page 78

in Marlon James and, damn, 'dis be da book!  

​Hey Phil  

Cold down there too?  Sunny as heck, though, here and the trees looking better

turning red and gold than they have in years.  Lots of snow and rain in Feb-March

supposed to be best for the fall colorings.  

Trying to think of how to give you a hand with what you're going through and

coming up with not too much at this distance, except for imaginary feelings

of how distressing and upsetting it must be for you.

Can only think of writing things;  keeping an even longer or more detailed daily journal of what is going on for you each day.  Here is my example for this Tuesday so far:  Big event was driving out to walmart.  Parking lot all torn up so they can repave it, could hardly find a place to turn around.  Drove to the upper scale grocery store instead.  Took the heavy jar of ten years worth of coins to the machine that takes them; it printed out a slip saying I had $77.22 cash, take to any checkout.  Roamed the store buying children's zyrtec for Va's allergies, efferdent tablets for her nightly teeth splints, a few frozen dinners, a loaf of pigs fly bread (from Maine), and a box of strawberry flavored frozen Yasso mochis. (Japanese style snack, ice cream nuggets wrapped in rice powder skins). 

Started reading a new novel the NYT reviewed as the greatest thing since Joyce's Ulysses, not that they would ever hype anything.  

Time now to prick and ping the meal prepared just for us by the fuckingly famous british chef,  Chef Ramsay, and toss a few leaves of lettuce in oil and vinegar.  

Virginia's on her second round of antibiotics to clear out the infection in two toes of her right foot.  She insert was pinching it in way we didn't realize; big blister formed, looked nasty.  Same Day Care LPN figured it out three days ago.

Catholic Medical Center called and gave her a date in two weeks to go to Manchester so they can give her chest the cat scan that will tell the cardiologist what exactly is happening with her 7 year old aortic valve that it has become narrowed severely once again.  No symptoms in her (so far, more sleeping and fatigue, but not (yet?) the "trouble breathing" that is the first thing they ask about.  

That's it for the moment.  Hope you're both hanging in there as we all move

. . . onward and further on 

----

yes, the book is good.  Makes Moresco's look like a mummified  marxist euro intelo mulch.

or something   dried, dessicated, pretentious 

Monday 5 October

 Don't know what to say to Phil that would help him.  He sounds scared and upset and who would not be?

from email a day or two ago---guess it was yesterday--"Yes I’ve thought of keeping both for a while, so that if I don’t like the center I could possibly move back.   That would cost me some money but perhaps I could afford it.   On the other hand, my loss of memory makes me fee totally out of control of my life these days, so moving back into my house where I would not be able to get the kind of total  care that I will soon need, I think, scares me.   I don’t like being 82………..P"

we took the bandage off Va's toe.  Not as healed as we had hoped but much better.  Second time around so we know more what is going on.  Antibiotic at work, turquoise pill "for sinusitis."   We decided to not try the pool tomorrow with Rachel.  Big anxiety is getting up early enough on Weds to get to MidState by 9 am to see Philips briefly.  My aim for today is to get rid of my chest phlegm cough once and for all.  No baked goods, sugars, fats.  Had that cheese bowl yesterday which was dumb.  Warmer today, wetter.  Shower a few minutes earlier, skies bright now.  

Phil's fate makes me think I will put more time and energy into writing this journal, just to try to keep days straights, thoughts repeated enough to recognize and remember them.  Bela said sometime in the last day that D & C's problems stem from different lifestyles.  School teacher and rock/jazz musician.  I added that the newest factor in all of this--other than Annie's sudden death---is Dave's involvement with RockU, which gives him an expat, wealthy, music crowd to identify with, speak American (&French) and hang with as a group of friends.  C can readily see this as a real movement "away" from how their lives used to be when it was "all France."  Would I suggest to him that he "give up" working for/with RockU?  Just as easily suggest to C that she learn to embrace/approve of that aspect of his/their lives and involve herself with it as well.  He went "all France" for ten years, her turn to go "all Am/music" for ten years.  

But both streams of thought are superficial in relation to the core of their lives---the beautiful kids, their security, love and future development.  Frank Sinatra singing Love and Marriage actually on FIP right now!  We just heard it yesterday on our apple music stream.  Weird.  

