I'm back, mostly. . .

It's been awhile since my last post here.  I guess it was an unplanned but necessary vacation.  I expect to be back with a few posts shortly. 

Right now I'm reading Joseph Conrad's "Captain Lingard" trilogy, something I didn't know existed until a fellow member of a discussion group brought it up.  The three novels and their publication dates are

The Rescue  (1920)

An Outcast of the Islands  (1896)

 
Almayer's Folly  (1895)

The titles are listed in chronological order, but the publishing order is the reverse.  The first book published was Almayer's Folly, but it is the story of Capt.  Lingard years after the events of The Rescue and An Outcast of the Islands..  

I don't know if there are any short stories featuring Lingard, but if I do discover some, I will post it here.

Three SF films

Warning:  I will discuss endings and significant plot elements.   

These are three films that I have just recently viewed.  As you can see, I'm not exactly right on top of the film scene.  

Total Recall (remake)

Source Code

Looper

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Total Recall 
If you want exciting and impossible scenes of hovercar chases (see Star Wars) in rush hour traffic, as well as car crashes, this is for you.  If exploding buildings and huge fireballs reaching for the skies are your thing, watch this film.  If scenes of hand-to-hand combat and numerous firefights are your thing, don't miss this one.  

However, if interesting characters with more than one dimension, plot development, and intelligent dialogue are your preferences, don't bother.  Watch something else.  The blurb on the DVD box says, "Better than the original."  That's a joke.  That had to be written with tongue firmly impressed into the cheek.

The bare plot line of the first film is there, buried under CGI special effects.  Quaid bored with his job, goes to a place that will insert false memories of an exciting adventure, and finds out that his present persona is an overlay.  The shootouts begin immediately at this point.   He escapes and heads for home.  He discovers that his loving wife, Lori ( played by Kate Beckinsale, has been assigned to watch for signs that he's recovering his memory, which apparently isn't his real memory either.  

Lori (Beckinsale) is the only character who stands out in this film.  She is remarkable as the embodiment of the old cliches:  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and "the female of the species is more dangerous than the male."   She wants Quaid dead.  And, she's not Salome who persuades others to bring Quaid's head to her on a plate; she wants to be the one who puts it there.  

The locations have been changed: it is no longer Earth and Mars, but a post-catastrophic Earth reduced to the British Federation and the Colony, which appears to be Australia and is still somewhat free of total domination by the Federation.  What's holding Cohaagen, the dictator, back is the strong resistance movement.  Cohaagen's secret weapon is Quaid who is a double/triple agent who is supposed to appear to be sympathetic to the resistance and  eventually reveal the location of the leadership.  

In the original version, Quaid learns of a device that will provide Mars with a breathable atmosphere, thus freeing the inhabitants from being forced to live in the domes because they couldn't go outside.  The end of the film was the marvelous scene of the new atmosphere covering Mars and giving all the chance to escape the Earth-controlled domes.

Total Recall 2012 has been gifted with a far less imaginative ending. Cohaagen, once the resistence is eliminated or weakened, sends his syntha-soldiers, all wearing white, shiny, plastic-appearing armor  (see Star Wars) to invade the colony and wipe out the inhabitants.  He will replace them with people from the Federation, which is getting overcrowded.  

The gimmick is the elevator, a shaft that burrows through the earth between the Federation and the Colony, which is used to transport people and goods between the two.  As the invasion begins, Quaid learns of a secret code which, if inserted into the main communication center of the syntha-soldiers,  will cause them to go inert, thus ending the invasion.  But this certainly won't provide the thrilling climax to the film:  just how exciting would be a scene where the syntha-soldiers simply stop functioning and come to a halt.  So, we and Dennis Quaid learn that the code really doesn't  exist, and Quaid is forced to resort to another method of stopping the invasion.  Would you really be surprised to learn that it involves blowing something up?

Recommendation:  see first and second paragraphs.


