I hate Judaism; I hate it so much. The division of life into days and weeks, seasons and years, all under the constant flowing and ushering of our prayers and stars: "Baruch ata adonai, hamavdil ban yom ovan layla", "baruch ata adonai, hamavdil ban kodesh lechol"; Rosh Hashanah, followed by Yom Kippur; the clean slate, followed by the steady accumulation of sins; each year, mourning for the lost Temple, each year, celebrating in the giving of the Torah; the Torah, a book of truth, a book of wisdom for the ages, perfect in every word, complete, whole; the prophets, the first givers of sermons, the first admonishers, the first rabbis; the wisdom of Solomon for every occasion, the weddings and Song of Songs; birth, life, death, and the cycles of the seasons: "Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, / ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother"; the Talmud and the accumulation of commentaries, proof of the enduring cycle.

But looking on it all, only the words of the Kohelet remain constant throughout, seem to predict the end: "O vanity of vanities; all is vanity"; in the end the cycle spins out of itself, out of control, out into eternity -- the coming of the m'shiach, the ressurection of the dead, meaning: death is joined with life, the poles of each cycle are dissolved together, the tension between suffering and joy that holds up the world collapses finally as if all of this life, all of this creation, were simply the woof and warp of an old lady's scarf threading meticulously between two spindles; and she will bunch them together and decide finally to put it away, the work -- she closes her eyes and she sleeps -- or she heaves a last breath and dies on the beat up couch, the apartment filled with cats, the ancient antiques, the crusty carpets, stained, and the beat up furniture.

Last night I dreamt that you could use your cell phone to go anywhere you wanted in the universe. It was like you got transported via sattelite (kind've Willy Wonka in the chocolate factory style) but you had to be near an elevator. Now honestly, folks, how fucking cool would that be? You press a button and you're in Paris for the day; press another button and you're back home. Oh oh oh! I hope they invent it soon.

So when my mom, my dad, and my sister don't understand what I write, plus some random people online, I think it's time to work on my prose style. Oh floral, beautiful, balanced periodic sentences, I shall miss you. My heart pours out to you. Oh abstruse metaphors -- if I can't turn my life into a wild conceit, what will I have to write about? I shall have to be...to be...to be...concise! Oh imagine a concise essay! Imagine concise reflections! Imagine not making references to abstruse literature! Oh Lord! I don't know if I can do it! And I might have to stop pretending to be a transcendentalist too! I might have to write about *gasp, hack, choke* THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN TO ME. And then (and this is worst of all) PEOPLE MIGHT ACTUALLY READ MY WRITING!!! No more "must needs be" for me :-( *sniff* *tear*

When writing a novel, it seems that a certain number of words must needs be expended in order to establish the setting, the characters, the plot. These words, subtle and smooth or jarring and clustered, burdened down as they are by subordinate clauses or enlightened with the grace of being, are investments; they constitute the corpus of the work no more than a stock represents the business at hand; they are a kind of rhythm, or better yet a theme -- but not melody or harmony.

They are first an indication of its health; we can judge, if they be sickly, that the novel itself is not novel at all but something very old and frail -- they limp along, they do not twirl, they do not pirouette, they do not turn with the elegance of beauty. Or perhaps the problem is that the creature is too young -- it is amusing and sentimental like a young girl at ballet, clever at best, but never ingenious; it never inspires, it never catches the breath; if there is spirit, it is too feeble; or it tests the waters; it is a nervous and untimely thing, it is still-born; or it rots. So the author's idea is either too young to know these words intimately or it is too old and hackneyed to much care for them anymore; either they are set in their ways, these words, or they haven't quite found a way -- and here we observe the bisection of age with youth, the congruence of Erasmus’ follies.

But if we measure their heart, breath, pulse, their electrostatics, and we find that they are at peace or charged, if this is by no means sound, but a fury, or a cool-flowing stream, or a rapid ardor – if there is something in them – still it is something small; we cannot judge a piece of music by the quality of the theme; the theme may be beautiful or it may be poor, but what matters is not the comparative poverty or wealth of the words but the loftiness of their character. These words are not the body of the work, but they are not either her soul – they are mere outward signs, prognostications of inner beatitude or wretchedness. An author can describe Dublin down to a par, all accurate, all correct – he might have whatever insights he desires and however deep an insight we require into psychology, motives, plot – surely these are living and breathing beings, surely these are words made flesh – and yet, what is this quintessence of dust? For the author either plays or he is played; he plucks the lyre or he is plucked from the record, because posterity has as much patience as it has grace, and it will not abide by a novel that merely lives.

This plot is the outward form, but if the work be masterful, it finds correspondence with the inner parts: the eyes as they say are the window into the soul. True pleasure comes from reading the novelist who produces something not merely new but truly novel: novel in that the universe has been recreated, not according to the laws of God but in accordance with the whims of Adam and Eve (Eve, the first work of art! Created the unknown from the known, a world from Adam’s breast). The construction is dramatic, one event flows into another; actions, gestures, descriptions, speeches correspond and play off of each other as in symphony. It is this creation that we call art – we do not simply mass nature on nature, because “life piled on life were all too little”: we take the earthly materials, disordered and without harmony, just as we take the tines of tin and metal and wood, and we reorganize them into a grandeur, into a beauty, into a whole that is absorbed and absorbing, an exorbitant reality of its own.

Here, then, is the value of a Bible: it is a formidable model for the artist who would pursue after and render his own truth; it is a veritable symphony orchestrated on a grander scale than even one of Wagner’s operas. Events clash, crash, correspond, respond, lift and hold up the theme, or tear it crashing down: this is the highest art, this is the most wonderful literature. And are their dissonances? But these are like the dissonances that must needs creep into even the most accomplished chamber piece if it is not to be unremittingly dull – there must be a tangle, the promise must be withheld. And the rougher contradictions, the peeling paint, perhaps it is the ineluctable wearing away that age engenders, but it is also a proof of antiquity and more – lose threads tease us up close, make us question that work that seemed so whole from far away: when we approach a Pissaro or a Monet we see the genius of the artist who creates such strands with only a few loose dabs of paint and play. And the Bible must be proof of a novel whose words are cheap (though they do not necessarily show any outward signs of a failing health, rather they display a vituperative and enduring vigor) but whose resonances and harmonies are rich indeed.

So the next time that I hear some reviewer on bothering about a novel’s accuracy, historicity, or complaining of flat characters or a dull plot…it is a wicked age that asks for these signs which are outward appearances! Art is not the mirror of life, nor is it even a reflection on what life should be – no, it is something more – it may sound beautiful, but moreso the beauty is mystical: art has a certain truth, even if it fails to hold true. How often an old friend demands our company, even though we have given up all pretence and hope of allegiance – but sitting in the old apartment with its peeling wall-paper and mismatched furniture, drinking staled tea and watching cracked lips a feeling comes over us, a nostalgic reverie and ecstasy, in the way a thread of light slants in from the window, and we have entered another world that is vast beyond ourselves, we are intersecting with a universe that is beyond anything we can ever know. So Augustine’s, which perfectly resembles life but is nothing like it – that grand master of fictions – Dante the eternal pilgrim, who journeys back to the creator of his own creation – all worlds and times of places known and unknown. Thus for the man who would live a life – and what man would not, regardless of his choosing it? – I think that the novel, the work of art, by its very being, cannot fail to be the noblest vessel for moral instruction. For as Rashi comments, what power would the Bible have to dispense of a moral law if it were not first an account of creation and a creation in fact?

A Few Things I Want

One of the things I wish I had, is someone to share my ideas with. Someone who I could tell what I really think about things, honestly, without feeling the sharp reproach, bitter against me, that I'm too intellectual. Someone I could argue with without being afraid that they would hate me or that I would hate them.

Another thing I wish I had, is a boyfriend. Someone who would really inspire me, someone who would make me want to be fuller, deeper, more intensely involved with life. Someone who I could share my life with, and actually feel as if I were sharing my life -- I mean, make me feel as if I had something, in my life, that is worth sharing.

I wish that I had screaming kids, yelling at me and disagreeing with me and hating me; developing into adults, each longing and yearning for their own lives, for a city or a country I haven't even imagined which they populate with the secret idols of their hearts. And they would be beautiful -- girls with beautiful long brown hair, and boys with curly locks; cherub faces, of course. And we would have Christmas trees and kugel and celebrations.

I wish that I had a professorship at an important university, and that the papers I published would raise the eyes of my colleagues, and that I would have lunch with important delegates. And then that I would teach classes brilliantly, and fill my students with awe and admiration -- for the subject -- inspire them. And then when the day was done, I wish that I would retire to my desk and write poetry, and read old browned pages of crumbling books, and think to myself, I know about that, Keats; I understand exactly what you're saying, Shakespeare; yes, Eliot, we are all alive;

And then there would be retreats up in the mountains, and quiet walks through nature. Hot tubs, the horizons of Paris, cities I've never seen or dreamt of, burdens, sorrows, things I haven't known or things I don't want to know. But most of all I wish that when I die, I'll die surrounded by friends, not alone; friends who will miss me, but not regret me -- who will gain something from my having lived. Yes, I hope that the human race gains something from my having lived.

But most of all I wish I understood now, and I wish you loved me.

Aside from believing that the Koran is God-given, the next most prevalent dogma is that it is the most beautiful piece of writing in the world. Now I haven't slogged through much of the muddle, but I think this is a pretty significant claim. It would be all too easy to say, "This is simply the claim of a religion, of a nation, that I don't believe in. These are the barbaric remnants of theology to plague mankind." But the fact that so many people have been moved by the Koran makes me step back, makes me insecure; I step away from my culture, I step out of the world generally, and I see this phenomenon of The Book.

The Jews worship the Torah; there may be plenty of lip-service to God, and plenty of rumination about idols, but if the idolaters used their graven images as symbols for the gods, that's exactly what the Jews do with the Torah. The Torah exists in place of God; indeed, it is the highest proof of his existence -- never did so perfect a book exist to prove the heathen wrong. Its sound moves men to zeal, every word has holy meaning, each syllable is the ecstasy of the Shechinah -- indeed, never in the history of the world has any man produced a better book, except that that book be the Koran.

