searching for the ineffable
I keep having to re-learn this lesson: I am not capable of being efficiently productive with stationary (computer) work, if I am hungry. I’ll get things done, but it will take a lot longer.
Tasks that require me to move – walking from point A to point B, [non-food] shopping – are not affected by this, within reasonable limits. Neither, for the most part, are stationary tasks that happen mostly on autopilot, like driving.
Today’s been good for the thesis. After playing around a bit with XML structures, I decided that, although I am flailing around with XML, XSLT and relateds, it shouldn’t be that hard to actually encode my texts. The trick will be building the interface, complete with the “views” of the corpus that I’d like to present and perhaps even a visualization or two. Not impossible.
Then I went back to Gérard Genette’s The Architext: An Introduction, which I read last winter and liked for its conciseness and fluidity of concept. Slightly sketchy notes below.
The back cover summary has Genette “assert[ing] that the object of poetics is not the text, but the architext—the transcendent categories (literary gentres, modes of enunciation, and types of discourse, among others) to which each individual text belongs.” At my prelims, one of my committee members wondered whether there is an ur-Roland, a superset that can be defined. It seems that yes, such a superset exists – it is what makes Roland a corpus – and, in Genette’s terms, this idea of A Roland which unifies art works into a corpus is the architext which contains individual works.
Genette’s concern with the misattribution of the epic/lyric/dramatic triad to Aristotle is unimportant to me. It doesn’t matter who developed the “system of genres” (8). What matters is that such a system exists. Even its specific details are not hugely important, in this case: classification schemes I have seen deal exclusively with text-based art, whereas the Roland corpus includes visual art and instrumental music, as well.
Important are not separations of each form from the others according to characteristics specific to only that form, but the characteristics themselves, and their interplay within each work of the corpus and between the works as well.
INTERCULTURAL BORROWING. If work A (from culture A’) borrows from work B (from culture B’), how are their characteristics similar? how are they different? what can be extrapolated from that and our knowledge of the relationship between cultures A’ and B’?
INTRACULTURAL BORROWING. If work A (from socio-temporal circumstance A’) borrows from work B (from socio-temporal circumstance B’), how are their characteristics similar? how are they different? what can be extrapolated from that and our knowledge of the relationship between circumstances A’ and B’?
To answer the above questions, the more useful unit of measure is a work, not a genre. Genres have always been superimposed on a much more complex body of artistic production. To wit: “So the tragic can exist apart from tragedy, just as there are doubtless tragedies that lack the tragic or that in any case are less tragic than others.” (Genette 19) So doing away with genres altogether for the moment doesn’t seem disastrous.
To wit #2: “The unrestricted range [of books of chivalry] enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric, tragic, or comic.” (Cervantes/Don Quixote, quoted in Genette 29). Notice: no attempt to specify a single genre (tragedy, comedy, epic), or a single form (poetry rhymed/unrhymed, novelistic prose, sermon).
Hell, Shakespearean tragedy almost ubiquitously involves some sort of comic relief.
RolandHT is a move from “all-embracing, hierarchical systems” (Genette 49) to recombinant ones. Systems of what? Of inquiry, of cognitive filtering through which to view art, no filter being given more or less value than another.
Lucky us! Recently-defended Dr. Jill Walker rewarded herself for her hard work with a trip to the States, and came to talk at Brown yesterday. She’s a brilliant scholar and a wonderfully social person, and has the rare gift of effortlessly keeping your attention when talking about scholarship. In talking with her over the last few days, I realized that the design of one’s own weblog has everything to do with updating frequency. My log had been aesthetically displeasing to me, but I hadn’t [had|taken] the time to modify it. It’s not the world’s most beautiful now, but it’s cleaner, and I can tweak it from here. Immediately, I am more inclined to update it.
The snow just hasn’t stopped. This is the day on which I regret having cancelled ‘net service from home: soon, I will walk through the windy streets for at least half an hour, to get home from the office. It’s odd to be looking forward to facing the elements so late in the evening; the wind is lashing the trees, and the cold is likely to be biting. But it seems like a good thing to do anyway. Clear my head.
