Askew

 Hi Bob,

I loved your long newsy note! 

Which months are you now in ABQ? I didn't realize the rental manager was no longer renting your place so time really does fly by.... It is all yours now? Does the weather stay the same during those Plymouth summer/fall months in ABQ? 

Must have been FB where I saw a big new rug hung on the wall? 

Glad you get a day off every week--so important. Bob sits a LOT... AM Reads the newspaper (takes a long time to read it cover to cover) and then PM reads articles and stuff in his email. Then watches movies on his iMac and/or follows his people on UTube--He follows: Cara and Nate, now on a train across the US and back through Canada; the Sailing Doodles; the Couple building a homestead in Panama; the guy building a place in Puerto Rico; the Van Wives; Nicki Davenport.... He updates me on these from time to time over dinner. Oh, must not forget the Bumfuzzles, the only ones I have followed for years--they are on a Catamirand and are sailing around the world with their two teens. The husband supports them because he is a stock trader and runs a company to train people to do it (Wanderer Financial). I totally am an old fuddy duddy because I think making your living by filming yourselves and being an "influencer" is so... what? not respectable...  Oh well... THEN, after Bob shows up like clockwork at 6pm for dinner, we watch MSNBC news and possibly some recorded shows.... sigh... My/our boring life,,,  At least so far he can get around with his walker without me so I can go out for walks, hikes, run errands, etc.

Joann, Bob's sister, was given a subscription to Storyworth for Christmas by her son. Costs $99 for a year and they email you one question a week to write about. At the end of the year they print a 6x9 book of your musings. I have always wanted to write my autobiography but it was too hard to start... So I signed up and have written about 8 entries. I prefer to choose my own topics. I write my entries on Mondays while Bob is working out with his trainer... kind of fun! I must at some point go back to do a major edit... 

Watching our little Joey, the Bachelor... and the BORING Farmer Wants a Wife... Shows our taste in mainstream TV...

Ok, dinner time--He will arrive in 20 minutes!!!!!

CHeers,

Nancy

Within a time of reading

Here is all my growth

Through the bodies of other selves,

In books. by promise or perversity

My mutinous crew of furies—their pleading

Threw up at last the naked sprite

Whose flesh and noise I am,

Who is my jailor and my inward night. 

      167  Collected Poems 

Nicholas on his Golgonooza blog March 16 —-

In the neo-Platonism of Plotinus and in Vedanta, matter is either the most remote, disintegrated form of the One or 'Maya' fundamentally illusory - and the purpose of the soul is to realize its fundamental difference from any material entanglement - which is dissolved as illusion. 

Ironically, from the perspective of Iamblichus or Tantra, the alternative path is, in fact, seen as the one of 'dualism' - the soul detaches itself from the world, is a counterpoint to the world, the One identified with is not the One that embraces the Many but divorces it!

This set of differences is explored in fascinating and enriching detail in the text - and in many ways both Iamblichus and Tantra emerge as traditions that are fully incarnate, so what of Christianity, Iamblichus' chief rival, and one that would come to be the dominant Western tradition, eliminating its rival by force? Is not Christianity the religion of incarnation par excellence? To which Iamblichus' answer would be an unequivocal no! The fatal mistake of Christianity in his eyes was to imagine that the incarnation was singular - in one particular person - and though that event is meant to restore the possibilities of raising all humans to a new 'deified' status in theosis, the cleavage remains, the divine presence in the world is held by a human, 'rented' out to other humans (on certain conditions) and denied in its fullness to the world as a whole of which we are an interwoven, inseparable part. To Iamblichus, this was simply the definition not of cosmic theurgy or magic but of simple sorcery, a terrible demeaning inflation in the divine's proper ordering! 

. . . .

So we are back to Plato - who was his better interpreter - Plotinus or Iamblichus? Probably better both than their twentieth-century peers but for me, it would be Iamblichus because he sees better Plato in the round, is less inclined to elide those things that so often disappear in later readings, and miss the fundamentally transformative invitation of the dialogues to a spiritual life that embraces the whole of the created order, right now.

