talk about “love”

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If one wants to understand love (beyond “love”)—presuming one doesn’t adequately understand it so far (safe bet)—look to a woman rather than a man, right?

“You do not know who I am”

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So says Emma Recchi (embodied by Tilda Swinton) to her husband
at one great plot point of “I Am Love,” which I saw last night.

According to a reviewer: The Italian Director/Writer Luca Guadagnino “calls food ‘a tool to express the utter giving that a lover can display to the other without words.’” At an earlier great plot point, Emma dines on glazed prawns (atop ratatouille with sweet and sour sauce)—a sparse-covered plate looking like prototypical California cuisine, a matter of delicate flavors and textures to be savored, not quantity to fill (but it’s genuinely Italian, evidently: inspired by a well-known Milan chef, advisor to the film). She convincingly conveys an erotic experience of the flavors (seriously, not comical; it’s revelatory for her character Emma) “Ms. Swinton herself calls the moment ‘prawn-ography.’”

being here now, there then

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More quiet tonight in that high field, wind through the surrounding
forest of eucalyptuses, soothing (if you need soothing), serene.

Walking back, a car with loud music passes: rhythm of voice
and sound texture a hybrid of reggae and hiphop. What intensely-practiced performance-spontaneity pop music is.

Flow of play in true spontaneity—unwitting self expression
(shameless incrimination)—bricolagic, impromptu, ad hoc truth
of presence doesn’t resort to such terms as “unwitting self expression”
or et ceterationalities.

welcome, summer

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I didn't’t start the day intending to write a long letter that I didn’t send. But the presumption early on that I’d send a short email flowered into—what the hell—a long email that would surely be sent soon (actual intent to send draws it all on). I was indeed enjoying myself. Paragraphs became pages.

days go by.2

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Fermenting, gestating—synergistic liminalities—fission…. Flow again would be a good topic for writing to these luscious early days of summer so filling me with things to say. I want to revel in the pleasure.

I love the phrase “halcyon days,” though mine’s not yet Walt Whitman’s sense of life waning (link to his poem is upcoming).

Bloomsday

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Happy birthday to me.

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carrot love

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In 2007, Michael Pollan, the culinary journalist, was being interviewed by the NYTimes when he blurted “But who knows what the hell else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?” This became the epigram, on a page all its own, at the beginning of Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: cognition, culture, narrative, by Lisa Zunshine, Johns Hopkins U.Press, 2008.

I could relate. Some time ago, I found a carrot with a violet soul—
the color, it so happened, of my years-old “gary e. davis” header—
abandoned header, still cherished color.

Though I prefer the word ‘amethyst’ to ‘violet’, it’s a royal violet I like—still standing for ideas I love, and for influence made lasting in light
of findings.

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work finely made may be never finally done

version 1

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Thanks to this medium, there is, when needed, rebirth. Elations of solitude bearing sketches among sketches, merged into a singular piece, pieces among pieces composing a clear horizon can inspire distant transforms returning to have been destined for somewhere else.

It was only literary psychology, aspects of a tropical mind.

serial affairs

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Wandering through a beautiful array of books in a nearby store (not Moe’s) on a perfect spring afternoon, I purchased—well, [insert extended narrative of literary prattle proving allegorical the passage of his days] imagine writing 700+ pages (small font) on how all Literature tends toward The Seven Basic Plots: overcoming the monster, rags to riches. the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth.

romancing conceptuality

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Monday, 5.24 — 9:30 pm

Twelve days without posting...

One day included a short romance with Edward Slingerland’s desire to shape a new sense of “consilience.”

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Thursday, 5.27 — 12:50 pm

So, my sense of Flourishing—Flow of bricolagic days, elations of solitude, intimacies, joyful and beautiful living, finding fulfillment and happiness—lives somewhere between good enough days—warmheartedly, wholeheartedly embodied—and such romancing.

