DILEMMA

It’s 2 am. I’m reading a paper that my mathematician friend has just sent around asking me what I think he should entitle it. He gives me four suggestions:

1. "On the magnetic immortality of launching operations from the Kourou Space Center";

2. "Life is a mystery but LL must stand alone in four sections and one appendix";

3. "The shortest way to becoming a full professor is being launched in space completely naked: a rigorous proof";

4. "To be Lipschitz or not, that is the question. The answer is maybe."

As I’m looking intently at the paper, which is his major breakthrough since he started thinking about it in 98 – you can also get a glimpse of it in the fragment below – I’m thinking: if I’m not going to understand this until 5 am, which is in 3 hours, I’m going to hang myself by my own artificial tongue. Meanwhile we can call the paper: “On orbiting around the category theory BWV 51 Jauchzet Gott in Allen Landen where we relate the existence of extensions of Lipschitz functions to the existence of ends and coends for functors precisely in M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici.”

KINGDOM COME

This month I had decided that Eliott was entirely wrong when he famously declared in the first line of The Wasteland: “April is the cruellest month.” “Like hell it is,” I kept saying to myself. “Not compared to November.” And yet. Upon seeing certain people wearing certain jackets you change your mind. You come out of your catatonic state and start anticipating better times. Yes, you’ve guessed: Vincent was on TV tonight exuding warmth and unambiguously establishing point to point protocols as he was gesturing in connection with talk about rhetoric. I could have sworn that if it hadn’t been for his Stewart&Strauss green baseball attire, I would have mistaken him for a courtier just coming down the impressive stairs of Versailles after having been detained in an audience with the king.

Christian Kock, a professor of rhetoric from Copenhagen University delivered the ideas today, mainly on how to avoid believing anything that dumb journalists and even dumber politicians are tying to convince us is true. Kock’s own body language, looking only down at the floor, disclosed how appalled he is at the idea that nowadays in politics, rhetoric, alas, is not about good and sound arguments – as was the case in times even way beyond the reign of Louis Quatorze, namely in the peripatetic times of Aristotle, when one had time to walk and think, rather than ride horses or waves, or whatever – but about good and bad dress on prime time TV. Sure enough, we have to sympathize with the poor politicians who are constrained to having to deliver whole messages and the perpetuation of good values, if they are chosen, in only 5 minutes. So, we excuse them for delivering only the necessary slogans, lies, and meaningless numbers.

As Kock pointed out quite rightly, it is almost never the case that politicians don’t deliver prepared in advance sentences to concrete questions that have nothing to do with these sentences whatsoever, rather than listening to the question, thinking, and then talking as genuinely and authentically as possible. Well, the politicians are pressed for time, everyone can understand that, so too bad that professors have the nerve to suggest that slogans hardly ever strike a logical homerun. I mean, now that the politicians pay a shit load of money to their style advisors, designers, and ghost-writers who are all in the business of making them look good, how dare to insist on quaint traditions, such as using regular thinking in a campaign?

But Kock insists: rhetoric in politics today is about 3 things: 1) making recourse to fictive numbers – because no one bothers to check their accuracy; here the political claim often appeals to people’s emotions: ‘oh la la, in the old days the schumcks preceding me, spent so and so much on this and that, but in my time, no such nonsense, my expenditures are cut down to zero’ - ha, ha;

2) making recourse to stating things implicitly rather than explicitly; here, the lesson the politician learns, even in rhetoric schools, as Kock ironically implied, is that you can always imply things ‘elegantly,’ and embellish a little for the greater good of yourself, while if you insist on being explicit, you can risk being caught naked – shame on you, then;

and 3) making recourse to talking-points, as in, ‘yes, yes, I know you want to know this,’ the politician may imply when talking to a journalist, ‘but I don’t have an answer prepared for this; therefore you’re gonna get this other thing instead.'– no one cares anyway.

The meta-rhetoric is this: the politician avoids answering a question in a straightforward manner because he doesn’t have a thought in his head, yet this much he does have in head: the knowledge that the journalist doesn’t have a thought in his head either. Jolly good, as the audience is also presumed to stand guilty of the same emptiness, which makes me question the efficiency of Vincent’s own remark at the end, against all this wasteland: “be alert and on guard” [giv agt og vær på vagt]. Damn. Some musketeers insist: En garde against the cynical lot. Only, indeed, will it work, when even cynicism is not what it used to be, there are no sophisticated nuances in it anymore? We take it all in, raw and uncooked. None of it matters. What matters is that we all look good.

Tomorrow I’ll be at home all day, but I’m fussing already. How lucky that I don’t have to meet anyone, which means that I can indulge in that rare activity of sitting in my armchair and thinking some thoughts. But by Jove, what am I going to wear? A dress, a dress, my kingdom for a dress…

POETRY'S TOUCH

For Blaise Pascal

Here comes Keats, who didn’t get to live the sexual revolution. Keats was into hands; hand-writing, and hand-touch. Keats couldn’t make himself say, ‘how about it?’ like a moron, after the sublime silence trespassed the embarrassing threshold of ‘how about it, then?’ Lo, the feminists had a point: if you can’t find someone worth fucking, go fuck yourself. Very good point. Keats, can you hear that? I hope you’re turning in your grave as I bend over it, passing some good feminism over to you. Here comes Keats, whose “Living Hand” instils in me visions of caressing balls, if that is what the man wants, however vulgar and much in vain. But poetry can make anything vibrate. Listen to this:

“This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d – see, here it is –
I hold it towards you.”

Halleluiah, I feel touched! I’m writing this to myself now. No one else. Norway, here I come, to fuck myself, and your sheep, and your provincialism, and your highest peak! Norway, I swear by your orgasm that although I can see that you don’t fall for all this piss that Keats is talking about, you can also see that this hand of mine will henceforth overcast and cancel all your Novembers.

“But if you’d try this: to be in my hand
as in the wineglass the wine is wine.
If you’d try this."

"wie im Weinglas der Wein Wein ist”

– I go to bed drunk with Rilke under my pillow. I still know what I know.
It snows, but I’m not cold anymore.

LUDIC LAWS

With a slight belatedness of action, when we could not report on TV shows of interest due to incongruous events, we’re back in business bashing Vincent - as he doesn’t mind. But since we’re a conservative kind, before we say anything, a reference must be made as to the staging of this third set in the series The Power of Thought in which Vincent talks some philosophy with an invited guest, who is an expert in some related area. “Still no women on the list of names,” I want to object, even while feeling Whitmanesque today, embodying multitudes, and all. But mercy must be granted, for the following, more irrational than rational, reason: as Vincent was flagging my favourite country, and flaunted a Beckettian slim fit, we made a realization. Of course there’ll be no women on the show because the only one worth inviting will say ‘no’ to public appearances. I know this because that woman is myself. We thus acknowledge Vincent’s acknowledging of our uniqueness and singularity. In the face of what is possible, let us then stick to writing and let him stick to men. What’s fair is fair. “Immutable and just, the law. Justice is less sure of itself,” I thus write on behalf of the poet Jabès, whose words, which I would have quoted for the first instalment, still reverberate.

Game theory. Pelle Guldborg Hansen, who is a colleague of mine at Roskilde U was invited this week not only to offer some insights into the field but also to play a game with Vincent and a robot named Robert. The game was inconclusive. Vincent was bidding in a game of auction without thinking, and Pelle decided that insofar as he can decide that the robot is his he can thus win all the stakes all the same. This says something about the instrumentality of games, namely that something is always lurking in the wings which may well render the whole strategic, ludic structure in a game irrational. On this, I’m amusingly reminded of the statement in the preface to the book that Vincent and Pelle co-edited, a collection of interviews based on five questions, Game Theory, which says this about the material gathered in the answers from diverse luminaries: “The responses are self-contained and readable and no overarching view of the nature of game theory is lurking in the wings.” Believe we must what we all must.

Pelle made a distinction between the desire to win and the conviction which determines the actions taken towards maximizing one’s winning potential. This distinction submits to the rules of the game, which in principle are devised primarily according to convention rather than conviction. Especially since conviction can, at times, be shown to be grounded in fictitious or imaginary contexts. If, according to Pelle, the aim is to raise one’s son so that he would become a disciplined man rather than a loving one, then prioritizing discipline over and above love legitimizes the action according to the conviction that dictates precisely that discipline, and not love, is the rational rule to follow and enforce. Pelle mentioned no outcomes of such a decision, but I could imagine two scenarios: the son would be ready either for the military or philosophy – a win/win situation, some might add.

Then Vincent wanted to know about irrational acts in game playing. Here, Pelle introduced the notion of time. Irrational acts are deemed irrational, more often than not, not within a short-term perspective, or in the immediacy of when the act is committed, but within the perspective of lapsed time. In hindsight, we often say: “that was pretty dumb”, even if at the time of the event, the rule dictating the ‘now’ unfortunate act was deemed most rational. This shows that claims to rationality are in fact determined not by rationality per se but by cultural precepts and conventions. Within this framework, cooperation, rather than playing head against head is obviously a preferred strategy as it enhances collective wins as against total annihilation.

To my surprise, no one made a mathematical statement. What about winning strategies in an infinite game? I like players who play with strength rather than for closure, as this discloses some of the most profound and multifaceted processes of inner psychological drama that unfolds itself against the background of willed, yet not always predictable interaction. What happens when emotion rather than reason responds to counter-intuitive moves, thus heightening the intelligence of the game itself? On the cultural side, and in tandem with the more interesting set theorists, it may have been a good idea to mention in the show such figures as Michel de Certeau. In his influential book, The Practise of Everyday Life he makes a distinction between strategies and tactics. The first answers the institutional call, while the latter is more individual. How an agent creates space for himself to operate within, against yet also according to the existing structural powers, is already mind-boggling, as much of this space is defined tactically by repetitive – and paradoxically – unconscious acts. These acts are then deemed by agents rational even when they are illogical. Against this background, all those who claim to grow quite weary of the rationalists – myself included – have a point. For, what makes a game interesting is noticing that which has the tendency to slip past us – the irrational act included. Game theory would not be interesting game theory if it did not face us head on. Which means what, exactly? Which means that one has to start with a consideration of the poetic universe in homo ludens. If I were a game theorist, I would thus start with the words of Edmond Jabès in his book of aphorisms, Desire for a Beginning, Dread of One Single End.

"One possible approach to the [ludic] universe is simply to approach the possible.
Here the impossible comes up against the perennial problem of being inconceivable, a crucial problem that it keeps evading.
There will always be an impossible, undermined by possibility." (17)

JASMINE

On my way to get a body wrap in jasmine and a massage today, at a very nice place in Copenhagen called Ni’mat, I found myself at exactly 12 o’clock in front of Helligaandskirken, a church in the middle of the pedestrian street. I froze in front of it as the amazing church bells were sounding the hour. Not too far there were two other church towers whose bells were also competing for attention. While enjoying the sounds, I couldn’t help noticing, however, how many people were passing without noticing anything at all. Wrapped in sound, I counted: 1, 2, 3, until I got to 111. That’s how many heard nothing. This made me feel both quaint and queer.

Once arrived at Ni’mat, I was asked to wait in an oriental room. I sat on golden pillows and started smelling the flacons with oil essences on the table. This activity, smelling things, always transports me to all sort of places. I thought of mother who was the only woman I know capable of making sense of the space between the sacred and the profane. This was the woman who, while teaching me how to recognize and appreciate the sublime in all its nuances, also taught me that it was perfectly all right to be most vulgar, blunt, merciless, and uncompromising when needed. “You have to remember to laugh, though,” she said.

As I stepped into the steam bath first, my rising pulse started synchronizing itself with the still resounding church bells in my head. What is it that we’re doing, I asked myself, when we open ourselves for others, and let others open themselves for us? On the bench, as the masseuse pulled my hair and turned my head very quickly on its sides, I saw green colors.

