28 October 2009

thu.for

Next morning.  Still thinking about my unease having finished the Ithaca chapter.  My diminishing enthusiasm for finishing the book.  

Actually, my enthusiasm is creeping back, as I write these entries.  I'm getting excited about re-reading and eventually tackling the last chapter.

Anyways, now I think this unease is a response to Bloom's inaction anent his wife's affair.  --Haha.  Definitely stole "anent" from Joyce.  -- I think I don't like the self-abnegation.  I feel like, as with Nietzsche's disdain for Judeo-Christian morality, I don't want him to suppress this, to turn the other cheek.  He's spent the whole day thinking of it; it unsettles him that she slept with Boylan during the day.  Boylan, too, though Bloom imagines him as a nice enough guy, is kind of a douche.  Shouldn't Leopold say something to Molly?  Confront her?  He doesn't have to be forceful (which he disdains) or violent (certainly not, though he considers violence fleetingly).  Just assertive, expressive.  He needs to take care of himself, I think, in the same way he cares for Stephen and cares for (and patronizes) Molly.  The model human being, apropos of Odysseus, he is not.  I ask not for a massacre, slaughter in the hall, but do think truthfulness between he and his wife is not too much to ask.

The last chapter serves to further develop all facets of Bloom's personality, but what's uncomfortable about it is that it reveals his selfish imagination compared with his selfless actions.  Is he to be admired as a man who can only dream?  Maybe so.  He seems comfortable enough.

I can feel my own prejudices coloring my perception of the book.  I sit in judgement, polyphemian, when I should (normative?) be learning to see Bloom with two eyes open.  But can I be critical?  Of course!  Right?  Ugh.

I still need to read it again.

3

I'm having trouble mustering up the energy to finish writing a song that I started a good year ago.  I have a bit that I'm proud of, a few lines, and I've just found a good way to structure the whole thing, but I can't seem to force myself to write.  Be creative, dammit.  I've started this blog in an attempt to get used to writing again.
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Here's a different one that's 1/4 finished; the words, anyway:

Old gray man, would you please
Throw your wand out of sight
For the crowd is assailed
By the bright light, dream-seeming.

Ha.  Not really much of a song, yet.  More just....a sentence.
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I finished the second to last chapter of Ulysses today.  I need to read it (the chapter) again, since I feel a bit underwhelmed.  I think the problem is that I've come to look forward to each chapter's epic confrontation between man and logos.  Odysseus battles gods and monsters, while Leopold Bloom battles the English language, the very stuff of creation.  From episode to episode, despite the stylistic weight smothering him, Bloom emerges more human(e) than....hmm...than what?  More human than anti-human, I guess.  Human, antihuman; real, imaginary; love, hate; thoughtful, thoughtless.  

So, when the Ithaca episode (the chapter just completed) is presented with a sort of total objectivity as its stylistic device, I read and find myself uncomfortable at this...raw?... presentation of a human being (who never existed, I guess, but who cares?).  Am I uncomfortable with such a complete representation of what it is to be human?  Can I only handle an edited view of people that I know?  How much do I choose not to see, or, at least, choose not to think about?

So, I was not underwhelmed, I guess, but, rather, uncomfortable.  Maybe mixed with a little boredom.  Because, really how interesting is a real person?  Is it easy to stomach an acquaintance coming up to you and relating every single thing that he or she has thought about and experienced for the past week?  
(Ha! And, isn't that what I'm doing by writing a blog?  Ouch.)
And, if the book celebrates the epic of the ordinary, the 10 year day, have I missed the point by wanting to leave the party early?

Do I really want to know Leo Bloom this well, or do I prefer to see only his cunning and strength, manifested as a humanistic integrity and understanding?

Or, maybe I'm being to hard on myself.  Maybe, Bloom's thoughts as he readies for bed are just less interesting than his thoughts as a man of action.  

I'll read it again, see what I think.
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Second Entry

(Reposted.  Originally written August 19, 3:06 pm)

And another blog!

I'm finding it difficult to write one of these every day. And, despite the fact that nobody is reading this as of yet, I wonder, what kind of thoughts can I dissect in a public forum? Both, what am I willing to reveal about myself to the internet, and also, what are people interested in reading? These questions, I'm sure, have occurred to most everyone who has started an internet blog, so I imagine they should not be considered for the attention-holding pile.

.....

I'm still plugging away at Ulysses. James Joyce has commandeered all of the time I've set aside for reading fiction. Three months, it's been, and I still have quite a ways to go. But now's as good a time as any to reflect, I guess, on the themes of the book, what wisdom I've received so far.

I wonder if piecing together Leopold Bloom's day would reveal something about the novel. So far, he has fixed breakfast for his wife, discussed metempsychosis with her, walked around town a bit, attended a funeral, gone to finish some advertising work for at the newspaper office, walked some more, eaten lunch, continued the advertising errand, walked a bit more, eaten an early supper (while worrying about his wife's infidelity) and had a rousing political debate in Barney Kiernan's bar. Currently, he is helping the widow Dignam with her insurance woes (offstage) having just escaped a bit of violent anti-semitic persecution at the hands of a stand-in Cyclops. 

