EMBALMING

After my mother, my sister is the smartest woman I know. She has a photographic memory that I thoroughly envy, she raised her son in such commonsensical, but of the highest brilliance, way that it makes me cross myself at least three times a day; she is sharp and good at heart, and great fun to be around. Some six years ago, after having been a head nurse in obstetrics and gynecology for ten years, she decided to embark on an academic career. She studied full time at two different universities while also working full time. So it goes with insomniacs and ‘mnemoniacs’. You hate their guts, really. Of course, she aced everything. In her five-year specialized psychology education paralleled by a three year program in general (Freudian) psychology at another university, not once did she score anything other than the highest. And as tradition has it, of course, she was the one who did the speech at the end. She told me that she was surprised to learn that she had the highest average on faculty level in both universities when she was asked to produce some witticisms at the graduation. I mean, give me a break.

Now she’s coming to Denmark to try her luck at a job here. She’ll be with me for the next three months. She has already started learning Danish – and she’s already pretty good at it. To my distress when I think of my own lot. After 20 years in Denmark, I still have a goddamned accent. Now, although I have other things in store for her while she’ll be here than the tedious task of hunting jobs, I’m excited, particularly as I hope that she will spark some energy into my future. As of late, I’ve been vacillating between ditching everything and assuming the life of a monk in Norway or some other mountain plateau – Himalaya is quite attractive – and putting on paper the couple of books I have in my head so that Roskilde U can make me a full professor by the end of the year. (With the right discipline, I can write a book in a week if I want to, so it shouldn't be a problem – and this I know for certain, because I’ve done it before). But now I’m thinking that my sister may be able to inspire me in other ways than the two diametrically opposed scenarios that I have in mind. If nothing else, she can inspire me to keep up painting, as I’ve started dabbing my brushes into acrylic. She is qualified enough. She once had a drawing exhibition in Arad that was highly praised some 20 years ago, so it may be that we’ll both go visual for a change. This reminds me of an episode, which at least for her, because of its powerful imagery, proved to be very instructive.

When mother died in 1998, she made my sister promise that before she’ll get buried she’ll have an autopsy. As it turned out, according to the doctors, this wasn’t necessary. However, as my sister took care of everything – I only showed up in Arad when she told me that mother was going to live two more days – she was adamant about fulfilling mother’s wish. But the doctors were also adamant. Autopsy was not necessary, they insisted. So what did a smart woman like my sister do? She arranged it with the undertaker that she had to be present when he would come to do the embalming – mother had insisted on dying in her own bed, so the whole formalin affair was to take place in the bedroom. Dictum, factum. After three hours with the dead corpse and an efficient undertaker, my sister came out of the room. (I wasn’t really interested in participating, even though I was offered the opportunity). Her face was pallid. So I asked her: how was it? The only thing she said was this: “if anyone needs their mother embalmed, cut up to pieces and all that, they can call me. I’m ready to do a high quality job.” I believed her. And I think that mother would also have been pleased with the compromising solution. Of course, later she told me that she actually had a bit of a problem sleeping the following month, as images of body parts kept interfering with her otherwise unified and whole peace of mind. But it was only for a while.

Over Christmas old people in their 80s who know my family told me that the women in it have an amazingly strong psyche. While I said that I didn’t think that it was any stronger than the average, now, as I anticipate my sister’s arrival, I’m reconsidering. God only knows what we’ll be capable of!

A happy and strong new year to all of you!

STAR WARS - A PURPLE TRILOGY

For the Jedi Knights

Episode I - Illuminations

You said yes to everything even before I opened my mouth. Then, when I did open my mouth, fragments came out if it. Now I want to yell at myself: “how are you going to make the fragment compatible with everything?” Someone bring in the mathematicians. Quickly! Meanwhile, I’m looking for a hammer that’s bigger than Nietzsche’s. No, wait, make it a lightsaber. Someone let me smash the fragment in the name of everything. The fragment raised to the power of maximum. Illuminated. When the time is right the maze will turn into a window. You will come out of the penumbra. Ready for an outbound flight.

