{"id":24008,"date":"2021-02-05T08:33:44","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T13:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=24008"},"modified":"2021-02-05T08:34:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T13:34:14","slug":"dancing-nimbly-in-a-tangle-of-overlaps-and-abutments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/dancing-nimbly-in-a-tangle-of-overlaps-and-abutments\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing Nimbly in a Tangle of Overlaps and Abutments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Manhattan Cocktail,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see\u00a0this page<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0<\/em>RAMH.) This was #682 (2019-08-09<\/a>) in my series of one thousand “#everydaybandw” posts on Instagram. As you can see, they weren’t always 100% “B&W”; I told myself I was honoring the spirit of the label rather than the letter. (Or maybe I was just making vague, hand-waving excuses of the sorta-kinda-close-enough variety.)]<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

“Monster” is derived from the Latin noun monstrum<\/em>, “divine portent,” itself formed on the root of the verb monere<\/em>, “to warn.” It came to refer to living things of anomalous shape or structure, or to fabulous creatures like the sphinx who were composed of strikingly incongruous parts, because the ancients considered the appearance of such beings to be a sign of some impending supernatural event. Monsters, like angels, functioned as messengers and heralds of the extraordinary. They served to announce impending revelation, saying, in effect, “Pay attention; something of profound importance is happening.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Susan Stryker [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you observe that today’s controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Idries Shah [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there
any way we can purely touch the world again, the way
a salamander does, breathing through its skin? Can we
become the strands of this shrine we weave ourselves into
hoping to emerge into a world where — where what?
There is no end to desire, which means no end to regret,
no end to our need for an ending, so that even the sky refuses
our touch, that sky which, at its bluest, is the most empty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Richard Jackson [source<\/a>, apparently (unconfirmed); the last several lines of a poem called “Benediction”<\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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

Classic Toy<\/strong><\/p>

The plastic army men are always green.<\/p>

They\u2019re caught in awkward poses,
one arm outstretched as if to fire,
legs parted and forever stuck on a swiggle
of support, as rigid and green as the boots.<\/p>

This one has impressions of pockets,
a belt, a collar, a grip on tiny binoculars
intended to enlarge, no doubt, some
tiny enemy.<\/p>

In back, attached to the belt is a canteen
or a grenade (it\u2019s hard to tell). The helmet
is pulled down low, so as to hide the eyes.<\/p>

If I point the arm, the gun, toward me,
I see that this soldier is very thin.<\/p>

It\u2019s almost unreal, how thin he is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Mary M. Brown [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peculiar Properties<\/strong><\/p>

On my cutting board, I discovered them,
the tiniest of ants, roaming dots of lead.
At first, they were too few to classify, hiding
under crumbs, these scavengers of leftovers.
Admiring their labor, I immediately granted them
citizenship, these tailgaters of a kitchen’s routines.<\/p>

In Miami, I had no stove, working far from my home.
My wife was a midnight call to San Bernardino.
While searching for crumbs, especially for
the taste of apricot jelly, they fell into a line
across my cutting board; I saw it again,
saw the line my sixth-grade teacher drew
on the board, pointing to each end.<\/p>

While he planted himself on his desk, he leaned
his face toward us, telling us in a low voice:<\/p>

“You don’t see it yet, you’re too young
still, but that line in front of you continues
infinitely on either side. And if there is
the slightest slope in that line, either way,
it will slowly begin to sag, then curve and veer
and eventually one end will find the other.<\/p>

And lines, lines are never perfect, they are
like us, never completely straight. So just
imagine the searching that goes on all
around us, every day. And to happen on
that union is really to witness the most earthly
of forms you’ll ever get to know. If you’re lucky,
you’ll see that, even luckier if you’re part
of that union.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Juan Delgado [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you see a staircase as heading up or down depends on where you are standing. It is your perception of the situation. The concepts you have based on your experience with staircases get mixed up in the way you see things, too. You classify the staircase the way you do because you only see it from your perspective. The fact that you see it as either up or down is because you haven\u2019t practiced becoming open enough to see them from all perspectives. When you do see from all sides you will not see either one anymore. The staircase is still the staircase no matter what angle you are seeing it from. No up and no down. Just the staircase as it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

[Image: “Manhattan Cocktail,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see\u00a0this page\u00a0at\u00a0RAMH.) This was #682 (2019-08-09) in my series of one thousand “#everydaybandw” posts on Instagram. As you can see, they weren’t always 100% “B&W”; I told myself I was honoring the spirit of the label rather than […]<\/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":"Idries Shah, Angel Kyodo Williams, et al.: 'Dancing Nimbly in a Tangle of Overlaps and Abutments'","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":[247,1393,4701,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[195,3932,4296,4997,5246,5307,5308,5309,5311],"class_list":{"0":"post-24008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-my-photography","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-metaphor","14":"tag-richard-jackson","15":"tag-angel-kyodo-williams","16":"tag-idries-shah","17":"tag-confusion","18":"tag-juan-delgado","19":"tag-mary-m-brown","20":"tag-susan-stryker","21":"tag-category-errors","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6fe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24008","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=24008"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24286,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24008\/revisions\/24286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}