Lord, what a trip.... take me DH, my body is ready....
***
"Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to the eternal night. ItLord, what a trip.... take me DH, my body is ready....
***
"Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to the eternal night. It seems to have become so, at the Renaissance, after the Renaissance.
And the flesh, the senses, are now self-conscious. They know their aim. Their aim is in supreme sensation. They seek the maximum of sensation. They seek the reduction of the flesh, the flesh reacting upon itself, to a crisis, an ecstasy, a phosphorescent transfiguration in ecstasy.
The mind, all the time, subserves the senses. As in a cat, there is subtlety and beauty and the dignity of the darkness. But the fire is cold, as in the eyes of a cat, it is a green fire. It is fluid, electric. At its maximum it is the white ecstasy of phosphorescence, in the darkness, always amid the darkness, as under the black fur of a cat. Like the feline fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing to the ecstasy of sensation, which is the end in itself.
There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But the senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the god-like. For I can never have another man’s senses. These are me, my senses absolutely me. And all that is can only come to me through my senses. So that all is me, and is administered unto me. The rest, that is not me, is nothing, it is something which is nothing. So the Italian, through centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because it has seemed to him a form of nothingness.
It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of the senses made absolute. This is the
Tiger, tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night
of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. This is the supremacy of the flesh, which devours all, and becomes transfigured into a magnificent brindled flame, a burning bush indeed.
This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up in me to the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstasy I am Infinite, I become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White Flame which is the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator, the Everlasting God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite.
This is the way of the tiger; this is the spirit of the soldier.
Albeit a tad outdated, it is an engaging read on art that has answered many questions and raised many more, both practical and philosophical. Loomis wAlbeit a tad outdated, it is an engaging read on art that has answered many questions and raised many more, both practical and philosophical. Loomis writes unpretentiously and adamantly over the importance of nurturing Singularity in one's creations, but one would need a strong base in drawing fundamentals to fully appreciate the technicalities. Will reread eventually.
"Once in a life class George Bridgman said to me, "My boy, you have drawn a leg, but you have missed the design of the leg." What he meant was that every part is related in size and position to the function of the leg. The bones are curved and of certain length to function together, and the muscles loo are positioned for the most efficient operation. Where the movement requires most strength—such as in the calf of a leg—there is the largest development. This is design."...more
“if you are unwilling to endure your own suffering even for an hour, and continually forestall all possible misfortune, if you regard as deserving of “if you are unwilling to endure your own suffering even for an hour, and continually forestall all possible misfortune, if you regard as deserving of annihilation, any suffering and pain generally as evil, as detestable, and as blots on existence, well, you have then, besides your religion of compassion, yet another religion in your heart (and this is perhaps the mother of the former)-the religion of smug ease. Ah, how little you know of the happiness of man, you comfortable and good-natured ones! For happiness and misfortune are brother and sister, and twins, who grow tall together, or, as with you, remain small together!”
Extra points just to annoy Woolf in the afterlife for complaining there are no writings on Illness and Pain. Fine Virginia, but if Nietzsche isn't to your liking, he is at least kind enough to pave the way towards Socrates himself......more
CYRANO: My foppery is of the inner man. I do not trick myself out like a popinjay, but I am more fastidious, if I am not so showy. I walk with all upoCYRANO: My foppery is of the inner man. I do not trick myself out like a popinjay, but I am more fastidious, if I am not so showy. I walk with all upon me furbished bright. I plume myself with independence and straightforwardness. It is not a handsome figure, it is my soul, I hold erect as in a brace. I go decked with exploits in place of ribbon bows. I taper to a point my wit like a moustache. And at my passage through the crowd true sayings ring like spurs!
Bewildering reading experience, some ridiculous overly French meets overly-Shakespearean style plotline that I nearly abandoned - but there were shiny gems lying in wait...
The way I've read this, Cyrano is a staging of the concept of Panache, the most important word in the play.
Panache is Rostand’s word, or at least a word he made his own; before him, no one had used it in quite the same sense. In its simplest and literal sense, panache refers to the feathered plume of a helmet. This is the meaning of the word as it appears in Act Four, scene IV, where Cyrano speaks of Henri IV, who urged his soldiers during the battle of Ivry to “rally around my white plume; you will always find it on the path of honour and glory”.
In his speech to the Académie in 1903, Rostand described panache, rather mystically, as “nothing more than a grace.” “It is not greatness,” he said, “but something added on to greatness, and which moves above it.” Panache is not just physical courage in the face of danger; it includes a verbal assertiveness in the face of possible death. “To joke in the face of danger is the supreme form of politeness,” Rostand said. Hence panache is “the wit of bravura”—not bravura alone (which might be perfectly stupid), but the expression in language of that bravura and indeed language as an expression of bravura: “It is courage that so dominates a particular situation, that it finds just what to say.”
Panache thus describes the remarkable alliance of physical courage and verbal acuity that Cyrano so dramatically displays in Act One, Scene IV, where he engages in a duel while simultaneously composing a ballad. There is no difference here between the sword and the word, Cyrano is a portrait of the artist, the one who struggles against the vulgarity of the world.
VALVERT Your ... your nose is ... errr ... Your nose ... is very large! CYRANO [imperturbable] Is that all? Ah, no, young man, that is not enough! You might have said, dear me, there are a thousand things ... varying the tone ... For instance ... here you are:—Aggressive: “I, monsieur, if I had such a nose, nothing would serve but I must cut it off! Amicable: ”It must be in your way while drinking; you ought to have a special beaker made!“ Descriptive: ”It is a crag! ... a peak! ... a promontory! ... A promontory, did I say? ... It is a peninsula!” Inquisitive: ”What may the office be of that oblong receptacle ? Is it an inkhorn or a scissor-case?” Mincing: ”Do you so dote on birds, you have, fond as a father, been at pains to fit the little darlings with a roost?” Blunt: ”Tell me, monsieur, you, when you smoke, is it possible you blow the vapor through your nose without a neighbour crying “The chimney is afire? "And finally in parody of weeping Pyramus: “Behold, behold the nose that traitorously destroyed the beauty of its master! and is blushing for the same!”
This is panache—Sword and Word play— highlighted in Cyrano who sees himself as nothing more than a man with a big nose. This is key to the way the plot progresses, abstaining from both pleasures of food and pleasures of the flesh, he disguises this as his idealism in preference for contemplating the stars. It is a system of defence born of his perceived physical deformity, of course, of his self-perceived lack of aesthetic and the rejection to which it could expose him.
To sing, to laugh, to dream To walk in my own way and be alone, Free, with an eye to see things as they are, A voice that means manhood—to cock my hat Where I choose—At a word, a Yes, a No, To fight—or write. To travel any road Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne— Never to make a line I have not heard In my own heart; yet, with all modesty To say: "My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the garden you may call your own." So, when I win some triumph, by some chance, Render no share to caesar—in a word, I am too proud to be a parasite, And if my nature wants the germ that grows Towering to heaven like a mountain pine, Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes— I stand, not high it may be—but alone!
***
Extra thoughts:
CYRANO [shaking his head] No! I love Cleopatra: do I resemble Caesar?
All that wit and bravery, all that Panache but Cyrano couldn't look outwards and remember that it was Cleopatra herself who had often been associated with a big nose? A sad fucking story....more
Lady Selene
>
Books:
philosophy
(157)
Loading...
