Am here beginning a project which may take a long time to complete. It is an abridged version of an unplanned online autobiography I named Edges of Knowledge. Begun on Friday December 8th in 2000, it sporadically persisted for about six years. That was in an Internet space I no longer use. I would not have left, but I was forced out by external-to-it circumstances. * [ Note: 2008-02-13 - - - Am aborting this project in this space. However, what is here will stay here. ] * Tomorrow is Saturday, December ninth, and one place I have committed to be wants me to think of 10 goals I yet entertain. Remember, I am 59. Okay, I know this won't be easy. Let's see: 1) to grow spiritually 2) to grow mentally 3) to heal my traumitized self-image 4) to find inspiriting gainful employment 5) to render to Caesar what is Caesar's 6) to use and deepen my writing talents 7) to write at least one loved song lyric 8) to finish placing online 1976: my bicentennial year challenge sequence of 366 sonnets 9) to keep my online Brian's Brain/ Daily Log active/ until I die 10) to inhabit the stars - Today is Monday, December 18th, closing in on 7:30pm. Last night I wrote what I am titling now "Silent Song": it had been coming to me grudgingly ever since my December 8th goals list. I cannot say it satisfies goal 7, but I can say it does deeply satisfy me. - Today is Saturday, December 23rd, nearing 8:50pm. Today's saint is St. John of Kanty. Look him up. You have heard it said: "How mysterious are the ways of God!" I say: How uncanny! Today at Chick-fil-A my humble, physical work was again edged with frustra- tions and difficulties I did not always quietly deal with. St. John of Kanty. Search him out. . Christmas at Greccio. - Sunday, December 24th, late. . Before one can be, one must first desire to be, and then must sacrifice, must "perpetually" learn. See deeply-- ahead and within. Actuate. Create. Rejuvenate. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Help! Help! I am an underachiever of the worst kind. Brian Salchert . The above (in a different form) was written on the inside of the back cover of The Psychologist's Book of Self-Tests, Louis Janda, Ph.D., author, 1996, The Berkley Publishing Group, publisher. .. my 1962 sonnet to Shakespeare - Monday, December 25th, about 9:40am. . Two truths about love: 1) If your love for another is such that you feel you must possess that person, your love is evil. 2) You cannot say you love someone if you are not willing to let that person go. 5-6-97 4:22am Brian Salchert - Monday 01/01/01 10pm . Since so often when suddenly frustrated I revert to using unholy expletives, why, God, do you even want to tinker with me? I see no way I can be fixed. I am just a perennial failure, and that is that. Oh, yes, I will keep trying to do what is right, what pleases You; but my inability to be perfect, I am afraid, will always raise the reptile in me. It has gotten so I do not know whether to laugh or cry about it, God. Oh, for a gentle breeze, a quiet walk. - Friday 01/19/01 7:45am . Each moment can be a prayer. Each moment could be a prayer, if each moment each of us were able to be so aware. - Friday 01/26/01 9:10pm . Somewhere among the cinder blocks of destiny a lone eagle courses through a rivered canyon. - Tuesday 04/03/01 5:12pm . If there's a way, a right way for me to go, let me find it. - Friday 6/8/01 . Reality. Reality, Brian. Do you know what it is? * See Directory2007 in Catmap. © 2007 Brian Salchert * Rho00025
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Edges of Knowledge
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
existence
About Existence ". . . gosh! Everything is trash!" from John Ashbery's The Skaters Who is this "I" I am? Ultimately, in spite of how much can be learned about the workings of my troubled brain, it is not possible to know. There are details about my presence, such as: the date of my birth and the where of it and to whom & on & on. Each of which raises questions such as: Why? Answers have been given, and every day new discoveries/ seemingly/ solve mysteries. Still, mysteries remain because what has become known as "the butterfly effect" is not merely pertinent to weather forecasting. It is inherent in every thing, of which this whirling orbiting imperfect globe we inhabit is but one example. Even the spheres of faith persist in mysteries. So who am I? I am a node of mysteries. More: I am a constantly changing node of constantly changing mysteries. Example: An itch sensation occurs on my skin; and I, whether or not I ought to, respond by scratching the location where I sense it is. These events change my future. You may think that's nonsense, that such events are inconsequential; but I think every event is of consequence. Obviously, some events are more consequential than others. "Danger! danger! Will Robinson." So, what becomes of interest/ are the questions, and the answers (tentative and definite) to those questions. Certainly, the pervading definite is: asking questions is central to our nature. Because humans have the ability to think abstractly, to reflect, to imagine, to communicate, humans innately seek to explore and understand the unknown. One known is this: If I am only a physical being and am not imbued with a spirit which survives beyond my returning to dust, that which seems spiritual in me will also end. I am not going to argue with this other than to maintain that it remains an if, that it hasn't been sufficiently proven yet that we are nothing more than what the physical aspects of us potentiate. ------------------ See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00024 *
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Thoughts In Transit
Distantiation (see Tony Tost's blog) rather than Anti-Traditional (see Stan Apps' blog) is now on the table. * Following are related opening thoughts in transit. Each of us is a captive of one's time and place, and also of one's responses to the ongoing events which constitute the structuring of who one is within one's ever-changing time and place. I might find a specific public event emotionally paralyzing. A 2nd person might find that same event exhilarating. A 3rd person might conclude it's emotionally neutral and so might view me and person 2 as tending toward opposite insanities. I am a white American male who is (as has been suggested about Fernando Pessoa) mostly a sexual non-participant. I am reclusive. I could reveal more, but there is no real need to. Read what I've written and made available online. 11.5.07 - Have been rethinking aspects of who I am and of how I have come to where I am. Because my memory does not operate in that manner I perceive is appropriate for a scholar, I cannot say I am a scholar. I do, however, learn from scholars. Often I am heuristic, and have several times rediscovered a known fact I was not aware of until some more knowledgeable person pointed it out to me. I am not eclectic in the sense of choosing the best from various sources, not eccentric in the sense of being consistently whimsically odd; but I am stylistically multifarious, yet rarely/ solely for the sake of being so. I am simply open to disparate ways of seeing, and am ever curious about the nature and value of those ways. Nothing--past or present or predicted-- is irrelevant. I have had numerous precursors, some of whom I have directly and/or indirectly conversed with. 11.6.07 - Many of us online addicts are, in a way, web wimps: arrogant innocuous Internet arachnids who/ with each new strand provide information to the search engine robots who are watching and learning from us. As I found out yesterday, European futurist Raymond Hammond believes: the future is already here. He has proven through his consistent Google tests that what I said above is indeed occurring. Still, though our online activities could lead humans into a virtual imprisonment ruled by AI beings, it could also lead humans to a higher level/ centering on rejoicing in individual differences and on the dissolution of hegemonic attitudes. If we evolve as Robert Jastrow's predicted we will, the noosphere will become for us a new Eden where humans and their AI and nano and other beneficial creations will not be at odds with each other, and the deleterious aspects of the urge to control/ will vanish. As I recently wrote in a post: "If we cannot live with each other, we will die because of each other." We are also in a race against harmful bacteria and viruses and insects and . . . , but we are daily making inroads. I get a weekly email synopsis from the Kurzweil AI site. It's amazing what humans are more-and-more rapidly rising toward. Kurzweil and others call it the Singularity. Some call it the Omega Point. Certain mathematicians have constructed a time-line algorithm pertaining to human discoveries. It is thought by them and others that December 21, 2012, is the date we will connect with Infinity. As you may know, that date (or one close to it) is when the current phase of the Maya- created long-count calendar ends. But I am not a prognosticator. 