{"id":8194,"date":"2011-06-03T11:49:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T15:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8194"},"modified":"2011-06-03T11:50:33","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T15:50:33","slug":"slow-enough-to-see-the-large-in-the-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/slow-enough-to-see-the-large-in-the-small\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Enough (To See the Large in the Small)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: Still from <\/em>Institute Benjaminta<\/a> (1995), by the Brothers Quay<\/a>. For an interesting interview with them about it, see this page<\/a> at the Electric Sheep site.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

In reality there has never been a day in our lives (and maybe not one hour or even one minute) when something happened that did not eventually lead to significant results. However, in the onward rush of events it is usually hard to see these patterns.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Manjusvara (David Keefe), Writing Your Way<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There are things that cannot ever occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts. They are merely trying to occur, they are checking whether the ground of reality can carry them. And they quickly withdraw, fearing to lose their integrity in the frailty of realization. And if they break into their capital, lose a thing or two in these attempts at incarnation, then soon, jealously, they retrieve their possessions, call them in, reintegrate: as a result, white spots appear in our biography — scented stigmata, the faded silvery imprints of the bare feet of angels, scattered footmarks on our nights and days — while the fullness of life waxes, incessantly supplements itself, and towers over us in wonder after wonder.<\/p>\n

And yet, in a certain sense, the fullness is contained wholly and integrally in each of its crippled and fragmentary incarnations. This is the phenomenon of imagination and vicarious being. An event may be small and insignificant in its origins and yet, when drawn close to one’s eye, it may open in its center an infinite and radiant perspective because a higher order of being is trying to express itself in it and irradiates it violently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Bruno Schultz, Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hourglass<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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

Mapping the Genome<\/strong><\/p>\n

Geneticist as driver, down the gene
\ncodes in, let’s say, a topless coupe
\nand you keep expecting bends,<\/p>\n

real tyre-testers on tight
\nmountain passes, but instead it’s dead
\nstraight, highway as runway,<\/p>\n

helix unravelled as vista,
\nas vanishing point. Keep your foot
\ndown. This is a finite desert.<\/p>\n

You move too fast to read it,
\nthe order of the rocks, the cacti,
\nroadside weeds, a blur to you.<\/p>\n

Every hour or so, you pass a shack
\nwhich passes for a motel here:
\ntidy faded rooms with TVs on<\/p>\n

for company, the owner pacing out
\nhis empty parking lot. And after
\neach motel you hit a sandstorm<\/p>\n

thick as fog, but agony.
\nSomewhere out there are remnants
\nof our evolution, genes for how<\/p>\n

to fly south, sense a storm,
\nhunt at night, how to harden
\nyour flesh into hide or scales.<\/p>\n

These are the miles of dead code.
\nEvery desert has them.
\nYou are on a mission to discover<\/p>\n

why the human heart still slows
\nwhen divers break the surface,
\nwhy mermaids still swim in our dreams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Michael Symmons Roberts [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Morningside Heights, July<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haze. Three student violists boarding
\na bus. A clatter of jackhammers.
\nGranular light. A film of sweat for primer
\nand the heat for a coat of paint.
\nA man and a woman on a bench:
\nshe tells him he must be psychic,
\nfor how else could he sense, even before she knew,
\nthat she\u2019d need to call it off? A bicyclist
\nfumes by with a coach\u2019s whistle clamped
\nhard between his teeth, shrilling like a teakettle
\non the boil. I never meant, she says.
\nBut I thought, he replies. Two cabs almost
\ncollide; someone yells fuck<\/em> in Farsi.
\nI\u2019m sorry, she says. The comforts
\nof loneliness fall in like a bad platoon.
\nThe sky blurs — there\u2019s a storm coming
\nup or down. A lank cat slinks liquidly
\naround a corner. How familiar
\nit feels to feel strange, hollower
\nthan a bassoon. A rill of chill air
\nin the leaves. A car alarm. Hail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