Episode II - Dances

Jedi Ezra Pound is patrolling my site in his Star Cruiser. Jedi Junior Charles Olson is learning the craft of incantation. The Maximus Poems are born. By hand. I cite with an ax in my eye: “One loves only form / and form only comes / into existence when / the thing is born / born of yourself, born / of hay and cotton struts, / of street-picking, wharves, weeds / you carry in, my bird / of a bone of a fish / of a straw, or will / of a color, of a bell / of yourself torn.”

Master Yoda Wittgenstein sends Pound and Olson a telepathic question: “are you serious?” followed by an instruction: “Here’s how we think of quantifiers around here. ‘The sword Excalibur consists of parts combined in a particular way. If they are combined differently Excalibur does not exist.’” I ask the master, ah, so you’re a dancer? Do you know what Confucius said? Wittgenstein is thinking about it.

Episode III - Erudition

I, Queen Gertrude Anscombe – you can call me Elizabeth – am X’ing intentionally.

Master Yoda Wittgenstein lying on the lawn of the excluded middle wants to know: “Are you The First Person?”

Jedi Ezra Pound sends him a telepathic thought from the starship Maximus: “She is The First Person”, only, since he’s been cruising in circles and got dizzy, he confuses Queen Gertrude with the Writer Gertrude, the Other Yoda Stein, Gertrude Stein, who made him kneel and acknowledge her mastery. Fierfek!

I, The intended First person, The Second Person intentionally, and The Third Person intentionally intended ask you three: is the following Yodantic question the right question: “When all choices seem wrong, choose restraint?”

(Blast! By the Abyss! The Queen, in her capacity as The Third Person, is thinking that the First Person is just about to commit the moral fallacy, formulated thus by the Second Person: what do you care about what the right question is, when all consequentialism is purple?)

§

GET THE BOOK

HEADS

Some years ago I was alone in Siena. One fine morning at 6 o’clock I decided to have an espresso at Piazza del Campo. There were hardly any people around, and I was happy that I didn’t have to endure watching the tourists having the same expression on their faces – of wonder, though alas, not true wonder but a fake kind; the kind that is prepared especially for the folks back home, and which says the following: I’ve been in Siena, I’ve seen all these things, I understood nothing, how wonderful. So, if you want to be spared such pain, take my advice: go enjoying your espresso at the most attractive tourist sites, but not after 6 in the morning.

Thus fortunate, as I sat there in splendid quietude, a homeless person approached me. He asked me if I enjoyed what I saw. I certainly did, I replied. Then he said that if I was up to it, he would be willing to show me other sites that definitely looked much better at such early hours than otherwise. I was up to it, so off we went. He took me on top of the city first and then we walked for three hours. We ended our sightseeing at the Basilica of San Domenico, where they have Catherine of Siena’s head on display. Catherine, who was a most learned scholar, a scholastic philosopher and theologian, a tertiary of the Domincan order, died of a stroke at the age of 33 in 1380 in Rome. As it wasn’t easy to smuggle bodies from one region to another in those days, the people of Siena didn’t have any problems using their heads most creatively: they decapitated Catherine, put her head in a basket and off they ventured towards home. At the border, when asked to open their parcel, even a miracle happened. The head had transformed into a bunch of rose petals. As I stood watching Catherine’s head, that didn’t stay a rose, my homeless guide turned to me and said: “Cara mia, che sinistro, ma anche sublime, no?” “Certissimo,” I replied.

