Spocurious

As a raspberry bush producing its berries, I wonder my words:

 

If there is a path to the rock pool, and if so who made it, and if not, how did they get there to make the rock pool.

If anyone breaks the no camping sign rules, and if not why they have so many signs posted, or for what radius around the sign its rule is valid.

If anyone follows the walk your bike sign rules.

Who goes to Kendo, that they have such a big building there by the river.

Tucked in a book, the receipt from someone else who read it, and movies at the library--who is that person who read it, and who is it watching them all. What did they think?

When everything has stories to it, how do you decide which ones to read, or to tell? For yourself, hopefully. Do you get to say some are better than others? Maybe so long as you give evidence. Do you have to always worry you haven't found the best ones? Maybe not if you have all the time in the world.

Do they always have to translate into words? Maybe pictures and music are ways to tell them, too.

Experiments outside Laboratory

So the housekeeping continues: I sat in church today, maybe in the same seat from the first time I ever went at the end of last summer, feeling the newness wearing off and not minding, since it meant I liked it there enough to keep coming back, and borrowing books from Rev. Todd, and talking to Aria and them about reading and talking about Harry Potter, and Hobbit Camp, and running into Taylor from Spark up there to give a White Privilege/Supremacy workshop, and writing memoirs with people.

These books generated further reading, of course; these meetings further talking; and all of it might or might not turn into writing, in the llama book if nowhere else. From Romero's language about building the kingdom I thought, of course, about Pullman's about building a republic. Despite all the stuff about whiteness, or because of it, that I hear at church here and at the philosopher's talk downtown, I am reminded how little I care about politics, but how much I appreciate free speech and a free press--as long as it includes free silence, to read and write in. Or to walk down to the river the steps of the park built above the power plant, built by white people or at any rate owned by some, I figure.

If I affect a laconic, western style in these first-person paragraphs, put it down to reading Doig, The Last Bus to Wisdom, with the Literary Freedom book group at Auntie's. This might be their website? But to find them, you almost have to look at the paper calendar they give out by the register, which I love. A good question about love knowledge: do you only truly get to know people who care about you, and whom you care about? Are kind people the only people you can know authentically? If so, what a problematically circumscribed authenticity! But without pretentious preening, the book does fit into that classic American literary conversation with the likes of Huck and Antonia, sort of.

Still, I'd like to make it possible to find information about things like that book group more readily. Or Laboratory, which I heard about by word of mouth twice in one day, and had never heard of before--or at least, it didn't register. Their event last night wasn't starting till 9, though, way too late for the likes of me; besides, I had to help Steph with Mario, holding this or that tool, looking for a dropped bolt, while she fixed her car. Sounds like Spark will host some writing on local authors and such like goings on on their website. And I still aim to write for Love and Outrage a poem or two about the rainbows down there, or by Corbin Park, or above Kendall Yards, or in that image I just posted from Shell. Here's hoping.

It's weird. The library is still my ideal for this work of connecting people to books, to art, to culture, but as long as there is material somewhere along the line, there has to remain room for the serendipitous, too. Looking for a copy of Totoro that has gone missing, I found Pom Poko instead!

Tolkien's minor poems "and the happy summer days" THE END

(From some ideas pointed out in our Preceptorial for Beyond Middle Earth)

‘What do you know about this business?’ the King said to Alice.

‘Nothing,’ said Alice.

‘Nothing whatever?’ persisted the King.

‘Nothing whatever,’ said Alice.

‘That’s very important,’ the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted: ‘Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course,’ he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke.

‘Unimportant, of course, I meant,’ the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone,

‘important—unimportant—unimportant—important—’ as if he were trying which word sounded best.

Some of the jury wrote it down ‘important,’ and some ‘unimportant.’ Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; ‘but it doesn’t matter a bit,’ she thought to herself.

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, cackled out ‘Silence!’ and read out from his book, ‘Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.’

Everybody looked at Alice.

‘I’m not a mile high,’ said Alice.

‘You are,’ said the King.

‘Nearly two miles high,’ added the Queen.

‘Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,’ said Alice: ‘besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.’

‘It’s the oldest rule in the book,’ said the King.

‘Then it ought to be Number One,’ said Alice.

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. ‘Consider your verdict,’ he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.

‘There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,’ said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; ‘this paper has just been picked up.’

‘What’s in it?’ said the Queen.

‘I haven’t opened it yet,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘but it seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner to—to somebody.’

‘It must have been that,’ said the King, ‘unless it was written to nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.’

‘Who is it directed to?’ said one of the jurymen.

‘It isn’t directed at all,’ said the White Rabbit; ‘in fact, there’s nothing written on the outside.’ He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and added ‘It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.’

‘Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?’ asked another of the jurymen.

‘No, they’re not,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘and that’s the queerest thing about it.’ (The jury all looked puzzled.)

