportunity to fight evil, for the police sirens to blare or something significant to happen. But nothing does. So they sit in boredom, wondering what they should do.<\/p>\n

Frank:<\/strong> Maybe you need to be bored sometimes.<\/em>
\nLibby:<\/strong> You don’t see them bored in comic books.<\/em>
\nFrank:<\/strong> That’s what happens in between the panels.<\/em>
\nLibby:<\/strong> Wow, in between the panels! Is that where we are right now?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Jeff Goins [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

REPULSIVE THEORY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Little has been made
\nof the soft, skirting action
\nof magnets reversed,
\nwhile much has been
\nmade of attraction.
\nBut is it not this pillowy
\nprinciple of repulsion
\nthat produces the
\ndoily edges of oceans
\nor the arabesques of thought?
\nAnd do these cutout coasts
\nand incurved rhetorical beaches
\nnot baffle the onslaught
\nof the sea or objectionable people
\nand give private life
\nwhat small protection it’s got?
\nPraise then the oiled motions
\nof avoidance, the pearly
\nconvolutions of all that
\nslides off or takes a
\nwide berth; praise every
\neddying vacancy of Earth,
\nall the dimpled depths
\nof pooling space, the whole
\nswirl set up by fending-off—
\nextending far beyond the personal,
\nI’m convinced—
\nimmense and good
\nin a cosmological sense:
\nunpressing us against
\neach other, lending
\nthe necessary never<\/em>
\nto never-ending.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Kay Ryan [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Self-Portrait: Me First, Safety Last #3,” by user MattysFlicks on Flickr (used here under a Creative Commons license; thank you!). This is actually a composite photo — multiple exposures: “one of the scene, one of myself with the hammer, one of my pried open eye while leaning over my workbench and a bunch of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19492,"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":"Charles Simic, Kay Ryan, et al., on what happens while you're blinking or looking elsewhere: 'In the Spaces Scattered Among Moments'","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":[247,1393,250,5,50,251,4159],"tags":[1707,3610,3680,4565,4566,4567,4568,4569,4570,4572,4573],"class_list":{"0":"post-19489","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-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-kay-ryan","15":"tag-charles-simic","16":"tag-shauna-niequist","17":"tag-ron-padgett","18":"tag-emil-cioran","19":"tag-jeff-goins","20":"tag-trick-photography","21":"tag-photoshop","22":"tag-vacancies","23":"tag-interstices","24":"tag-empty-time","25":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/selfportraitmefirstsafetylast3_mattyflicks_thumb.jpg?fit=480%2C343&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-54l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19489","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=19489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19496,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19489\/revisions\/19496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}