Enjoyed Stasiuk's travel essays around eastern Europe.  Bleak.  Twenty years ago.  Landscape must be severe.  Could look at YouTube videos.  His writing superb; mind, thoughts.  A bit more down than Handke, I'd say.  Even says he wants an imperial power vs democracy; even if that is empty or dreamlike fantasy talk, can see that "turn" that has given us our current imperidiot.  

waiting too to see if CMC gives us the cat scan appointment 

they did!  21st  DHMC also called and offered to take us on.  They would start in early Nov; half day work-up with all their tests one after another, including cat scan.  She agreed that actual procedure would likely be four to eight weeks down the calendar.  Might be similar timeline at cmc; we don't know yet. We agreed pretty easily that staying with what we've started seems best.  More familiar since a Repetition.  

What to say to Phil about his situation?  Commiserate, make no suggestions?  

two opposing opinions today on x contemplator caeli says "gay guys have been divinely granted a unique mystical ability to look upon the world. the whole of philosophy is a history of this fact." while lonelyfag says "Nothing good is downstream from coming out of the closet. One of the biggest lies we are sold. It’s literally nobody’s business and it being private and personal makes it 10X better" in reply to "More and more young queer men are choosing to live closeted and I think we will witness an era where instead of the norm being a closeted older man hooking up with an openly gay younger guy" and the comments keep going on and on "Yes the philosopher must detach enough to observe reality but immerse deeply enough to know it. They operate between the yonic particular and phalic abstract in the androgynous half light . Suspended between the symbolic mother and father their psyches have skewed homosexual" One cited Bataille's Solar Anus book. Did I ever look at that one? Phil surely did. And Scott M.

going to try the notary website Max said it should be safe and a good idea. Max my NM lawyer.

done! After one deflated attempt tried again and this time Proof and Notarize got it done in a few minutes. Young guy in Philly on video walked us through it. Bingo. $35. Saves going to ups store. Bank wouldn't even do it. Nice.

Disappearers arrived (from walmart!). Now we can have a life before TD and after TD!! Big honking tome but nice font and spacing, readable. Emmett Stinson in Aus posted that he just got Moresco. Want to see what he posts about it eventually, if he does. All this hype for Marlon James makes me remember Cavalier and Clay of some years ago. NYC hype. Whatever happened to the great Michael Chabon?

3rd printing beautiful job, paper lovely, page turn beautiful

and how long has it been that a book has a note in the back on the Type?!! Adobe Caslon Pro "renowned for its warmth, elegance, and readability. "historical character with modern refinement, making it especially well suited to extended reading and literary works." wowza

there's nothing more

that I love than being a good boy especially if it's  

by page 463 we are in readable prose, sort of story esque dialogue and movement.  Not enough to make me want to keep reading, let alone enjoy.  Curiosity of course to see what will be what by the last page but irritation enough to revert back to agreeing with Billings---about the work but cannot blame the translator, can we?  Now we can see how Lawton got involved with this.  It is all about the Russian revolution somehow.  Romanovs, Lenin in a wheelchair, Benno?  other clues and references I am missing for sure.  Why do I not just forget it and move on?  Could but only, only, 200 pages to go.  Anastasia. 

p 478  courage to stop now.  enough.  

for only $997. marked down from $2497. I can take a philosophy course online with Mark Millerman

PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto, with subfields in Political Theory and International Relations, and a collaborative degree in Jewish Studies.

Author of Beginning with Heidegger, translator of multiple major works by Alexander Dugin, and founder of Millerman School. The courses are built on close reading of primary texts — the actual books, slowly, with attention to argument, difficulty, and what standard readings often miss.

took his mystic test last night on X and came out 100% Sufi !

he seems to be big on Leo Strauss 

early run to walmart and two chats  one with the guy in white, with the cool, low white car; he looks older, chatted at the car, says he crashed and burned a few years ago with the instant online celebrity thing; now drives a toyota, into ordinary life; wants to travel; lives with his mother still.  No money troubles it still seems.  loner and happy about it.  

second chat out front as I pulled into the drive.  Dennis out looking for his dog.  He says the chickens all have red coxcombs and they have no roosters yet.  He looks much like the carpenter he's become now.  Apprenticing with a guy ten years older in Holderness.  He and Ashley going out to CA for the annual work vacay trip out to Sonos.  He's much happier not to be studying for a masters in sociology.  dead end that was it is clear.  he didn't say that.  my guess.  

