When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you to change personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? to glide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your whole beautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death?, or: Born 207 Years Ago

Born 207 years ago today.

From Moby Dick:

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues- every stately or lovely emblazoning- the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge- pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

(Added 2015: read that outloud. I dare you. I double-dog dare you.)

Via Brad:

"Poor Hoffman — I remember the shock I had when I first saw the mention of his madness. — But he was just the man to go mad — imaginative, voluptuously inclined, poor, unemployed, in the race of life distanced by his inferiors, unmarried, — without a port of haven in the universe to make. . . . This going mad of a friend or acquaintance comes straight home to every man who feels his soul in him, — which but few men do.  For in all of us lodges the same fuel to light the same fire.  And he who has never felt, momentarily, what madness is has but a mouthful of brains." (Correspondence)

"[I]t is often to be observed, that as in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.  Happy would it be, if the man possessed in himself some receptacle for his own rubbish of this sort: but . . . [n]o common-place is ever effectually got rid of, except by essentially emptying one's self of it into a book; for once trapped in a book, then the book can be put into the fire, and all will be well." (Pierre)

"I forgot to mention, that last night about 9 1/2 P.M. Adler & Taylor came into my room, & it was proposed to have whiskey punches, which we did have, accordingly.  Adler drank about three table spoons full — Taylor 4 or five tumblers &c.  We had an extraordinary time & did not break up till after two in the morning.  We talked metaphysics continually, & Hegel, Schlegel, Kant &c. were discussed under the influence of the whiskey." (Correspondence)

"We incline to think that God cannot explain His own secrets, and that He would like a little information upon certain points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. But it is this Being of the matter; there lies the knot with which we choke ourselves. As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street." (Correspondence)

""Dolt & ass that I am I have lived more than 29 years, & until a few days ago, never made close acquaintance with the divine William [Shakespeare]." (Correspondence)

From: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

"I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatible with ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in the latent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whose lithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloft in the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?" As he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit — as some earnest descriptive speakers will — as unconsciously to wreathe his form and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature described. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise, apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, and presently said: "When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you to change personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? to glide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your whole beautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wish never occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, and conscience, and revel for a while in the care-free, joyous life of a perfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?

Via Ed (lots of Melville there):

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.

(from Moby Dick).

Via Flowerville, from Pierre, or The Ambiguities.

From these random slips, it would seem, that Pierre is quite conscious of much that is so anomalously hard and bitter in his lot, of much that is so black and terrific in his soul. Yet that knowing his fatal condition does not one whit enable him to change or better his condition. Conclusive proof that he has on power over his condition. For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril; -- nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown.

ibid:

But is life, indeed, a thing for all infidel levities, and we, its misdeemed beneficiaries, so utterly fools and infatuate, that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event—the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather? Are we so entirely insecure, that that casket, wherein we have placed our holiest and most final joy, and which we have secured by a lock of infinite deftness; can that casket be picked and desecrated at the merest stranger's touch, when we think that we alone hold the only and chosen key? 

                         
From Moby Dick:

Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tassled, the sharks, also, with the jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside-down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet there is no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whale-ship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.

From Moby Dick (and for Savid Dampselle and that other guy who was in Dampselle's Gaithersburg High School English class up on D-Wing above the Auto-Shop classroom/garage):

“Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-labourers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally, as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill humour or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”   

Oh, you read Melville's traditional High Egoslavian Holy Day post this far? Thank you!

2019: I wrote earlier this year I can't imagine reading Moby Dick again because of whaling, I can imagine reading again, maybe, but not soon.

2019: Someone else with my qualms and reason to read it again soon 

2019:

• The problems of Bartleby
• Twelve billion tons of ice melted in Greenland yesterday
• Reading, and mourning, *Moby Dick* on the cusp of climate catastrophe: Melville’s 200th birthday coincides with the human-made sixth extinction, as well as with the emptying, warming, and clogging up of the world’s oceans via overfishing and the dumping of plastics. Such facts imbue his novel with renewed and melancholy relevance. Reading his book about a sentient, majestic, and desperate-to-live marine mammal in a period when the planet’s whales — and all other creatures — are under such threat grants the work a grim ecological cast.
• And then there is Chapter 77, *The Great Heidelburgh Tun,* on decapitating the slaughtered whale to extract profit, what my copy opened to when I picked it up just now, and...

2020: Read Benito Cereno in March, and, re: Moby Dick, I am in negotiations with myself whether if I skip the slaughters is it reading the novel

2021: I read the torturing, murdering, and rendering of whales and I will never do it again

2022: Laugh, I was going to below the fold this post but my goddamn free blogging platform seems to have eliminated that option! I have very vague intentions to reread *Confidence Man* before Melville's 205th birthday

2023: Nope, didn't read, but did reread William Gass' *Omensetter's Luck* last Fall, he would have been 99 two days ago

2024: Hey, the Brad who provided content above just had his independent bookstore in Oakland destroyed by fire, please go throw the coins in your pocket and between your sofa cushions at him to help him rebuild the business (and then buy your books there). Also too, a reread of *Pierre* is being contemplated though not yet committed to.

