Epigrams and Apocrypha: Goytisolo’s Trial Before his Countrymen.
There is something about La Reinvindicación that pulls all of us into its machinations. It is 1970 and Goytisolo obviously has a reason not to be living in Spain. Goytisolo is an analytical individual with reason to remember, forget, to fear and profess, to be anxious, to keep things to himself, but in other instances, to reveal. The writer is one identity in a sea of other beings, past and present, high and low, layered one on top of the other. Who is Goytisolo and who does he want to let on that he is?
What does he mean about faith and treason? Could it be that they are distinguishable from one another. What is exile, if indeed it does exist? Is it a projection? A place inside or out of lines and intersections: geopolitical borders? Though the stream-of-consciousness writing style is perhaps the only enduring stylistic feature of La Reinvindicación, there is something out there in Goytisolo’s cosmic space that speaks for itself. There is no accountability to anyone: not the text, not a country or regime, nor even to himself: a real physical being. What are any of us who think and breath, but the sum total of what we eat and breathe? What are we collectively, other than the sum of our arms, legs, thoughts, and perhaps wounded, failing appendages?
To dive into La Reinvindicación, as a work of fiction is to sever the syllogisms, logic and formulae that exert their force behind us (now merely a projectile) and watch us pinball and funnel down through the maze. To bring meaning to his text is to release oneself from meaning-making, the rigid structure that says why is letter x in sequence abc, and why is that one goat on top of the hill? We, the readers are also the writers. To scour the sources and find the origin of every single one of the author’s referents would be to incite madness. The unlettered reader in his insatiable thirst to know why this one is here and that one is there, thinking that in doing so he is becoming lettered is accomplishing nothing more than inwardly thrusting himself into a state of denial.
This is precisely what René Girard is describing in his chapter “Master and Slave,” a pseudo-masochistic reading of text and intertext within Miguel de Cervantes seminal work Don Quijote. His exploration of interpersonal relationships within the text expose the vanity of those who wish to distinguish themselves from the rest for their firm grasp of an abnormal otherness (as a psychological disorder or otherwise). He centers his focus around the figure of the cultured bachiller Carrasco who, contriving to dupe Don Quijote and his sidekick Sancho, succumbs to seduction occupying a limbo like space of futility. If cultural meaning-making is the barometer that a higher court uses to measure the success of an individual to his relative society, and by extension, posterity, Carrasco proves himself to be completely inept. More inept than Sancho Panza, for example, who does in fact succeed in governing momentarily an insular geographic space. He creates, he dictates and he delegates, however short lived this period of his life might be.
What then is it that I, or any other individual for that matter, have to do to distinguish myself from the rest? It is symptomatic of culture as a sociological mechanism. Back to the analogy of the goat above (not the scapegoat of Girard, but a pedigree Alpha male goat), I ask myself (as I am confident that most everyone does), what do I do to reach that apogee of understanding. What do I do to selectively graze, metabolize, synthesize and enrich my body and soul, and to make this shiny coat visible to those around me? What is the recipe of success to acquire, accrue, and ultimately bequeath cultural and economical capital to the other goats spread out below me (both temporally and physically)? What are the chances? Pierre Bourdieu has an answer for all of this in his book Distinctions: the case studies, statistics, names of well-to-do families, educational systems, neighborhoods and infrastructure. To show how this one became a violin virtuoso and that one deteriorated into the role of a footsoldier for an organized crime organization. With the same tact and precision that a geologist would account for what the Himalayan mountain range is and why, why it is always shifting year by year a few meters to the left or right. Bourdieu inserts his chisel into the exact line that separates the bourgeois strata from the petit-bourgeois and so on.
However, my approach to maximizing the cultural profit margin in La Reinvindicación differs on many fundamental levels from Bourdieu’s efforts to catalogue and diffuse even the most minor of details. In my reading of Goytisolo’s second volume of the trilogy of treason. For me, it is less about the names, places, insects and secret agents that orbit around the reader-writer who enters into its cycle. It is the uncertainties or the many times unpleasant affect that it triggers within my own subjectivity and asking why? It is not about tracing back the intertextual referents to their origin, but about letting go and giving way to where they lead. My reading of La Reinvindicación affords space for these referents to accrue feeling, not meaning, and finally stop. To the reader of my reading, this last part might not initially make much sense; however, if I am successful he or she might become aware of its projection on the other side (that is to say, his or her side).
On the Side of Capital Distinction:
Virginia Woolf on pausing before making decisions, “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” (Mrs. Dalloway).
On the Side of Capital Regulation:
Agent 007, recalling a previous conversation with operative Mr. M, states: “He said that if I was going to get involved in the diamond business I ought to try and understand what was really at the bottom of it all. Not just the billions of money involved, or the value of diamonds as a hedge against inflation, or the sentimental fashions in diamonds for engagement rings and so forth. He said, one must understand the passion for diamonds. So he just showed me what I’m showing you” (Ian Flemming, Diamonds are Forever).
Interchangeability of Stage and Stimulus:
James Fennimore Cooper on semiotics and the divided self: “He draws metaphors from the clouds, the seasons, the birds, the beasts, and the vegetable world. In this, perhaps, he does no more than any other energetic and imaginative race would do, being compelled to set bounds to fancy by experience; but the North American Indian clothes his ideas in a dress which is different from that of the African, and is Oriental in itself. His language has the richness and sententious fullness of the Chinese. He will express a phrase in a word, and he will qualify the meaning of an entire sentence by a syllable; he will even convey different significations by the simplest inflections of the voice” (“Introduction,” The last of the Mohicans).
