Jumping in....
To make myself finally get off my bum and out the door, I’ve signed up to run a 5K with a group at work. Since hurting my hip doing Capoeira last summer, I’ve had a hard time getting started with any exercise program. I decided resuming my rehab exercises and throwing myself in headfirst may be the only option. Time will certainly tell, although the initial attempts were good. My first run last week ended up with me limping for two days afterward. The second attempt on Saturday was much better, no limping at the end and only moderate soreness. Today went with the guys at work and no limping and little pain or stiffness. Perhaps the best way to treat an injury is easy exercise and not just rest. I’m determined to do hardly any speedwork for this and just working on my overall conditioning. Anyway, it’s nice being out again, spring in Devon is glorious right now with blossoms and green everywhere. Seeing all of this beauty can’t help but make one feel joyful…..
‘Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.’ -Julius Irving
Girl in the Mirror
The other day I was in a hairdressing salon while a companion was making an appointment. I said 'hello' to my hairdresser and then looked at the girl whose hair he was cutting. From behind I saw a cascade of dark wet hair falling over the back of the chair she sat in. I looked in the mirror she was facing to see her face and saw the kind of beauty that I seek in a woman but seldom see. She had a long, thin neck and an angular face of with a well-defined but delicate jaw and high cheekbones. She had pale skin and under a pair of stylish glasses were two orbs of deep brown. I must have been looking for a while because I found her looking at me in the mirror. I looked away and acted like I was waiting for my companion. As we left, I turned back and looked at her again. She immediately looked up and for some long moments we contemplated each other in the mirror. I couldn't believe I was being so bold. I held her gaze for another moment and then turned to go. Her beauty was so austere and elegant, I've been thinking of her many times since.
Studying Classics
From the pen of a master:
Battista Guarino, for example, makes clear that the proper study of the classics had to be active, not passive—had to take the form of a personal search for information, guidance, and stylistic models, carried out pen in hand:
Let them look for new maxims with specific applications. Writing glosses in books is also extremely profitable, the more so if they have some hope of publishing them someday, for we are more careful with such things when we are in pursuit of praise. Writing of this kind wonderfully sharpens the wit, polishes the tongue, produces fluency in writing.
One of mine....
Wednesday AM
Sitting with a gaze,
Counting chimneys and aerials
As the city spreads to the periphery
On a milky morning.
The doves lustily announce themselves
To passing cars
As they scurry by
To their purpose-filled destinations.
Me sitting here, waiting for the sun,
Like a lizard,
To warm my bones slowly:
The beams a gift for my dull ache.
Neruda II
Here's another poem from 'Las piedras del cielo' (Skystones) by Neruda:
IV
When everything was altitude,
Altitude,
Altitude,
There waited the cold emerald,
The gazing emerald:
It was an eye,
It looked,
And was the centre of the sky,
The centre of the void:
The emerald
Looked:
Fine, hard, immensely green,
As if it was an eye of the ocean,
An eye still in the water,
A drop of God, a victory
Of the cold, green tower.
sillitoe's 'loneliness....
the loneliness of the long distance runner by alan sillitoe
I just read this story over the weekend and it has made me rethink a lot of my views about running. Not that I have been doing a lot of running lately, but it got the thinking juices going. Because thats what the story is, a kid in a boys home running and thinking. Instead of describing it, I think Ill let the excerpt do the talking for me:
By the time Im half-way through my morning course, when after a frost-bitten dawn I can see a phlegmy bit of sunlight hanging from the bare twigs of beech and sycamore, and when Ive measured my half-way mark by the short-cut scrimmage down the steep bush-covered bank and into the sunken lane, when theres not a soul in sight and not a sound except the neighing of a piebald foal in a cottage stable I cant see, I get to thinking the deepest and daftest of all. The governor would have a fit if he could see me sliding down a bank because I could break my neck or ankle, but I cant do it because its the only risk I take and the only excitement I ever get, flying flat-out like one of them pterodactyls from the Lost World I once heard on the wireless, crazy like a cut-balled cockerel, scratching myself to bits and almost letting myself go but not quite. Its the most wonderful minute because theres not one thought or word or picture or anything in my head while Im going down. Im empty, as empty as I was before I was born, and I dont let myself go, I suppose because whatever it is thats farthest down inside me dont want me to die or hurt myself bad. And its daft to think deep, you know, because it gets you nowhere, though deep is what I am when Ive passed this half-way mark because the long-distance run of an early morning makes me think that every run like this is a life a little life, I know but a life as full of misery and happiness and things happening as you can ever get really around yourself and I remember that after a lot of these runs I thought that it didnt need much know-how to tell how a life was going to end once it had got well started.
