Found this on Crooked Timber:
Richie Rorty, Richie Rorty,
Naught he hadn’t read, it seems.
Heidegger and Nietzsche brought he,
Both, to feature in his schemes,
Next to others not so warty:
Caught he Dickens, Proust and Yeats,
Kundera and Orwell. Sought he
To cavort with them as mates.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Les Gottesman - Heidegger's A.M.
Heidegger's A.M.
Coffee breaks
the chain
of neglect
of the problem of being.
Coffee grounds
the problem in ancient inquiries
concerning being not being beings.
Before coffee
what is not sought
is not unfirmiliar
though ungraspable, hot,
but after the first shot
everyone understands
"The sky is blue," "I am happy,"
statements like that.
A white ring mars the table.
The problem, the mug
being unmistakeable.
- Les Gottesman
Coffee breaks
the chain
of neglect
of the problem of being.
Coffee grounds
the problem in ancient inquiries
concerning being not being beings.
Before coffee
what is not sought
is not unfirmiliar
though ungraspable, hot,
but after the first shot
everyone understands
"The sky is blue," "I am happy,"
statements like that.
A white ring mars the table.
The problem, the mug
being unmistakeable.
- Les Gottesman
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Balfour on the End of Humanity
I found this rattling description of the end of the human race in James' Pragmatism. It was written by Arthur Balfour, an early 20th century British politician, in his book The Foundations of Belief.
"The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. "Imperishable monuments" and "immortal deeds," death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as if they had not been. Nor will anything that is, be better or worse for all that the labor, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have striven through countless ages to effect."
The Foundations of Belief, p. 30
"The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. "Imperishable monuments" and "immortal deeds," death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as if they had not been. Nor will anything that is, be better or worse for all that the labor, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have striven through countless ages to effect."
The Foundations of Belief, p. 30
Pascal on Certainty
"The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond an imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere."
Pensées, S.72
"We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses."
Pensées, S.72
Pensées, S.72
"We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses."
Pensées, S.72
Zbigniew Herbert - The Divine Claudius
It was said
I was begotten by Nature
but unfinished
like an abandoned sculpture
a sketch
the damaged fragment of a poem
for years I played the half-wit
idiots live more safely
I calmly put up with insults
if I planted all the stones
thrown into my face
an olive ground would spring up
a vast oasis of palms
I received a many-sided education
Livy the rhetoricians philosophers
I spoke Greek like an Athenian
although Plato I could recall
only in the lying position
I completed my studies
in dock-side taverns and brothels
those unwritten dictionaries of vulgar Latin
bottomless treasuries of crime and lust
after the murder of Caligula
I hid behind a curtain
they dragged me out by force
I didn’t manage to adopt an intelligent expression
when they threw at my feet the world
ridiculous and flat
from then on I became the most diligent
emperor in universal history
a Hercules of bureaucracy
I recall with pride
my liberal law
giving permission to let out
sounds of the belly during feasts
I deny the charge of cruelty often made against me
in reality I was only absent-minded
on the day of Messalina’s violent murder-
the poor thing was killed I admit on my orders-
I asked during the banquet – Why hasn’t Madame come
a deathly silence answered me
really I forgot
sometimes it would happen I invited
the dead to a game of dice
I punished failure to attend with a fine
overburdened with so many labours
I might have made mistakes in details
it seems
I ordered thirty-five senators
and the cavalrymen of some three centurions
to be executed
well what of it
a bit less purple
fewer gold rings
on the other hand – and this isn’t a trifle – more room in the theatre
no one wanted to understand
that the goal of these operations was sublime
I longed to make death familiar to people
to dull its edge
bring it down to the banal everyday dimension
of a slight depression or runny nose
and here is the proof
of my delicacy of feeling
I removed the statue of gentle Augustus
from the square of executions
so the sensitive marble
wouldn’t hear the roars of the condemned
my nights were devoted to study
I wrote the history of the Etruscans
a history of Carthage
a bagatelle about Saturn
a contribution to the theory of games
and a treatise on the venom of serpents
it was I who saved Ostia
from the invasion of sand
I drained swamps
built aqueducts
