The Hour of the I am the walruStar
Eternity is the state of things at this very moment (p 18)
This is both completely backwards and completely correct… maybe the point of the book is that backwards is forwards is sideways is whatever you see at that moment is ever-changing. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…
At this very moment, the idea of anything being different from what it is right now seems strange, because it hasn’t ever existed like that before. I’m sure that a world without telephones seemed perfectly logical to the people who had never had telephones before. Eternity isn’t a matter of time and space to people, or at least, most people. Certainly there are the Einsteins and Thoreaus in the world who consider existence in terms of existentialism and fourth dimensions, but as people we are commonly limited to the moment, as is. And at this moment, though we can obviously imagine and consider the future–we’re not blind in terms of thought–what we see is what is, and what is feels like what will always be. To a certain extent. So in that way, yes, eternity is the state of things at this very moment.
I’d like to think that we’ll be able to change that one day. There are a lot of things about this very moment that should never be allowed to become eternity.
Love the People
Nature(ally)
All of the construction outside of Pantas is making me laugh. I was sitting at work this morning and another girl who works here came in entirely flustered by the newly-planted caution tape over the front door and the need to use the side one, and I just smiled. I mean, I don’t mind having to use another door, and while having to take detours to walk somewhere that would normally have been a straight line is inconvenient, it really doesn’t bother me that much. What makes me sad are the jackhammers and the tar and the oh-so-lovely smells that remind me that, while I live in a rare bit of nature (sort of) in the middle of a city, it’s never going to be untouched. Sometimes I wonder what part of me decided to move to a city. I love nature… I have a habit of lying under trees, walking barefoot through freshly-mowed grass, sitting on the roof and watching clouds (and yes, figuring out what animals they’re in the shape of).
I love living here. I really do… Jackhammers and tar just have this uncanny ability to make you think about what’s important to you.
By the way…with all of this construction and fencing and grass-growing, what happens to the man who works out in front of Pantas?
“I hear Spike Lee’s shooting down the street…”
It was that last image that stuck with me the longest. The image of the camera panning away from the radio station window, the voiceover saying that the word of the day was “chill” and the word LOVE broadcasted beneath the window… it really felt like it was that scene that summed up the entire movie.
We talked about what it was to “stay black”… I saw it as a call for loyalty, solidarity and strength. Mookie was a black man working with the white people who already felt somewhat out of place in the neighborhood. The three men sitting against the brick wall discussed the Korean family and their success, and felt that it was a sort of betrayal for their neighborhood to embrace new and different people in such a way. What I thought was strange was that they blamed the Korean family for being successful instead of the people in the neighborhood who contributed to that success. The whole movie seemed like such a paradox that I couldn’t help but wonder which side I was meant to agree with. “Stay black” could have meant anything, or nothing, or everything… I saw it as a subconscious plea. Maintain who we are, Mookie.
It’s about fighting. Even though I wanted to jump into the movie towards the end and tell everyone to stop fighting, tell them that it was an Italian resturant with famous Italian people on the wall, and that it wasn’t racism as much as it was about personal pride. On both ends. It was ridiculous… But even though, it made its point. Repeatedly. The image of Martin Luther King Jr. contrasted with Malcom X in the photograph in the burning building… the two leaders of freedom and equality (who took almost opposite approaches, of course) smiling in the middle of the height of conflict was eerily poignant. The fight was unneccessary and far from productive. Malcom X might have been on their side, but Dr. King certainly would not have been.
I was really angry when this movie ended.
Mrs. Dalloway? …spoiler alert
“She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must go back. She must assemble.” 186
This moment–the moment in which Clarissa retreats into her own thoughts long enough to truly reflect on not only Septimus’s death but on her own life (and eventual mortality)– is the culmination of everything she has been through on this day. Septimus was, in a way, Clarissa’s counterpart. He echos her, in a way, and almost demonstrates her true, uncensored self. Septimus, being a shell-shocked veteran, has retreated into his mind and forsaken reality. Though he has a few brief moments before his suicide of being lucid and in touch with reality (or at least, the reality in which his wife lives), his world was the one inside his head. Clarissa leads two lives, really–the one in public and the one in her head. Septimus represents the one in her head…
His suicide and her reaction to it is the culmination of her thoughts and doubts and struggles with her public life, preparing for a party and holding back words to Peter. Repeating the line from Cymbeline “fear no more” represents her gathering of strength and preparing for life, which is what Septimus could ultimately not do. It shows their divide as well as their eternal connection.
the way it ends…
“When I see them now they are not sepia, still, losing their edges to the light of a future afternoon. Caught midway between was and must be. For me they are real. Sharply in focus and clicking. I wonder, do they know they are the sound of snapping fingers under the sycamores lining the streets? When the loud trains pull into their stops and the engines pause, attentive listeners can hear it. Even when they are not here, when whole city blocks downtown and acres of lawned neighborhoods in Sag Harbor cannot see them, the clicking is there.” 226
se·pi·a [see-pee-uh]
–noun
1. a brown pigment obtained from the inklike secretion of various cuttlefish and used with brush or pen in drawing.