After the jasmine oils, I had coffee at the beautiful old library. The décor was green and calming, but I was fussing. I had to catch my train back to Roskilde. I had a rendez-vous with Bach. This week they celebrate Bach in the provinces. The big cathedral invited everyone for a big night out, to sing the famous cantatas. As I was racing through the rain, my sister was waiting at the entrance. The church bells were tolling. She whispered: “you know, some folks back home would be green with envy knowing how much we enjoy this.” But I wasn’t so sure about that. More often than not, these days I find that most people I know don’t enjoy the things I do.

My sister is a great Bach singer, although she prefers Händel. The conductor said: “all, lights are green for Händel, so we’ll start with See the conqu’ring hero comes.” This instantly reminded me of a favourite quote delivered by one in the business of speed, the Formula One racing driver Mario Andretti: “If everything is under control, you’re going too slow.” Being under pressure is a mighty thing. Controlling the adrenaline without going mad! Powerful stuff, indeed, the G-force, the green lights. I went out of control while singing the next song, Sanctus from the Deutsche Messe by Schubert. There you have to be slow. Real slow. The conductor wanted us to sing that one 5 times over. He didn’t think we were slow enough. I wanted to join him on his podium. I wanted to turn to the large audience and say: “I’ll show you slow, out of control slow.” But I did nothing. And yet people were looking my way. My sister said: “it’s the jasmine,” while intoning Ave Verum by Elgar. “The whole church smells of jasmine,” she further said. I wanted to ask: “really,” but because I already knew it, all I said was this: “fast or slow, I believe that others believe in us.” I don’t know what people do with their lives in the evenings, but with Bach around, we can all give thanks. Mine almost sounded convincing as I blasted my lungs out singing Nun danket alle Gott. The jasmine was green, and a winner.
---
(Photo: Andra Jakstaite)

CONTACT

For Waltraud Meier

Earth to Jupiter. The 6000 needles piercing my body as I lie on my shakti mat shake my visual memory. Is there contact? There was nothing on the sky last night, but I can see now that Orion chased someone else. Not very far. A torrent of meteorites must have hit you on your head. Your head close to mine. Your small bone structure is vibrating. Numbers align themselves on the black. I won’t call. I hate telephones and dialling numbers is most quaint. I prefer other gadgets. My mind mostly. It can conjure constellations. In them my power over you is as endless as your love. No one can mess with Frigg’s distaff.

PRAGUE

In 1996 I was in Prague for my birthday. I was 28 then. Smoother and about two kilos lighter than today. 48 kilos to be more precise. I was also stupider, both according to myself and others. This, now that I think of it some more, and unlike my weight and flesh, has actually remained a constant. As I had just moved in with a man I didn’t really know, most people thought I was either really stupid or really crazy. “Well, do you at least know how old he is?” they asked. “No, I don’t,” I said. “But why is that so important?” I asked in turn. I thought I knew just what I needed to know. Nothing more, and nothing less. I was not wrong. But then, how can you be, when the man’s idea of seducing you is by telling you that it really doesn’t matter what you are, who you’re with, and what you plan to do, as long as he gets to be with you 5 minutes a day - if you, so please, allow it. Well, I decided that a man like that deserved more than 5 minutes. Now, I never asked him why only 5 minutes would have cut it – I knew what I knew – and he never asked me why I wanted to hang out in old Jewish cemeteries on my birthday. But Kafka was the love of my life at that point, and that was all anybody needed to know. I wanted to go to Prague for the words. I wanted to see if I could experience sensuality through the interconnectedness of vibrations. I did. For, paying attention to what we do, say, and think is what energy is.

So, here we were, in Prague, shooting pictures, playing Jewish in the relevant quarters, stuffing ourselves with gefilte fish, and reading Kafka and Hölderlin in full foliage. Prior to this event, I tried to explain to all those who couldn’t understand how, after being presented with the possibility to move in, and was given the key to the apartment after one encounter that didn’t include sex, I did it the day after, and then ran off to Prague to indulge my literary tastes. But there was, however, one line, which I vividly remember shut the astonished female spectatorship up. Now I wonder why all the other things I said didn’t make such an impact, especially since nobody understood the profundity of it. I said: “I want him because he never sees me, or thinks of me as merely a fuckable subject.” And that in spite of my part, which, if I submit for a moment to the patriarchal idiom and order, I would have to say was not the part of playing the nun. When I then asked my female friends insistently, “do you know what that means?” I could tell that although their answer was “sure we do,” they sure as hell didn’t. On my 41st anniversary, I don’t raise my glass to the one who actually taught me what language does to us, women, culturally – oppress us for the most part – (he knows what he knows) – but to all those women who say, “sure,” when they’re not. May you all be fortunate enough to live with men who know better than ‘that’ – who trust your intelligence enough to know that if you do certain things, you do them for a reason!

Here’s what mine wrote in the Prague album he made for me:

“A book of photographs, arranged to pleasantly simulate a coherent narrative concerning an elopement-like pilgrimage to Prague, that venerable city of golden roofs, baroque tastes, and shrines to Jewish intellectualism, pride, and good merchant sense – introducing first the principals and differentiating them from their fellows: B., a man of little consequence and much pretence; the great K., a deceased Jewish doctor; and lastly, C., a dark lady of several aspects some of which are displayed within, for your viewing delight…”

WRITING ON THE WALL

Some two hours I’ve been wandering through the Swedish woods today to find two runic stones. While searching for the first one, which in the end I decided that someone must have stolen, square and simple, I stumbled over a sheep farm. Oh, this always makes me forget about all my frustrations and grievances. I’m good friends with sheep. They come to me running, even without my doing anything at all to entice them to it. And then they all bleat. Ever so loudly and enthusiastically that I can swear it’s a symphony orchestra I’m witnessing. During years of mutual attraction, I’ve also noticed that there’s always one sheep in the flock that develops a more intense attachment to me than the others. Today was no exception. Now, I tend to be pretty cool about saying goodbye to the creatures in general and the special one in particular when I’m ready to leave, but for some reason this one sheep today that must have seen me as honey or something, was very upset to see me go. But go I had to. On to finding the other stone, I urged myself on in order to avert the feeling of sadness. I found it. And yet, while feeling its lines and following its inscription something flashed through me. I had to go back and touch my sheep without my gloves on, and give it a name. So I did. Now, some would say that this is completely insane, but I can assure you that the love-stricken sheep didn’t think so. It was ecstatic. I named it Hestra. It was happy. And so was I. For a while, for it made me ask myself this question: why the fuck don’t I live on a sheep farm? Why the fuck not, indeed? I tried to answer this question by arguing with my position. I even threw in some alethic and deontic logic, but that merely made more upset. Luckily I was saved from such dry madness by Oscar Wilde’s insight: “arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.” I saw a whole different kind of writing on the wall. But I’ll keep that to myself. If I should be tempted to reveal the secret, I know where to find Hestra. I’ll whisper it into her ear.

TOUCHING PERSEUS

For Ruth Gordon

Up north the stars shoot from the gut. Some claim it’s Perseus’s nether region that does it. I look at it, and look at it, and look at it some more. Some call this star gazing. The temperature goes down. I feel the zero on my toes. I make a wish. With my eyes closed. So it can’t be gazing that does it. Make it true. I know it. With my eyes closed I focus on my breath. My breath in art. Perseus may be well endowed, but it’s his navel I’m interested in. It smells like dark chocolate made with cardamom seeds. I have them on my tongue. The seeds. Their smell is the smell of our mixed blood. It comes out of my nostrils. I exhale - - - Your shirt goes up. I breathe into your navel. You’re waiting for my touch. Your whole body aches with memory and desire. I touch you, and you swoon. I touch you again. Your eyes open, and you swear on the stars that I am It. Not the stoning Medusa, but the other one. The secret one. The one with the trumpet, whose blow is a Gorgoneion apotropaic gaze that turns stone into a starring touch. You saw it. You felt it. You loved it. You want it. The foursome crystal constellation.

BAPTISM

And now to a discussion of rights, copy rights, and its relation to personal experience. I’m not in Denmark right now, so I have to put up with people’s stupidity as to the extent of enforcing rights to the left and to the right - the other right - so that ultimately, if you want to watch certain TV programs on your computer you are informed ever so politely about the impossibility of the fact due to whatever rights. Of course, the fact that it is ever so stupid to block transmission in this day and age of transmission is never mentioned. So, let’s just put it this way: as a general rule, rights have not been invented to help anybody but to create hassle. And this goes for every situation and that in spite of claims to the contrary. One does feel like smashing the gadgets every now and then. Lucky for us, however, when we are pursued by Murphy’s law: “if it doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer,” there’s always something else we can write about.

I was invited today for coffee in the middle of the Swedish wilderness. As it turned out, one of my colleagues is also vacationing very nearby where I’m staying, so I popped in. In the house there were two 6-year-old boys. Stephen and Valdemar. It started with Valdemar. I made references to his shirt that had a fire truck on it. On the upper half it also had some footballs with some odd graphic on them that looked like flowers to me. So I said: “Valdemar, what’s up with the marguerites and the fire truck?” Valdemar went on a roll explaining how I got it wrong. The grown-ups in the house were surprised. They told me that Valdemar has a speech impediment and is therefore shy. He was born two months prematurely. He is the kid of a friend of theirs and the best friend of their own son, Stephen. Well, speech impediment or not, it turned out that I could get anything I wanted out of Valdemar. He was smitten. Then Stephen. He came up to me and said: “what about my shirt?” “Oh la la,” I said, “the Eiffel tower! Have you ever been there, kissing your girlfriend on its top?” “No way,” he said, “I was underneath it, and no kissing.” Then I said: “Well, too bad for you. You don’t go to Paris if you are not up for some kissing.” He was also smitten. The ground for playing was open major time. They brought their pet to me, a huge toy, a moose. “What do we have here,” I asked, and “what is its name?” “It has no name,” the boys replied.” “What do you mean, it has no name?” I asked appallingly. “We have to baptise the creature instantly,” I then said, and waited for suggestions. “We’ll call it nothing,” Valdemar said. I gave Valdemar a very serious look. “Valdemar, unless you’re a philosopher, we’re not going to call the moose “Nothing.” “I do karate,” Valdemar replied. “Well then, you can start with bowing to me, and then here’s what we do: you each take a solemn position by my side, and at the exact same time you’re going to whisper a name into my ears. Valdemar said: “Stephen”. Stephen said: “Brille.” “Stephen Brille it is, then,” I said, and started the ceremony: “in nomine patre et fili et spiritus sancti, I baptise you, moose, Stephen Brille.” The boys were pleased and then ran to their rooms to hide under their quilts. Stephen was leading. I said, “hey, do you know what happens if you do that?” “No,” he said from under the quilt. “You invite me to come teach you how to kiss a girl, useful for your next visit to Paris.” Valdemar went wild, and Stephen expectant. We ended up back in the kitchen with both boys all over me. I placed my hands, with both my palms stretched, over their faces. First Valdemar, who was humbled, and then Stephen. And then something miraculous happened. Stephen did the same to me. He stretched his palms and ran them softly and tenderly over my face. Oh, what can I say? I was moved by such unfiltered openness. When I left I was still high and filled with emotion. And the boys, well, they were irremediably in love. It was a good day. Amen.

KADDISH

Today I ate something that I used to eat in Romania at orthodox funerals. Not the Jewish ones, but the Greek. Whole boiled wheat mixed with one kilo of ground walnuts, the peel from two lemons, and one orange, sugar, rum, and cinnamon. There was no funeral around, although I was convinced that if I went around offering some of this ritual and symbolic food to the tourists (mostly Danes) residing next to my cabin at the Isaberg resort in Sweden, some would have required instant burial. For you see, the stuff, called coliva in my mother tongue, tastes so good, that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that people actually die from eating it. Of pleasure, of course. The mighty guitars of The Romeros were also on standby. So was Bach. And I was ready to officiate whatever there needed to be officiated. I’m good with blessings. Even the dead can use them. Walking through the woods, prior to the gluttony moment and visions of funerals all over the place, I was entertaining some new thoughts. The clearer the assumptions, the more I murmured to myself: blessed be this, and blessed be that, his and her name, this infinity and that endlessness, and so on. I even threw in some special words for Federman, who had just kicked the bucket last week: “Yehai shemai rabba mevarach lealam ulalmai almaya.” This line is full of eternal intentions. So, let all those still around and who get the picture, be blessed in their continuous ways.

