wombat1138 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wombat1138) wrote2006-01-09 02:18 am
wombat1138) wrote2006-01-09 02:18 am
groggy hyperlinked maundering
In the midst of trying to tessellate together small scraps of poetry, I think I've finally figured out why I've never liked "The Waste Land" On the other hand, I may be any combination of misguided, trite, or incoherent :b
Years ago, when I was still full of initial disdain for Eliot's collage of echoes,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
owenthomas kindly cluestuck me that surely it was a matter of intentional effect, especially considering its own historical context (ironically enough): familiar fragments of La Belle Epoque, flotsam awash in the (post)modern awareness of its own wreckage and thus the futility of hope in any form, even childhood and love. Even moist spring loam might only sprout a crop of bones sown from leaf-green mists.
(It's a very different aesthetic from haiku, which seems to mournfully revel in ephemerality from what little I've been able to grok, perhaps akin to true classical Epicureanism between the extreme poles of "carpe diem" (fatalistic hedonism) and "sic transit gloria mundi" (the tharn paralysis of anticipatory nostalgia), but that's probably beside the point.)
So we've got advanced wallowing in despair, but also something that strikes me as a deep panic at ambiguity: the elemental interstices of mud, ashes, smoke, and fog; things that're both partially (and thus entirely neither) Russian/German, alive/dead, male/female, and so on.
What started me on this line of thought was the similar way I always feel about this time of year, between the cracks of the solar and lunar calendars. The odometer has ticked over, but the mascot hasn't caught up yet. This time, once it does, it'll be my fourth Year of the Dog through a different cycle of elements, from Metal through Water and Wood and soon into the Fire with accompanying math trivia. I have no real idea what all of this means to me, if anything. Well, presumably something.
Then again, it may relate to my continuing fitful attempts to mesh together the color maps of the Eastern/Western elemental systems, now currently incarnated in several index cards scribbled with badly-drawn RGB/CMY-vertexed polyhedra. I think I may need more colored pens. Or better handwriting. Possibly both. Or neither.
Years ago, when I was still full of initial disdain for Eliot's collage of echoes,
owenthomas kindly cluestuck me that surely it was a matter of intentional effect, especially considering its own historical context (ironically enough): familiar fragments of La Belle Epoque, flotsam awash in the (post)modern awareness of its own wreckage and thus the futility of hope in any form, even childhood and love. Even moist spring loam might only sprout a crop of bones sown from leaf-green mists.(It's a very different aesthetic from haiku, which seems to mournfully revel in ephemerality from what little I've been able to grok, perhaps akin to true classical Epicureanism between the extreme poles of "carpe diem" (fatalistic hedonism) and "sic transit gloria mundi" (the tharn paralysis of anticipatory nostalgia), but that's probably beside the point.)
So we've got advanced wallowing in despair, but also something that strikes me as a deep panic at ambiguity: the elemental interstices of mud, ashes, smoke, and fog; things that're both partially (and thus entirely neither) Russian/German, alive/dead, male/female, and so on.
What started me on this line of thought was the similar way I always feel about this time of year, between the cracks of the solar and lunar calendars. The odometer has ticked over, but the mascot hasn't caught up yet. This time, once it does, it'll be my fourth Year of the Dog through a different cycle of elements, from Metal through Water and Wood and soon into the Fire with accompanying math trivia. I have no real idea what all of this means to me, if anything. Well, presumably something.
Then again, it may relate to my continuing fitful attempts to mesh together the color maps of the Eastern/Western elemental systems, now currently incarnated in several index cards scribbled with badly-drawn RGB/CMY-vertexed polyhedra. I think I may need more colored pens. Or better handwriting. Possibly both. Or neither.
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Literature...
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Meanwhile, "The Waste Land" also strikes me as a philosophical precursor of sorts to the "Left Behind" series except without even the theological carrot of delayed schadenfreude. Once the falcon goes freelance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_%28poem%29), there's nothing left but postapocalyptic mayhem-- though actually I do enjoy Yeats' poetry despite the thematic similarity, or at least I did; I have to confess some reappraisal wrt the Wikirefs to the Russian Revolution. Yes, like the United States in the 1950s, fin-de-siecle Europe was a wonderful place to be... as long as you were at the top of the food chain.
