a shudder ran through me

 

no sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and i stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. an exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. and at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... whence did it come? what did it mean? how could i seize and apprehend it? ... and suddenly the memory revealed itself. the taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on sunday mornings at combray (because on those mornings i did not go out before mass), when i went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. the sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. and all from my cup of tea.

the glorification of passive

...in the canonical life of st. sergey is that of the bear that emerged from the woods to come face~to~face with the saint. subdued by the sanctity of the holy man, the animal peacefully accepted some of the bread and water that was st. sergey's only nourishment, returning each subsequent day to share this frugal meal. this friendship between the beast and the saint is depicted among the frescoes on the entrance tower to the monastery, and dostoevsky as a child must have seen it many times.

these stories of the lives of the saints were deeply steeped in the special spirit of russian kenoticism - the glorification of passive, completely nonheroic and nonresisting suffering, the suffering of the despised and humiliated christ - that is so remarkable a feature of the russian religious tradition.... the admiration of the russian common people for "the spirit of asceticism and renunciation, the love of poverty, the craving for self~sacrifice and self~mortification".

pages 26 & 27 from joseph frank's dostoevsky: a writer of his time
images - antonella da messina - st jerome with his friend the lion plus detail

music of the spheres

parched with thirst, i crossed
an endless desert sunk in gloom,
and a six-winged seraph * came
where the tracks met and i stood lost.
fingers light as dream he laid
upon my lids; i opened wide
my eagle eyes, and gazed around.
he laid his fingers on my ears
and they were filled with roaring sound:
i heard the music of the spheres,
the flight of angels through the skies,
the beasts that crept beneath the sea,
the heady uprush of the vine....

from a.s. pushkin's the prophet
found in joseph frank's book dostoevsky: a writer in his time

then the voices of the ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the void, and it was not void.

some of these thoughts he (melkor) now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. then the discord of melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. but ilúvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon another in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.

for it seemed soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. and it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. the one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. the other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. and it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.

(and more... great chapter from j.r.r. tolkien's the silmarillon, typed while listening to track two from side one of cluster 1)

only mediocrities develop

stupidity is not my strong point. i have seen many persons; i have visited several countries; i have taken part in various enterprises without liking them; i have eaten nearly every day....

paul valéry - monsieur teste - 1896
(la soirée avec monsieur teste)

(title - old man wilde)
(will be absent for some 2 weeks - immersion in mr. ripley, tow(l)ers of light (or, owlers), catastrophes, and the birth of christ)

take no notice of my darkness, because the sun has discoloured me

i lived in thoughts of her. where are you, i thought, where may my lonely spirit find you, sweet maiden? do you gaze before you and reflect? have you laid your work aside and rested your arm on your knee and your head on your little hand and yielded yourself to lovely thoughts?
may nothing disturb my peaceful one when she refreshes her heart with sweet fantasies, may nothing touch this bunch of grapes and graze the invigorating dew from the tender berries!

to comfort him virgil explains how beatrice descended to him in limbo and told him of her concern for dante. it is she, the symbol of divine love, who sends virgil to lead dante from error. she has come into hell itself on this errand, for dante cannot come to divine love unaided.

it is as if my soul were spinning through every nerve. she plays a melody on her clavichord with the touch of an angel, so simple, so ethereal! it is her favourite tune, and i am cured of all pain, confusion and melancholy the moment she strikes the first note.


- friedrich hölderlin - hyperion - 1797/1799 (for diotima)
- dante alighieri - inferno from the divine comedy - 1321
- j.w. von goethe - the sorrows of young werther - 1774/1786
- the letters of abelard and heloise - 12th century

softened melody

from the railroad station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. my wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky. it seemed so safe and tranquil.

- h.g. wells - the war of the worlds - 1898
photo taken 12.19.(year undetermined) at pt reyes lighthouse by bolesław okoniewski

such were the images which paraded before my eyes

the realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, - not the material of my every-day existence - but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.

edgar allan poe - berenice - a tale - 1835


here began for me what i shall call the overflow of dream into real life. from this point on, everything at times took on a double aspect - without, however, my reasoning powers thereby ever lacking in logic and without my memory loosing the least detail of what was happening to me.

gérard de nerval - aurélia - 1855


balzac much admired this sublime leap of imagination which soared across intervening reality and arrived directly at the object of fantasy, regardless of all difficulties of time or place..... it was simply the intensity with which he (nerval) projected the dream, the power he had to create something beyond the limits of time or actuality; it was, so to speak, an almost tangible vision, and it was eventually to find its conclusion in his pathological hallucinations.

