Terry Riley
THE CUSP OF MAGIC
THE CUSP OF MAGIC
Kronos Quartet and Wu Man
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Saturday, March 13, 2021
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Why I Am Not a Christian
____________________
That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world.
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, "This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children." Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.
That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is to not make people happy.
Friday, March 12, 2021
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
ALBERT CAMUS
The Plague
The Plague
____________________
At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet.
Naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague.
In a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.
Monday, March 8, 2021
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Saturday, March 6, 2021
ELAINE EQUI
"Ghosts in Fashion"
___________________
Although it no longer has a body
to cover out of a sense of decorum,
the ghost must still consider fashion—
must clothe its invisibility in something
if it is to “appear” in public.
Some traditional specters favor
the simple shroud—
a toga of ectoplasm
worn Isadora-Duncan-style
swirling around them.
While others opt for lightweight versions
of once familiar tee shirts and jeans.
Perhaps being thought-forms,
they can change their outfits instantly—
or if they were loved ones,
it is we who clothe them
like dolls from memory.
Friday, March 5, 2021
Thursday, March 4, 2021
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
ANAÏS NIN
Little Birds
Little Birds
____________________
With her eyes alone she could give this response, this absolutely erotic response, as if febrile waves were trembling there, pools of madness. Something devouring that could lick a man all over like a flame, annihilate him, with a pleasure never known before.
Monday, March 1, 2021
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Saturday, February 27, 2021
ALBERT CAMUS
A Happy Death
Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory. Everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.
Friday, February 26, 2021
Thursday, February 25, 2021
TAO YUANMING
“Returning to Live on the Farm I”
____________________
Since my youth, what was popular didn't suit me;
my basic character was love of hills and mountains.
Mistakenly, I fell into the dusty net,
and trapped, I lost all of thirty years.
A caged bird years for the ancient forest;
a fish kept in a pond will miss old waters.
I'll clear the wasteland at the southern border,
I'll stay honest and pure, and keep to the fields.
Elms and willows shade my back eaves,
peach and plum are heaped in the front hall.
The nearest hamlet is dim in the distance;
its smoke seems reluctant to leave the village.
Dogs bark from deep within the lanes;
chickens squawk through the tops of mulberry trees.
No dust swirls through my courtyard door;
empty rooms offer abundant leisure.
For so long I've felt I lived in a prison.
I am restored, content to return to nature.
Translation by Deng Ming-Dao
Since my youth, what was popular didn't suit me;
my basic character was love of hills and mountains.
Mistakenly, I fell into the dusty net,
and trapped, I lost all of thirty years.
A caged bird years for the ancient forest;
a fish kept in a pond will miss old waters.
I'll clear the wasteland at the southern border,
I'll stay honest and pure, and keep to the fields.
Elms and willows shade my back eaves,
peach and plum are heaped in the front hall.
The nearest hamlet is dim in the distance;
its smoke seems reluctant to leave the village.
Dogs bark from deep within the lanes;
chickens squawk through the tops of mulberry trees.
No dust swirls through my courtyard door;
empty rooms offer abundant leisure.
For so long I've felt I lived in a prison.
I am restored, content to return to nature.
Translation by Deng Ming-Dao
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Happiness, usually classified as a positive emotion, can bring good health to our body, and spread positive vibrations into our environment.
Sometimes when we are ill, we are not on our best behavior. By ill, I mean any of the following: physically ill, emotionally ill, mentally ill, and/or spiritually ill.
SAM SHEPARD
I don’t know what the American Dream is. I do know it doesn’t work. Not only doesn’t it work, the myth of the American Dream has created extraordinary havoc, and it’s going to be our demise
This notion that not only were we given this land by God somehow, but that we’re entitled to do whatever we wanted with it, regardless of the consequences, and reap all the fortunes out of the land, much to the detriment of everyone else
This rampant puritanical class of European colonialism behind the whole thing is land hungry Europeans wanting to dominate. The move westward was promoted by advertising with words like “Free Land,” “Manifest Destiny."