‘He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,’ said the King. (The jury all brightened up again.)

‘Please your Majesty,’ said the Knave, ‘I didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.’

‘If you didn’t sign it,’ said the King, ‘that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.’

There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.

‘That proves his guilt,’ said the Queen.

‘It proves nothing of the sort!’ said Alice. ‘Why, you don’t even know what they’re about!’

‘Read them,’ said the King.

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. ‘Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?’ he asked.

‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’

These were the verses the White Rabbit read:—

   ‘They told me you had been to her,
    And mentioned me to him:
   She gave me a good character,
    But said I could not swim.

   He sent them word I had not gone
    (We know it to be true):
   If she should push the matter on,
    What would become of you?

   I gave her one, they gave him two,
    You gave us three or more;
   They all returned from him to you,
    Though they were mine before.

   If I or she should chance to be
    Involved in this affair,
   He trusts to you to set them free,
    Exactly as we were.

   My notion was that you had been
    (Before she had this fit)
   An obstacle that came between
    Him, and ourselves, and it.

   Don’t let him know she liked them best,
    For this must ever be
   A secret, kept from all the rest,
    Between yourself and me.’ 

‘That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,’ said the King, rubbing his hands; ‘so now let the jury—’

‘If any one of them can explain it,’ said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of interrupting him,) ‘I’ll give him sixpence. I don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.’

The jury all wrote down on their slates, ‘She doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it,’ but none of them attempted to explain the paper.

‘If there’s no meaning in it,’ said the King, ‘that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t know,’ he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye; ‘I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. “—said I could not swim—” you can’t swim, can you?’ he added, turning to the Knave.

The Knave shook his head sadly. ‘Do I look like it?’ he said. (Which he certainly did not, being made entirely of cardboard.)

‘All right, so far,’ said the King, and he went on muttering over the verses to himself: ‘“We know it to be true—” that’s the jury, of course—“I gave her one, they gave him two—” why, that must be what he did with the tarts, you know—’

‘But, it goes on “they all returned from him to you,”’ said Alice.

‘Why, there they are!’ said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. ‘Nothing can be clearer than that. Then again—“before she had this fit—” you never had fits, my dear, I think?’ he said to the Queen.

‘Never!’ said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)

‘Then the words don’t fit you,’ said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence.

‘It’s a pun!’ the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, ‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister; ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’

‘Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!’ said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, ‘It was a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.’ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

...

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm#link2HCH0012

Liam posted this as a counterpart to the poems we've been discussing from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, the Annotated Hobbit, and the Book of Lost Tales--all fairly minor poems, though it would be extreme to say, like Alice of the White Rabbit's evidence, that they were totally worthless. He liked my suggestion about the theme of words' power in the different spheres of Bimble Town: how it functions as advertisement, with the biting satire of the See Britain First campaign

(and he noted that Tom Shippey worked in the ad business once!) and then again as beautiful, potentially dangerous, enchantment--and to my reference to Prufrock he added one more by Atwood:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/44212 and https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/32778

And perhaps--probably--even to take the little time to copy this out and bring it to some slight order is to make too much of it, when you think of the real, effective power of words in, say, political speech or in academia, which I only scratch the surface (or is it the ears?) of here, but I like to, once in a while. The gusty bus no es discapacitated.

Plato's Republic and Zombies

For books 7 and 8, we talked about the appearance of math in the curriculum of the philosophers, and looked at some of the strange things that are said about that--how Agamemnon couldn't have counted his own two feet, and how division is spoken of as multiplication by the adept to preserve the unity of one. Four of us were there: Paul, Rex, Steph, and I.

We wondered about this dialectic which seems to consist in going out of and returning down into to the cave; how analysis and unity are experienced in thought and practice; how war and violence relate to philosophy, to math, and to the other arts; about the new words that are coined (and the space where a word should be for the science of solids that precedes astronomy), like 'timocracy/timarchy' for a theoretical government based on love of honor; and how these governments are related to individuals, and whether they are mixed, or cyclical; we raised the mystery of unconscious thinking and intuition beside the emphasis on reason, as another possible interpretation of the relationship between the cave and the sunlight; we considered the case of a man without working memory, imprisoned in an eternal present...we might have thought of it a little like this, too?

I got started on the Idiot so I can talk to people back in the desert about that. But then also this week I finally started in on Mr Eppeldauer's book, ZWARM--highly recommended! We used to talk about it when I would go back to GHS and sub, and he would be typing away at it. Here are some thoughts so far:

The logotherapeutic quality of writing comes through strongly, the transgressive images of sex and violence overlapping with dreams of ordinary life from before the unstated catastrophe which has locked the characters up in the cave, in the dark--this terrible inversion of the Platonic image, where outside in the light is dramatic death, and the only way out is Dantean down.