Narcissistic Knee-jerk Reflex and the Will of the Phantom Limb:
Plainte de la bergére au publique: “Votre plus haut savoir n’est que pure chimère,/ Vains et peu sages médecins;/ Vous ne pouvez guérir par vos grands mots latins/ La douleur qui me déspère:/ Votre plus haut savoir n’est que pure chimère.” (Molière, La maladie imaginaire).
Porcelain and Purpose:
Frank O’Hara to the Film Industry in Crisis: “Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants, nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you, promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry, it’s you I love!” (Meditations in an Emergency).
Terminal Velocity:
Camus: Le dernier jour d’un condamné; Apocrypha: the letter X, “Ainsi, avec les heures de sommeil, les souvenirs, la lecture de mon fait divers et l’alternance de al lumière et de l’ombre, le temps a passé. J’avais bien lu qu’on finissait par perdre la notion du temps en prison. Mais cela n’avait pas beaucoup de sens pour moi. Je n’avais pas compris à quel point lês jours pouvaient être à la fois longs et courts. Longs à vivre sans doute, mais tellement distendus qu’ils finissaient par déborder lês uns sur les autres. Ils y perdaeint leur nom. Les mots hier ou demain étaient les seuls qui gardaient un sens pour moi” (L’Étranger, II-2).
The Production of Plot:
Christopher Cade on pedigree and purging: “Something about the tribe of Israel. The wandering in the desert and learning the principles of patience. Waiting without wanting. Wanting to dislodge oneself from any sense of purpose from oneself and be part of something bigger… a collective body of arms and legs and burning hearts…something bigger…something that walks forward without second-guessing that leaves a footprint bigger than insular I can. Walking without noticing how far---how great the expanse behind---and how far forward. No, it is not a question of must. Neither is it a discernable experience. There is nothing that says to us that this day is today and it is put in a category outside of all of the rest. It is day day day, and it is also not a question of remembering or forgetting. We are one with the land and there is sweat and dust on our brows. Some have more wrinkled skin than others. And above all, we have a designated place for antonement, a subjective wilderness named Azazel” (Cloud-seeding, mining, and letting go of the Western frontier).
Authorship and Authenticity:
Nina opens before her a vacuum of articulation: “(forcing a smile) You look frightened Charlie. Do I seem queer? It´s because I’ve suddenly seen the lies in the sounds called words. You know—grief, sorrow, love, father---those sounds our lips make and our hands write. You ought to know what I mean. You work with them. Have you written another novel lately? But, stop to think, you’re just the one who couldn’t know what I mean. With you the lies have become the only truthful things. And I suppose that’s the logical conclusion to the whole evasive mess, isn’t it? Do you understand me Charlie? Say life. L-i-i-f-e! You see! Life is just a long drawn out lie with sniffling sigh at the end! (she laughs)” (Eugene O’Neil, The Interlude).
Closure:
Jacques Derrida (still somewhat veiled in response to Hélène Cixous): “Before the verdict, my verdict, before, befalling me, it drags me down with it in its fall, before it´s too late, stop writing. Full stop, period” (Veils).
On the side of Practicality:
When I was growing up in San Diego, California my Dad had an interesting way of demarcating the limit between our yard and that of the neighbors. He wanted privacy for him and his family, but he had an aversion for chain-link fences. What did he do? He imported a unique strand of Eucalyptus trees from what is now Myanmar (myrtaceae frigilis cans-anagnorisis) that would reach heights in excess of forty feet within a span of two years, effectively spreading their desiccated foliage so far outward that they resembled a broad Torrey Pine (pinus torreyana californiense) that are in fact native to the region. Certainly there is a lot to be said about the postmodern city, especially in the case of the southland in California. Nevertheless, people have always been about quick fixes, shopping lists and propriety. One by one lanes are added to the interstates only to exceed capacity and bottleneck again. There is something liberating about owning one’s vehicle. The value of impulse over things like the eco-system. I want and I get. If the locusts are eating away at my fields of wheat, by all means I’ll introduce a menace like the Colorado River Toad (bufo alvarius) to send them swiftly back to their creator.
Grafting to bear a superior fruit:
The Good and the Bad of Richardson’s Approach to Goytisolo and Spatial Discourse.
I decided to stick with the Good and a Bad, although I might have included an “Ugly” if I wanted to offer even more dimension to this discussion. The “Ugly” would have to be slightly sinister, highly exotic and overtly haphazard to bring the spaghetti western and Sergio Leone into the mix. Nevertheless, the Italian who came to love the mythic rough-riding, North American landscape of the Wild West, but instead trans-culturated the whole project back to Europe, putting voiced-over Italian actors into place within a Spanish (?) cinematographic geography, seems to resonate with Richardson’s approach. I will say that I embrace The Ends of Space for not holding back, sticking to his guns and delivering quite a tour-de-force of performative, spatial, and even referential (sign-signifier) bibliography.
Who is the audience of this largely theatrical representation of Goytisolo’s exilic pleasures? I would say that Richardson is very aware of the challenges that a hispanist faces in reaching a broader audience. Despite the fact that Richardson arguably devotes a little too much of his analysis to anglo-themed intertexts, such as the Little Red Riding Hood and Ian Fleming’s 007 secret agent, it is his world to add in his own personal signature to. Interestingly, these two fictional constructions, however inane or boldly womanizing they might have been in their respective contexts, plunged themselves headlong into unarguably daunting spatial territory. I cannot question Richardson for identifying his target audience, and doing everything he could to spice things up.