2. a drawing made with this pigment.
3. a dark brown.
4. Photography. a print or photograph made in this color.
5. any of several cuttlefish of the genus Sepia, producing a dark fluid used naturally for defense and, by humans, in ink. –adjective
6. of a brown, grayish brown, or olive brown similar to that of sepia ink.
piIt’s the end of the book, certainly, and a circling back to where it all started– Joe and Violet peacefully in love. But it’s aged now. I think the use of sepia imagery here is a blunt, visual representation of time passing. Things grow stale with time. Their appearance changes, gets dimmer, darker. Like the brown of the sepia. But they’re not sepia–they’re memories preserved in the mind the way they once were. Memories are clear enough to show the images of what once was, but they’re not tangible. They start to blur around the edges. That’s how this book read… like a memory that is clear but old. It made sense, even when jumping around between years and fragments of memory and realization. But it still had that contained-in-the-mind sort of blurriness around the edges, right down to wondering who the narrator truly is. Who is this person, this voice, longing for the love that Violet and Joe share? Is it a part of Violet, or is it another pair of eyes altogether?
You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now.
The Evolution of New York City
The work of photographer Douglas Levere shares a common theme with Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Letter to N.Y.” Both artists reflect on the concept and patterns of change within society, seen in New York City. Levere’s project “New York Changing” traces the evolution of New York City through comparison shots. He revisits neighborhoods originally photographed by Berenice Abbot in the 1930s, recreating her shots and camera angles to portray the changes in the landscape. Bishop’s “Letter to N.Y.” is a poem in the form of a letter to a friend living in New York City, though it reads as a testament to the city itself. Both pieces also share a common idea with Joan Didion’s personal essay “Goodbye to All That,” which explores the ways in which one’s relationship with the city can change with time.
Levere’s photography portrays the changes that have occurred in New York City over the last seventy years. Though his shots are recreations of Bernice Abbot’s originals, the images have transformed so profoundly that they are in many cases nearly unrecognizable. The shot of Henry Street, Manhattan in 1935 shows stone architecture and a backdrop view of other buildings. The street is wide and brightly lit, and there is a single car parked in the shot. However, Henry Street’s 1998 counterpart is cluttered and shrouded in dark shadows. The stone architecture has been replaced by metal and fire escapes, the buildings in the background are terribly obscured and transformed into skyscrapers. The entire street is filled with parked cars, a stop sign sitting in the center and blocking the slight view of original buildings remaining. The originally quaint and open space of the street is cluttered with parking signs and various flyers posted on walls. In the sixty-three years between the original photograph and Levere’s recreation, Manhattan’s Henry Street has been entirely transformed into a landscape that hardly resembles its original version at all. A review of Levere’s project describes his interpretations of Abbot’s previous shots and the message he portrays with his drastically different images.
The paired images produce a remarkable commentary on the evolution of New York City over several decades and encourage the viewer to consider the rate and meaning of progress. This juxtaposition of the past and present comes with obvious changes: the brownstone becomes a housing project, the neighborhood store becomes a skyscraper. Often, however, the encounter results in a more subtle reflection of the changing tides of our culture (“New York Changing”).
While most of Levere’s photographs demonstrate as drastic a change as Henry Street, there are a few that portray a very similar view of the city as their 1930s counterparts. The Patchin Place with Jefferson Market Court in Background shot of 1937 shows a tree-decorated brick building with fire escapes and a clock tower in the background. Levere’s 1997 version is nearly identical, the only distinct change being the addition of more fire escapes and the aging of the brick. Patchin Place, located off West 10th Street between Sixth and Greenwich Avenues, has retained many of its original characteristics over the sixty years between these two photographs. It’s remarkable that in some cases, the view of New York City is so profoundly altered that it hardly resembles what it used to, while in others the only noticeable change is natural aging. The brick of Patchin Place has darkened, yet the landscape is in actuality quite similar. Evolution is subjective. Time adds as well as changes, and original versions are simply layered with the new. Peeling back the layers of time might possibly reveal some of the old hidden beneath, but finding where to dig would be nearly impossible.
Levere’s versions of Abbot’s photographs are darker and more shadowed. The buildings are flatter and taller, and far less natural. Though many of the buildings are made from metal as opposed to stone or brick, it’s the addition of more buildings (specifically skyscrapers) that block the light and create the dark and shrouded image.
