What I Had Discovered Is That Every Space Contains More Space Than the Space It Contains
Now back where I sit and type I sit and type my confession I bought one day before the end of vacation two dozen of the pens I currently adore, a 0.4 MM Pentel Arts Hybrid Technica, black ink, fully aware that I won't have two hours a day every day in Maine to write in tablet while L paints wherever she wants in the middle of a hike for fifty-one weeks. If I'd wrote that sentence in tablet I would have had to type it here anyway, it made sense in Maine woods, not where I sit and type this, fuck me
Two weeks in a not-our house too much for the two of us who were not too much for the two of us for the two weeks it was just the two of us, Momcat welcomed us home, screaming her silent meow
Going on vacation my third favorite thing, being on vacation my favorite thing, getting home from vacation my second favorite thing
A useful and thoughtful duh on why Conservatives have always and will always hate public education, posted on behalf of my wife and daughter who are public school teachers, my mother and father and the aunts and uncles who were public school teachers, my friends who are public school teachers, you if you're a public school teacher, and all public school teachers
Maine hiking: hot, as in heat and humidity, especially on bald granite, harder for that, but my eyes - every post but two a year tagged My Blindness for real not just metaphorical gagging - steep rocky downhill scrambles now scare the fuck out of me and are no fun, I have lost vision yes in both eyes' lower periphery, but it's fucked with my balance enough to scare the fuck out of me on steep rocky downhill scrambles. L helped, sticks didn't
We spent Saturday in New Hampshire at L's friends house on a pond sorta halfway between Corcord and Keene, I had three hours by myself to drive by myself roads I'd never driven, swoon, while they had three hours together, for those following, New Hampshire - at least where we were and where I've been in the past - not Maine, I'd like to spend two weeks just the two of us in not-our house in Sally's house for a fair comparison, Maine light better, New Hampshire's vibe major better, I vote light usually but
Tried audio books, including Gaddis' *JR,* on long drive to and from and no, it's me, not Audible, not because Audible's Amazon, mind, my complicity is documented every post but two a year, but because it'd be a waste of my money, even more than all the books I buy I don't read (not Amazon when possible, I virtue-signal)
Bud-wise? Michigan > Maine > DC, though Michigan and Maine competitive, DC dead fucking last
I skipped middle age in my head and went straight to old, I was young before the plague and rusted during, the fuck
EXCERPT (THE TUNNEL)
William Gass
The other large carton unpacked in the same way - box into box - but the feeling it gave me was the opposite of that suggested b the endless nest of Russians dollies it otherwise resembled, for what I was opening was a den of spaces which now covered the floor near my feet. It was plain that every ten-by-ten-by eight container contained cubes which were nine by nine by seven, and eight by eight by six, and seven by seven by five, and so on down to three by three by two, as well as many smaller, thinly sided one at every interval in between, so that out of one box a million more might multiply, confirming Zeno's view, although at that age, with an unfurnished mind, I couldn't have known of his paradoxes let alone have been able to describe one with any succinctness. What I had discovered is that every space contains more space than the space it contains.
speaking of melville's moby dick, as we were the other day - this morning i came across an amazon review of an independently published edited reprint - ISBN 1717979785
the blurb states
Most modern readers don't know that Melville's work addresses the timeless themes of God, sea monsters, and ambergris. That's because his books are about whalers doing things a really long time ago that nobody could relate to -- until now. L. Q. Puffbuster has adapted this classic to help modern readers relate to the original source material. Specifically, modern readers named Todd. The main character has been renamed "Todd" so the trials of this mid-19th century whaler will have special poignancy for readers also named Todd (or reader that know somebody named Todd). Critics agree: this book is better now.
one person comments:
4.0 out of 5 stars Changing "Ishmael" to "Todd" - who knows if it's good or bad? Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021
Allegedly it makes our viewpoint character more relatable - I feel doubtful about this. I deduct one star from the book's rating for this. But if you find this more appealing, then go ahead and get this book. You could certainly spend your money on something worse.