Reconceiving the value of my time has been today’s theme. A fifteen-minute conversation with a friend in the midst of a busy day delights and brightens my hours. Running into a colleague, then another, distracts translating but gives me more energy, and desire, to research actively and *productively*, and delights in its own invaluable way. It’s so lonely sometimes, the academic craft, and an unexpected reminder that no, it’s not all in vain, is irreplaceable by any other form of compensation.
Then, an eternity spent in a lecture They expect me at, mostly having nothing to do with my interests but — most importantly — this passive listening isn’t how I learn. It makes me impatient, fidgety, annoyed even more easily than usual. I resent being Expected to be here, and even if some of what this poor tortured speaker is saying might possibly be useful, I close off and have to force myself to concentrate, so that later I may take up a thread or two with people who are actually interesting to me.
This is a failing on my part. Of course, the lecture ends up being significant and useful, if I only get off my high horse.
—
There is a people in Africa whose artists create sculptures with patterns of shells and stones embedded in them, as diagrams for — anything: the structure of the human body, of the cosmos, of poems. Visual aids to memory, visual maps of memory, ties between memory and invention — they seem to be geoculturally omnipresent, they’re such European notions but also intrinsic to Other Peoples, and I want to learn more about memory. Do microbes have memory? Do they, individually, learn? Do cells learn? Does Bruce Chatwin say anything about how Aborigines remember?
(No, of course I’m not done with The Songlines yet. Am not a serial book monogamist, I’m afraid; and Sasha Shulgin is rather an entrancing distraction.)
Aforementioned friend is on a bus 45 minutes outside Seattle as I write this. (As I wrote this, over an hour ago.) I’ll have a visual memory of him in this moment, in the future, which, although informed somewhat by my own experience of Washington, is unlikely to be rooted in any sort of reality experienced by him at this moment. It’ll also be radically different from the visual memory he’ll retain from the last hour of his journey; yet I’ve traveled enough that we’ll be able to relate the two, and approach each other’s emotional state through these memories, should we choose to do so. Yet, the result of such a process in my head will be completely unlike its result in his; so which will matter more, the process of becoming closer, or the remaining essential difference?
Being an optimist, I say the former. Remaining separate, we enrich each other. Wording visuals, we produce more – different – visuals. It’s a chain of human experience that doesn’t [have to] end.
Imagine, then, all of this on a larger human scale. How can any of us ever be bored?
—
I get shakily insecure about my research because it does not always feel like legitimate research. It’s too elementary for this 21st century of after-Christ knowledge, too primitive for our millennia-worth of species. Yet I persist, because even now there is a new filter through which to view what our minds have produced, and it’s up to me to construct that filter, to formulate it. It’s not New, of course; but it’s been too many hundreds of years since it was last widely used, and I feel like a scribe in a long line of preservers of our essence. Does this mean I’ve found my calling?
Cosmic insignificance and specific importance seem to not be in conflict, and this is what’s unsettling.
I’m a bit slow on the uptake, but then, I don’t spend much time on the ‘net nowadays, on the weekends. Here you’ll find a letter from ICANN’s [1] Paul Twomey to VeriSign’s Russell Lewis, dated 3 October. This one’s quite a bit harsher than anything else I’ve seen officially voiced. Excellent:
[P]lease consider this a formal demand to return the operation of the .com and .net domains to their state before the 15 September changes, pending further technical, operational and legal evaluation. A failure to comply with this demand will require ICANN to take the steps necessary under those agreements to compel compliance with them.
Thanks to Liz for the link.
[1] The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. I’m including this here because I had to look it up myself.
Listening to the same poem close to a hundred times, as pronounced torturously by first-year students of Italian, can kill the poem no matter how beautiful it is.
On the other hand, the students made me smile and even laugh quite a bit, some with inventiveness, some with naive assumptions from other languages seeping in. You could feel them learning.