Siena for me will remain forever bounded with Sergio, who told me that I had a most enchanted head myself. Back home, upon telling folks about my experience, they all doubted that my head, however enchanting, had its wits in it, when I trusted and allowed a stranger to guide me at 6 o’clock in the morning. I said: “whatever.” Sergio gave me the best tour of the most beloved sites in Siena that I could ever think of. He told me the most unlikely stories. He gave me priceless information on what classical concert was on, when and where, and when we departed he asked me in the most courteous way that I’ve ever experienced whether he could kiss me on my cheek. “Certissimo,” I said again. Sometimes, I can still feel the warmth in his lips. Not even Catherine can beat that.

FOLDS

For Ida

The bed-sheets are white. The big book is black. Between them the body is naked. My white silk morning robe is at the house by the sea. I project reality between fire and knowledge. In reality I wear my lush silk everywhere. Also in dreams. I want salt in my hair. The sand is white. The sky is white. The zero degree temperature makes my hands white. I stick my pink toes into the water. The wind blows into my white wrap around. The peasants also possess knowledge. They are convinced that they see a crazy cosmopolitan. They nod. They know one when they see one. In the book of Romans it is written: "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." The clash of opposites, antitheta, is the most effective form of verbal eloquence. I enunciate into their mute faces: "I have faith." The wind blows the silk onto my face. I make sinful analogies. Of the fluid kind. Knowledge flows between our legs. Fire burns our heads. The book to ashes. The silk syncopates a fold. I hold on to it.

GIFTS

On the brink of sharing presents for Christmas, yet feeling guilty that most of all I would like to shower myself with the ultimate gift, that of making myself invisible and disappear (I’m tempted by Norway), I think of three things:


1. One of my sister’s favorite quotes, a law – Murphy’s law:

“Blessed be the ones who don’t expect anything. They will never be disappointed.”

2. Levinas’s theory of the naked face filtered through H.D.’s poetry:


“What was it you saw in my face?
The light of your own face,
The fire of your own presence?” (Eurydice)

3. New York

The first point I dismiss quickly. It doesn’t go at all with the little book about the history of infinity that I’m reading. Not with all that abstract boundlessness that Shakespeare offers:

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.” (Romeo and Juliet, II. ii. 33)

or the more concrete type that Robert Frost talks about:

"They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places." (A Further Range, Desert Places)

The second point I consider only briefly, since it takes longer to think about the possible implications of the possible answers to H.D.’s question. The scariest, and yet perhaps the most beautiful and absolute scenario would be taking stock of Blake’s famous formulation:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, A Memorable Fancy)

The third point, one that conflates space and place together through ways of seeing, or rather perceiving how we become part of one another, makes me think that the complexity of images – haptic, graphic, mental, verbal – created by what we imagine, project, and expect from each other is a vortex of unfolding a force of movement. We move each other, if, when, and how we think of each other. Sometimes this thought materializes in specific acts: acts of courtesy, acts of goodness, acts of love.

Now, one would like to ask: is there such a thing, as, for instance, courtesy of the absolute? Yes, I’d say, but never when we expect it. Here’s an example – a story, almost Hollywood style – but what the heck, if you put on the TV, you’ll be hit by a wave of romantic comedies, so a bit of sentimentality today, given that I’m still here, should be ok. In 2000 and 2001 I was in New York for several months doing research. I made friends with Sam, the Korean owner of Sam’s fruit and bagels bar on 8th Ave. and 52nd street, because I would pop in at regular but strange hours around midnight for watermelon and bagels. A quiet time, when Sam, who could barely speak a word of English even after 25 years in NYC, would feel less stressed and in my sole presence would pick up courage to ask me things. He soon found out that I went to the opera every night. He was horrified. He was sure that such extravagance must have been hard on my pocket, so without ever asking what I could afford, he simply insisted that my food be on the house. When I left New York, he cried. He gave me a box of Royal Jelly. I felt like a queen.