2026: I found a 1940 edition of *Redburn* at a used book store in Northport Michigan on our Leelanau trip a month ago, it is number 14 on current reading list, I should get to it sometime after this year's Melville birthday post

Have I ever mentioned that I love Melville? Oh, the condensed Moby Dick? Was TWELVE YEARS AGO'S Giftmas present from my daughter C. Have I ever told you I love my daughter?

Also too, Jerry Garcia born 84 years ago today, call out to Thudner, Thudner, you still here? 2026: I don't think Thudner's earthbound anymore

The Light Began To Bleed Began To Breathe Began To Speak, or: 68 Today

Side 2, "The Ninth Wave", of *Hounds of Love,* my most listened-to side of music when albums had sides ever, gives me chills to this day, I tested. More Kate here.

It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails, or: Born 102 Years Ago Today

William Gass born 102 years ago today This is the traditional William Gass birthday post:

from The Tunnel:

The other large carton unpacked in the same way - box into box - but the feeling it gave me was the opposite of that suggested by the endless nest of Russians dollies it otherwise resembled, for what I was opening was a den of spaces which now covered the floor near my feet. It was plain that every ten-by-ten-by eight container contained cubes which were nine by nine by seven, and eight by eight by six, and seven by seven by five, and so on down to three by three by two, as well as many smaller, thinly sided one at every interval in between, so that out of one box a million more might multiply, confirming Zeno's view, although at that age, with an unfurnished mind, I couldn't have known of his paradoxes let alone have been able to describe one with any succinctness. What I had discovered is that every space contains more space than the space it contains.

That passage reminds me what I'm trying to get at here (2020: everywhere) (2026, I clicked that for the first time in two years and forgive me, the Maryland state highway shields have broke, I will go back and fix it someday but that day is not today, my apologies) though of course Gass does it better (2020: considering a WIHDITESCMSTTSIC tattoo first before the IHTWTGADTLWLIPTD tattoo)

More Gass here from here

• 2025! DALKEY announces it's new edition of THE TUNNEL in 2026 will be in full color!
• William Gass' The Art of Self.
• You have to be grimly determined.
• Gass eviscerates Updike.
• The Radical Criticism of William Gass.
• Till the Knowing Ends.
• William Gass, painted by Philip Guston.

• Morton Feldman's For Philip Guston.
• On On Being Blue.
• 1977 Gass interview. 
• 2005 Gass interview.
• 2013 Gass interview.
• William Gass on postmodernism (h/t Ed for the youtube at top too).
• On Middle C.
• If you know of more links to add, and give the fuck, please send them.
• From Omensetter's Luck: When Harry Pimber walks into the woods and names the trees (via):

From The Tunnel, read out loud if you can, if you want:

Also too:

Excerpt from The Tunnel
William Gass

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.

It Remains for Us to Come to Terms With Our Commonality and In So Doing Deprive Time of Further Hostages

HOTEL LAUTREAMONT

John Ashbery

  1.

Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society

working as a team. They didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.

The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.

We see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well.”   

Working as a team, they didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.

The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds

we see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well,”

or, on a more modern note, in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.

The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds

the world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé,

or in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.

Not to worry, many hands are making work light again.

The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé.

In any case the ruling was long overdue.

Not to worry, many hands are making work light again,

so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure.

   2.

In any case, the ruling was long overdue.

The people are beside themselves with rapture

so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure

and the solution problematic, at any rate far off in the future.

The people are beside themselves with rapture

yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria,

and the solution: problematic, at any rate far off in the future.

The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained.

Yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria.

In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.

The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained,

and night like black swansdown settles on the city.

In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.

Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward,

and night like black swansdown settles on the city.

If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?

   3.

Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward.

Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside.

If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?

And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?

Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside,

when all we think of is how much we can carry with us.

And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?

All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.

When all we think of is how much we can carry with us

small wonder that those at home sit, nervous, by the unlit grate.

All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.

It remains for us to come to terms with our commonality.

Small wonder that those at home sit nervous by the unlit grate.

It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.

It remains for us to come to terms with our commonality

and in so doing deprive time of further hostages.

   4.

It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.

Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open

and in so doing deprive time of further hostages,

to end the standoff that history long ago began.

Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open

but it is shrouded, veiled: We must have made some ghastly error.

To end the standoff that history long ago began

must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?

But it is shrouded, veiled: We must have made some ghastly error.

You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.

Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?

Only night knows for sure; the secret is safe with her.

You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.

Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society;

only night knows for sure. The secret is safe with her:

The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.

The traditional BLCKDGRD Holy Day post

Ashbery born 99 years ago today, I have read - and posted - Vaucanson (down below) more than any other poem by anybody ever. The first sentence in the fourth stanza? Exactly.

I say this every year: fifty years ago someone gave me a copy of Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and changed my life. 

