The Advent of Lurko

So, Sharon is going to be around for a few days, meaning I'll be busy ferrying her around the country so that legions of school children can treat her to those gaping maws that I have come to love so much. To keep you all busy for awhile, I leave you with a bit of Poesie in my absence. First, a nugget from me own noodle, what I'm calling a sonnet, becuase, um, it has 14 lines.

a pair of socks

we, being the laziest of animals,
tend to launder only the top of the pile--
or maybe it's just me--I wear
the same clothes over and over again

though own far more. a black pair,
a pair of black Christmas socks
belong to my wife and I resent them.

we keep an old wicker basket by
the patio door full of lone socks,
mostly mine; now, having discovered
the other black sock, entirely mine.

meanwhile the army of cicadas beyond
the patio giggle in their way,
and I continue to lie awake.

Reading over it again, I realize that's a bit clunky at first, but it comes into its own, so I've left it as is. The next Poeme comes from my reminiscences of college as I listened to NPR over the Internets while washing dishes. It's got fifteen lines, so it's a bit much for a sonnet.

the other day or every T/R
from 11 am to 1 pm
I listened to Gwendolyn Brooks
read "Ode on a Nightingale" on 8-track
at the behest of Prof. Helmut Heir.

I could never tell - so deeply moved
was I - if my bowels cried out
for the banana in my bag
or for Ms. [r]ivers to chant shout
UZUUUUUUUUUURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

the other day I ate the banana,
an un-fucking-believably huge
Diet Coke, and a bag of chips
as I left my headphones in
from 11 am to 1 pm.

Lastly but certainlies not leastly, a Poemu not so much mine, though I am translating it, that gets to ride shotgun more often than you'd think. It's funny, to me at least, and hurts a little too much. Sato Mayumi from her latest collection of waka, Private:

the letter
"I'm writing to you
from Denpasar Airport"
I write at Mister Donuts

Digging in the Mud and Sand

Thru some strange happenstance, I found myself in Gamagori at a small beach hanging out with other whiteys on Saturday. Shef had rented a boat and was periodically taking people out into the bay; I opted to stay behind with the grill and work on my sunburn.

After awhile, we got bored, and started digging through the silt for clams and mussels to grill. As the tide went out, the ancient locals were busy tearing up the beach looking for shellfish, yet finding very little. I couldn't for the life of me reason why as most of the clams and mussels we found we simply plucked out of the water. As it turns out, pretty much all of the Japanese present were digging for oysters and not really finding any. It seemed a shame as there were delicious mussels aplenty.

In an effort to piece together what I think about things, lately I've been reading Lao Zi in considerable depth (and thus ignoring most of the useless commentaries people have written) and searching for videos on Youtube of all those bands I listened to in high school (think bland Seattle alt rock and Midwest industrial and you pretty much will have conjured my 9th grade mixed tapes). Lao Zi, I hate to admit, seems much more relevant.

道可道，
非常道。
名可名，
非常名。

It's the very first thing he says, so simple yet completely incomprehensible: "the way you can way is not the real way; the name you can name is not the real name." I choose this (meaningless) translation as a foil to what I've come to realize is the predominant stream in English translations of classical Chinese texts, which would render the above as "the Tao that can be defined, is not the Eternal Tao" (yes, even with the lame, random capitalization) "the Name that can be named, is not the Eternal Name." What the foo-foo translation misses is that 道 is being used as both a noun and a verb, which is perfectly normal, thus ruining the force of the repetition of those syllables. Lao zi takes what is a perfectly normal word and makes it seem peculiar by rehearsal. Say the word melon over and over to yourself and after awhile it takes on a kind of surreal yet meaningless aura, for lack of a better word.

But let's take the mundane reading one step farther. In modern Chinese--and Japanese as well--the phrase 非常 simply means "unusual" (though in Japanese it also means "emergency" as in 非常口, an "emergency exit") or "peculiar." If we superimpose that meaning back on our translation, we get something like "the way you can way, is a peculiar way; the name you can name, is a peculiar name." Which is to say, the way you go is the only option open to you; like an emergency exit, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got, lest you die in a fire like a moron. And because peculiarity in this language is also associated with greatness, it's tempting to see the one way, the one name you've chosen for yourself as the ideal.

This is the trap the old ladies fell into. In the grand scheme of shellfish, oysters > mussels, oysters become the one path, thus they walk away from a beach teaming with edible life, empty handed.

My friends and I, with our varying degrees of fluency, stepped into the water with little intention but to wet our feet and splash each other. We came back to the grill with a frisbee piled high with mussels that everyone agreed were the tastiest of all the foods we'd cooked.