théophile gautier - the poet (on gérard de nerval) - 1867

(gérard de nerval - image, title)

the sublunar light with its softened colours

at times octavian even imagined he could see indistinct human forms flitting among the shadows, but they dissolved the moment they passed into the moonlit parts of the street. low whispering and indefinite murmurs drifted upon the silence. the solitary visitor at first attributed them to some nervous flicker of the eye, some tingling in his ears. or perhaps they were merely a trick of the light, the breath of the sea breeze, or the slither of a lizard or grass-snake through the nettles. for in the natural world, everything is alive, even inanimate matter; and everything has a sound, even silence.

théophile gautier - the tourist from my fantomes - nyrb - 2008
roman polanski - tess - 1979
cinematography by ghislain cloquet and geoffrey unsworth

he lived in fear that the state of illumination with which he was blest - or with which he was afflicted - might be untimely withdrawn

one night i dreamt that i had made a pact with the devil: he was my servant, and anticipated my every wish... i found myself handing him my violin to see if he might manage some pretty tunes; but imagine my astonishment when i heard a sonata so unusual and so beautiful, performed with such mastery and intelligence, on a level i had never before conceived was possible! i was so overcome that i stopped breathing and awoke gasping. immediately i seized my violin, hoping to recall some shred of what i had just heard - but in vain. the piece i then composed is without a doubt my best, and i still call it the devil's sonata, but it falls so far short of the one that stunned me that i would have smashed my violin and given up music forever if i could but posses it.

tartini to j.j. de lalande,
voyage d'un françois en italie (1765-66)
(found in giuseppe tartini - the devil's sonata - played by andrew manze)
((title from thomas mann - doctor faustus - 1947))

those living waves, die one after another, monotonously, but they make no foaming sound

magic-hour & darkness (plus day-for-night) in
l'armée des l'ombres - jean-pierre melville - 1969
cinematography by pierre lhomme

the bird of passage rests on the waves, then abandons himself to their movements, full of proud grace, until the bones of his wings have recovered their accustomed strength and he can continue his aerial pilgrimage..... i want to die lulled by the waves of the stormy sea
lautréamont - maldoror (46, 47)

and then everything receded from him (invisible birds)

and the sound of the wind died away and then like the murmur of a lullaby or pealing bells rose up again from the depths of ravines and tips of fir trees and a faint reddishness climbed into the deep blue and small clouds drifted by on silver wings and all the mountain peaks, sharp and firm, glinted and gleamed far across the countryside, he would feel something tearing at his chest, he would stand there gasping, body bent forward, eyes and mouth opened wide, he was convinced he should draw the storm into himself, contain everything within himself, he stretched out and lay over the earth, he burrowed into the universe, it was a pleasure that gave him pain; or he would remain still and lay his head upon the moss and half-close his eyes and then everything receded from him, the earth beneath him, it became as tiny as a wandering star and dipped into a rushing stream whose clear waters flowed beneath him

georg büchner - lenz - 1839 (posthumously)

before the descent of complete darkness (invisible birds)

törless was still gazing out into the garden. he thought he could hear the rustling of the withered leaves being blown into drifts by the wind. then came the moment of utter stillness which always occurs a little before the descent of complete darkness. the shape of things, which had been sinking ever more deeply into the dusk, and the blurring, dissolving colours of things--for an instant it all seemed to pause, to hover, as it were with a holding of the breath....

from the deserted garden a leaf now and then fluttered up against the lit window, tearing a streak of brightness into the darkness behind it. then the darkness seemed to shrink and withdraw, only in the next instant to advance again and stand motionless as a wall outside the window. this darkness was a world apart.

(taking photographic advise from robert musil. and, as always, inspired by woolgathersome)

invisible birds (the lost estate)

sometimes, for a few steps, my feet are resting on a bank of fine sand. and in the silence, i can hear a bird: i think it's a nightingale, but i must be wrong because they only sing in the evenings... this bird is relentlessly repeating the same phrase: voice of the morning, a recital in the shade, a delicious invitation to a journey between the elms. invisible and obstinate, it seems to be accompanying me through the leaves.
alain-fournier, the wanderer