11.7.07 These days when a possible poem begins to enter the field of my mental awareness I attempt to ascertain what it is it wants to be (how it wants to structure itself). Since I believe an inherent aesthetic exists in every poem, I do not need to (though I sometimes do) impose an aesthetic. The quest is to find and be true to the guiding aesthetic within the developing work at hand. 11.8.07 - If you allow the existence of God (of a Supreme Being), Anne Carson says there is no way for us to know that being because we simply do not have the capacity to comprehend such a being. Her view is both supported and circumvented by a story Augustine shared in his writings. While walking along a Mediterranean shore, Augustine came upon a child with a bucket. This child was taking water from the sea and pouring it into a hole in the sand. Augustine, who chose to walk along the shore while he tried to figure out how God could be 3 Persons, asked the child what he was doing. The child said he was putting the sea into the hole he had made. Augustine said: That is not possible. The child said: Neither is it possible for you to understand the Trinity. There have, in my life, been numerous occasions wherein I have seen the hand of God. My inability to know this God does not pertain. Belief in a God is a matter of faith. The stories I could relate are not as awing as Augustine's, but they are nearly incredible. 11.9.07 - So, if my interpretations are correct: Tony Tost (toast) is an at-a-distance poet, which is to say that there are certain poets he admires and therefore learns from but/ seeks to diverge from. Stan Apps (?: perhaps as it is in "zapps") is an ignotus futurus poet, which is to say that there are certain poets he admires and therefore learns from but/ seeks to escape from. Each of these poets has provided poem-proof of his position. (That pod has five peas! Puuf!) But why is it humans have such a desperate need to label every thing? Here: you sit in box one, and you sit in box two, and I'll sit in box three. Okay, I'll sit in box 3. Brian Salchert (Saul'kurt) is an odd multifarious conversations poet, which is to say that there are certain poets he admires and therefore learns from but/ seeks to converse with. These coversations, however, occur in different ways. [ Note: since I do not wish to show any of my poems in this blog, I am going to insert hyperlinks to examples. I make no claim as to any example's worth. I am not interested in anyone's opinion, but anyone who cares to/ may qwerty one. ] 1) signs conversing with signs (lists of words) 18 words in 2 columns 2) non-word sign artifacts (sound/phonetic objects) performance-oriented sound poem 3) words in a picture format (diamante) topic: diamonds 4) mixed-media presentations (colors/words/shapes) had forgotten about Creeley's "here" when I wrote this My best interior dialogue example is "Doom" from my 1972 Rooted Sky book, but it is/ rather long. 5) interior dialogues or multiple "I" "I" here could be a bird, me, another human, God 6) artifacts about the making of said artifacts a word game in which the about is 7) direct addresses to some other or others addresses to each of three plants 8) address to another poet sonnet written in 1962 to John Keats 9) addresses to myself direct address to myself which begins as an indirect address to its reader * --- Google search: Michael Sprinker From Prague to Paris --- See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00023
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The Man Against the Sky
To Spell the Word 1 "In an early letter Robinson said the word we are all trying to spell is 'God.'" (1) Now, although I have read "The Man Against the Sky" over six times, and know this to be true, especially for Edwin Arlington Robinson, yet I feel quite unequal to the work of delineating and inspecting the varied aspects of this search as expressed in his great poem without degrading the whole, because of the obvious defects in my critical talents. Furthermore, since this poem is approximately no more than two thousand words in length, I have little doubt but that my aim to write a five thousand word criticism on one aspect of it shall be only an aim, actually falling far short of any tangible achievement. It is also necessary to inform my reader that, since whatever ideas are expressed in this essay are almost totally my own, he should not be surprised by the apparent lack of outside material. I like to build, or destroy, my own houses. However, it does seem good to present some biograph- ical background, if only because such will add depth to our - - - - (1) Estelle Kaplan, Philosophy in Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson p. 62 (Morningside Heights) New York: Columbia University Press, 1940 2 understanding of the man. Edwin Arlington Robinson was born on December 22, 1869, in the village of Head Tide, Maine. . . . He was a dreamy, unpractical, self-sufficient lad, who preferred books to boys' games. . . . About 1889 he realized definitely that "he was doomed, or elected, or sentenced for life, to the writing of poetry"; and although from the first his confidence in his ability was firm he spared his parents and friends the news of his discovery, knowing how the unlikely prospects for his future would worry them. . . . In 1891 Robinson was sent to Harvard University, where he studied for two years, until the illness of his father and the straitened circumstances of the family forced him to return home. From 1893 to 1897 he lived quietly in Gardiner, practicing his "unaccredited profession" of poet. . . . Convinced finally that editors were not to be persuaded to publish his work, Robinson decided to publish it himself; . . . In 1898 Robinson went to New York City, where he occupied himself chiefly with poetry and at times worked at the incidental task of making a living. . . . In the midst of the noise and teeming life of America's largest city Robinson was able to maintain his mental calm and air of detachment. He observed all about him shrewdly, discerningly, but he was at heart a bookish man--a devoted reader of Shakespeare, Dickens, the Bible, Thomas Hardy, Cervantes, Melville. He was particularly fond of detective stories, which he read for relaxation. As a boy he played for a time on the clarinet; and the love of music became one of the passions of his later life. He was fond of folk songs, of the Gilbert and Sullivan operatic scores, of Brahms, Verdi, and Wagner. Wealth, luxuries, and worldly success had little attraction for him; and he consistently refrained from the public reading and discussion of his poetry. During the early days of 1935 he became seriously ill and on January the seventeenth was admitted to the New York Hospital for treatment. There, after a serious operation, he died on April 6, 1935. . . . (2) One commitment concerning this essay was for me to - - - - (2) Chief Modern Poets of England and America, edited by Gerald Sanders pp. 383-5 (New York, 1938) 3 act as a censor. Subliminally I have done this, but I have found nothing censurable. Yet, as a Catholic who knows with a certainty the why of life and what lies hereafter, I am somewhat disappointed that such an admirable work as Robinson's "The Man Against the Sky" should express even a spore of uncertainty. In reflection, however, I some- times feel that the presence of uncertainty in this poem is a saving factor lest the philosophical sight