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Source Code

This is not a film about time travel but something to do with quantum physics. OK, but it sure looks like time travel to me.  Anyway, Colter Stevens' mission is to locate a bomb placed on a commuter train heading for Chicago, disarm it, and identify the bomber.   He needs to do this because the bomber has another "dirty bomb" which he plans to set off in Chicago.   However, he has only eight minutes to do this because the gizmo can place him on the train only eight minutes before the bomb goes off.  Fortunately for Colter, he has more than one chance to do this.  In fact, he is forced to go back numerous times because the bomb keeps going off before he succeeds in defusing it.  

Colter did not volunteer for this mission.   He was an Air Force copter pilot in Afghanistan whose last memories are of being on a mission and reporting that he's getting heavy ground fire.  Then, he suddenly finds himself on this commuter train, seated across from a very attractive young lady who seems to know him under a different name.  He heads for the men's room to regain control and finds that he has a different face and probably a different body.  The bomb explodes, and Colter finds himself in some sort of pod or control cabin, where he is able to communicate with an AF officer and a mad scientist, who finally explain just what is going on.

Now he is informed of his mission. He is being placed, thanks to a highly secret and experimental gadget, into the consciousness of a man who is about to die in eight minutes.  That is the limitation of the gadget's functioning.  Why he went the first time without any information is never explained, or at least I don't remember any explanation.  I suspect this was done, not because of the plot, but simply to make the film more intriguing to viewers.

The film has two stories: one is Colter's attempts to locate the bomb and the bomber and the other is his growing attachment to Christina Warren (played by Michelle Monaghan), the young woman seated across from him, who knows him as Sean Fentress.  What Colter doesn't know is that he is being kept alive artificially for the duration of the mission and will die at the end.  Colter, however, guesses at his true situation and persuades his contact to run a little experiment of his own.  

The director of Source Code is Duncan Jones, who also happens to be the director of another SF film that I enjoyed, Moon.   Jones is unique today in that he is able to keep the special effects to a minimum and actually spends most of the film developing interesting characters and story line.  I've seen only two of his films and in those two he follows a pattern.  He focuses on only one SF element (cloning in Moon and the consciousness-transferring gizmo in Source Code).  He then builds the story and characters around those elements, concentrating on character behavior and dialogue among the cast members and creating an interesting story line.  Special effects are kept to a minimum: the focus is on the relationship among the characters as they are acted upon by the SF element.

Rating:  I would give it a 3.75 on a 5 point scale. It's not a great SF film, but it's certainly a decent film about gizmos and people who try to survive with them or in spite of them.


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Looper

This is certainly the most complex film of the three.  It is definitely and clearly a time-travel film. But, like Source Code, the SF element does not dominate the plot to the exclusion of an interesting story and some interesting characters.  Time-travel in this film is one-way only-to the past. Someone who travels into the past must remain there.  In addition,  there appears to be a limit to the length of time one can travel into the past--30 years.


Loopers are assassins working for the mob, but with a twist.  The story is set in 2044 in an US suffering an economic collapse.  Time travel is invented in 2074, some thirty years later.  It is immediately outlawed by the government, but criminal elements have gotten control of a time-travel machine.  As it is extremely difficult to hide a body in 2074, the mob uses the device as a way of disposing of their enemies.  A looper in 2044 gets a message telling him where to be and at what time.  The victim appears, bound hand and foot, and with a bag over his head.  The looper then immediately shoots him.  The victim also has several silver bars strapped to his back, the looper's payment. 

Occasionally a looper will find that his payment is a considerable number of gold bars.  This happens when the looper "closes the loop."   If a looper lives long enough, he will reach 2074.  The mob now considers him a threat  for he knows about time-travel,  and they do not want the government to discover what they are doing.  So, he is captured and sent back, with the gold bars, to his earlier self to be killed.  At this point, the looper retires and decides how to spend the next 30 years.     

Joe is a looper who lives a comfortable life and even manages to save a few bars of silver from each job.  All goes well until his last assignment, which he doesn't immediately recognize as being his last one.  He get a notice of time and place and is puzzled when the victim doesn't show up exactly on time.  Then the victim appears, but Joe freezes when he is confronted by a man who is not tied nor does he have a bag over his head.  Stunned, the victim turns and is shot in the back, but the gold bars protect him.  He manages to knock Joe out and escape. The victim is Old Joe, himself 30 years in the future.