(photos by matthew swiezynski)

bell-derived drones which resonate peacefully even as they twist and turn

tarrl lightowler: l'eau de vie (forthcoming film)

beyond the horizon of visible things - little tunes amid the sound of wind or water, feelings flickering through people.
(from robert musil: 5 women)

new books & music

music:
- °sone: passerelle, and/oar, 2008
a site-specific sound installation / performance by yannick dauby, christophe havard & hughes germain.
if i were forced to bring 10 cds with me to a deserted island, this would be one. there is the feeling/atmosphere similar to a photograph by anselm kiefer, like listening to one of his factory floor images, obscured beyond telling.
- solo andata / seaworthy / taylor deupree: live from melbourne, 12k, 2008
all three perfect, with subtle melodies and abstractions.
- william basinski: cleveland tower: the tower from sonic fragments festival, princeton university, 2008
- william basinski / richard chartier: untitled 1-3, line, 2008
with bonus tracks.
- a broken consort (richard skelton): crow autumn, sustain-release, 2008
violins and landscapes, black and white, and very nice.
- john cage: early music, edition wandelweiser, 2007
(via herr lightowler)
with edwin alexander buchholz: accordion, joanna becker: violin.
- celer: sadha, s/r, 2007
- celer: continents, s/r, 2006
- celer: untitled (frozen loop), s/r
all very wonderful. looking forward to new releases.
- yannick dauby: chant de dune, taâlem, 2003
- alio die and zeit: raag drone theory, hic sunt leones, 2007
acoustic sessions recorded in lunigiana, italy at chiostro dell’annunziata and the wood sanctuary in august 2006. includes psaltery, zither, drones, shruti-box and loops. stunningly beautiful new work of indian music.
- john dowland: complete lute works, harmonia mundi fr, 1997 (paul o'dette)
- jgrzinich: ferric, taâlem, 2008
fields recordings, a wind harp and various improvised wire and metal constructions. something beautiful.
- ian holloway & neil rowling: itto, ecr
- islaja: blaze mountain recordings, estatic peace, 2008
live album.
- arsenije jovanović: untitled, la légende des voix, 1994
eric la casa's label
- arsenije jovanović: galiola - works for radio, 1967- 2000, fo a rm publications / and/oar / alluvial recordings, 2008
includes prophecy of the village kremna, portions of this piece were used in the thin red line.
- marc namblard: chants of frozen lakes, kalerne & atelier hui-kan, 2008
field recordings of the acoustic resonances of a frozen lake, on yannick dauby's label.
- bj nilsen & stillupsteypa: passing out, helen scarsdale agency, 2008
- yui onodera: le jardin, taâlem, 2007
- adam pacione: sisyphus, elevator bath, 2005
- charlemagne palestine: the apocalypse will blossom, yesmissolga records, 2007
recorded by christoph heemann in aachen, germany at the ludwig museum in 2000 on the occasion of the 1000 year celebration of charlemagne palestine and subsequently processed by heemann.
- gram parsons with the flying burrito brothers: live at the avalon ballroom 1969, amoeba music, 2007
- steve peters: the webster cycles, cold blue music, 2008
scored for six trombones, early work by peters composed in college.
- steve peters: chamber music 4: filtered light, dragon's eye recordings, 2008
drone work using fourteen frequencies derived from a field recording made during off hours in the university of new mexico art nuseum's studio gallery. this is my favorite steve peters yet, i would bring this to my island as well.
- steve peters: occasional music, palace of lights, 2007
includes music from the film agnes martin: with my back to the world, a documentary by mary lance.
- rameses iii: basillica/origins, important records, 2008
includes a breathtaking remix by keith berry and a really wonderful set of live ambient music.
- steve roden: vester fields, volume, 2008
composed using a found postcard to determine the following sounds/instruments used to generate the piece: violin, accordion, voice, plant, field recording, and a 1940's home recording. a very fine method for arriving at the sublime.
- steve roden: a christmas play for joseph cornell, s/r, 2008
an audio realization of george brecht's score a christmas play for joseph cornell
- matt shoemaker: mutable depths, ferns recordings, 2008
a darn fine recording.
- spiracle: lumen, taâlem, 2007
"like warm mercurial metallic textures slowly flowing through capillary vessels".
- tape: luminarium, hapna 2008
- gregory taylor: two maps of danaraja, mp3 release, 2008
track one (seismic profile) is very nice, "bell-derived drones which resonate peacefully even as they twist and turn" (see title)
- jon tulchin: location recordings, and/oar, 2002
- scott tuma: not for nobody, digitalis, 2008
limited edition version with birds.
- victrola favorites: artifacts from bygone days, dust-to-digital, 2008
- antonio vivaldi: the complete works for lute, auvidis france, 1999 (rolf lislevand)
- va: mandorla autumn soundscapes, mandorla, 2008

books:
- dreaming the miracle: three french prose poets: max jacob, jean follain, francis ponge, white pine press, 2002
- goerg büchner: lenz, archipelago books, 2004 (richard sieburth translator)
- wilkie collins: the moonstone, everyman's library, 1992 (1868) currently reading
- brothers grimm: the annotated brothers grimm, norton, 2004 (edited by maria tatar) currently reading
- friedrich hölderlin: hyperion, or the hermit in greece, continuum, 1990 (1797-1799)
- heinrich von kleist: the marquise of o- and other stories, penguin classics, 1978
- robert musil: posthumous papers of a living author, archipelago books, 2006
- robert musil: 5 women, david r godine, 1999
- novalis: the novices of sais, archipelago books, 2005
- georges perec: the winter journey, penguin classics, 1996 (1993)
- robert walser: kleist in thun from selected stories, nyrb classics, 2002 (1913)