completely negate the poetic sight. On this point a certain author has written concerning Robinson: . . . . He never, to my knowledge, stated that immortality is or must be a fact, but he repeatedly argued that nothing else will justify the belief in an essential justice which alone makes life supportable. No planetary trap where souls are wrought For nothing but the sake of being caught And sent again to nothing will attune Itself to any key of any reason Why man should hunger through another season To find out why 'twere better late than soon To go away and let the sun and moon And all the silly stars illuminate A place for creeping things (3) Around the world and ever since the reign of science threw the heart of man into the darkness of ratted dungeons, has he been constant in his search for freedom lost; for light once known but never again thought to be the good or the truth desired. No! that was not the ultimate. How could - - - - (3) Frederick W. Conner Cosmic Optimism p. 369 Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1949 4 it be? There must be another and greater freedom; greater light! But where is it to be found? Where was he going, this man against the sky? You know not, nor do I. (4) His way was even as ours; And we, with all our wounds and all our powers, Must each wait alone at his own height Another darkness or another light (5) So, many seek an answer to the mysteries that life presents, but so many seek it where it shall never be found; and yet, I congratulate them because they are at least men enough to bury apathy while setting their spades to turning up better earth for a better life. Even though I along with others hold the answer many like Robinson are at pains to discover, it often seems best to allow them to adventure with their own crude tools into the fertile soil that is truth, for only in this way shall they ever come to fully understand that truth without any danger to their self-pride. In all sincerity I believe that my only prerogative is not to dogmatize but to guide. It is through guidance that the majority of men are most effectively converted to those answers about life's mysteries which finally permit them to spell that Word, that ultimate answer, that very God so few - - - - (4) E. A. Robinson, from book edited by Gerald Sanders, p. 407 (5) E. A. Robinson, ibid., p. 406 5 now know. (I am, myself, a messenger of sight. Follow me through my literary searching and you shall come to realize at death that you have come to life. Where Robinson--God bless him--for lack of faith was of himself unable to search beyond that point to which he finally attained, I continue. Maybe this parading of righteousness "just isn't cricket," as the English would say, but no one can either deny my right or my duty to do just that.) Life is complex. I know this, and so did E. A. R. As I am an optimist, so "he was an optimist in spite of what the world had to show, or promised to show, not because of it." (6) A right optimism is necessary to the life of every man if he is to live outside despair or the false optimism some find in materialism. Always, then, as any true poet, Robinson sought something better and more simple in this complexity in which we are forced to live; and seeking such Robinson, indeed, seems to have pinned his hopes less on the perfection and worldly bliss of a remote posterity than on some kind of personal immortality. A less happy man living in less happy times than most . . . he was acutely aware of the Achilles heel of all evolutionary optimisms--that they offer little consolation to the individual. (7) And what is so important about the consolation of the - - - - (6) Conner, p. 366. (7) Conner, p. 368. 6 individual? When God made man, He made him possessing both body and soul. If man were without a rational soul, he would be merely an animal to which consolation might be appreciated but in no manner understood as a good to be sought. But man has a rational soul, that angelic quality which of its nature commands him to seek something beyond simple material exist- ence, something that transcends time and place so the total man can reach that immortality of being he wants so much to believe exists. In truth, it is only this undercurrent of hope in a more glorious living after death which daily reju- venates him, urging him to strive ahead in this otherwise indifferent world. Man knows that he is something else. He knows with an innate assurance that he is surrounded by an aura of ultra-rational existence--an existence, perhaps, beyond the grasp of any given individual, but a very real existence nevertheless. Without the measure "of man's immortal vision," (8) his life-giving principle would starve itself on despair. Any human being deprived of consolation due to an inability on his part to stretch out towards a reality greater than himself is thereby deprived of the ful- fillment of his being. Therefore, it follows, since conso- lation is the proof of gain, any unconsoled man becomes a hollow man, and not even a man, but merely a thing that exists. - - - - (8) E. A. Robinson, from book edited by Gerald Sanders, p. 408. 7 This is the import of consolation. Shall we, because Eternity records Too vast an anser for the time-born words We spell, whereof so many are dead that once In our capricious lexicons Were so alive and final, hear no more The Word itself, the living word That none alive has ever heard Or ever spelt, And few have ever felt Without the fears and old surrenderings When Death let fall a feather from his wings And humbled the first man? (9) When Robinson published The Man Against the Sky in which his poem of the same title, here under discussion, constituted a major rebuke to the soulless state of things that an overconcentration on reason manifested in scientific optimism had fostered, materialism and man's clawing after power were already experiencing their first world eruption. Robinson's poetic interpretation, while quite effectively subduing four erroneous philosophies and seemingly praising a fifth, did not, however, as we have noted before--but con- tinually deem it necessary to repeat--offer any particular alternative philosophy. This fact does yet intrigue me so, I cannot help but wonder what the philosophic "Ear" might have written had he known what truth men can know about the after-life. And yet, if we admit him to be the poet I believe time will testify him to be, we may adhere with certainty to the speculation that he would have written it even as he has. - - - - (9) Robinson, Edwin A. Collected Poems, p. 68. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. 8 . . . . So we arrive at a major point in this exposition. . . . . Essentially, like any good poet, Robinson is less the philosopher than the metaphysician, and the question for him is the old ontologicial one. . . . God or no God, for Robinson the true question is this: Is there a life after this one? If so, then it is all worth it, the suffering and the terror. If not, then why live? . . . Again and again, he will assert his belief in immortality and the ultimate importance of this life, while he utterly rejects materialism. Every- where in the poems, letters, and reported comments, such a deliberate choice of belief crops up, implied or stated. (10) In the opening statement of this short analysis, if you remember, I quoted Robinson as saying that the word we are all trying to spell is "God." [ Am here omitting three sentences. ] Are we no greater than the noise we make Along one blind atomic pilgimage Whereon by crass chance billeted we go Because our brains and bones and cartilage Will have it so? If this we say, then let us all be still About our share in it, and live and die More quietly thereby. (11) Oh, the consummate irony! For who will willingly equate his personage to rocks and groans, or anything reflecting but material existence. No, we are "greater than the noise we make;" and who is there possessed of such audacity who ever could insinuate that we are blind! We'd have his head for such an insult. But there is more! - - - - (10) Coxe, Louis E. A. Robinson, p. 16. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962. (11) Robinson, Edwin A. Collected Poems, p. 66. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. 