Now what I like about this passage is that it is all about freedom of mind and body, what I think running is all about. Running isnt about adding up miles every week or personal bests or any of that other rubbish, its about being able to let yourself be empty, a vessel just going forward on its own steam allowing the mind to wander. Running shouldnt be done on some grid system like they prescribe for you in Runners World, it should be done for enjoyment and not the enjoyment you get from completing some goal. Let it be about pleasure and not another one of life's many tests.
neruda I
My translation of a poem from 'Las Piedras del Cielo' because I didn't like the translation I read:
II.
Quartz opens its eyes in the snow
And covers itself in thorns,
Sliding in the whiteness,
Its whiteness:
It makes mirrors,
Retracting in layers and facets:
It is the white thistle
Of the depths,
The son of the salt that climbs to the sky,
The orange blossom frozen
From silence,
The cannon of foam:
The transparency that was given me
By virtue of the arrogance of Earth.
Not saying that mine is fantastic, but less wordy than the original one. I'm thinking of doing more from this compelling book of poetry... Would love any comments on it if anyone is familiar with the original.....
The Birth of Pretension
This time I’d like to do a departure from what I normally do which is to blab on and on about literature, philosophy, and religion. Well, I have to admit that I wasn’t always this pretentious and would like to recall the days when I was more engaged with the culture around me. So in this blog I’d like to list 10 or sources that got me on this road to being so obsessed about literature and the arts. These are in no particular order and are by no means listed in order of importance:
-- Charles Bukowski: I read all of his books that I could get a hold of in high school. He made it cool to like Shakespeare, read biographies of composers, listen to classical music and still be a tough guy. His poetry goes from profane to beautiful and his prose is always readable and entertaining. My favourite book is Ham on Rye which is semi-autobiographical. For a sample of his poetry, go to www.dirttrailrunner.blogspot.com for a really good example. (This is done by my friend Jason and has a very good entry on Buk.) Every friend I had in high school who was male read Buk.
--Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground: He has to be one of my favourite songwriters of all time. On top of this, the Velvet Underground never sound dated. He’s the first person I ever heard whose songs seemed like short stories told over music. Add to this the atmosphere of New York you get from the songs, and you can see why he is irresistible to me. Imagine hearing these lyrics at 15: ‘Stephanie says…/ that she wants to know,/ why she’s given half her life/ to people she hates now’.
--The Pixies: Another band that stands the test of time. Unless you listen to the music, it’s impossible to sense the potency of the band. Black Francis’s lyrics always have an edge and he has a knack for taking the roundabout to make a point. My favourite album is Doolittle.
--Transworld Skateboarding Magazine: I know, why are they here? Well, many of the authors that I discovered in high school were from names dropped in interviews with professional skateboarders. A brief sample of things I discovered from them: W. Somerset Maugham, Charles Bukowski, Beowulf, Raymond Chandler, Raymond Carver, Rabelais, The Crucible, Lao-tze and Camus. Just for props here’s some of the pros who turned me on to these things: Kris Markovich, Ben Schroeder, Mario Rubalcaba, Jim Thiebaud and Kien Lieu (Donger).
No One Gets Out of Here Alive: This biography of Jim Morrison got me started hunting down authors when I was around 14. Although Jim strikes me as not such a great poet anymore, he did read a lot good stuff as an adolescent. The authors of this book track down what he read as a kid and also expanded on the literary allusions he made in his songs. I’m sure I still have the author list somewhere. Here are some of the things I read because of Jim: William Blake, Sartre, Rimbaud and most importantly Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy.
Ok, running out of time. The other five will be in the next instalment. See you then.
‘She said money is like us and time,/ it lies but can’t stand up’. – Velvet Underground, ‘Pale Blue Eyes’
october 2005
I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. Oh well, the best laid plans....
This has been a crazy month of job searching, and right now I don't have much to show for it except for two upcoming interviews. Also today I turned down a job at the last minute; I felt that it was absolutely the wrong thing for me. I thought of spending the next three months of my life in a call-centre, and I shuddered. The good Illinois-boy inside of me screams that this was completely the wrong thing to do, how could I throw away security like that? But in the end it isn't much security, and I think I would rather eat cornflakes for every meal than try to sell people Bose stereos over the phone. I think in the end the job would have shattered my fragile self-worth, and money just isn't worth thatanymore. On the other hand, there are still plenty of jobs out there that don't involve me selling things to people. I would rather stock shelves at Tesco than do such a soul-destroying thing.
