The Inescapable Part

Dying Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

~ Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus"

There is, I think, a certain art to self-destruction: but only in retrospect. When one is in the midst of destroying oneself (as in the throes of alcoholic delirium tremens, for instance) there is not much in the way of art -- just a lot of painful sing-song voices and dancing about old times waiting for some non-existent savior to bring you another bottle.

However, in retrospect -- after the pain has become a distant, evolutionarily muted memory -- a certain odd beauty emerges, rather like one of those alien hybrid worlds of Lovecraft's work ... The intensity of the moment quiets and the sound of paramedics and sirens and the rush of nurses to get the IV in all become just a part of a tapestry ... that's it.

But the worst part of it all -- the inescapable part! -- is when the people we love no longer see this thing as a grand work of art, but as a simple refusal to live. And now here is where I'll get philosophical ...

Life on life's terms. -- I hate that phrase. It is spoken by the weak who pretend that Life is somehow an entity to be approached with reverence and awe like some sort of biblical manifestation of the deity. No! Life is nothing but a jumble of possibilities crammed into a very small personal space, with nowhere to go unless we drag them along with us on our unpredictable journey into the dark unknown, the boundless night, the pure chaos of non-being -- toward which we are all headed.

When Kurtz cried his famous line, "The horror! the horror!," he was not referring to anything inside or about him, but rather about the life-denying world that he tried to escape! Unsuccessfully, of course. The true artist wants to do two things at once: stay in the world and love it; and escape from it and laugh sardonically at its folly from a safe distance, or height. At worst, of course, the artist is like Byron's Manfred, pulled back from the precipice by the lowly chamois hunter. So what are we to do?

Remember to cry at Christmas (or whatever holiday you observe) for the family you've lost. But rejoice in the fact that you are INDOMITABLE.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware.

Out of the ash I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.

Sylvia, her last word on the matter

It's Time

It's time to have a conversation with myself, one in which I invoke the great lord of language, and pretend to be one of them ...

It's time to allow myself a little leeway ... some sad setting of my sun that makes no sense to anyone.

It's time to wander the streets of my own sad mind, to stand in awe of what I've become, without striving to overcome.

It's time to ask a really tough question: Am I worthless? Probably, but that's good -- because this life is worthless.

Somebody somewhere said that personhood is not to be taken lightly ... it's a gift. I beg to differ. It's a curse. Promise me (oh my soul) never to fall into a sad state, one in which you give up ... promise me never to abandon the power that rises above you, on a daily basis ...

Shall I vie with Walt Whitman? I think it's time. Here I go:

There is no song better than the one I sing to myself, no life better than the one I lead ... no difference between my own ass and the tree, no time to ask why ... no dalliance of the flesh, no succor of the sad little stream of consciousness that I call Myself.

I staggered into a supermarket in Philadelphia (not California) and I wanted to know why this luscious whore was inviting me to a session. I didn't ask ... much to my everlasting sorrow.

I'm trying to imitate Whitman but I can't -- so I'll be Edward. Listen:

There is no song better than the one that spurts from my loins, and antagonizes the earth with a demand.

There is no song better than this classic little piece of self-righteous bullshit that I spew ... No better song than the one I am typing like a drunken fool ...

There is no song better than the hope for ONE MORE DAY ...

(Thanks Walt)

Not a reverie

"The fact is, if I were certain of anything, I would be inclined toward Manicheism," said Des Hermies. "It's one of the oldest and it is the simplest of religions, and it best explains the abominable mess everything is in at the present time. The Principle of Good and the Principle of Evil, the God of Light and the God of Darkness, two rivals, are fighting for our souls. That's at least clear. Right now it is evident that the Evil God has the upper hand and is reigning over the world as master."

~ J. K. Huysmans, La-Bas

This novel, the title of which is variously translated, in an effort to overcome the untranslatable (I simply consider it "The Depth"), is one of the finest expressions of spiritual struggle ever put to paper. If a novel can have a thesis, I would say that the thesis of La-Bas is: Those who long for the spiritual heights of blessedness, when frustrated in their quest, will seek the shorter, easier road of damnation. Indeed, the intellectual centerpiece of this work is the life and trial of the fifteenth-century Satanist and violator of children Gilles de Rais, who has never (in my opinion) received a better analysis than that provided by Huysmans, through his fictional mouthpiece Durtal.