Much much more below the fold 

And Yet, Knowing That It Would Always Ever Afterwards Be This Way Caused the Eyes to Faint, the Ears to Ignore Warnings

The big run of late-July major BLCKDGRD Holy Days starts tomorrow so here today (a hint of one of the birthdays below the Mojave 3 song), earlier in the week than the recent weekly screams have been of late. I received no notice whether the domain name was renewed or not but since I'm still here and no one has claimed the name as yet I'll assume it didn't renew and hope no one steals it from me. Found this (actual size as in the photo) looking for something else, I worked for my Uncle Steve in the summer of 1977 when he bought a box of these (and a box of Popovich Gas & Oil plastic ice-scrapers) to give out to customers as a thank you to help them remove their over-heated radiator caps, fine metaphors abound





Viz the I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS and We Are Ruled By Motherfucking Sociopaths in the grids, too late to change them (or not too late but I don't wanna) in the grid below, but at least the next post I will type out what is linked to, not because I'm tired of the gag itself but partly because I've been told by one of you that you would appreciate more foresight into what he/she/they (so probably too are others) is clicking to but mostly because if I'm trying to scream Things Are FAR More Fucked Up and Dangerous Than Most People Realize then I should in the grid provide more than I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS. (though I do) and We Are Ruled By Motherfucking Sociopaths (though we are). Look for the last (at least for the next screamy post) I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS. and last We Are Ruled By Motherfucking Sociopaths in the grid, the link below is what the change will look like, at least for the next screamy post

There is a reason all but two posts a year tagged My Complicity ➥	Google’s Immense Greed Is Destroying the Open Web, Jeff types into his chromebook on the google sheet he will use to provide links on his blogger page for this post
Full-court press by the media lackeys of the hyper-rich
The State Wants to Test Your Manhood
Shitlords deliberately work to immiserate people then write laws criminalizing the immiserated for their misery
The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for blacklisting and criminalizing all left-wing, progressive, anti-war and anti-imperialist dissent
Vectors of Fascism				The Sixth Red Scare
Good Liberals Hate International Law And Love Laura Loomer
How Capitalism Transforms Economic Insecurity into a System of Control
"“politically homeless” as in, struggling to decide which of my luxury homes should be my permanent address, not “politically homeless” as in I’m caught up in the endless cruelty of bipartisan encampment sweeps"
➥	"Our world is dictated by neoliberal institutions; worldview has the capture of every arm of government and has enforced that worldview at gunpoint for decades. But elect a couple progressive Muslims out of 10,000 domestic politicians and those who have always been catered to are suddenly “homeless”
ICE killed eight people — and the government blamed the dead
The Sordid Politics of Defense Spending
NYT’s Embarrassing Anti-DSA Meltdown
The predictable disgrace of the White House Correspondents Dinner
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
Incisive! Compelling! Invigorating! Inspirational!
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
Today's ➥ monologue	Motherfucking Democrats are paid by sociopathic shitlords to protect sociopathic shitlords from batshit-crazy people like me who think kids should get free breakfasts and lunches in public school
Professional Democrats hate you and me more by a zillion than the crackeriest magachoad and would rather magachoads rule than you and me because, yes, their shitlord owners hate you and me more than the crackeriest magachoad but mostly because they sincerely hate you and me
Today's ➥ monologue	Motherfucking Democrats are paid by sociopathic shitlords to protect sociopathic shitlords from batshit-crazy people like me who think kids should get free breakfasts and lunches in public school
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
Why she left the Democratic Party
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
➥	"She made me look foolish so I want one of you, my 241m followers, to murder her"
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
➥	Why 98 Democrats ignored voters and opposed an Israel aid cut
➥	Meanwhile, Israeli settlers torch mosques in occupied West Bank
Yes It Is Beginning, Another End Times Laugh Riot Week
"This is exactly how Messi should end his career, in disgrace"
Syllabus		A truly great vegetarian meal
Never meet your heroes: Star Trek Edition							Maggie
What We Talk About When We Talk About the Interstitium
Seven Words A Literary Agent Could Use That Would Shut Me Down
{ feuilleton }			Between a Star and a Boat
Translating Proust				Love Letter to the Mojave Desert
Hey, all five Mojave 3 albums have been remastered and reissued							☟

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

John Ashbery

It came about that there was no way of passing
Between the twin partitions that presented
A unified façade, that of a suburban shopping mall
In April. One turned, as one does, to other interests

Such as the tides in the Bay of Fundy. Meanwhile there was one
Who all unseen came creeping at this scale of visions
Like the gigantic specter of a cat towering over tiny mice
About to adjourn the town meeting due to the shadow,

An incisive shadow, too perfect in its outrageous
Regularity to be called to stand trial again,
That every blistered tongue welcomed as the first
Drops scattered by the west wind, and yet, knowing

That it would always ever afterwards be this way
Caused the eyes to faint, the ears to ignore warnings.
We knew how to get by on what comes along, but the idea
Warning, waiting there like a forest, not emptied, beckons.