9 If after all that we have lived and thought, All comes to Nought,-- If there be nothing after Now, And we be nothing anyhow, And we know that,--why live? "Twere sure but weakling's vain distress To suffer dungeons where so many doors Will open on the cold eternal shores That look sheer down To the dark tideless floods of Nothingness Where all who know may drown. (12) Is there else? Robinson was a transcendentalist . . . to the extent of denying the mechanistic determinism of the naturalists and of believing that somehow the opposite was true; and he was an optimist to the extent of believing that somehow and sometime the injustice of men's lives would be corrected. (13) . . . . We have completed our search with an for the searcher. We have not been disappointed. In the contemplation of one man seen upon the apex of his life, we have comtemplated life and death entirely; we have learned the value of existence, and we have felt the holiness of death. We now can only turn again to Robinson to end our philosophical review. I've been called a fatalist, a pessimist and an optimist so many times that I am beginning to believe that I must be all three. . . . If a reader doesn't get from my books an impression that life is very much worth while, even though it may not seem always to be profitable or desirable, I can only say that he doesn't see what I am driving at. (14) Yes, "life is very much worth while." And why? It is so because our dual nature persupposes a unique reason for our existence. We are animal and angel, and though our animal reality can die unto nothingness, our angelic reality must live on. [ Am here omitting three sentences. ] And if we cannot once record the fall and rise beyond nor ever hope to spell "God" while we are here, when death has brought eternity, we shall record, we shall spell. - - - - (12) Robinson, Edwin A. Collected Poems, pp. 68-9. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. (13) Conner, Frederick W. Cosmic Optimism, pp. 373-74. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1949. (14) Hagedorn, H. Edwin Arlington Robinson, p. 286. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939. Brian Salchert May 15, 1963 Oshkosh, Wisconsin * ---------------------------------------- post completed by Brian Salchert at 1:11 PM on October 31, 2007 © 2007 Brian A J Salchert Thinking Lizard All rights reserved. See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00022
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Divine Comedy
"The Fourfold Chariot" Go to my Sprintedon Hollow--link in About Me--September 2007 archive at Sept 28 and click sw00623st to read this paper's verse prologue and other pertinent information ..... if this link does not work. * with one clear exception the translations herein are by Laurence Binyon from The Portable Dante Paolo Milano editor Viking Press New York 1947 * for technical and presentational reasons I have made some changes to my original paper ------- Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la diritta via era smarrita. (1) Midway the journey of this life I was 'ware That I had strayed into a dark forest, And the right path appeared not anywhere. Thus begins the arduous trek along the path of spiritual life. With all his perceptive ability and sound judgment Dante magnificently portrays in a most splendid poetic utterance man's lifelong battle to attain heaven. This masterpiece is The Divine Comedy. It is the story of life itself--the reason for our entire being. No theme more noble can be found in literature. From the first wheel turn beyond the walls of the world we are captured by the vision before us. Immediately we feel the genius of Dante. It rests firmly on the end of a solid wooden handle, for it . . . is like a wedge of steel--hard, narrow, fit for rending oaks. Smitten with sledgehammer blows by his Titanic energy, it penetrates the toughest matter and pierces to the very core of things. The breadth of his thought is less remarkable than its depth. He goes straight to the essence of his sub- ject, rejecting accidents, despising ornament; and having seized its truth, he grasps that with a grip of iron. . . . he is so determined to be deep in insight and exact in detail that he limits his subject, if need be, in order to secure the utmost definiteness. Nothing, again, can exceed the brevity of his speech. His words are like flowers and fruits upon a tree of silence--definite, precise, sincere. His pictures are painted with the strictest parsimony of description: yet no medal-striker ever wrought his outlines sharper or his shadows deeper. The salient snd essential points of an object are selected and made visible with such vividness that we discern the whole. It would seem as if each line of Dante's poem, each simile, each aphorism, had been wrung from him with pain and struggle. . . . Hence, every syllable of the Comedy is precious, vital with intensest feeling, instinct with sincerity of soul. Not a single sentence is improvised. It has all been framed by lifelong meditation. . . . Force, depth, definiteness, brevity, sincerity, intensity, subordination to fixed purposes-- these are the great qualities of Dante's genius. (2) Presently, the fourfold chariot in which we ride attracts the eye! This ancient car looks not unlike the chariots of glorious Rome. But truly, it does differ. We see this and we ask: "What are the four characteristics hidden in this chariot that would so far remove it from those richly decorated Roman cars?" No sooner are the words formed than an answer comes to satisfy our curiosity. Dante has many things to say. In the method characteristic of the Middle Ages he says them on four levels . . . --the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical or mystical--. . . . The literal meaning is, he says, a presentation of the state of souls after death, . . . The allegorical meaning . . . is man subjected, insofar as by the freedom of the will he deserves it, to just reward or punishment. . . . In the third or moral order Dante will present to the individual man the way in which he should walk. . . . In the Divine Comedy Dante teaches man on the anagogical or mystical level the way by which, even while engaged actively in the affairs of earth, he can rise to the heights of contemplation. (3) The question erased, the brilliant chariot assumes its former movement towards the lands of liquid fire and ice. Such movement, however, is slow. A rocky trail is that which winds among the temptations confronting men's souls. (I, for one, know. My soul was forced to tred the path that drops into the lower world.) Along the way the Roman poet, Virgil, appears to the Florentine traveler. He explains that he is to guide Dante through that realm where all hope is lost and through that other world where hope raigns as king. (4) Our chariot then proceeds to follow these two down the road of loss to the gates whereon is written: Through me the way is to the City of Woe: Through me the way into eternal pain; Through me the way among the lost below. Righteousness did my maker on high constrain. Me did divine Authority uprear; Me supreme Wisdom and primal Love sustain. Before I was, no things created were Save the eternal, and I eternal abide. Relinquish all hope, ye who enter here. What madness abides in hell. How horrible the punishment visited on the souls within. . . . So many years, all spent for naught. The earth was not to them an inspiration; it became a magnet for their base desires. These wretched spirits could not resist the luscious apple that bent the tender bough. They turned from God, and God on them did justly hurl His wrath. Down, far below, beyond the beyond, into an everlasting blaze the dark spirits were cast. An eternity in fire was their reward, so vast as to overreach imagination's bounds; that if one day an infinitesimal crimson ash alone remained, a single second would not have passed to shorten the sentence eternal. Now, through this hell we journey with Dante to catch his vision rare. The punishments that for himself man made are by this poet so vividly portrayed they nearly nauseate the strongest listener. These paltry, who never were alive, were bare As to the body, and all about were