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living fruitfully

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Now done, this longest part of the “conceptuality...” project highlights aspects of living fruitfully, biased toward what I want to dwell with later. Indeed, the entire project feels like a preface (which I say in the discussions too often, maybe).

telic appeal

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Yes, “living fruitfully,” where a nectarine of license may weave into a narrative sorbet.

Yet, that’s an ever-arriving futurity, not the thereby ever-distancing past, as making life a working “art” is an aspirational importance of ever-anewing potential in things (and quote marks, a sign of humility, as well as ever-present questioning).

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night note

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Standing “under” the stars, at a jogging track carved into a hill
above the university, surrounded by Berkeley, next to the black Bay waters, and the pointillistic carpet of San Francisco lights in the black distance—so many lights, each for the little surround below each, for its street. Only the likes of me and airliners see the metro array. It all

“From this I reach…philosophy”

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from Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being:

“The shock-receiving capacity is what makes me a writer. I hazard the explanation that a shock is at once in my case followed by the desire to explain it. I feel that I have had a blow, but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token

warmheartedness

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I’m most certainly no masochist, but I get warm fuzzies from a put-down by someone who has clear warmheartedness with me, such that the tease might seem otherwise (to someone just entering the room) dismissive or coldhearted. I love being teased by a friend.

For example, I say: “I didn’t know the software could do that,” and my friend replies: “There’s lots of things you don’t know.” I get a good laugh.

thinking of excellent ontogeny without egoism

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What is the developmental basis of a very good sense of self, independent yet easily empathic? A well-enabled sense of self avoids habitual and extreme egoism. Egoism expresses, ironically, disabled self sense. How goes developmental avoidance of egoistic personality, resulting in strong, constructive self efficacy with very good empathy?

midland days

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I make notes offline to a variably larger extent than writing online (let us hope). I sometimes put here what interests me during the day to have online (daynotes), and postings are part of a piecemeal journal toward actualizing a large-scale project (or Project) already largely realized, yet

a serene elation of wealth

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X amount of force in a depth of water may cause a serene flow where that same amount of force in shallow water causes a frenzied flow (same energy; less space for it to flow in). The frenzied energy of a young mind (having a relative thinness of neural connectivity for given available energy) may be serene in later years, as the older mind (so rich in density of associativity) is actually doing more with given energy than the younger mind can, but far less overtly, maybe appearing passive to youth. The attention span of the young mind may be very episodic; its listening shallow, where the much-older mind may seem passive (even inattentive) when such a mind is deeply receptive.

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life as literary psychology

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Thursday morning, 4/1

The New York Times reports on recent interest in bridging cognitive psychology and literary studies, something that’s been going on for many years. But commonly in interdomainal inquiry, there are new vistas to explore. I think it’s a can of worms, but I wouldn’t want less for my leading edges. The Times article has many aspects that are valuable to me, so I’m going to use themes from the article for a series of five postings.

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irt: in relation to—or better: in relation with

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‘irt’ means “in relating to.” It’s easier to keystroke than ‘vis-à-vis.’

Yet, I understand with as the basis for “…to”: being in relation with, thus in relation to. I want to understand being-with as the basis for a sense of being in relation to, relating. That’s not always apt, as in simply asserting a semantic connection, yet we’re always doing things with words, enacting a relation that can be reflectively regarded as relating to.

[Nov. 13, 2011: Excuse my linking to this posting so often
from other pages, if that has become tedious for you.]

I think so much vis-à-vis things being vis-à-vis that I always use ‘irt’
in my notes. I might as well use it online, and have this little posting.

Besides, I don’t do French, so ‘vis-à-vis’ feels unduly pretentious,
even though it’s now common for English (and I commonly have
no compunction about being pretentious).

Basically, though, ‘irt’’s a time saver for someone obsessed
with interfacing, interplay, interality, inter-intering (recursive potential), and so on.

[revised April 9, 2019 and June 4, 2024.]

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