The Mighty and Liquid Bones

"There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio"

we turn our backs to the sea
which we know means
everything
you had ever learnt
about the wind
and the wind's mind
and the sun spinning
as the light like webs entangles ecstasy
whose shape you cannot see
- would be advised
to look away
for there are things
you must not see

and the sea beckons
always to those orange others
who fly to it
that they might immerse
in its mighty and liquid bones:
the immense echo
of its dimension
that growls its thought in groans...

you really are ignorant of the sea
and know not that there are mountains
under there that are
higher than Everest -

and nor do you know
as neither do I
that eyes do swivel
in doubling turns
and that the hearts of globes
               do crack with light

.

   

Since about 1973 I began jogging (I was living just off Richmond Rd in Ponsonby) and -at first it was hard just to get around the block - I didn't drink much and wasnt over weight in those days (in fact I was about 10 stone or less and I am not big framed  - I am what is called rather slight of build - or I was then - but I wasn't very fit. I decided to get fit, and eventually, from that time until about 1986, I kept exercising and jogging everyday. When I was a lineman - I lived then in South Auckland - new area South of Otara - I used to jog after work and this was something I loved - I would sometimes run off North into the country and I had just myself and my thoughts - and it was great...In those days I didn't write or read much BTW (I was doing a Certificate in Enginereing so I read quite  a lot of telecommnications and electronics theory) ..

About 1985 for various reasons I stopped and then from 1988 to about - well really last year 2006 I didn't really get back into that great routine. During the 90s I gained a lot of weight, drank a lot and so on.

I had been drinking and eating too much since moving into my mother's house esp. from 1990.

So as (by Dec 2006 last year) I was about 91 Kgs (divide by 6.35 gives stones of ~ 14 or more - for pounds multiply kgs by 2.2 or multiply 14 stone by 14  i.e. I was 196 pounds (this will help those in the US))* 

I also had a binge drinking problem and some others.

But lets talk about what I did  to lose weight and improve my health.

I started before Xmas 2006 (I had once gone to Weight Watchers and they were very good - I lost quite some weight and learnt quite a lot - but for reasons I wont go into here just yet I dropped out of it).  My daughter is doing an MA (now a Science degree) in Psychology and specialising in obesity and weight (under and over) problems etc. I decided to ask her to set myself and my son (who came to live with me last year - he is about 35 - and he was walking everyday) up on a scientifically organised and good programme to lose weight systematically and also improve our health, fitness and eating habits etc.

(I was eating meals for two men each dinner time -e.g we found that we might have 4 sausages each but then realised that we only each needed  2 each and in fact changed to once a week eating polonies - or steak might be 300-400 gms each - now it is more or less 250 or less gms each and so on - and we have less potato and kumara and some lettuce or broccoli; if we have chicken for us  two e.g. drumsticks is now enough -and feels right also. We put much more salads or greens on our plates.)

So we started in Dec 2006. The basic of the method devised by psychologists and scientists (using cognitive psychology) - is for the "patient" or "client" to first of all monitor his or her weight level - that is to record the calories of everything eaten each day (record it as soon as (possible after) one has eaten one's meal or snack) .

This sounds hard but it is actually quite interesting if irksome (eventually one will stop this and go on "auto") - soon it becomes a routine. Having established one's intake daily -say it is 2700 calories (1 calorie ~ = 4.2 kilojoules so to convert from kilojoules of say 420 kilojoules divide by 4.2 and you have 100 calories**)

This may sound difficult but once a routine is established it becomes part of ones daily life just as having breakfast or whatever else one does routinely.

We soon stopped wanting all those foods we previously thought we needed.

But the first stage is to work out or get used to counting calories and being aware of the fact that one is eating and when and where (and why - sometimes people eat or over eat for emotional reasons e.g. nervousness or depression -or it may be pleasant associations or simply habit) .