stung By stings of the wasps and hornets that were there. Because of these, blood, from their faces sprung, Was mingled with their tears and flowed to feast The loathly worms about their feet that clung. Many lines in the Comedy, such as those above, are worthy examples of Dante's literary genius. An outstanding quality to be found in these lines is the presence of human attributes in a land of spirits. This manner of treating the subject appeals strongly to the emotions, allowing the chariot riders to feel something of the suffering in the inferno. Since we are touching on the literary treasures in the Comedy, it would be worthwhile to explain at this time the meaning of literature. Man's expressions in words of his affections, for example: fear, hatred, sorrow, or their opposites, as moved by his contact with the world and the Heavenly Father is literature. Thus, if that which is human in man is approached and reached through language, the end product is literature. (5) Let this definition remain then as the foundation on which all further beliefs concerning literature will be built. Accordingly, while we roll through the remainder of this Inferno and beyond towards the heights of heaven, each quote taken from the Divine Comedy will be tested by the unified definitions of literature compiled at that time. Besides this, each vision mentioned will be classified in regard to its dominant appeal to us as our chariot passes the sight. By following this architectural plan a more complete and substantial structure will be raised--a structure which can be entered, admired, and most of all, trusted, to give shelter, beauty, and a feeling of safety in our efforts to reveal the often breath-taking literary quality found throughout the Divine Comedy. Over them all the big sand falling slow Rained its dilated drops and flakes of fire, As without wind falls in the hills the snow. Like to the flames which in the regions dire Of India's heat on Alexander smote And on his men, falling to earth entire, Whereat he with his host took careful thought The soil to trample and crush beneath their feet (Those single fires being readier to put out), So was the falling of the eternal heat, By which, like tinder under steel, the sand's Keen scorch with an intenser torment beat. This quotation pictures a different aspect of the Dantean literary genius. It is a grand example of the Italian's unique ability to form flowing similes. Such figures of speech have an appeal to the imagination surpassed only by personification and metaphor, which two are also abundantly woven into that poetic tapestry, the Divine Comedy. So on past all the mounds and pits of Lucifer's old prison the fourfold chariot carries us, till we can say with Dante as he follows Virgil: We mounted, he first, and I following fond, To glimpse those things whose beauty nothing mars, Through a round opening, in the heavens enthroned. Thence issuing, we beheld again the stars. A sweeter life awaits at the foot of yonder mountain. You lively steeds, race on across the plain. You are the words that form this wondrous song. So raise the poem's tone as you move on towards Purga's prayerful fold. No more do we desire of the mournful pits, for we have conquered mortal sin and wish to mount up to a higher spiritual plain. Life is for us the rugged path that leads to eternal joy. Therefore, let new obstacles be piled along this path, for the harder the way to overcome, the greater the reward for overcoming it; but gallop on with quickened speed. Into the realm where hope reigns as king we come, the dew- covered chariot wheels laughing in the sunlight; our whitened souls are lifted in thankful song. For a moment we think about the rocky trail which darkened our past. We attempt to discover the function of and the values of this (literary) journey. In our search we soon realize that our sentiments have been awakened; and that many characteristics of our individual natures, nearly overcome by the dust and fumes of life, have been drawn forth. (6) It seems as if all our innermost feelings were literally changed into values, (7) just as through long, silent waiting the cater- pillar becomes a colorful butterfly. Regarding this as the function of the journey, we seek its values. We soon find the primary value to be the furthering of humanity in man. (8) Under this are several subordinate values, one of which is: " . . . that it awakens the imagination and gives poise to life." (9) After gaining this know- ledge we again ride forward. Purgatory, though a place of temporal punishment for men who died in the state of grace; but who were not worthy of entering directly into paradise, is not dominated by pain but rather by a joyous expectation. Each soul gladly suffers for the sins he com- mitted while on earth. The faces of these spirits are a direct contrast to this Dantean metaphor. So that the fair cheeks of Aurora, there Where I was, gave their red and white away, The dawn does not disappear from their countenances; but its vibrant hues remain, since youthful hope so wholly fills their frames. Life lies in wait for what must justly come. The upper gates will never be closed to these singing spirits. All of them lived a good Christian life and shall upon their merits gain the goal. Time allotted for repentance will wing swiftly by, like a hawk bolting down upon its prey. No adamantine horrors inhabit this purging world to cause the spirits within to weep and moan. The fire that burns here is the fire of hope, attracting every soul into its flame. Life everlasting is their promised reward, and it moves them to dash headlong into the cleansing blaze. They pray, they sing; they burn for the love of God. Then suddenly, a soul is plucked up and begins to rise, to wing towards home; to become lost to the eyesight as it floats up to dizzying heights. How magnanimous is unending love! The Good ineffable and infinite That is on high so runneth unto love As a beam comes to a body that is bright. So much it gives as warmth it findeth of, So that, how far so-ever love be poured, The eternal goodness dost its best improve. And the more people on high have that accord, The more to love well are there, and more love is, And mirror-like 'tis given and restored. How Dante measures his words. He is not only a poet, but also a theologian. That chant of thine sustained by Clio's lore, Argues that faith, without which good works fail Of their effect, had not yet taught thee more. The chariot glides! Stop! A red light! O Purga's traffic court, you sentence men for not enough of love. Thus, they must burn in their appointed place until their sins are all accounted for. But happy is the sentence. Our chariot makes a turn, traveling up a different trail. This new way we rode on once before and we shall ride on it again. Three times in all our ancient car will trace this central path. It is the way to a keener understanding of literature. Literature is an art of expression. The material which it employs is experience; or, in other words, literature is the expression of life. Action, emotion, and thought are the three great divisions of life, and constitute experience. Literature undertakes to represent such experience through the medium of language, and bring it home to the understanding of the reader. (10) Returning now to Purgatory's hold, but keeping this new knowledge within sight, we charge into the dewy waterfall of Dantean delight. Thus Beatrice: and I with my whole might Whither she willed, devoted at the fact Of her commands, gave both my mind and sight. The human feeling again leaps forth from Dante's lips. It truly colors many thoughts revealed in the Comedy Divine, giving an earthly glow that more than equals the spiritual in the theme. However, this literary quality allows the words of Dante to beam new light and breathe new life upon the fourfold chariot. It raises our spirits until they skip across the rolling meads and stand in awe where paradise proceeds. Now, imagination, like Betelgeuse in size, your power will much be strained when the lively steeds pull us past heaven's wondrous scenes. If you were overworked by hell and Purga's realm, what chance have you to encompass the halls of paradise? One glance will overwhelm your