time to turn to some travel essays by the Polish writer, Andrzej Stasiuk, On the Road to Babadag, Travels in the Other Europe.  2004 

in a 2007 interview he says "I fear both the Germans and the Russians, I despise them both equally, and I admire them both. Maybe it's the Poles' fate to be constantly meditating on their own fate in Europe and in the world. Being a Pole means to live in perfect isolation. Being a Pole means to be the last human being east of the Rhine. Because for a Pole, the Germans are something like well-constructed machines, robots; while the Russians are already a bit like animals."  

and this sounds like Handke --"Stasiuk admitted that he "always wanted to write a Slavonic On the Road and place it in a quite geographically limited and historically complicated space". Stasiuk's travelogue Jadąc do Babadag ("Travelling to Babadag"), describes a journey from the Baltic Sea down to Albania, and arguably comes close to this ideal. In Stasiuk's own words, "[t]here is no individual, human story in this book [...]. I wanted rather to write about geography, landscape, about the influence of material reality on the mind".^[2] Jadąc do Babadag received the Nike Award for the best Polish book of 2005."

"While Stasiuk often maintains a gritty, down-to-earth perspective rooted in his real-world experiences (including a stint in a communist prison for deserting the army), Handke’s focus is more abstract and postmodern, heavily questioning the limits of language itself."

from Rupert  "

o RML

'I learned that real thinking and writing is more about orchestration of
materials than creativity. Your task, whether as a poet or novelist or
scholar or union researcher or urban planner, is to integrate your own
intelligence with the active intelligence around you to enhance
articulation. You are not here to impose your signature on a set of
materials, raw or cooked, human or inanimate. You are here to discover
both their essential and detailed truth, and to then put both into
action politically and personally.'

Stan Persky & Brian Fawcett, Robin Blaser, Vancouver: New Star Books,
2010, 78.)

binaural beats

 Binaural beats are generally safe, but the "dark side" involves physical and psychological side effects like increased anxiety, headaches, dizziness, and overstimulation when misused

Readers of Moresco's The Beginnings enjoy the narrative variant of binaural beat theta waves.

will that work as my tweet on X today?

blood drawn for the cat scan.  mid-state only does low-dose scans.  appointment for mchr on monday.  warm day but heavy moist air, headache flourishing  

5 pm just noticed that disappearers via abebooks shipped to abq! yuck  probably soaked in the flood waters by now or locked into the mailbox   why does that site always make this mistake?

End of Chapter 16   Now all of a sudden, no, slowly, we are in a story about the empty branch office building, the Lady and her daughters and the man with the tattoo of the hammer and sickle who seems to be raping the woman, or the daughter, our guy has seen them and later speaks to the women about him, the broker works in the back of the little car, snow has covered everything.  

Lunch earlier at La Frontera in Tilton with E and J.  Delightful, really.  He talked about his troubles with gardening this summer.  The three yards of horse manure were to fresh to work well.  It needs more drying and turning over and over in the soil.  He had poor luck with seeds he brought from Columbia so he bought a $3 tomato at the store, ate it, saved the seeds and planted them.  Their plants are now up and doing well, will finish ripening the tomatoes over the next few weeks.  When he cuts the grass of his place and his daughter's next door on his riding mower it takes him two hours.  Deer come to eat all of his garden plants.  E's back still pains her but a new medicine helps her sleep.  And she still walks without pain every day for a few miles.  They will go to Medellin in December and then to an island resort called San Andreas.  Off the coast of Nicaragua.  

G7 releasing 100 million barrels of oil onto world markets   2 October Friday 

page 374

 10:13 am  reading is a contest of wills; you wrote this, I will read every word

now they tell me the China Mieville tome is also necessary   hokey is the word Fisher, Matt K., used for Fosse's newest book, Hotel Vaim.  Gonna pass on Mieville after a wiki scan 

Wednesday  30 September  Dr Gilani Day 

in Beginnings we're in the intensity of somnolence, the intention of waking from silence and sleep into returning to the world, experiences and people are not important per se but only presented as shadows and lights, clouds, wisps, stars, waves.  From the zen circles of gravel in the seminary outward into roads, squares, windows, roofs, cornices, trees, microphones, baldchins, 

so the Gilani call was a face visit after all.  He could see us, we could not see him.  He wants us to go to CMC for a cat scan so he can see the valve properly.  Maybe he does not trust the echocardiagram from this summer?  And/or no "shortness of breath" symptom, so no crisis.  He sees two options---a new medicine blood thinner or a new insert into the existing valve.  Bela very disappointed and upset; cannot see why the cruise had to be canceled, why an appointment was not set up today.  

headache has returned;  decaf coffee and cacao just now.  Duh.  when wise up?  wise down?  too much analysis of medical journey details, details 

Max Whittaker replied about setting up the claim deed.  That should work for the trust attorney.  