That being said, I also identified my own susceptibility to the way Richardson is seduced to such a wide gamut of spatial theorists. In one moment he wants “space” and “place” in the Yi-Fu Tuan framing of things to be interchangeable. Don’t both intersect one another in the metaphysical conception of the human anatomy? He correctly identifies the trialectic of Lefebvre, as delineated in the introductory chapter of The Production of Space: lived, conceived and perceived space. Notwithstanding, the all-encompassing historical odyssey, on which the Marxist philosopher from Bordeaux embarks, is left conveniently aside. Furthermore, Richardson seems to string together the three categorical concepts together in a similar vein to Sancho Panza’s proverbs. When involving Lefebvre in a discussion of a literary text of any sort, the differentiality must be clearly identified. If Álvaro unbridled ruminations are conceived space in the fictive sense, then they cannot very well be emblematic of “spatial practice” (drawn from Michael de Certeau, but more appropriately in this context “lived space” a la Lefebvre).
I would like to take this opportunity to remind the reader that my poking fingers into Richardson’s creative re-configuration of the literary and theoretical threads that are available to him, by no means suggests that I refuse to implicate myself of the same deficiencies. On the contrary, I am making a mental note of the good and a bad here, so that when I set out on a similar project to this, I can avoid the pitfall in which the merit of my analysis has oft been buried. Returning more specifically to the good, I would like to laud Richardson for his open-mindedness in weighing all the material that is available to him interdisciplinary. As hyperbolic as it might be from time to time, I would agree that it is indeed symphonic. It is a pleasure to read and is completely readable, regardless of the previous background of any individual who picks it up. Although he reports linking metaphorically the main character Álvaro to the following description, I see it differently. This is a moment of epiphany, and interestingly the collective use of we brings us all into the fold: “We recall that the final annihilation of the body, though a terrific wedding of the material and the ideological, was ultimately the culmination of personal conceptualizations of space” (25). In closing, I will suggest the following to myself for the future: a selfless and methodological annihilation of [my] body when overtly recognizing the presence of these theoretical concepts within the confines of my analysis.
The Verdict:
“Reinforcement of the community is identical with the strengthening of socio-religious transcendence. But such reinforcement demands a flawless scapegoat mechanism, completely unanimous agreement that the victim is guilty” (René Girard, “A Totalitarian Trial,” The Scapegoat, 111).
Primary Work:
Goytisolo, Juan. Reinvindicación del conde don Julián. México: Joaquín Mortiz, 1970.
Secondary Sources:
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Mass. :
Harvard University Press, 1984
Girard, René. Deceit, Desire and the Novel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966.
----------------The Scapegoat. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Blackwell Publishing: Malden, Ma; 1991.
Richardson, Nathan. The Ends of Spanish Space in Juan Goytisolo's Reivindicacion del
Conde don Julian. Letras Hispanas. Fall 2008; 5 (2): 15-28 (Electronic).
Soja, Edward W. Postmodern Geographies. Verso Press: London, New York; 1989.
Sources of Mention; Relevant to the Research Process:
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press: Boston; 1969
Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley : University of California Press,
1988
McAuley, Gay. Space in Performance. University of Michigan Press: Anne Arbor; 2000.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis; 1977.
***Extended Bibliography, in addition to an exhaustive definition and etymological analysis of
the word “kitsch”---
--- Available Upon Request.
In deference to the constructs of filtering and editing, I confess sins of mine that have already happened or will happen in the future. Remote to me is a geography I authored for a specific purpose: it is the land of atonement and the rest is between me and the wind (Cade, as himself).
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
A break in the thread: this is not an entremes
Cloud-seeding, mining, and letting go of the Western frontier (anonymous).
Something about the tribe of Israel. The wandering in the desert and learning the principles of patience. Waiting without wanting. Wanting to dislodge oneself from any sense of purpose from oneself and be part of something bigger… a collective body of arms and legs and burning hearts…something bigger…something that walks forward without second-guessing that leaves a footprint bigger than insular I can. Walking without noticing how far---how great the expanse behind---and how far forward. No, it is not a question of must. Neither is it a discernable experience. There is nothing that says to us that this day is today and it is put in a category outside of all of the rest. It is day day day, and it is also not a question of remembering or forgetting. We are one with the land and there is sweat and dust on our brows. Some have more wrinkled skin than others.
This land, this flatland knows not why it is flat and knows not why it is forever infertile. The faith and the frenzy have led us, the search parties out there, and clawing into a soil without substance, arms raised…extending one link and joint to another chain-like and longer than any one forearm and open palm with nerves exposed could stretch out toward the sun…send down send down the rays and let the corn rise up and produce soak in the rays over and over and over until the harvest of endless fields of the goldest sweetest corn you have ever seen is at our feet. At our feet is so much of heaven and joy and fruit of the earth we cannot contain…we cannot save for another day…drought, plague, who knows why? We have learned not to ask these questions. Manna will fall down from the sky while we sleep at night. And that is the thought that lets us close off this day, say thank you and that is enough, drift off, and usher in another.
