The blog of Michael K.
Bergson:
"If some bold novelist, tearing aside the cleverly woven curtain of our conventional ego, shows us under this juxtaposition of simple states an infinite permeation of a thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named, we commend him for having shown us better than we know ourselves. The very fact that he spreads out our feeling in a homogeneous time and expresses its elements by words shows that he is only offering us its shadow: but he has arranged this shadow in such a way as to make us suspect the extraordinary and illogical nature of the object which projects it."
With a wet head and a paper cup half-full of milky, honeyed chai, I sit here in the studio, comfortably handling brief interruptions like having buttons to push, announcements to read, IM's to answer while simultaneously being not just somewhere else, but many other places. I pause to turn the monitor down to zero when a news feature involving Bush comes on, because his voice makes me physically ill and angry - a reaction I ought to be able to control, but cannot. But my real work here is of carefully exposing the new day as if it were film. This work is done inside, and so it is done at a distance beyond these walls, even beyond the morning itself: it is the only project I take seriously when I see things as worth taking seriously at all. I read the above quote earlier this morning while shambling through the early part of my day; I have never read Bergson, nor Proust (whom the quote presages) but I think, yes, any good writing would have to show something of the "thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named". Any good way of living (that I can imagine) would involve acknowledging them - unrecognizable, fragile, nonratioid things.
So I write as training to recognize something that is utterly unrecognizable. And I write because unless I am writing, my head feels like it is filled with a block of lead rather than brains - I feel noticeably dumber. So this writing is really for me, not for you, which is probably why, dear reader, you have been so bored for the past few paragraphs.
"If some bold novelist, tearing aside the cleverly woven curtain of our conventional ego, shows us under this juxtaposition of simple states an infinite permeation of a thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named, we commend him for having shown us better than we know ourselves. The very fact that he spreads out our feeling in a homogeneous time and expresses its elements by words shows that he is only offering us its shadow: but he has arranged this shadow in such a way as to make us suspect the extraordinary and illogical nature of the object which projects it."
With a wet head and a paper cup half-full of milky, honeyed chai, I sit here in the studio, comfortably handling brief interruptions like having buttons to push, announcements to read, IM's to answer while simultaneously being not just somewhere else, but many other places. I pause to turn the monitor down to zero when a news feature involving Bush comes on, because his voice makes me physically ill and angry - a reaction I ought to be able to control, but cannot. But my real work here is of carefully exposing the new day as if it were film. This work is done inside, and so it is done at a distance beyond these walls, even beyond the morning itself: it is the only project I take seriously when I see things as worth taking seriously at all. I read the above quote earlier this morning while shambling through the early part of my day; I have never read Bergson, nor Proust (whom the quote presages) but I think, yes, any good writing would have to show something of the "thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named". Any good way of living (that I can imagine) would involve acknowledging them - unrecognizable, fragile, nonratioid things.
So I write as training to recognize something that is utterly unrecognizable. And I write because unless I am writing, my head feels like it is filled with a block of lead rather than brains - I feel noticeably dumber. So this writing is really for me, not for you, which is probably why, dear reader, you have been so bored for the past few paragraphs.
About me
- Michael K.
- Observing the things in my personal cosmos: music of a catchy sort, soccer, hockey and other sports, theories of place, media and culture, academic life, history, nature, politics, the international, the parochial. You never know what you might get. For generosity of the spirit.
- My profile
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Previous posts
- Seen so much I'm going blind, and I'm brain dead, ...
- Just another reason to love those crazy Norweigens
- Operation Take One For The Country
- The award for the Bigsoccer post of the day goes t...
- Talking to no one in particular
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- If you love the poor man's Tore Andre Flo...
- Went to see Fahrenheit 911 Wednesday night. There...
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