FOUR-FOLD

When I was 11 I fell in love with Bach transcriptions for the guitar. I had a record with Milan Zelenka, and I still remember vividly the effect of his chaconne on me. I grasped the infinite. Or so I thought. Now, when I doubt its omega-consistency (read this both metaphorically and à la Gödel) there is, however, a remedy. I always think of what Chopin said: “the only thing that sounds better than a guitar is two guitars.” My 11-year-old self returned today, on another 11, to that first experience, only this time raised to the power of 4. Here is The Romero Quartet, keeping it all in the family. All Bach specialists, and all to die for. We are forever grateful to all those who endure the pains of self-discipline only so that we may accede, through their perfect precision, to a consistent state of two-fold vibrations. Or three-fold, or four-fold, or more, if we are lucky.

SCARLET TIDE

In the mountains I write my autobiography. The conceptual one. Which is exactly why the title of it will never be “No regrets.” While singing in the woods today, some pre-renaissance songs, tunes from Hildegard von Bingen, I thought about what enables us to rise above tautologies of the kind, ‘things are as they are.’ What we regret is often that we know better, or that we already know, or that we understand – that there is more to things as there is more to their existence. Thus, what we regret is that we don’t have the time and energy to be in the middle of things, in medias res. I’ve always wanted to be a medievalist, or rather a musicologist in the area, only so that I can get the Baroque contrapunctum. As with many other things, it never happened. Not officially, anyway. Which is why, while singing, I made other musical juxtapositions than the obvious ones. I thought of the beautiful song by Costello and Burnett sung by Alison Krauss, The Scarlet Tide. It sounds like an hymn. “We'll rise above the scarlet tide,” she sings intriguingly, but the line: “man has no choice when he wants everything" intrigues me more. So, man gives nothing when getting everything is not an option. But this nothing is not just nothing, it is a kind of nothing which holds both defeat and hope tied to a promise of the assurance of everything suspended by conditionality; man has no choice, but, if and only if, then and only then, thus and only thus. Indeed. And yet, when we do not give, we are not only cruel to others, we are cruel to ourselves. Cruelest, in fact. But we hold on to the thought of giving, such as it is, such as we imagine it to be, and such as we keep enunciating it.

The idea of voice is an interesting idea in medieval scholarship. It is tied with how one way articulation establishes proximity to the divine through a field of vision. The more God says nothing, the more man speaks. The clearer the vision, the louder the voice. Yet what is articulated is often the illusion of proximity to the divine. For, the most profound experience of the divine occurs when voice fails on purpose, so that the passage to the tautology tide is surpassed by a better tautology. When things are as they are, the thought that what comes, comes holds and paints the spirit scarlet. Tomorrow I’ll visit some monastery, here in the sacred land of Bohus, or step on petroglyph stones. They are also scarlet, as is the forest in full foliage, as is the silence of the suplicators.

FEDERMAN DIES

For Raymond Federman

Nobody ever waits. Waiting is the hardest. And you decided to die on me just like that. Well, you have been dying for some time now, just like a few people I know. Mother was dying before she actually did it, some 20 years before. The same with Beckett. By the way, say hello to both. Perhaps you can instruct mother to start reading some Beckett while there, wherever it is that you’ve all gone. She was a Beckettian to the bone, only she had no idea. I’ve also been dying since the day I was born, so we have that in common. I came into this world two months before my time. Mother was sure I was going to die. Me too. And then with all the operations, it’s a miracle anyone survives. Three times I’ve had to spread my legs for the gynaecologist and anaesthesiologist. And then the energy thing. The ablation, they call it. Pumping up the heart to 400 beats so that they could guess where the current was, and burn its many passages. Six places they’ve burned it, chasing it in the dark. Which is why the current comes back, I can feel it. I’m ergodic proof of what instability means. And now I also want to get rid of my big tits. I have plastic reasons for it. I’m into the arts now. I want to seduce only myself, not others. And I fancy a splash of imitation. Beckett, whom we both love - that’s right, I want to look just like him. I wonder what you’d say of that, that I may die, finally, with my chest cut open. Who’s to say, indeed? We all die anyway. But meanwhile on your death, I’ve no idea why that obscene song sung by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot comes to my mind. "Moi non plus,” he says. "Je t’aime,” she says. But he insists. “Moi non plus.” Ah, well, people come, people go. You were never sentimental about that. And yet you made me soft in my knees. Your texts still vibrate through me. The words. I’m doing a painting for you now. I use mostly the color called viridian. Can you believe such a name? You would like it, particularly because I got the inspiration from my favourite perfume, YSL Rive Gauche. Total viridium. So, who will read at your funeral? I’m busy writing, and feeling sorry for myself, so I'll absent myself. Goddamned it, Raymond. You could have waited for me. You make me say, “moi non plus.” You exit, but I promise, I’ll take care of the X.

FUGUE

Robert, this one is for you. On your birthday. Bach played by Gould. On his death day. Unoriginal and morbid. I know. But then again. Listen to this, and then think of all those who inspired Gould, all those Russians, such as Rosalind Turek, and all those Russians whom he then in turn, in an act of heightened generosity paid back, and inspired in 1957 when he was a young and ravishingly rapid, dashing man in Moscow. Tatiana Nicolajewa never played Bach other than by stepping on the pedals all the time. All the time. Such was the time then. All those Russians who never tasted the Baroque and its excesses! They were all coming out of the Romantic tradition. They were all in love with Bach, sublimely. How to have him? How to accede him? How to do him? But things are simple really. And constant. What Bach wanted was God, and what God wanted was to touch Bach. Gould understood this when he got older, and was infinitely more in touch. We all get what we want, if we listen, if we come. For the touch and the solitude. For the love. En courante.

RESCUING

Today my Saturday begins with two reflections: 1) if you want to make it in this world you have to do what there is to do to make it, among other things make sure you pile up the diplomas, awards, medals, and the like. This thought was sparked by a mail from my friend, Robert Gibbons, who needed to send a letter to a head master somewhere in the US of A. The master lists his achievements in his very signature: 3 MAs, 2 PhDs, 2 professional certificates, and many more things – you get the picture. Robert says to me: “I must say, that the credentials possessed, accomplished, sought, won, bought by this headmaster are as good as any I've, seen, at the same Time revealing for the entire years' search, the futility of it ALL!!!” This made me think about how right the poststructuralists were to have made the obvious and commonsensical remark: men with such credentials are in power, not because they are essentially smart, but because they’ve managed to convince others that they are, women included. So it’s all in the narrative. To understand this even better, it’s enough to look at politicians. If we didn’t live by fragments and details, the campaigners would not keep so busy with the respectable trade of digging. Digging dirt that can tell a different story about the one who claims to be spotless. So the big picture is always in the small picture. Obama has been in Denmark for 5 hours and a half to try to get the Olympic games to Chicago. He didn’t succeed, yet everybody agreed that his mere presence in Denmark was big. So big. A very big thing, indeed! Now, I thought, if Obama had a different reputation than the one the media construe, say, that of a womanizer, or something similar, I wonder how big his presence here would have been deemed, you know, cosmically speaking. For when people go and say that it’s fucking big that he’s here, they never elaborate. They just believe.

Which brings me to my 2nd reflection: on belief. While I was in the bathroom, my husband played a vinyl with some Indian tunes produced by L. Shankar, a major violin virtuoso. Listening to the sounds as they were filtered through two doors, they reminded me of a Somali tune. This thought then reminded me of a prose poem I wrote last year which I dedicated to a Somali friend. In that poem I made a reference to Ketav Levonah, the white Torah. The word levonah itself means incense, which the poem is actually about. So there I was, smearing creams on my body, thinking of smell and religion. After I finished I sat by my computer and amused myself with checking to see who has been visiting my blog. Looking at my stats is a wonderfully entertaining moment of wasting time. One phrase caught my attention. Someone from Sacramento, California was searching google for “Ketav Levonah,” and, voilà, google being very smart directed the person to my website. All the better, as I never had anyone stumble on my writing with that phrase before. So I made a mark of it for posterity like a good statistician, while I also wondered what the poststructuralists would make of this kind of coincidence that seems to bypass the two-dimensionality of the stories that make up our identity: either you are this, or you’re that. There’s no middle way. Of course, if I declared that I "believed" in cosmic things, they would assure me that that is a sure way to madness, in this world precisely in which it ain’t the stars that rule but the star-achievers. In other words, “belief” is the wrong tool to employ in making statements that run counter to reason.

Humm, my fingers are tapping nervously on the table as we speak. I have to think about this one some more, and the damned philosophers into belief and decision-making are still out there deliberating. As yet, they haven’t produced anything sensible on the very topic. Jack-shit, in fact. So I’m thinking: if I don’t “believe” in anything, I’d have to conclude this based on hard evidence: I know for sure that I’m not a “fan” of politicians, and I also know for sure what I like. I like to quote Kafka on achievement: “success is the biggest disappointment.” Ooohhh, I can hear Homer Simpson interjecting: “Aaahhh! Then you’re a loser.” Damned! I knew there was something wrong with me. Anyone into the business of rescuing? A volunteer? Thank god for volunteers.

PAPER-WORK

Some things are worth living for. Contrasting contradictions can be quite interesting to observe, and as I am a convinced poststructuralist I like to observe when, how, and under what conditions the narratives we tell ourselves shift lines and lanes. What we pay for such awareness and where we imagine that the limit line goes of the convergence of fantasy with reality are some other elements that can keep us entertained. Particularly what is lost in the process interests me, and whether what is lost can yet be seen as an expenditure currency for what is gained in the trace of what is lost. Today at work I had the opportunity to experience myself making two completely contradictory statements delivered with a lot of pathos and dehortatio. Supervising two groups of students in two different rooms and on two different topics, I said to the first group, writing on Deleuze: “by Jove, I believe in sublime love. Deleuze makes me vibrate.” To the others, writing on the films of Almodovar, I said, “off with their heads, all those who contribute to passing as commonsensical the idea that sublime love exists and that it is embodied by men who know how to act (upon it) and women who wait (for it to happen). Thank God for transvestites, even though they are never in power.”

I’m good with body language, being aware of my own and paying attention to others’. The Deleuzians wanted to know more about vibration and how it ties in with Deleuze as a philosopher and a creative writer at the same time. I demonstrated. I took a piece of paper, scribbled a geometrical figure on it and then slid it on my body; like one does with a perfume sample from a good fashion magazine. While you do it, you inhale the smell, which is thus not only transposed onto your body but also inscribed on it as a sensorial experience which combines cognition with emotion. Thus as I inhaled the ink, and thus inscribing the students’ attention within the proximity of my whole body, I noticed their faces. Their nostrils vibrated when I quoted Deleuze: "if one really fancies being a writer, one must first become a woman." Then and hence I could tell that the students were ready to believe everything I said. They were in the middle of experiencing a narrative shift in the making: from knowing to living; from epistemology to ontology; from elegance of thought to relishing its taste; from fantasy to reality and vice versa. Consequently their attention shifted from my metalanguage on Deleuze’s notion of the fold, baroque aesthetics, and Leibniz to my body-language. As my words were pouring at the speed of a rocket, they all had the sense that fluids were coming out of me, intersecting the lines which I drew on the paper, now resting on my chest, on my bare decoltée. “Wow,” the only female student in the group of 8 said, “you’re enacting Deleuze’s idea of Eros as an event.” Indeed I was. I WAS Deleuze BECOMING a woman. Ever so smoothly and flowingly (Deleuze was into fluids). The students had their pupils enlarged.