Young Joe realizes that he's in trouble and in a confrontation with several members of the looper gang is knocked out.  This is followed by the most confusing scene in the film.  Joe is knocked out and when he regains consciousness, he is back in the field, waiting for the victim to appear.  This time the victim is bound and his head is covered with a bag.  Joe kills him and discovers his payment is in gold bars, and he now realizes whom he had killed.  This time all proceeds as expected, and Joe retires.  We then follow Joe as he ages and turns in Old Joe, who is played by Bruce Willis.

 We are now in 2074 and see the events that led to the first visit by Old Joe who survives.  He has come back not just to survive but to kill the child who will grow up to be the Rainmaker, the mob leader who was responsible for the death of Old Joe's wife.  The rest of the film is now split between Old Joe, as he searches for the child and Young Joe who is trying to stay out of the hands of the looper gang. 

As in Source Code, the special effects are kept to a minimum, even in scenes involving time travel.  The traveler suddenly appears without benefit of noise or color or transporter beams, etc.  

Young Joe is portrayed as shallow and self-absorbed.  He has no compunction about killing others, including his future self, whom he insists is not him at this present moment.   Since killing his future self will benefit him, he is determined to finish him off. Old Joe, the Bruce Willis' character, is quite a different person, a reformed killer.  He is determined to kill the child because he feels that will save his wife.  He regrets the necessity, but the life of his wife is more important.


One of the most interesting scenes takes place in a diner when Young Joe and Old Joe confront each other.  Several minutes are spent in just dialogue, most likely a scene that would have been cut by the director of Total Recall or by George Lucas, who lately has forgotten that  the prime elements of a film are plot and characters.  Special effects should enhance the film's story, not be the reason for it.

Three characters who stand out:   Bruce Willis as Old Joe, Emily Blunt as Sara, the mother of the child who will become the Rainmaker, and Jeff Daniels as Abe, the head of the looper gang. 

Rating:  3.75 on a 5 point scale.  It probably would get a higher rating from someone who isn't bothered by the confusing scene I mentioned earlier, nor by the ending.  Of course, this is time travel, so I guess I should just forget the anomalies and enjoy the film. 



While Total Recall had at least three or four times and perhaps even five times the action scenes of the other two films combined, we must not forget that Bruce Willis is in Looper, and we can't have Bruce without at least one shootout.  In fact, we see him in what I consider to be the Iconic Bruce Willis encounter.  In this scene he enters the building where the looper gang hangs out and proceeds to stroll down the hallway, an automatic weapon in each hand, firing as he goes, taking them out, to the front, to the rear, on each side as he passes by the doors to various rooms.  Willis clearly was enjoying himself in this scene, and it reminded me of an almost identical scene in Last Man Standing. . 

Overall:  I found Looper and Source Code far more interesting than Total Recall.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXIX

This is another quatrain that concerns itself with the grape, but in this one he wonders if perhaps he's made a mistake.


First Edition:  Quatrain LXIX

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
    Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.




Second Edition:  Quatrain CI

 Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in Men's eye much wrong:
    Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup
And sold my Reputation for a Song.



Fifth Edition:  Quatrain XCIII

 Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
    Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup
And sold my Reputation for a Song.



FitzGerald made only minimal changes to this quatrain.   In the first quatrain he states that he has "drown'd  [his] Honour in a shallow Cup" while in the second and fifth versions, it is his "Glory" that he has drowned.  Perhaps the difference here is that "Honour," as he sees it, is related to personal qualities such as integrity and honesty of which he has control while "Glory" comes from the outside, more related to one's external reputation that comes from others. 

The other change occurs in the second line.  In the first and second editions, those "Idols" have hurt him in "Men's Eye" while in the fifth the damage to his Credit now is in "the World."  I like the change for "in this World" seems to flow much more smoothly than "in Men's Eye."