(I wonder whether it's possible to pastiche "The Waste Land" into a mashup with The Lion King. Remind me again why the lions are supposed to be inherently superior to the hyenas, especially from the wildebeests' perspective? "Because the lions can create rain" is not a valid answer, sorry.)
Just in case it's really necessary, I'd like to say I have no intention of waving aside the many (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu) tragedies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_World_War_I) of that era as merely an acceptable quorum of eggs that needed breakin' what for to make the shining buttery omelet of the brave new world to come, especially considering what did come after (not that Eliot or Yeats would've had a decades-proleptic preview from these particular dates of authorship). Not even the victors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties) got off easy, which may've caused extreme nose-wrinkling at even the faintest whiffs of Whiggish optimism. But I dunno, I'm just pondering a vague aura of (almost ironically quasi-romanticized?) Gothy acedia.
Because, you know, life sucks, but so does the alternative. Similarly, not to romanticize the bohemienne frippery of rebellion-without-a-cause or to rally the proletariat into smashing the elitist bourgeoisie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolution), but it really doesn't seem as if the Outer Darkness is the only possible alternative to the established categories/system of respectability... which is now causing my fanfic organelle to churn around inchoate comparisons with the Silmarillion; interesting how Annatar corrupted Numenor from within, as Melkor had earlier tried to subvert the Ainulindalë. Presumably Tolkien was not a fan of gradual reform as an alternative strategy to direct confrontation, as if I needed more reasons to prefer Howard Dean to Joe Liebermann. (I mean, damn. I think my heart was irrevocably lost as soon as I learned about Dean's three-legged cat, Katie, who is grey like *all* the best cats.)
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Pound's Cantos: Written over many years, some fine imagery particularly in the early parts, gets crazier and crazier and rather phlegm-spackled by the end, which I suppose stands to reason, given the author.
I can't tell whether this is more of an indication that my brain cell might actually be spontaneously gangliating again, or that it's just overclocking from the past week of fever, but I still have the vague suspish that there's some existing metasystem of worldviews whose wheels I'm reinventing.
Mine's deteriorating, I think, because I seem to've lost track of that last bit.
At least the way I remember it, "The Waste Land" ends yearning toward a future that's been somehow spiritually cleansed into peace, though that may just be me overstating the case in light of the history that followed. But since Yeats was enamoured with at least the idea of revolutionary violence, and Pound went on to react to one spasm of it (WWI) by supporting the Axis in the next attempt (WWII), it was certainly in the air around Eliot. (So Y & P were contemptuous of fin-de-ciecle Europe, or at least what it led to. Perhaps I am missing your point?)
Similarly, not to romanticize the bohemienne frippery of rebellion-without-a-cause or to rally the proletariat into smashing the elitist bourgeoisie, but it really doesn't seem as if the Outer Darkness is the only possible alternative to the established categories/system of respectability...
Welllll... is that still so? Now that Hypercapitalism Has Won and all that?
But as to cats: It ain't the color, it's the attitude. Spots of creamy white among either black or brown fur don't hurt, though.
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Re "metasystem of worldviews", I think I ended up leaving out the metasystems of worldview shift, largely ignoring the details of pre-existing social structures (and thus whether any one hierarchy/categorization ought to be abstractly viewed as a Good Thing in itself) but instead simply checking on its general health and what its supporters say about the negative space around it-- are internal reforms considered tantamount to utter destruction? how do they regard people who are neither fish nor fowl within the extant definitions, and does it matter whether the fish parts are on the top half and the birdy parts are on the bottom? But other than that, quite possibly I have no point. If so, I will be unable to indicate if someone went thataway.
However, I believe that spots of creamy white might in fact hurt if induced by bleach. I merely theorize.
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Oh well, there's always differently-random entertainment like this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/padrone/84487624/). I don't think any bleach was involved.
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I'm very ashamed to say that I have only just gotten this.