It is a habit of religionists or "spiritual" people (of whatever stripe) to praise the Deity for every good thing that befalls them (without ever considering their own role in their own good fortune) and to exonerate the same Deity for every bad thing ... God always comes out smelling like a rose. Of course, there are more intelligent notions of the divinity, which allow for a multitude of divine manifestations (not all of which are beneficent) and see life as a struggle between several opposing forces -- some of which (usually the bad) require placating. But I ask: Why invoke Deity at all? Is it not enough to know that we exist in a hostile environment? That our efforts make little headway towards the utopia that we envision in our wild, ethically-centered dreams?

Perhaps the best we can do is throw up our hands and repair to a bell-tower, high above the stinking vapors of a degenerate society. Perhaps we should all just snuff it, and settle the question of an afterlife when we meet (tautologically) in the afterlife. Better yet, let's do as Baudelaire counseled, and just get drunk.

Awe ... shucks!

Irving Babbitt, (the curmudgeonly foe of Romanticism, but such a fine writer) made a valuable distinction between "awe" and "wonder." The former, he noted, is an emotion born of the experience of a certain "unity" or "manifoldness" that "transcends" the individual, making ethical consideration moot, in the face of the Sublime (cf. his Rousseau and Romanticism, 1919). The latter, he said, is the emotion felt by the unreflective observer who simply gapes in astonishment at that which he does not understand. To make an idol of this emotion, to write poems expressing the ineffable glory of nature, without any attempt to conceptualize Her, is (according to Babbitt) the height of anti-humanistic irresponsibility. Now I am a partisan of Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode," and I've spent a large portion of my life elucidating the works of 'mystics' like Plotinus, the Pseudo-Dionysius, various Gnostics, the Cappadocian Fathers, and others ... Yet I am sensitive to the need for a humanism, especially in our present era of religious warfare, sanctimonious politics, hero-worship, and cookie-cutter "persons" ... Analysis, deep introspection, a glorying in the uniqueness of the self, is likely a recipe for loneliness, but not insanity. In our present age, the one who stands apart and erects a monument that sluttish time cannot besmear, is one for whom awe easily turns to disgust. The great Classical writers, so admired by Babbitt, were disgusted with the density of their age, yet enamored of the possibilities. This is the entire point of aesthetically responsible existence: to aim for that which should be, while hating vigorously that which is.

When Charon picked up his last passenger (cf. Lord Dunsany's vignette, he smiled and cried ... Smiled at the end of his labors, and cried at the loss if his raison d'etre: that is a superficial reading. The more involved reading suggests a love of change, an attachment to the unexpected, which is the recipe for sublimity. Awe-inspiring events suggest a realm heretofore unexplored, possibilities untapped ... The tired self is energized with a new reason for being, a new direction, even if it is shudder-producing, fearful in the extreme ... We crave these things. It is what makes us human. To sail off into the wide seas, expecting death but hoping for some grand alteration -- not only of one's own life but of all humanity -- that is the stuff of humanism, of awe

Speaking only of myself, as I embark on this vast sea of logoi (my newfound sobriety and new acquaintances and ... yes, new-old love) ... as I embark, I recite a line (modified to myself) from one of my favorite poems: And though I am not that strength which in old days riled up my Christian colleagues at philosophy conferences, / that which I am, I am: one equal temper of antagonistic analysis / Made weak by drink and intolerance, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Prep quotes

"Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?"

~ Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California"

"Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.

'I am the last,' he said.

No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep."

~ Lord Dunsany, "Charon"

Two Poems

Contra Marilynn: An Exorcism

I don't feel like forty

It cannot be

In me you may behold that time of year when the icy claws strike back, and rend the shroud that has been placed by unloving hands over my still palpating flesh.

The other day I said something to someone that made little sense, as usual

The other day I revealed something of myself that made no sense (to me)

This day I woke up, reveling in the absurd notion that I can embrace life in the iconic form of my ideal: flesh encapsulating Beauty.

I feel like a child, needy and silly and full of shit.

I feel like a young man, horny as hell.

I feel like an ecclesiastic, prepping souls for hell.

I DO NOT feel like forty.

If you say so, darling ... if you care to speak ... I'll shatter your tongue with forced fingers rude ...

Yes, logos does not contain an omega: I mispronounced it. But you ... you made an end worthy of a fiend. And I begin again, with an angel.

To One Who Comes After, and Ever Before

Certain songs make us feel like there should be no other songs, as though all other attempts are empty, annoying, and unfruitful. Springsteen's "Thunder Road" obliterates all other songs, at least while it is playing.

There is a woman who makes me feel like there is no other. Her name is not Lisa, nor Debbie, nor Barbara ... nor, even, Marilynn (the sacred one) ... Her name is that of a month, the cruelest, and I love her. No trope to be deciphered. A time and a place.

A romance of crippled souls? No. A new morning, unlike any other. She is a Grace, a Muse, and a problematical little entity that prospers as she inspires. I love her.

