Wednesday, November 16, 2016

There are two ways to escape



The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.


Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Thursday, November 10, 2016

An American Tragedy:Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches




Stein 100A Feather Likeness of the Justice Chair
A feather table: reckless gratitude.
It is that-there that means best.
White the green grinding trimming thing!
The disgrace, like stripes.
More selection, slighter intention.
Rosewood stationing is use journey: curious dusty empty length.
Winged cake: the cake, the plan that neglects to make color certainly.
Time long could winter: elegant consequences monstrous.
So much and guided holders garments are—and arrangements.
Staring then that when sudden same time's necessary, that circular
same's more necessary, not actually aching.
And why special?
Not left straw, the chain's the missing, was white winningly and occasion's entirely strings.
Reason is sullenness: it's there that practices left when six into
nothing narrow, resolute, suggests all beside that plain seam.
Pencils, mutton, asparagus: the table there.
There reddening is not to change that in such absurd surroundings.
Considering clearly, a feather's large second heat is there.
There that thing which smells that whistles that there's denial,
difference, surfeit-dated choices--everything trembling imitation.
Imitation?—imitation is a joy gurgle.
Best bent, likely disappointed.
Cake season's not more than most.
That cake makes no larder likely.
Not a single protection is even temporarily standing.
Sugar and lard there are sudden and shaming.
That single set comes orderly.
There the remarkable witness made no more settlement than blessing.
Increase the way steak colored coffee.
Wheatly that music half-noisy.
Reason's decline is not a little grainy.
This means taste where toe-washing is reasonable.
Salmon carriage?—action hanging.
Scene bits and this nervous draught don't satisfy elevation,
There is no change.
Much was temporary behind that center and much was formerly charming.
Then the then-triumphant showed their disagreeable hidden worries.
The chair asked the speech be repeated, supposing attention-resemblance.
It is just summer.
Another section has a light likeness to pedestrianism.
Which is light?
That used this there.
The chair's justice: nothing-colored mercy.
No, perhaps some is likely.
That is not a genuine bargain.
There preparation so suits white bands' singing and redness that the same sight's a simpler splendor.
No, not the same.
Wishing the same is not quite the same as a different arrangement.
Any measure washed is brighter than an occasional string set.
A precocious nothing discolors that extract sooner than showing its starting.
A bag place chain room winningly reasons with shining hair.
What with supposing without protection, no wound is sudden.
Coloring sullenness rushes bottom reason in gilded country.
What if it shows?
Necessarily, the whole thing there is shining.
Is that anything?
More single women stitch tickets.
To show difference exudes reliability.
Inside that large silver likeness, Hope tables thick coal.
Coal makes morning furnaces darker,
Joy and success are exceptions.
Four suggest a sadder surrender.
Pretence and cheaper influences are staining tender Pride there.
Sort out that little sink.
Why is the size of the baking remainder something that resembles light more than cutting?
This cheese is more calm than anything solitary.
It is still an occasion for bottom anticipation.
Reason's season cracked that which was ripe.
Nearly all were neglected by blessing, not without nervous actions.
He's readily beginning to seed the cheese and estrange the Whites.
The celery curled its lashes at the slam.
Not-so-heated reason will be little able to satisfy another.
This was formerly much used as a charming chair.
Pedestrianism showed itself triumphant and disagreeable.
That which was hidden worried them.
They asked that her speech be repeated.
Summer light bears a likeness to justice.
Then the light is supposing attention.
That section has a resemblance to light.

Is it a likeness of the justice chair?


And this: The New Yorker: An American Tragedy

Poem:Stein 100: A Feather Likeness of the Justice Chair
Title/Quote: Gertrude Stein

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Mourning in America







Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 


W.H. Auden