We always prefer the fantasy over the reality.
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Monday, February 22, 2021
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
____________________
There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.”
There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.”
Sunday, February 21, 2021
TAO TE CHING
____________________
The heavy is the root of light.
Stillness is the ruler of agitation.
That is why the wise journey all day,
but never stray from their supply carts.
They may have glorious views,
but they pass them over
and settle themselves comfortably instead.
How can the lords of ten thousand chariots
carry themselves lightly through the world?
If they are light, they lose their roots.
If they are agitated, they lose rulership.
The heavy is the root of light.
Stillness is the ruler of agitation.
That is why the wise journey all day,
but never stray from their supply carts.
They may have glorious views,
but they pass them over
and settle themselves comfortably instead.
How can the lords of ten thousand chariots
carry themselves lightly through the world?
If they are light, they lose their roots.
If they are agitated, they lose rulership.
Saturday, February 20, 2021
FERNANDO PASSOA
____________________
I’ve never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to me to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.
I’ve never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to me to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.
Friday, February 19, 2021
Thursday, February 18, 2021
JUDITH LEWIS HERMAN
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
____________________
Psychological trauma is an affliction of the powerless. At the moment of trauma, the victim is rendered helpless by overwhelming force. When the force is that of nature, we speak of disasters. When the force is that of other human beings, we speak of atrocities. Traumatic events overwhelm the ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning.
Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life. They confront human beings with the extremities of helplessness and terror, and evoke the responses of catastrophe.
Psychological trauma is an affliction of the powerless. At the moment of trauma, the victim is rendered helpless by overwhelming force. When the force is that of nature, we speak of disasters. When the force is that of other human beings, we speak of atrocities. Traumatic events overwhelm the ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning.
Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life. They confront human beings with the extremities of helplessness and terror, and evoke the responses of catastrophe.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
RYŌKAN
___________________
Though frosts come down
night after night,
what does it matter?
they melt in the morning sun.
Though the snow falls
each passing year,
what does it matter?
with spring days it thaws.
Yet once let them settle
on a man’s head,
fall and pile up,
go on piling up –
then the new year
may come and go,
but never you’ll see them fade away
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Monday, February 15, 2021
TOMAS TRANSTRŌMER
“Six Winters”______________________
1
In the black hotel a child is asleep.
And outside: the winter night
where the wide-eyed dice roll.
2
An élite of the dead became stone
in Katarina Churchyard
where the wind shakes in its armour from Svalbard.
3
One wartime winter when I lay sick
a huge icicle grew outside the window.
Neighbour and harpoon, unexplained memory.
4
Ice hangs down from the roof edge.
Icicles: the upside-down Gothic.
Abstract cattle, udders of glass.
5
On a side-track, an empty railway-carriage.
Still. Heraldic.
With the journeys in its claws.
6
Tonight snow-haze, moonlight. The moonlight jellyfish itself
is floating before us. Our smiles
on the way home. Bewitched avenue.
Sunday, February 14, 2021
WANG WEI
“Stone Gate Temple in the Blue Field Mountains”
____________________
“Stone Gate Temple in the Blue Field Mountains”
____________________
Creeks and summits are brilliant at sunset.
I laze in a boat, my way in the wind’s hands.
Watching wild landscapes I forget distance
and come to the water’s edge.
Gazing at lovely far woods and clouds
I guess I’ve lost my way.
How could I know this lucid stream
would turn, leading me into mountains?
I abandon my boat, pick up a light staff
and come upon something wonderful,
four or five old monks in contemplation,
enjoying the shade of pines and cypresses.
Before the forest dawns they read Sanskrit.
Their nightly meditation quiets the peaks.
Here even shepherd boys know the Dao.
Woodcutters bring in worldly news.
They sleep at night in the woods
with incense, on mats clean as jade.
Their robes are steeped in valley fragrances;
the stone cliffs shine under a mountain moon.