A silly man am I. She provides an antidote. But there is a little spot in Kennedy Park, a spot beneath a tree, a spot where I gave it all up ... a spot where I envisaged some grand work ... I asked her for an opinion, and like a piercing truth she stood ... Too pretty for words. I don't like beauty, but I love pretty. I love the work of an hour, when the gods laughed at our little gambit.

Section of a Work in Progress

The Literature of Atmosphere

Edward Moore, PhD

©2013

Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation.

~ H. P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature"

The English word ‘atmosphere’ derives from an ancient Greek word (ATMOS) meaning “vapor” and the Latin sphaera, sphere; literally, the word means the vapor surrounding our sphere, or globe, i.e., earth. When used in relation to a work of art, specifically literature, the term denotes an inescapable emotional or aesthetic force or style that permeates the work, giving it the necessary “staying power” that separates true art from mere production or entertainment. In our time, when post-modern influences have caused us to view any and every work of art as merely a production of a given moment, a set of signifiers whose meaning is culturally determined and therefore – ephemeral; in such a time it is important, I think, to find some element in works of art that can be owned by the person, subjected to his or her own unique stance in and toward the world, and rendered meaningful, in a manner irrespective of inter-personal communication and the ethical demands of such. In short, if I determine a particular work to be a masterpiece because I enjoy dwelling in its atmosphere, I have come as close as possible to a pre- or even (perhaps) non-linguistic appreciation of said artwork. Understanding fully that thought without language is impossible, I feel it is possible to approach closely to source of thought, in a non-linguistic fashion, by focusing on the atmosphere of certain works. This focus will, of course, lead to the necessary conceptualization that makes all experience meaningful and iterable. But as a touchstone for aesthetic value, atmosphere can serve as a solid ground upon which to establish a humanistic – as opposed to a cultural or ideological – theory of art. By “humanistic” I mean the natural set of responses that arise from a pre-reflective attitude toward the structured examples of life that we call art. I realize I am begging many questions here: nature as something stable and uniformly accessible; structure as strictly the result of a human (reflective, conscious) act; and art as an effort to save oneself from the miasma of meaninglessness that is destructive to all cultures (especially our present one, so-called). I beg some questions for the sake of this thesis: The desire to persist in being is born of the response to an atmosphere that calls the creative powers of the person forth, into a realm of possibilities.

When I was a young reader – I mean very young, single digits – I responded to poems and stories based upon their atmospheric impact. For example, Beowulf struck me as a “blue and white” work, a work of winter – a clear and enjoyable winter. The violence and sorrow of that poem were ameliorated by the atmosphere surrounding Heorot, the rough courtesy of the coastguard who first encountered Beowulf, the bright feast scenes in the mead-hall, etc. … As a child, these were the elements of the poem on which I focused, and these elements fueled my fantasy-life, which eventually led me to the professional study of literature, philosophy, and other conceptual artifacts of Western culture. Indeed, only later, after immersion in academia, did I find it necessary to interpret the poem on a variety of “culturally responsible” levels – all of which took me away from the initial impact of that masterpiece. I am not saying that a superficial reading of a great work of art is preferable to a profound study of such, a study informed by all the currents of contemporary philosophy, psychology, and critical theory; no, I am merely questioning whether theories of art dependent upon elaborate conceptual schemas are really preferable to the immediate accessibility given to us by the closest thing we can get to a pre-linguistic response to a linguistic construct: atmosphere.

The poems of Keats I found to be “brown” works, encrusted with the dinginess of early nineteenth-century atmosphere: coal and engines and ugly industrial towns. This, despite the fact that Keats inhabited an atmosphere far removed from the labors of the working-class. Nevertheless, my inherited notions of his era forced a sort of irony into my appreciation of his poetry. I recognized a master, albeit one who had lived in a rather aesthetically unpleasing period. Granted, a production like Lamia required the rather morbid cast of mind of a disillusioned industrial-era aesthete. I love the work, it moves me … but it cannot compare to the manor-house gentility of the Gawain-poet, whose purposeful archaism in an already archaic age moves me beyond words. The sight of the words on the page, the survival of runic letters like Þ and Ʒ lend an extra air of antiquity to poems that are products of a mindset far removed from my own. Identification is a wonderful feeling: when one can relate to a writer and feel the inspiration that caused him to put pen to paper. But the disorientation produced by an alien theme, a strange mind, an unfamiliar atmosphere – that is what cultivates the mind, and engenders a liberalism, a tolerance, that is necessary for the continuation of the human project, the “conversation of Western civilization” (as Rorty put it).