Bishop’s “Letter to N.Y.” reflects a similar concept. The comparison of the meter of a taxi to the face of an owl references the inevitable and ever-present change of city culture. Emerson College’s literary journal Ploughshares discusses the symbolism of such a comparison. On the most elementary, visual level, the meter and the owl are being compared by shape, color and texture. A taxi-meter is roughly the same size and shape as an owl’s head. The meter’s hard, metal surface is contrasted with an owl’s soft feathers. A machine is compared with a living thing; an industrial image is seen against a natural one. In these comparisons, two things are contrasted and identified, yet without the loss of individual character. But the metaphor surprises us (Shore).
Nature being compared to and nearly transforming into a machine represents the industrial and cultural progress of the 20th century. Replacing the natural and original with a manufactured counterpart demonstrates the transformation of society. This concept is most predominantly reflected in our cities, specifically New York City. An owl is commonly viewed as the all-knowing observer. The comparison of the owl with the taxi meter links the meter with this conception, and the fact that the “meter glares like a moral owl” (Bishop) suggests that the meter is as watchful as the wide-eyed owl. The meter knows where you have been, and it keeps score of where you are going.
The image of the meter coming into being from the original, figurative owl connects to Levere’s representation of what becomes of the past as time moves on. Abbot’s photograph of the Blossom Restaurant at 103 Bowery between Grand and Hester Streets of 1935 portrayed a restaurant next to a barber shop. The entry to the barber shop was beneath the restaurant, and the barber himself stood on the steps leading to the sidewalk. Levere’s 1998 counterpart is of Everywhere, Co., Inc. It is a small convenience store, and while the shopkeeper stands outside the door and poses for the shot, there is no barber shop and no steps down to its old entrance. The city changes over time, and there is no way to stop, pause or delay that progress (even when it leads to the destruction of what used to be). The city itself becomes something nearly unrecognizable, and sometimes that changes the way people are able to view it.
Though the taxi meter resembles the owl and Levere’s photographs resemble Abbot’s, and there are obvious links and similarities to previous versions, the originals are still merely shadows of what they have become. Joan Didion’s essay “Goodbye to All That” traces her journey as a New Yorker, from her youthful and romanticized view to her older, somewhat jaded one. She saw the city as one thing early in her life, and while the city itself certainly evolved over her years there, it was ultimately her perception that faced the most profound change:
You will have perceived by now that I was not one to profit by the experience of others, that it was a very long time indeed before I stopped believing in new faces and began to understand the lesson in that story, which was that it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair (Didion 687).
Didion’s image of New York City became stiff, forced and cold, and it grew to lack character and individuality. The harshness of the city took a toll on her, and she began to see the metal-shrouded buildings and cement sidewalks as a sort of prison. “I had never before understood what “despair” meant, and I am not sure that I understand now, but I understood that year,” (Didion 688). Didion’s view of New York City transformed, very much in the way that Levere’s photographs depict a changed and, in many ways, distorted version of what New York used to be. In truth, the city is equal to change. Expectation does not always equal reality.
As Didion recounts from her first days in New York, “all I could do during those three days was talk long-distance to the boy I already knew I would never marry in the spring. I would stay in New York, I told him, just six months, and I could see the Brooklyn Bridge from my window. As it turned out the bridge was the Triborough, and I stayed eight years,” (Didion 682). Images are always subjective, and will always change over time. Everything transforms with age; it is inevitable that what once was will one day no longer be. The city is dependent on the eyes with which it is seen. They are what makes the city what it is. However, the question remains—is it an interpersonal change or a societal one that transforms an owl into a taxi meter?
Bishop’s poem, comparing a taxi meter with the face of an owl, demonstrates the ways in which cities have evolved over time. However, “seen in the dark, both taxi-meter and owl would appear to be the same color. But a taxi-meter and an owl have a similar function — both are night-prowling creatures looking for prey,” (Shore). This suggests that the city is never what it appears to be. Though a taxi meter and an owl share certain similarities, they are quite obviously drastically different things. It is perception that blurs the lines that separate them and allows such drastic changes in our society to take place. “A taxi can circle around a city park as an owl circles around the forest. But, just as a taxi-meter would be out of place in a forest, so would an owl be out of place in a cityscape,” (Shore). Bishop’s images, like Levere’s, create an overwhelming sense that cities are constantly subject to change.
Levere’s photography demonstrates the subjectivity of perception. The city, logically, cannot stay the same. There are too many people and too much activity to use the same space in one way forever. It must always be expanding and renovating to cater to the needs of our ever-changing culture. The city has always been a reflection of the mood of society. In fact, it is Timothy in the film “The Cruise” who declares that his relationship with New York City has gone through phases. He explained that their relationship had turned cold and empty, and that they had sought a divorce. However, with time he found that they were able to build back their previous closeness. His relationship with the city, as well as the city’s relationship with all of its residents, is ever-evolving.