 The reference to "shallow cup" and "drown'd" suggest again that wine is the theme here and not God's grace for several reasons.  To suggest that he has been talking about God's grace throughout doesn't make sense when one considers the reference in the first line to those "the Idols I have loved so long."  To refer to God's grace as an Idol seems blasphemous for Idols in both the Islamic and Christian traditions refer to false gods.  It seems more likely that those Idols refer to the sensual pleasures here in this life for over-indulgence is certainly something that would ruin his reputation in contrast to following God's commandments which would do exactly the opposite.

This quatrain also follows the theme of the two previous quatrains which focus on death.  In this quatrain the Poet/Narrator seems to regret his past behavior, wondering if he has been following false gods--a very common response among many people who suddenly realize that the end is near for them--a reconsideration of their past life and what they have made of it.  Deathbed conversions and repentance are not unusual, after all. 

Langston Hughes: Does it matter?

New Year

The years
Fall like dry leaves
From the top-less tree
Of eternity.
Does it matter
That another leaf has fallen?

-- Langston Hughes --
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes


About ten days ago Mayan Calendar ended and a new cycle began.  Today, our calendar begins a new cycle.  In spite of the foolish panic of some, I really didn't see any difference when the Mayan Calender ended.  And, frankly, this morning I had to remind myself that we are now in 2013 for I couldn't see anything different this morning either.

If either calendar change makes a difference, I think it's only because we decide that it does. Langston Hughes asks a question--Does it matter/That another leaf has fallen?-- and, like many other writers, doesn't answer his question.  He leaves it for you and me and the other guy.

Does it matter?

Loren Eiseley: Darwin's Century

Actually, the full title of this book by Loren Eiseley is Darwin's Century:  Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It.  The most significant word is "Men" which spells outs Eiseley's thesis that there were many threads in the tapestry of the development of evolution.  Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, published in 1859, did not appear in a vacuum, but was the culmination of several centuries of theorizing and debating the origin of  the various types of plants and animals found on this planet. Eiseley does not present a defense or a detailed explanation of evolution: that is not his purpose here but rather to spell out the various forerunners and then the defenders of evolution against various attacks made against it.

Eiseley begins with the early theories about the creation of life including that from The Bible in Genesis and hints of a evolutionary process by various thinkers, including those from Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin.  Eiseley points out the irony that the Great Chain of Being, created by Christian thinkers, which was designed to demonstrate the completeness of God's creation by presenting creatures in an ascending sequence from the lowliest creatures at the "bottom level of creation" to humans at the top.  Evolutionists later borrowed this scheme and used it for their own purposes.  Eiseley then discusses many thinkers and theorists  who had put forth their own small piece of the puzzle: Lamarck, Linnaeus, and Malthus, among numerous others.

Eiseley then brings in one of the most important works for the further development of  evolutionary theory; Charles Lyell,  whose incredibly influential Principles of Geology,  first published in 1834, argued for a much much longer time span for the existence of the earth than the six thousand years many Christian theologians and thinkers had postulated based on their study of the Old Testament.  Now, with many millions of years to work in, random selection now had the time available to be effective.

Darwin's seminal work, The Origin of Species, does not, as Eiseley argues, appear out of a vacuum.  Rather it draws together many differing threads and ideas, all viewed by Darwin through a perspective gained by his voyage on the Beagle which visited various parts of the world, especially South America, where both new animals and plants appeared along with many that were to be found in Europe and Africa.  This raised the question: why did some creatures, plants and animals, appear in the Old and New Worlds and why were there creatures unique only to the New World.

After the publication of The Origin of Species, Darwin faced considerable opposition from both the Christian defenders of Genesis and from scientists of considerable repute.  He also gained the strong support of Alfred Lord Wallace, who also published a work on evolution shortly after Darwin, and Thomas Huxley, who became known as Darwin's Bulldog.  His grandson, Aldous Huxley, is the  author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception.   The opposition of the scientists was quelled by the discovery of Mendel's work on genetic inheritance and by a greater understanding of the sun.  Some scientists argued that the world couldn't have lasted millions of years because the sun would have consumed itself in much less time. This was caused by an inadequate appreciation of the sun and its processes.