Getting Wet

So, for the benefit of our beloved great white filter-feeder, I present my take on the 78th chapter of the 道 德 經 (dao de jing), the so-called water philosophy. I should note that what I have to say is not canonical, merely my own opinion filtered thru a mostly Western educational upbringing. Even so, I think the Gimlet would prefer that to the kind of aum aum mysticism a discussion of it usually entails. Anyway, the text:

天 下 莫 柔 弱 於 水 ，
而 攻 堅 強 者 莫 之 能 勝 ，
以 其 無 以 易 之 。

In the world, there is nothing as soft and weak as water,
and yet in assaulting the rigid and strong nothing can overcome it,
for they have nothing suitable to replace it.

弱 之 勝 強 ，
柔 之 勝 剛 ，
天 下 莫 不 知 ，
莫 能 行 。

The weak overcomes the strong,
the soft overcomes the rigid,
in the world no one doesn't know this,
yet no one can follow it.

[...]

[a pointless maxim]

正 言 若 反 。

True words seem a paradox.

Lao Zi's system, if you can even call it that, operates on a cascade of paradoxes; true to what he's saying, he never explicitly enumerates anything (which is why I think Bai Juyi's critical poem largely misses the point). You will find no statements of what the Dao is that aren't immediately contradicted. This idea of speaking indirectly, subversively, pervades the entire work; it is the means by which the "wise" act in the world without struggling against it. For, as Lao Zi sees it, the very act of competing is what causes one to become frustrated and unfulfilled. By a kind of dedicated nonchalance, one achieves ones goals. The idea, as I tried to explain it to the whale in a previous conversation, is to harmonize with the way things are (to use Lao Zi's terminology, to reside beneath), and in so doing, if you permit me to stretch the metaphor a bit, completely change the tune.

This chapter can have a sort of queasy mysticism to it, but only if not read in the context of the whole work. It frustrates me that we the great White Western Way try to make these things seem more foofooey than they actually are. In light of the final chapter, I think that water crap makes perfect sense:

信 言 不 美 ，
美 言 不 信 。

What one says believably is not beautiful,
what he says beautifully not believable.

善 者 不 辯 ，
辯 者 不 善 。
知 者 不 博 ，
博 者 不 知 。

Good men don't argue,
Men who argue aren't good.
Those who know aren't learned,
Learned men do not know.

聖 人 不 積 ，
既 以 為 人 己 愈 有 ，
既 以 與 人 己 愈 多 。

Wise men do not hoard;
the more they do for others, the more is done for them;
the more they give to others, the more they have in kind.

If there's a lesson to be learned from all this it is that one should be in the world but not let it get to him. Yielding to the world and its concerns does not have to mean being overcome by them. This is a false assumption that we all too often make: to yield is to lose. However, for Lao Zi's wise man, winning and losing are entirely irrelevant, thus submission becomes an entirely useful tactic with which to engage but not be overcome by the world and its concerns. Of course, all of this will be subject to the savage's quibbling over my translation of 善 as "good."

But in response to your comment, Mike, I think the problem with Benjamin, and incidentally why he blew his brains out, is that like Bai Juyi he just didn't get it. Brecht maintained a sense of humor toward life that I don't think Benjamin ever had, which is why he managed to survive for so long.

The Soundtrack to Our Lives

About 5 years ago now, I'd gone to Iowa City with Colleen to see Ben Folds, who, despite or because of having been the leader of a sweaty band par excellence, puts on a fantastic live show. But this post isn't about Ben Folds. We arrived way too early, as 1) it was open seating and 2) when born in the Midwest they inject you with some sort of hormone that causes you to become anxious if you leave for something less than a half hour in advance. I was there to see Ben, but someone else showed up as well.



I didn't pay much attention to Neil Hannon at the time. His songs were pleasant enough, though I felt his voice was almost too sonorous and at times a bit monotone. He played a few songs, people clapped as if they had all just gotten back from a lite lunch on the Riviera with Miffy and Alfred, and Hannon quietly took his exit through the thunderous applause that greated Mr. Folds.

I thought about Neil for a moment last night while drinking a delicious Belgian ale (Hoegaarden, if you must ask) at dinner with the Kobayashis. I had picked up my first The Divine Comedy album (Fin de Siecle) during a brief to do back in the States, namely when I taught Great books and was accused, along with everyone's beloved filter-feeder, of helping students cheat on a test. Ah, the memories! It became my constant companion on trips to the gym, and the songs were generally always in my head.

I was also reading in Catullus quite heavily at the time, and as a result, my brain always seems to pair the two. They are not dissimilar, but what binds them for me is a certain melancholic view of the world that while quite depressing on one hand is capable of the most wonderfully witty irony as well, often at the same time. One never knows whether what's being said is quite funny or in fact profoundly sad.

Farewell, milady. now Catullus is resolved.
he won't seek you or ask for you unwilling.
and you will ache, when no one is asking.
ah, you poor skank! what life is there for you?
whom will you go to? to whom will you be beautiful?
who will love you? whose name will you be called?

And that right there is the crux of the matter: exactly whom is Catullus talking to? It makes all the difference.