In the course of waiting for the ricecooker to play out its part, Arian has become pregnant, and bellowous, with the prospect of sharing today's findings:

From the fifth chapter (and which warrants alone the purchase of this Modernist study) Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf:

It seems then that men and women are equally at fault. It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God know why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this and much more than this is true, why are we ye surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us—why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him.

Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the condition of our love.

And from the end of the sixth chapter from the same book:

The problem is insoluble. The body is harnessed to a brain. Beauty goes hand in hand with stupidity. There she sat staring at the fire as she had stared at the broken mustard-pot. In spite of defending indecency, Jacob doubted whether he liked it in the raw. He had a violent reversion towards male society, cloistered rooms, and the works of the classics; and was ready to turn with wrath upon whoever it was who had fashioned life thus.

Then Florinda laid her hand upon his knee.

After all, it was none of her fault. But the thought saddened him. It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Any excuse, though, serves a stupid woman. He told her his head ached.

But when she looked at him, dumbly, half-guessing, half-understanding, apologizing perhaps, anyhow saying as he had said, “It’s none of my fault,” straight and beautiful in body, her face like a shell within its cap, then he knew that cloisters and classics are no use whatever. The problem is insoluble.


And now excerpts from Paradise Lost, from which the lines are taken from: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_4/text.shtml, and in which all the annotating links lead back to:

THE ARGUMENT [(Explanation; Milton’s publisher required him explain the respective book for the common audience)]

Satan now in prospect of Eden, and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprize which he undertook alone against God and Man, falls into many doubts with himself, and many passions, fear, envy, and despare; but at length confirms himself in evil, journeys on to Paradise, whose outward prospect and scituation is discribed, overleaps the bounds, sits in the shape of a Cormorant on the Tree of life, as highest in the Garden to look about him. The Garden describ'd; Satans first sight of Adam and Eve; his wonder at thir excellent form and happy state, but with resolution to work thir fall; overhears thir discourse, thence gathers that the Tree of knowledge was forbidden them to eat of, under penalty of death; and thereon intends to found his Temptation, by seducing them to transgress: then leaves them a while, to know further of thir state by some other means. Mean while Uriel descending on a Sun-beam warns Gabriel, who had in charge the Gate of Paradise, that some evil spirit had escap'd the Deep, and past at Noon by his Sphere in the shape of a good Angel down to Paradise, discovered after by his furious gestures in the Mount. Gabriel promises to find him ere morning. Night coming on, Adam and Eve discourse of going to thir rest: thir Bower describ'd; thir Evening worship. Gabriel drawing forth his Bands of Night-watch to walk the round of Paradise, appoints two strong Angels to Adams Bower, least the evill spirit should be there doing some harm to Adam or Eve sleeping; there they find him at the ear of Eve, tempting her in a dream, and bring him, though unwilling, to Gabriel; by whom question'd, he scornfully answers, prepares resistance, but hinder'd by a Sign from Heaven, flies out of Paradise.

. . .

Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two [ 505 ]
Imparadis't in one anothers arms
The happier Eden, shall enjoy thir fill
Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least, [ 510 ]
Still unfulfill'd with pain of longing pines;
Yet let me not forget what I have gain'd
From thir own mouths; all is not theirs it seems:
One fatal Tree there stands of Knowledge call'd,
Forbidden them to taste: Knowledge forbidd'n? [ 515 ]
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should thir Lord
Envie them that? can it be sin to know,
Can it be death? and do they onely stand
By Ignorance, is that thir happie state,
The proof of thir obedience and thir faith? [ 520 ]
O fair foundation laid whereon to build
Their ruine! Hence I will excite thir minds
With more desire to know, and to reject
Envious commands, invented with designe
To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt [ 525 ]
Equal with Gods; aspiring to be such,
They taste and die: what likelier can ensue?
But first with narrow search I must walk round
This Garden, and no corner leave unspi'd;
A chance but chance may lead where I may meet [ 530 ]
Some wandring Spirit of Heav'n, by Fountain side,
Or in thick shade retir'd, from him to draw
What further would be learnt. Live while ye may,
Yet happie pair; enjoy, till I return,
Short pleasures, for long woes are to succeed. [ 535 ]

. . .

(and the saddest thing I’ve ever read)

So threatn'd hee, but Satan to no threats
Gave heed, but waxing more in rage repli'd.
Then when I am thy captive talk of chaines, [ 970 ]
Proud limitarie Cherube, but ere then
Far heavier load thy self expect to feel
From my prevailing arme, though Heavens King
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy Compeers,
Us'd to the yoak, draw'st his triumphant wheels [ 975 ]
In progress through the rode of Heav'n Star-pav'd.