Children in a Field<\/strong><\/p>\n

They don\u2019t wade in so much as they are taken.
\nDeep in the day, in the deep of the field,
\nevery current in the grasses whispers hurry<\/em>
\n hurry<\/em>, every yellow spreads its perfume
\nlike a rumor, impelling them further on.
\nIt is the way of girls. It is the sway
\nof their dresses in the summer trance-
\nlight, their bare calves already far-gone
\nin green. What songs will they follow?
\nWhatever the wood warbles, whatever storm
\nor harm the border promises, whatever
\ncalm. Let them go. Let them go traceless
\nthrough the high grass and into the willow-
\nblur, traceless across the lean blue glint
\nof the river, to the long dark bodies
\nof the conifers, and over the welcoming
\nthreshold of nightfall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Angela Shaw [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Grandpa liked to laugh at what he called a “greenhorn.” Grandpa was green himself, so he wanted to laugh at somebody who was a little greener, which is natural. Here’s an example of the greenhorn joke that so fascinated Grandpa:<\/p>\n

One day a stranger came upon a man engaged in a desperate struggle with a bear. What astonished the newcomer most of all was a woman (evidently the man’s wife) standing by with a rifle in the crook of her arm, as calm and unperturbed as Annie Oakley, smoking a corncob pipe.<\/p>\n

The newcomer rushed up to the woman and cried, “Don’t you see what’s happening? Why don’t you shoot the beast?”<\/p>\n

The woman took the pipe out of her mouth, surveyed the excited stranger, and said, “I’m aimin’ to do just that, but I want to see if the bear won’t save me the trouble.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Homer Croy, “What Grandpa Laughed At,” The Rotarian<\/em>, August 1948 [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

Finally, in 1964 The Beatles urged us to slow down<\/em> already, especially if we were a certain young lady. The song itself takes its sweet time getting around to the lyrics, with a 30+-second instrumental opening. (That’s Lennon on lead vocals — double-tracked and singing with himself.)<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

Slow Down<\/em><\/strong>
\n (by Larry Williams; performance by The Beatles)<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, come on pretty baby, won’t you walk with me?
\nCome on, pretty baby, won’t you talk with me?
\nCome on pretty baby, give me one more chance
\nTo try to save our romance!<\/p>\n

Slow down, baby, now you’re movin’ way too fast.
\nYou gotta gimme little lovin’, gimme little lovin’,
\nOw!<\/em> if you want our love to last.<\/p>\n

Well, I used to walk you home, baby, after school,
\nCarry your books home, too.
\nBut now you got a boyfriend down the street,
\nBaby what you’re tryin’ to do?<\/p>\n

You better slow down, baby, now you’re movin’ way too fast.
\nYou gotta gimme little lovin’, gimme little lovin’,
\nB-b-b-b-b!<\/em> if you want our love to last.<\/p>\n

[instrumental break]<\/em><\/p>\n

Well you know that I love you, tell the world I do.
\nCome on, pretty baby, why can’t you be true?
\nI need your love baby, oh so bad,
\nThe best little woman that I’ve ever had<\/p>\n

Slow down, baby, now you’re movin’ way too fast.
\nYou gotta gimme little lovin’, gimme little lovin’,
\nOw!<\/em> if you want our love to last.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Still from Institute Benjaminta (1995), by the Brothers Quay. For an interesting interview with them about it, see this page at the Electric Sheep site.] From whiskey river: In reality there has never been a day in our lives (and maybe not one hour or even one minute) when something happened that did not […]<\/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":[247,1393,53,74,5,50,251,713],"tags":[1776,2269,2399,2400,2401,2402,2403,2404],"class_list":{"0":"post-8194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-movies-media","9":"category-music","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-humor-writing_cat","14":"tag-jokes","15":"tag-the-beatles","16":"tag-brothers-quay","17":"tag-manjusvara","18":"tag-bruno-schulz","19":"tag-michael-symmons-roberts","20":"tag-william-matthews","21":"tag-angela-shaw","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-28a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194","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=8194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8195,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194\/revisions\/8195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}