the mere obstinacy of the self

“ ‘ “A man should be fixed,” the chairman said. “The board felt that a certain firmness was lacking—”

‘ “That one ought to know his necessity and bow down to it?”

‘ “Yes,” the chairman said, “that’s it.”

‘ “One is what one is?”

‘ “Properly so,” the chairman said, “yes.”

‘ “No,” the young man said. “What you call character is the mere obstinacy of the self, the sinister will’s solipsist I am. One adjusts his humanity to the humanity of others. Not I am, but You are— there’s the necessity. Love cooperates; it plays ball. I hate a chaos. Does the company need me?” ’ ”

(Stanley Elkin, A Bad Man, p. 171–2.)

and so it all ended

“And so it all ended. Artha kama dharma moksa. Ask Kavya for the kay. And so everybody heard their plaint and all listened to their plause. The letter! The litter! And the soother the bitther! Of eyebrow pencilled, by lipstipple penned. Borrowing a word and begging the question and stealing tinder and slipping like soap. From dark Rasa Lane a sigh and a weep, from Lesbia Looshe the beam in her eye, from lone Coogan Barry his arrow of song, from Sean Kelly’s anagrim a blush at the name, from I am the Sullivan that trumpeting tramp, from Suffering Dufferin the Sit of her Style, from Kathleen May Vernon her Mebbe fair efforts, from Fillthepot Curran his scotchlove machreether, from hymn Op. 2 Phil Adolphos the weary O, the leery, O, from Samyouwill Leaver or Damyouwell Lover thatjolly old molly bit or that bored saunter by, from Timm Finn again’s weak tribes, loss of strenghth to his sowheel, from the wedding on the greene, agirlies, the gretnass of joyboys, from Pat Mullen, Tom Mallon, Dan Meldon, Don Maldon a slickstick picnic made in Moate by Muldoons. The solid man saved by his sillied woman. Crackajolking away like a hearse on fire. The elm that whimpers at the top told the stone that moans when stricken. Wind broke it. Wave bore it. Reed wrote of it. Syce ran with it. Hand tore it and wild went war. Hen trieved it and plight pledged peace. It was folded with cunning, sealed with crime, uptied by a harlot, undone by a child. It was life but was it fair? It was free but was it art? The old hunks on the hill read it to perlection. It made ma make merry and sissy so shy and rubbed some shine off Shem and put some shame into Shaun. Yet Una and Ita spill famine with drought and Agrippa, the propastored, spells tripulations in his threne. Ah, furchte fruchte, timid Danaides! Ena milo melomon, frai is frau and swee is too, swee is two when swoo is free, ana mala woe is we! A pair of sycopanties with amygdaleine eyes, one old obster lumpky pumpkin and three meddlars on their slies. And that was how framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose, finfin funfun, a sitting arrows. Now tell me, tell me, tell me then!”

(Joyce, Finnegans Wake, pp. 93–4.)

why blackletter

“ ‘The Gothic typface.’

‘What about it?’

‘I was thinking about the masthead on The New York Times.’

The New York Times.’

Well, that’s Gothic. Many newspapers use it. That’s because it looks like Hebrew. All newspapers are a sort of Scripture. Gothic type must have evolved from monks trying to duplicate the look of the sacred texts.’ ”

(Stanley Elkin, The Franchiser, p. 188.)

may 22–may 25

Books

  • Thomas M. Disch, The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters
  • Wells Tower, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
  • Fernando Pessoa, The Surprise of Being: Twenty-Five Poems, trans. James Greene & Clara de Azevado Mafra
  • Fernando Pessoa, The Keeper of Sheep, trans. Edwin Honig & Susan M. Brown

Films

  • Gold Diggers of 1937, directed by Lloyd Bacon
  • Ziegfeld Follies, dir. Lemuel Ayers et al.

from “the tomb of stuart merrill”

Let’s get on with it
But what about the past

Because it only builds up out of fragments
Each evening we walk out to see
How they are coming along with the temple
There is an interest in watching how
One piece is added to another.
At least it isn’t horrible like
Being inside a hospital and really finding out
What it’s like in there.
So one is tempted not to include this page
In the fragment of our lives
Just as its meaning is about to coagulate
In the air around us:

“Father!” “Son!” “Father I thought we’d lost you
In the blue and buff planes of the Aegean:
Now it seems you’re really back.”
Only for a while, son, only for a while.”
We can go inside now.

(John Ashbery, from Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Wikipedia on Stuart Merrill.)

xxxix. the mystery of things, where is it

The mystery of things, where is it?
Where is that which never appears
To show us, at least, it’s a mystery?
What’s the river know about it and what, the tree?
And I, being no more than they, what do I know about it?
Whenever I look at things and think what men think of them,
I laugh like a brook freshly sounding off a rock.

Because the only hidden meaning of things
Is that they have no hidden meaning at all.
This is stranger than all the strangenesses,
And the dreams of all the poets,
And the thoughts of all the philosophers—
That things really are what they appear to be
And that there is nothing to understand.

Yes, here’s what my senses learned all by themselves:
Things have no meaning – they have existence.
Things are the only hidden meaning of things.

(Fernando Pessoa, writing as Alberto Caeiro, p. 97 in Edwin Honig & Susan M. Brown’s edition of The Keeper of Sheep.)

now i must go to the bank

“The next accurate information we obtained was from C. R. W. Nevinson, who had met him at a luncheon with Grant Richards, Firbank’s publisher. Nevinson had once divined in him an amusing character. He described his appearance to us, I remember, and related how after the meal Firbank, rising willowly to his feet, observed, ‘Now I must go to the Bank.’ ‘But they are all shut. You won’t be able to get in!’ objected Richards; to which Firbank, displaying his long, unmuscular arms and thin fingers, replied anxiously, ‘What? Not even with my crowbar?’ ”

(Osbert Sitwell, pp. xi–xii in his introduction to the New Directions edition of Ronald Firbank’s Five Novels.)