Because the Koran needs to be experienced in Arabic to be at all appreciated. Nevermind that Coleridge said he didn't feel any Westerner would be able to slog through the book without the severest pains and the greatest difficulties, and this, according to A.J. Arberry, not without a hint of sympathy -- this judgement was based on translation, and with translation the attendant ills of being part and parcel to "western" culture; our value system just as our language has blinded us to the beauties of the book; it is, to the task at hand, assigned by its own sympathies, inferior. Just as with the Torah, just as with Jesus, just as with God, the fault lies not in the work itself, but if one feels at all dismayed by the presence, if one does not feel the Shechinah, if one suffers, indeed he suffers from his own; the fault lies entirely with him.

These lies, perpetrated as they are by large and blind religious sects, should make us feel superior. We should feel a certain complacency when we look at these book-worshippers and their silly dogmas. Every syllable has meaning -- absurd! Divine inspiration -- impossible! To be preserved throughout the generations and holy on every tongue -- ludicrous! Ludicrous like Byron, ludicrous like Shelly, ludicrous like Keats and Joyce and Yeats. And let us not forget Shakespeare, who surpassed every other glorious author in his glorious abilities with language. When he questions the beauty of the Koran, doesn't Coleridge say that if the Koran be holy for its beauty, then Homer were a God? And what of Cicero and Ovid and all those other crisping holy books lining the shelves of Reed College's most esteemed academic library? And what of our professors -- they are priests! Priests of the imagination, as Joyce would say.

Mankind worships the Book, not the Arabs or the Jews or the Christians (though I must say, and this I believe is the first thing I will have said about the religion in a spirit of admiration, that it seems much less preposterous to worship a man than a book, and even though the figure of Jesus is a literary character, at least he has more the feeble flux of a mortal life). This holds as true for oral cultures, it seems to me, as for literary cultures. We worship language. We say that language is beautiful, that language has the power to redeem; these holy tongues, this elevation of Arabic, this study of revelation (which went hand and hand, for the Arab scholars, with a development of the science of grammar) suggests the conviction of modern science that man, and only man, is capable of abstract thought through sound -- and it is the penumbra of that larger collossus, magic. There is no ampler expression than the power of tongues, indeed of the tongue, the whole biological apparatus itself. The tongue, the click of a syllable, can move mountains, can cause streams to flow backwards, can scorch the seas and set all hell lose. It was Luther's hand, if not his tongue, that singularly tore Europe apart; and it was the respectable and echoing murmur of Confucius that kept China so stable for so long.

Now for this claim that one must read the Koran in Arabic. Well we must read Baudelaire in French; and the mastery of each language brings to the mind vast new horizons, we must not forget, opens the brain, expands it, purifies it. Until you can write in Latin and Greek, you are to be counted only among the vulgar, after all -- Western Civilization rests on two languages, perhaps three, perhaps four, and nevermind that the revered authors in each would have counted everyone but his own to be Barbaric in the quite literal sense of the word (again, the power of the tongue that grants humanity to absolve its speaker from the same) -- still, we must learn them all. Now are alliteration, assonance, word-play, rhyme, and all the other collocations of sound so pure and wonderful in and of themselves that they enhance infinitely our appreciation of the material? Is reading in the original instead of translation a true gain, or is it another immense religious dogma of the human mind -- the human mind, that for its best efforts cannot escape superstition, that is, we might say, superstition! God who resides in our brain speaks from one tongue to the next, spreads like a contagion, and if even one mind suffers from its own delusions and can express them "beautifully" they will be propogated through the entire race, and for thousands of years no less.

I speak these things, I who am the word's most devout initiate. How often have I turned away from friends, from food, from sex, in short, from the neccesities of life to kneel at the altar and offer my youth in sacrifice? I too am plagued, my diseased mind absorbs even now the Latin and the Greek tongues, and each new horizon demands another language -- Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, German...an edifice as big as the Sphinx; and I will be swallowed up. I will not recover. I am very likely bound for death.

So is there some pleasure in the original language? Perhaps. But is there anything more? Do we gain anything more than blind pleasure! Is that why I study, so that I can stoop over the text like an Arab or a Jew, so that I can murmur the words, eyes glazed, and appreciate in the passing fragrance of a few sounds (and how can we forget here Baudelaire's prophetic utterance, les parfums, les couleurs, et les sons se repondent) my own unique Godhead? And that is exactly the idolatry that seems to lie beneath hippy poetry readings, the love of a great author, the reading of garbled modernist gibberish, the appreciation of the original. Indeed, an anecdote will suffice.

I was studying Latin with someone and we were arguing quite a bit about the meaning of a few sentences. This went on for too long, apparently, because an observer who quite subscribes (like all of us, like the whole human race) to this worship of sound suddenly looked up at us and, in what can be described only as a fit of frustration, said, "Less English, more Latin" -- grammar, the endeavor to figure out exactly what Cicero was saying, was distracting us from what was really important -- the tangible beauty of his sounds. Now Judaism inadvertently struck, not on the truth, but on one truth -- men will not worship abstractions; the Godhead must be revealed and he must be tactile -- if we cannot see him in ourselves, or see in him ourselves, we must at least be able to smell the incense, to taste the wine, to touch the Torah, and to hear the echo of our own voice on the cantor's lips.

The Most Glorious Koran

I started reading a translation of the Koran called "The Qu'ran Interpreted" or something like that...I can't at the moment recall the translator's name offhand. In any event, I have never been so confused in my life! The Bible seems relatively clear and stately compared to the mangled, garbled, incomprehensible verse of Mohammed. I suppose it was foolish to expect to start by diving right into the primary sources. Perhaps with more reading, my appreciation will grow. Here's what I've observed so far:

1. The Koran seems aware of the problem of pluralism. The writer is clearly troubled by the conflicting claims of Christianity and Judaism and is addressing an audience that is also troubled, divided, one might even say. The message is, in this case, the answer; the author seems to have some knowledge of the Bible and the Gospels and frequently uses examples from both to construct an argument against Christian and Judaic claims to a single truth. However, I am not clear as to whether the message is that we should all worship God in our own way or if the message is that the Qu'ran's way is, in fact, the correct way.

2. The Koran mangles (or we might say creatively interprets) its sources. The stories that it makes use of to support its claims are not neccessarily the original or familiar versions; for instance, in "The Cow" the Koran seems to splice the account of the founding of the Temple with the lives of Abraham and Ishmael, of all people, thus legitimizing worship at the mosque while at the same time defending it against Christian and Jewish claims. By reinterpreting classical Biblcial sources, the Koran seems to be trying to legitimize its own claims in contrast to those of the other two religions.

Still, I have many questions: did Mohammed author the entire Koran? What is its textual history? What cultural and historical developments are most important in terms of understanding the Koran? What books are most important? Is the Koran a unified whole or is it, like the Bible, simply a collection of varied texts?

And the list could go on. Now I know you're all on break, and I know that my entries are barely tolerable when they treat "non-academic" questions, but if anyone can direct me anywhere, I'd be very grateful.

Horny I Guess (Show and Tell)

I want to touch his lips, I want the slight murmur of his hands upon my skin, the soft brush of fuzz upon my chin, and the lilt of a breathing chest; I want to open buttons on a vest and invest my body in the soft palpitations, the tremors of inebriation like a soft, cold breeze stirring slightly the leaves covered in shadows, leaves tinkling like chimes in a storm, the storm-cloud fierce of his blue eyes, stretching into the endless night when darkness covers skies and a slight rain falls, a slight rain upon the walks and curving streets, slight rain on the lonely wait and passing cars, shuddering through the darkness: waiting for the bus.

I want you murmur in my ear, whisper in my lips, I need you suck my dick, and spread pleasure spurting like a fire eating up my heart, my mind, my lips, my touch, the suck shuddering through me, moving up and down my spine, splitting time like ripe fruit, bursting like watermelon dripping sweet and sticky red, the sweet of tongue and white of teeth; his huge chest, his fervent press, the biting of the lips, a surge of pain, a spurt of cum – and then the hum of the night, the drowning in darkness, the soft thip-thip of a far-off buzz, the hruz of cruising cars, and the imagination of dawnlight spreading like all places, moving fluid like all time, and climbing into an eternity without the grief of crime – crime againt self, crime against love, crime against man – man who has remunerated sin, man who lies in big strong warm uncomfortably hard and soft my tangled, shaking (still-minded waiting) arms, and with slight tingling of numb skin.

I don't know...perhaps its just because I'm growing older and more cynical, but it seems to me like Hollywood is going downhill. Every preview I see I can practically predict the movie's plot, what cliche's the writers and film-makers are playing off of, and sometimes I can even hear the production crew in conference saying, "Well do you think that having him be attacked by a rabbid squirrel in his underwear would be funny?" "Why yes I do think it would be funny." "Okay -- let's have it bite his genitals; scene three. Now what are we going to do for the wedding?" "What if the groom trips on the bride?" ...

It's not that Hollywood has ditched originality to appeal to an entrenched and capitalistic system of American values -- it's not that Hollywood has realized that it doesn't have to bother making new movies when sequels bring in the same amount of cash with less effort -- it's not that stardom has been elevated above sincerity and talent -- it's not that, if all else fails, they've decided they can just pick out some book at random and stick it on the screen, it' just that...

Sigh.

Oh, and what is it with all these romantic movies? Are we really living such boring and pathetic lives as a nation that the only thing that can capture our imagination is a love affair? And of course, everything is perfect after the wedding bells ring and the camera pans away from the pearly white teeth of the smiling groom and bride to sweep over the cavorting crowd.

Movies have very little to do, it seems, with actual life! Everything's either in crisis and some hero has to (and will) save the day or else someone is falling in love and despite all the antics of his inane and goofy sidekicks, he gets the girl anyway (while we are treated to two hours of eye candy and hip music by the latest pop-stars in the tightest shirts and the shortest skirts). Where's George Bernard Shaw when you need him? Hollywood!