Making There Be Food for friends’ wedding is a fun enterprise! Farmers’ market people were duly amused at my purchase of forty-eight baby aubergines, in addition to mounds of other things. I’ve been making several little shopping trips instead of one big one, breaking them down by purchase location. The “light refreshments” will be mostly different kinds of Mediterranean or Med-influenced. Perhaps I will post photos, later.
Roland’s doing fine, though I haven’t written much: proofreading scanned text is not terribly exciting or varied. I’m coming to Really Appreciate good-quality photocopies, which make such activities much more swift. And, conversely, loathe bad-quality photocopies, which induce anguish.
Currently playing (for values of “currently” being “all day long” but not necessarily “at this moment”): mix of electronica, silly and otherwise, and Suzanne Vega, sent across the continent by a friend. Shpongle and pellucid, amon tobin and dj food, not to mention Carlos Paredes. I keep listening to it again and again.
I’ve nothing of work-related or political import to say, and apparently neither does Maria (but at least she has an excuse!), but this is funny.
Talked to my sister-in-law and brother on the phone today. They live in Rome, together with my 3-year-old nephew. But this isn’t about them, it’s about a news bit.
Do you know why there was no electricity in all of Italy for an entire day recently?
Because a tree fell in Switzerland.
Today, Mikhail Gorbachev received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brown and gave a lecture titled “Democracy’s Impact on Globalization.” It was truly a privilege to listen to this intelligent, diplomatic, humble, utterly humane politician. It’s in large part thanks to his “daring… and restraint,” as Ruth put it, that I have been able to go back to Russia after emigrating; thanks to processes he helped set in motion, people are now less afraid, more politically active over there. To take a country as twisted and stifled by its own governments as the Soviet Union and turn it around, never losing sight of humanity in the process, is admirable.
He didn’t say anything new, by any vaguely politically aware person’s standards; nevertheless, it was an excellent lecture to read (and to hear) in the current political climate here in the States. He talked of real democracy, not only on a national but on an international level. He talked of the need for popular vote, pointing out that world leaders get elected by 25-30% of their populations, considering the nonvoting masses and the (fewer!) people voting for the opposition. He said that the UN needs to regain momentum and authority. He did mention Iraq, stating unequivocally that, although Americans did create the mess, it would be wrong for the world to not participate in cleaning it up, because it would only promote divisiveness. Later on, during the Q&A, he harshly criticized the U.S. for its imperialist attitude, said that imposing American will on other peoples is not acceptable and does not promote democracy, and quipped that the U.S. needs perestroika as much as Russia and Latin America do. Throughout his speech, Gorbachev repeatedly placed emphasis on peace and the betterment of the human condition (not his exact words) as the ultimate goals.
The simultaneous interpretation was atrocious. Having done it in the past, I know what it takes; and this guy was just plain unprepared. He was bad. I wonder if he’s Gorbachev’s “own” interpreter (unlikely, given the quality) or one provided by the university (which would be shameful). I hope that, if the text of the speech is posted, it is a better translation.
Although work has been proceeding apace, most of the week’s important happenings have been of a personal nature. It’s difficult to write a work-related entry when one’s emotional self is otherwise preoccupied.
Nothing drastic is happening, I just felt the need to explain the silence. Since this is supposed to be a weblog and thus Frequently Updated, and all.
I’ve been doing some more recentering, connecting and re-connecting with people via my favorite methods of interaction (one-on-one or in very small groups), searching for – and finding! – equilibrium. This semester trips on the heels of a turbulent summer, and sustainable strength is a most appealing quality-of-life enhancer. I’m pleased to say that so far my attempts at increasing daily stability (thereby enhancing productivity) have been reasonably successful. Will our heroine become a mellow-voiced, light-emanating-from-center-of-forehead, new-agey bore? Not bloody likely. But the light is becoming bright and even, indeed.
autumn’s here, and more artists are dead.