Cities have always been a direct reflection of the people and the evolution of culture and society. Though such transformations are represented in vastly different ways (Levere’s photography, Bishop’s poem and Didion’s essay), the constant theme of change and reformation is universal in all of the pieces. They stand as a testament to the city and how it is never truly dependable or consistent, and to how no matter how uncontrollable it becomes, it will always be New York City. They prove that the only consistency is inconsistency, and the only constant is New York. The truth is that this constant evolution leaves our society ever grasping for a sense of stability. New York, despite the fact that it is the center of change and a whirlwind progression of society, also becomes a center for sanity. It stands as proof that no matter where humanity goes, there is always a center upon which it can depend.
Jazz isn’t about jazz at all…
“But I have seen the City do an unbelievable sky. Redcaps and dining-car attendants who wouldn’t think of moving out of the City sometimes go on at great lengths about country skies they have seen from the windows of trains. But there is nothing to beat what the City can make of a nightsky. It can empty itself of surface, and more like the ocean than the ocean itself, go deep, starless. Close up on the tops of buildings, near, nearer than the cap you are wearing, such a citysky presses and retreats, presses and retreats, making me think of the free but illegal love of sweethearts before they are discovered.” (35)
The sky is already a vast and endless force above us. The fact that the city turns it into an orange ocean, deep and starless, makes it that much more awe-inspiring and all-encompassing. This passage speaks to the universality of the city, or City, and the way it can sweep you up in its rhythm. Comparing the sky to an ocean is particularly poignant, because while country skies are considered skies, a city sky is something large and mysterious—oceans are beautiful and intriguing, made of water which sustains us, and yet deadly if not treated with care and respect. The city itself is the same way. The fact that the city’s sky—the entity that surrounds and encases it—is something so enormous and captivating suggests the colossal nature of the city itself. Everything below that sky is equally majestic and demanding of care.
“Nobody says it’s pretty here; nobody says it’s easy either. What it is is decisive, and if you pay attention to the street plans, all laid out, the City can’t hurt you.” (8)
could this take down a city?
http://www.maniacworld.com/frozen-in-grand-central-station.html
I was in awe of this… and I couldn’t help but wonder how many random pranks we’ve walked by on a daily basis without noticing. New York is such an isolated place, which is scary because it’s crowded and loud. It’s the opposite of lonely, and yet it can be the loneliest place in the world. So do we just walk by with tunnel-vision and ignore what’s really happening? Could you just walk past fifty people frozen in their place and not notice? It’s a scary thought…
Quicksand…
“The minutes gathered into hours, but still she sat motionless, a disdainful smile or an angry frown passing now and then across her face. Somewhere in the room a little clock ticked time away. Somewhere outside, a whippoorwill wailed. Evening died. A sweet smell of early Southern flowers rushed in on a newly-risen breeze which suddenly parted the thin silk curtains at the opened windows. A slender, frail glass vase fell from the sill with a tingling crash, but Helga Crane did not shift her position. And the night grew cooler, and older,” (Larsen 3).
This paragraph explores Helga’s journey as a whole. Though she hasn’t yet begun at this time, the fact that she is so restless and aware of her surroundings at the time suggests that she is not one to stay in one place forever (“but still she sat motionless, a disdainful smile or an angry frown passing now and then across her face”). The reference to the clock in the room ticking “time away” and her heightened senses making her so aware of it alludes to her need to leave Naxos and all of the old and stale there that she feels is holding her back.
Stating that “evening died” rather than describing night is more of a suggestion of Helga’s perception of the world around her. Night is dark and closed, and to her feels more like a death than a continuation of time (although time already is passing her by, so the fact that night feels like death to her only adds to that sense of desperation). Even something as sweet and pleasant as the scent of flowers coming in with the breeze turns negative as it knocks over a “slender, frail glass vase.” The vase itself, fragile and easily shattered, is a symbol of Helga’s existence in Naxos and the way she feels her life exists in her current world. The vase’s shattering is symbolic of her impending journey, since it no longer exists in Naxos as it once was. Her reaction, or lack thereof, to the broken glass on the floor only further represents her no longer existent connection to Naxos and her need to leave. “And the night grew cooler, and older.”
excerpt of something sort of like word association
What is an estuary?
It’s past noon on a Wednesday, and that’s
not Friday, but I hear estuaries are
the mix of salt water with fresh so maybe
Thursday is my estuary.
I imagine home this way:
my room so colorful that sleeping is
difficult. My mother
smiling, and that is happy.
I would like to be on Crabapple lane, or
any other lane, but I’m
closer to Spring Street.
I don’t like Spring Street.
And Crabapple is sunsets and sunflowers and
wind across the lawn like silky summer nights.
And I am waiting for when I lie there again. Always
waiting. The northern lights don’t come down this far.
Why is that my worry?
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