I told them that elegance in writing is not only about delivering sets of threes that are rounded off by a neat aphorism – a practice one can observe in Bertrand Russell, for example. Nor is it about formulating the ultimate foundation for this or that discipline. If elegant writing is to be experienced, it has to vibrate, resound and resonate on a sensual level. Formally, only a few tricks are required to make it smashingly interesting where style is concerned. And it helps if this style extends to your own body. I wore a white coat today, made by myself from scratch from a special thin paper-coated fabric and stitched on my two powerful (one an over-lock) stitching machines. I liked the coincidence of wearing paper on which one can inscribe as many shifting narratives one wants, when one has to talk about the implication of such acts for the writer or the lover or the decapitator. “What is the supreme writing act?” someone asked. I said: “to pronounce ‘whatever.’” To write ‘whatever’ as the punch-line to the conclusion that whichever way we go, it doesn’t really matter. There is a lot of power in ‘whatever,’ even though it is the embodiment of ultimate cynicism. Of course, however, as with words and language games, there is always something that beats ‘whatever’. But it takes a hell of a lot of imagination to figure that one out. Meanwhile, while pondering on just how much imagination one has, when states are contradictory, perhaps the gift of ‘leaving it alone’ is the greatest gift we can offer ourselves, if we don’t want to go with ‘whatever.’ For ‘leaving it alone’ is the work of grace. And it vibrates on its own.

TOWERS

After a successful event at Copenhagen University organized by my friend, professor of English and erudite scholar in extremis, Charles Lock, on the work of Leonora Carrington, I came home with a sense of the significance of what obsessed the surrealists: “the object.” But what object? There are many, of course, and in Carrington’s case the object is a white horse, a trans-national “thing” migrating from the Arthurian legends to the Mexican alchemists. In spite of having lived in Mexico since the 40s, Carrington’s aristocratic English background does not deny itself where knowledge about Celtic culture is concerned. But while the horses populate almost all of her some 1000 paintings to date, they are also trapped in some sort of imaginary dusty tower. One of the effects of looking at surrealist paintings is making instant visual associations of more objects, including ones that seem hidden in the canvas or altogether absent from it. So, the invisible tower, I thought, as the res absconditum, trapping images devoid of energy, must be the other object at work in surrealist paintings.

What hit me was the fact that one hardly ever sees energy at work in these works. Things fly, to be sure, but the movement as such never conveys any energy. If anything, the dream-like movement is more suggestive of a wasteland where, if Excalibur is welded, it is not through fire but sand. “Sentimentality is a form of fatigue” Carrington said, which made me think that perhaps she was thinking about the difference between Celts and alchemists. Where the first ask, ‘can magic create energy?’ the latter are more into economy: ‘can we afford to lose energy?’, thus presupposing that all that glitters has already undergone the process of becoming gold, and is consequently worth holding on to.

Dramatizing is a form of fatigue captured in the tower of doubt and dismay. Carrington uses Venetian red in her paintings, and yellow of the Mexican desert. In one of her most iconic self-portraits, Carrington dressed in white pants and high heeled boots cuts across these other shades as if asking herself: are certain events created for us, intended for us? Today's event ended with wine and fragments of Mexican poetry set to music and played on classical guitar. Time stood still, as in a surrealist painting. As such, it helped me shake off the feeling of missed magic that the poem The Tower in the Wasteland, by the Spanish poet Julio Martinez Mesanza, gave me, when I read it this morning, while wearing my white silk gown, and feeling stupid, sick, and sentimental.

My sole desire is order, and beauty
that women do not have. My sole desire
is a life beyond doubt: goals defined
and reached without scheming, in broad daylight.
The clarity of swords is what I love,
the clarity of powerful structures.
In this wasteland the tower dazzles me,
and I march toward the tower. Whatever lies
in wait for me – toothless ridicule
or the deceitful word of sophistry
or the traitor’s two-sided battle-axe
or a woman’s body or any body –
I will view the infamy from the tower.

(trans. Don Bogen)

TOPOLOGY

For Jean-Luc Marion

Gertrude Stein is pulling my leg: “Remember narrative is continuous.” And then there’s Wagner, and Cantor, and Bach, and all the others. I was thinking that the only thing that beats ‘and yet’ must be ‘both, and.’ And then thus there are the others, specialists in quantum grammar. What do we do with ‘and then?’ – Then suddenly? Transform the status of ‘nothing’ into ‘all?’ ‘All are welcome.’ To do what? Transform topology into a vocabulary of thinking? Thinking about it. A direct address is a ready-made costume. “You, I’m addressing – and my witnesses are ‘all’ here” – Or not. The gaze can also go blank, terrified by the potential No. Not yet. So ‘Nothing’ would come for nothing. And yet. All that writing can vibrate for! Sense it all written on the body! Gertrude hands me a cookie made by her lover, and orders me to shut up. In transfinite arithmetic, both nothing and everything have a higher status than otherwise. The set of signification comprises the oath: Here I Am. We keep counting. Alice keeps the score. And then hands touch and the kiss is hot. We love the logic of insufficient reason.

INCENTIVE

Barely back from Norway, I insist on pledging with myself that my days shall end in the mountains. But I need this pledge to unfold itself against the background of constant reassuring. In other words, although I know it for sure, I need an incentive that carries my certitude forward. I need the proximity of vibration. So what do I do? I hurry to book another sojourn up in the mountains. And I like returns. In three weeks, I shall be back at Vann for a few days and then on to Isabergtoppen in Sweden. The more I anticipate the smell of autumn, the more I also get dragged into discourses concerning assurance. Knowledge by decay. Certitude by décalage. I thus return to Jean Luc Marion, although these days I find what he has to say slightly disturbing from a ‘coincidence’ point of view, but equally sublimely fascinating as ever. Here’s a passage – among many good ones – in his The Erotic Phenomenon (2007).

"… Only eternity responds to erotic reason’s need for the assurance of the present – knowing definitely whom I love […] ‘Will I have the strength, the intelligence, and the time to love you to the end, without remainder or regret?’ for the one that I love clearly imposes herself upon me as a saturated phenomenon, whose endless and measureless intuition does not cease to overflow all of the significations that I attempt to assign to her, beginning with the first among them, ‘Here I am!’ Seriously facing the face of the other, or more precisely, the face of this unsubstitutable other of whom I claim to be the lover, requires that I give without end a new meaning to the intuitions that never cease coming to me, and thus that I say all the words and pronounce all the names I am able to mobilize, or even that I invent others, so as to accomplish the indefinite interpretation. The lover never finishes telling himself of the beloved, telling himself to the beloved, and telling the beloved to herself. The lover, in front of the intuitions that the beloved inspires in him, must deploy an endless hermeneutic, a conversation without endpoint; thus he needs a period of time without bounds in order to carry out his discourse without conclusion. Love demands eternity because it can never finish telling itself the excess within it of intuition over signification. I will only know whom I love in the final instance – by eschatological anticipation of eternity, the sole condition of its endless erotic hermeneutic. Thus, only eternity answers the need of erotic reason concerning the assurance of a future – being able endlessly to tell me whom I love and to make it known to her, since without me, she would not know it" (210).

If asked, Marion would say the same as The Beatles, ‘all you need is love.’ Perhaps this is so. But it seems to me that the continuity of love, insofar as it needs constant reassuring, is dependent on the incentive to give nothing to itself. How else to understand endlessness? As reassurance comes in fragments, impulses, nods, and lexia, it supplements continuity with ‘everything’ which is also ‘nothing’ at the same time. In other words, if the proposition ‘all you need is love’ is correct, then it can only be so if it runs counter to time as a matter of necessity. Thus we don’t operate with either the past or the future, but with their assurance. Perhaps this is what Marion means to suggest, when he further says: “To love requires loving without being able or willing to wait any longer to love perfectly, definitely, and forever. Loving demands that the first time coincide with the last time” (211). I’m pretty sure that up in the mountains, I’ll decide that now I love, whether I need it or not.

WHAT'S YOURS

Last night I went to the museum of modern art Louisiana. The new exhibit, The World is Yours is all about reflection; reflection particularly of and on the way in which we perceive the meaning of what ‘yours’ means. At least that’s what I think. Among the many good and thoughtful pieces, installations and visual media, there were two artworks I enjoyed the most. One done by my compatriot, M. Cantor, and another done by a favourite, O. Eliasson. Cantor’s work consists of filming a silent demonstration in the streets of Tirana, most of it on Prokofiev’s score to Romeo and Juliet. The demonstrators walk about aimlessly holding big slogan-placards on which there is nothing written, as they are made out of mirroring material. The buildings and people are thus reflected in these big mirrors, yet as the mirrors are held by unsteady hands, they offer a distorted picture of the world. But one which is not devoid of beauty. Sun rays go in and out of the mirrors as well emphasizing the open movement in reflection, inside and outside, beyond point and even dimension. What is captured besides the world is openness. I liked this very much.

Eliasson’s work, in contrast, consists of a ‘cryogenic box,’ which you can enter. A room is frozen down to minus 16 degrees Celsius, and features the remains of a car, also frozen in time. When you enter, a big door is closed behind you, and the ward tells you to knock hard when you want to come out. According to Eliasson, when the body is confronted with abrupt change in atmosphere, and thus starts feeling different, it kicks into to a survival mode which instantly changes the mode of perception. He forgot to say, however, that your senses sharpen exponentially, as your tract registers the cold air passing through it. Yes, there is fear, and you feel it as the first thing when you enter the room. This fear is also a shared thing, as you can see it on the faces of all those who enter the room and who wonder if they can get out again. But there is also more. The body works with the mind in complete unison. And both are in a heightened state of vigilance, but also one of contemplation. This is quite an achievement in itself, to juxtapose a moment of pure instinct with ultimate reflection. On a more personal level, Eliasson’s fridge made me think of the reason why I want to live in the arctic.

Meanwhile, however, here’s what I got out of it that others can use on a general level. Two thoughts: 1) There is love in the world that reflects perception which takes place in rooms without doors. What the point is with everything is ditched in favour of going even beyond dimension. There is space in this love, and this space is neither regimented nor pointless, as it changes form all according to how space itself is reflected in changing ways in the mirrors. And 2) there is love in the world which is hermetically closed behind doors. While Cantor is adamant in emphasizing that his work considers direction-less movement – also in his artist statement – Eliasson’s work freezes ‘what the point is’ in time. But as such, the point also becomes timeless. Now, which do I think is better, you might want to know – if we were to allow for such pointless comparison. If you’re smart enough, you’ll guess correctly, especially the variations and nuances of the thought. If not, go to the museum and get your limbs follow the music or have them freeze in silence.

CLASSICS

When I decided that my friend, the genius mathematician, is a genius, I was not wrong. By a stretch, and since he keeps dragging me into his life, I have to admit that I wouldn’t be surprised at all, one day to hear that he had just published a solid proof of some as yet unsolved mathematical mystery under the name of Cornean/Elias theorem. I conjecture and he axiomatizes. This in fact sums up the story of my life as a mathematician. I’ve never been good at math, but I’ve been unbeatable at imagining abstracts. Alas, however, since abstracts are hard to materialize, I’ll die like Socrates with not a number on the page, unless some clever Plato decides to acknowledge my contribution in a more or less authentic fashion. Again we have proof that life imitates fiction and not the other way around. Jolly good, there is hope for everything, also for all those who have nothing better to do than listen to Wagner and his cohorts of Valkyries.

Now, what has Herr Lektor been saying, to be more precise? As he likes to formulate quizzes, and pose crucial, universal, and irreversible questions, to which he provides an answer himself, in his latest entry on his blog on the life and times of the genius, he takes issue with 6 scenarios that go from: 1) what have you learned from the wise that has contributed to your success – "Nothing," he says, to 6) Romans or Greeks? – "Good question," he says. Question nr 2 sounds like this: Who among the grand classics would you invite for dinner? – Me, he says, and then adds, however, that he is afraid of me. "You never know with such classics and whether they like sancerre with halibut filet," he then says.