The next stage is to weigh oneself and work out an "ideal" goal weight (we discussed all these issues with my daughter but there are many good books on this subject - crash diets or gadgets for exercise etc BTW are mostly useless***)

It is important to get the "all clear" from a doctor before dieting and increasing excercise - and vitamins - extra - may be required when losing weight. I have to watch my B12 levels so I take vitamin B tablets every and I eat quite a lot of red meat, use marmite (not vegemite it lacks B12) etc  I also use multi viatmins about 3 times a week as a back up. But take medical/nutritional advice on that.

Once we had discussed our goals and aims etc - we weighed ourselves etc -  we then set a daily limit or ideal of 1700 calories / day (each individual losing weight will set a different level according to age, starting weight, sex and body size etc).

We also identified certain addictive eating habits - I often would "binge"on cheese and crackers (often late at night) so as I coudn't stop it I stopped getting crackers and cheese - also we have no biscuits, cakes, chocolate of sweets of any kind, or alcohol the house - and I very rarely buy alcohol  (I have virtually - all but - stopped drinking). Within limits, there are no good or bad foods****:except that certain things are addictve or high in sugar - so in fact we don't have white sugar in the house either. Sugar is best obtained via fruits and e.g. dates or whatever in fact it is almost impossble to (and not good) to avoid natural sugars.  The body needs sugar - and or carbohydrates - it is the main food the body requires to maintain life. (Google Nutrition etc it's a good idea to keep learning, particularly about biology and particularly about health issues - but dont "obssess" on these)
Each week we weighed ourselves and still do at a local chemist where we get a printout of our weight and height and also BMI (more on that or google it). We do this and then go for our walk.

Since December to now I have reduced from:

  90.7 kgs to 75.8kgs

( 199.54 lbs to  166.76 lbs or 14.3 st to 11.9 st).

My son from 107.1 kg to 80.8 kgs

(235.62 lbs to 177.76 lbs or ~ 17 st to 12.74 st )


1 litre of water is 1 kilogramme of weight so I lost about 15 1 litre milk bottles and my son about  26! A lot less to carry around. Hence a lot more efficiency of  body operation.

BTW one's body weight varies constantly even during the day. If for example one has lost x kgs over a month or so, and finds one week one is up 300 gms, it can be disappointing - so it is a good idea to keep a graph - this has helped my son and myself to see that overall progress is in fact linear. Also keep reminding yourself that all is well and that these fluctuations are normal.

At one stage my weight wasn't changing and we (we had fairly regular "check ups" with my daughter) identified that I was drinking numerous drinks of cordial drinks at night (the sugar stimulates - but such sharp sugar increases - over a long period - can induce diabetes and other medical problems) - so we stopped buying those and  now use water or the low calorie drinks and my weight started to decrease - but if you, for example, enjoy the occassional piece of chocolate and or say cake - you can! IF you are not like me and when there is a box of nice biscuits or chocolate and there is a real possiblity I will eat the whole box or packet in either a few hours or a few days. It all depends what one knows one can control).

What are the advantages of weight loss and fitness increase?

Firstly I no longer get the terrible pains I used to get (caused I now know not by cancer as I thought) [My sister had bowell cancer - she recovered - so I had a check inside my bowell and nothing was wrong - this was prior to my weight loss programme] but by eating a large amounts of cheese at night - and in fact having excess fat in my system causing digestive dificulties).

I (you will) feel better and sleep better - in the morning - ovrerall - I feel much better.

I (you will also be) am much happier. 

I (you will become) am more "in shape" - my doctor and others recall the "big gut" I had.

Energy and libido? For many people this will be much better.

In general the benefits are well being and physical and psychological health (these are enormous benefits - one feels better about oneself) but the downsides of being obese ) (don't fool yourself - get an objective test by psychologist (and or nutritionist / fitness expert) or health worker in this area - and ask what category you are in - if you are over a certain BMI you are dangerously over weight as we were) - as I and my son were -

[Here is a link to over weight and health issues - Medical Problems caused by Excess weight or Obesity


Negatives of  Overweight Include:

Iincreased danger of diabetes.

