The Definition of Contemplation
My mind's been all roiling with ideas of late, so I've tried to write down the most obvious, least offensive ones here. Ironic, since they'll be the easiest to remember in the long run if I fail to turn out brave, which would be the only reason to keep this LJ - as a constant reminder to at least write some brave book if I can't do it in real life. Oh well, the next time I drink I'll do it to the chance that I'll think this is all humorously nostalgic in 10 years. Scary, eh, to think that if we weren't all so obsessed with past figures in an attempt to escape responsibility for the world today, of the chances to delve into the minds of our possible heroes? Think on that, any of you becoming key figures in history, with your LJ being the title of the seminal biography done on you by some super insightful (or super hack) historian. I can imagine it very clearly; makes me wish I didn't name this thing Mutimbo, but something cooler. What could I do? I needed a name quick, and Dupin was taken by some bastard. I wonder if that LJ is still up? I should send threats in his/her comments.
I've had no real sleep in 3 or 4 days. Damn this week, and damn school! I'm not tired though, only my eyes are probably dying a faster death than usual, which only means that I'll have to start killing hobos and selling drugs a few months earlier than I planned to pay for the laser eye surgery. That is, after I someday get a real tan.
Before I forget, here's that Karamazov/contemplative bit. It's on pages 150-151, if you're interested in ever reading it in a form that's not white print on a blue background on a computer screen. Don't make assumptions about it, as I imply in a few small interpretations of it afterwards - read it over and over and over before you hate it or say, "meh".
Note on passage: Smerdyakov is the bastard brother of the 3 main characters, the Karamazov brothers. His birth story, which in usual Dostoevsky brilliance is never technically confirmed by the narrator, is hilarious. Fyodor Karamazov, the dad, was a poor man who sold himself as a clown to the local spoiled rich kids for money. During 1 of their drunken outings that always involved whoring and vandalism, they saw the village 'holy fool', the pygmy-like, retarded woman Reeking Lizaveta. The rich kids all talked about how no one would ever fuck her, no matter the price given, when Karamozov goes on about how "indeed, she had a certain spice to her...", and how every woman has her own unique charm. This about some unwashed, 4 and 1 half foot tall retard.
Anyway, he bangs her, she ends up dying giving birth to Smerdyakov in his garden, where Fyodor's faithful servant Gregory finds the boy and takes care of him. Skipping the rest of his young life, he turns into a classic prick - hates people, books (even the nihilistic stuff), and spends all of his money (gotten from becoming a chef in Moscow) on clothes and hair gel. Not for women (or men), just so he can look at himself in the mirror.
There's your intro to this small passage (shorter than that description, ha!) concerning Smerdyakov, the bastard son who never gets talked about, and who ends up committing the perfect murder while the rest of the aristocratic sons alternately wallow and revel in their own dramas:
"If at that time anyone had looked at Smerdyakov, he could not possibly have told what he was interested in or what he was thinking about. And yet, sometimes, even in the house, and more often in the yard or as he was walking along the street, he would suddenly stop and stand stock still, deep in thought, for ten minutes or so. A physiognomist might have said that there were no ideas, no thoughts in his head, that it was a sort of contemplation. The painter Kramsky has a remarkable painting called "The Contemplator": a road with a wintry forest in the background and on the road, wearing a ragged coat and felt shoes, stands a lonely, forlorn peasant who has lost his way, and who seems to be thinking hard about something, but is actually not thinking at all, just "contemplating." If you pushed him, he would give a start and stare at you uncomprehendingly as if you has just awakened him. True, he would collect his wits right away, but if you asked him what he'd been thinking about as he stood there, he would be quite unable to remember. He certainly would remember, however, the inexpressible sensations he experienced during his contemplation. And these sensations would be dear to him and he would treasure them without realizing it himself, indeed, without knowing why or what he would ever do with them.
Perhaps, having accumulated in the course of the years a great many such sensations, he would suddenly leave everything behind and go off on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to seek salvation, or he might just as likely set fire to his own village, or possibly both.
There are many contemplators among the simple people. Probably Smerdyakov was one of them; most likely he, too, was eagerly collecting the sensations he experienced, although hardly aware of it himself."