Il faut qu'on touche les mots lentement dans le bouche, qu'on les roule et embrasse avec la langue, sous les ombres vertes et frôlantes de la nuit; qu'on les goûte et frappe, qu'on les siffle aux vagues de la mer et murmure contre les ténèbres, les douloreux entraînements de la vie.

Books are pleasing in that they give us faculty with words, and words are useful in that they grant us access to ideas, and ideas are the fruit of nature, and nature is the flower of life.

I don't believe in great men -- I believe in great ideas and the men who illustrate them.

Pro Omnibus

What I proffered by way of suggestion has been turned against me in outright attack, with or without reason, I cannot say. It was not without some justice and furthermore with a great deal of annoyance that I said the things I did, but still I tried to say them as lightly and with as much deference as possible. I am distressed when, in the course of a discussion, certain individuals try to corner their interlocutor, disarm him, and subject him to the humiliation of defeat -- it is as unproductive, intellectually, as it is unkind, and the keen desire to win, to treat all intellectual discourse as if it were a competition at arms, displays a certain arrogance on the part of the disputants grounded in its lack of charity -- both to the others who are involved and to the sulking and miserable dispute itself.

If I am to conquer you, take your arguments by force, and subdue you until you admit that your position is inferior and mine superior, I am not a teacher -- the teacher finds the student in a wilderness, separated from him by a vast chasm, and he guides him, gently, instructs him as to the bridge's length, width, and height, but in a coaxing and patient manner, realizing that ultimately he can give every specific as to the methods of construction, the manners of proceeding, and can encourage him with every hope of success, but that in the end, the bridge is built by the student, belongs to him, and offers him the choice of leaving those vistas, valleys, mountains, and tumultuous streams he has wandered for a territory entirely new, foreign, and shrouded in darkness -- or staying there, founding with his new skill in construction innumerable cities, vast fortresses, and unassailable outposts. The teacher gazes patiently on his endeavors, smiles upon him, and is not in the least condescending because there is, for him, the firm inhabitant of no one country and the most able advocate of all, the most generous pleasure in telling others those things he has learned, wondering if they indeed come to anything at all, and hoping that what he has failed to establish in his own ignorance he might at least inspire others to strive for and attain. Everyone is his pupil, but he is no one's master, and he counts himself succesful not if he has discovered some new idea, but if he has helped another find one of his own.

Unlike him is the vagabond, the brigand, a fierce and unassailable Hannibal or a Xerxes who would bridge the Hellespont and lash it for the trouble, who would enter into the territory of others who had given him no real cause for complaint, raze their most sacred altars, skewer the suppliants, and only in that way bring them to the mercy of gods they implored. Such a man asks the wise who is happiest and deplores any man whose wealth is greater than his own. Being by nature impoverished, he gazes in twisted rage at all those who hold any possession or territory to which he has no honorable claim and then, driven by his own mad passions, seizes it by force. He cannot deign to sit with others even in banquet, and he gathers up in his grubby hands more food than he could ever possibly digest for fear that the platters and trays, filled with voluptuous bounty, will fall like the Lacedaimonians under the common merriment -- he thinks of the pleasant future when the banqueters, clamorous and hungry, will be able to gaze with the same envy upon his own flowing vessels and platters stained with the choicest cuts of meat, thus insulting the guests, the magnanimous generosity of the host, who has provided for a crowd ten times the size, and even the merriment of celebration and the smooth pluck of the guitar, the flowing voluptuous sound throbbing in violins.

Because learning is a banquet, and the great fill the tables with eloquence, delicate morsels of every type and meats sometimes choice and sometimes base! We are to sit across from each other, each man instructing the other in the delicate varieties of the spread, comparing the merits of the wine, and sometimes, forgetting that food, forgetting that drink, rising above in melodious song and exuberant dance, the very acts by which life -- life! -- is sustained, to the transcendant expression of eternal being. The philosopher is not Plato's miserly and grumpy pedant, hurling insult at the belligerent and incredible guests, but he is more like their joyous host, serving them the best and taking them into the candid light of the sun because it is a joy to their eyes and a pleasure for their hearts. And does he not love the sunlight too? Does he not enjoy the same sudden rush when, having long been accustomed to darkness, he is blinded in a moment? The sun shines every color itself and it falls upon all alike, and there is no man, be he ever so weak or frail, that we cannot guide him if he is able to walk, and carry him if he is not, into its bounteous and fragrant joys. The flowers delight in the sun and move in rhythmic flotillas of color even if they are only fluff and pipes -- nature plays them just as she plays us, and we cannot fail to serve our purpose -- and besides, even the ugliest and most contemptible beings plays some part in the chain of life, and are at base atoms and molecules, moving in harmony with universal custom and universal laws. Our only concern in life should be to apprehend these beautiful forms, for in apprehending them, we are their greatest advocate, and if we make them flourish we become all the more the teacher, the guide, watching in his poverty the rich delight of all. We are like vessels to carry nature, to bring her from a place of all too rapid undulations to a barren emptiness of soil, and when we have poured out our last we will still return, by varied and clandestine passages, to the universal flow, and by our return feed innumerable and divers lives.

So this is my goal and these are my suggestions. If I believe the same thing in ten years may I be banished, for a life without flow, like a pale and stagnant lake, supports nothing but a foul odor and the inevitability of rot. To him who I offended, if I have adequately defended myself and my aims, and if I admit that I seek to emulate all things in order to become complete and whole, believe that this is my sole pretense. And I mean nothing of censure or blame by bringing in those great philanderers of the past, who certainly stretch far beyond the case just as a shadow lengthens with the dawn, and shortens with the heightened day. I am wont to hold, like Socrates, that men do no wrong knowingly or by their own will, and that only in the misplaced pursuit of the wrong ends can any evil be done; I admit in every way that I can have no sure means of determining the right, but like us all I will twist and turn, a stream, fulfilling nature's ends and joining the seas.

The World is Too Much with Us

The cool kiss of crystal rock
Is all that will ever touch my lips,
The hot crisp of the sun’s rays
And the icy tips of frozen blocks

Enough, this rock, these broken grains
Of earth and sand, the fine sky,
The cool wind, and the barren plains,
Stretching out empty, trackless miles

Like the midnight hours and the counting of stars,
The blaze of dark in the meteor sky,
And a forlorn little whisper, why

Do the constellations dip and track,
Trace and fall to the dregs of dawn
And the creeping rays like a forlorn call?

The diagnosis: terminal apathy.

Today, while I was reshelfing books in the library, I again became aware of how intense a dislike for religion I have developed. It is amazing to me that I ever prostrated myself in the synagogue, that a sudden rush of religious agitation came about me like a fever, that I was prepared to sacrifice my whole life on the altar. I cannot countenance such things -- I have not seen the face of God -- I have only seen the face of man; it is not without blemishes, but cool and serene, the color of ivory, rising like a thick mask from the depths, gazing on a drizzling sky. The eyes stare out two holes of blackness into anguish, the mouth parted sensuous lips in a silent scream. What I am most reminded of is that cancerous blur of color on the edge of a bridge, clasped into itself and recoiling in an ever-reverberating, solemn-eternal horror. Is there anything else? The sky, the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars -- these substances which envelop us and develop within us. Reflecting on how I have passed from the mystical to the real, from prejudice to some semblance of self-awareness, I can only feel that it is remarkable that the disease spread even to the very extremities of my brain, almost threatening my heart, my being; and it is remarkable that there has been a convalescence at all, that I am not now a throbbing and pulsating pustule gravitating to some mass of rubble in the streets of Jerusalem; another wispy face engaged in rapid and callow argument with "Torah scholars".

And yet I must be vaguely aware that there are many sicknesses, many diseases that plague mankind. I say man and not woman, I have few political convictions, I have not come into even my own complete confidence, I am complacently indifferent to justice. I stutter words like "love" or "duality", morality, happiness, but what knowledge do I have of any of them? Whatever I have read in books, I have not learned it neither do I see -- and if I were to read Augustine, I might very well turn back to "god" (which I will not capitalize in utter defiance) in imitation; and I have very great admiration for him (Augustine, not god). If I were to begin reading the Bible again, much of it, no doubt my mind would be filled with these ancient imaginings. As it is, with the time that I spend reading the classics, it is a wonder I don't worship Athena or Apollo, Hermes or Mars; but then again, they are distant friends, never far from my mind, and as even in my moments of most sincere skepticism yet I still held some sympathy for monotheistic thought, I can not say I am entirely without sympathy for whatever cults belonged to the Greeks. I believe in the abstract muses if I will not follow them, and I listen for their cry from the darkness even if I do not heed their (always) words. I am such a changeable creature -- I can have no surety that I will even survive to see the next year let alone live by my present convictions -- and to lose those convictions is, in a sense, to condemn who I am and what I stand for to the eternal void.

Today, while I was reshelfing books in the library, I again became aware of how intense a dislike for religion I have developed. It is amazing to me that I ever prostrated myself in the synagogue, that a sudden rush of religious agitation came about me like a fever, that I was prepared to sacrifice my whole life on the altar. I cannot countenance such things -- I have not seen the face of God -- I have only seen the face of man; it is not without blemishes, but cool and serene, the color of ivory, rising like a thick mask from the depths, gazing on a drizzling sky. The eyes stare out two holes of blackness into anguish, the mouth parted sensuous lips in a silent scream. What I am most reminded of is that cancerous blur of color on the edge of a bridge, clasped into itself and recoiling in an ever-reverberating, solemn-eternal horror. Is there anything else? The sky, the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars -- these substances which envelop us and develop within us. Reflecting on how I have passed from the mystical to the real, from prejudice to some semblance of self-awareness, I can only feel that it is remarkable that the disease spread even to the very extremities of my brain, almost threatening my heart, my being; and it is remarkable that there has been a convalescence at all, that I am not now a throbbing and pulsating pustule gravitating to some mass of rubble in the streets of Jerusalem; another wispy face engaged in rapid and callow argument with "Torah scholars".