Talked with her paralegal and it does. 

headache result of two tabs of magnesium glyconate?  

so Moresco portrays without portraying the state being in formation, in a seminary, creates and what it is like to leave that fugue state and re-enter the rejected world, the world the seminary is designed to withdraw you from.  Italian readers would understand this rather easily and fully.  The vocation to the priesthood would be as familiar to them as going for holy communion when you are between 5 and 7 years old.  Like Christmas every year.  Must be other ways Moresco's texts are echoing, playing with, off of cultural details which we cannot see.  More so than with Handke.  Translators can only do so much.  Yes, they can recast it into the language, style that fits the reader's language.  Translation as loss would be the essential experience of all reading, in and of itself. 

Arlyn came by and looked over the yard.  His guy can climb up onto the sunporch roof and clear the leaves and branches from behind the skylights.  Take out the dead part of the rhododendrons in the front.

Moresco days will slow.  most likely.  disappearers delivers tomorrow.  

Should we take a Stand on the heart valve and say, we go to DHMC for cardiology or we go nowhere?  

sounds like one of those delusory, silly, either/or's.  

page 363 now

 Ready to start Chapter 10   The way to read it is to read it fast, the way you read Schattenfroh last fall.  The narrative has been severely leached, bleached, drained of color, feeling, significance, density, texture.

Much spinning on axes, axses, plurality of axis.  The wander the villages setting up platforms from which to give speeches.  One hairy macho man with hammer and sickle tattooed on his chest.  A forward rushing motion with little going on.  The blind man, the fractured yellow car, the man with the very white face.  Seminary mentioned every so often.  Sometimes weather.  Hilly landscape.  Cobbles, stones, walls, darkness, empty town squares.  But in one a huge crowd, the key to the city, questions about what next, ream of paper spread to make a decent mattress for sleeping.  Distinct sense of enjoyment, unique, very not like any other pleasant experience, reading or not reading.  

just like learning to ride a bike; when you get it, you get it, and smooth free flying from there on 

dduh Saturday

 Got message from Allianz that 1k will deposit in bank account.  Realized there is another policy with one day difference.  Called them, spoke with agent (in Manila?).  Filed a new claim on that other policy.  Agent said it could pay 8k per person.  Sure hope so.  

Pulling up and out of my cold.  Long sleep  and sleep-in until 9.  Without theta vibrations this time too.  Canceled lunch with Ermelina and J until next Saturday.  Headache has kicked in while filing this claim thing.  Probably lie down in the recliner for a bit.  

Sunday  slept really late this morning.  Now almost 2.  Dave will call us tonight for his birthday greeting; he is out to dinner with a crew it seems.  

Gray skies from the nor'easter which Kathy at the Cape says turned out to be not as terrible as predicted.  

Trying to return to reading.  Reading.  What is reading?  

quiz  Chapter 4 Headlong  They drive around the villages, setting up a baldachin and microphone so as to speak to rallies.  Mostly at night, it is cold, the lake is near, they get water for the bucket to mix the glue for the posters.  He goes back to the blind man's place to sleep for the night.  Everyone there is blind; he can sense when some get up a feel their way around looking for the water tap, they find him on the bed, run their hands through his hair.  

now how does AI put it?  Alas, I did not find exactly what I was looking for.  Instead I found Andrei's incredibly detailed and helpful, overly helpful, essay on his blog (on their blog if Andrei is a group or collective) theuntranslated.  Here is one paragraph:  