There have been plenty of nice things going on as well. Tupa and I are still running together, although the days are shrinking dramatically. It feels like the days have shrunk by 1 aned 1/2 hours in the last month, although there still are another 2 hours to shave off until the December solstice. I'm not looking forward to it getting dark a little after four in the afternoon, but we have to pay for those gloriously long days of summer at some point. One day we got caught in the woods after it got dark and ended up having to walk the roads home in the moonlight. We didn't realise we had gotten that far away from the village, but it was fun and we rewarded our two hour walk home with sausage and chips in the pub washed down with a couple of pints of real ale.
I have also been doing a lot of reading over the last month. The best book I read was
The Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee. To put it too simply, the book is about a half-wit who tries to grow vegetables in a war zone. I really enjoyed the book's elaboration on passivity as a form of rebellion, although it does call into question just how effective this passivity is. In the middle part of the book, there is a fascinating section about how much of an effect history does play in one's life. This is done by a doctor who obsereves K's complete indifference to what is going on in the world around him. As with all of Coetzee's work, he challenges your expectations and makes room for many grey areas. Another boon about this particular book is that it isn't very long, although there are many ideas crammed into its pages. I would also like to recommend V.S. Naipaul's
Finding the Centre to anyone who considers getting into writing; the book is two masterful essays about writing from within and without one's self.
Also in the last week Tupa has turned me on to the poetry of John Donne. I really enjoy the mix of sensuality and spirituality in his poetry. (Just a note: I have been able to abondon my spiritual preoccupations since the last entry, and am trying to keep Donne's as far away as possible although I realise this will be impossible in the end if I am to explore his poetry. But can there be anything wrong with tying your spirituality to sensuality? My notion is no.) I think I will leave you with a poem I particularly like:
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see,
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs and flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too,
And therefore what thou wert, and who
I bid love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw, I had love's pinnace overfraught,
Every thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter thing must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
Then as an angel, face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be.
the good German Lutheran
Here's a joke:
One day the Pope is having a quiet conversation with a German theologian in one of the rooms of the Vatican. Suddenly two French archaeologists burst in, very agitated and nervous, and they tell the Holy Father they have just got back from Israel with some very good news and some rather bad news. The Pope beseeches them to come out with it, and not to leave him in suspense. Talking over each other, the Frenchmen say the good news is they have discovered the Holy Sepulchre. The Holy Sepulchre? says the Pope. The Holy Sepulchre. Not a shadow of a doubt. The Pope is moved to tears. What's the bad news? he asks, drying his eyes. Well, inside the Holy Sepulchre we found the body of Christ. The Pope passes out. The Frenchmen rush to his side and fan his face. The only one who is calm is the German theologian, and he says: Ah, so Jesus really existed? --Roberto BolanoI really love that joke, especially being a doubter of German descent myself. I remeber how overjoyed I was to read Nietzsche as a teenager: here was a Lutheran minister's son saying things I had felt but couldn't say. It felt so liberating.Now I'm wondering how liberating it actually was. Thinking about Nietzsche now, I am of the opinion that he never stopped reacting to Christianity. He still felt so strongly about it that one of the last books he wrote was a point by point refutation of Christianity, The Antichrist. Perhaps that he never freed himself is one of the reasons why he went mad. The other night I had a bitter quarrell with Tupa. In her anger, she pointed out that I was always into some religious idea or another. She deprecatingly called it my self-help. Once I was over being angry, it did seem to make sense. Growing up in an ultra-religious community, I was in a constant dialogue with religion, and I think I felt subconciously all these years that I couldn't be a good person without it. I've tried all kinds of different religions, although I still feel that buddhism suits me best. But have i ever tried seriously to do without religion? I have to admit that the answer is no. Now that I'm in England, I don't have to have a dialogue if I don't want to. I think maybe it's time to drop religion for a while. I have spent so much energy on it, and a good deal of it seems wasted. I have enough junk to sort in my mind; do I really need to tackle this huge question right now? The logical answer is no. So for now it is dropped, I'll let you know if anything emerges....
heaviness
Tupa and I have taken two long walks this weekend, and both of us are now the more tired for it. I think we've walked some 12-15 miles, taking in the reservoirs and pine forests surrounding them. We were very lucky to have nice weather although it was chilly at times as autumn seems finally to have arrived. Tupa has a sore back and my legs feel somewhat leaden. We'll begin short runs at the end of the week to move slowly towards longer runs.