There are so many great things about this passage - maybe the best of which is that though at first the narrator sounds like he's passing judgement, like he's throwing some maudlin lines about how 'noble' the 'stalwart Russian peasant' is, but he's not. Not at all - just observing a small thing that I'm struck with sometimes, in the form of something that would never work on film (and probably not the written word, either). I'll just be caught occasionally with that old chestnut: "who am I?" To add something to Dostoevsky, I love that feeling - it's like truly being caught up in all that surrealism artists love to portray, and yet can't force anyone to really feel without some powerful psychotropic drugs. And on reflection, the hidden feeling of power expressed by that image of myself (the reader) living a life as 'tough' (haha) as a Russian peasant, storing up some invisible power source in preparation for... what? Dostoevsky is no pansy - he gave the 2 extremes, heavy religion (which is what Dostoevsky did himself - his life is its own magnificent story) and heavy, pointless, ubermenschean violence, but he forgot the 3rd option: art! That's how good stuff gets created!
There's so many things I should write down as I reread this book along with this Russian magazine, like how Dolan notes that the Elder Zosima character is the Dostoevsky 'moral conscience' character, but due to his awesome objectivity, he leaves it up to the reader to take his personal advice for life as what it's worth along with all the worst kinda adventurous, active mindfucks that could be thrown at Russian people. That's balls. Unlike all these movies on the HBOs now all about rich people and their silly hangups. If I didn't say it before, Ames' rip on Lost in Translation still makes me giggle - I still love that movie though - I've learned the right lessons on class. The rich lead the most interesting lives, after all, and we're all in the top 1% anyway, so what am I complaining about? Damn you, liberal guilt! I should go back to reading Dolan and all his rants against Christianity, before I try to weakly imitate it and come off 'artfag pretentious'. Well, more than I already am, since I'm not yet ready to stick to one audience (as in, not sometimes me, sometimes not me) in this LJ (or anywhere else).
Speaking of Dr. Dolan, another new favorite I mentioned yesterday, here's this essay on what pain means: http://www.exile.ru/148/lets_get_physical.html
I forgot the rest of what I was gonna note down, except to say that the new Zero7 CD (of which I have about half) has a few really good songs - the single Home and track 4, which has some great lyrics. But then, all the songs with actual singing by the girl or the guy rule, in a very low key/background way. This band is one of them 'critically acclaimed' ones in Rolling Stone, Spin, etc., that indie critics get their indie cred by shredding their slow, peaceful sound. Damn them for making chill music a guilty pleasure! In the end, though, they're just damn good - like David Thorpe of SomethingAwful.com says (whom I love all the more for what he says about the bands he mentions that I love), Huey Lewis will be the next savior of Rock N Roll!
Also, 30 Seconds to Mars turns out to involve Jared Leto - you know, the actor who gets his arm cut off in Requiem for a Dream and the blonde Germanic dude in Fight Club who gets his face destroyed by Edward Norton. Who woulda guessed it? My own music sensibility might've been hesitant to listen to em (though I confess I probably never would've heard about em without Pat, unless some single of theirs breaks out - which is doubtful since their sole CD came out in 2002), but thank God I try to fight against that hangup. They rule.
I've had no real sleep in 3 or 4 days. Damn this week, and damn school! I'm not tired though, only my eyes are probably dying a faster death than usual, which only means that I'll have to start killing hobos and selling drugs a few months earlier than I planned to pay for the laser eye surgery. That is, after I someday get a real tan.
Before I forget, here's that Karamazov/contemplative bit. It's on pages 150-151, if you're interested in ever reading it in a form that's not white print on a blue background on a computer screen. Don't make assumptions about it, as I imply in a few small interpretations of it afterwards - read it over and over and over before you hate it or say, "meh".
Note on passage: Smerdyakov is the bastard brother of the 3 main characters, the Karamazov brothers. His birth story, which in usual Dostoevsky brilliance is never technically confirmed by the narrator, is hilarious. Fyodor Karamazov, the dad, was a poor man who sold himself as a clown to the local spoiled rich kids for money. During 1 of their drunken outings that always involved whoring and vandalism, they saw the village 'holy fool', the pygmy-like, retarded woman Reeking Lizaveta. The rich kids all talked about how no one would ever fuck her, no matter the price given, when Karamozov goes on about how "indeed, she had a certain spice to her...", and how every woman has her own unique charm. This about some unwashed, 4 and 1 half foot tall retard.
Anyway, he bangs her, she ends up dying giving birth to Smerdyakov in his garden, where Fyodor's faithful servant Gregory finds the boy and takes care of him. Skipping the rest of his young life, he turns into a classic prick - hates people, books (even the nihilistic stuff), and spends all of his money (gotten from becoming a chef in Moscow) on clothes and hair gel. Not for women (or men), just so he can look at himself in the mirror.