A 600-page novel totally devoid of character psychology and blatantly unforthcoming with the motives for their actions is an uncomfortable read, to say the least. It would be easier to accept the book if it was a slim nouveau-romanish exercise in form and style, instead of an epic narrative spanning more than 20 years of Italian history in which the minutiae of everyday life and surreal episodes of brain-searing intensity are recounted in the same dead-pan, unreflective tone. There is some affinity between The Beginnings and Mircea Cărtărescu’s latest novel Solenoid: both novels integrate the fantastic, bizarre and extraordinary into the mundane to a stunning effect. Both are ironic subversions of the Künstlerroman and both contain a heavy dose of autobiographical material. But Solenoid is all about the voice and attitude of its main character, who obviously serves as the mouthpiece for Cărtărescu’s own ideas. By shutting down this “channel” for his characters, Moresco heavily sacrifices the readability of his book: it’s as if he had chosen to show a sound film without the sound. Out of the two novels, Solenoid is by far more enjoyable, whereas The Beginnings is more iconoclastic in the uncompromising pursuit of its artistic principles to the detriment of readerly comfort."

with this sort of cliff notes help will I bother to keep reading any of Moresco?  Why?  Why not just read the blog summation and evaluation?  Am I loving the experience of reading the Beginnings on my own?  A difficult question.  Am I trying to be in the chosen company of those rare readers who "have done it". Like climbing Everest?  Posting it on X as a boast for the month?  What pleasure or experience am I getting by reading the remaining 2j-300 pages exept the passing of time, the distancing curiosity of doing something, anything, while sitting alone with a book in my hand.  ?  What is reading; what do we want from it?  With it?  Is Moresco worth it?  Should I shift to DFW or someone else.  Oh, and of course, I am waiting for the greatest of great new books, the disappearers, which, I already know, given the hype cloud around it, will disappoint me even more than The Beginnings is disappointing.  

Ah, but is it disappointing?  There it is.  One admission is that on the blog, looking forward into the next hug volumn, the Songs of Chaos, Andrei's exclamations about the unimaginable weirdness of the next book makes one want to read it, maybe, and therefore to have experienced what went before just to be ready for what comes after.  Why do we submit ourselves to writers in the first place; why invite them into our minds and homes?  Is Booth's "friendship" not too gentle and genteel, midwestern and relentlessly upbeat?  These writers horrify on purpose.  What purpose?  They waste their time and they waste our time.  They assume and presume.  We wish and wonder and take a chance.  Gambling all the way.  Desperately finding what we want no matter what.  

We find ways to admire the performance because it is unlike any other.  "I felt myself being brushed against on all sides by soft elbows, by tender knees.  There was a feeling of sweetness no longer controllable, of memorable mush."  300  yes, bravo! we say.  I'm getting it.  Keep going,  

"the shutters falling thunderously"  just like that, we were there, in Santiago, Chile, when the water canons came out into the riotous streets, the shopkeepers dropped their metal curtain doors.  The feathered ones breaking bones of faces and shoulders with the butts of their rifles.  

now by 303 we are in surreal dreamscape.  interesting, or same old same old???  the black nun, all black hair, the Italian catholic seminarian's nightmare figures 

Games of Eternity (Giochi dell’eternità) by Antonio Moresco

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Andrei

https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/games-of-eternity-giochi-delleternita-by-antonio-moresco/  

empty Friday

 25th   We were both ready for this, slept in an extra hour. Nothing on the docket.  Rick Evans called to come see us about moving to his new operation.  He had 730 clients on his list right before leaving the Hanover office.  Still feeling honored that he wants to keep us as clients. 

Told Phil he should move into Sunrise asap.  John messaged that he will talk with him later today.  

Came down with a cold yesterday.  Chills in the afternoon.  I blame the flu and pneumonia shots taken together about a week ago.  Medieval mind at work, nonscientific humanities geek.  Oh well, nap all day and hope it goes in three days.  Sinuses of course.  Ate a few slices of apple and the sugars in that sent me into sneezing.  Oatmeal in water, green tea and cacao in separate cups, advil, and no dairy.  Absolutely no dairy.  Had too much of it in past week;  stopped oatmilk and started using milk.  Mistake.  I know better.  Water.  

Waiting to see if Allianz will come through with refund for cruise.   Essayist and teacher? Andrew Bertaina posted this from Annie Dillard.  Do I subscribe to it?  Guess so this morning for today.  "“I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.” Annie Dillard

Sounds a good deal like Wendell Berry too.