A break and watch (to you who read-that means pay attention), don’t confuse this with anything else that came before. This is me now speaking. I am someone who was born already knowing about the great dust bowl, why it happened, the black storms that fought back pushed back the throngs of people who shook their fists at the western horizon and said this is our land and with God as our witness we will make it germinate. This is me being vaguely aware of the struggle of the determination of individuals and individuals whom I will never know but can sense. Who saw what I call the heartland and knew on the other side there was something…mountains perhaps…a great glacial rift that would thrust, pierce into the sky and then become still…a natural setting where a higher court than they could see with their eyes through the dust…higher up the court would convene, and give them the discretion to name it and call it theirs.
I profess this faith too, I really do. But digging into it and bringing up out of the earth the substance of life is not a simple question of digging, mining, however else you want to see it. You see, I like to think about it as adaptation. Frankly, I have already atoned for my future sins, I have accounted for that space around me that I have sucked all of the vital air out of. Surely I have burnt some bridges or will burn bridges, will chop down trees on the periphery to bunker down and garrison within. Is this so entirely different from the fence or the moat? I don’t think so. But with this I have given wind to my wanting and have said ok, this is my inclination and this is how I feel about things, and I don’t have any reluctance to sell this image of myself. I don’t doubt that adaptation will allow me to conjure up more substance than is naturally available. For me and for all else who looks back to see the burning fixed glance and gasping beneath rags or handkerchiefs or what have you, there is a solution to all of this and it is as simple as cloud seeding.
A final thought: "The frontier is not out there; it is within, deep deep within."
Something about the tribe of Israel. The wandering in the desert and learning the principles of patience. Waiting without wanting. Wanting to dislodge oneself from any sense of purpose from oneself and be part of something bigger… a collective body of arms and legs and burning hearts…something bigger…something that walks forward without second-guessing that leaves a footprint bigger than insular I can. Walking without noticing how far---how great the expanse behind---and how far forward. No, it is not a question of must. Neither is it a discernable experience. There is nothing that says to us that this day is today and it is put in a category outside of all of the rest. It is day day day, and it is also not a question of remembering or forgetting. We are one with the land and there is sweat and dust on our brows. Some have more wrinkled skin than others.
This land, this flatland knows not why it is flat and knows not why it is forever infertile. The faith and the frenzy have led us, the search parties out there, and clawing into a soil without substance, arms raised…extending one link and joint to another chain-like and longer than any one forearm and open palm with nerves exposed could stretch out toward the sun…send down send down the rays and let the corn rise up and produce soak in the rays over and over and over until the harvest of endless fields of the goldest sweetest corn you have ever seen is at our feet. At our feet is so much of heaven and joy and fruit of the earth we cannot contain…we cannot save for another day…drought, plague, who knows why? We have learned not to ask these questions. Manna will fall down from the sky while we sleep at night. And that is the thought that lets us close off this day, say thank you and that is enough, drift off, and usher in another.
A break and watch (to you who read-that means pay attention), don’t confuse this with anything else that came before. This is me now speaking. I am someone who was born already knowing about the great dust bowl, why it happened, the black storms that fought back pushed back the throngs of people who shook their fists at the western horizon and said this is our land and with God as our witness we will make it germinate. This is me being vaguely aware of the struggle of the determination of individuals and individuals whom I will never know but can sense. Who saw what I call the heartland and knew on the other side there was something…mountains perhaps…a great glacial rift that would thrust, pierce into the sky and then become still…a natural setting where a higher court than they could see with their eyes through the dust…higher up the court would convene, and give them the discretion to name it and call it theirs.
I profess this faith too, I really do. But digging into it and bringing up out of the earth the substance of life is not a simple question of digging, mining, however else you want to see it. You see, I like to think about it as adaptation. Frankly, I have already atoned for my future sins, I have accounted for that space around me that I have sucked all of the vital air out of. Surely I have burnt some bridges or will burn bridges, will chop down trees on the periphery to bunker down and garrison within. Is this so entirely different from the fence or the moat? I don’t think so. But with this I have given wind to my wanting and have said ok, this is my inclination and this is how I feel about things, and I don’t have any reluctance to sell this image of myself. I don’t doubt that adaptation will allow me to conjure up more substance than is naturally available. For me and for all else who looks back to see the burning fixed glance and gasping beneath rags or handkerchiefs or what have you, there is a solution to all of this and it is as simple as cloud seeding.
A final thought: "The frontier is not out there; it is within, deep deep within."
Monday, April 12, 2010
Magic Castles in the Sky and the Unconscious Grendel
Magic Castles in the Sky and the Unconscious Grendel:
In the latter half of the 19th century when Charles Darwin was collecting samples of sea turtle species in the southern hemisphere and post-romantic poets were transposing his ideas into the realm of social determinism, there was another thinker out there on the fray (maybe on a ship somewhere) who was composing volumes and volumes of what he called Modern Cartesian Theory. This seaman, if you want to call him that, was called Charles Fourier.
Fourier understood the libinal side of things as Freud would have it. He knew what it was to sublimate something and he had a more acute sense of the constructs of what “reality” was before him or ever since. C.F. knew that “reality” was something, a room a space, that the human psyche constructed outside of itself, an elliptical extension if you will.
(The writer of this article will admit that he is tired after being up for many consecutive nights and is remembering in a weird way some of the lyrics of a Rod Stewart song, “Maggie”---something about his coffee being cold and having to get back to work---well anyway my coffee is in fact cold and it isn’t because I am drinking iced-coffee. The reason is very simple. I have been up for many consecutive nights. I have been visited by Charles Fourier or one of his entities or whatever you want to call it, and am not entirely sure that it is my fingers that are typing…maybe they are his).