I've decided (with Tupa's encouragement) to take two weeks off from working and educational concerns to relax and recharge my batteries. I started on Saturday and have to say that I enjoy it so far. I've been reading a funny book called
S. by John Updike that is about a woman who goes to live in a religious commune similar to the one Osho had in Oregon in the 80's. She manages to bring her old life with her, and the letters she writes home are full of how she is still attached to this home. It's a great satire about lego-religions, although I must admit I 'm yearning to read something that really is a kick in the balls.
I realise that the last entry was somewhat heavy and incomplete, and so I'd like to think a little more about the woman who got into the truck and the resonance that still has for me. I read this poem on Saturday morning, and think it may illuminate what I was trying to say last time.
'Autumn in Gaol'In autumn a friendsent in an apple.I made to eat itall at once.Red: too red.In my palm, heavy:Heavy as the world.--Tsuboi Shigeji'Heavy as the world' is what is most important as far as my own thinking is concerned. Last time I was thinking about drowning, and my mind immediately grasped at an intense sense-memory to reinforce the feeling of life. (The redness of the prisoner's apple, the scent of the woman.) Like the prisoner, I wanted to eat it all at once: I remember looking at her brown hair and soft brown skin and longing to touch it. Sense builds upon sense, and just adds to the feeling of longing. This longing has a heaviness of its own, and perhaps the heaviness of longing is parallel with the heaviness of mortality. Perhaps my memory of the perfumed japanese woman getting into the truck with me is just an escape of my contemplation of mortality (transference?). Perhaps there is no contrast at all, perhaps they are all part of the same web. What is life then? I'm not going to try to answer that question here, although I'll post something if I happen to have a sudden epiphany.....
Drowning
Sorry for the potential depressiveness of what's to follow. People who don't like thinking of their mortality shouldn't read on. I found this description of drowning while reading
The Perfect Storm. I had to read the book again after subjecting myself to the sappy movie twice recently. Here goes:
Until the break point, a drowning person is said to be undergoing 'voluntary apnea.' choosing not to breathe. Lack of oxygen to the brain causes a sensation of darkness closing in from all sides, as in a camera aperture stopping down. The panic of a drowning person is mixed with an odd incredulity that this is actually happening. Having never done it before, the body--and the mind-- do not know how to die gracefully. The process is filled with desperation and awkwardness. 'So this is drowning,' a drowning person might think. 'So this is how my life finally ends.'Along with the disbelief is an overwhelming sense of being wrenched from life at the most banal, inopportune moment imaginable. 'I can't die, I have tickets to next week's game,' is not an impossible thought to someone who is drowning. The drowning person may even feel embarrassed, as if he's squandered a great fortune. He has an image of people shaking their heads over his dying so senselessly. The drowning person may feel as if it's the last, greatest act of stupidity in his life.These thoughts shriek through the mind during the minute or so that it takes a panicked person to run out of air... At this point something makes people breathe involuntarily (which means water for 90% of us) and Junger describes what also happens to the the other 10% until returning...In the other ninety percent of people, water floods the lungs and ends any waning transfer of oxygen to the blood. The clock is running down now; half-conscious and enfeebled by oxygen depletion, the person is in no position to fight his way back up to the surface. The very process of drowning makes it harder and harder not to drown, an exponential disaster curve similar to that of a sinking boat.What strikes me about this is the feeling of banality felt during this death. My own two brushes with death were similarly banal; just me waking up and wondering why people were screaming at me or why I was in the ER. What's different here is that the drowner knows he's dying, he's not allowed to immediately fall asleep like I was. After the water, though, he is allowed to slowly fall asleep while he dies. Why do our bodies make death so easy? I'm not sure myself, but perhaps the point here is that death isn't some kind of liberating moment, perhaps the liberation is in living. Why are moments of living so intense to our senses? Think of a wonderful smelling woman or a deciduous forest in October. There is one woman I remember vividly only because of her scent when she got in a truck with me on a rainy March day. That imprint is there, and I probably won't ever forget it. If I was a buddhist I would say all senses are illusory. My wonder is how this can be when perceptions are stamped all over our consciousness. Compare the lovely scented woman in the truck with me to the fading consciousness of the drowning man. Which moment will ripple through life? Perhaps death is the peace of sleep, and our lives a phantasmagoria of sense perception. But what then?
