HOLD ON TIGHT

HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. ~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot Tuesday, April 29, 2008 end of term blues "i dreamt i was in virginia, and in virginia, all language was actual, there was no duplicity of meaning, form and meaning totally became one." "you have to add a southern drawl for the dream to make sense," "if language actual was to be spoken in a southern drawl, the world is definitely coming to an end," this is what i am reading now: In an exergue to the collection of poems she entitled Requiem, Anna Akhmatova recounts how her poems were born. It was in the 1930s, and for months and months she joined the line outside the prison of Leningrad, trying to hear news of her son, who had been arrested on political grounds. There were dozens of other women in line with her. One day, one of these women recognised her and turning to her, addressed her with the following simple question: "Can you speak of this?" Akhmatova was silent for a moment and then, without knowing how or why, found an answer to the question, "Yes," she said, "I can." Did she perhaps mean by these words that she was such a gifted poet that she knew how to handle language skillfully enough to describe the atrocious things of which it is so difficult to write? I do not think so. This is not what she meant to say. For everyone, a moment comes in which she or he must utter this "I can," which does not refer to any certainty or specific capacity but is nevertheless, absolutely demanding. Beyond all faculties, this "I can" does not mean anything--yet marks what is for each of us, perhaps the hardest and bitterest experience possible: the experience of potentiality. [...] He is potential...on the basis of which he can also not bring his knowledge into actuality....but not making a work for example. Thus the architect is potential insofar as he has the potential to not-build, the poet the potential to not write poems. (Agamben, Potentialities, "On Potentiality") eric asked me why i stopped writing, i said, i will in my own time. perhaps i am writing too much about writing. perhaps this self-reflexivity is important too. perhaps there are things that i cannot write about, i tell eric, i will, in my own time. perhaps i have simply abused the word too much, how often have i said, "i promise," "i can," "i forgive," "i love you" without knowing what i was saying. Agamben would tell me, that is simply the structural collapse within language, and the inevitable condition of language, language can only have potential to signify if it can inhabit the privation, the abyss, the limits of signification. when you realise this, you will realise that everything you write is the absolute abyss, that absolute collapse. i want to go that, to enter into the absolute abyss, but it is tiring, and i will do it, (an unfortunately this is becoming me and justin's favorite word), later. always later. i'm also working on this play by calderon. this particular passage is to the spanish golden age as hamlet's to be or not to be speech is to the english renaissance I dream that I am here of these imprisonments charged, and I dreamed that in another state happier I saw myself. What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, A shadow, a fiction, And the greatest profit is small; For all of life is a dream, And dreams, are nothing but dreams. (Life is a dream, la vida es sueno) posted by dawn # 4:57 PM Comments: Post a Comment << Home		[publishing] Publishers Weekly . Dystel & Goderich . New York Center for Independent Publishing . Association of American University Presses . Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators [people] clarisse . nurul . aunty zarina (ummi's bakery) . jeremy . pak . cyril . softblow . karen & kenny (booksactually) . eric . joel . [other loves] digitaljournalist . ballet dictionary . poetshouse . urbanwordnyc [me] dawn, singapore, new york city, ithaca. [yesterday] oberon eve was smarter than adam i'm so blue today. new york city gets you down lik... back children's book week growth dividends at least a little bit a big room when the thunder called relieved [archives] January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009

HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

end of term blues

"i dreamt i was in virginia, and in virginia, all language was actual, there was no duplicity of meaning, form and meaning totally became one."

"you have to add a southern drawl for the dream to make sense,"

"if language actual was to be spoken in a southern drawl, the world is definitely coming to an end,"

this is what i am reading now:

In an exergue to the collection of poems she entitled Requiem, Anna Akhmatova recounts how her poems were born. It was in the 1930s, and for months and months she joined the line outside the prison of Leningrad, trying to hear news of her son, who had been arrested on political grounds. There were dozens of other women in line with her. One day, one of these women recognised her and turning to her, addressed her with the following simple question: "Can you speak of this?" Akhmatova was silent for a moment and then, without knowing how or why, found an answer to the question, "Yes," she said, "I can."

Did she perhaps mean by these words that she was such a gifted poet that she knew how to handle language skillfully enough to describe the atrocious things of which it is so difficult to write? I do not think so. This is not what she meant to say.

For everyone, a moment comes in which she or he must utter this "I can," which does not refer to any certainty or specific capacity but is nevertheless, absolutely demanding. Beyond all faculties, this "I can" does not mean anything--yet marks what is for each of us, perhaps the hardest and bitterest experience possible: the experience of potentiality.

[...]

He is potential...on the basis of which he can also not bring his knowledge into actuality....but not making a work for example. Thus the architect is potential insofar as he has the potential to not-build, the poet the potential to not write poems.

(Agamben, Potentialities, "On Potentiality")

eric asked me why i stopped writing, i said, i will in my own time. perhaps i am writing too much about writing. perhaps this self-reflexivity is important too. perhaps there are things that i cannot write about, i tell eric, i will, in my own time. perhaps i have simply abused the word too much, how often have i said, "i promise," "i can," "i forgive," "i love you" without knowing what i was saying. Agamben would tell me, that is simply the structural collapse within language, and the inevitable condition of language, language can only have potential to signify if it can inhabit the privation, the abyss, the limits of signification. when you realise this, you will realise that everything you write is the absolute abyss, that absolute collapse. i want to go that, to enter into the absolute abyss, but it is tiring, and i will do it, (an unfortunately this is becoming me and justin's favorite word), later. always later.

i'm also working on this play by calderon. this particular passage is to the spanish golden age as hamlet's to be or not to be speech is to the english renaissance

I dream that I am here
of these imprisonments charged,
and I dreamed that in another state
happier I saw myself.
What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
A shadow, a fiction,
And the greatest profit is small;
For all of life is a dream,
And dreams, are nothing but dreams.

(Life is a dream, la vida es sueno)

posted by dawn # 4:57 PM

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