The only weakness in Eiseley's work is his overly optimistic belief that the opposition to evolution has disappeared.  Darwin's Century was published in 1958, approximately a century after Darwin's Origin of Species, and at that time he could not foresee the rise of religious opposition once again to evolutionary theory to the point where a significant portion of the US population does not accept evolution nor any span of time longer than six thousand years of existence for the universe.  

Highly recommended for those interested in the early history of evolution and for those who just en;joy reading anything by Loren Eiseley (readers like me).

Thomas Hardy: Two Christmas poems

Two Christmas poems by Hardy-- or rather I should say two very different Christmas poems by Hardy.  In spite of his reputation for gloom and despair, mostly fueled by his later novels, especially Tess and Jude, the second is just as typical of Hardy as is the first.



A Christmas Ghost-Story

South of the line, inland from far Durban, 
A mouldering soldier lies--your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray  bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by the Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred  liveried thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."

Christmas-eve 1899

-- Thomas Hardy --
from  The Works of Thomas Hardy




Christmastide

The rain-shafts splintered on me
   As despondently I strode;
The twilight gloomed upon me
   And bleared the blank high-road.
Each bush gave forth, when blown on
   By gusts in shower and shower,
A sigh, as it were sown on
   In handfuls by a sower.

A cheerful voice called, nigh me,
   "A merry Christmas, friend!"--
There rose a figure by me,
   Walking with townward trend,
A sodden tramp's who, breaking
   Into thin song, bore straight
Ahead, direction taking 
   Toward the Casuals' gate. 

-- Thomas Hardy --
from  The Works of Thomas Hardy


After reading the second poem, I couldn't help but think of Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush," which I had already posted once before, but I think it deserves at least one reminder.




The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
…..When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
…..The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
…..Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
…..Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
…..The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
…..The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
…..Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
…..Seemed fervorless as I.

At once a voice arose among
…..The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
…..Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small
…..In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
…..Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
…..Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
…..Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
…..His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
…..And I was unaware.

-- Thomas Hardy --

Emily Dickinson: "Slant of light"

#258

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
but internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are--

None may teach it-- Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows-- hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death--

-- Emily Dickinson --
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson, editor



This is one of the poems of Dickinson that I had to reread several times when I first read it, especially the first stanza, which I find one of the most engrossing  stanzas that she has written.   I know that "Slant of light," not from where I live now in Tucson, but in Chicago, where I grew up.  It had been a grey, overcast, dull day and suddenly, just before nightfall, the sun at the western horizon breaks through the clouds and lights all with a strange golden glow that does something to the back of my throat.


Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
but internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are--

I can't explain it, and this rarely, if ever, happens with any other poem, even those most loved by me.  There is some quality to that light that is unique and disquieting.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXVIII

This is the second of three linked quatrains that are related by his prophecy of his death and its aftermath.  The previous quatrain told of his grave while this one speaks of its effects on others.


First Edition:  Quatrain LXVIII

That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
   As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.



Second Edition:  Quatrain  C


Then ev'n my buried Ashes such a snare
Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air,
   As not a True-believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.



Fifth Edition:  Quatrain XCII

That ev'n my buried Ashes such a snare
Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air
   As not a True-believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.


Edward FitzGerald made only minor changes over the five editions.  One surprising one is that he reversed a change he had made in the second edition and restored the term he had used in the first edition--something he rarely does.  The first word of the first edition is "That" which he changed to "Then" in the second version.  By the fifth edition, he had changed his mind and brought back the "That."  I have no idea why he changed it  initially, nor why he went back to his initial wording.

The most noticeable change occurs in the second line.  In the first edition, the snare is of "Perfume" while the second and fifth versions have it as a snare of "Vintage."   I think the reason for the change is clear:  "Perfume" is far more obscure and it could be the odor of flowers in the Garden in which he is buried, while "Vintage" strongly suggests wine, a very common theme in the Rubaiyat.  It is the aroma of wine, which of course is forbidden to True Believers, that he thinks will enter their consciousness surreptitiously and perhaps tempt them.

