Trying to fight off "Blogger's Brain." It is like trying not to think of the elephant. Pink, if you will. I thought to tell of dreams, but I have been recalling mine of late, and they are far too disturbing. They are not the sort you tell. Not even to Freud. Can you imagine? It must have been flattering, of course, to have someone listen to your imagination and make up a story about it, you, your life. All you had to do was feed him nonsensical fragments and he would write the story. I can't believe someone hasn't come up with a computer program that can do that now. It would have to be as good as what Gore Vidal came up with for the National Book Awards ceremony. This from the New York Times:"The award for the Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was given to Gore Vidal, the novelist and social critic.
In wandering remarks, Mr. Vidal cited anecdotes about President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. In his only comments about publishing, he puzzled the audience by noting, 'Nowadays it seems the progress of literature is to first print the book and then pulp it,' adding: 'It saves such a lot of time. It’s fun for everybody.'"
God loves a sinner. Gore is good. Anyone who doesn't understand that sort of thing doesn't deserve it. If I had the talent, my own blog would turn that way. Wait. . . .
Lisa left a comment yesterday that I thought I would answer here rather than on the comments page. I had a great response planned out yesterday, but life came between it and me since then, so I will provide the redacted form--sort of. Reduced might be the better term.
Oh, hell, I can remember only one line.
Eroticism is to Pornography as Irony is to Sarcasm.
I think that's it. Eroticism is a poetic way of dealing with death. I think that might have been part of the argument, too. For D.H. Lawrence, the sexual experience without a spiritual connection was enervating and disfiguring; with it, the cosmos began to reveal itself. I think that's right.
But I am butchering everything today. Did I say "the sexual experience"? Seriously?
Something is wrong with me. I think it may be going around. Many must have it.
Part B.
I thought to add this since I originally posted.
Pornography is shouting about sex. Eroticism is whispering.
Oh, hell, I should have left it alone.
Well. I've come to realize, I'm pretty irony-challenged though I love British humor. :)
ReplyDeleteI think one has to be really intelligent to detect irony and I'm just not that.
What are Carlo Mollino's photos -- erotic or pornograhic?
Certainly many of them shout -- but aren't they also -- erotic? or is that determination made by the viewer? or the model or the setting?
I remember when I was stuck in my D.H. Lawrence poetry phase. I did an awful lot of research reading around those Frieda poems.
Probably I have more to say about all that "the cosmos opened .. and the mystery revealed" stuff.
I remember reading a Rexroth essay .. let me see if I can find it.
Stand by.
Here it is:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/lawrence.htm
I really love Rexroth. He created that female character in those erotic Japanese poems, Marichiko. I stole from her muchly and had a series about her too.
She is described in the Author notes:
Marichiko is the pen name of a contemporary young woman who lives near the temple of Marishi-ben in Kyoto. Marishi-ben is an Indian, preA-Aryan goddess of the dawn who is a bodhisattva in Budhism and patron of geisha, prostitutes, women in childbirth and lovers. Her presence in Japan is indicated by statues, often in avenues like sphinxes, of wild boars, who drew her chariot. She has three faces: the front of compassion, one side, a sow, and the other a woman in orgasm. She is a popular, though hidden deity of tantric, Tachigawa Shingon, and as the Light of Lights, the shakti, the Power of Bliss of Vairocana (the primordial Buddha, Dainichi Nyorai), seated on his lap in sexual bliss.
* from Love poems from the Japanese Translated by Kenneth Rexroth, Shambhala Library Publisher.
A subject of interest. In case you didn't notice.
After reading the line about a sexual experience WITH spiritual connection revealing the cosmos, I was going to quote this line from some movie comparing an orgasm with death but then I misplaced the quote and then it seemed too silly to write and then I decided it was a stupid quote anyway and way too romantic and everyone would laugh at me for quoting it and think me strange and what do I know about eroticism anyway but...sometimes I get irony and sarcasm is my middle name.
ReplyDeleteOK, OK, I was better sticking with Irony and Sarcasm and leaving the Erotic and the Pornographic alone. I was sleepy or worse and fell back into my Modernist thinking and the old Eternal Verites.
ReplyDeleteLOL
ReplyDeleteThat seemed an easy way out.....