necessity of understanding the relation between modernism and postmodernism as temporal, but not periodic. That is, postmodernism is modernism's future, just as modernism is postmodernism's past, but the connection between the past of postmodernism and the future of modernism is neither causal nor sequential; rather, it is an overlapping that reveals the degree to which the modernist anticipation of postmodernism and the postmodernist recollection of modernism comprise modes of repetition-with-a-difference...The relation of the modern to the postmodern, then, is one in which each verges on the other, indicating the continued presence (posterior or anterior) and limits of the other. 519
Stein's repetitions also create some complex effects. As words (for example, "feeling") subtly change meaning with each iteration, Stein demonstrates the relationship between language and time 17
Friday, December 3, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The Land of LIttle Rain
I confess to a great liking for the Indian fashion of name-giving: every man known by that phrase which best expresses him to whoso names him...according as he is called by friend or enemy...No other fashion, I think, Set so well with the various natures that inhabit in us...and does not originate in the poor human desire for perpetuity xxxv
the County of Los Borders 3
One hopes the land my breed like qualities in her human offspring, not tritely to "try," but to do. 5
It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the wide clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured...Of no account you who lie out there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from you and howls and howls. 10
I suppose the dumb creatures know nearly as much of death as do their betters, who have only the more imagination. 20
hawks came trooping like small boys to a street fight...Nothing happens in the deep wood that the blue jays are not all agog to tell. 22
Man is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other except the bear makes so much noise...the economy of nature, but with it all there is not sufficient account taken of the works of man. There is no scavenger that eats tin cans, and no wild thing leaves a like disfigurement on the forest floor. 24
There are many strange sorts of humans bred in a mining country, each sort despising the queernesses of the other 27
they behavior as history and judge it by facts, untroubled by invention and the dramatic sense 45
names that smacked of the soil 46
there is a certain indifference, blankness, emptiness if you will, of all vaporings, no bubbling of the pot,—it wants the German to coin a work for that...It is pure Greek in that it represents the courage to sheer off what is not what whole...Life, its performance, cessation, is no new thing to gape and wonder at 47
Out West, the west of the mesas and the unpatented hills, there is more sky than any place in the world. It does not sit flatly on the rim of earth, but begins somewhere out in the space in which the earth is poised, hollows more, and is full of clean winey winds. 62
To understand the fashion of any life, one must know the land it is lived in and the procession of the year. 65
The homesickness of an Indian is often unto death, since he gets no relief from it; neither wine nor weed nor sky-line, nor any aspect of the hills of a strange land sufficiently like his own. 68
But they are left borders and breathing-space out of pure kindness. They are not pushed out except by the exigencies of the noble plan which they accept with a dignity the rest of us have not yet learned. 78
That was the Homeric age of settlement and passed into tradition. Twelve years later one of the CLarks, holding Greenfields, not so very green by now, shot one of the Judsons. Perhaps he hoped that also might become classic, but the jury found for manslaughter. 87
The Indian never concerns himself, as the botanist and the poet, with the plant's appearances and relations, but what it can do for him. 89
The music goes before, the folk fall in two and two, singing. They sing everything, America, the Marseillaise, for the sake of the French shepherds hereabout, the hymn of Cuba, and the Chilian national air to comfort two families of that land. 107
I am persuaded only a complex soul can get any good of a plain religion. Your earthborn is a poet and symbolist. We breed in an environment of asphalt pavements a body of people whose creeds are chiefly restrictions against other people's way of life, and have kitchens and latrines under the same roof that house their God. 108
the way they count relationship everybody is more or less akin. 108
the County of Los Borders 3
One hopes the land my breed like qualities in her human offspring, not tritely to "try," but to do. 5
It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the wide clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured...Of no account you who lie out there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from you and howls and howls. 10
I suppose the dumb creatures know nearly as much of death as do their betters, who have only the more imagination. 20
hawks came trooping like small boys to a street fight...Nothing happens in the deep wood that the blue jays are not all agog to tell. 22
Man is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other except the bear makes so much noise...the economy of nature, but with it all there is not sufficient account taken of the works of man. There is no scavenger that eats tin cans, and no wild thing leaves a like disfigurement on the forest floor. 24