And yet I must be vaguely aware that there are many sicknesses, many diseases that plague mankind. I say man and not woman, I have few political convictions, I have not come into even my own complete confidence, I am complacently indifferent to justice. I stutter words like "love" or "duality", morality, happiness, but what knowledge do I have of any of them? Whatever I have read in books, I have not learned it neither do I see -- and if I were to read Augustine, I might very well turn back to "god" (which I will not capitalize in utter defiance) in imitation; and I have very great admiration for him (Augustine, not god). If I were to begin reading the Bible again, much of it, no doubt my mind would be filled with these ancient imaginings. As it is, with the time that I spend reading the classics, it is a wonder I don't worship Athena or Apollo, Hermes or Mars; but then again, they are distant friends, never far from my mind, and as even in my moments of most sincere skepticism yet I still held some sympathy for monotheistic thought, I can not say I am entirely without sympathy for whatever cults belonged to the Greeks. I believe in the abstract muses if I will not follow them, and I listen for their cry from the darkness even if I do not heed their (always) words. I am such a changeable creature -- I can have no surety that I will even survive to see the next year let alone live by my present convictions -- and to lose those convictions is, in a sense, to condemn who I am and what I stand for to the eternal void.

Monday, back in school. Classes aren't so bad, and I have now finished all of the readings for the week, which leaves Latin, Greek, and the flute. Whenever I meet anyone or do anything or have any longings or stirrings, the flute is always the first study of mine to languish -- of all the things I do it would seem at first glance the least necessary to my being, for after all I intend no carreer in the field of music; furthermore I am well past the stage of my life where I could reasonably hold any such aspirations -- great musicians train from youth, are sought out like Jesus from childhood.

And yet in some ways I feel that technical accomplishment in music is to the man a most important asset. It provides, if nothing else, a free and entirely reliable source of entertainment; furthermore, it entertains not only oneself, but others, and is hence the more sociable. And music has the additional virtue of penetrating beyond the ephemeral pleasures of the body into a realm where the mind and the soul are connected. When we listen to music, we recognize not only the subtle strains of philosophy, but life itself beating and breathing in the rhythms and cadences. Outstanding musical ability is a of class with excellence in writing, reading, and speaking; but whereas in each one of these there is the danger of surpassing the stuff of life and falling readily into a realm of particulars, the apt musician cannot afford but to connect on a deep level of being with his music. Who would be moved by a song if it were simply an exercise in fifths and harmonics or the transposition of majors into minors and themes up octaves, the retreat of an ever retreating abstraction? But music is present, music is transubstatiation, and music is the perfect discipline in that it expresses without words those things which writing itself can express but feebly. It is for this reason, I believe, that they use music in movies -- because how are we to know grief except when we hear the strenuous sobs of a violin? And it is also for this reason that we so often make fun of movies that use musical themes badly -- because the music, in this case, is so much stronger than the actor's own verbal delivery, so much graver than the situation at hand, that we can only laugh at the bathos, the unallayed chasm between musical passion and absurd physicality. If I were to quit all studies altogether, the orator might urge in high voice, seething in pitch, how I should yet retain the study and faculty for music in that my soul, being carried high and higher above the valleys, the clefts, the peak, the rocks, might finally gaze, through harmony, on the wide open skies and the perfect stretching expanse of mountains. Of course I might reply to this man that just as music is an art that can be done well or badly, so too for craft of thought and speech, but he would have me when he replied that while it is so easy to be subtle it is so hard to be good, as in the field of music so in the field of thought, and that her virtue lies not in the difficulty for the performer, but in the ease with which the audience measures his worth; now there are many professors of esteemed reputation who are but sophists, but a bad musician is scented as quickly as rotting meat.

I just can't concentrate on academics now, for obvious reasons. Over the short Thanksgiving vacation, I have experienced intimacy. Compared to this concrete thing that has happened to me, subject to the persuasions of chance and misfortune, all the words in all the books in the world seem to have no more weight than the poignant and weighty proclamations of a Euripides when balanced against Aeschylus' master phrases. I want to live! I want to experience the companionship of men, my fellows, and all varieties tangible and intangible of love eternal and transient. What attention can a book command, why should I listen to the pasty white lips of dead men mutter incoherent lies? And why should I write, adding to this pile of debris and dust, if it will not bring me closer to the people, to those I love and desire? Sex has re-entered the world and shines in such dazzling radiance that my eyes are blinded now to those dank and tenebrous obscurities that so long held my soul in thrall. I want to walk down the streets, I want to sing, I want to dance, I want to do anything that is not inside, that is not subject to the tyrannies of artificial light and strained eyes! What foul humor persuaded me for so long that all goods are insubstantial and intangible? What wicked devil had me sell the world for a stoic God? I believe nothing of those lies that are recorded in the long, thick scrolls of the legislators, the outgrowth of diseased minds impoverished by desert storms and volcanic eruptions! The first man to drink Achaean wine wrote more purely and truly, more freely and exuberantly than perhaps even the supposed Solomon of the Song of Songs! Which must be about a woman, which must be about holding and procreation and orgasm and not about some remote and perfect God and exile! Rashi and Maimonides, even Plato, even Aristotle, what have you done to me? Can I never shake off your shackles? Can't I live and die? It is life that is precious, life! And every moment spent indoors in the confines of those demons is wasted! Study Torah! This is the world, not Torah! There is no God of revelation, there is no God of man, there is only this, the truth of life and the darkness of death.

"I set before you this day a blessing and a curse" : namely, the Bible.

Last night, I met up with my pot-smoking ultra-Christian ultra-liberal friends and we all went to a rave. At first it seemed pretty lame (there were a lot of high-schoolers and, from the looks of it, even middle-schoolers there) but as the night progressed, I got into a kind of groove. I was just there dancing and everybody else was dancing with me; age, gender, race, sexuality, none of it mattered. We were all equal. We were all part of a homogeneous group and we were all dancing and dancing for hours. It was a tribal, cultic, new-age hippie kind of thing, but I enjoyed it immensely.

Afterwards my friends invited me to stay the night and have breakfast with them. Well...I haven't seen them in about three weeks, but I really wanted to go home and get my homework done. I feel kind've bad about that -- I mean, I'm completely obsessive compulsive. Well, anyway, Nick managed to read my mind and offered to take me back home. I'll have breakfast with them some other time...

So I'm here for another month. I haven't found a boyfriend, and at this point, if I do find a boyfriend I'm just gonna have to leave and be in Colorado for six weeks, and that'll be kind've lame. I suppose I'm reaching the point where I realize that I'm just going to be single, if not forever, then at least for the forseeable future. And it isn't that bad. Not having sex ever isn't that bad, not having someone to hold, not having someone to talk to about intimate things you wouldn't tell anyone else. Really. Life is perfectly tolerable without a boyfriend, and I should face it, I am alive. Plus I've decided to make up for my lack of a boyfriend by trying to be more beautiful...okay, so I can't do very much with wardrobe, but I am working out. If I'm gonna be a single, sexless loser (sexless like Nietzsche, not like Macbeth's wife) then I should at least look fabulous doing it.

The Annunciation

I walked by shallow streams at dusk,
Trickling with gleams of light
Fading gold with rays of dust,
The rich red garment of the night
Bent terrible with birdsong.

I gazed on moms’ red-blushing babes,
The crimson stains of fields by rose-
Soft glimmering pools of moonlight:
Groaning, crying, squirming, close-
Held screaming in the night

You Clytemnestra for a mother, burn
Like a flickering torch, burn
Like an ardent bark, and cascade
Through these shallow, dark-bearing streams
To all the sullen reaches

Where the wild wanderer’s call
For all the teeming wretches
Beggared in sleep steeped up in scum
Like some beast’s savage run
Spreads out to all.

From "Epiphanies"

Such is your castigation, and such your insubordination:
That heroes’ myths respond to moral code;
You take upon yourself to judge the men of old.
But what gray whirling slides and slips
Serpent-seamless through the coils of your mind?
What iceberg like an undiscovered country
Floats for conquering even in the vast lips
Of the many-birthing ocean, or sails quietly
In eternal lapping, echoing the calls, the cries
That keen from whence the sirens sigh?
First we gather from the ships,
And then we chunk and height around the breadth,
And beating nature into perfect blocks, and desecrating chaos
Into smoothness, into cubeness, into rounded virtuosity of even keeling cubes
Disciplined from all to each their selfless path, they clink in glass
And great foundations of the mind
Become the pour and rush, and tinkling of heat, they melt in wine.

