I read an email this morning from a friend expressing anguish at the juxtaposition between the stunning accomplishments of mankind culturally and scientifically with the despoliation of Nature and the consequent global warming and climate catastrophe. It is hard to conceive of anyone now living who is not aware of the event of climate…
The Tears of Eros will remain as a barb in my consciousness, or better, a striation layer of my unconscious. The truth, always there, undisclosed by daylight – is like the black-backing of a mirror. I continue on to a second book by Georges Bataille, The Theory of Religion. What do I expect to…
This morning I finished reading, The Tears of Eros by Georges Bataille. I am sure the book is not finished with me. Bataille offers not an argument, but an assertion demonstrated by photography of artworks from the Paleolithic to the modern era, to paintings by various artists in the late 20th century. The book,…
Every life is, more or less, a ruin among whose debris we have to discover what the person ought to have been. -José Ortega y Gasset The typical greeting for encounter of any sort is “How is your day?” The expected reply is a chipper “Just great!” To answer simply “good” is sometimes received…
René Descartes is often quoted to emphasize reason as the hallmark of Enlightenment based culture of the West. Cogito, Ergo Sum. A pithy saying indeed, “I think therefore I am,” with Latin lending the words a patina of sophistication. Descartes by profession a mathematician naturally would be inclined to believe the clarity of reason…
Polaroid’s SX-70. It won’t let you stop. Suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look… now you press the red electric button. Whirr…whoosh …and there it is. You watch and your picture comes to life, growing more vivid, more detailed, until minutes later you have a print as real as life. Soon you’re taking…
Eroticism, it may be said, is assenting to life up to the point of death… Sexual reproductive activity is common to sexual animals and humankind, but only humankind appear to have turned their sexual activity into erotic activity. Eroticism is assenting to life even in death. [A] gulf exists, for instance, between you, listening…
A man [woman] should learn to detect and watchthat gleam of lightwhich flashes across his mind from within,more than the lusterof the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he [she] dismisses without notice his thought,because it is his [hers]…. ¶1 and, Trust thyself:every heart vibrates to that iron string.Accept the place that divine…
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood (womanhood) of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its…
How to get started this morning. Last night’s sleep was troubled. Dreams, all unpleasant, but those have come infrequently lately. I realize that each of us has a young vulnerable child within. What child does not have a nightmare from time to time? It’s a big world and there are monsters about! But morning…