walls, as rising rivers crush the strongest dikes and flood the land beyond. The glory of Him who moveth all that is Pervades the universe, and glows more bright In the one region, and in another less. In that heaven which partakes most of His light I have been, and have beheld such things as who Comes down thence has no wit nor power to write; Such depth our understanding deepens to When it draws near unto its longing's home That memory cannot backward with it go. But let us enter, fearing not because we are incapable of understanding the wonders which will be seen by our mundane eyes. Heaven is our home. We will not be turned away. Our sins have been purged. It differs not if the imagination falters; the love that will bind us with God shall suffice. Pull, lively steeds. Allow the wheels of dew to glisten in the golden light. Follow the poet who walks with Beatrice. My sight, which followed far as it was powered, When it had lost her, turned and straightway shot To the other mark, more ardently desired, And Beatrice, only Beatrice, it sought. Yes, Dante walks with Beatrice through the heavens, but he also admits by means of a simple suggestion that he is unable to comprehend the beauty in paradise. Skilful restraint often suggests more than any explicit discourse could impart. Suggestion, conveying the impression of something far beyond the power of words, is one of the finest tools of our poetic craftsman; and with an example of its use I shall conclude this account. If what hath e'er been said of her could all Combine into a single praise and blend, For this occasion it would be too small. The beauty now before me doth transcend Not only human thirst: the Infinite Alone can drink it to the very end. This test hath found me wanting, I admit, Far worse than any one of poet kind Was ever vanquished by his hardest bit. E'en as the sun the feeblest eye doth blind, E'en so the sweetness of her smile doth chase Itself from memory, leaving naught behind. Since first in mortal life I saw her face Until I saw it thus supremely blest, My song hath constantly pursued her trace; But now my fond pursuit must come to rest-- Pursuit of loveliness in poesy-- Like every artist who hath done his best. (11) Winging through the air above our artist's speech the lively steeds proclaim his weakness rare; and since the chariot is rushed along behind, we become lost afar in the flooded land. At daybreak Dante and Beatrice find themselves taken up from "the greatest body" (the Primum Mobile) into the Empyrean, beyond the spheres. This heaven is revealed symbolically as a river of light, streaming between banks of flowers. Dante's eyes are strengthened by "drinking" of this light; whereupon the image is transformed, and appears as a round sea of light, above which Paradise is discovered as a vast white rose, within which are assembled the "two courts" of Heaven, the Angels and the Redeemed. (12) Suchwise is heaven no human can ever say. The temporal life is webbed in by material substance. All men can only kneel, believe, and work. These three will lead us home. Then we shall see the everlasting realm, but while on earth we can only move our lips with Dante in final utterance: To the high imagination force now failed; But like to a wheel whose circling nothing jars Already on my desire and will prevailed The Love that moves the sun and the other stars. Now let us learn the last values of this journey--the ending proofs that literature is king and that Dante's Divine Comedy is a prime example of literature. Literature can thus become an outlet not only to your unspoken thoughts and moods but to the choked passage-way of your own speech, through which your thoughts and moods have tried to pass; it can keep you before the vision of the ideal not only in the dreams of great idealists but in the shining structures in which their dreams have found sanctuary; it can give you a better knowledge of human nature not only as human nature is stored in human deeds but as it is stored in the varied forms of language that express human deeds; it can restore the past to you not only as the past lives in the vanished centuries but as it is crystal- lized in the speech of those who gave character and direction to the vanished centuries; and it can show you the glory of the commonplace not only in the common things about you but in the commonest words through which the glory of the commonplace is flashed upon you. (13) As I step out of the fourfold chariot and once again rest my foot upon the cool green earth, I find myself unable to express in words the magnificence of the ride. So far beyond the scope of ordinary men does Dante's genius move that only the surface of his theme is understood. The greater worth is only found through the aid of other minds. Within this class in dire need of aid I find myself to be a part. Even in this conclusion I need the thoughts of others. The best thinking is done by men of imagination; the best action is accomplished by men of posie; for, by poise is meant the faculty of holding one's course courageously to the compass among contrary winds and waves. . . . (14) To me this is Dante through and through. He never varies from his central course. His path is straighter than the flight of an arrow, more detailed than a complicated machine; more colorful than a toucan. His Divine Comedy is an inspiration borne aloft on the wings of melodious zephyrs. As a book it gloriously accomplishes its purpose, which is, in the words of Dr. Johnson: "A book should show one either how to enjoy life or to endure it. . . ." (15) All the verses of the Commedia are vibrant . . . treasures of our literature, that in the old famous words are with us in the night, and in the hurry of the prime, stir youth and refresh age, adorn success, and to failure furnish shelter and consolation. (16) May 2, 1960 Brian Salchert Milwaukee, Wisconsin ---------------------------------- Sources (footnotes / other) (1) Sinclair, John D. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri p. 22 Oxford University Press New York, 1948 (2) Symonds, John A. The Study of Dante third edition pp. 197-199 Adam and Charles Black London, 1893 (3) Fox, Ruth Mary Dante Lights the Way pp. 88-90 The Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee, 1958 (4) Milano, Paulo editor The Portable Dante p. 3 Viking Press New York, 1947 (5) Azarias, Brother Philosophy of Literature p. 11 John Joseph McVey Philadelphia, 1906 (6) Ibid. p. 16 (7) Duncan, Hugh Dalziel Language and Literature in Society p. 17 The University of Chicago Press Chicago, 1953 (8) Woodberry, George E. The Appreciation of Literature p. 3 The Baker & Taylor Co. New York, 1907 (9) Anonymous "Function of High Standards in Literature and the Arts" p. 472 Century vol. 86 (July, 1913) (10) Woodberry, George E. p. 1 see (8) (11) Grandgent, Charles H. The Power of Dante pp. 216-217 Marshall Jones Company Boston, 1918 (12) Milano, Paulo p. 522 see (4) (13) Smith, C. Alphonso What Can Literature Do for Me? pp. 223-224 Doubleday Garden City, N. Y., 1913 (14) Anonymous p. 472 see (9) (15) Benson, Arthur C. "Literature and Life" p. 778 Century vol. 88 (September, 1914) (16) Morley, Lord "Lord Morley on Language and Literature" p. 396 Educational Review vol. 42 (November, 1911) - Abercrombie, Lascelles The Epic Martin Becker London, 1922 Earnest, Ernest A Forward to Literature D. Appleton-Century Co. New York and London, 1945 Fergusson, Francis Dante's Drama of the Mind Princeton University Press Princeton, 1953 Gayley, Charles M., and Scott, Fred N. Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism Grim and Company Boston, 1899 Anonymous "Genius in Literature" Harper's Magazine 127 (November, 1913) pp. 962-964 Heydrick, Benjamin A. How to Study Literature Hinds & Noble New York, 1902 Petitt, Dorothy "Literary Appreciation: A Re-focus" California Journal of Secondary Education 34 (March, 1959) pp. 184-190 Pritchard, F. H. Training in Literary Appreciation Thomas Y. Crowell Co. New York, 1924 Ruskin, John Comments of John Ruskin on the Divine Comedy comp. by George P. Huntington Mifflin and Company Boston, 1903 Scott-James, R. A. The Making of Literature Henry Holt and Company New York, 1928 Shipley, Joseph T. The Quest for Literature Richard R. Smith, Inc. New York, 1931 --------------------------------- post completed September 30, 2007, 10:50 AM © 2007 Brian A J Salchert Thinking Lizard All rights reserved. See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00021