Two weeks ago, I took my nephew to the Planetarium. We had coffee at the Cassiopeia restaurant while also enjoying the ducks and the lake outside, and talking about cosmic things. I ordered a bottle of water, and asked him if it was all right to share it, as neither of us was too thirsty. He said yes, and then continued: “Don’t bother to ask for two glasses. If you don’t mind, I’d really like to drink the water from the same glass as you. Perhaps that will make me as smart.” His wish was granted. Now, my question is this: Is this a sign of becoming a classic? And is this good, or bad? Maybe the genius is also right when he calls me that. So, yes, dinner: Mon Chevalier, Herr Lektor, I’m totally at your disposal. I’m ready to swoon over your treat, and imagine the continuum paved with flying cushions, even though indeed, I’ve always preferred the Persian flying carpet to Don Quixote’s pink thing – the damned classics, you never know with them - I’ll even allow it, if you might also fancy it, to drink the wine from the same glass.

THIS-NESS

For Ana, the Russian reader

What love knows is always thisness. Haecceitas. Dialogue is necessary but only on a gliding surface. The quiddity of whatness. My Russian speaking mother knew the distinction between reading and reading the other. The other of the other. The author has been dead for a while, and then resurrected. Now the other is both. “You are the master,” she said. “You know what love knows.” I bowed. She was a grand This. We all love our mothers, no matter What. The quiddity of matter is the haecceity of soul. Descartes got a good spanking from the Madonna, our Lady of the Spirit, and became an accidental tourist. Losing his head like that! Ahhh, being this woman! What bliss! Hylomorphism is a piece of cake in her mouth.

POST-SCRIPTUM

OK. Why Norway, some of you insist. Because nowhere else does it smell like it. And because it touches me. That's all. If you want more philosophy, sure, we can always invent a new concept, or point to the ones who were invented by others who knew what they were doing. It is the easiest thing in the world. Today, as I had pieces of lamb rack, I thought, sure, I believe in the essence of lamb. I believe in the essence of good olive oil. All these things smell good and taste good, especially in their simplest form. Of, course, as some smart physicists pointed out, in our endeavor to achieve simplicity we should not simplify too much - we don't want to end up as mere essentialists. So, the lamb, sure thing, in itself, it is a marvel, but with the exact amount of salt and oil on it, it is a miracle. As far as Norway is concerned, Norway is a marvel in itself, but with me in it, it is a goddamn miracle. The inference that you can all make now, and be my guest, is this one: Norway makes me confess that I love myself. Some writers think that confessing that is a mistake, yet some others think that there's no such thing as making mistakes; if anything, we make choices. So, I choose Norway, for a stint now, and forever later. As for others, and other things that I choose? Now that's the art. To make it simple, but not that simple. Meanwhile, let me quote a master, who knew what she wanted, who knew how to make it simple, but who also knew that every matter of simplicity is in fact rather complex (without this awareness, I'm afraid that we would all be turning into the likes of such right wing politicians who, by trying to keep it simple are all ready to invade the Caribbean islands, where they can think things over, think the Danish values over - and I'm not even kidding.) So, here's Gertrude Stein, making a whole lot more sense, while I take some time to deliberate on whether I should welcome myself home or not:

"One must never confess to oneself that one loves oneself. The secret of this confession is the life principle of the one true and eternal love. The first kiss in this understanding is the principle of philosophy - the origin of a new world - the beginning of absolute chronology - the completion of an infinitely growing bond with the self. Who would not like a philosophy whose germ is a first kiss?" (Lectures in America, 58-59)

ACTA NORVEGICA

My last days in Norway will be spent communing with the sheep, goats, and ghosts. There is a lot of strength that can be gathered from the contemplation of what the inarticulate can say. After visiting the local bygdetun today, an old gathering of wooden houses and church dating back to the 17th century, I rather enjoyed the 80 bleating sheep right outside the community. As soon as I approached them, they all jumped on their four and started singing in a choir. Even the completely atonal ones got totally into it. That was quite marvellous and exquisite, especially since I detected that what the sheep were performing was a quote from the English satirist and caricaturist Max Beerbohm: “Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.” Indeed, I nodded at the sheep, and they nodded back making sounds louder and louder. People claim that this never happens to them, have sheep come to them, and compete for attention. Why it always happens to me, I cannot explain, but then so it goes with some of life’s mysteries. Ultimately it is the mystery of it all that enables us to engage in performing acts of literature, acts of religion, acts of love. Figuring it all out, as it were, is also commanded by the first rule of epistemic creativity, namely the demand that epistemic cognition, contingent on creativity, is interactive. Where writers and readers are concerned, it is often the case that a reader reads not with view to understanding the author – unless one reads an autobiography, and even then – but to acquire knowledge about himself or herself. A writer writes for pleasure not politics. If a writer’s pleasure can become a reader’s truth, then something is achieved. What this something consists of, I leave it to you to decipher and decide. If you can’t, go to Norway. Or don’t go to Norway.

So, this rather ad hoc Norway log stops here. Thank you all for the great comments (many through Facebook) and for soliciting pictures. More updates on Norway will come soon enough, if not from Oslo and what else they serve at the Caribbean restaurant, then definitely from Tromsø in winter.

ADDICTION

I’m pretty good at handling the mountain plateau. But today it was different. After having a sublime vaffel med rømme at Haukeliseter, and realizing that I had to leave already, I got rebellious, as I got jealous of the workers there who got to stay. “Why do I allow Norway to torture me like this?”, I asked myself. I wait a whole year to return here. When it gets really bad, I cruise up to Oslo for a weekend, or fly to Tromsø in the arctic. I’m obsessed to Norway. I have a full time job only so that I can afford Norway. I always want to come back every year. It’s been now nine years in a row that I return. I’m in love with Norway. I’m her slave. I behave like her mistress. I want to say “no” to Norway, but I can’t. Every year I ask her humbly to allow me to enter her. To penetrate her. I’m very virile and potent for Norway. Full of energy. In fact, if I were the Norwegian government I would use me. I would ask me to divine for new oil, or diamonds, or anything, really. For, I’m convinced that Norway’s magnetic fields intersect with mine at exquisite points. But Norway won’t allow me to say “no” to her, because she always says “yes” to me, every time, before time. What do I do? By the time I got to Gaustatoppen, a special thought, away from Norway interceded. It interfered with my de-negations and desires. This thought was very powerful. It hit me hard. Very hard. It took my breath away. And I lost it. I lost it….

REDEMPTIVE REALIZATION

Today I’ve entered the jewellery shop in Kviteseid. Unsolicited, the shop keeper brought me his collection of diamonds. (What was it that I said two days ago? Judging by my clothes I wasn’t interested in billig skidt (crap)). I looked at his 50 rings, and I pointed out 3 of them. The first was exquisite at 8000 kr; the second had very good design at 6000, but the diamond was too small so it drowned in it; the third was frivolous, but great fun at 4000. I told him that the rest were run of the mill. He asked: “do you really think so?” “Yes,” I said, “I’m positive.” I told him that if I had more money and no conscious, I would buy the first ring on the spot. Although he said nothing, I could tell that he was sorry he couldn't sell me his ring. Sorry for me. So I said instead: “let me look at your zircon rings.” I bought one, and everybody was happy.

On the way back to the cabin, passing by the magnificent Nisser lake, I intonated along with Emmylou Harris on her song Here I Am. I’ve always liked this song. It’s very optimistic, but it has a deep tone and is full of contradictions. “I’m standing by the river / I will be standing here forever,” she sings, and then laments that although she has always been the lover of the one she’s waiting for, in the blood of his heart, she’s waiting for him as if he were beside her, not iniside her, as she is inside him. I can’t quite make out how her hope ties in with her eternal standing as well as the intensity of the emotion. Love at standstill? What’s that? But I don’t want to pose this question, and thus play the metaphysic – again. I have to realize my plan to finish a review of Brian Rotman’s book, Becoming Beside Ourselves. – Why can’t lovers be standing in the middle of the river, why are they always beside themselves, instead of becoming one? – Enough – with being all over the place – the hour of pragmatism is here. Ashbery reminds me: “A talent for self-realization / will get you only as far as the vacant lot / next to the lumber yard.” Damn. The woods. The trees. I knew it. – I should have bought that ring. Tomorrow I’ll hit the big Hardangervidda. There’s enough glistening vastness there, even for the ones beyond redemption.

(For the song at the bottom, if it won't play in Internet Explorer, it will in Mozilla; enjoy!)

KENOTIC PLATEAU

Between heavy thunder and two rain showers I climbed up to the Venelifjellet plateau. This is always quite a sublime enterprise. The plateau combines focus with vastness. First you concentrate on your body mass, as you climb steadily for two hours. Then it all expires in the face of what you see. You empty yourself of yourself. In Gnostic interpretations of kenosis this amounts to a process of emptying yourself of your light. The fact that the divine possesses omniscient and omnipotent luminosity, which however has to be withdrawn from if humans are to ‘see’ anything, is a fascinating paradox. What happens is almost a reversal of the demand: “let there be light” into: “let there be logic.” Perhaps the Greeks were on to something after all. Yet, while standing on the plateau, I must say that I rather enjoyed the idea that the higher up you go, the more you experience absolute openness. The experience of this openness requires not digging, by formulating arguments and charting what lies at the bottom, however beautiful that may be, but doting on your sense of space. It is the space of the other that you pull towards you, as incarnated divinity has done, which makes climbing worth the while. On top, you can thus say: I watch you within me.

DAS WANDERN

Some people want to know whether I always wear earrings and lipstick while wandering through the Norwegian woods. Yes. I do. Today I had my diamond and emerald chandelier earrings on. I always put on the jewellery that matches the weather, and as today the clouds surrounded monochromatically the mountains while sailing in the 100 year-old boat, Fram, I thought that it would be appropriate to go crystal. In terms of clothes and makeup I had my Chanel lipstick on – that’s all – Prada black jeans, Bubetti black boots, a beautiful cashmere shirt from Maharishi, and a woollen sweater from Petit Sophisticates. Underneath: cheap white cotton panties from the supermarket Bilka, and an expensive bra from Prima Dona (the classical type, not the lace crap). When the sun is shining I go for all Italian. Like yesterday. Pants from Napapijri, which I bought some 5 years ago, here in Norway, and white linen from Mottivi. Well, the trekking boots are German: my favourite from Birkenstock.

Now, some would say, what’s with the fuss? Or the snobbism? And who the hell is going to see all this in the middle of nowhere? For once, the fuss is all about quality – and I’m no even that original there. The Scots formulated it already. “I’m too poor to afford cheap crap.” So quality never has anything to do with fussing. I’m still wearing my Bubetti boots, which, yes, did cost me a small fortune when I bought them, but still look rather smashing after 12 years of intense wear. So, they were worth the investment. Secondly, there’s always someone you run into: yourself. Like, when you reflect yourself into the perfectly mirroring water and realize that your Cordoba earrings make it look all the more beautiful, you feel good about yourself. You feel good about having learnt that having an acute sense of distinction makes more difference than merely claiming that you yourself, through your acts, make a difference. I believe in objects. Some objects. They keep us sane when we want to go: wow, I must have been Norwegian in another life time, or at least half Norwegian! On the other hand, as the mountain sent back crystal vibrations through my ears today, I also thought that being half crazy, instead of half of the other thing, is all right. Good style perspires, and has transcending power. The Norwegians, who are mainly a bunch of peasants and for the most part can’t tell the difference between silk and polyester, when they see you strutting your designer stuff, think twice before passing judgement on you as soon as they hear that you come from Romania, originally. They don’t see so quickly a country full of poverty and orphaned children anymore. They see an individual rich bitch, whom they are more than willing to serve. “Follow the money” works every time, even out in the wilderness. Thus, we connect, with whatever, if not through diamonds, then through wool. Black and white and red at the collar, like the Norwegian national garment.