In Order to Uncloak the Hidden Garments Lying in My Soul

In order to uncloak the hidden garments lying in my soul, garments
Of obsidian and gold, flashing by turns in the light like
Spears or cornered steel or twilight rows of setting
Rays each piercing thick testimony of earth, rays each
Racing like the falling of the down, racing like the movement
Of the globe, whispering of lips in the night (fair winds and
Leaves by the steady spread of a sail like a white omen
In the infinite tumult of black) spreading and gleaming for your
Kisses I long, give me the kisses of your lips, for their taste to me
Is sweeter than wine; sharp wine poured fair by the Nemean band,
Liquor of youths and casting caskets floating in the bays, floating
On the walks and by the poles and near the beaches where the wood
Roughs the feet and poles and canopies bridge the distance from a gap of cool, dry
To some undiscovered, unseen, tower-rising walls that insignia insignia
Swirl out in sharp patterns, swirl out like pushing storms sucking up the water from the
[seas:
Seas, cool season of the bees, the frolicking of sand with sweets
Of flowers: periander, nectar, glories and the soft wilt
Of fragmenting leaves, petals like silk, sitting ‘neath the golden trees, where
The youths at night danced and kissed by bright fires, all gleaming
Sinuous turning to sizzle, all hissing smoke like devouring
Into the air; they turn and bodies brush, bodies in an excitement pounding
Of sweat, the heart, the mind cannot fathom into the depths, the cool darkness
Of the solid core, the heart; let all brush circles widening of fire, let all lips linger love:
Do not call: do not whisper: do not speak love before its time: time
Of the falling petals, time when the leaves begin to wrinkle, purple of the periander,
Periwinkle fading, falling, like petals strewn about the floor for all the gods
To walk on love: first in the procession, lovely Venus, she walks with folds and gowns
Tumbling down like waterfalls, tumbling down like the lily perched
In fariest place of grass, and followed by the crown of Virgil’s ears, who ever gazing
Into the wood, resounds his mind, resounds with the fair resounding halls
Of marble, and a vague sword lies clutched within a statue’s chest, and a warrior’s breast-
Plate gleaming, arms and torrents and hoards: all beginning in a spark, an instant,
Like the flash of white (periander) white in Myrtle’s leaves. He is a whisper
As Athena clutches Nike in the night, the moonlight streaming down her silver hair,
Falling into the earth, falling like the woven threads of Atropos and all three maids
Who gaze with longing at the wood-work of the works: here she cuts
With a gleam like all refractions of the sun; their she measures
Like mountains – and who spools the thread with a grim glimmer in her eye
Reflected like the shadows of the torch-light on the waters, where the perfect bodies
Raise and move and lap like waves by the sea, waves cascading, pounding on the shore?
The youths will turn – they will dance arm in arm, they will rediscover
The secret ways of seemings for their peers, and peer into the sullen
Stone faces carved in the mountain, stone dwellings of their fathers in their basilisks of
[old:
Long, empty halls, dark, where the scrape of foot echoes like a lyre-song drifting
From beyond a door, a chasm, a shadow in the mists: the mists coil thick and howl
Like beasts, like banshees, slobbering on their pray, they devour
Torches, they eat light like
Blind souls hungry from darkness, they splice
Their bodies into the chaos of a frame, they carve and whittle away the rock
To a smooth surface, uniformity of time, a single icy peak, cloaked in snow,
Jabbing like a hand to grab the stars: stars, fair youth, your face has watched them
Come and go like dancing prey and hunter on this tapestry of sky – I have watched
Your form heave, I have watched you gather in at cold the folds
Of your layered cloak, your cloak that seemed so thirsting to absorb and shutter in the
[gleams
Of all the manifold heavens: here again the archer lifts his arrow at your back, guarding
Against the scorpion, the bear, and all brave beast, whose eyes yet gleam the certainty
Of some stream that flows from edges of the earth, some stream to feed and find
The hunger of birth, and I have watched you part your lips, and laugh,
And in the gleam of your teeth, I have desired, how I have desired…

And so, in the throes of the great enlightenment, in the birth pangs of light, of tolerance, of individualism, of serious scholarship and study -- the dark child destroys the mother candid, fair: Judaism perished.

O my soul, all of this today: we must speak of living a life of religion that conflicts with our own secular life. Do we dare to flee back into the darkness from whence...? There are scorpions --

But the enlightenment was no light! It was a fire, a flame, a kindling, a torch, not the true shining gleam of the sun (and science says photons, and there is no difference between lamp-light and sunlight [at base, at essence]: another glory defeated and deranged, an eagle wrestled to the ground by vultures, hungry carnivorous and no longer satisfied with their waiting, far-famed or desiring it at least already they would struggle down, not suited with their natures, yes, how they fly, for DEATH has conquered life).

Lord God has been abandoned, and never will be found. I would trade every ounce of my soul, everything of my being for something, something of meaning in the world. Do I surrendur to the neccessity of the truth? What is in the thing so supremely valuable? It is a truth of dust, it is a truth of threadbare, diseased, and I cannot hang it about myself without that I am impure, and I am fallen.

It is not given to me: I hate the truth. I love the lies that we tell ourselves, the lies that we whisper to our hearts at night, the lies that we consume moreso than every meal to give us strength, the victuals for our soul in strength, our garments. And if you can see through? The gauze, the mirror, something flashing and a vague panoply of smoke? Rising to the heavens, some consequence we have not observed, some message as yet unseen?

O Lord of Lords God, God Holy of Holies: to separate Judaism from its purpose, as if there were something worthy in the mere fact of its being, as if the quest and the darkness and rocks for pillows, altars and a thousand years of martyrdom and the holy scriptures -- if we indeed would call them holy -- might have any meaning exclusive of you, these works of our own hands, our idols!

And for this our fathers died? We have idolized the scriptures! We have transformed the True Religion into a golden calf. Everything is thus, everything is so. But there is still hope. When the Israelites made the calves, before that the holy of holies -- have we fallen from grace? Can we return? O Lord of Lords, O Lord of Hosts, save us from our enemies, and save me from death, and find some comfort for a small and suffering soul.

You mock me? Do you think that the things of religion are pitiable, are unenviable, are unwarranted? It is the only saving grace mankind could find. If all this is wickedness with just cause and reason -- a soul that can conceive of an absent being the highest of all beings, in order to ascend to such heights would hurl himself off of cliff in protest at the cruel and consuming darkness of a world that knew not His Name.

A tear falls for Zion in the wilderness.

Somnambulent

In the calm of night
A quick thrust while
I lay on my bed dreaming
Chiseled marble dripping
Candles, wax and smoke
And clearing mist:

To cool shadows
In acerbic delight
A burning sensation, the
Ache of sight; I am
Roasting my fingers in solid
Flame:

Old flames bubbling on the Male-
Bolge: slime-green bubbling muck and redding
Hands below the surface stroking
Corpses’ nails’ sharp scraping like the tapping and a grinning
Skull, face; eyes as white as
Teeth, sharp scisors, shredded
Fibers and the sockets’ darkling glass

(Like the unfailing) glimmering crowned
In the midnight sky, among the setting
Pleiâdes and the murmured moans
Of lying alone (dog-star’s light.)

Father

Like trickling drops that fall on the mountainside,
That slick down and fall over ridges,
That smooth and bend and break the rock,
Like trickling drops that fall from the sky --

I would always call on your name, a darkness
That spreads in fog and lights, a thread
Curving through a threadbare world, a pause
Of velvet fabric in the sagging folds, in darkness
I would always call on your name

Alone, afraid, and bearing
Heat in a flickering pinpoint,
Rising the greater to join the lesser
Shivering cold like a soul frozen in ice
Alone, afraid, and beam to smite

My enemies innumerable, smite
The days that pass like golding
Leaves always falling down
Through the rivers of Eminent-Father-Time
Like trickling drops that fall down the mountains,
That slick and slide and smooth to wear the rock,
Carving indellibly, indellibly a face
That peers gaunt-eyed and hollow from the rock

To the rising sun and night's delight
Of cool shadows and succulent shade.

Sleepless in Seattle

So on Friday, I believe it was, I got an email from a buddy Devin who I hadn't talked to in about three or four years after a nasty little fight (nasty on my part) in eight grade. I decided, being the adventurous lout that I am, to pay him a visit. I bought a bus-ticket to Seattle for a reasonable price, packed my luggage and my comforter, and here I am.

I've spent the time mainly alone, doing probably what I would have been doing at Reed, except that I'm in Seattle. I picked up, from my friend, a copy of the book "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok. It's interesting, but I'm somewhat perplexed -- why does everybody think this book is so great? The writing is fine, even efficient, but maybe a bit pedestrian, if I can say that; the plot is engaging, sure, but it ain't exactly Ibsen. Someone in the opening remarks compared this book to Ulysses! What hyperbole -- people, I think, like to praise a book vociferously because it flatters them to think that they are living in an age of such genious. I am unconvinced that there is anything supremely worthwhile being published in our own time. But I am also unqualified to say so. So I am a skeptic, or an anarchist, or an idle scribbler.

I am also lonely. Hence "Sleepless..." I think I'm going to be single forever. Everyone says (which is so infuriating!!!) that when you stop looking, you find someone. So what? They might as well tell me that I'm never going to find anyone at all, because I can't conceive of reaching a point where I wouldn't be looking. It's been a year since I broke up with my last boyfriend, real boyfriend, and though I've met six or seven guys who are either uninterested or uninteresting and gone on six or seven dates to boot, well...

And I suppose if I were dating, I wouldn't feel so bad. But aside from a miscommunication last Friday I haven't been on anything remotely resembling a date for at least two or three months. I must be doing something horribly wrong. Perhaps because I'm such a disagreeable person (viz. above comments about Chaim Potok)? Or a recluse (viz. above comments about Chaim Potok)? Or pretentious (viz viz)? I should go back into therapy; but I wonder what a therapist will be able to offer in the way of advice -- how am I going to meet gay guys at Reed? And off campus is a jungle; it's much more likley that I'll meet someone I can actually talk to at Reed, but much less likely that I'll meet anyone at Reed, a Catch-22 or something like that.

Everything is difficult. The lines of W.B. Yeats (misquoted to be sure) keep coming to mind, "The best lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with passionate intensity"...

Rosebud.

The sky cleared and the stars.

Uggh! Loud rap music AND loud blaring death music from the KRRC. Something has got to give.

I am a member of a college that is dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom: how happy I am!

Today I'm twenty. Tomorrow I'll be thirty. In two weeks I'll be dead.

Sigh.

Two funny little quips straight from me to you:

That man: I would sooner stick any spear in him than my own.

Professor: Today I will be lecturing on ancient Greece. [ahem] Now before I begin, you may wonder what are the merits of studying ancient Greece? I will answer this question first. Well...[achem]...hum...in fact, I cannot think of any good reasons to study ancient Greece. [Long pause]. All right, you can go. Off with you. Shoo.

Can we have such confidence in the prophets? Were they able to deliver God's message to us correctly? Did they not make some irremediable error in transcription? This error: the laws, the doctrines concerning the messiah. They were unable to see beyond their own society and their own temporal concerns into the eternal God. No one can; the work of the prophecies is the great failure: it is a failure because it cannot be taken literally, but it is great because it is the clearest revelation of God's message that we have. It is a failure of rich rewards.

God is infallible; it is human beings who have erred.