While thus he spake, th' Angelic Squadron bright
Turnd fierie red, sharpning in mooned hornes
Their Phalanx, and began to hemm him round
With ported Spears, as thick as when a field [ 980 ]
Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends
Her bearded Grove of ears, which way the wind
Swayes them; the careful Plowman doubting stands
Least on the threshing floore his hopeful sheaves
Prove chaff. On th' other side Satan allarm'd [ 985 ]
Collecting all his might dilated stood,
Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd:
His stature reacht the Skie, and on his Crest
Sat horror Plum'd; nor wanted in his graspe
What seemd both Spear and Shield: now dreadful deeds [ 990 ]
Might have ensu'd, nor onely Paradise
In this commotion, but the Starrie Cope
Of Heav'n perhaps, or all the Elements
At least had gon to rack, disturbd and torne
With violence of this conflict, had not soon [ 995 ]
Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray
Hung forth in Heav'n his golden Scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion signe,
Wherein all things created first he weighd,
The pendulous round Earth with balanc't Aire [ 1000 ]
In counterpoise, now ponders all events,
Battels and Realms: in these he put two weights
The sequel each of parting and of fight;
The latter quick up flew, and kickt the beam;
Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend. [ 1005 ]

Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine,
Neither our own but giv'n; what follie then
To boast what Arms can doe, since thine no more
Then Heav'n permits, nor mine, though doubld now
To trample thee as mire: for proof look up, [ 1010 ]
And read thy Lot in yon celestial Sign
Where thou art weigh'd, and shown how light, how weak,
If thou resist. The Fiend lookt up and knew
His mounted scale aloft: nor more; but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night. [ 1015 ]



I will post excerpts from Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents soon.

Disclaimer:

I understand that angelfire is very selective (to wit, in their pedigree!), as well as the situation that is anaemia in my technologiconstitution, and shiiiiiiit. So for those who really wish for the document, just e-mail me (ariancato@hotmail.com) and I'll reply with it attached.

The Best American Poetry 2005

In regard to logos, these are twice-biased, and so should be taken with a pinch of civility: CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL ANTHOLOGY - there are a few more gems!

(Also, due to the Beelzebub Formaticuss, I am supplying a .doc with these poems in their intended proportions: http://www.angelfire.com/anime3/vagrant0/BAP05.doc.)

And now with only this as ado, I present:

“The Magical Sadness of Omar Caceres” by Clayton Eshleman

A white road crosses its motionless storm,
vernal pool where frogs live trapped in archaic hail.
I’ve wasted too much moonlight
and sit gazing through the small hole in my dress at Monday’s naked nail.

Manchuria, I feel your invasion!
Suddenly we are ourselves, without brushes, lawn-mowers, or bars.
I confess the crimes against my monsoon self—
these chess words, slippery with blood,
they are my pistons, my petrol, the first of memory scrawled in a prison hulk log.
Cockroaches cross the deck moving from Picasso to snowman.

The thought lost to the eyes of a unicorn reappears in a dog’s bark.
Dressed in resistance, I laud the most important leader in the United States:
Mickey Mouse, legislator of urban alcohol adieu.
My courtesan instructs me in the wrecked balcony of her arms.
The idol? A chessboard of truffles and snow.
Unlike comrade Huidobro, I’m a whittled id,
a City Hall boss standing on the prison steps
thriving like a burnt-out sun,
a sun which never imagined a lamp.
O summation of Chile! A man loves only his obscure ife.

To run with the nectar, to bypass alarm.
Is not joy somehow canopic?
What moves in the air: ways that are not the way,
the whey of snow, way of the flayed flake.
My slash is yours, riptides amassing.
O Chilean summation! I poke into the moon’s watery lace.
Between sequitar and non- falls the imagination.
“There is grandeur in this life, with its several powers.”
Spare the gestures. Nothing for show.
I am neither aft nor fore, for foreafter,
nor ever to be aforementioned again.

I hear Neruda—he’s a langoustine of a man,
a violet maiden in multicolored fleece,
both hands paralyzed from swatting political lice.
Neruda! A swiller of a gale, a snood disguised as a church,
rutabaga in cleats, something found on the beach which,
as you fondle it, urinates I your heart. Neruda,
what is truly to be found under his tray of forceps and sledges?

Passing mons Veneris clouds.
The translucence of human flesh.
Ceremonial lenses made of ice, brought down from Andean peaks.
A rainbow defective in a single hue.
Uteral squids relaxing in a bathroom sink.
The spider Dolomedes urinator which runs simultaneously in two words.
The sound of air in a cave.
Sensation of longing for an eclipse powerful enough to darken death.
Changes in the light initiated by a stranger’s arrival.
—Chilean marvels, equal to the Surreal.