I don't know whether this is true also of Moslems, but there is a tradition among some Christians that an especially saintly individual will receive a special sign of God's approval  after death.  Instead of the smell of the corruption of the body shortly after death, the body will have either no odor or the sweet odor of flowers or some sweet smell, a sign of that person's saintliness.  Dostoyevsky gives a dramatic example of this in Brothers Karamazov at the death of the revered Elder, Father Zossima.  The monks and townspeople at his funeral are shocked to discover that this tradition did not hold true, at least in the case of Father Zossima.

I wonder if the Poet/Narrator is being ironic here, substituting the odor of wine for that of saintliness.  In any case, it is appropriate that the quatrains now introduce the idea of death for we are coming close to the end of the First Edition of FitzGerald's treatment of the Rubaiyat.

A bit of trivia:  the inside cover of my text informs the reader that The Rubaiyat has been "rendered into verse" by Edward FitzGerald, not "translated,"  obviously taking into account that there is much here that is from FitzGerald and not necessarily from Omar Khayyam.
 .

Robert Grudin: boredom's fast time and slow time

II.23

"Our sense of the slowness or speediness of time often depends on the size of the time-frame we happen to be considering.   It is possible, for example, for us to be simultaneously amazed at the slowness of minutes and the speediness of years.  Oddly enough, this pathetic double amazement bespeaks a single cause: our inability to make proper use of the present.  For although minutes spend in boredom or anxiety pass slowly, they nonetheless add up to years which are void of memory."

-- Robert Grudin --
from Time and the Art of Living

That's  why I usually carry a book with me whenever I'm out and around.  It's amazing how quickly time passes when I pick up a book and read while having to wait in line or for someone to appear.  Moreover, I also find I'm in a much better humor if I spent the time reading rather than fuming over having to wait.  Time always seems to pass quickly when I'm doing something, yet, when I look back, I find those days seem "longer" than those in which I did little or nothing.

Tiz a puzzlement.

Lin Yutang: Spirit and Flesh, concl.

"A defense of the angels-without-bodies theory will be found to be most vague and unsatisfying.  Such a defender might say, 'Ah, yes, but in the world of spirit, we don't need such satisfactions.' 'But what instead have you got?'  Complete silence; or perhaps, 'Void--Peace--Calm.'  'What then do you gain by it?'  'Absence of work and pain and sorrow.' I admit such a heaven has a tremendous attraction to galley slav4es.  Such a negative ideal and conception of happiness is dangerously near to Buddhism and ultimately to be traced to Asia (Asia Minor, in this case) rather than Europe.

Such speculations are necessarily idle, but I may at least point out that the conception of a 'senseless spirit' is quite unwarranted, since we are coming more and more to feel that the universe itself is a sentient being.  Perhaps motion rather than standing still will be a characteristic of the spirit, and one of the pleasures of a  bodiless angel will be to revolve like a proton around a nucleus at the speed of twenty or thirty thousand revolutions a second.  There may be a keen delight in that, more fascinating than a ride on a Coney Island scenic railway.  It will certainly be a kind of sensation.  Or perhaps he bodiless angel will dart like light or cosmic rays in ethereal waves around curved space at the rate of 186,000 miles per second.  There must still be spiritual pigments for the angels to paint and enjoy some form of creation, ethereal vibrations for the angels to feel as tone and sound and color, and ethereal breeze to brush against the angels' cheeks.  Otherwise spirit itself would stagnate like water in a cesspool, or feel like men on a hot, suffocating summer afternoon  without a whiff of fresh air.  There must still be motion and emotion (in whatever form) if there is to be life; certainly not complete rest and insensitiveness."

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living


Perhaps I'm wrong here, but I somehow get the idea that he doesn't take the idea of the possible existence of angels very seriously.  

 
"we are coming more and more to feel that the universe itself is a sentient being." 

I'm not clear as to how seriously we are meant to take this statement.  Is he suggesting that this is just another idea similar to that of angels which is now coming to take the place of angels?

Or, is he suggesting that this may be a more rational idea which will prove that the existence of angels is untenable?