LORDS OF LIMIT

Today I’ve walked myself into exhaustion. 12 km up the wilderness. I thought of limits, and where mine were. Could they be conquered? Of course, it didn’t take me more than a fraction of a second to realize what a stupid idea the idea of conquering limit is – though most people believe in such things. If someone climbs the Everest, it’s being reported on as a case of conquering limit. Yes, people don’t have much imagination. Except for poets. W.H. Auden talks about “life’s limiting defect” – death. In his poem, “The Watchers” he addresses the constellation Gemini: “O Lords of Limit training dark and light / And setting a tabu `twixt left and right.” We are guided by mystery, yet all that which begins in mystery ends in philosophy. We should all do more math. Geoffrey Hill wrote an entire book of criticism using Auden’s line as a title: The Lords of Limit (1984), in which he discusses mainly the Renaissance and Restoration writers. With good reason. The poets and playwrights of those days knew more math than the contemporary ones, which means that they qualified for the title of lords of limit by default. They calculated the political implication of metaphor - for cosmology and domestic affairs. Apart from using Auden’s line as a title, Hill also uses it as an epigraph. So, where the politics of limit is concerned, the mere thinking about it is twice as good. So, what am I saying, sun-struck as I am, and feeling delirious? That we are not only watchers of passionate convergence to limit, if and when we care to think about it, but we are also seekers: we pose questions while we watch. Here's one. Not a personal one, as right now, I want to keep that to myself, but one that the poet/critic poses. Hill uses Iris Murdoch’s insight to accompany his Auden epigraph: “It is always a significant question to ask about any philosopher: what is he afraid of?” (On God and Good) When things intersect, they intersect, and that’s all there’s to it. I am not a Lord of Limit, but of Watching.

CAVEAT

For Truls Mørk

My time to move to Norway has not come yet. But today I lent my body to Schubert. Schubert, who always wanted to be a woman. I said: “Schubert, my love, take my body and your soul to Norway. Away from gate-keepers, peer-reviewers, false-prophets, schmucks, rationalists, and literalists. There you can be the woman you want be. And no one will notice. There will be no one.” Schubert said yes. To thank me, he wrote the adagio for me. To evacuate my death.

ALTARS

After making the proper birthday wishes to my friend, the genius mathematician – or rather, should I say, improper, insofar as he is the only one who can understand all that gobbledygook regarding absolutes, infinites, and the like – at least in the forum where I left the message – he pledged his eternal devotion to me. Yes, he was even willing to write a new Faust story, he claimed, and then concluded with these lines: “Divine Camelia, there is only one real infinity, and, oh, how unique is the aleph that serves it!” Indeed. And that is not even gobbledygook. As I was cruising through Fjona later today, a rather special place, while Leonard Cohen was singing: “I knelt there at the Delta, at the Alpha and the Omega… it don’t matter how you worship, as long as you’re down on your knees” I liked the thought that the sheep and goats understood a little of what such a line means. Every herd I passed started bleating in a choir, at unison, and looking straight into my eyes. Yes, they were worshipping me, I fancied, and I liked it. This kind of intertwined singing was almost synchronic with me singing Handel’s Halleluia yesterday at the posh Dalen Hotel. They were playing the piece at the restaurant – only in Norway – and I joined in. There was no one else around – only in Norway. And He shall reign for ever and ever. The waiter came along and asked, "so you like it here?" King of kings forever and ever - I didn't stop, but then I said: “the best”. Forever and ever and ever and ever, Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah. He was beaming and bowing. We all worship. Worshipping is a civil duty. The best part, however, consists in knowing how to choose your gods. Here’s a poem by a favourite poet, who also knows a thing or two about sounds and saints.

Monumentality and bidding:
words
neither yours nor mine but like his music.
Stalwart and tender by turns, the fugues
and larghettos: staid, bürgerlich,
up to the wide gaunt leaps of invention.
Repetition of theme a reaffirming,
like figures in harmony with their right consorts,
with the world also, broadly understood;
each of itself a Treatise of Civil Power,
every phrase instinct with deliberation
both upon power and towards civility.
At the rehearsing, always I think of you
and fancy: with what concordance I
would thus steadily regale and regard her,
though to speak truth you are ever in my mind;
such is Eros, such Philia, their composure
these arias, predetermined, of our choice.”

— Geoffrey Hill, A Treatise of Civil Power, ‘Handel’.

TELEPORTATION

Yes, the thought for today? Nothing original. Except for teleportation. I wrote a silly update on Facebook: “somebody shoot me, or chain me to Norway,” which resulted in a torrent of comments, and consequently culminated with my suggestion that all those who get the mountain thing should teleport themselves over here. Some claimed to have had their subscription expired, others started speaking in tongues. My good friend Horia, a genius mathematician who is known to be very prolific and fluent in all sorts of symbolic languages went for French. He was ready. “J’arrive” he said, “avec un fusil dans quelques minutes.” Beh, I’m still waiting. But I did get the Chablis with cheddar discovery that he made earlier today. Yes, the mathematicians can also be struck by culinary genius. What else? Yes, while watching the mists of Avalon sink into the lake, I thought I understood the thing with infinity. It overwhelmed me. First it irritated the shit out of me, making me think what would have happened to Cantor if he had read some Derrida and the poststructuralists. But then, the goddamned “and yet, what if he was right” interfered again. So, I figured, infinity is actually even greater than everything. Goddamned semantics. How can you deconstruct the goddamned infinity? And then, what else? Yes, this thought you will like. While jumping on the balloon, I got this vision: me in Wittgenstein’s hut. Some things I’m certain of. I’m certain of Norway with me in it – teleported or not.

PLAY

I’m watching some 5 eight-year-old kids jumping on the trampoline and taking some wild swims into the stone potholes, Jettegrytene, a miraculous place that has the smoothest deep stone formations filled with water into which you can dive. I don’t remember playing like that. When I was 8, if I played, I played chess, or pretended to be Kafka’s and Nietzsche’s ghost writer. This phase was over by the time I was 10 and got into the musketeers. But the first two loves have not been forgotten. I keep returning to them. The other game I was good at when I was 8 was judging. Every time a new person came to visit, upon his departure, my mother wanted to know what I really thought. I would give either a thumb up or a thumb down. Mother thought that my judgement was infallible. She also thought that it was pretty good for an eight-year-old to spot the rotten kinds, when everybody else would otherwise be infatuated. Those close to us were incredulous at my childish analysis, but when I would always be proven correct, glorification came. But I didn’t care. I had other things on my mind. Now I forget what.

My best friend wrote me a comment on my last post in this string of Norway visual logs. He wrote: “Crucifixion? Good.” But I know where this comes from. He has just eloped with my sister, who lives her life according to The Life of Brian, so he has no choice but to follow. Especially now that he has a chance, to follow, that is. Finally. He has been waiting 8 years for her to make up her mind and come to Denmark. Eight years! I never thought such resilience was possible. Especially since during all that time they had not been communicating. But there you have it. He just decided 8 years ago that he loved her, and as far as he was concerned, that was all he needed to know. Of course, my sister also knew. That he was waiting. This knowledge made her close her eyes to reality but not to her memory. So, now, by a strange reversal, memory became reality. By Jove, some people are strange! Who do we sacrifice ourselves for, and what? Apart from crucifixion, I’m thinking of this: “who” and “what,” taking my cue from Derrida. In his later thinking he was troubled by the significance of these words. He said that, finally, when it all comes down to it, after a long life of philosophising, what he would really have liked to know about philosophers is “what” they really thought, and “who” they had sex with. Indeed. How much do we know about whom Plato was banging, not to mention “what” he stole from Socrates and others? I’m thinking about what kind of action waiting is, or reading Nietzsche when you’re eight, or watching meteorites fall from the sky. Are our desires incalculably pointless? Or is there more? Tomorrow I’ll go jumping on an inflated balloon. I’m curious to see what ideas I’ll get.

LIMIT

For Sophus Lie

Through the mists of Avalon, all for you, I go from doing backbends in the old cemetery to supplicating, also on my back, and also for you. Where goes the limit? The one to waiting? The one to knowledge? I take another cherry. A grotesquely big one. This is a bloody affair. My fingers get stained. But I lick them with such passion and speed. With my eyes closed, and mouth full of the red stuff, I suspend the ground between my youthful body, a gift of nature, and my white hair, a work of art. Eating shifts what tilts the dominant pendulum. All for you, but whether thus or thus? Between ontology and epistemology my gut opens itself like a gorge to give a façade to the limit. I have become a wall through which you pierced a nail. I hang my questions on it. You wail and wait.

KNOW SOME OF THYSELF

I’m very conservative in Norway. I always do the same things. Go for a mean slope to climb in the morning – after coffee – take a swim in a mean, cold lake afterwards, get a massage at 5 – today done by a 2-meter tall Dutch man with small but very powerful and warm hands – and then walk through a mean forest at dusk. Now, some would say that this routine resembles being on the path to enlightenment, but I’m not interested in following the Greek Apollonian dictum: “know thyself,” as that leads to a highly developed state of solipsism. Knowing thyself means connecting to yourself alone, and forgetting about the others. But nor am I interested in the Dionysian, cosmic thing, which dictates that in order to get in touch with the higher powers you have to empty your mind first. While I find this alluring, let’s face it, it cannot do: a woman, AD 2009, cannot afford to do that, not know herself, at least some of the time if not all the time, as not knowing herself equals believing that men are born into this world to rule over women, and some other such stupidity. Yes, I know, I would have made a smashingly good epistemologist if I didn’t think that all those interested in theories of knowledge acquisition and philosophy of the mind don’t miss the point all the time, which makes studying these fields according to the book soooo boring. Usually things are much simpler than we think: while knowing ourselves means making recourse to explicit causal relations (according to developmental psychologists and others) the opposite, not knowing ourselves, operates with implicit causal models for ways of knowing (according to the “theory theory” philosophers). (On this, I recommend Alison Gopnik’s book: The Philosophical Baby.) While in the first situation we get to develop our ability to focus, in the latter, we go with the surface and tend to perceive everything. Focus creates a sense of distinction; wide perception enhances play. So what does a smart woman do to avoid misunderstanding of her routines as narrow-minded? Go for the middle ground, for everything and nothing at once, for both this and that, for knowing and not knowing. Therein lies the secret to not doubting herself, and thus avoiding doing something really dumb only so that she can be reassured.

KUNDALINI PRAGMATISM

I could write about Norway every day. In fact, if I did, I would expect the Norwegians to make me their Poet Laureate on the spot. And for life too. I like everything about Norway, though my preference is for the high plateaus. This summer, however, I went for the lower ground. I’m in a cabin that can host 12 people at 300 meters altitude by the lake Nisser outside Vrådal. I always go for the big cabins because they are the only ones that come with the full luxury comfort. Space, space, and more space. I’m a space Nazi, I was once told. I can never have enough of it. This is what I always tell the Norwegians when I get the keys to the place, and when they realize that their premises are not going to be invaded by a bus full of a family circus. Yet, while the Norwegian men think: dumme danskere, (dumb Danes), their wives are better at understanding, and consequently nod in approval. They can also see why, once a year, when you’re on your vacation, you want to have more space than at your own place. You want to have a sauna, a Jacuzzi inside and outside, 6 bedrooms, (out of which two you use as walk-in closets), a huge porch, and a huge living-room – all isolated and on top of a mountain. All by yourself, with the chance of not seeing a soul for three weeks. Oh, such bliss! What more can one ask for? In such an environment you think your thoughts, also the crazy ones – so maybe the Norwegian men are not so wrong – and you fantasize. God, how you fantasize! You are on the verge of becoming a Kundalini master. You’re plugged into something higher than yourself. No, in fact, you don’t have a self anymore. And yet. While I want to think that in Norway not even if you’re crazy does it matter – nothing matters when you’re not yourself anymore – you know what the answer to this question is, even as your self becomes another(‘s): Norway, why are you with me, in me? – Because I love you, and because you love me.

