{"id":20750,"date":"2018-11-23T12:48:22","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T17:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20750"},"modified":"2018-11-23T12:50:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T17:50:04","slug":"at-an-intersection-not-so-much-seen-as-glimpsed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/at-an-intersection-not-so-much-seen-as-glimpsed\/","title":{"rendered":"At an Intersection Not So Much Seen as Glimpsed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “The Abbeycwmhir<\/a> Panoramic,” by Andrew Bowden. (Discovered it on Flickr<\/a>, and use it here under a Creative Commons license; thank you!) The photographer’s caption to this photo of a “crossroad” says, “On the left was a forest road plunging into a deep and dark woodland. On the right, a barren and strangely alien mound. And straight on, our path”… which you have to look hard to see. It helps to enlarge the photo by clicking on it, especially if you’ve got a nice wide monitor. Even better, visit the Flickr link above to see the original — a 9,000-pixels wide monster.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

If we knew we were on the right road, having to leave it would mean endless despair. But we are on a road that only leads to a second one, and then to a third one and so forth. And the real highway will not be sighted for a long, long time, perhaps never. So we drift in doubt. But also in an unbelievable, beautiful diversity. Thus the accomplishment of hope remains an always unexpected miracle. But in compensation, the miracle remains forever possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Franz Kafka [source<\/a>: searched high and low for a definitive one, but this must be a paraphrase — possibly (according to numerous sources which phrase it thusly) from his Diaries<\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Describing an incident where he felt suspended several feet above the ground enclosed in a white sphere of light, when a voice spoke to him. This was what it said:]<\/em><\/p>\n

From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(R. Buckminster Fuller [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Metonymy<\/span> as an Approach to a Real World<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether what we sense of this world
\nis the what of this world only, or the what
\nof which of several possible worlds
\n—which what?—something of what we sense
\nmay be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense.
\nFor the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance
\nof travelers, eating foreign foods, trying words
\nthat twist the tongue, to feel that time and place,
\nnot thinking that this is the real world.<\/p>\n

Conceded, that all the clocks tell local time;
\nconceded, that “here” is anywhere we bound
\nand fill a space; conceded, we make a world:
\nis something caught there, contained there,
\nsomething real, something which we can sense?
\nOnce in a city blocked and filled, I saw
\nthe light lie in the deep chasm of a street,
\npalpable and blue, as though it had drifted in
\nfrom say, the sea, a purity of space.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(William Bronk [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Miss Groby taught me English composition thirty years ago. It wasn’t what prose said that interested Miss Groby; it was the way prose said it… What she loved most of all were Figures of Speech. You remember her. You must have had her, too. Her influence will never die out of the land. A small schoolgirl asked me the other day if I could give her an example of metonymy. (There are several kinds of metonymies, you may recall, but the one that will come to mind most easily, I think, is Container for the Thing Contained.)<\/p>\n

…”Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” Take that, for instance. There is an unusual but perfect example of Container for the Thing Contained. If you read the funeral oration unwarily — that is to say, for its meaning — you might easily miss the C.F.T.T.C. Antony is, of course, not asking for their ears in the sense that he wants them cut off and handed over; he is asking for the function of those ears, for their power to hear, for, in a word, the thing they contain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(James Thurber [source<\/em><\/a> (previously cited here<\/a>)])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

If You Knew<\/strong><\/p>\n

What if you knew you’d be the last
\nto touch someone?
\nIf you were taking tickets, for example,
\nat the theater, tearing them,
\ngiving back the ragged stubs,
\nyou might take care to touch that palm,
\nbrush your fingertips
\nalong the life line’s crease.<\/p>\n

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
\ntoo slowly through the airport, when
\nthe car in front of me doesn’t signal,
\nwhen the clerk at the pharmacy
\nwon’t say Thank you<\/em>, I don’t remember
\nthey’re going to die.<\/p>\n

A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
\nThey’d just had lunch and the waiter,
\na young gay man with plum black eyes,
\njoked as he served the coffee, kissed
\nher aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
\nThen they walked half a block and her aunt
\ndropped dead on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

How close does the dragon’s spume
\nhave to come? How wide does the crack
\nin heaven have to split?
\nWhat would people look like
\nif we could see them as they are,
\nsoaked in honey, stung and swollen,
\nreckless, pinned against time?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ellen Bass [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

…I can hardly rest, so eager am I to immerse myself [in Paris].<\/p>\n

But this immersion has its peril. Because of the intensity of my particular desire, what happens to me next is what happens to almost everyone who visits Paris. As anticipation and pleasure fill me with elation, everything I see takes on a chiaroscuro of unrevealed mystery. The more I see, the more shapes of experience and shades of understanding just beyond my reach beckon to me. I read the map, turn it upside down, stop at a caf\u00e9, then summon my last drafts of energy and press on, walking on feet that are burning now, or legs close to folding under the effort, not to, as tourists say, take it all in, because I know in Paris that this is never possible, but to grasp an elusive state of being, signs of which can be found around every bend, tantalizing me, and which, like an exhausted lover on a chase, I want with an increasing passion but never have.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Susan Griffin [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “The Abbeycwmhir Panoramic,” by Andrew Bowden. (Discovered it on Flickr, and use it here under a Creative Commons license; thank you!) The photographer’s caption to this photo of a “crossroad” says, “On the left was a forest road plunging into a deep and dark woodland. On the right, a barren and strangely alien mound. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20756,"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":"Franz Kafka, Ellen Bass, et al., on finding your way even if you're not lost: 'At an Intersection Not So Much Seen as Glimpsed'","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":[247,1393,250,251,4159],"tags":[47,399,1544,1877,3642,4055,4830,4831,4832],"class_list":{"0":"post-20750","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-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-essays","12":"tag-maps","13":"tag-wales","14":"tag-james-thurber","15":"tag-franz-kafka","16":"tag-susan-griffin","17":"tag-ellen-bass","18":"tag-william-bronk","19":"tag-r-buckminster-fuller","20":"tag-panoramas","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/theabbeycwmhirpanoramic_andrewbowden_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C134&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5oG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20750","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=20750"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20759,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20750\/revisions\/20759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}