Back to the sailboat and the human psyche. C.F. would swear by the fact that when he was so far out there in the unchanging blue canopy of the Pacific Ocean and had not seen a landmass for several days, that looking hard and fearlessly into the sun, he would close his eyes after and at once he was able to see his multiple alternate identities.
Identity number one could have been Beatrice, Dante’s second half in his efforts to leave Purgatory and identity number two could have been George Michael, a British pop icon who came way after. As he closed his eyes way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean far away from anything that even closely resembled land, he watched as they danced. Vaudeville with canes; tap tap tapping, spinning and smiling, all of his remote identities.
It was clear to C.F. and he would later profess in no short order of pages (The writer of this article would like to take a moment to acknowledge the invisible work that he has done, reducing the gargantuan corpus of C.F.’s work into a very manageable compendium…it is being printed as we speak and will soon be in circulation) that he had multiplied himself across time (the writer would like to emphasize footnote number 17 in the translator’s introduction that he feels divided is a more appropriate word). In essence, he had multiplied his genetic sequence many times over and in his uninhibited gaze towards the heavens had seen this sequence multiplied several more times and occupying several different bodies, each of which he believed to have only one distinct signature, or variation in the genetic sequence.
But we all know as members of the 21st century human race, how irrational we can be from time to time. No, I am not talking about C.F.’s firm belief that his genetic sequence could be (divided) and reproduced. Why dispute what has already been proven? What I am saying is that C.F.’s project was doomed for failure the minute he understood the nature of what he was doing: dividing himself, or, in a figurative sense grafting himself into the anatomies of remote cosmic bodies spaced out over centuries if not millennia.
It was the ebb and flow, the unpleasant side of harmony, that visited him in his nomadic tent at night. That specter would come and wrestle him down until he desisted and admitted to himself and it (the specter) that he could engender, but never under any circumstance alter these disparate identities. The atom would always be perfectly balanced between positive and negative. If not, relativity would exact change until this equilibrium was established.
C.F. understood in these moments of heightened perception the fact that he was undeniably the master of his own undoing. If there was to be a Roland of the Vanguard there would have to also be a Grendel. This menacing presence might lay dormant for some time before rapping at his door. But he would come. He would come and blow fire into the porthole of every one of Fourier’s vicarious spaces, wiping everything out and bringing his cosmic proliferation back to nil.
Much credit has been given to those around him, but we must pause to reflect from time to time on Fourier’s contribution to mankind. Reality plus one, was and always will be a reminder to us about the impending visitor at our door. The tax collector, however you want to think about it. Modern Cartesian Theory tells us about harmony, but it does not and cannot ever explain how harmony can be isolated (like a chemical compound), no matter how far out at sea each of us might be.
Jacob Darway for "Modern Illuminations of Science and Thinking"
In the latter half of the 19th century when Charles Darwin was collecting samples of sea turtle species in the southern hemisphere and post-romantic poets were transposing his ideas into the realm of social determinism, there was another thinker out there on the fray (maybe on a ship somewhere) who was composing volumes and volumes of what he called Modern Cartesian Theory. This seaman, if you want to call him that, was called Charles Fourier.
Fourier understood the libinal side of things as Freud would have it. He knew what it was to sublimate something and he had a more acute sense of the constructs of what “reality” was before him or ever since. C.F. knew that “reality” was something, a room a space, that the human psyche constructed outside of itself, an elliptical extension if you will.
(The writer of this article will admit that he is tired after being up for many consecutive nights and is remembering in a weird way some of the lyrics of a Rod Stewart song, “Maggie”---something about his coffee being cold and having to get back to work---well anyway my coffee is in fact cold and it isn’t because I am drinking iced-coffee. The reason is very simple. I have been up for many consecutive nights. I have been visited by Charles Fourier or one of his entities or whatever you want to call it, and am not entirely sure that it is my fingers that are typing…maybe they are his).
Back to the sailboat and the human psyche. C.F. would swear by the fact that when he was so far out there in the unchanging blue canopy of the Pacific Ocean and had not seen a landmass for several days, that looking hard and fearlessly into the sun, he would close his eyes after and at once he was able to see his multiple alternate identities.
Identity number one could have been Beatrice, Dante’s second half in his efforts to leave Purgatory and identity number two could have been George Michael, a British pop icon who came way after. As he closed his eyes way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean far away from anything that even closely resembled land, he watched as they danced. Vaudeville with canes; tap tap tapping, spinning and smiling, all of his remote identities.
It was clear to C.F. and he would later profess in no short order of pages (The writer of this article would like to take a moment to acknowledge the invisible work that he has done, reducing the gargantuan corpus of C.F.’s work into a very manageable compendium…it is being printed as we speak and will soon be in circulation) that he had multiplied himself across time (the writer would like to emphasize footnote number 17 in the translator’s introduction that he feels divided is a more appropriate word). In essence, he had multiplied his genetic sequence many times over and in his uninhibited gaze towards the heavens had seen this sequence multiplied several more times and occupying several different bodies, each of which he believed to have only one distinct signature, or variation in the genetic sequence.
But we all know as members of the 21st century human race, how irrational we can be from time to time. No, I am not talking about C.F.’s firm belief that his genetic sequence could be (divided) and reproduced. Why dispute what has already been proven? What I am saying is that C.F.’s project was doomed for failure the minute he understood the nature of what he was doing: dividing himself, or, in a figurative sense grafting himself into the anatomies of remote cosmic bodies spaced out over centuries if not millennia.