If I return to the first thought, on a day to day basis, Murphy has a point. In the absence of courteous acts, especially when we expect them, we must find a way to deal with our disappointment. We must go with the ‘so it goes.’ On the second thought, we must be grateful for the way in which others see us, especially if it touches us. So, gifts for Christmas. Why not? Here’s a thought for you all: when words fail us, “touch reminds us that reality is made up of others; touch is a lesson in objectivity.” (Sallie McFague, Super, Natural Christians)

MADRIGAL

Blowing in the wind. Head in clouds. Airy and eery knowledge. Here are some musical fragments from the beautiful Danish West Coast. But, as a good multicultural nomad that I am, I give you music that comes from Romania. The most famous - and with good reason - Romanian chamber choir, The Madrigal - sings 5 traditional carols for Christmas for you. Shalom.

HOLOMORPHIC

For Christoph Marthaler

The National Library. Winter time. One o’clock p.m. There is a lightning in the silence. I’m hiding behind a sheet of paper. Made in Germany some time around 1200. Matthew the Evangelist is depicted at his desk, scroll in hand, brush between the fingers. Johannes is taking a break. Hand on forehead. Thinking. Christoph and I are making conformal maps which we want to apply unto predictions. Infinity as a set in relation to exegetic hermeneutics as a set is either attractive, repellant, or indifferent. But as neither Christoph, nor I know anything about math, we have our own ways of studying sequences converging to the boundary along bubble trees. Complex analysis. While we declare that when infinity ceases to be attracting, the set gets weird, we watch the film Harold and Maude. On our iphones. Behind the manuscripts. He, embodying Matthew. Eyes fixing on the pristine scroll and Maude’s breasts. I, embodying Johannes. Ears recalling Schubert’s striking key. Getting vibrations from Harold’s gut. Das ist schön. We wander. Wir singen. “I like you Harold.” “I like you Maude.”

COSMIC CONSTRUCTIVISM

Two days ago, my students, a group of 7 girls (3 from Poland and 3 from Lithuania) writing on Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers, upon having received the highest grades in their oral exam were all ready to follow me – they didn’t know where, but they were ready. Some cried, and it wasn’t because they were over the moon, but because another of the students had suggested that it’s because I have, what she called, ‘the touch.’ They all agreed. Even the external examiner felt ‘touched.’ Yet he turned to the group and said, “yes, this woman can be very convincing, but you know, authorities can be challenged.” While they all agreed again, one of the students suggested, however, that where I was concerned, challenging me is extremely hard.

Indeed while this may appear to be so, I guide myself and the students through supervision by following some simple rules. I have a routine. I always start with looking the students straight into their eyes whereupon I lay down the conditional premise: if you work with me, I work with you; if you fuss, you’ll stumble, if you don’t, you’ll marvel. So two days ago, another marveling situation made me think that my days as a teacher may not be quite so over. In any event, the whole touching situation was rather touching. Of course, as I never lose my wits, I had enough presence of spirit to anticipate the reaction from the Danish Minister of Education should he learn that the students, after the exam, instead of being sent home with a solidly scientific figure, were instructed that what they had just been experiencing was the result of cosmic constructivism of the poetico-philosophico-metaphorical kind. The external examiner was ready to give me a grade for coming up with such a useful term. We all have our talents.

This reminds me of a conversation with my sister a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about our potential abilities to channel through other people whatever we may wish, both for them and for ourselves. As she is a psychologist, however, who believes more in projections rather than cosmic vibrations – whereas I think that I believe in a bit of both – she told me that the whole thing is more normal than paranormal, as it only takes the effort of focusing slightly more intently than otherwise in order to achieve a result. She gave me an example using her own son, a 14 year old. They were traveling together from Arad to Bucharest by train. This can be a most tedious and tiresome ride, especially if you have to share the compartment with a noisy family consisting of two incessantly talkative parents and 2 extremely noisy kids. For 10 hours. My sister and her son are people who prefer silence to circus. So Paul David, my nephew, decided at some point that the whole family simply just had to get off as quickly as possible. He was whispering this wish into my sister’s ear, in a voice that recalled for her an unusually focused intent.