I fear I will lose this refuge forever
so at daybreak I fix it in my mind.
People of Peach Tree Spring goodbye.
I’ll be back when flowers turn red.
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Friday, February 12, 2021
ANAÏS NIN
Little Birds
Little Birds
____________________
He was whispering over and over again the same phrase, “You have the body of an angel. It is impossible that such a body should have a sex. You have the body of an angel.”
The anger swept over Fay like a fever, an anger at his moving his penis away from her hand. She sat up, her hair wild about her shoulders, and said, “I am not an angel, Albert. I am a woman. I want you to love me as a woman.
Thursday, February 11, 2021
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Nausea
____________________
It is one-thirty. I am eating a sandwich in the Café Mably, everything is more or less normal. Anyway, everything is always normal in cafés and especially the Café Mably, because of the manager, M. Fasquelle, who has a raffish look which is positively reassuring. It will soon be time for his nap and his eyes are pink already, but he stays quick and decisive. He strolls among the tables and speaks confidently to the customers. “Is everything all right, Monsieur?”
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
ALBERT CAMUS
A Happy Death
When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears. Like that sky. It's rain and sun both, noon and midnight. I think of the lips I've kissed, and of the wretched child I was, and of the madness of life and the ambition that sometimes carries me away. I'm all those things at once. I'm sure there are times when you wouldn't even recognize me. Extreme in misery, excessive in happiness—I can't say it.
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
Monday, February 8, 2021
EMMA LAZARUS
“The New Colossus”
“The New Colossus”
____________________
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Saturday, February 6, 2021
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World Revisited
Brave New World Revisited
____________________
Given unchecked over-population and over-organization, we may expect to see in the democratic countries a reversal of the process which transformed England into a democracy, while retaining all the outward forms of a monarchy.
Under the relentless thrust of accelerating overpopulation and
increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective
methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature;
the quaint old forms - elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts, and all
the rest - will remain.
The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial - but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense.
Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers,
policemen, thought-manufacturers, and mind-manipulators will quietly run
the show as they see fit.
Friday, February 5, 2021
H. L. MENCHEN in 1920
____________________
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Thursday, February 4, 2021
HAROLD PINTER
____________________
You and I, the characters which grow on a page, most of the time we’re inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, evasive, obstructive, unwilling. But it’s out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where, underneath what is said, another thing is being said.
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
GEORGE ORWELL
1984
1984
____________________
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture repainted, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day, minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which The Party is always right.
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
____________________
I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hate in the world is religion and organized religion. Absolutely convinced of that. And I think it should be - religion - treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt.
So when I say that I think religion poisons everything, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity.
It says we can’t be moral without “Big Brother,” without a totalitarian permission. It means we can’t be good to one another without this. It means we must be afraid.
We must also be forced to love someone whom we fear - the essence of sado-masochism, the essence of abjection, the essence of the Master/Slave relationship. And that it knows death is coming, and can’t wait to bring it on.
I say that is Evil.
And though I do, some nights, stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and this ultimate stupidity.
I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hate in the world is religion and organized religion. Absolutely convinced of that. And I think it should be - religion - treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt.
So when I say that I think religion poisons everything, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity.
It says we can’t be moral without “Big Brother,” without a totalitarian permission. It means we can’t be good to one another without this. It means we must be afraid.
We must also be forced to love someone whom we fear - the essence of sado-masochism, the essence of abjection, the essence of the Master/Slave relationship. And that it knows death is coming, and can’t wait to bring it on.
I say that is Evil.
And though I do, some nights, stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and this ultimate stupidity.
Monday, February 1, 2021
ANAÏS NIN
Little Birds
Little Birds
There are women’s voices that sound like poetic, unearthly echoes. Then they change. The eyes change. I believe that all these legends about people changing into animals at night – like the stories of the werewolf, for instance – were invented by men who saw women transformed at night – from idealized, worshipful creatures into animals and thought that they were possessed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)