There's your intro to this small passage (shorter than that description, ha!) concerning Smerdyakov, the bastard son who never gets talked about, and who ends up committing the perfect murder while the rest of the aristocratic sons alternately wallow and revel in their own dramas:
"If at that time anyone had looked at Smerdyakov, he could not possibly have told what he was interested in or what he was thinking about. And yet, sometimes, even in the house, and more often in the yard or as he was walking along the street, he would suddenly stop and stand stock still, deep in thought, for ten minutes or so. A physiognomist might have said that there were no ideas, no thoughts in his head, that it was a sort of contemplation. The painter Kramsky has a remarkable painting called "The Contemplator": a road with a wintry forest in the background and on the road, wearing a ragged coat and felt shoes, stands a lonely, forlorn peasant who has lost his way, and who seems to be thinking hard about something, but is actually not thinking at all, just "contemplating." If you pushed him, he would give a start and stare at you uncomprehendingly as if you has just awakened him. True, he would collect his wits right away, but if you asked him what he'd been thinking about as he stood there, he would be quite unable to remember. He certainly would remember, however, the inexpressible sensations he experienced during his contemplation. And these sensations would be dear to him and he would treasure them without realizing it himself, indeed, without knowing why or what he would ever do with them.
Perhaps, having accumulated in the course of the years a great many such sensations, he would suddenly leave everything behind and go off on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to seek salvation, or he might just as likely set fire to his own village, or possibly both.
There are many contemplators among the simple people. Probably Smerdyakov was one of them; most likely he, too, was eagerly collecting the sensations he experienced, although hardly aware of it himself."
There are so many great things about this passage - maybe the best of which is that though at first the narrator sounds like he's passing judgement, like he's throwing some maudlin lines about how 'noble' the 'stalwart Russian peasant' is, but he's not. Not at all - just observing a small thing that I'm struck with sometimes, in the form of something that would never work on film (and probably not the written word, either). I'll just be caught occasionally with that old chestnut: "who am I?" To add something to Dostoevsky, I love that feeling - it's like truly being caught up in all that surrealism artists love to portray, and yet can't force anyone to really feel without some powerful psychotropic drugs. And on reflection, the hidden feeling of power expressed by that image of myself (the reader) living a life as 'tough' (haha) as a Russian peasant, storing up some invisible power source in preparation for... what? Dostoevsky is no pansy - he gave the 2 extremes, heavy religion (which is what Dostoevsky did himself - his life is its own magnificent story) and heavy, pointless, ubermenschean violence, but he forgot the 3rd option: art! That's how good stuff gets created!
There's so many things I should write down as I reread this book along with this Russian magazine, like how Dolan notes that the Elder Zosima character is the Dostoevsky 'moral conscience' character, but due to his awesome objectivity, he leaves it up to the reader to take his personal advice for life as what it's worth along with all the worst kinda adventurous, active mindfucks that could be thrown at Russian people. That's balls. Unlike all these movies on the HBOs now all about rich people and their silly hangups. If I didn't say it before, Ames' rip on Lost in Translation still makes me giggle - I still love that movie though - I've learned the right lessons on class. The rich lead the most interesting lives, after all, and we're all in the top 1% anyway, so what am I complaining about? Damn you, liberal guilt! I should go back to reading Dolan and all his rants against Christianity, before I try to weakly imitate it and come off 'artfag pretentious'. Well, more than I already am, since I'm not yet ready to stick to one audience (as in, not sometimes me, sometimes not me) in this LJ (or anywhere else).
Speaking of Dr. Dolan, another new favorite I mentioned yesterday, here's this essay on what pain means: http://www.exile.ru/148/lets_get_physical.html
I forgot the rest of what I was gonna note down, except to say that the new Zero7 CD (of which I have about half) has a few really good songs - the single Home and track 4, which has some great lyrics. But then, all the songs with actual singing by the girl or the guy rule, in a very low key/background way. This band is one of them 'critically acclaimed' ones in Rolling Stone, Spin, etc., that indie critics get their indie cred by shredding their slow, peaceful sound. Damn them for making chill music a guilty pleasure! In the end, though, they're just damn good - like David Thorpe of SomethingAwful.com says (whom I love all the more for what he says about the bands he mentions that I love), Huey Lewis will be the next savior of Rock N Roll!
Also, 30 Seconds to Mars turns out to involve Jared Leto - you know, the actor who gets his arm cut off in Requiem for a Dream and the blonde Germanic dude in Fight Club who gets his face destroyed by Edward Norton. Who woulda guessed it? My own music sensibility might've been hesitant to listen to em (though I confess I probably never would've heard about em without Pat, unless some single of theirs breaks out - which is doubtful since their sole CD came out in 2002), but thank God I try to fight against that hangup. They rule.