There are many strange sorts of humans bred in a mining country, each sort despising the queernesses of the other 27
they behavior as history and judge it by facts, untroubled by invention and the dramatic sense 45
names that smacked of the soil 46
there is a certain indifference, blankness, emptiness if you will, of all vaporings, no bubbling of the pot,—it wants the German to coin a work for that...It is pure Greek in that it represents the courage to sheer off what is not what whole...Life, its performance, cessation, is no new thing to gape and wonder at 47
Out West, the west of the mesas and the unpatented hills, there is more sky than any place in the world. It does not sit flatly on the rim of earth, but begins somewhere out in the space in which the earth is poised, hollows more, and is full of clean winey winds. 62
To understand the fashion of any life, one must know the land it is lived in and the procession of the year. 65
The homesickness of an Indian is often unto death, since he gets no relief from it; neither wine nor weed nor sky-line, nor any aspect of the hills of a strange land sufficiently like his own. 68
But they are left borders and breathing-space out of pure kindness. They are not pushed out except by the exigencies of the noble plan which they accept with a dignity the rest of us have not yet learned. 78
That was the Homeric age of settlement and passed into tradition. Twelve years later one of the CLarks, holding Greenfields, not so very green by now, shot one of the Judsons. Perhaps he hoped that also might become classic, but the jury found for manslaughter. 87
The Indian never concerns himself, as the botanist and the poet, with the plant's appearances and relations, but what it can do for him. 89
The music goes before, the folk fall in two and two, singing. They sing everything, America, the Marseillaise, for the sake of the French shepherds hereabout, the hymn of Cuba, and the Chilian national air to comfort two families of that land. 107
I am persuaded only a complex soul can get any good of a plain religion. Your earthborn is a poet and symbolist. We breed in an environment of asphalt pavements a body of people whose creeds are chiefly restrictions against other people's way of life, and have kitchens and latrines under the same roof that house their God. 108
the way they count relationship everybody is more or less akin. 108
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Good, better, best, bested 32
All right...what do you want me to say? Do you want me to say it's funny, so you can contradict me and say it's sad? of do you want me to say it's sad so you can turn around and say no, it's funny. You can play that damn little game any way you want to, you know! / Very good! Very good! 33
Martha and I are having...nothing...exercising...that's all 33
It's just that I don't like to...become involved 34
But you are going to have kids...anyway. In spite of history. 40
will lose its glorious variety and unpredictability. I and with me the...the surprise, the multiplexity, the sea-changing rhythm of...history, will be eliminated. There will be order and constancy 67
I've been drawing you out on this stuff...because you represent a direct and pertinent threat to my lifehood 111
You ineffectual sons of bitches...you're the worst 111
you make government and art, and realize that they are, must be, both the same...you bring things to the saddest of all points 117
You given up? / No...no. It's just I've got to figure out some new way to fight you, Martha. Guerilla tactics, maybe...internal subversion...I don't know. Something. 125
They're dancing like they've danced before. / It's a familiar dance...they both know it 131
THE GAME IS OVER! 136
This isn't a novel at all...this is the truth...this really happened...TO ME! 137
Well! That's one game. What shall we do now, hunh? 138
We gotta play a game. 139
We'll play a round of Get the Guests 140
By God, you gotta have a swing to show you where the truffles are. 149
I'll play the charades like you're got 'em set up...I'll play in your language...I'll be what you say I am. / You are already...you just don't know it. / No...no. Not really. But I'll be it, mister...I'll show you something come to life you'll wish you hadn't set up. 151
you've moved bag and baggage into your own fantasy world now, and you've started playing variations of your own distortions 155
It's snapped, finally. Not me...it. The whole arrangement. 156
You can't come together with nothing, and you're nothing. 158
who keeps learning the game we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy, and yes I do wish to be happy. 191
There's no limit to you, is there? / No, baby; none. 194
No more games...please. It's game I don't want. No more games. 207
There's a real mother talking 222
YOU CANNOT DO THAT! YOU CAN'T DECIDE THAT FOR YOURSELF! 232
I think I understand this. 236
We never spoke of it; that's all. I could kill him any time I wanted to...You broke our rule, baby. You mentioned him...you mentioned him to someone else. 236
It will be better...It will be...maybe 240
Are you all right? / Yes. No. 241
All right...what do you want me to say? Do you want me to say it's funny, so you can contradict me and say it's sad? of do you want me to say it's sad so you can turn around and say no, it's funny. You can play that damn little game any way you want to, you know! / Very good! Very good! 33
Martha and I are having...nothing...exercising...that's all 33