((tried to make this a download free list of new music, but my wallet really smarts))

robert bresson, georges bernanos, nouvelle histoire de mouchette

the dark west wind, the sea wind, was already scattering the voices in the darkness. it toyed with them a moment and then lifted them all together, dispersing them with an angry roar. the voice which mouchette had just heard hovered in the air a long time, like a dead leaf floating interminably.

her secret was not one which could be shared, for it was connected with so many different things. it was like one of those sickly-looking plants which bring up, when one tries to uproot them, the lump of earth which has sustained them. yet she could make no effort to escape from the strange, delicious languor which filled her and seemed to be weaving around her, diligently and patiently, the threads of some invisible design.

the old woman had indeed uttered the necessary words. the wonderful thing was that she had somehow torn mouchette's secret from her. no mere words could have softened mouchette's stony heart or drawn tears from her.

but the voice which mouchette could hear was infinitely more gentle. was it a voice? she listened to it like a dog listening to his master as he encourages and pacifies him. it was like the old woman's voice, but also like arsène's, and now and again even like madame's. it spoke no human language; it was nothing more than a dying, whispering murmur. then it was silent.

then she twisted over and looked up into the sky. she felt the insidious flow of the water along her head and neck, filling her ears with its joyful sound. she knew that life was slipping away from her, and the smell of the grave itself rose to her nostrils.

text by george bernanos, nouvelle histoire de mouchette, librarie plon, 1937 (english edition: new york review books 2005)

then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or i’ll clear the world of thee!

classic books (number 4):

moby-dick; or, the whale by herman melville, 1851
(compiled with great assistance from the famed german librarian, herr t light)


such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. at this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. but presently i came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. it had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing i did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch. ha! thought i, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, gomorrah? but "the crossed harpoons," and "the sword-fish?" - this, then, must needs be the sign of "the trap". however, i picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.


suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. a low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.




editions of note (with publisher and date):
-the whale, richard bentley 1851 (london, expurgated edition)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, harper and brothers 1851 (new york city)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, l.c. page & company publishers 1892
-moby-dick; or, the whale, lakeside press 1930 (three large volumes, with illustrations by rockwell kent)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, random house 1930 (illustrations by rockwell kent)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, norton critical edition 1967 (second edition 2001)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, arion press edition 1979 (illustrated by barry moser) reprinted by the university of california press 1981
-redburn, white-jacket, moby-dick, library of america 1983
-moby dick, or the whale: volume 6, scholarly edition, northwestern university press 1988
-unpainted to the last: moby-dick and twentieth-century american art by elizabeth a. schultz, university press of kansas 1995 (see images below)

barry moser

rockwell kent: whale beneath the sea

rockwell kent: moby dick trancendent

rockwell kent: moby dick the ungraspable squid

rockwell kent: moby dick rises

raymond bishop: ahab

gilbert wilson: moby dick arises from the deep

paul jenkins: homage a melville

robert motherwell: the tomb of captain ahab

sam francis: the whiteness of the whale

charles olson's melville project *:






















notecards from charles olson's 1930's master’s thesis, the growth of herman melville, prose writer and poetic thinker, completed in 1933. these cards mainly dealt with melville's reading and marginalia and the "lost five hundred" (melville's books sold to a brooklyn dealer in 1892 by his widow, pursued by olson).
"as a young scholar, olson was indefatigable in his research; when he located a volume from melville's library in a grand-daughter's home, in a private collector's hands, or on a public library's shelves, olson carefully transcribed onto 5 x 7-inch note cards complete bibliographic information on the volume, as well as the content and location of melville’s annotations and reading marks".
these cards ended up being severely water damaged, but were preserved by the university of connecticut.
(more information found here)

links:
-covers for rockwell kent editions **
-rockwell kent info **
-plattsburgh state art museum rockwell kent gallery **
-charles olson **
-publishing history **
-library of america **
-arion press **
-washington state university selected bibliography **
-first edition info **
-facsimile dust jackets **
-collecting melville **
-princeton moby-dick word search **