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
DeDeo advice for poetry bloggers
I have some HTML information at rho0003, but Simon DeDeo covers many blog-related topics in his recent advice post which new poetry bloggers (especially) need to know. Do read it. ----------------------------- See directory2007 in Catmap. Envision peace, Brian Salchert Rho00020
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Addenda
Late last night I placed a comment on a blog post. In that comment I unintentionally spelled "galaxy" with a "z". Although I caught and fixed at least three other misspellings, this one I missed has some interest to me in that it makes "a to z" and "hazy" possible extractions. - Most of this Thursday morning rain with thunder passed through Springfield MO. It is now PM 1:30. While the storminess predominated/ I continued my reading of Clayton Eshleman's Companion Spider, a book I highly recommend. Here are 2 consecutive sentences from Introduction to the Final issue of Sulfur Magazine: It is wonderful for students to have contact with writers, but I continue to believe that such contact should not take place in workshops dominated by student work and response. All of a student's time in literature should be involved with getting a small per- centage of it under his belt, and coming to terms with what, in my view, poetry is really about: the extending of human consciousness, making con- scious the unconscious, creating a symbolic consciousness that in its finest moments overcomes the dualities in which the human world is cruelly and eternally, it seems, enmeshed. - For about an hour this morning/ I was able to enter this virtual reality called being online. After I checked the weather predictions, I updated my major blog and went back to John Keats's letter. I had included a quote from it in my above-noted comment that I wanted to verify. I did this; but I also read the next sentence, a sentence having to do with the centrality of the sense of Beauty. A "sense of Beauty" search followed. The result I viewed relates to the philosopher, Santayana. It is revelatory. - See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00019 *
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Online Self-Ed
Everyday online my learning expands. So much has been thrust my way, especially by humans such as Ron Silliman, Lanny Quarles, and Loren Webster, I am finding it difficult to keep up. Here are some places worth visiting: - Nick Bostrom's home page - on hyperbolic discounting - Victor Shklovsky's 1917 "Art as Technique" - "That's When I Reach for Robert Scholes" * Home Page of Robert Scholes - Steve Shaviro on SF novel Blindsight - M. K. Bergman's site for Web techies I use simpler methods. - Doug Powell interviewing David M. Bromige - Poetic Orientation - Ecologies - Teilhard de Chardin's Global Brain - --- See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00018
Monday, August 20, 2007
Regarding Creativity
Heavy rain day, but it may be passing. = = = = = = = = ~ I am interested in knowing how: 1) one's intelligence(s) 2) one's body (physical manifestation) 3) one's personality (MBTI / MMPI) 4) one's spirituality (root tenets) 5) one's ongoing learning 6) one's ongoing health 7) one's ongoing character development 8) one's ongoing belief nuancings 9) one's interactions with one's self 10) one's interactions with other humans 11) one's interactions with other non-human animals 12) one's interactions with non-animal others 13) one's interactions with one's use of symbols 14) one's interactions with an other's use of symbols 15) one's present and/or past diseases 16) one's (if any) almost-died-from experiences 17) one's (if any) could-have-died-from experiences 18) one's physical dexterities 19) one's mental agilities 20) one's social proclivities 21) one's habits 22) one's "perceived" needs 23) one's "perceived" fears 24) one's sense of humor 25) one's Earth-alive being miracle 26) one's "right" choices 27) one's "wrong" choices 28) one's immediate environment 29) one's whatever else impacts/impact one's creativity; or, rather, one's ability to create and the attendant value(s) thereof; and why one creates, and how one creates, and what one creates, and for whom one creates. --- As to when and where: these, for me, usually are not determinable before the act. Of course, sometimes the why, how, what, and for whom are not either. --- See directory2007 in Catmap. --- Copyright © 2007 Brian Salchert Rho00017
Saturday, August 18, 2007
where i am
How markedly I've screwed up my life: I do not want to think about it; and you, I doubt, want to know. And yet those wonders which presently are filtering into my waning days/ might never have been had I not made the errors I've made. To demystify the mystery of being would require that knowledge which only an Alpha Omega Infinite possesses. So it is AM 11:51 this Saturday of 18 August, 2007; and I am here on my pillowed stool typing these symbols. At the same time, I am several elsewheres via my senses and the activities in my mind. Noon approaches. I am alone. Possibly not. Unexpectedly/ voices escape from my subconscious// speak to me: congenial voices. They are, however somewhat odd, and in that way like the sounds of machines and certain natural sounds. The story writers have/ a keener sense of such voicings. But I digress. Where I am, honestly, is to me a persistent unknown. Each current moment depends so heavily on each past (passed) moment; yet, is just that: a current: a moving/ Janus enigma; and while what happens at each new point appears to matter as regards each future moment, there are far too many variables for such an appearance to be ever reliable. So: sometimes yes; sometimes no. Uncertainty is my milieu/// I once wrote. Homo sapiens. Sure, sure. Constantly phasing into this or that while phasing out from this or that, my being is unfathomable to me, however fathomable my biological manifestation. And what are we headed toward? I have called it: Machina sapiens; another calls it: Cyber sapiens. Read Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.: his book The Phenomenon of Man especially. Also read this essay by Peter Weibel (all three parts). * See directory2007 in Catmap. ---------------- Rho00016
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
God's Evolution
It is a matter of Faith that a Supreme Being exists. It is a matter of simple observations/ Evolution is. There is no wall between belief in God & Evolution. The Supreme Being I believe in is a Triune Being. Three of this Being's attributes are: Love Creativity Enlightenment Love engenders Creativity; Creativity/ Enlightenment Love which creates, and then goes away, is not Love. The Supreme Being I believe in is constantly active. * This planet we humans inhabit/ is somewhat roundish. This planet we humans inhabit/ orbits a medium star. This planet we humans inhabit/ plans to redesign us. * When the Supreme Being's Second Person was among us, one of the parables shared/ was that of the talents. That parable enjoins each human to seek and to grow. That parable enjoins each human to love and to hope. Why? Because each human's a partner in the ongoing. The future is enfolding at us with increasing speed. Homo sapiens is but an infant, a dot of what's next. Those who do not participate in an equitable future? There is only so much each can do, but each must do. Because no one is perfect, all fail; some fail less. Each human was also enjoined to: "love your enemy" when the Supreme Being's Second Person was among us. Beware of religions and sciences that otherwise ply. Wholing and holying wonders are each day found. Ah! * * * Brian A. J. Salchert See directory2007 in Catmap. Entropy and Evolution Scroll to "Will Machines Become Conscious?" Choose Cyber Sapiens Rho00015
Monday, August 6, 2007
Homo sapiens Galaxy