I prepared. Waited to be called.
Cut logs, laid a hearth. Burned my valentines.
Visited the Incan adoritories on Mount Llullaillaco.
Examined the grave gods of The Prince of Mount Plomo.
Which is to say: I prepared. Set the cauldron bolin,
spliced postcards from Isla Negra with photos of infants left out in the snow.
Mastered myself. Arrived in Harar with only 10 camels.
Sketched each waterfall. Took out no personal ads.
I faced fear, then clarity, then power.

Tonight I have a meeting with the last enemy of the man of knowledge.
In his uncorked left testicle, it has been raining for years.

from Fence

“Hell and Love” by Garret Keizer

Hell is always grander to paint
Than the bliss of a resurrected saint;
More fun to show the lecher’s doom,
Tits and ass in the flicking gloom.

Yet love inspires more than hate,
A head caressed than on a plate,
And even should his colors wash,
I’d put Chagall in front of Bosch.

The Passion is a painter’s dream,
With hell and love a single theme—
The human body stripped to show
A death both merciful and slow.

from Image

“An Impasse” by Louis Simpson

Jacques writes from Paris,
“What are the latest news?”

I have told him, time
and time again, “What are”

is not English, “news”
is not plural, “news”

is a singular term,
as in “The news is good.”

He replies, “Though ‘The news’
may be singular in America,

it is not so in France.
Les nouvelles is a plural term.

To say, ‘The news is good’
in France would be bad grammar,

and absurd, which is worse.
On the other hand, ‘What are

the news?’ makes perfect sense.”

from The Hudson Review

“The Swing” by James Tate

“Where do we from here?” I said to Dawn. “We found the little abandoned church. We passed the giant cairn of stones. We crossed the brook with its bridge of rope. We climbed up and down the mountain with its laurel in bloom. A d now we’re standing in a field of clover under a blue sky with some huge, billowy clouds wafting over us. I don’t feel lost, but I have no idea where we are.” Dawn smiled at me. “We’re visiting my childhood,” she said. “I grew up in this field. See that sycamore over there. My daddy made me a swing from that very branch. M sisters and I played every kind of game that children play right here in this field. In the summers, mama would call us to dinner and we’d hide behind those big boulders. The house we lived in was over there, at the edge of the forest. It burned down when I was twelve. And that’s when we moved to town. Nothing was ever the same again. Daddy died a couple of years later, and mama kind of gave up on us girls. The town was always strange to me. I felt like some kind of caged up wild animal.” “I never knew any of this about you, Dawn,” I said. “Why did you never tell me until now?” “After we left I never went back until today. My childhood was literally burnt to the ground, my beautiful childhood, and I never wanted to see it again. And now here we are, and I’m telling you about it, and I’m torn right down the middle between sadness and happiness.” I could always tell when Dawn was beginning to believe on of her little fantasies. She shrunk into herself and wouldn’t look me in the eye. So I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here before it rain.” I grabbed her by the arm and started running into the forest. The forest was quickly swallowing us up. This I what we do on weekends. We try to find a happy childhood for Dawn, but they always turn ugly. She insists on that. I had liked the part about her daddy making her a swing on the sycamore, but she just couldn’t leave it alone. She had to burn down the house.

from New American Writing

“Bareback Pantoum” by Cecilia Woloch

One night, bareback and young, we rode through the woods
and the woods were on fire—
two borrowed horses, two local boys
whose waists we clung to, my sister and I,

and the woods were on fire-
the pounding of hooves and the smell of smoke and the sharp sweat of boys
whose waists we clung to, my sister and I,
as we rode toward flame with the sky in our mouths—
the pounding of hooves and the smell of smoke and th sharp sweat of boys
and the heart saying: mine
as we rode toward flame with the sky in our mouths—
the trees turning gold, then crimson, white

and the heart saying: mine
of the wild, bright world;
the trees turning gold, then crimson, white
as they burned in the darkness, and we were girls

of the wild, bright world
of the woods near our house—we could turn, see the lights
as they burned in the darkness, and we were girls
so we rode just to ride

through the woods near our house—we could turn, see the lights—
and the horses would carry us, carry us home
so we rode just to ride,
my sister and I, just to be close to the danger of love

and the horses would carry us, carry us home
—two borrowed horses, two local boys,
my sister and I—just to be close to that danger, desire—
one night, bareback and young, we rode through the woods.