Lin Yutang: Spirit and Flesh, Pt. 1

III.   Spirit and Flesh

"The most obvious fact which philosophers refuse to see is that we have a body.  Tired of seeing our mortal imperfections and our savage instincts and impulses, sometimes our preachers wish that we were made like angels, and yet we are at a total loss to imagine what the angels' life would be like.  We either give the angels a body and a shape like our own--except for a pair of wings--or we don't.  It is interesting that the general conception of an angel is still that of a human body with a pair of wings.  I sometimes thank that it is an advantage even for angels to have a body with the five senses.  If I were to be an angel, I should like to have a school-girl complexion, but how am I going to have a school-girl complexion without a skin?  I still should like to drink a glass of tomato juice or iced orange juice, but how am I going to appreciate iced orange juice without having thirst?  And how am I going to enjoy food, when I am incapable of hunger?  How would an angel paint without pigment, sing without the hearing of sounds, smell the fine morning air without a nose?  How would he enjoy the immense satisfaction of scratching an itch, if his skin doesn't itch?  And what a terrible loss in the capacity for happiness that would be!  Either we have to have bodies and have all our bodily wants satisfied, or else we are pure spirits and have not satisfactions at all.  All satisfactions imply want.

I sometimes think what a terrible punishment it would be for a ghost or an angel to have no body, to look at a stream of cool water and have no feet to plunge into it and get a delightful cooling sensation from it, to see a dish of Peking or Long Island duck and have no tongue to taste it, to see crumpets and have no teeth to chew them, to see the beloved faces of our dear ones and have no emotions to feel toward them.  Terribly sad it would be if we should one day return to this earth as ghosts and move silently into our children's bedroom, to see a child lying there in bed and have no hands to fondle him and no arms to clasp him, no chest for his warmth to penetrate to, no round hollow between cheek and shoulder for him to nestle against, and no ears to hear his voice."

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living

(to be continued)

Nietzsche: on prohibitions

#48
"Prohibitions without reasons: A prohibition, the reason for which we do not understand or admit, is almost a command not only for the stubborn but also for those who thirst for knowledge: one risks an experiment to find out why the prohibition was pronounced.  Moral prohibitions, like those of  the  Decalogue, are suitable only for an age of subjugated reason: now, such a prohibition as "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not commit adultery,"  presented without reasons, would have a harmful rather than a useful effect."

-- Nietzsche --
from The Wanderer and His Shadow
in  The Portable Nietzsche


I have to disagree with Nietzsche at one point for I think he was overly optimistic about the state of human reason.  He seemed to think that no longer could anyone simply issue a prohibition without adequate reasons and get people to obey.  Or, perhaps when Nietzsche was writing, this was true of the general population.  If so, then the situation has deteriorated for I see millions of people who simply follow orders about doing or not doing something simply because they were told to do so and without questioning the rationale for such orders.

But, some, no doubt, will argue that I'm wrong here because I don't accept someone saying "God said so" or "the government said so" or some "Leader said so" as being an adequate reason. 

Loren Eiseley: Some short poems and a haiku by Roka

Footnote to Autumn

Old boulders in the autumn sun and wind,
Settling a little, leaning toward the light
As if to store its summer--these remain
The earth's last gesture in the falling night.

This then is age: It is to have been worked
By the forces of frost and the unloosing sun,
It is to bear such markings fine and proud
As speak of weathers that are long since done.



The second stanza:  could that refer to people?  I have seen photographs of people whose faces seem to tell the stories of their lives.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Night Snow


Nothing
Is lovelier
Than snowflakes at midnight
Drifting out of the dark above the
Streetlamps.
-- Loren Eiseley --


I can remember winter nights in Chicago, looking out the window at the snow coming down in the light of the streetlight in front of our house. 

- - - - - - - - - - -

Old Wharf at Midnight

Under
All decay sounds
The restless monotone
Of the sea at midnight creeping beneath
Old piers.


- - - - - - - - - - -

The Dark Reader

Old moons
these nights and years,
and moss on broken stones . . .
Who stoops by glow-worm lamps to read
your name?