SMART KIDS

Today I saw my nephew, whom I adore. The feeling is mutual. He wanted to know why. I told him that when he was five, and my sister asked me what I thought of him – like, what I really really thought – I told her to give me three days to think about it. We went shopping one day and after coming home with lots of bags and being tired, we threw everything on the floor. I could tell that my nephew – 5 at the time – started hyperventilating. He hated the mess. He asked for permission to do something about it. It was granted. He started arranging all the bags along the radiator and the wall, in the order of their height and weight. It took some deliberation to make them look like soldiers, as not all the biggest were also the heaviest. But he managed. After he finished, he pulled his chair next to mine, and with his hands crossed over his chest contemplating his work, he exclaimed, “now, that is perfect, don’t you think?” Indeed, he was right. I told my sister that she had a really really smart kid, and that she was lucky. Things haven’t changed since then, I’m glad to say. My nephew, now 15, got even smarter. He knows what’s what, and he knows how to court really really interesting women. I told him that I like him because he has an innate sense of distinction. I do like kids. Some kids.

RADIAL

Often to tease me, my best friend, who is also a scholar in his own right, likes to tell me that he doesn’t know another person who is more ethically conscious than I am. He knows that where philosophy is concerned, ethics and morality are two disciplines that interest me the least. But not, however, if they are entangled with other disciplines, especially theology, or if they are formulated by people who don’t mind writing for those who don’t mind following a tough-going thought. So, obviously, apart from Derrida on ethics and morality, I like everything that Vladimir Jankélévitch has to say, and whom I mentioned before, and what Jean-Luc Marion makes out of obligations that impose themselves on us and that are constituted by something other than our own intentionality.

These days I have been making connections between Marion’s idea that distance creates the greatest intimacy (formulated in his book Idol and Distance) and his discussion of the dynamics of the gaze as a form of love’s intentionality (which I have deliberately left out of my cultural & film studies book Between Gazes; those with a penchant for theological studies will understand my less than interdisciplinary and excluding choice, in spite of my desire to be precisely that, interdisciplinary and not excluding). As to my own ethical standard, yes, I have one, which I like to call radial. “I” as a relational self is like a calculation of the length of an intentional thought to the circumference of a circle. While the trajectory of the thought is straight, a lot of bending goes into the perception of what we think of the other. Ethics for me is allowing for the time it takes to think about the other without a sense of entitlement, and not as an object who fulfils our instinctual capacity to worry – as a mother may worry for her son – but rather as a subject, who in his own separateness teaches me not only the distinction between I as another and me as myself, but also the fact that any act of unconditional surrender requires faith.

For those not familiar with Marion’s thought, here’s a sample from his Prolegomena to Charity (from “The Intentionality of Love").

"Of the face offered to my gaze I envisage only what cannot be seen in it – the double void of its pupils, this void that fills the least empty gaze imaginable – because if there is nothing to see there, it is from there that the other takes the initiative to see (me). Gazing on the other as such, my eyes in the black of his own, does not imply encountering another object, but experiencing the other of the object. My gaze, for the first time, sees an invisible gaze that sees it. I do not accede to the other by seeing more, better, or otherwise, but by renouncing mastery over the visible so as to see objects within it and thus by letting myself be glimpsed by a gaze which sees me without my seeing it – a gaze which invisibly and beyond my aims (invisablement), swallows me up and submerges me, whether I know it or not, whether or not I want it to do so" (82).

"To lay oneself open or to expose oneself to the other means first, outside all visible sensibility, to experience ethical responsibility for the other. If I never rejoin him directly, he always enjoins me, indisputably. He makes his invisible gaze felt and weigh upon me by letting the nonsubjective and nonmasterable feeling of respect be born within me. I know and feel, as if in spite of myself, that I am responsible for the fate and death of my brother" (85).

"The moral consciousness contradicts self-consciousness by counter-balancing the intentionality exerted by the I thanks to the injunction summoning me. The injunction constrains and contains intentionality, intentionality objectifies the other on the basis of the I, but all the same, the injunction summons me on the basis and in the name of the invisible other. […] to love would thus be defined as seeing the definitely invisible aim of my gaze nonetheless exposed by the aim of another invisible gaze; the two gazes invisible forever expose themselves each to the other in the crossing of their reciprocal aim. Loving no longer consists trivially in seeing or in being seen, not in desiring or enciting desire, but in experiencing the crossing of the gazes within, first the crossing of aims" (87).

BONNE CHANCE

For Fabiana Heifetz

I have banging Eros on my head on the way to see Grand Canyon. The one over here, not the one over there. The Hockney thing. So, I walk up the path, and down into the garden, and up again, and past the grill, past the Chinese little girls who start following me saying hi all the time, once they finish rolling in the grass, and past the past. There is a direct line from Hockney’s purple and straight into the bathrooms. And you never know who you can ambush there. Smoke envelops me and I hear the erudite one saying: “Cosmic constellations. There are causal relations that are above us.” I look at him sideways and wonder if he has just been reading Eric Hoffer, who was also into literary orbiting: “We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.” “Is that cosmic enough for you?,” the one still here asks. Ah, the embrace, and the kiss, and the knowledge. “That’s more than enough - I hope.” I say this with strong conviction and emphasis on "hope." Smoke envelops us, and the one who got to me through Derrida, Great Jascha’s relation tells me: “You’re here because I summoned you.” “Oh, really?,” I ask and then she goes: “You know, some women think that Lacan was un hombre muy hermoso.” Echolalia is in the air: “Je dis toujours la verité. C’est les mots qui manquent." – Palavre of the handsome one. “Boof,” the owl goes. “Bufnita” and “polonic” are the best Romanian words. “Are they?,” Borges’s translator wants to know, and she offers “horoscopul” as a worthy competitor. “Of course she “ul”, wouldn’t she?,” I think to myself, and start enumerating the languages that she can speak. Many. “I’ll come to your place and bring luck,” she says. Bon. Meanwhile, all I can think of is the image she offers me: I, as a rich Lebanese heiress in the presence of the king of deconstruction. Some are laughing, some are squinting, and for the life of me, I have no idea what keeps Eros so long.

FLESHED-OUT

For Rainer Kaus

The pathology of big breasts is going out. “Who do you want to look like?” the head plastic surgeon asks me. I know exactly so I answer unhesitatingly. “Well, like those two gnomic gnats, Beckett and Bob Dylan.” “Who,” he asks again? “Beckett and Bob Dylan,” I say, and refrain from offering additional information. This strategy is also part of the program, to keep it simple. I go for the slender androgynous look. My hair will also turn completely white in six months, so I’m ready to face the world in this final phase of my meaningful or meaningless existence. “Say what?” Beckett asks me, and he never makes any conversation that is not based entirely on body language and no words. I say nothing. Ten vectors of ten-second thoughts go through my mind. Number two has this in it: O, yes, yes, of course, why not, how excellent, this is just brilliant, it can’t get any better that next time, when men tell me that they respect me, they will not mean the exact opposite. And they will not look at their watches in my presence either. Dylan intercedes on thought number five: “A poem is a naked person. Some people say that I am a poet.” Good then, we go with that, number one thought dictates, as number one never has anything original to say. My scurrilous intelligence is being performed on at the level of flesh. The less of it, the higher ground. “Have you been reading about Estragon and Vladimir on the verge of hanging themselves only so that they can get a major erection?” Beckett wants to know. But all I say is this: “I disappear a lot,” just when my hand is being twisted by the good doctor who says: “Not bad. Not bad at all.” Dylan goes, “Pressing On,” and I think: Fucking Freud is home.

VANTAGE POINT

Vincent’s last instalment in the series of 6, Power of Thought, this time around, was good. It was good today, and I’m not saying this because 1) as announced previously, I’ve lost my brain because it’s summer, nor 2) because I couldn’t resist Rune Lykkeberg’s dimples and his beaming demeanour, nor finally 3) because I’ve speculated the whole time what the big "V" on Vincent’s chest was doing trying to eat the small "w" on the opposite half of his breast, yet all part of the corporation, Vince-Inc, strategically placed on his buffed up arm. Yes indeed, now that I think some more, the whole thing was good, not only because of what was said, but also, and perhaps rather more so, because I was looking for answers as to why this 6-pack was special, something Vincent said at the outset. None were given, which made me think, this summer day, that the reason why there was a new run is due simply to the fact that I was thought of, and that I should not get bored on my vacation. Well then, thanks are in order, to begin with, for such parallels, however imaginary, between thinking and motives.

The talk today was about truth and how it relates to democracy. While it became clear to me quite early on that Rune is not a Marxist – which almost made me shout at him: ‘get your act together, especially as you obviously are both smart and witty!’ (but, well, as I suggested, it’s hard to shout at a dimpled face) – I liked him for some of the other things he said. That, for instance, when it comes to truth, one cannot merely rely on logical definitions or explanations. As he put it, if truth is to hold, as it were, as a concept, then it must follow some functional, not logical rules. This led to a discussion of values vis-à-vis progressive politics and the inherent paradox that marks the relation between progress and tradition. As he further contended by illustrating, it has now become a tradition for the right wing Danish party, Dansk Folkeparti, to insist on preserving what has now also become a tradition, namely women’s right to go topless on the beach – which initially was the result of progressive thinking. Indeed.

Yet, according to Rune, precisely when one talks of values, one loses sight of what is progressive. Thus collective learning always operates with three variables: money, the state, and talk. Ideally, through talk, the other two should be negotiated for the benefit of all. Vincent thought this was interesting, as he also thought of several other things, but when it comes to how power can be negotiated, verbally or otherwise, neither made the obvious remark that power can be abused, in any setting, and by anyone. So, while nothing is wrong with democracy as such – Rune was more sceptical – we can, in fact find solutions to the process of replacing an old system with a new one – for instance, by verbally denouncing oppressive thinking, or by snatching the power from those who hold it without legitimation through other means. When Rune went, ‘well, obviously there is a problem if we get rid of authority figures, such as old patriarchs, because that means that we get rid of power, and we need power because it helps us hold someone responsible when something goes wrong,' I rather couldn’t help thinking of a number of feminists, queers, blacks, freaks and other marginals who wouldn’t mind taking charge, being in charge, and swapping positions. But somehow, they never get asked. If anything, they are still the ones who get laid off, put into prisons, or bashed, on the grounds that the state requires it.

So, while governments today place emphasis on individual agency, interestingly enough, at the level of the individual taking responsibility for ruining the lives of other individuals through some concrete, yet imbecilic action, we are met with cowardice – ‘I didn’t do it, the state, or the economy did it,’ we often hear the wimps saying – and talks of selection – ‘we put people in jails because we have to protect the good subjects from the bad ones,’ we often hear the righteous saying. And so it goes. Here, Vincent, perhaps to provoke rather than endorse, referred to Plato’s hatred of democracy and horror at the idea that philosophers should take political charge, but this opened question left at least this viewer wondering to what extent going with the strongest argument, which a logician does, is compatible with democratic thinking. More can be said about the aporias of democracy, truth, and the tyranny of neo-fascism disguised as common-sense, but as befitted with my own tradition, let’s end this post with terrorizing Vincent some more with some deconstructive talk, as a way of being grateful, again, for keeping us busy thinking.

In his book Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, my favourite friend, Jacques Derrida, asks this question: "can one and/or must one speak democratically of democracy?" (71) only to conclude that it is not possible, for as he further contends, to do so, "it would be necessary, through some circular performativity and through the political violence of some enforcing rhetoric, some force of law, to impose a meaning on the word democratic and thus produce a consensus that one pretends, by fiction, to be established and accepted—or at the very least possible and necessary: on the horizon" (73).

We like horizons. They always come.

HOLDING SPACE

After the organ recital last night I get it confirmed again and again – not that I need confirmation, some things you just know beyond codes and logic gates – that Bach is the greatest and most generous of them all. The way he allows you to ride on his cosmic spirals and straight into endlessness is unmatched. At least for me.

These days I think of vastness, and after last night I want to say that whatever we call “it”, it’s vast. The thing about vastness is that it exceeds articulation, which means that you cannot even use clichés to frame it, go against it, or approve it. It’s just there for you to sense and touch without even using a hand.

As if to match my thoughts, a friend of mine sends me her latest collection of poems. Rishma Dunlop, a Canadian writer and professor at York University has just published White Album, in which the poems, also a discographic collection, juxtapose not only sounds, of strength and space, but also images, of lucid ground. The painter Suzanne Northcott contributes a visual counterpoint to each poem. I quote the last one, "Stop-time," which is aligned with the painting called "Evening Fields VI."