. . .

In Iamblichus/Tantra, the One, the divine, has deliberately, consciously become the Many, has alienated itself in the particular, so that it might be known, and in conscious acts of weaving be re-realized as One present to and within the Many, and not simply in the human soul but in every particular form of matter - animal, plant, stone - and the very forces of our alienation have the potential to be the energies of delight. 

found an interview with Aciman, 2019 in the Times  

I finally finished “Anna Karenina.” It was work. I never took to Tolstoy. He always struck me as the Cecil B. DeMille of literature. Epic, panoramic and gushy, but ultimately simple. I was always intrigued by Anna’s love for Vronsky and by her petty jealous husband. I’d read large bits and finally decided to read the whole thing. It did not change me.

——

Fascinating. Thanks for sending it. I hadn't seen it. It's a bit of an echo of what I was saying in the Great Work. It's a corporate dance now. Susan and I went into a Barnes & Noble in Portsmouth and it depressed the hell out of me. Honestly, the whole world seems too populated. Too many books, too many movies, too many tv shows. I don't envy young writers -- or musicians or painters, etc. -- starting out now. Busy world.

All good here. How are you doing? Everyone here is atwitter about the eclipse. I'm going to go up to Lake Tarleton to watch it. Wendy is throwing a big fete at her inn in Vermont. I guess she has booked out in a major way.

Hope you head back soon. Will you be a major landlord again?  You are NH's answer to Trump. 

Write when you can. Always good to hear from you. J

Hope you enjoy a bit of the eclipse buzz all around you there.  Cloudy here so we probably won't see much of

any kind of shadow and we're far away from the PATH OF TOTALITY!! Sounds like lame sci-fi fiction or video game.

Make sure you take a look at "Ripley" on Netflix.  Black and white and excellent.  Superb acting and stunning

photography.  Script pares it all down to essentials, adding a few embellishments here and there.  All's quiet

here.  No visitors this year.  Few might pop up in early May.  We are no longer doing any Airbnb with it and

that is a relief.  Putting our junk all around and no need to clean it up when we leave in May.  Against all of

my protestations, Virginia went ahead and booked us into a private 10 day safari to Kenya.  Hotel to jeep 

each day, riding around looking for animals.  I predict . . . . but no one cares what I think about such things

so we will see what happens.  Dread all of it even silly details like wearing those knee-high tight compression

socks to stave off blood clots in the legs on the 14 hr plane flight.  Oh well, as we used to joke in Reed house

take me out in a kayak and tip it over.  Not as much fun as a gag line now, is it?  We'll get together for lunch

in late June when we get back from Kenya and you can call me B'wana.  Two new small bookshops in town in

addition to the few that survived before everything.  Watching lots of tv.  Murder mysteries have conquered

the world.  

—-

Hi Bob and Virginia,

Hope you are both well and enjoying Albuquerque.  It continues to be warm and sunny here so it will be quite a shock to return to Plymouth next week.  I was reading Tom Sietsma’s column in the Washington Post this morning (a job I would love to have), and a reader asked for a recommendation for a restaurant in Albuquerque, and he responded that he really  liked Campo at Los Pablomas.  Of course, I immediately wanted to know if you had been there. And I am suren you are thinking that it says a lot about me that I am reading a food column at 7:30 in the morning.

We have enjoyed our time in Sarasota, but we look forward to our return to Plymouth. There was certainly a lot of hype for the eclipse in New Hampshire.  Christa and Kerim flew to Dallas to see it and they were very impressed.  Spring should be arriving in Plymouth when we return.  We look forward to seeing you soon.   Carole