This is not to invalidate the work of interpretation, the writings of the rabbis, or perhaps even the writings of the Church, though I think I would have to hold that if the Jews erred in taking the prophet's message too literally, which was still essentially God's message, then the Christians erred in taking too literally the message of a man who may or may not have been privy to any directly divine insights at all.

A distinction: God of course reveals Himself to all human beings who seek him earnestly. However, simply because He reveals Himself doesn't mean that all men attain to the same rung of revelation. There are those who see God from afar, as the Israelites in the desert, for whom God was fire and ice. There are those who see God in His revealed nature: Moses at the burning bush. And then there are those who have spoken to God directly and those who have seen him in his hidden-ness -- Moses ascended to this level at the very height of his vocation.

So of all great writings, certainly they are great because the author has discerned somewhat of the divine (even should he deny the divine altogether). However, different people at different times have discerned somewhat more or somewhat less. And what is true of individuals is certainly true of nations. Hence Israel is a nation of prophets, but the Canaanites are scarcely more than barbarians in comparison (but not necessarily in fact).

But even those who ascend to the highest level of prophecy are still subject to human fallibility.

So Jesus certainly must have attained somewhat to God. However, it is unquestionable that he did not attain to the rung of Moses. And furthermore, I cannot for myself take the Christian scriptures any more seriously than I might take the writings of any religion that did not produce prophets [though I am forced to take it more seriously than I might take Thucydides (though not Plato)] because they verily base their arguments on a supposed revelation that is indisputably recorded after the fact and may or may not be the speech of a man who himself was certainly not a prophet. This is not to say there is nothing of interest in them, or that there is nothing to learn from them -- for Jesus did, I think, have an important insight into the failures of the Jewish faith at the time of his preaching -- or perhaps a foresight into potential failures, as these practices he decries were in fact reforms and much needed at that. So we learn from him that one must not take the revelation of fallible men so seriously that a vision of justice obstructs actual justice. But contrarily, Jesus himself professed faith, and very likely for personal reasons, in the doctrine of a messiah, which is just as much of a mistake as is the law. Surely the prophets believed they saw in the mind of God an actual historical event embodied in a person when what they perceived was the redemption and love awaiting the pious. Or otherwise, they spoke rightly, and the messiah did come, but he was not who any of us might think -- the messiah was, in fact, King Cyrus of the Persians, who did deliver the Jews back into Israel and thus inaugurated the Second Temple Period. More likely it is some mixture of these two, for certain prophecies are unfulfilled in the second view, and so these visions are caught up in the first, and we might perhaps say that the prophets were thinking politically in terms of what ought to have been taken religiously -- that is, they were so spiritually fervent that it seemed to them that the return to Israel could in no way be separated from the personal redemption of all the Israelites who attended upon it.

And I must agree with Erasmus concerning the fate of the virtuous heathens.

However, this does not much clarify or defend why one would read poetry, philosophy, and history for any reason beyond personal edification, because of all things we cannot say that they are related to God. And if someone professes to be atheistic and writes atheistic philosophy, perhaps we are not so justified in saying there is something of God in his writings. But there still must be some reason to read them -- if they are beautiful, they refine our sensitivity to beauty; if they are witty, they refine our wit; if they are concise and perfect in expression, they certainly refine our expression -- tools that the author himself did not apply in the service of God, but which we might ourselves. And if they, using blunt hammers and pickaxes, tried to hack away at such a magisterial edifice, we should all the more be able to repair, shine, and polish the beauty of truth after sharpening our own blades on these learned monuments of everything that is in the world ugly and false.

The gates of prayer are always open:
Blessed be the holy name.

"No indeed," said the Prophet. He gazed across the dunes, across the empty, windless desert, across the far mountains, across to the first wisps of fog that were rising from the far distant blue and lapping waves. "Just as that," he began, "blue conjoins with darkness. Just as that, light sinks into immensity. Just as that, emptiness and light cascade, flicker, play upon the shadows of our passage."

With a rueful laugh, "I am no stranger to your ways. I have dwelled in your tents. I have seen the glistening white of them during the tranquility of dawn. O happy hour; O benificent being that grants us on this hour through the day the plentitude of rising, but the barreness of fall..."

"I have known the darkness, I have seen the void, cette certaine malade inconnue; and a candle is every flicker of light like the jewel of her forehead, and flickering flames adorn her ears. O Israel, Israel, what are your laws? O wherefore your tabernacles, Israel? My Israel was the daughter flowing into dust; my Israel forsakened and abandoned."

"And when the Shekinah fled into exile, the people followed her: O Israel, my Israel, you are flown upon the dust, like the last trickling rays of the setting sun: for when the Lord sacrificed his son in spirit, so he forsook his daughter in her body. O uhappiness, O Ruin, thou doest dwell in Zion. Count the days, for as the rising and the setting of the earth; as the breaking and the shaking off of leaves; as the snows, the winters, lives' calumnies, autumns' harvests, winters' joys -- so shall be your eyes and lips and hands. You are destined all to fall,"

The prophet paused, turned to the people, gave a long look to their spellbound faces like a child's wail, spoke heavily,

"There is no saviour. No, for there can be none. No, for God has abandoned the Klal Yishrael."

There is nothing more despicable than worship.

In response to Castiglione's The Courtier: an overzealous love of pleasure is never excusable, whether the source of that pleasure is physical, intellectual, or religious. Moderation is the measure and virtue of all things; the good man enjoys life not too excessively and not too meanly, and the wise man in his wisdom holds that life often oscillates between extremes; therefore, holding that an acquaintance of both pleasure and pain is desirable, and realizing it is in the faculties of apprehension and not in the thing apprehended that experience lies, one can be esteemed a learned man when he does not shun any circumstance, but steers himself temperately and contentedly through life, enjoying it not in the way immoderate fools drink strong draught that they might become drunk, but in the way the learned rabbi sips the consecrated fruits of the Sabbath vine, knowing that each sip imparts a delicate sensibility and a fragile sensitivity to the sanctified gift of Torah and life.

If it were to my portion, I would continually ignore and decry the Creator. The work of creation is immense, and to declaim it fills the individual with the same power of voice and anger of bearing that God must have felt when he shaped it and forged it. It is ours to tear down the walls of creation being that we eternally seek to eviscerate ourselves and find God. But God is hiding even beyond the walls. How is it that it can be said, "As God must have felt..."? Because God created man in the image of God. The first work of art. But it was the Image of God and it was not God Himself. Therefore it is an abomination to create images of God; for if even God could not suffice in and of Himself to create Himself, but instead in the mystery of His own image He made man, then how are we to presume to create God? And therefore the prohibition against all forms of idolatry, for even the ancients presumed to create new gods when the occasion warranted or it was convenient.

And I too am guilty of the presumption of creating my own gods. With words and with the flesh I imitate these transitory states of being, these transitory raptures that held Virgil; I pine after the lust of the dripping juice of grapes. And what am I? A fly, buzzing around the vine.

O Lord I repent! O Lord forgive my soul for I repent. I am as one transformed before the temple into images unrecognizable, for I in my soul repent and shed some of that former glory that in times I reserved from myself instead of rendering it unto (as is his due) the Eternal Creator and God.

O God Eternal Creator I repent. There are seventy-two faces of the Lord. Who therefore can do penance before him? And yet the prayer declares, firmly, we declare, "Alaynu l'shabai'ach l'adon ha'kol" : it is ours to praise the Lord of all. Ours to praise him? It is ours? We were created for this purpose, or we are merely allowed to utter...?

It is said that God created in the Man the yetzer hara, for without evil councils, man's soul could never perform the work of Tikkun Olam. But listen, God surely created the yetzer tov! And the yetzer tov is a sweet thing where she leads and men follow, so Solomon called her Wisdom, and it is surely for this reason that the Greeks had another name for the yetzer tov and they named her the muses (even in their naming straying in the paths and after the ways of gods, but they did not know). O heresies! O wonders! When the muses whisper to man, when I hear the call of the yetzer tov it is as if all sweetness were entering my soul and all fresh air my lungs. I am as one who has long been underground, for it says, does it not, 'In the day of the Lord he will go to hide in the caves, for he has sinned'. For I have sinned. I am as one who has turned from One.

God I offer my graces to you. God I offer all sweet things. But as for your followers I gently rebuke them: come, you have not offered yourself up to the Lord. You have stood in a corner speaking very fast, but what are you speaking? For surely one sweet word before the Lord is as good as a thousand dank eviscerations, cut and clipped evasions from the soul; blessed is he who prays like the dawn and the setting sun! You would not listen and so you were sundered and will you cease to listen still?

