Time's up

The next couple of years will require more brain effort.  I guess it is time to devote my energies to solving problems, instead of choosing restaurants or planning trips.  Otherwise tasks will remain uncompleted.

A Word for Owen Meany

For a few months in my life, John Irving was my great escape, opening up a new and exciting and exceptionally readable world that released me from my daily pressures.  After Garp, Hotel, Cider, even Water-Method Man, and 158-pound Marriage, I was still under his spell, reading nonstop.  Then I read A Prayer for Owen Meany.  It was one of only a handful of books that I really despised, perhaps because of disappointment.  I will not bash on it here too much, seeing that it is a beloved favorite of many to this day.  But I found it incredibly repetitive, thinly plotted, and constantly telegraphing its punches (or, more precisely, punch) throughout.  I will not go on about it.  Either you know the plot, or you don't, and I don't want to play the spoiler.

So it is pungently ironic that I would like to pay tribute here to the lasting influence of Owen Meany on my world of ideas.  For, apart from the actual slog of reading the book, the idea of fulfilling a destiny has never been hammered home so deeply as in Owen Meany.  And it is strange that I recognize, in what I am writing now, some kind of heavily transmuted version of what is essentially an Owen Meanyesque story in the framework or skeleton underneath. A story that has been reskinned or armored into something that is hopefully unrecognizable as kin.

1000 days

I have reset some of my clocks today.  One year to wait for the "next time".  One thousand days to complete my task.  Probably more like 1000 nights.  But it really will happen.

Brother John is Gone

Another sad day in the music world with the loss of Dr. John [not pictured in the thumbnail].  They are certainly not making new music like this anymore.  I wonder what I will be listening to in the future if I can manage to remain in the world myself.

Dr. John wrote... “In New Orleans, in religion, as in food or race or music, you can’t separate nothing from nothing. Everything mingles each into the other — Catholic saint worship with gris-gris spirits, evangelical tent meetings with spiritual-church ceremonies — until nothing is purely itself but becomes part of one fonky gumbo.”

Returned from a safari

Somewhere along the way, I lost the thread.  That is evidenced by the fact that I had the Breeders Cannonball album when it was released, but that it took YouTube recommendations for me to hear "Safari", an almost perfectly refined track.

I also lost the thread by trying to compose a blog post on my Android device, owned, like YouTube, by the Alphabet corporation.  But my draft was somehow lost in limbo when I tried to upload it.  It was "saving" forever, a computer scientist's definition of eternal life, I suppose.

That "lost draft" was titled "mixed feelings", and it was a series of counterpoints, observed at the time.

The excitement of a voyage vs. the separation from loved ones

The anticipation of experiencing the new vs. the disappointment of not being able to share those experiences

The fulfillment of a plan vs. a plan frustrated and canceled

And even a few more that I have forgotten before I lost the thread.  But I will hurry to post this on my Alphabet-owned blog before I have forgotten entirely the Shibboleth that allows me to pass through.

Mourning

Learned a few days late of the death of Machiko Kyo.

I am realizing that this has been a year without music, without poetry, one where the spirit world is reclaiming some of the ground that living beings have staked a claim to.  One might say that it is part of the natural ebb and flow of forces, but perhaps there is more to it than that.  I will have to try to understand.  Rewatching Ugetsu will help.

"Actrice inoubliable" says it best.  If anyone can remain inoubliable for even a short span of time in this rapidly decaying world, that is a momentous achievement, one to aspire to.

Waiting such a long time to make a connection

As one ages, time slows down and speeds up simultaneously.  Days, weeks, months, and years pass rapidly, but the deep current that runs underneath moves ever more slowly compared to the rapid laying down of foundations that occurs during youth.

All that is by way of apology for NJKpopper's belated discovery of the connections between this...

and this...

What runs underneath is more powerful and lasting.

Thank you Leadbelly and Kurt Cobain by way of YouTube.

Harmogu Day III

The inspiration continues...

I celebrate today for the 3rd time, "Harmogu Day", on the anniversary of my serendipitous discovery of Harmogu on YouTube (February 1, 2016).  Readers can find my 1st and 2nd anniversary posts on this blog as well.

I am happy that this year has brought the *reading* of Harmogu, in addition to the always intensely pleasurable *listening* to Harmogu. Her elegant and precise language is bringing Mongolian to life for me.

Like many others, I may leave behind unfinished work, incompletions... much like Google+, which is going "away" on April 2.  One day, I will also go "away", like all mortal, sentient beings.

In common with many other vain creatures, I do hope to leave something behind.  If I can find words that can convey just a little of what I perceive as the essence or kernel of what lies behind the transience of life, then I might claim a tiny victory.  I say essence, not permanence, because everything is always ever-changing.  But there is something real or substantial that lies beyond the shimmering and flickering veil of everyday consciousness.  If I am successful, future readers will be able to understand how this fog of abstractions that I am spewing out now relates to what Harmogu represents for me.

Talking about art is tempting, but pointless. Doing it is another thing altogether.  I hope to get on with it.  I also hope to post another Harmogu update in June!

Forward to February

I have not been posting a lot recently.  January in particular was a month of several petty trials and tribulations that it would be trivial to relate or complain about, especially since I believe that ALL of these obstacles can be surmounted.  But it has been a drag on immediate progression.  Looking forward to turning over into the next month, where there can be a proper celebration in the next post.  At least I am still buying paper, pens, and ink.