And then what happened? Lo and behold, at the next stop they were rid of the unwanted. Now, this wouldn’t be so unusual, if only, after the four people had gotten off, they will not have also realized instantly that it was the wrong stop. They all started running after the train, yelling to my sister and her son to try to find the conductor and have him stall the train. But how could they? The train was already moving, so the request remained unrequited. And so it went. My sister ended telling me about the incident with these words: “you see, that wasn’t too difficult.”

Now I’m thinking that I would like to take some lessons from my nephew. Last I saw him, we were focusing on empty beer glasses at Carlsberg in Copenhagen: I, thinking about what in logic is called the rule of resemblance, he, thinking of Groucho Marx’s rule: “I resemble that remark.” Things belonging to the family of resemblance have no boundaries. The only rule is thus this: if you want it badly enough, you will have it.

TRAINS

For Jim Canary

Botticelli did it. Tintoretto did it. Poussin did it. Trainspotting. Red silk all over the place. I see you see me. Thy hand in mine. Thine eyes dipped in color. Scrolling. Rolling. “Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” Botticelli had it. Tintoretto had it. Poussin had it. I snatch your red book. You want it back. The dictionary reminds us: memento mori, while we lament: so what, then what? Time bound. Ditch the clock. Let color rule. You have numbers on your chest. I inhale, you exhale. Your hand be-gloved. I beg. “The world would never find peace until men fell at their women’s feet and asked for forgiveness.” Inverse order. Your gaze in mine, unbound. The train makes a sound. Botticelli knew it. Tintoretto knew it. Poussin knew it.

DEVOTION

It’s almost Holidays time. Between marking papers, procrastinating writing an essay on Kerouac – and this one I have to do in the next two days for a conference in Birmingham at the end of the week – I find myself reading Charles De Gaulle’s biography, decorating the apartment, and enjoying being high after the high class performance of “Schutz vor der Zukunft” last night. On the latter, no words of describing what it was like will do it justice. As I’ve been running after Marthaler since 2001, and thus knew what to expect, suffice to say that not only does he deliver the goods every time, but he also manages to really really, verily verily, and generously generously expand your emotional and intellectual range like nobody else. He has my undying devotion.

Meanwhile, I’m also on the verge of throwing myself at writing postcards. As I actually imagine myself doing this, I’m reminded of a conversation with my best friend in Berlin some years ago. We sat at a table at a café: I, with a stack of postcards in my hand, he, with wonder in his eyes. I’m good at interpreting some silences, so before he got to say anything, I handed him a card, and said to him: “don’t even think about objecting; you’re going to send a nice postcard to your mother.” He did. Without a word. And he has been doing it when abroad ever since, and on his own, as it were – he is now convinced that if he didn’t do it, my spirit would hover admonishingly over him from somewhere, and make him feel guilty. So he does it, if only to escape that feeling. Practical man. About writing postcards. I did volunteer a story, which he thought was bizarre given the circumstances.

This past summer I went to Romania to meet someone who was my best friend in elementary school. She moved to Australia in 1983 and I had not seen her since, that is, until recently. We wrote to each other. The exchange was mutual for about three years. Then symmetry broke. I kept writing. She didn’t. Sure, my narratives got shorter and shorter until they got reduced to aphorisms, but they never stopped. Now, while sipping coffee in Berlin, my friend wanted to know where such devotion came from, what it was based on, and what I got out of it (when I told him about my Australian friend, I was still at a point where I had not heard from her nor seen her for 22 years). I remember what I clearly replied to his third point. I said: “I get nothing and everything out it.” “Can nothing and everything be performed together?” he wanted to know. I said yes, but I had no evidence at the time. It came later. When I finally did meet my girl friend after 25 years, the first thing she said to me was this: “the fact that you wrote to me uninterruptingly for 25 years meant everything to me; and I mean everything. It also meant that you understood what I was going through, but could not articulate.” This corroborated for me that, at least in her case, silence was not “the greatest expression of scorn,” as George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying. Nor was it “the ultimate weapon of power” as Charles De Gaulle used to say.