Whatever we call “it”, we acknowledge it. We hold its space. We bow to it and love it. And wait.

Stop-time

At times I’ve travelled far from you –
brought to my knees by want
in white rooms in distant cities
and always, music phantoms me –
fevered, carnal –
the rock and roll of my youth,
the blues of Clapton and B.B. King,
the jazz dark and peeling,
Miles and Monk and Billie,
the straight statements of gospel,
Mahalia Jackson’s every note a prayer
that reaches me for brief instants,
after dinner at Frederick’s and Robert’s
where gulls were circling,
seven settings of the sun sliding into English Bay.
I stood under the catalpa tree that sang white blossoms unto my hair
and through my fingers and I was home.
Blackbirds in the milk-blue light before dawn
scoring the silence.
Stop-time on the wet embouchure of a trumpet.
Music waiting in a white room,
white on white playing on
in the rabid world, and I your winter queen, your one and only.

Painting: Suzanne Northcott, Evening Fields VI

BAROQUE

In the wake of going to Norway, where I can indulge my major regrets for not having become either this or that – a mathematician, which I’ve always had a fancy for, or a Bach cantatas singer, which I was once – I listen to music which makes me forget about myself.

Here is a sample from a live recording of the original pieces on the CD Baroque Duet: Battle – Marsalis (Anthony Newman, orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Nelson, 1992).

NORWAY: THE SUM OF CONVERGENCES

For Johan Schimanski

Norway! – you make my passions stream through my nostrils while also making me think that whatever thought is, it doesn’t matter.

Norway! – your mossy green sticks to my eyes and your smell hits me hard in my gut turning it into Babylon.

Norway! – I speak your tongue but my phonetic rules are transgrammatical.

Norway! – your sheep and goats acknowledge my presence which makes me grab them by their hind legs and turn them on their heads so that their bleating scores a higher pitch. The less banal is constructed without sacrifice.

Norway! – I want to go to Tromsø where all the boa-deconstructors went. Su-pli-ca-tion. They all believed in supplication. I want to believe in supplication. The boas in the temple of silence, counting on meshless methods.

Norway! – your aurora borealis makes me crazy. Cra-zy. I point three fingers at the absent trees and think that I’m Huldra. Invisible to all, but my own fingers. Your winds touch them, your waters love their caresses, your forests eat them getting intoxicated.

Norway! – if you were not Norway, I would be Norway, allowing tourists and lovers like myself to enter me only on the 12th of the month, each year, each century, each hour. On the 12th hour love time is camping time. The million of Dutch drivers passing through you can testify.

Norway! – I want your peaks to be hot saunas, and your lakes monoi oil on my body.

Norway! I love you, as I spit into your rivers thinking: Panta rhei.

ENTHRAL

For Geoffrey

“Thing”: id est, thinking or think’d. Think, Thank, Tank – Reservoir of what has been thinged. – Denken, Danken, – I forget the German for Tank/The, Them, This, These, Thence, Thick, Think, Thong, Thou” Coleridge in his Notebooks didn’t put a full stop after this string. So this is not hermetically closed. Thinking knows no hermeticism. Silent speech aims at a punctum. “AND YET: is not writing too much with us?” asks Hartman in Saving the Text. So, no full stops after the inscription on the body. The palm carries the lines of the “Thing.” I drop my ring into my glass. The thought is not hermetic. Outside my house, near the supermarket, there is a huge circle on the pavement. Every day I’m waiting for “Them” to paint the letter H inside it. The “Thing” is a helicopter. The “Thought” is militaristic: “you are ordered to come now.” And “Thou” shall not ask “This” stupid question again: “Really?” “Danke” I say. For what, I don’t know. I’m saving the revelation for later.

FORCING

My brain doesn’t work in summer, but here’s a thought on Vincent’s penultimate talk in the series The Power of Thought – this time around. The topic is related to political philosophy and the guest is Ole Kværnø who is the director of the Defence Academy. The two talk about current perceptions of war and how they unfold against the background of older definitions of notions such as the state, sovereignty, and civil rights. I like the fact that Kværnø didn’t come to the studio unprepared. And he even addressed the issue of how we legitimate claims to going to war from a philosophical perspective. Symmetry and asymmetry were the main operative keywords in a discussion about structural and normative codes that involve agents going to war not against other agents but against concepts. If in the cold war the situation was one of symmetry where two parties were concerned – each wanted to beat the other leaving from the same premise or using the same intelligence apparatuses – nowadays states such as Denmark go to war also against people who do not possess either the same belligerent culture, or the same military intelligence, or the same type of weapons. Kvarnø made a reference, on the one hand, to Kant, for whom going to war when one state has too much power over another is not a sign of good, ethical and moral behaviour, and on the other, to Hobbes who basically claimed the opposite.

So, yes, the military. What can one say? Things are always quite mechanical where strategies and the like are accounted for in philosophical terms that avoid the work of deconstruction. I was thinking how the whole discussion would have been infinitely more dynamic if Vincent or Kværnø had said something about Carl Schmitt or Giorgio Agamben’s idea of the homo sacer, sovereignty, and how we deconstruct political concepts and show that, at their base, they are secularized theological concepts – which is what Schmitt originally claimed. Agamben, following Schmitt, suggests some pretty intelligent things about the relations: subject against subject and subject against object, when he claims that the "so-called sacred and inalienable rights of man prove to be completely unprotected at the very moment it is no longer possible to characterize them as rights of the citizens of a state.” (Means without an End,19-20; revised version in Homo Sacer, 2002). Obviously the consequences of Agamben’s postulate have implications for the way in which we thematize free will – which, just for the record, I don’t believe in myself – and it complicates Kværnø’s statement that governments today, when thinking about going to war, pick and choose as if they were at a supermarket. The association is good, but things are more complex than that. In the face of thinking that just because one doesn’t have a well defined enemy, one can afford to invent things and then go to the supermarket and get the bullets according to the invention, I thought that particularly Schmitt’s idea that “Everything must be forced to the extreme so that it can be overturned out of a dialectical necessity” (The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, 1924/1988: 59) is relevant to consider for a few seconds. Vincent, who knows about ‘forcing’ even though in another context – will understand what I mean. The rest, enjoy your summers, your Riviera suits, gray soft cottons over white shirts, and white pants – don’t go black – or think strategies, or career moves, by donning dark stripped suits and red ties – don’t forget about human causes though, which you can mark by penetrating your lapels with a pin.

PEEPHOLE

On the plane from Rome to Copenhagen I was surrounded by kids. They were restless and yelling. I thought to myself, you have two options: to be annoyed for 2 hours or go with it. My idea of going with it was to enjoy a bottle of champagne and see what happens. It didn’t take long until a 4-year old, right in front of my seat, turned to see who was sitting in the back. He was looking at me through the crack in the seat, as it were. I pretended not to see him, but smart kids know when you pretend, which for them is a clear indication that you’re in for a game. And indeed I was. We played a game of gazes and hands. Every time I gave him a look, or pretended to grab his nose between two of my fingers he would go wild with laughter. Half of the people on the plane were annoyed at such noise. I could have been one of them. Between the looks and the touches, he would tell me: “you’re so boring.” I told him in return that he was equally boring, and then he went: “and your glasses are so bad.” Then he started serenading me. When he finished with the singing, which involved a lot of yeah, yeah, yeah, and da, da, da, out of the blue he told me: “but you can’t kiss me.” Now, there was a thought. I instantly devised strategies for that act precisely. I succeeded, of course. He looked surprised, but also triumphant. This latter look on his face puzzled me. It occurred to me that he was already ahead of me. It occurred to me also that he wanted me to steal a kiss from him all along. “I’ll be damned,” I thought to myself. “Not bad at all.”

I blamed myself, however, for having missed his intention. I was coming from a psychoanalytical gathering where one never talks about anything other than desire, intention, and attraction, so I should have been faster at registering what he was doing. When we parted, he told me his name was Anton. He gave me a small board to write his name on it as he was spelling it to me. As I put my own name next to his, his mother was thanking me profusely for what she called “fantastic and fabulous entertaining.” I rather thought that I was the one who had a good reason to be thankful. Especially for the kiss. Apparently I was the first. Anton’s father informed me that Anton never let anyone kiss him before. Not even his parents. Ah, such mythical first acts! The thought of being the chosen one grew as bubbly in my head as the champagne, and I didn’t even think it a hassle to drag the heavy suitcases all the way from Kastrup to Roskilde.

COSMIC ACT

One of the good things about being in a big city like Rome is that if you go out for a drink anywhere, you can easily happen to sit next to people you’ve seen before. Like actors, for instance. Today, after doing the major sites in the Eternal City in hot sun, after having done my wishing to be eternally loved by throwing coins into Fontana Trevi, I decided to get a beer at one of the local joints near the Spanish steps. As I was leafing through my Italian copy of Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, which I had just mentioned in my previous post, and which I had just bought, I noticed a man and his son at the opposite table. I thought, gosh, either this guy is Tim Roth or he really looks like him. As Tim Roth is one of my absolute top favourite actors and his work in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is absolutely beyond top class, there was only one way of finding out whether I was sitting next to a very intelligent actor, or a fake. I took my book, and went up to him with these words: “Tim Roth, if I ask you to give me an autograph, are you going to curse me?” He signed ever so courteously. Don’t ask me why I thought - after I had left the two, who, as I passed them in my big hat, were smiling grand style at me, yet also mysteriously - that if anyone should have signed that book, then it would have to be Roth. Cosmic things indeed, and a sense of falling. Come dice Calvino: “Cadere nel vuoto come cadevo io, nessuno di voi sa cosa vuol dire.” (La Forma dello Spazio)

MOON

I’ve just had the best sailing time in my life in the North Atlantic, around the Faroe Islands. The islands in themselves have a smell that keeps you thinking of the great Beyond – you basically walk around while being in a constant state of swooning. It makes you think of silly religious revivals when people thought that they would get transposed at a touch, to where I have no idea, but transposed they all believed they were. There isn’t much religiosity left on the islands, apart from a regimented alcohol prohibition that no one cares much about in this globalized world full of traffic opportunities – let’s face it, I had no problem getting into the country a whole litter of Fernet Branca that I know goes very well with dried fish and lamb entrails that I bought on the ferryboat with money won in the casino, also on the boat. So, between eating, drinking, gambling, and smelling, once on the main island, Stroymoy, I also got to sail in a large boat, a sloop with sails from the 40s. The waves were high around the corners of the cliffs. I experienced an altogether different type of G-force created by the mighty boat hitting the waves, after the bow had been 10 meters in the penetrating air of the North Atlantic. This was not a hit and run, but a hit and glide. I thought I was going to die, but I laughed, I so laughed.

I was among the few on board who was neither cold nor suffered from sea-sickness. I used my adrenaline as an energy weapon against the wind which cut through you. I thought of salted energy. “Of course I’m not cold,” I thought to myself while watching the green faces and tormented bodies around, and I was convinced that this resistance had to do with Italo Calvino’s short stories in his Cosmicomics. “The Distance of the Moon,” “Games without End” and “The Form of Space” came to my mind. These are stories about captains and other good folk whose names, derived from mathematical formulae, throw you into interminable laughter on the spot and you are right there with Qfwfq when he tells you: “Climb up on the Moon? Of course we did. All you had to do was row up to it in a boat and, when you were underneath, prop a ladder against her and scramble up.” Captain Vhd Vhd, his deaf wife, and their daughter Xlthlx, can never resist the attraction from the moon – so they climb it all the time also to collect moon-milk. This is the time when the moon was close to the earth and the earth had not lost almost all of its energy, claims Calvino. I liked this thought. On my boat, it made me think of what name I would assume, the minute I would plunge into the cold water of the Atlantic, the minute the ocean would become a pink sky, the minute physics and smell would replace the desire to have the moon, and not just climb it: SQRT.