from New Letters

“A Big Ball of Foil in a Small New York Apartment” by Matthew Yeager

It began with a single sheet, leftover from his lunch.
His unthinking palm had reached out to it, slapped down
on the center of it, and begun gathering and compacting it
until soon he had a small firm ball in his fist.
He squeezed the ball tightly, as tightly as he could.
Now the ball was, if not as firm as possible,
at least as firm as he could easily make it,
and he took from this the small satisfaction it offered.
It felt good. In fact, as his fingers opened out
into their individual selves again, he saw the ball
in his slightly dented palm, as in a nest,
it occurred to him that there were many good things
to be felt about this ball: its crinkled surface
would keep it from rolling off at the slightest tilt;
it wouldn't come undone like balled-up paper can;
and that it was all crumpled foil, 100% through
seemed to contain a kind of meaning,
(though truly what it was he wasn't sure). . . .
It was then he had an idea. Like light on water
it danced across his thinking, absorbing his attention.
He would add to this ball, add to it until it was huge;
he wouldn't throw it out as he had so many others.
And how many had he thrown out? The unknowable number
(exaggerated for effect) jostled him all over, like nerves,
for you see, he had begun to imagine the ball quite large,
and the thought that the foil in his little ball
might have existed as a nearly flat sheet on the surface
of an already enormous ball boggled him.
But he knew it wasn't good to think like that,
and he snapped quickly to, nodding and determined.
He would grow the ball from this point forward.
Foil was everywhere. It wouldn't be hard.
So from that day on as he walked the streets,
although he let his thoughts drift as they wished,
(seeing, for instance, the sun seep free from behind a cloud
he'd think, in the brief spell before it disappeared behind another,
of hundreds of suddenly pleased sunbathers in rows on a beach;
he'd think of sweaty red-faced men carrying heavy wooden crates)
he kept his sights always alive to the prospect
of foil's particular glint. When he'd see a stranded sheet
in a corner garbage can or on a restaurant table,
he'd glance sharply about, to see if anyone was watching him,
slyly pocket it, then shuffle off at a quickened pace.
Early on, it bothered him, and he'd have to reassure himself:
“No one is looking; no one cares; this city if full
of stranger things than a man collecting foil.”
Over time, he began to believe this truth, or rather,
the shame he couldn't help but feel was overcome.
For there was nothing much better than walking about,
as twilight approached, with a good take bulging his pockets.
It was a feeling not unlike knowing a wonderful secret,
or being, perhaps, a bottle with a message in it.
However, at such bright excited times,
much like an island surfacing in a drought-sucked stream,
the ball as he wished it could be, huge and shining
and exactly round, would give rise in his mind.
It was awesome and beautiful, but not a good thing,
and he tried to keep it happening, to hide it away,
like the heart under the floorboards in the Poe story
that had terrified him as a child. For his own ball
when he'd return home, became so inadequate then,
so silly and lopsided and small. Emptying his pockets,
smoothing the foil with a rolling pin (his system),
he'd murmur sound, sobering sayings to himself like:
“nothing turns out the way you thought it would,”
and “it'll take years.” But time was one thing he had,
and the progress, albeit slow, was steady.
As the months went by, the ball grew. It grew and grew.
It grew until it had to be moved from the oven,
where he'd kept it to save space, into the open, onto the floor.
It grew until it couldn't fit through the window or the door.
It grew until furniture had to be moved, first
to new places in his apartment, then out onto the street.
It was then he knew the ball was there to stay. . . .
But though he'd been one that had wanted the ball,
often he felt ambivalently, and this ambivalence grew too.
Why was he doing what he was?
Why was he filling his apartment, his mind, with foil?
It was not something he preferred to wonder about,
and he tried hard to keep the wondering out, to ignore it
as one might a dog that's scratching at a door.
But ridiculous as he acknowledged the ball to be,
if you were to have caught him at the right moment,
you would have seen how he loved it.
Certain nights, after he'd measure it in all directions,
(by setting up a spotlight and measuring the shadows)
then peeled and patched it to preserve its roundness,
(the ball's most defining, so most important quality)
he'd step away (as away as he could),
and those narrowed-up, fault-inventing eyes of his
would soften into something like appreciation.
Spot-lit like that, the ball gave back a cool, fragile light
much as he'd heard the earth did when seen by astronauts,
and he'd feel suddenly lucky to be where he was,
standing in the strange and silvery shine. Coming to,
he'd often find an inch of ash on his cigarette. . . .
So it was kind of sad then, that this ball should end,
should stop growing, even though all along
it'd been what he'd been working towards.
He didn't know what he was going to do.
Would he still see a city speckled with foil?
Or would what once was treasure dill
to trash again? There was no way to predict.
The night he was done, the night the ball
nudged up against his ceiling and his walls
(a coincidence so long foreseen it had lost its luster)
he pressed his teeth deep into its surface, as a signature,
leaned his confused body against it, closed his eyes,
and, listening to the cars pass, wept a little bit.

from New York Quarterly