What I'm trying to figure out is whether this story is as ordinary as it seems. Or, maybe a more pertinent thought is that life was much more interesting one hundred years ago, in Dublin, than in 2009 here in Southern California. Or, it could be that Bloom, with his unassuming, curious manner, is more interesting than most people, then and now. Or, it could be that Joyce has taken something ordinary, expanded it to fill 700-odd pages, and, with a bit of literary alchemy, produced an epic, modern anti-myth. The last of these, is, of course, the standard wisdom (I think?) with regard to Joyce's day-in-the-life. I think, though, that modern life, (at least here in more affluent parts of America) has gotten so stale, that the mundanity of Joyce's day has taken on, itself, a more mythic quality. Excepting the Citizen's final explosion of violence, the scene at the bar is an anachronism compared to our time, or at least, my experiences of our time. The participants in the conversation all have, at least, some factual information, on which to build their one-sided arguments. Tunnel-visioned as their discourse may be (excepting Bloom, of course), the poorer arguers seem to be at least somewhat based in reality and history. Comparatively, the major debates of my day are whether Obama is a citizen, if death panels will be unleashed by the current health care plan, and which torture methods are acceptable (judged on effectiveness, not ethics). The Citizen, Joe Hynes, Lenehan, are maybe fools, stentorian with their opinions, but their crime is that they exaggerate facts beyond recognition, not that they have no facts at all. Oh well.

Another difference: People seem to talk to each other in Joyce's 1904. The majority of Americans I encounter aren't interested in lengthy discussions. The news, large and authoritarian, hovering over everything we know, sees it fit that we be fed these jejune sound bites, and we gobble them up and puke them out on our friends. Such is political conversation. I want some decisions made. I want to take some kind of action as a result of having thought a problem through. But what stands in the way of that? What stands in the way is this gigantic interlocked, invisible network of politicians, the media, and business (business over all) that makes it clear that it has no interest in real substantive action. I feel like, even at a protest, I'm just shouting into a void. 

Back to Ulysses. What I think the book has done for me, despite it's remove from the hyper-sterilized personal bubbles of today, is given reality a bit of a polish. The idea that the myths of the past have some bearing on the ordinary qualities of daily life is exciting in an electric sort of way. Despite the fact that cyclopes don't REALLY exist, how much less interesting or terrifying than that mythical monster is a character like the Citizen? Anyone you encounter who espouses and believes in nationalist, prejudiced arguments and holds you captive to listen to their drivel, is easily as terrifying as the horrific son of Poseiden, especially should you find yourself on the other side of their beliefs, or the target of their racial, sexual, religious, (etc, etc) hatred.

Also, I like how, in the Sirens chapter, Joyce gave the most beautiful, musical moment to Simon Dedalus, a less beautiful character than Bloom. Very perceptive of the non-existence of a musical ideology, I think. Vacuous and still full of meaning. More on that later, hopefully.

What is interesting about the imagination is that it eventually takes you back to reality, not that it has led you away. The latter quality is required, but the former is what makes the flight of fancy worthwhile. 

Lunch! Lestrygonious! Clappyclapclap.

First Entry

(Reposted.  Originally written August 14, 5:47 am)

There's a woman dancing on the side of my screen right now.  She's advertising a new line of lingerie for Victoria's Secret.  If she looked real it might make for a sexier ad.  As it stands she looks like a cartoon.  I'm not sure if it's a photograph or a drawing.  Probably something in between.
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A first entry.  I really should go to bed.  

Oh well.  This is good for me.  

So, here comes an attempt at being creative.  Ready?  Ready?!  

I'm off to a good start with the title of this post.

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Well, don't judge too harshly, oh blog readers (real or imagined).  Stream of consciousness, for the most part, I think, will be what follows.  Maybe I'll edit out the most explicit bits.
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At the computer, here I sit.  It's late.  The sounds of the coastal highway have just re-entered my consciousness.  I've been so wrapped up in writing these two entries that I haven't been aware of the outside world.  Obviously!  Look at the time!  Almost six.  Almost light out.

Laptop.  Glorified typewriter.  Black hole suckssss me out of the peaceful darkness, into the buzzing, everbright infotainment superhighway.  She's looking at me, there at the side of this scroll box.  Her expression.... lust? confusion? Maybe the two combined.  She's lost her way on the highway and is terribly horny.  Am I underdressed, she purrs? stammers? slurs?  The all new body of Victoria.  No, not underdressed.  I guess she's attractive.  I can't really see her breasts, but her lower half looks nice.  The panties, too.  Why is she leaning back?  I want to lay down, she says.  Aha!  For sex!  Yes!  

The faintly gleaming power bar next to the TV promises me something mysterious.  A late night candle is burned by an overworked accountant.  The assessment must be finished by tonight, or no job in the morning.  Or maybe something more ominous, a dreadful thing awaits me, just out of reach, a bit of a ways down the road.  So indistinct, it is, formless and without description.  Orange is coming, it says to me.  Curiousity and fear, neck in neck, vying for control of my subconscious.  And it's.....curiousity!  No surprises there.

The filaments of a legion of incandescent bulbs cascade across down the peaks of my memory.  Something bizarre to fill the gaps, too difficult to explore the missing pieces.  Mountains and a heap of rolling and tumbling, swarming coils.  Batlike, they flitter past my inner eye; now they've commandeered this paragraph.  She waits until I've finished.  Victorian queen of hearts.  Virgin elizabeth skips three centuries, swims through the sixties, rolls around with the television/exploitation crowd in the nineties and returns to the England of 1838, wearing lascivious nightclothes and secretive of her temporal ever-presence.

She's becoming more attractive as the night wanes.  This is probably because the last shreds of logic are leaving me.

The day doesn't so much break at sunset as melt into twilight.  I wonder if that feeling one gets during late afternoon is the same feeling old people live with consistently.  

I can see the mountain of unrecycled recyclables in my kitchen.  It's been terraforming (quite successfully) the Northwest corner of that room for the past year.  Time to take the trash out?  No.  Time to sleep.  If I can see my unclean kitchen without the lights on, then it must be past my bedtime.  May flights of angels sing me to my rest and to my own sleeping Vicktoria, sans lingerie.