It was the ebb and flow, the unpleasant side of harmony, that visited him in his nomadic tent at night. That specter would come and wrestle him down until he desisted and admitted to himself and it (the specter) that he could engender, but never under any circumstance alter these disparate identities. The atom would always be perfectly balanced between positive and negative. If not, relativity would exact change until this equilibrium was established.
C.F. understood in these moments of heightened perception the fact that he was undeniably the master of his own undoing. If there was to be a Roland of the Vanguard there would have to also be a Grendel. This menacing presence might lay dormant for some time before rapping at his door. But he would come. He would come and blow fire into the porthole of every one of Fourier’s vicarious spaces, wiping everything out and bringing his cosmic proliferation back to nil.
Much credit has been given to those around him, but we must pause to reflect from time to time on Fourier’s contribution to mankind. Reality plus one, was and always will be a reminder to us about the impending visitor at our door. The tax collector, however you want to think about it. Modern Cartesian Theory tells us about harmony, but it does not and cannot ever explain how harmony can be isolated (like a chemical compound), no matter how far out at sea each of us might be.
Jacob Darway for "Modern Illuminations of Science and Thinking"
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Endless Summer I
Portland, Australia: home of “O homem da guerra.”--written by Christopher Cade (4-7-10)
In 1966, when Bruce Brown was filming his seminal surfing documentary “The Endless Summer,” he came across one of the cleverest types of urban legend that exist in the surfing world today. Everybody knows how ruthless the lineup at Bonzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu or Wind and Sea in San Diego or the best point breaks in Southern California, Malibu and Rincon.
Many people have made their way in to these incredibly competitive lineups and passed on, wherever they were going in their individual lives. However, no story compares with “O homem da guerra,” which came to be something equivalent to a cultish religion throughout the southwestern shore of Australia near Portland in the 1960’s.
The origin of the story, that would ultimately stop people (minus Bruce Brown apparently) from surfing there, tied together two known, but largely insignificant events. First, it was observed that several of the outsiders that were coming there during the best season for waves, around April and May, were plagued by a pretty severe rash and were complaining of a severe pain that accompanied it, usually manifesting itself about 10 to 15 minutes after the rash.
Around the same time, one of the most “epic” surfers of the time, João Maria de Jesus Pires, had come there possessing lightning fast paddling skills, insane cutbacks and above all an incomparable, canine type sense of territory. In effect, he was swimming circles around the local lineup at Queen’s Point, just north of Portland. Formerly a Portuguese-British merchant-shipper, he had met and married his Portland wife Liesel, and had indefinitely relocated himself there, much to the dismay of the locals.
Something had to be done, as Bruce Brown later found out, only after promising that he would never divulge this information in his operational documentary. A local dentist-surfer, Joseph Butler, knew that there was an obvious link to the rash. The out-of-towners were hanging out at the same bar after being in the water all day. The owner of that bar, Nigel Townsend, had a chinchilla in the back. Now chinchillas can be very hairy creatures, carrying some pretty serious allergens among their mop-like physiognomy. These symptoms were consistent with helianthus eschscholzi-raz-c, and through adaptation and classical conditioning, the locals had minimized their undesired encounters with this allergic reaction.
Dr. Butler spoke with one of the venerated surfers of Portland at that time, Miles Landing and the two of them together, concocted a myth that to this day has not been dispelled. Around the horn that jutted off to the South, they knew to exist a certain Armadillo that when laying eggs would coat the nesting area with a highly toxic petroleum jelly/ wax-textured substance. It served two obvious functions: to incubate the eggs and to ward off predators. But when in direct contact with the human epidermis it would produce a rash very similar to the one caused by helianthus eschscholzi.
When mama armadillo ventured off to round up some dinner for her growling underside, Butler and Landing lurched in undetected, carefully collecting a moderate amount of the substance. They then returned to Landing’s surf shop, known simply as Landing’s Inn. They removed all bars of surfing wax from the display case, and began introducing through the plastic wrapper into the core of the product a generous amount of the armadillo jelly.
About a week later, when Maria de Jesus Pires together with the whole lot of other outsiders (who we must remember were now suffering compounding levels of allergic reaction) were well into their completely preventable agonies, they were told that this was a direct link to the menacing jelly-fish, whom the named after the Portuguese intruder’s moniker, “O homem da guerra.”
This species of jelly fish, no more than an urban legend, is now known worldwide as the Portuguese Man O’War. And when the gulf of Mexico current sweeps in between April and May, developing sustained periods of offshore winds together with sizeable waves at Queen’s Point in Portland, Bruce Brown allows a chuckle to escape him—looking back at his happy hour Mai-Tai at Duke’s Bar in Pacific Palisades, California. How do I know about this? Because I was there.
In 1966, when Bruce Brown was filming his seminal surfing documentary “The Endless Summer,” he came across one of the cleverest types of urban legend that exist in the surfing world today. Everybody knows how ruthless the lineup at Bonzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu or Wind and Sea in San Diego or the best point breaks in Southern California, Malibu and Rincon.
Many people have made their way in to these incredibly competitive lineups and passed on, wherever they were going in their individual lives. However, no story compares with “O homem da guerra,” which came to be something equivalent to a cultish religion throughout the southwestern shore of Australia near Portland in the 1960’s.