It's just that I don't like to...become involved 34
But you are going to have kids...anyway. In spite of history. 40
will lose its glorious variety and unpredictability. I and with me the...the surprise, the multiplexity, the sea-changing rhythm of...history, will be eliminated. There will be order and constancy 67
I've been drawing you out on this stuff...because you represent a direct and pertinent threat to my lifehood 111
You ineffectual sons of bitches...you're the worst 111
you make government and art, and realize that they are, must be, both the same...you bring things to the saddest of all points 117
You given up? / No...no. It's just I've got to figure out some new way to fight you, Martha. Guerilla tactics, maybe...internal subversion...I don't know. Something. 125
They're dancing like they've danced before. / It's a familiar dance...they both know it 131
THE GAME IS OVER! 136
This isn't a novel at all...this is the truth...this really happened...TO ME! 137
Well! That's one game. What shall we do now, hunh? 138
We gotta play a game. 139
We'll play a round of Get the Guests 140
By God, you gotta have a swing to show you where the truffles are. 149
I'll play the charades like you're got 'em set up...I'll play in your language...I'll be what you say I am. / You are already...you just don't know it. / No...no. Not really. But I'll be it, mister...I'll show you something come to life you'll wish you hadn't set up. 151
you've moved bag and baggage into your own fantasy world now, and you've started playing variations of your own distortions 155
It's snapped, finally. Not me...it. The whole arrangement. 156
You can't come together with nothing, and you're nothing. 158
who keeps learning the game we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy, and yes I do wish to be happy. 191
There's no limit to you, is there? / No, baby; none. 194
No more games...please. It's game I don't want. No more games. 207
There's a real mother talking 222
YOU CANNOT DO THAT! YOU CAN'T DECIDE THAT FOR YOURSELF! 232
I think I understand this. 236
We never spoke of it; that's all. I could kill him any time I wanted to...You broke our rule, baby. You mentioned him...you mentioned him to someone else. 236
It will be better...It will be...maybe 240
Are you all right? / Yes. No. 241
Twilight
This play requires a different kind of acting than psychological realism and depend on an "informed actor" 4
Language in this play creates identity, not from the words themselves, but from the actual arrangement of the words. 5
be a specific and individual as possible to avoid stereotype 5
It is useful to think of all the physical properties as functional, rather than decorative or indicative 5
The play sees actors as cultural workers, who reach towards that which is "other" than themselves. 6
The task for all the actors is to suspend judgment and stereotype at all times. 7
If a character is identified as "black," it is not the author's intention that a black person play the role. IF a character is identified as a "woman," it is not the author's intention that a woman necessarily play the role...The theory of the play is that an actor has the ability to walk in another person's "words," and therefore in their hearts. 7
Suggested casting for a company of six
One Korean male
One white female
One white male
One Latino male
One black male
One black female 8
And these are gang meetings / for the purpose of truces... / (The author was momentarily distracted.) / Pay attention! (Short laugh.) 25
this city has abused both sides..."Why do I have to be on a side? / There's a problem here!" 28
So we stayed and we watched the whole thing 50
We just feel like we were pawns that were thrown away by he system 57
I mean I haven't seen a movie like that! 61
See we showed the insides. / The core...It came forward / It / let it be known 66
"you could hear little bits / of information... / It's like we were transmitting / thoughts / to each other / all across the restaurant... / Just generic-guilt 76
it was like a carnival out there 94
And I felt I were being heard for the first time / it would not be singed as we know it / It would be a roar 100
But the reason why he's comic. / rather than tragic / is that he allows himself to linger longer / on the different manifestations / of sadness and sorrow. / He doesn't skip over! 107
Very few white people could / actually take seriously, / black sadness and live the lives that / they livin 108
And when things fell apart in this / country / in the fifties and sixties, / and everything / became processed 137
So to me, it's like I'm stuck in limbo, / like the sun is stuck between night and day, / in the twilight hours, / You know? / I'm in an area not many people exist. 170
Language in this play creates identity, not from the words themselves, but from the actual arrangement of the words. 5
be a specific and individual as possible to avoid stereotype 5
It is useful to think of all the physical properties as functional, rather than decorative or indicative 5
The play sees actors as cultural workers, who reach towards that which is "other" than themselves. 6
The task for all the actors is to suspend judgment and stereotype at all times. 7
If a character is identified as "black," it is not the author's intention that a black person play the role. IF a character is identified as a "woman," it is not the author's intention that a woman necessarily play the role...The theory of the play is that an actor has the ability to walk in another person's "words," and therefore in their hearts. 7