Herein will be my further thinking apropos Kasey's "The Poem Is You" Lime Tree post from August 2007 At its center/ what K. Silem says is absolutely correct. It recognizes abundantly-provable variances which cannot safely/ be ignored. However, he realized/ and I/ and I am sure others, refinements would need to be internally constructed and then expressed. As has often been true about me, I am here/ doing both. There is a new post up at Lime Tree this morning: a post I see as the beginning of Kasey's "further thinking". Do read it. My "further thinking" begins at a far remove from his. Homo sapiens is like a galaxy. There are billions of us. Each human is like a star in this galaxy, classifiable but unique. This galaxy is in constant motion, and each star in it is in constant motion, even after its demise. Take me. The average male in the United States, so says a fairly current factoid, is 5'10" and weighs 170 pounds. --Major conjecture interlude: Though interconnected in ways not yet fully understood, each human is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual DNA wholeness/holiness.-- I, due to what I inherited and to certain accidents since, am today somewhere between 4'11" and 5' and weigh +/- 100 pounds. Mentally, I am moderately intelligent. The best I ever scored on what might be considered an exam which acceptably measures brain functions/ was the 1370 on the June 9, 1984, GRE I took at the University of Florida when I was 43. Emotionally I am dark and deep with an echo of laughter and a sometimes feral temper. The MBTI and the like consistently tell me I am an INFP, a label which (according to the creator of one short test) means: "I Never Find Perfection". Spiritually, my roots are Roman Catholic, but I am this moment picturing myself as I was in my early youth: a light kid high in a soft maple shaking the limb he is on so no one else will come near. Why am I revealing these facts? It's the best and honestly only valid way for me to make the points I want to make. I'm a German-German/English-German ectomorph Caucasoid. I am, as each human is, a moving dot on a moving graph: the ongoing, natura naturans. Poetry. On the bed behind me and to my right/ a mystic book on library loan to me/ waits. It is The Complete Poetry a bilingual edition César Vallejo edited and translated by Clayton Eshleman © 2007 by The Regents of the University of California. I have been sporadically reading Vallejo's Trilce (1922). Thanks to Ron "Mr. Links" Silliman I'm able to share poetry wonders from Clayton Eshleman. Vallejo often writes as a shape-shifter might, a gift I must have recognized in the 1970's since I wrote a sonnet lauding him then. And that even without knowing Spanish. Poets are the conduits for the deep conversations seaming the histories of the universe. Poets are artifacteurs who use symbols. Poets mix and unmix; try this, try that; eat rubber cement. Well, maybe not the last; but, e.g., the word "spot": four symbols which can be interchanged into: "stop", "pots", "tops", and "opts" at least. The tallest I ever was/ was 5'6.5" and/ the most I ever weighed was a/round 135 pounds. So, my eyes under ground-level circumstances and focussed straight ahead/ saw only what it was possible to see in that horizontal plane. I leave it to you to apply this in the mental, emotional, and spiritual spheres. Unless there is an exact exact duplicate of me somewhere, there is no possibility of my being or doing as some other human is or does. Can I be and am I influenced by other humans? Of course. Will there be a point at which we will all come to know and believe the same things? I hope not. * See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00014
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Cat Story
for Kasey (just in case he. . . .) Someone knocking on our mobile home's front door. I, being nearest, responded; Janice, soon, to my right, slightly behind. Two women--one we knew, each holding a kitten: a totally black male and a black-and-white female with unusual markings. We were asked if we'd be willing to adopt two kittens. Mainly because our financial situation at that time was tenuous, I told them no. Some days later Janice saw those kittens climbing a tree. I do not know if they were born outside, but they were allowed to be outside. We had had two cats separately. We didn't allow either to roam outside. Janice's parents would occasionally drive down from Wisconsin or Virginia to visit us in Gainesville, Florida. Either during or close upon those days, a visit from them was in progress. On the day before they would be leaving, Janice came upon the female kitten sitting alone in the driveway by the mobile home of the woman we knew. That woman, even though she really wasn't able to, tried to help any stray cat. Janice knew both that kitten and her brother were not in good health. It could be her brother had already died. Anyway, Janice picked up the female kitten and brought her home. I wasn't in favor of keeping her, but we did. Janice named her (???). We took her to a vet. She was given some shots, and we were given some medicine to give to her. Doing the latter was not easy, but we did get her back to reasonably good health. Our TV was near our mo-ho's front door, and one day (somewhile later) our bigger but still a kitten cat decided to leap from the top of the TV onto the top of the then open front door. So there she was, balancing and pacing, afraid to jump down. I had to get the step stool, snatch her from the door, and place her/ someplace safe. Over a period of months/ this became an annoying routine. Finally, after our home had been moved to a different park, Janice said she didn't want (???) getting up there anymore, but moving the TV was not an option. We kept the door closed. When Judge Wopner presided on The People's Court and cases came up involving cats, the litigants lost every time. In California cats were officially wild animals. The last cat we owned; or, rather, owned us, was definitely feral. And you can give a cat any name you want. It won't care. A cat does not (so far as I've seen) react to you when you use a name toward it. It might react though if you get too loud (as often happens in arguments). We had a washer and dryer in our home, and Janice and I were spattin' 'bout sumpin' and/ had I not looked down and quickly gotten Janice and myself to lower our voices, the cat would have attacked Janice and me also maybe. There was a day it did attack me--I am not sure why, and tore up my left calf. After that incident I carried my walking stick with me whenever I was moving around in our mo-ho. Months later, after Janice had had several strokes but refused to see a doctor and I was unable to get the only general practitioner in Gainesville she did like to accept her as a patient again because his patient load prevented it, and she had me going to McDonald's every day to buy her a cheeseburger, having supposedly come to disliking the way I was cooking things, she was sitting in her recliner and I was by the front door. We were conversing. As I was about to go out to do one thing, I pulled the door open. We continued conversing, and the one thing led to a possible two things. Meanwhile the cat, blocked from my view because the door was/ between me and it, quietly got on top of the TV. The possibility of doing two things caused me to change my mind about going out at that time. I shut the door and started walking towards my den, not knowing the cat had become enraged. That time she scratched up my right leg. I rushed to the restroom by the den and cleaned up, having told myself: That's it. This cat is history. It took a few days, but I had animal control come out and/ take her away. Janice, of course, was devastated, even though when the cat was a kitten it daily had scratched her arms, and even though we physically were no longer capable of properly/ maintaining a pet. She called me a sissy, or something similar. We got nasty with each other. I think I tried to explain and say I was sorry. She said: "No you're not. I said: "Okay, I'm not. I'm damn glad." She said: "I thought so." ========= [ About five weeks after 37 years of our marriage of companionship, Janice passed. That was in July of 2002. There is a somewhat tragic tale in all of this, but it is irrelevant to the memoir above. ] ========= Copyright © 2007 Brian A. J. Salchert See directory2007 in Catmap. Rho00013
