Portrait format and peripheral vision. (Yes, kids, that’s two long-form blog posts in one week! It’s like 2005 or something.)
As the last of the snow melts, I’ll re-post this poem from a few years ago, which may be somewhat more charming than its title indicates: “Cheap Sonnet No. 28F. In Which the Poet Observes a Child Behaving Disgustingly.”
“Note of Longing,” a carving based on a 1754 illuminated hymnal.
Die Blummegans (pl. Blummegense, though no two have ever been seen at once) brings spring to the earth.
If I search the web for any Kafka story, all I get is information about “Metamorphosis.” That in itself feels like a Kafka story.
Because everybody's a capitalist
Freddie deBoer: There remains a slice of the liberal populace that simply cannot accept the idea that any given human relationship might be healthy, mutually beneficial, and consensual among all parties…. And the question is… why? For whose benefit? Why does this 21st-century progressive impulse to seek out victims where none can be found persist? I don’t pay for deBoer’s Substack, can’t read the rest of the post, and won’t buy his book: there are so many books I’d like to read, and this will never make the cut.
Be ye not deluded by false groundhogs!
In keeping with the earthbound-spiritual roots of “Groundhog Day,” while we don’t have any large hibernating mammals around here, I do observe that though it was about as cold here this morning as it ever gets, and while we still have pretty consistent snow cover, the birds are active but show no particular urgency in finding food. It seems a hopeful sign. If, however, you prefer theme-park heritage and formulaic self-parody, then let me warn you to beware of false prophets: the One True Groundhog, Octorara Orphie, did not see his shadow this morning, and we will indeed have an early spring.
The hedgehog knows one big thing, but damned if he can articulate it to you. You’re just going to have to figure it out on your own.
High-pitched shrieking in the distance suggests that the small amount of ice-glazed snow on the ground at least makes good sledding. Otherwise, silence: the high-pitched sleet-static, that candy-wrapper-crinkling-in-the-movie-theater sound, has stopped for the moment.
Related to my last post:
Truth is the asymptotic limit of sensitive attempts to be responsible to our actual experience of the world… ‘sensitive attempts to be responsible’ means truth is the result of attention. (As opposed to inspection.) Of looking informed by love. Of really looking.
(Jan Zwicky, in Wisdom and Metaphor, quoted by Ian McGilchrist)