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His near stammering. With disconcerting promptness one word hid behind another. -- Maurice Blanchot, Le Dernier Homme Contact me: red3ad (at) yahoo (dot) com

24.6.07

process / memory-work 

One cannot recall the way a thought occurred -- only that a thought has occurred. In this way it resembles pain; one cannot summon up the experience of pain, only the recollection of having been in pain. (Thus, perhaps, the allure of "inspiration").
An event, an accident, may render a memory concrete; one may later recall, "At that particular moment, I was thinking of _____." The preceding thought or the one that follows no doubt remains obscure. (Despite this, one may well try to conjure the absent thought through a kind of alchemy: following a thought seized upon while going through my morning rituals and then displaced, I attempt to bring back by replaying music that was on at the time; the refilling and repositioning of a coffee cup; re-reading a particlular passage or reviewing notes; standing in a particular position relative to my desk to obtain a particular view out the window. What is reconstituted, if it is at all, is akin to a rough translation made by other hands). "Some sort of shadow. Or something entirely lost."

I stepped outside for a cigarette this morning and listened to the slow tapping of last night's rain in the gutter, still slowly draining off the roof. The churchbells down the street sounded out, announcing the first Mass. Small markers of the day. There's one other smoker currently residing in this building; I've seen her twice and spoken with her once, on the latter occasion, in the five years that she told me she's lived here. We exchange evidence of each other's existence in the form of cigarette ends in a tin can improvising as an ashtray. This observation occupies the place of a passing thought, as thin spaces in the cloud-mass overhead cause the light to well and fade. I returned to my desk and read last night's record of an experience of déjà vu involving (from what I was able to grasp), the draft of an unfinished letter, the dark red cloth cover of a book [Our Mutual Friend], and The Great Fire of London. As for what elapsed between extinguishing my cigarette and sitting down at my desk, I do not know.

*

"In a project for existence -- any project for existence whatsoever -- only a single, pragmatic answer exists to the overall "what's the point?": time passes. Every project, particularly a formal project of writing, like mine today, which has survived every value (I ascribed the Project value, thus opposing it to the "what's the point?"), takes up time, structures it, erases its empty pockets. Each hour determines another, pushes it along, consumes and nullifies it." -- Jacques Roubaud, The Great Fire of London.

23.6.07

process 

One cannot recall the way a thought occurred -- only that a thought has occurred. In this way it resembles pain; one cannot summon up the experience of pain, only the recollection of having been in pain. (Thus, perhaps, the load that poets and scientists make "inspiration" bear).
An event, an accident, may render a memory concrete; one may later recall, "At that particular moment, I was thinking of _____." The preceding thought or the one that follows no doubt remains obscure. "Some sort of shadow. Or something entirely lost."

I stepped outside for a cigarette last night and turned to look at the sky. Out tof the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a shooting star and, wanting confirmation of the effect, a clearer example, or simply enjoying the stars that were out, I lit another cigarette and waited. Before long, I saw the bright, blue-white line of a meteor. And then I thought, and I know because I made a note of it, that I had stepped outside with a solitary intention, a cigarette, with no accompanying thought or desires. And what I had chanced upon was more than a shooting star: it was a reminder of the value of patience, of taking (of claiming) one's time. To observe, or practice, a process. The persent moment - without expectation.

As for what elapsed between extinguishing the cigarette and sitting down at my desk, I do not know.

11.6.07

film report 

--Oh; saw Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone... He set the bar pretty high with Vive l'amour and raised it with What Time Is It There?... but wow.
Beautiful, sad, extremely uncomfortable at times and utterly evocative, it makes me glad for cinema. Possibly, even, That Dream Called Human Life. Wandering around afterward -- floating, almost -- I said to my movie-going companion, "I feel odd. It's like there's a lightness in my head, a weight removed from my temples that's pulling my face up into something resembling a smile." "Yes -- it's called pleasure. Happiness."

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Retribution, on the other hand, disappointed. Wch sucked, as Cure and Pulse are so damn great, and Charisma utterly and shambolically, brilliantly flawed.

And Hong Sangsoo's Woman on the Beach may be his best work yet. Left the theater in a sort of daze, like the dream I had that morning. Almost exhausted, but having the feeling I'd reached something, intuited something. Bittersweet.

Meaning to post something on resentment, but feeling rather, er , resentful.
Some good notebook-porn here; that's it for now.

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