To begin with, silence often has its reasons, but it becomes infinitely more interesting when it becomes demonstrative. In my friend’s case, to begin with, she had a hard time accepting that her parents, after having been apart two years – the mother fled the country illegally and then had to wait for her family to join her – split on the day of reunification at the airport. So she went into a state of numbness, and forgot to tell anyone else about it. Meanwhile, as I persisted with my writing against the background of her non-responsiveness, her silence then transformed into deep admiration for my devotion. So what did I get out of it, finally? Everything, of course.

On devotion, then, one can conclude this: it is beyond judgment. It is neither stupid, nor pointless. It just is. And it is all the greater when it unfolds itself against the silence which is an expression of boundless love.

HIGHLANDS

Few things get me high these days. But as fabulous stage director, genius, and regular smart guy, Christoph Marthaler is in town, it has to be mentioned. That he is one of them. Favorites, that is. The ones that have special powers, that is. In terms of his capacity to make you think the very minute you’re ready to swoon from thinking too much. So, of course, I have a ticket to the Monday performance of “Schutz vor der Zukunft.” I let this slip, but, what I hope for, of course, is that such news might resound throughout the whole country. So, venerable people of Denmark, if you haven’t already had the chance to prove that you really do have good taste, here’s your moment. Get yourself a ticket. And should I recognize you among the crowd, and unless Marthaler himself will want to court me after the performance, we can go out for a stiff drink.

Marthaler, by Jove! He makes things move. He makes you move. Like the time when my husband, best friend, and I drove 10 hours without interruption to Mulhouse in France to see the same bloody performance of Die Schöne Müllerin, which we had previously seen in other countries. Three times in a row. Madness, I know. And yet. After France, the whole theater cast went touring in the US, and I couldn’t play groupie anymore – I do have a life in Denmark – working class, alas. But I did manage to persuade ZDF to make me a copy of the performance, which they had once recorded for German TV some years ago. Imagine that. I’m the only one who actually has the whole thing on DVD. (Among friends, if you want to see what I’m talking about, let me know, and I’ll lend you my copy.)

Setting things in motion. Yes, Marthaler even made me cook for myself today. I made venison hearts in ginger (a lot of it), garlic (ditto), turmeric (some), cardamom (a shit load of it), chilly (plenty), coriander, cumin, and a kalonji based mix (with foeniculum seeds and the like among the other stuff; also lots of it). All done in my priceless French pressure cooker that retains the special cocktail tomatoes thrown in as they are. Salad to go. Italian bread (no yeast, and al forno) dipped in the pot, and other such good olive oil. How about drinks, some of you will want to know. Well, contrary to expectation, stick to champagne is my advice. Then finish it off with fresh dates, walnuts that you smash yourself, and grès des vosges cheese. In culinary matters it’s important to be precise about the experience, and I take this type of experience very seriously, so yes, what is it that they say about there existing a specific number of heavens? Well, if I wasn’t in the 7th at the end of the affair, then definitely in the 6th. This may still change, however, as I still lick my fingers, thinking about today’s thinking and listening to a favorite recording of mine, Bach to Africa (Lambarena).

As I can’t share my special Marthaler DVD with the whole world (goddamned copy rights) here below is a taste of Bach instead.

Oh, life, in the face of anticipating standing in close proximity to genius, whatever we may think is impossible, becomes what the French call, une bagatelle.

CALYPTIC

The Nietzsche Circle people have done it again. The supremely aesthetically, beautifully, and intelligently conceived Hyperion, a journal on art, philosophy, and literature presents us with its new contents. The December issue has just went public and as I have two contributions in it, I, can't help but make the announcement. Even if you don't want to read anything, just check the design for the whole issue. It's a true feast for the eye. Mark Daniel Cohen has outdone himself, again - as every time, both in content and in form. Congrats, my friend.