-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley

- - - - - - - - - - -

     Winter rain deepens
Lichened letters on the grave . . .
     And my old sadness
                 -- Roka --
from A Little Treasury of Haiku

Kenko: "In all things I yearn for the past"

#22

"In all things I yearn for the past.  Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased.  I find that even among the splendid pieces of furniture built by our master cabinetmakers, those in the old forms are the most pleasing.  And as for writing letters, surviving scraps from the past reveal how superb the phrasing used to be. The ordinary spoken language has also steadily coarsened.  People used to say "raise the carriage shafts" or "trim the lamp wick,"  but people today say "raise it" or "trim it."  When they should say, "Let the men of the palace staff stand forth!" they say, "Torches!  Let's have some light!"  Instead of calling the place where the lectures on the Sutra of the Gold Light are delivered before the emperor "the Hall of the Imperial Lecture," they shorten it to "the Lecture Hall," a deplorable corruption, an old gentleman complained."

-- Kenko --
from Essays in Idleness


Sound familiar?  This was written sometime between 1330 and 1332 AD in Japan--almost seven centuries ago in a different culture.   I don't think human nature has changed much over the hundreds of thousands of years we've been around.  Oh, for the good ol' days.

The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXVII

Having finished a linked series of quatrains focusing on the relationship between the Potter/Creator and the pots/creatures, we now move to a series of four quatrains that concentrate on wine.  Again, while there are those who attempt to interpret Khayyam's references to wine as being a symbol of God's grace, these quatrains, as do many of the previous references, pose serious problems for them.  While some can be construed in a religious sense, all four most consistently suggest that Khayyam meant wine to be simply wine.  You can see for yourself.


First Edition:  Quatrain LXVII

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
    And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.



Second Edition:  Quatrain XCVIII


Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
    And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,
By some not unfrequented Garden-side.



Fifth Edition:  Quatrain XCI

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash the Body whence the Life has died,
    And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,
By some not unfrequented Garden-side.


Only one change was made in the first two lines:  "my Body" in the first and second editions becomes "the Body" in the fifth edition.  The change seems to make it more impersonal, more disconnected.  At first it was his "Body," but now it's "the Body."   He no longer owns? the Body or is connected to it, but he now sees it as something separate from him, something that exists alone.

While this is not a change, for it remains the same throughout the three versions listed, I wonder about the wording: "the Life has died."  Living creatures die.  We do not usually say, at least not in my experience, that life dies.  We say life leaves or departs or even flees the body, but I've never heard anyone else say or write that life dies.  Curious wording.

Most of the changes in this quatrain occur in the third and fourth lines.  While the words have changed, the sense, though,  seems to remain much the same: he is to be wrapped in a sheet made of  plant leaves and buried in a Garden.  In the first version, he continued the reference to the grape by requesting that he be wrapped in a "Vine-leaf." In the second and fifth edition, that becomes a "living Leaf,"  which makes a possible reference to the vine more ambiguous.  Does the "living Leaf" refer to a "Vine-leaf," or will leaves from any plant be satisfactory?

Another change occurs in the last line where the "sweet Garden-side"  becomes "some not unfrequented Garden-side."  The Garden no longer has to be sweet, but it must  be one that is visited regularly.  What seems contradictory here is that in the fifth version, he no longer refers to "my Body" but "the Body."  But, he still requests that he (his body) be wrapped in plant leaves and buried in a Garden.  He seemingly has regained ownership of the Body in the third and fourth lines.  Or, perhaps he never meant to suggest the separation of himself from his Body, and I'm guilty of over-reading here (something to meditate on).

My copy Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by Garden City Books, includes the following anecdote in the brief discussion of the  life of Omar Khayyam, pp.27-40.

"Khwajah Nizami of Samarkand, who was one of his pupils, relates the following story: "I often used to hold conversations with my teacher, Omar Khayyam,  in a garden;  and one day he said to me, "My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter roses over it."  I wondered at the words he spake, but I knew that his were no idle words.  Years after, when I chanced to revisit Naishapur, I went to his final
resting-place, and lo! it was just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall, and dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them.'"

As it is in the Rubaiyat, so it came to pass:  Omar Khayyam  was buried in that garden-side.