exploding things

"If this tree could walk, it would enslave humanity."

the complete article, if you're feeling puerile

Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited goes deeper into faith, culture, and materialism than conceivable. This book explains aspects of my self better than I can explain, I think. Avoid the miniseries or movie, though; they are terribly disappointing; almost as bad as the Harry Potter movies, which never cease to leave me depressed at their failure.

Anyway, read and enjoy, though I think a familiarity with Catholicism is necessary to fully understand.

repurposing

I am hereby – as of my last entry – repurposing this blog to what it already was, to a degree: a collectanæ of ideas that pique my interest, regardless of medium or authorship, as far as possible. I would ideally like to make the authorship of the whole more communal, to allow editing and reworking of previous ideas within the larger framework, but I am sadly limited to Blogger's post-comment system, at least for the time being. I would really love to turn this into a sort of Facebook wall circa 2005, when it really was a wall, where previous entries could be edited or erased, and the whole thing was more like one big whiteboard, with that inviting feeling exhibited by blank paper, whiteboards, and margins of notes to come fuck it up, and maybe produce something exquisite.

Unfortunately, I have no efficient way to do this at the moment, but if you'd like to contribute to what promises to be a particularly piquant playground of pensées, throw them in a comment, if that is not too lowly a location, or send them to me to publish in your name, or simply publish them yourself; I'll happily link to any worthy scrivenering I find.

T. S. Eliot

Perhaps the most significant dispute lies over what the "overwhelming question" is that Prufrock is trying to ask. Many believe that Prufrock is trying to tell a woman his romantic interest in her,[5] pointing to the various images of women's arms and clothing and the final few lines in which Prufrock laments that the mermaids will not sing to him. Others, however, believe that Prufrock is trying to express some deeper philosophical insight or disillusionment with society, but fears rejection, pointing to statements that express a disillusionment with society such as "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" (line 51). Many believe that the poem is a criticism of Edwardian society and Prufrock's dilemma represents the inability to live a meaningful existence in the modern world.[23] McCoy and Harlan wrote "For many readers in the 1920s, Prufrock seemed to epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual. He seemed to represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment."[21]

'What is that noise?'
The wind under the door.
'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'
Nothing again nothing. 120
'Do
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
'Nothing?'
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes. 125
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent 130
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
'What shall we ever do?'
The hot water at ten. 135
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.


'Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.' 295
'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised "a new start".
I made no comment. What should I resent?'
'On Margate Sands. 300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.' 305
la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest 310

burning


IV. DEATH BY WATER


PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea 315
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.



the slow demise of fashionable society


For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?


Portrait of a Lady

Thou hast committed—
Fornication: but that was in another country,
And besides, the wench is dead.
The Jew Of Malta


Hysteria

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and
being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a
talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at
each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her
throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter
with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked
cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: "If the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and
gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden ..." I decided that
if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments
of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention
with careful subtlety to this end.