since then it has become easier
in Rome to wash away blood
I expanded the frontiers of the empire
by Brittany Mauretania
and if I recall correctly Thrace
my death was caused by my wife Agrippina
and an uncontrollable passion for boletus
mushrooms – the essence of the forest – became the essence of death
descendants – remember with proper respect and honour
at least one merit of the divine Claudius
I added new signs and sounds to our alphabet
expanded the limits of speech that is the limits of freedom
the letters I discovered – beloved daughters – Digamma and Antisigma
led my shadow
as I pursued the path with tottering steps to the dark land of Orkus
I was begotten by Nature
but unfinished
like an abandoned sculpture
a sketch
the damaged fragment of a poem
for years I played the half-wit
idiots live more safely
I calmly put up with insults
if I planted all the stones
thrown into my face
an olive ground would spring up
a vast oasis of palms
I received a many-sided education
Livy the rhetoricians philosophers
I spoke Greek like an Athenian
although Plato I could recall
only in the lying position
I completed my studies
in dock-side taverns and brothels
those unwritten dictionaries of vulgar Latin
bottomless treasuries of crime and lust
after the murder of Caligula
I hid behind a curtain
they dragged me out by force
I didn’t manage to adopt an intelligent expression
when they threw at my feet the world
ridiculous and flat
from then on I became the most diligent
emperor in universal history
a Hercules of bureaucracy
I recall with pride
my liberal law
giving permission to let out
sounds of the belly during feasts
I deny the charge of cruelty often made against me
in reality I was only absent-minded
on the day of Messalina’s violent murder-
the poor thing was killed I admit on my orders-
I asked during the banquet – Why hasn’t Madame come
a deathly silence answered me
really I forgot
sometimes it would happen I invited
the dead to a game of dice
I punished failure to attend with a fine
overburdened with so many labours
I might have made mistakes in details
it seems
I ordered thirty-five senators
and the cavalrymen of some three centurions
to be executed
well what of it
a bit less purple
fewer gold rings
on the other hand – and this isn’t a trifle – more room in the theatre
no one wanted to understand
that the goal of these operations was sublime
I longed to make death familiar to people
to dull its edge
bring it down to the banal everyday dimension
of a slight depression or runny nose
and here is the proof
of my delicacy of feeling
I removed the statue of gentle Augustus
from the square of executions
so the sensitive marble
wouldn’t hear the roars of the condemned
my nights were devoted to study
I wrote the history of the Etruscans
a history of Carthage
a bagatelle about Saturn
a contribution to the theory of games
and a treatise on the venom of serpents
it was I who saved Ostia
from the invasion of sand
I drained swamps
built aqueducts
since then it has become easier
in Rome to wash away blood
I expanded the frontiers of the empire
by Brittany Mauretania
and if I recall correctly Thrace
my death was caused by my wife Agrippina
and an uncontrollable passion for boletus
mushrooms – the essence of the forest – became the essence of death
descendants – remember with proper respect and honour
at least one merit of the divine Claudius
I added new signs and sounds to our alphabet
expanded the limits of speech that is the limits of freedom
the letters I discovered – beloved daughters – Digamma and Antisigma
led my shadow
as I pursued the path with tottering steps to the dark land of Orkus
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A Beginning
It's Christmas time, nearly the New Year, so it seems appropriate to put a new beginning to this site.
I'm not going to try to write anything anymore, as my attempts at writing more often break windows than open doors. Instead, I'll use this blog to share pictures, poems, or quotes from whatever I'm reading or doing at any given time. My expectation is that these things will not be very interesting to many people (if anyone at all), but this is, nevertheless, a nice place to put things like photos and quotes.
Speaking of Christmas, last week, I was walking on State street, near Macy's trying to catch the 6. One of their Christmas Windows was oddly Heideggerian:
I'm not going to try to write anything anymore, as my attempts at writing more often break windows than open doors. Instead, I'll use this blog to share pictures, poems, or quotes from whatever I'm reading or doing at any given time. My expectation is that these things will not be very interesting to many people (if anyone at all), but this is, nevertheless, a nice place to put things like photos and quotes.
Speaking of Christmas, last week, I was walking on State street, near Macy's trying to catch the 6. One of their Christmas Windows was oddly Heideggerian:
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