(Untitled)

[proximoception]

Borges:

The second time--"And miles to go before I sleep"--we are made to feel that the miles are not only in space but in time, and that "sleep" means "die" or "rest." Had the poet said so in so many words, he would have been far less effective. Because, as I understand it, anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps

Comments

[nightspore]

Oh, yeah? Says who?

Actually I think a lot of the force of deconstructive/theoretical readings of literature -- readings which stress an essentially philosophical cognitive power to poetry, as in de Man -- comes from the fact that we're ready to embrace elusive arguments once we understand them. Not only ready, but eager. The ground we've won seems ground worth keeping.

[proximoception]

Hopefully he means in art only, and something like "entertain" by "accept." The meaning of the passage for me is that no one will like me for arguing with them--a thing I tend to forget.

I think you're right about theoretical readings, except I wouldn't describe those as arguments. They're not propositional, they're inevitably systems, or fragments of systems, designed to replace or rival argument/logic. You have to sieze them at both ends, superimpose them on the life in front of you, rather than build to them from clean premises. And there's two necessary components to their appeal, I think: the one you describe, where you hold onto what you've worked to make any kind of sense of; and whatever you think the system promised at the outset. The second can fall away, like support rockets, when you finally get some sense of the theory. Which may be a good thing, because I'm not aware of any that does anything like what aspirants expect of it. Most are mythologies trying to talk their way into science.

[franklinshepard]

Hey, for some reason I just got your comment asking about musical recommendations in my email today...don't know how that happened. Anyway, here are some good choices, for dark modern musicals

Proposal

[livingfossil]

Proximo, I am interested in a collaborative (art) project of sorts; one that will attempt to investigate the process of argumentation, and how that ties into what people believe to be true. I proposed this to John (of commonplacebook and sweet-nothing) and asked if he knew anyone else who would be interested; he mentioned that you might. If you are, or would like to know more, please email me: livingfossil at gmail dot com.