The origin of the story, that would ultimately stop people (minus Bruce Brown apparently) from surfing there, tied together two known, but largely insignificant events. First, it was observed that several of the outsiders that were coming there during the best season for waves, around April and May, were plagued by a pretty severe rash and were complaining of a severe pain that accompanied it, usually manifesting itself about 10 to 15 minutes after the rash.
Around the same time, one of the most “epic” surfers of the time, João Maria de Jesus Pires, had come there possessing lightning fast paddling skills, insane cutbacks and above all an incomparable, canine type sense of territory. In effect, he was swimming circles around the local lineup at Queen’s Point, just north of Portland. Formerly a Portuguese-British merchant-shipper, he had met and married his Portland wife Liesel, and had indefinitely relocated himself there, much to the dismay of the locals.
Something had to be done, as Bruce Brown later found out, only after promising that he would never divulge this information in his operational documentary. A local dentist-surfer, Joseph Butler, knew that there was an obvious link to the rash. The out-of-towners were hanging out at the same bar after being in the water all day. The owner of that bar, Nigel Townsend, had a chinchilla in the back. Now chinchillas can be very hairy creatures, carrying some pretty serious allergens among their mop-like physiognomy. These symptoms were consistent with helianthus eschscholzi-raz-c, and through adaptation and classical conditioning, the locals had minimized their undesired encounters with this allergic reaction.
Dr. Butler spoke with one of the venerated surfers of Portland at that time, Miles Landing and the two of them together, concocted a myth that to this day has not been dispelled. Around the horn that jutted off to the South, they knew to exist a certain Armadillo that when laying eggs would coat the nesting area with a highly toxic petroleum jelly/ wax-textured substance. It served two obvious functions: to incubate the eggs and to ward off predators. But when in direct contact with the human epidermis it would produce a rash very similar to the one caused by helianthus eschscholzi.
When mama armadillo ventured off to round up some dinner for her growling underside, Butler and Landing lurched in undetected, carefully collecting a moderate amount of the substance. They then returned to Landing’s surf shop, known simply as Landing’s Inn. They removed all bars of surfing wax from the display case, and began introducing through the plastic wrapper into the core of the product a generous amount of the armadillo jelly.
About a week later, when Maria de Jesus Pires together with the whole lot of other outsiders (who we must remember were now suffering compounding levels of allergic reaction) were well into their completely preventable agonies, they were told that this was a direct link to the menacing jelly-fish, whom the named after the Portuguese intruder’s moniker, “O homem da guerra.”
This species of jelly fish, no more than an urban legend, is now known worldwide as the Portuguese Man O’War. And when the gulf of Mexico current sweeps in between April and May, developing sustained periods of offshore winds together with sizeable waves at Queen’s Point in Portland, Bruce Brown allows a chuckle to escape him—looking back at his happy hour Mai-Tai at Duke’s Bar in Pacific Palisades, California. How do I know about this? Because I was there.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Statement of Purpose
April 6, 2010
Dear Reader:
As an extension to my fictional book project, I am including the following statement of purpose.
To balance things out a little bit, I am keeping a blog, full of what I am calling "entremeses." Entremeses were used in Golden Age Spanish Theater for different effects, but specifically with harsher narrative content in a play, an entremes between each of the acts would provide some light-heartedness to the audience's experience.
I have taken this idea, and kind of re-thought it. I don't know what is going to happen with regard to publishing when the book is done, but I have thought of having a section called "Apocrypha" at the very end of the narrative, where many authors will include an afterword. I have a whole list of possible entremeses (currently around 30), which I feel will add a little levity to the text as a whole. Every couple of days I will release one of them on my blog. http://cjcade.blogspot.com/ . In fact, there is already one there.
The actual entremeses inside of Lobos and Coyotes (between each of the three parts), will have a strategic reason for being there. To transfer momentum from one narrative voice to another.
The way I see it, my hypothetical apocrypha will allow people to see me as a person distinct from the characters in the book. As I go along, hopefully it will generate curiosity and interest in what I am doing with Lobos and Coyotes (auto-publicity).
Everyone is more than welcome to make their own contribution to this blog, so come on in and check it out! Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested. There will be no vulgarity or explicit content in the entremeses.
Have a nice day,
Chris
Dear Reader:
As an extension to my fictional book project, I am including the following statement of purpose.
To balance things out a little bit, I am keeping a blog, full of what I am calling "entremeses." Entremeses were used in Golden Age Spanish Theater for different effects, but specifically with harsher narrative content in a play, an entremes between each of the acts would provide some light-heartedness to the audience's experience.
I have taken this idea, and kind of re-thought it. I don't know what is going to happen with regard to publishing when the book is done, but I have thought of having a section called "Apocrypha" at the very end of the narrative, where many authors will include an afterword. I have a whole list of possible entremeses (currently around 30), which I feel will add a little levity to the text as a whole. Every couple of days I will release one of them on my blog. http://cjcade.blogspot.com/ . In fact, there is already one there.
The actual entremeses inside of Lobos and Coyotes (between each of the three parts), will have a strategic reason for being there. To transfer momentum from one narrative voice to another.
The way I see it, my hypothetical apocrypha will allow people to see me as a person distinct from the characters in the book. As I go along, hopefully it will generate curiosity and interest in what I am doing with Lobos and Coyotes (auto-publicity).
Everyone is more than welcome to make their own contribution to this blog, so come on in and check it out! Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested. There will be no vulgarity or explicit content in the entremeses.
