{"id":8057,"date":"2011-03-25T07:01:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T11:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8057"},"modified":"2017-05-09T06:02:59","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T10:02:59","slug":"awake-really-awake-for-good-or-ill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/awake-really-awake-for-good-or-ill\/","title":{"rendered":"Awake, Really Awake… for Good or Ill"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Insomnia, or Nocturnal Awakening,” by “neosurrealist” artist George Grie; I found it here<\/a>. Click the image for a larger view. More, in the footnote<\/a> to this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

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

It is 1970
\nand the summer of love is over.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am three years old, barefoot,
\nrunning along the surf<\/span>
\nnear Florence, Oregon,<\/p>\n

where an eight-ton sperm whale
\nbeached itself and died, the carcass<\/span>
\nrotting now,
\nan entrance carved into its massive flank<\/span>
\nfor cases of dynamite, 500 pounds of explosives
\nnecessary to rend open the interior<\/span>
\nso scavengers can pick the skeleton clean —<\/p>\n

but for me, it is the doorway to another world,
\nthe body of the sacred I might enter into,<\/span>
\nits eyes drained of all but a giant benevolence,
\nflukes wide as the tailfins of bombers<\/span>
\noverhead, my mother<\/span><\/p>\n

hoisting me to her hip as engineers argue
\nblasting caps and stand-off distance,<\/span>
\nequations to undo the intricate puzzle
\nof muscle and bone —
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

the way life waits for us all<\/span>
\nwith great patience, the electrons orbiting<\/span>
\nin their shells like distant planets we never see,
\nthe constellations which bind the universe<\/span>
\nundone this day, at least for this one body
\nbeached on the sand as we witness the blast<\/span>
\nfrom the sawgrass dunes,<\/p>\n

the sudden <\/span>
\njolt of nerves as the body absorbs
\nthe shockwave, beach-sand shot upward<\/span>
\nin jets of tissue and meat,<\/span>
\nthe local news reporter dropping to his knees
\nto cover his head with a clipboard<\/span>
\nwhile the cameraman does the same,<\/span>
\nmy mother shielding me with her torso
\nturned away from the blast<\/span><\/p>\n

and I remember everyone smiling
\nafterward, laughing, each of us amazed<\/span>
\nthe day a god was blown to pieces on the beach<\/span>
\nand we all walked away from it, unscathed.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Brian Turner, from Phantom Noise<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (including extra highlighted text):<\/p>\n

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn’t it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Richard Dawkins, from Unweaving the Rainbow<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really<\/em> bothered? About something important, about something real?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ray Bradbury, from Fahrenheit 451<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

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

A Time Past<\/strong><\/p>\n

The old wooden steps to the front door
\nwhere I was sitting that fall morning
\nwhen you came downstairs, just awake,
\nand my joy at sight of you (emerging
\ninto golden day–
\nthe dew almost frost)<\/span>
\npulled me to my feet to tell you
\nhow much I loved you:<\/p>\n

those wooden steps
\nare gone now, decayed
\nreplaced with granite,
\nhard, gray, and handsome.
\nThe old steps live
\nonly in me:
\nmy feet and thighs
\nremember them, and my hands
\nstill feel their splinters.<\/p>\n

Everything else about and around that house
\nbrings memories of others — of marriage,
\nof my son. And the steps do too: I recall
\nsitting there with my friend and her little son who died,
\nor was it the second one who lives and thrives?
\nAnd sitting there ‘in my life,’ often, alone or with my husband.
\nYet that one instant,
\nyour cheerful, unafraid, youthful, ‘I love you too,’
\nthe quiet broken by no bird, no cricket, gold leaves
\nspinning in silence down without
\nany breeze to blow them,
\nis what twines itself<\/span>
\nin my head and body across those slabs of wood
\nthat were warm, ancient, and now
\nwait somewhere to be burnt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Denise Levertov [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

Just about anyone who knows her — at least in her online incarnation — will tell you: Jules<\/a> is an outstanding source for music (especially new<\/em> music) recommendations. Sometimes she apologizes for turning over a blog post to multiple video\/audio cuts, given that people visit her 7-Imp site to read about books<\/em>. Nobody really minds, though. The woman simply has taste.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it was Jules who first introduced me to the music of her friend Natasha Borzilova<\/a>. Borzilova has quite a bio<\/a>, and it may not be one whose protagonist, you’d expect, would someday wake up in Nashville as a successful Country-Western artist. But, well, there she is.<\/p>\n

And here she is, too, on the title track of 2008’s Cheap Escape<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n

[Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>__________________________________<\/p>\n

About the image<\/strong> at the top of this post: Russian-born artist George Grie<\/a> began his career using traditional media — oil on canvas. (Some examples here<\/a>.) Now a resident of Canada, his particular interest lies in “neosurrealism”: “a combined imagery of dreams and fantasies or subconscious mind visions in fine-art painting, digital-art graphic, and photography.”<\/p>\n

You can build and purchase a customized calendar of his works at Zazzle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

…and yes, I just realized: both the neosurrealist visual artist and the Country-Western musical artist featured in this post were born in Russia. Good for the Western hemisphere, I say — although not so good for the Eastern.<\/p>\n

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

[Image: “Insomnia, or Nocturnal Awakening,” by “neosurrealist” artist George Grie; I found it here. Click the image for a larger view. More, in the footnote to this post.] From whiskey river: The Whale It is 1970 and the summer of love is over. I am three years old, barefoot, running along the surf near Florence, […]<\/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":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,74,250,37,5,50,251],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-art","10":"category-onlineworld","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-language-writing_cat","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-25X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8057","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=8057"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8058,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8057\/revisions\/8058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}