French Gastro-Pubs

Creams Pasha Nell's

Owl 'n Daze

Airy Covaire

Thoughts between first and second sleeps

3/25   The bugbear of thought is to confound words with reality, signifier with signified. That is a commonplace, but can thought function without words? Is it possible to experience reality without words? Is expressability in words the litmus test for 'exist'? The search for the experience beyond words is one of the driving forces of mysticism, but doesn't mysticism thereby acknowledge the power of words? Is language the original sin? Isn't language part of the game of thinking and experiencing? Can I conceive of something without simultaneously 'wording' it? And once I 'word' it, I begin limiting it and differentiating it from other 'worded' things. Again, philosophical commonplaces but it is difficult to get past them in daily life. Our existence is fuelled and maintained by words, by signifiers.

4/2    My first encounter with lapis lazuli was through a picture. My initial impression was that the colour was impossible, it was too blue to be natural, and the object could only be manufactured, perhaps plastic made to look like stone. I never have lost the suspicion that this substance is unnatural and unreal. Sometimes things can be too beautiful. Sometimes physical beauty is the result of makeup and a good haircut, carefully chosen clothing, and the photographer's skill with light and shadow. There are those startling pictures of quite ordinary people who are remade to look like models (and vice versa). There is a certain level of beauty in which we assume that a human being played a role. My dislike of lapis lazuli derives from back formation from this assumption.

From Words

I found this when going through my parents' letters. I wrote it in the early 1990s.

From Words

To see lilacs
      and to think
            'When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd'
      and
            'April is the cruellest month'
      and only then to remember
            (from words that mean too much, O Lord, deliver us)

     a green glass vase with a fluted edge
        filled with heavy-headed lilacs drooping the scent of spring
     broken, cracked stems witnessing through the glass and water
        my grandmother's last confession of meagre sins

One by one we crept quietly into her room
     hoping not to disturb her.
     'Can I get you anything? A drink of water?'
     'Don't the flowers look nice? Mrs Amberdale picked them this morning.'
     'Try to sleep now. We'll let you rest. George will be here later.'

And crept quietly out to the sitting room
     hoping not to disturb her.
     'It won't be long now. Her suffering is almost ended.'
     'Didn't the flowers look nice? Mrs Amberdale picked them this morning.'
     'Did you put a copper in the vase? They say it makes them last much longer.'

To see lilacs
      and to think
            'When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd'
      and
            'April is the cruellest month'
      and only then to remember
            (from words that mean too little, O Lord, deliver us)

Biographies, fictional and nonfictional

The biographies on Wikipedia usually mention the subject's marriage and children towards the end of article, if at all. It's as if that personal information has no bearing on the subject's accomplishments. Other personal information such as parentage, schooling, siblings usually appears towards the top of the article. That makes the placement or omission of the data on marriages and children all the more curious. Are natal family and education seen as more important determinants of success than marriage and children ? This contrasts with novels, which foreground family life and often focus on marriage and children.