Have a nice day,
Chris
Entremes numero uno
August 17th, 1972 (Dispatched Live from the Scene by Ron Paulista- correspondent of the LA Times):
No matter what they say, it has never been hotter in Las Vegas. We are here at the Sands Casino with all of our high-powered flash technology, remotely operated microphones fixed to the awning, and cameras with space age lenses ready to meet none other than Clyde “wobbly foot” Sequensky, who is on a privately charted direct flight from the US operated Space and Technology base deep deep in uncharted territory on the North Pole.
Mr. Sequensky, formerly a biology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, is known for his innovative, and in niche circles lauded research in a field practically no one knows of called “Global Warming.”
For the last 1098 days he has been voluntarily exposing himself to the harshest range of earthly temperatures known to mankind on planet earth. He has lived three 365-day terms consecutively, with no more than 24 hours of travel time after each one in each of the following places (listed in chronological order): the capivara (the biggest rodent on the face of the earth) research center on the outer banks of the south pole; the Furnace Creek campground in Death Valley, CA; and finally, for the last 365 days in the North Pole.
We are told that he will be arriving in a motorcade, and we have every reason to believe that Mr. Sequensky will be seated in a lime-green, roofless Hummer (which seems to be the surprise of the special occasion). No one seems to know what kind of vehicle this is. A dune buggy, perhaps? Time will tell.
Not very much time, obviously because he and his team are racing against the clock. According to their widely publicized itinerary, the privately chartered flight was scheduled to leave the US Space and Technology Base at O 900 hours Standard Pacific Time. Outside the Sands Hotel, there is a flashy clock, which currently shows O 8 hundred and 56 Standard Pacific Time. If our records are correct (and this information was verified and disseminated by the Associated Press), he must arrive in four minutes or his whole campaign will be for naught.
Oh wait, Jenny, do you see that? Is that a tank? A hum-vee? What in creation is that lime green bulky looking vehicle just passing the Flamingo down the street? No doubt it is him, the visionary Prof. Sequensky, as the horns of the motorcade are sounding off in an arpeggio type rhythm.
It is him indeed. He is alive, despite his direct defiance of the elements. Back to civilization. Restored (well maybe we should not say this until the AP has confirmed it). I am not getting a signal in my earpiece. Jenny we are going to have to cut it here. Stay tuned America, we will be back with more as soon as we can confirm its veracity.
Ron Paulista, LA Times, saying “Hasta la vista, baby!"
No matter what they say, it has never been hotter in Las Vegas. We are here at the Sands Casino with all of our high-powered flash technology, remotely operated microphones fixed to the awning, and cameras with space age lenses ready to meet none other than Clyde “wobbly foot” Sequensky, who is on a privately charted direct flight from the US operated Space and Technology base deep deep in uncharted territory on the North Pole.
Mr. Sequensky, formerly a biology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, is known for his innovative, and in niche circles lauded research in a field practically no one knows of called “Global Warming.”
For the last 1098 days he has been voluntarily exposing himself to the harshest range of earthly temperatures known to mankind on planet earth. He has lived three 365-day terms consecutively, with no more than 24 hours of travel time after each one in each of the following places (listed in chronological order): the capivara (the biggest rodent on the face of the earth) research center on the outer banks of the south pole; the Furnace Creek campground in Death Valley, CA; and finally, for the last 365 days in the North Pole.
We are told that he will be arriving in a motorcade, and we have every reason to believe that Mr. Sequensky will be seated in a lime-green, roofless Hummer (which seems to be the surprise of the special occasion). No one seems to know what kind of vehicle this is. A dune buggy, perhaps? Time will tell.
Not very much time, obviously because he and his team are racing against the clock. According to their widely publicized itinerary, the privately chartered flight was scheduled to leave the US Space and Technology Base at O 900 hours Standard Pacific Time. Outside the Sands Hotel, there is a flashy clock, which currently shows O 8 hundred and 56 Standard Pacific Time. If our records are correct (and this information was verified and disseminated by the Associated Press), he must arrive in four minutes or his whole campaign will be for naught.
Oh wait, Jenny, do you see that? Is that a tank? A hum-vee? What in creation is that lime green bulky looking vehicle just passing the Flamingo down the street? No doubt it is him, the visionary Prof. Sequensky, as the horns of the motorcade are sounding off in an arpeggio type rhythm.
It is him indeed. He is alive, despite his direct defiance of the elements. Back to civilization. Restored (well maybe we should not say this until the AP has confirmed it). I am not getting a signal in my earpiece. Jenny we are going to have to cut it here. Stay tuned America, we will be back with more as soon as we can confirm its veracity.
Ron Paulista, LA Times, saying “Hasta la vista, baby!"
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Chris Dennison's "Letters Unsent"
Hey Chris:
Haha, that's unbelievable that you remember me talking about "Letters Unsent." I have been juggling this idea of having a blog for some time now, and after reading your two posts, I decided it was time to start.
Thanks for mentioning my book "Lobos and Coyotes." This week I finished chapter 2 "The year of the cicada" and I am now in the middle of chapter 3 which I am calling "The exodus."
Anyway, let me know when you have time to read chapter 2. I could use your feedback.
Chris C.
Haha, that's unbelievable that you remember me talking about "Letters Unsent." I have been juggling this idea of having a blog for some time now, and after reading your two posts, I decided it was time to start.
Thanks for mentioning my book "Lobos and Coyotes." This week I finished chapter 2 "The year of the cicada" and I am now in the middle of chapter 3 which I am calling "The exodus."
Anyway, let me know when you have time to read chapter 2. I could use your feedback.
Chris C.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
