{"id":23893,"date":"2021-01-01T11:39:57","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T16:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=23893"},"modified":"2021-01-01T11:42:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T16:42:16","slug":"gig-lamps-or-halo-this-lump-or-that-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/gig-lamps-or-halo-this-lump-or-that-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Gig Lamps or Halo? This Lump or That One?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Whole in the Wall,” by Alan Davey. (I found it on Flickr<\/a>, and use it here under a Creative Commons license. Thank you!) This abandoned storefront was found by the photographer in Mitchell, Oregon, about which Davey offers some information from Wikipedia. While not related specifically (as far as I know) to the building, the last paragraph cited is particularly haunting. I’ve reproduced it in a note<\/a> at the foot of this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Look within and life, it seems, is very far from being ‘like this.’ Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions — trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday<\/em>, the accent falls different from that of old; the moment of importance came not here but there… Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Virginia Woolf, Modern Fiction [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a> (in oft-cited but slightly different and, well, not quite right<\/em> form — below, with ellipses added, is the correct one):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Wollman said to me,] “…you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. <\/p>

“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire—then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is<\/em> inconvenient. Life is<\/em> lumpy.<\/p>

“Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And you will not annoy people so much…”<\/p>

I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One should learn the difference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

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

The News<\/strong> <\/p>

In different cities, on different
forms of transportation, a woman read Daniel Deronda<\/a><\/em>
until the year became the arbitrary pink
the calendar chose for the middle of winter.
And finally she sat in the reference section
of the public library finishing Daniel Deronda<\/em>
for days at a slowing pace between pieces
of newspapers and foreign language newspapers
whose syntax she enjoyed, not understanding.
And when she didn’t anymore she wrote in the margins
of Daniel Deronda <\/em>for someone
who might never see. Thought of that person
who might never see, staring equally at the rain, equally
thinking of her and of nothing in particular.
Outside the news fell apart. If one chooses
to be shallow or noble, or one
is born so, and if it matters. Translations
are appropriate when Nature is dormant, or when one
has nothing to say, or does not know
what to say. These are three different things
but sometimes they are the same.
It is not wrong to want nice things, neither
is it wrong to want to be good, or to feel that
as a physical force of pleasure: Daniel Deronda,
who does not know who he is,
who thinks he does, and goes away on a boat.
But the cover is a picture of a woman gambling.
The air warms outside the reference
section, and also the rain. Incomprehensible news.
Whenever a book ends, silence, as if a stewardship had ceased.
A person can feel the bones of one’s hands by stretching them.
If love comes again, know better than to speak.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Katie Peterson [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flat: Sentences from the Prefaces of Fourteen Science Books<\/strong><\/p>

1.  Mary-Frances applied continual pressure on me to start
      the job and helped in recording and editing.
2.  Thanks to Sandra for her heroic typing, although this
      need not be taken to indicate her agreement with
      various points.
3.  Peter provided information about the notorious
      perpetual pills.
4.  As someone who gloried in seeing dogma overturned,
     he would have delighted in the irony of seeing
     arguments for the reverse.
5.  And without their willingness to take on the chore of
     responding to our whims and fancies over a 3-year
     period, this book would have fallen short of its goals.
6.  The production of this tome would have been
     unthinkable without the marvelous electronic tools that
     are now widely available.
7.  However, Chapter 7 was written in a relatively self-
     contained fashion, so the serious student may skip
     Chapter 6 and delve directly into the theory.
8. The late abbess of Shasta Abbey proved that looking
     through different windows into the same room is not a
     metaphor.
9.  Nick, who is writing a book on oxygen, gave much 
     appreciated data concerning that element.
10. The filmstrip format employed in Chapter 10 originated
       with Elizabeth.
11.  I have been very fortunate in being able to use such
        penetrating minds.
12.  In recent months, I have often felt like a small child in a
       sweet shop as astronomers all round the world have sent
       me the most mouthwatering new data.
13.  Suffice it at this point to observe that I am not just talking 
       about wallpaper patterns on shirts and dresses, although
       many of these patterns do turn out to have interesting 
       properties.
14.  I do not expect that many readers will want to be 
       masochistic enough to want to read the book in order 
       from cover to cover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Bruce Covey [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Jianzhi Sengcan [source<\/a> (alternate translation)<\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

______<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> concerning the town of Mitchell, Oregon, where the photographer found “Whole in the Wall,” he cites a Wikipedia article including this passage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its founding, Mitchell has experienced three catastrophic flash floods along Bridge Creek, which runs through the center of the city. Flooding caused great damage to the city in 1884 and 1904. The third flood occurred on July 13, 1956, shortly after an intense thunderstorm in the hills to the south. The creek is usually less than 12 inches (30 cm) deep during July. Minutes after the thunderstorm a 50-foot (15 m) wall of water surged into Mitchell destroying or heavily damaging 20 buildings in the city and several bridges over the creek. Eight people were killed including a family of four who were swept away and never recovered. An observer from the United States Geological Survey estimated that about 4 inches (10 cm) of rain had fallen in about 50 minutes at the storm’s center.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Trying and failing, here, to wrap my head around the more or less sudden 12-inches-versus-50-feet change…!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[back to top<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Whole in the Wall,” by Alan Davey. (I found it on Flickr, and use it here under a Creative Commons license. Thank you!) This abandoned storefront was found by the photographer in Mitchell, Oregon, about which Davey offers some information from Wikipedia. While not related specifically (as far as I know) to the building, […]<\/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":"Robert Fulghum, Katie Peterson, et al.: 'Gig Lamps or Halo? This Lump or That One?'","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":[183,247,1393,5,251,4159],"tags":[2946,3483,3537,5240,5271,5272,5274,5275,5276,5277],"class_list":{"0":"post-23893","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-06_writing","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-essays","12":"tag-robert-fulghum","13":"tag-virginia-woolf","14":"tag-perspective","15":"tag-katie-peterson","16":"tag-jianzhi-sengcan","17":"tag-bruce-covey","18":"tag-parts-vs-whole","19":"tag-continuities-vs-discontinuities","20":"tag-being-human","21":"tag-alan-davey","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6dn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23893","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=23893"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23915,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23893\/revisions\/23915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}