{"id":9690,"date":"2012-01-27T11:09:21","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T16:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=9690"},"modified":"2012-01-27T11:09:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T16:09:21","slug":"the-kindness-of-every-split-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/the-kindness-of-every-split-second\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kindness of Every Split-Second"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: display window of “mini-prints” taken with the Fujifilm Instax camera (originally from the Photojojo store<\/a>). See note at bottom of post for more.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

You know what I believe? I remember in college I was taking this math class, this really great math class taught by this tiny old woman. She was talking about fast Fourier transforms and she stopped midsentence and said, “Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.”<\/p>\n

That’s what I believe. I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it — or my observation of it — is temporary?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John Green [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized portion):<\/p>\n

In the Storm<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some black ducks
\nwere shrugged up
\non the shore.
\nIt was snowing<\/p>\n

hard, from the east,
\nand the sea
\nwas in disorder.
\nThen some sanderlings,<\/p>\n

five inches long
\nwith beaks like wire,
\nflew in,
\nsnowflakes on their backs,<\/p>\n

and settled
\nin a row
\nbehind the ducks—
\nwhose backs were also<\/p>\n

covered with snow—
\nso close
\nthey were all but touching,
\nthey were all but under<\/p>\n

the roof of the ducks’ tails,
\nso the wind, pretty much,
\nblew over them.
\nThey stayed that way, motionless,<\/p>\n

for maybe an hour,
\nthen the sanderlings,
\neach a handful of feathers,
\nshifted, and were blown away<\/td>\n

<\/td>\nout over the water,
\nwhich was still raging.
\nBut, somehow,
\nthey came back<\/p>\n

and again the ducks,
\nlike a feathered hedge,
\nlet them
\nstoop there, and live.<\/p>\n

If someone you didn’t know<\/em>
\n told you this,<\/em>
\n as I am telling you this,<\/em>
\n would you believe it?<\/em><\/p>\n

Belief isn’t always easy.<\/em>
\n But this much I have learned,<\/em>
\n if not enough else—<\/em>
\n to live with my eyes open.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know what everyone wants<\/em>
\n is a miracle.<\/em>
\n This wasn’t a miracle.<\/em>
\n Unless, of course, kindness—<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>as now and again<\/em>
\n some rare person has suggested—<\/em>
\n is a miracle.<\/em>
\n As surely it is.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Pearl S. Buck [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

False Flowers<\/strong><\/p>\n

(for Caroline Ireland)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

They were to have been a love gift,
\nbut when she slit the paper funnel,
\nthey both saw they were fake; false flowers
\nhe’d picked in haste from the store’s display,
\nhandmade coloured stuff, stiff as crinoline.<\/p>\n

Instantly she thought of women’s hands
\ncutting in grimy light by a sweatshop window;
\nrough plank tables strewn with cut-out
\nflower heads: lily, iris, primula, scentless
\nchrysanthemums, pistils rigged on wire
\nin crowns of sponge-tipped stamens,
\nsepals and petals perfect, perfectly
\nimmune to menaces from the garden.<\/p>\n

Why so wrong, so… flattening? Why not instead
\nsymbols of unchanging love?
\nYet pretty enough,<\/span>
\nshe considered, arranging them in a vase
\nwith dry grass and last summer’s hydrangeas
\nwhose deadness was still (how to put it?)
\nalive, or maybe the other side of life.
\nTwo sides, really, of the same thing?<\/p>\n

She laughed a little, such ideas were embarrassing
\neven when kept to oneself,
\nbut her train of thought
\ncarried her in its private tunnel through supper,
\nand at bedtime, brushing her teeth,
\nshe happened to look up at the moon.
\nIts sunlit face was turned, as always, in her direction.
\nThe full moon<\/em>, she couldn’t help thinking,
\nthough we see only half of it.<\/p>\n

It was an insight she decided she could
\nshare with him, but when he joined her
\nand together they lay in the dark,
\nthere seemed no reason to say anything.
\nThe words, in any case, would be wrong,
\nwould escape or disfigure her meaning.
\nGood<\/em> was the syllable she murmured to him,
\nfading into sleep. And just for a split second,
\nteetering on the verge of it, she believed
\neverything that had to be was understood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anne Stevenson [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Graham Chapman, coauthor of the parrot sketch, Graham Chapman, co-author of the “Parrot Sketch<\/a>,” is no more.<\/p>\n

He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky, and I guess that we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability and kindness, of such intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he’d achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun.<\/p>\n

Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard! I hope he fries. ”<\/p>\n

And the reason I think I should say this is, he would never forgive me if I didn’t, if I threw away this opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste. I could hear him whispering in my ear last night as I was writing this:<\/p>\n

“All right, Cleese, you’re very proud of being the first person to ever say ‘shit’ on television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to be the first person ever at a British memorial service to say ‘fuck’!”<\/p>\n

You see, the trouble is, I can’t. If he were here with me now I would probably have the courage, because he always emboldened me. But the truth is, I lack his balls, his splendid defiance. And so I’ll have to content myself instead with saying “Betty Mardsen…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John Cleese, eulogy at Graham Chapman’s funeral, 1989 [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

German director Wim Wenders was a longtime friend of choreographer Pina Bausch, who specialized in an expressionistic, theatrical form of modern dance known as Tanztheater<\/a><\/em>. Wenders had planned for years to make a documentary about Bausch and her work; unfortunately, she died while the film was in planning. Although Wenders immediately wanted to shelve the project, members of Bausch’s troupe convinced him to make it anyway. The result seems as precise a visual statement as I can imagine of the relentless gifts to be found in one moment followed by another. Here’s the trailer for 2011’s 3D\u00a0Pina<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n