Suggested casting for a company of six
One Korean male
One white female
One white male
One Latino male
One black male
One black female 8
And these are gang meetings / for the purpose of truces... / (The author was momentarily distracted.) / Pay attention! (Short laugh.) 25
this city has abused both sides..."Why do I have to be on a side? / There's a problem here!" 28
So we stayed and we watched the whole thing 50
We just feel like we were pawns that were thrown away by he system 57
I mean I haven't seen a movie like that! 61
See we showed the insides. / The core...It came forward / It / let it be known 66
"you could hear little bits / of information... / It's like we were transmitting / thoughts / to each other / all across the restaurant... / Just generic-guilt 76
it was like a carnival out there 94
And I felt I were being heard for the first time / it would not be singed as we know it / It would be a roar 100
But the reason why he's comic. / rather than tragic / is that he allows himself to linger longer / on the different manifestations / of sadness and sorrow. / He doesn't skip over! 107
Very few white people could / actually take seriously, / black sadness and live the lives that / they livin 108
And when things fell apart in this / country / in the fifties and sixties, / and everything / became processed 137
So to me, it's like I'm stuck in limbo, / like the sun is stuck between night and day, / in the twilight hours, / You know? / I'm in an area not many people exist. 170
The Great Gatsby
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past 180
Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder 180
that huge incoherent failure of a house 179
unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all...subtly unadaptable to Eastern life. 175-6
A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about 161
(the sick and the well) 124
"Her voice is full of money" 120
I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words...what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.
they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing. 99
the colossal vitality of his illusion 95
"Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die 66
sprang from him Platonic conception of himself 98
"And I like large parties. They're so intimate" 49
It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella'a a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. thoroughness! What realism! Knew what to stop, too—didn't cut the pages. 46 (stage director interested in perfect illusion)
"I never care what I do, so I always have a good time" 43
like a photograph of a man of action 36
Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder 180
that huge incoherent failure of a house 179
unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all...subtly unadaptable to Eastern life. 175-6
A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about 161
(the sick and the well) 124
"Her voice is full of money" 120
I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words...what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.
they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing. 99
the colossal vitality of his illusion 95
"Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die 66
sprang from him Platonic conception of himself 98
"And I like large parties. They're so intimate" 49
It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella'a a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. thoroughness! What realism! Knew what to stop, too—didn't cut the pages. 46 (stage director interested in perfect illusion)
"I never care what I do, so I always have a good time" 43
like a photograph of a man of action 36
John Ashbery
Soonest Mended
We are all talkers / It is true, but underneath the talk lies / The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose / Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor.
though meaning could be cast aside some day / When it had been outgrown
though nothing / Has somehow come to nothing
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
But your eyes proclaim / That everything is surface
No words to say what it really is, that it is not / Superficial but a visible core
I see in this only the chaos / Of your round mirror which organizes everything / Around the polestar of your eyes which are empty, / Know nothing, dream but reveal nothing
Tomorrow is easy, but today is uncharted
just as one / Gets accustomed to a noise that / Kept one awake but now no longer does
New York / Where I am now, which is a logarithm / Of other cities.
deflate / Its mapped space to enactments, island it.
Since it is a metaphor / Made to include us, we are a part of it
questioning / We now see will not take place at random / But in an orderly way that means to menace / Nobody
And we can no longer return to the various / Conflicting statements gathered, lapse of memory
We don't need paintings or / Doggerel written by mature poets when / The explosion is so precise, so fine
us / Who have been given no help whatever / In decoding our own man-size quotient and must rely / On second-hand knowledge.
to flatten ultimately / Among the features of the room, an invitation / Never mailed, the "it was all a dream" / Syndrome, though the "all" tells tersely / Enough how it wasn't. Its existence / Was real, though troubled,
and the ache / Of this waking dream can never drown out / The diagram still sketched on the wind, / Chosen, meant for me and materialized / In the disguising radiance of my room.