However, if you do want to read something, you may want to glance at my review essay on prophets seducing philosophers: Ex-silentio Eloquence: Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle of It.

Or else read my poem dedicated to Zarathustra, and marvel at Cohen's cover design.

Indeed, art does make us feel better about our lot. It pulls our minds out of entropy and throws it into synergy. Experiencing such metaphysical unlikelihood is as good as solving impossible tasks.

As with Nietzsche, we can all speak by way of retro-diction, de-calyption, and proleptic benediction.

Salve.

PARADOXES

After my father died in 1976, my mother developed another love: that of cemeteries. Although his grave didn’t follow us when we moved to another city not long after the event, mother would drag us to the cemetery every Sunday. Her argument was that there was no place like the cemetery where one could really get a sense of silence. I paid attention. Ever since then my love for silence has been constant. It manifests itself in many ways, however. Also in association with sound. I suppose that saying that nowhere is silence more formidable than in a blasting Bach organ recital would be a kind of paradox. ‘Tis true, though. When I was in my teens, mother was worried that I never went to anything other than such recitals or the opera. She would say, “but, young people don’t go to these things. Try a disco place.” I would go, “excuse me?”, and that would settle it. When I came to Denmark in my early 20s I realized quickly at that point that I must have been the only person on the planet who had not heard of the hippies, Woodstock, and Bob Dylan. It was a kind of irony that in spite of such major ignorance I wanted professionally to be in American studies. You can imagine the big holes I had to start filling in terms of acquiring what others would call basic knowledge. It was also about that time that I realized I was an epistemologist at heart, only my love for abstract formalism kept messing with my plans to study hard core philosophy. All the better, as I’m not really interested in big questions. If there’s one truth out there it’s this one: we’re all going to die – and if you ask me, the sooner the better; just get it over with. It’s the only end result I ever believe in. Now some would say, “don’t be so cynical.” I would, of course, deny any such charge. But I forget now what the argument for it is. Perhaps this one: because “our days are numbered.” Not very original, but then quoting the Bible has always proven to be very efficient, especially when one has nothing to say. Which makes me think that what I really wanted to be in this life time is a famous mathematician. It never happened. Given that I was no good at putting two and two together, ever, my love of math must remain both a mystery and a paradox. Anyway, where was I, yes, silence. My God, how I love it! So did Wittgenstein. When he elegantly passed the ineffable over into silence, he made a paradoxical move where the tension between finitude and the infinite is concerned. On this I like what Jabès has to offer in The Book of Shares: “finite: all that is no more. Infinite: all that is more” (30). Of course as a formalist epistemologist, mathematician, Americanist, Bach enthusiast, and cynic, I would have to ask Jabès: “what do you mean by all?” (this is me as a judge talking, which I also fancied becoming especially since I always thought that if one has to measure silence, one has to make recourse to a notion of scaling actions; another paradox, I know). But Jabès would instantly reply – already there, through a silent reading of the juxtaposed page where the above quote is lifted from, so that even any such noise resulting from turning the damn page is altogether liquidated – that “silence is no weakness of language. It is on the contrary, its strength. It is the weakness of words not to know this” (31). So we’re back to fucking knowledge. My God, will it ever stop? Let’s stay silent for a while, and observe others observe. Here’s Guy Davenport hunting The Hunter Gracchus:

“Poe’s mind was round, fat, and white; Kafka’s cubical, lean, and transparent.” (15)

“The emptier a room the smaller it seems. This is true of minds as well." (230)

“Jaako Hintikka, philosopher and critic of Wittgenstein. In private life a reindeer.” (228)

“Hemingway’s prose is like an animal talking. But what animal?” (234)

“ – Rabbi, this tearing off of the foreskin, is it right?” (231)

“Poetic knowledge is polythetic: it needs only a representative example to make its case. But to talk about poetic knowledge in prose we need the full set." (300)

“Talk ruins everything.” (300)