Who can understand the mystery of History. We are not as prophets, we have not the ruach ha'kodesh and we presume to judge all the manners in which God eloquates the earth (for what is creation but his eloquation and his eternal elocution? Creation is poetry, for he said, "Let there be light" and miracle of miracles there was light; for poets imitate this when they try and conjure before the mind dim figures and shadows of shadows cast from a lighted lamp). So if Jesus was meant to serve a purpose, who are we to cast him down? But then I turn to the sinners on the other side, by that I mean those who have strayed from the Lord, and I entreat them, "Earnestly, earnestly if you desire the savior, if you desire to savor God then pardon, pardon us! For the Lord is all forgiving, and have the Jews been destroyed? Surely we have suffered for our sins! Yes surely we have suffered! For what is history? History is the suffering for sin! Yes! Even the lips of the prophets declare and beseech, each day, every one, their flapping lips, 'Yes, because you have sinned, yes this is the history.' O O O! We have done error, we have done favor, we have been pardoned, and we sin. But we come to account for our sins. And yours? For surely it is written: 'You shall not kill a man, neither shall you murder a man, neither shall you think concerning him evil thoughts in your mind...' and yet you have killed and murdered and thought about him evil thoughts in your mind. Repent, O Christians, repent and follow Christ. Christ, whom we flayed, follow him! For it is right that we follow our God and it is right that you follow your God, and your God and our God are one. But we were made to see them in different aspects; we were made to see in history the play of different shadows and the movement of different lights. And it is not to us to offer strange sacrifices before the Lord! But you...you are free to worship God as He has seen fit, and surely, surely he has told you how to worship Him...and us, yes us, He has surely told us how to worship Him! For this is the mercy, that man seeking God found response, and man said, 'I seek to kneel at your feet. I seek to prostrate myself. I seek sacrifice. Let me give you my life, my land, my children, my only son!' and God said, 'No, these are the terms and this is the way, and in my footsteps you shall follow; you who trod upon my path.' And what is the sin of the Israelites? What is that thing that blackens our name? Zeal to worship! Zeal to sacrifice! For of any other nation on earth has it ever been said, 'They are sinful for they followed in the strange ways of gods whom they did not know, nor did they see them?' O wonder of wonders! O wonder at the nation of Israel; for as other nations on the earth were called to account because they stole much good grain; because they pillaged; because they plundered; because they violated and desecrated women; because they desecrated the altars of the gods (and even Odysseus was called to account for ten long years because of a stalwart confidence in his abilities that was unwarranted, unconsidered) but we? Why are we called to account? Because in our zeal to worship, we strayed from haShem. We strayed from the true God and we are called to account. We did not stray, however, into the wickedness of other nations; our part was not to steal, to plunder, to pillage, or to defile; but we were held to a higher standard, and though we rose above the ranks of the other men, of the pagans, the barbarous nations of Canaan; though we never sank to such stages of defilement -- yet we did not rise to God, and for that we were defiled. So I would entreat you, Christians, brothers all, to recognize our Holy Covenant with God. That you, too, might recognize your Holy Covenant with God. And among all who are righteous, God abides, for does it not say, 'God is close to all who call upon him, Karov Adoshem l'chal k'roiav' -- in our liturgy as well as yours? Therefore to the Christians I would say 'Peace, and may we no longer again know war, for "lo yisa goy el goy herev" and they shall not again know war.' And as it was the laudable custom of the Latins to say in greeting, 'Be healthy' and in parting, 'Be strong' -- not because they understood absence to be a condition in species intolerable but rather because they truly desired the welfare and strength of their brothers and friends, so I say to you, 'Vale et valete'."

But as for You O God, how I am to return to You, against whom I have sinned? For I might admonish the Christians for their impudence and the Jews for their impiety, but as for You, can I admonish myself? No! The very God must speak to me! The very heavens must open up and the angels come forth. The heavens shake and my frame, this mortal being, this maceration of dust -- dust -- dust! Yes it must collapse. Yes it must fall under the heavens. Yes I have fallen from grace. O God take me into Your loving arms. O God forge me anew. O God help me find in my soul Your derech -- derech aretz, the way of the land, the way of my people, the way of my soul, the way of my God. For you have given to all peoples to know You and to the heathen that approaches You have said, "Come around the other way, that I might speak to you." For to the Jews You have given a Torah and to the Christians a Savior (and wonder of wonders it is possible in the world You created that You should be able to manifest Yourself in mortal and divine nature in the various divisions and macerations of Your salvation, even as Aristotle says that two contrary statements cannot abide in logic, yet You can abide in contradictions!) but what can You give to me? For I have not learned from the wisdom of men nor from the wisdom of gods and nor from the wisdom of God. O God, if I do not hear the voice of Your angels, what hope is it that I have that You might speak to me? And if I cannot hear the cries of the earth, then how am I to open my mind to the heavens? For surely You have said, "Righteousness, righteousness, shalt thou pursue", yet I walk in difficult paths, and my hand is the measure of my prudence, and my foot is the measure of steadfast promise to serve a God that seems beyond the world like the setting sun. O God I have fallen! Restore me, ressurect me; as You did for Jesus, so for me; as You did for the Torah, so for me! Let not a sacriligious word utter forth from these uncircumcised lips. For if I speak evil of the heavenly host, surely I speak evil of You! And yet! O God O God O God let me worship none other than You, and let me call You by Your ineffable and Holy Name, for should I use any other name, surely the occasion warrants that name and to speak of You is sacrilege even in the most minor and festive occasions, if these are to be compared to speaking to you in the sanctity, solemnity, and enduring everlasting compassion and kindness of Your person, those two qualities of which the Kabbalists spoke. O Kingship of kingship and O friend of friends. Compared to You all earthly joys perish, and compared to You all mortals rot away like the fruit of the vine. Let me be sanctified in Your presence, sanctified in Your eyes, that You might turn Your face to me with compassion and establish peace for me, let me be sanctified like a Sabbath wine. And may all the heavenly choirs exclaiming "Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh haShem Tzva'kos m'lo cal ha'aretz c'vodo" exclaim loudly, clearly, together, for my favor, for my love, let them exclaim for one eternal instant in everlasting infinitude, "Amen"; and you, reader, peace be with you, baruch haShem.

The world is revolving around the sun at the same moment that it rotates around its axis, 360 degrees a day 940 million miles a year of travels through the sky which is eternally black pierced by spots of white rather like dandruff on an obsidian table-top. We are left with with the impression of the cold night-wanderer and the rain in his brown locks soaked dripping, clinging, heaving his pack about the night. Is there a light? She is the pale bath of the moon. The moonlight trickles down at her speed and neither warms nor must instill in the wanderer much hope, but she is there, a beauty to be gazed at.

The notion of our hearing is connected intimately to separated spheres of experience. All of our senses take place in a void between consciousness and neglect, the void of existence, absent of the devil's trust and void of meaning. All things cycle endlessly back into their proper moment, space and time dissipate into darkness and rise like smoke at an altar.

Pain channels through every experience and in the thrust of a movement, the individual strums and hums of life become more real; the same for pleasure. If there is some object that is the definite source of all emotions and consciousness we should call that object the divine; our experience draws us closer, pulls us and pushes us, this is the meaning of heaven and hell.

A spider crafts her weave in intricacies; man crafts his weave in intricacies; God crafts his weave in intricacies. The complexity is apparent; the exact genius of it remains an eternal mystery to the eye; and it is in the void between sensual experience and intellectual apprehension that the mind comprehends, an experience which is communicated to the very extremities; a pounding in the heart a tingle in the fingertips.

All experiences are weaving themselves as we speak into a coherent whole. The chains of our lives are unbroken, stretching endlessly backward and forward to their source; the weave is of gold and it is a shining unity in the glimmering sun. The sun moves all things to warmth; but to stand in the sun too long is to burn. We are all burning in the light of a faith that is too strong for us; we will break.

Twice a day, pious Jews recite the Sh'ma. What is the Jew? An exile in the land of plenty, the long-suffering, the faithful people. When the prophets declared fire and brimstone their genius was fire and brimstone -- repent, but know the sinner that his sin is the source of his suffering. We have been faithful to pain for thousands of years. Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Even blocks of ice will melt; they drip down in the spring, they fall in a rushing, they flood they plains, they water the Negeb.

Our redemption flows like rivers through the Negeb.

And is it to know that we repeat? Or is it to experience? There is something beyond individual pleasure. There is something beyond individual love. God is said to be ineffable because though we can say that he is elusive or he is love or he is light or pleasure and happiness or wonder, we cannot say what wonder is, nor in saying can we hope to experience. What is the movement of God in the soul? It is an imperceptible feeling, it is no more true than the rotation of the earth, its revolution, the axioms of existence. To say that I feel God is to say nothing more than I feel gravity; to take joy in gravity is not to understand; everything flees, life is not ineluctable or inevitable, it is exactly the opposite; all things flow into eternity.

Atheists are not atheists. Atheism is impossible. Because it is merely a quibble over labels; eternity is a common truth to all and ineffability is also a common truth to all. All speech reaches the point of reference, the dangling ends of a cord that are sparking with electric shocks, beyond which -- nothing can be comprehended. And as much as the atheist asserts there is no God, he cannot assert that he is without awe. Because the universe is awful. The atheist only rejects the notion that God is at all personal, that God in very fact and deed cares; that there is some plan. But the atheist cannot reject God, only protest his involvement in the earth.

And how does God work in the world? Is it through science? Do the laws of nature stand as his testimony? Are they the sparks of his thought? We can have no surety of this. It is a strange anathema to say that God operates in history -- as if one were talking of economic laws or of astronomical certainties. For instance: "The end of prayer in schools was the end of the schools; the sixties cut from their circuit and at ends the chords that led God to resound even in the institutions. The power blackened, the light ceased." No. God is not a principle of which it can be said, "So it is." God is not pleasure, either; of God nothing can be said at all. So why do we worship? Why do we desire awe?

Man was made in the image of God because he is the race of questions through neurons at the speed of light; the light flickering of a shaft from a cold planet that orbits about a weary wanderer, we are dancing in circles, we are the slow tempest and the limbo; but when the breaking of sun comes across the hills and the sky is red and gold --

God is not pleasure, but through pleasure and all kinds of pains and grief and the dull monotony of living we come to Him.

I don't wanna go back to Reed. Waaaaaaaah!!!

Possible stagings for a ballet based on two musical pieces heard on KVOD (CPR's classical station):

Symphony in E Minor (?) by (?)

They dance across tightropes; first a pivot, then a sudden turn, and the arms stretch as bestowing some gift, the silent gift of the forest; the nymphs join them in swirls, half circles, and they dance among the boughs and fly across the treetops; they group into various circles and continue their swirling gestures, and then a single one, clad entirely in a sparkling gown of gems, comes to the center; the others crowd around her and they begin to dance in formation. She looks through the darkness interrupted by the glimmering light of her jewelled attire and sees the youth, who has emerged from the forest; she crosses to him and bows deeply, then flits away; the others hound the confused youth, who looks first here and then there – everywhere fairies! He makes a confounded gesture and turns into himself, withdrawing from its sheath the golden sword and gazing at it for a moment in sorrowful awe.