Hi Carole

We are each replying so you can see if we live in overlapping worlds or not!  We once had brunch at Los Campos and thought then how much you would

like it.  Another time we had high tea on the porch of their older building in front of the first swimming pool ever in Albuquerque, built in the '30s.  Have

not had dinner at Los Campos.  Too pricey but am sure it would be super.  Today temps promised to hit the low 70s.  It has been a cool and windy spring so far.  Va's cousin Nancy is coming for a visit the first week of May, from Seattle.  We are hanging some plates and putting more on top of the kitchen cabinets.  I bought a higher step ladder for that but already feeling cautious about it so have asked niece Lisa to come and help us with that.  Now we have to find someone to trim the front bush.  Agree that the hype for the eclipse seemed a bit much.  On Netflix "Ripley" we enjoyed tremendously.  We will go to Dallas for two nights with Marilyn and Ray before heading home by May 19.  They complained that their tax bill is too high this year because they bought a third house in Irving to be used by a man who is translating their bible into Arabic and his two daughters. Earlier  this week we got a splash of photos from our family who are on the beach in Spain right now  Looking forward to seeing you too.  

love, Bob 

Dear Carole, 

Yes, ABQ IS GETTING TO BE NICE;WARM TEMPS BUT a lot of wind.

I think you mean the resto at Poblanos.  Yes we have been there and loved the food.  We have also enjoyed high tea and brunch at Campo, another place to eat  at Poblanos which is an organic farm with veggies and lavender.

So we have found some nice places to take you when you come . 

Can't believe Christa flew to Dallas for the eclipse.  We settled for seeing it on tv since it was cloudy here and we didn't have the glasses.  Not the same I'm sure,but glad so many got to see it in the NE. My sister saw it in Irving,TX.  On our way back to NH,We will be going to visit her and her husband RAY and meet her sweet little granddaughter ,Astrid as well as spending some time with our nephews, Chris and Rick who will all be there to celebrate our 80th  BIRTHDAY(you remember I am a cougar and married a younger man. Bob is 15 days younger than I am!!)  All that on our way back to NH which should be beautiful by then.  

We   assume you and Ken will be organizing another beautiful wedding anniverary  lunch in June. It was so lovely last year.

Enjoy your way back to NH.

LOVE, 

Va and Bob 

——

Hey  thanks for the photo.  It got me two "likes" or "hearts" when I posted it on my X account. I vaguely remember it

but hardly remember it at all.  Seems like it comes from centuries ago.  Very difficult to recall forty years of life in

the classrooms.  So strange it all becomes.  Now that we are both a few weeks away from being 80!  I was with my

dad when he turned 80, we were all in new orleans visiting my sister's family.  80 must be the new 72, right?  

I should have something to report but lizards basking in the sun have few thoughts and fewer obsevations.  Some

weeds sprouted up on the edge of the astroturf.  Our niece and her husband stopped by and she insisted on going out

to pull them out.  They are newly retired in their early 50s, lucrative jobs for thirty years at rocket labs here.  Now

they square dance four nights a week and travel around in their RV to square dance competitions. 

Your airstream for Maine sounds a good idea.  No word from the agent yet?  

You started on some other stories?  Pretty much realized that staring into space all day is where it's at.  Do you

remember Necker Baines who sat by the bridge in Plymouth or was that before your arrival?  

At traffic light stop other day I may have seen a cadaver for first time ever.  Guy lying on the divider strip, dirty, homeless,

couldn't see his face.  Bright flourescent paint stripe next to him as though marked for pickup by either hearse truck or

social services.  Thought I could see his belly breathing but not sure.  Unnerving.  

Finished reading Durrell.  Who should I read next?  We get back 21 May.  

Bob 

——

Durrell's views about Sade are welcome and telling.  Page 184 in Caesar's Ghost.  A strange book, his last as I suppose he knew.  So far I am avoiding much biograph, gave up skimming through Richard Pine's variant.  Have the other two but put them away so as not to browse further.  

Gerald Murnane's books perfect after Durrell.  Intense and strange in puzzling and satisfying ways.  The Plain.  The great novel about growing up Catholic!  so on the money and funny and too close to the bone for comfort.

In A Million Windows now.  Askew, askance, gay, queer, aparametric, non-parametric.