as the price has been marked down to $5.75, i decided to buy it now
i note that there is a chapter titled "The Question of Ishmael's Name" in
The Errant Art of Moby-Dick: The Canon, the Cold War, and the Struggle for American Studies By William V. Spanos Duke University Press https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822379584 ISBN electronic: 978-0-8223-7958-4 Publication date: 1995
prices for used copies of this book begin at about eight dollars, plus shipping
the back cover text:
In The Errant Art of Moby-Dick, one of America's most distinguished critics reexamines Melville's monumental novel and turns the occasion into a meditation on the history and implications of canon formation. In Moby-Dick--a work virtually ignored and discredited at the time of its publication--William V. Spanos uncovers a text remarkably suited as a foundation for a "New Americanist" critique of the ideology based on Puritan origins that was codified in the canon established by "Old Americanist" critics from F. O. Matthiessen to Lionel Trilling. But Spanos also shows, with the novel still as his focus, the limitations of this "New Americanist" discourse and its failure to escape the totalizing imperial perspective it finds in its predecessor.Combining Heideggerian ontology with a sociopolitical perspective derived primarily from Foucault, the reading of Moby-Dick that forms the center of this book demonstrates that the traditional identification of Melville's novel as a "romance" renders it complicitous in the discourse of the Cold War. At the same time, Spanos shows how New Americanist criticism overlooks the degree to which Moby-Dick anticipates not only America's self-representation as the savior of the world against communism, but also the emergent postmodern and anti-imperial discourse deployed against such an image. Spanos's critique reveals the extraordinary relevance of Melville's novel as a post-Cold War text, foreshadowing not only the self-destructive end of the historical formation of the American cultural identity in the genocidal assault on Vietnam, but also the reactionary labeling of the current era as "the end of history".
speaking of melville's moby dick, as we were the other day - this morning i came across an amazon review of an independently published edited reprint - ISBN 1717979785
ReplyDeletethe blurb states
Most modern readers don't know that Melville's work addresses the timeless themes of God, sea monsters, and ambergris. That's because his books are about whalers doing things a really long time ago that nobody could relate to -- until now. L. Q. Puffbuster has adapted this classic to help modern readers relate to the original source material. Specifically, modern readers named Todd. The main character has been renamed "Todd" so the trials of this mid-19th century whaler will have special poignancy for readers also named Todd (or reader that know somebody named Todd). Critics agree: this book is better now.
one person comments:
4.0 out of 5 stars Changing "Ishmael" to "Todd" - who knows if it's good or bad?
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021
Allegedly it makes our viewpoint character more relatable - I feel doubtful about this. I deduct one star from the book's rating for this. But if you find this more appealing, then go ahead and get this book. You could certainly spend your money on something worse.
as the price has been marked down to $5.75, i decided to buy it now
i note that there is a chapter titled "The Question of Ishmael's Name" in
The Errant Art of Moby-Dick:
The Canon, the Cold War, and the Struggle for American Studies
By William V. Spanos
Duke University Press
https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822379584
ISBN electronic:
978-0-8223-7958-4
Publication date:
1995
prices for used copies of this book begin at about eight dollars, plus shipping
the back cover text:
In The Errant Art of Moby-Dick, one of America's most distinguished critics reexamines Melville's monumental novel and turns the occasion into a meditation on the history and implications of canon formation. In Moby-Dick--a work virtually ignored and discredited at the time of its publication--William V. Spanos uncovers a text remarkably suited as a foundation for a "New Americanist" critique of the ideology based on Puritan origins that was codified in the canon established by "Old Americanist" critics from F. O. Matthiessen to Lionel Trilling. But Spanos also shows, with the novel still as his focus, the limitations of this "New Americanist" discourse and its failure to escape the totalizing imperial perspective it finds in its predecessor.Combining Heideggerian ontology with a sociopolitical perspective derived primarily from Foucault, the reading of Moby-Dick that forms the center of this book demonstrates that the traditional identification of Melville's novel as a "romance" renders it complicitous in the discourse of the Cold War. At the same time, Spanos shows how New Americanist criticism overlooks the degree to which Moby-Dick anticipates not only America's self-representation as the savior of the world against communism, but also the emergent postmodern and anti-imperial discourse deployed against such an image. Spanos's critique reveals the extraordinary relevance of Melville's novel as a post-Cold War text, foreshadowing not only the self-destructive end of the historical formation of the American cultural identity in the genocidal assault on Vietnam, but also the reactionary labeling of the current era as "the end of history".