We are all talkers / It is true, but underneath the talk lies / The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose / Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor.
though meaning could be cast aside some day / When it had been outgrown
though nothing / Has somehow come to nothing
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
But your eyes proclaim / That everything is surface
No words to say what it really is, that it is not / Superficial but a visible core
I see in this only the chaos / Of your round mirror which organizes everything / Around the polestar of your eyes which are empty, / Know nothing, dream but reveal nothing
Tomorrow is easy, but today is uncharted
just as one / Gets accustomed to a noise that / Kept one awake but now no longer does
New York / Where I am now, which is a logarithm / Of other cities.
deflate / Its mapped space to enactments, island it.
Since it is a metaphor / Made to include us, we are a part of it
questioning / We now see will not take place at random / But in an orderly way that means to menace / Nobody
And we can no longer return to the various / Conflicting statements gathered, lapse of memory
We don't need paintings or / Doggerel written by mature poets when / The explosion is so precise, so fine
us / Who have been given no help whatever / In decoding our own man-size quotient and must rely / On second-hand knowledge.
to flatten ultimately / Among the features of the room, an invitation / Never mailed, the "it was all a dream" / Syndrome, though the "all" tells tersely / Enough how it wasn't. Its existence / Was real, though troubled,
and the ache / Of this waking dream can never drown out / The diagram still sketched on the wind, / Chosen, meant for me and materialized / In the disguising radiance of my room.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Lolita
destabilizing framing
When I try to analyze my own cravings, motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and which causes each visualized route to for and re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past. I am convinced, however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel. 13
bewitched travelers 16
the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power 17
teasing them with fake 'primal scenes' 34
I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor. Absolutely no harm done. (and more) 62
but Lo kept following the scent of rich food ads, while I derived a not exclusively economic kick from such roadside signs as TIMBER HOTEL, Children under 14 Free. 147
She it was to whom ads were dedicated: the ideal consumer, the subject and object of every foul poster. 148
Every morning during our yearlong travels I had to devise some expectation, some special point in space and time for her to look forward to, for her to survive till bedtime. Otherwise, deprived of a shaping and sustaining purpose, the skeleton of her day sagged and collapsed. 151 (roadside attractions)
I remember the operation was over, all over, and she was weeping in my arms;—a salutory storm of sobs after one of the fits of moodiness that had become so frequent with her in the course of that otherwise admirable year! 169
"There is no point in staying anywhere" 244
The journey had taken up most of June for we had seldom made more than a hundred and fifty miles per traveling day, spending the rest of the time, up to five days in one case, at various stopping places, all of them also prearranged, no doubt. 247
In one thing he succeeded: he succeeded in thoroughly enmeshing me and my thrashing anguish in his demoniacal game. 249
265 (literary characters stay the same)
The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me—not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience—that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good...I drove on the queer mirror side. 306
but Lo kept following the scent of rich food ads, while I derived a not exclusively economic kick from such roadside signs as TIMBER HOTEL, Children under 14 Free. 147
She it was to whom ads were dedicated: the ideal consumer, the subject and object of every foul poster. 148
Every morning during our yearlong travels I had to devise some expectation, some special point in space and time for her to look forward to, for her to survive till bedtime. Otherwise, deprived of a shaping and sustaining purpose, the skeleton of her day sagged and collapsed. 151 (roadside attractions)
I remember the operation was over, all over, and she was weeping in my arms;—a salutory storm of sobs after one of the fits of moodiness that had become so frequent with her in the course of that otherwise admirable year! 169
"There is no point in staying anywhere" 244
The journey had taken up most of June for we had seldom made more than a hundred and fifty miles per traveling day, spending the rest of the time, up to five days in one case, at various stopping places, all of them also prearranged, no doubt. 247
In one thing he succeeded: he succeeded in thoroughly enmeshing me and my thrashing anguish in his demoniacal game. 249
265 (literary characters stay the same)
The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me—not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience—that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good...I drove on the queer mirror side. 306
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