The fairies now gather together and their dancing heightens; they are about to introduce the youth to the fairy queen, who had teased him on his arrival in the forest. The fairies take the leaves and branches of the trees and begin weaving them into a garland; the fairy queen, ascendant, watches as they perform the earth rituals that are characteristic of her reign and glory. The youth, meanwhile, is taunted and tormented by giggling groups of fairy girls, poking at him from here and there, giggling off. A group of young girls is forming the garland and doing a special dance; one twirls in the center, followed by another, and everywhere are wings and glitter.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, Casandra is stumbling after her lost lover, and looks under each twig and leaf, all the while haunted by the conspiring fairies, who confuse her and drop hints of a Presence from their hiding places in the undergrowth. Roland (the youth) has taken out his sword and is gazing at its gleam in the half obscured sunlight of the branches.

The king emerges from the other end of the forest and is sending out hunting parties to look for his lost daughter Hannah, who has disappeared as if under a spell. The fairy queen is lowered from the branches by the fairies and crowned with the awesome garland of boughs, and when it crowns her fire consumes her and she becomes a being of flame and light, subsuming the youth. All exit, leaving Casandra to peer alone through the forest. It is completely dark and the quest for Roland is hopeless. The king’s troops have faded into the background, leaving her alone on stage. She comes upon a fawn sitting on a stump, and she beseeches him and falls on her knees, gesturing that he might aid her. But the fawn refuses and dances off. She calls after him and he brings a troupe of fawns in turn, who chase after her. She runs, but the fawns are in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile the king has re-emerged from the trees and sees the retreating fawns; he joins the chase with his legion of knights. Deeper in, the hem of Casandra’s dress has been caught on a branch; she clutches madly at it, and one of the fawns sees her. He begins to dance madly and exuberantly, calling after the fawns. Meanwhile, Ogden, a particularly intelligent and crafty fawn, is leading the hounds of the king on a wild goose chase; after him are riding the cavalry, and the dogs pursue the fawn through the trees. The horses whinny and neigh, for they cannot go through the thick undergrowth. The men dismount and make to pursue after the fawn; but as they leave their horses and disappear into the thickness of the forest the fawn appears around the bend with the dogs chasing after him and now makes as if to chase the soldiers into the undergrowth! The horses, spooked, gallop after him. Cassandra finally frees herself and runs into a clearing where there is a large lake. As she approaches, angry pixies rise from the water and grab her, hoisting her into the air and making her to do floating turns and pirouettes. Finally the bedraggled king emerges at the lake with his soldiers, looking after the departed Cassandra and crying, “Oh Hannah, my daughter!”

The Banks of Green Willow by George Idle

The youth emerges from the forest into a long valley; there are dottings of flowers and butterflies that flutter slightly and delicately from the stems. The youth wanders through endless meadows of blue skies; the sun is high, it is midday. He gazes around, as if lost, but enjoying the scenery. There is a brook flowing down the middle of the valley, out of the woods, which have thinned into occasional and delicately silver aspens. The youth climbs a series of hills that stand at the edge of the scenery and comes to a large vista, overlooking the whole area. He sees in the distance Troy, and again raises the sword; the gleam of the burning city catches and elaborates the gleam of the steel. He lowers the sword, and as he does, we see Cassandra run into the valley from the forest, followed by an escort of angry pixies. They depart after her into the forest, and she now looks all about and is overwhelmed by a large pair of butterflies. The butterflies begin dancing and gesturing to the brook and the whole of the valley. Meanwhile, Roland sits down and begins to weep. Cassandra looks across the stream and herself sees Troy. She begins to bend in dance, weaving and turning, a slave to her memory, the wailing loss of Troy. Roland too has begun to dance, and their dances join with the delicate butterflies and the soft flowing brook. Birds begin to sing and a lazy cloud drifts across the sky, shaping into a castle. Now Cassandra is remembering the kindly old king, who used to dangle her on his knee as a child, and would read her from a book, The Annals of Troy. She is lost in revery. Roland too sits, remembering the marketplaces and the broad squares, the endless seccesion of carriages, and the hem of Helen’s pink gown that trailed across the plazas so long ago; her attendant ladies in purple, and the triumphant figure of Paris – now lying skewered by the sword in the valley of Pergamum. As he falls again under the backdrop of memory, the sun rises over the horizon and a light trickles across the body-strewn fields.

You drank from the well of the fountain of truth
The waters drained down your throat
As the cascades triumph down the mountains
Each trumpeting their call,
A fiery voice proclaiming to the masses of the world:
So the glorious air is the space that flows from earth to heaven
So the whirlpools of stars are gathering Holy names
So the unity of an instant becames the space of eternal – the transcendant one.

Last night was the night from hell. Let me explain: 3 glasses of wine + 2 guys (1 of whom you've slept with and the other who you think is cute). They hook up after 4 glasses of wine, leaving you to be sad-drunk and miserable on the couch. You feel angry. You feel depressed. You cry, you go out to the balcony and moan, you take a shower and wail, hoping to be noticed but at the same time terrified of having anybody see how completely stupid you are.

That doesn't really make you understand how bad I felt, but it at least maybe explains what happened. I don't know. I don't wanna go into it. I just have to say that after a day of moping about and recovering, I am so fricking angry at Joey and John even if I have no reason to be. I wish something bad would happen to them.

At least Brit and Chris are my friends. Yay for Brit and Chris. Strike that night from my life, if you please.

:-P Yuck yuck yuck yuck.

There have been three forces in the history of earth under God: there have been those who have named, those who catalogued and recorded those names, and those who have destroyed the names and sought to kill anything but a pure and holy emptiness of white flame. Adam is the great sinner of the beginning, naming everything in correspondence with the unimaginative will of a ruthlessly categorical YHWH. Generations of Jewish scholars have, for 5000 years and more, preserved these names and transmitted them with a continent but ultimately impotent reverence. Springing from the same branch are Eve and the great matriarchs, pure founts of language and knowledge that led to and climaxed in Shakespeare; I see them also in the uncouth Ginsberg, who created and twisted language into an entirely different being; they are the sublime aspect of femininity that opposes Adam's ordered account of the world and actively subverts it so as to allow in the world a pulchritude of love. Man is a disgusting creature who tries to exalt himself over and above the feminine. But for his efforts, he is purged of even his masculinity in the pure and holy white flame of their sheer power and creative exuberance, which is the last category of naming, wherein we find all great prophets; but it is so difficult to tell the difference between the elevation of creation and the sublimity of destruction that we hesitate where to put the voices. Now is the great artist one who created or destroyed? Who valued or who left in ruin? But here! Here in study is the root of all evil, for we are placed by study among the recorders of the names, we come to hold the names dearer and closer to our hearts, we gaze with a countenanced suspiscion at any who would rob us of our dear, our great, our Holy names.

In prayer too, one should declare the names in the spirit of nothingness, for a name is nothing, but, being part of that nothing, is as infinitely holy as silence.

Ok, so it really kind've annoys me how I write letters to certain people who live in Portland and they don't respond. They should be drooling and slobbering all over their computers whenever I write to them. Long pauses and silence make me nervous. They don't love me anymore, that's the only conclusion I could possibly think of. So the solution? Suffocate them with an endless barrage of whining complaints and a long string of letters with big puppy-dog eyes (in writing of course). And then fill up their voice-mail boxes. Then they'll love me. How could you resist?

This is the third poem from Nerval's collection of poetry, Les Chimeres, placed within the scope of the Western Canon by the ever-amiable Bloom of his own (not Joyce's) creation. I hesitate to set it in translation because, more than Myrtho, it is heavily dependent upon obscure Greek and Egyptian mythology (and probably involves other traditions as well) rather than imagery, and it is rather more difficult for me to translate mythology into satisfactory English verse. I try to avoid overt attempts at rhyme/meter in these translations, but the original is an Alexandrian sonnet set in an ABBA schema, the french "rime embrassee".

The gods, in order, are Horus (the sun god); Isis, fertility goddess and wife of Osiris; Cybele, or Gaia, the earth mother, goddess of prophecy and rebirth; Osiris, god of underworld and creation, husband of Isis; and Iris, the messenger god of Greek mythology, associated with the rainbow. In looking (very briefly) at some of the mythologies surrounding Osiris I came across a legend in which he is assaulted by his evil brother Set and cut into 12 pieces. In one tradition, the goddess Isis buries each piece in a sacred place; in another she reunites them together and restores her dead husband to life. The legend continues that Horus, their son, exacts vengeance on the wicked Tel and subsequently displaces Osiris as king of Egypt, whereupon Osiris takes up rulership of the underworld.

Horus

The god Kneph in spasms shook the spheres
Thus Isis, the mother, stirred from sleep,
Made a hateful sign to her rageful spouse,
And the ardor of other times burned in verdant eyes.

-- Look at him! -- she said -- He’s dead, the old sinner,
All the hoary frosts of the world have passed upon his lips;
Let us bind his contorted feet, extinguish his sinister eye,
For he is the god of volcanoes, and the king of winters!

-- His genius is already past, and a new spirit calls me,
So I’ve taken it up again, for Him, the Cybele’s robe…
For He is the well beloved son of Hermes and Osiris!

And the goddess having fled to the gilded shell
The sea again sends us her image well
Beloved and the skies shine under Iris’ sash.

A few notes on the translation (given according to line numbers): [4] especially awkward translation, compare with "Et l'ardeur d'autrefois brilla dans ses yeux verts." [5] French uses the 2nd person plural form, so I have translated Isis' speech as if it were a dramatic aside. [6] The word for hoary frosts is "frimas" -- I take it to be a euphemism for death, but a dictionary also reveals the word to mean "rime"...I leave it to the reader to speculate on any possible double meaning. [9] The word for genius, "aigle", can be taken more overtly to mean "eagle." [10] The title character of the poem is absent, a splendid effect (much the way God is absent from Dante's Commedia) that lends him a sort of majesty. The first "Him" refers to the ailing god Osiris, but the pronouns following have been capitalized to refer to the absent Horus. I admit this is also a bit awkward. [13] "Mer" (ocean/sea) could possibly be heard as "mere", a pun referring to Isis (which would be an interesting signification, since Isis is the goddess of the earth).