Breton
I have had an interesting couple of days. We had an "out" night on Thursday, which started at GWU, pretty entertaining.
Last night, I went to a speech at Georgetown, then for light refreshments to schmooze and so forth. I was too tired to get much out of the speech. A Bishop from Southern Sudan who was an interesting person, it seemed, got side tracked often. He bounced from violence, and all the implications, to the cultural portrayal of women in an unfocused manner. Although, it was free food, very much welcomed. Next, Jessie and I went bookstore hopping, and I ended up spending way too much money.
Today, I slept in until 2. I read Breton's Nadja this afternoon.
I wish I spoke french because he pays such attention to detail I feel I am not getting the most out of it.
"By what latitude could we, abandon thus to the fury of symbols, be occasionally a prey to the demon of analogy, seeing ourselves the object of extreme overtures, of singular, special attentions? How does it happen that thrown together, once and for all, so far from the earth in those brief intervals which our marvelous stupor grants us we have been able to exchange a few incredibly concordant views above the smoking debris of old ideas and semipiternal life?"...
While here Breton is speaking of the collision between himself and Nadja, I think he could also be referring to his writing and the reader. Risking sounding cliche and what not, it was an unexpected, semi-spiritual afternoon...
"I hope, in any case, that the presentation of some dozen observations of this order as well as what follows will be of a nature to send some men rushing out into the street, after making them aware, if not of the non-existence, at least of the crucial inadequacy of any so called categorical self-evaluation, of any action which requires continuous application and which can be premeditated."
-Breton, "Nadja"
Last night, I went to a speech at Georgetown, then for light refreshments to schmooze and so forth. I was too tired to get much out of the speech. A Bishop from Southern Sudan who was an interesting person, it seemed, got side tracked often. He bounced from violence, and all the implications, to the cultural portrayal of women in an unfocused manner. Although, it was free food, very much welcomed. Next, Jessie and I went bookstore hopping, and I ended up spending way too much money.
Today, I slept in until 2. I read Breton's Nadja this afternoon.
I wish I spoke french because he pays such attention to detail I feel I am not getting the most out of it.
"By what latitude could we, abandon thus to the fury of symbols, be occasionally a prey to the demon of analogy, seeing ourselves the object of extreme overtures, of singular, special attentions? How does it happen that thrown together, once and for all, so far from the earth in those brief intervals which our marvelous stupor grants us we have been able to exchange a few incredibly concordant views above the smoking debris of old ideas and semipiternal life?"...
While here Breton is speaking of the collision between himself and Nadja, I think he could also be referring to his writing and the reader. Risking sounding cliche and what not, it was an unexpected, semi-spiritual afternoon...
"I hope, in any case, that the presentation of some dozen observations of this order as well as what follows will be of a nature to send some men rushing out into the street, after making them aware, if not of the non-existence, at least of the crucial inadequacy of any so called categorical self-evaluation, of any action which requires continuous application and which can be premeditated."
-Breton, "Nadja"