Heart problems.

As above all cardio-vascular or circulatory problems and diseases.

Problems such as thrush or similar fungal diseases (but remember all people get these or can do no matter what weight - dactarin is one chemical easily available which takes care of many fungal problems).

Breathing difficulties - related to the above.

As above the likelhood of death by choking and or becauseof apnoea.

Cancer.   (Cancers of all kinds - the probablity of becoming victim of cancer increases as a function of  wieght increase - also of course with smoking etc).

(We eat bread a lot - but we get thin sliced bread - cal per slive ~ 37 (in fact we find that often the local dairies have the cheapest bread (and milk -we use lite milk) -sometimes 94 cents a loaf and its the best! Wheatgrain or just white..)

Digestive and bowell problems.

Self image - one's 'looks'.

(One should feel good about one's life regardless of "looks" - but the external image is important - but for me not major issue.)

My son's cholesterol levels reduced.
There are many many more seee below for some of the problems associated with obesity -  including difficulty bending or seeing a part of one's own body - or accessing parts of same!! Sounds funny - but apart from a theoretical soul - most people have only one body and it is great idea to keep it working well and to feel good most of the time. 
 
My son and I have lost weight and working together have greatly improved our health and our aim is - in perhaps anopther 12 months - to  be at the "ideal" weight or BMI. 

It is good (and medically safer) to lose weight relatively slowly as the new habits of eating slowly and at better times are reinforced more solidly.

One is establishing new habits of eating and living and new ways of thinking about life.

This process is not difficult - it is in fact fun - and also it is slow as new habits have to be learned - e.g the habit of eating more slowly, (mostly): not eating after 8 p.m.(metabolism is slowed after then), and eating smaller portions.

But DONT think this is all dull - we  - both of us - still have chocolate - ice cream -and many other foods we crave! (But not too frequently of course). In fact it is a good idea to "give in" to one's "cravings" form time to time. But as we are thinking about food we make more logical and good decisions about what we eat each day.

Included is a reasonable amount of fruit, bread, meat, eggs, vegetables, hummus, milk, and other foods - all  the neccessary food groups are covered.

[If possible monitor how you feel before eating -do you really need this snack or meal, or are you eating from habit or nevousness?]

[We got rid of potato chips (crisps) as  they have a very high calorie value - my son used to eat them a lot now he doesn't eat them at all. Rather than soft dirnks we have diet coke or other such as coffee, green tea or fruit juice.]

*                                                *                                                       *

This has been positive development for myself and my son over the last 12 months and I wanted to share  it with others as our feeling of well being and happiness has increased greatly

Some of this comes from the accompanying ways of thinking - we think and act in more positive ways. As I approach 60 my body is not getting prettier or "better" but I am feeling better.

To some extent I have counterracted the inevitable deterioration caused by age.

NO "miracles" have happened - this is an imprtant and life-enhancing (but it doesn't mean we cannnot still get any of the diseases mentioned that are potentially caused by obesity OR hat we are wonderfuly happy and healthy all the time - it means ONLY that our overall well being is greater)  and while it is a  very good improvment we boths still have difficulties and problems as do all people everywhere at all times.

*                                                  *                                                            *

And I have started a garden - the beans have sprouted! The vegetables are up and I am getting stuck into the weeds and cutting down trees etc also want more flowers and shrubs - perhaps a feijoa tree (I have a grape fruit tree).

We have done all of this while both of us are on a relatively low income - if you are overweight, unhapppy, ill, etc - you might even consider stopping work and working on your health and happiness - YOUR health and happiness (infinitely more valuable to you than money or "success") - not someone else's!
>
You can work on that after you feel good if you want.

My love and regards to all.

*In New Zealand in the '50s (I grew up in the 50s and the 60s) money was in Pounds shillings, 1/2 crowns /halfpennys/ farthings and and pence and weight was stone and lbs and ounces etc we changed to a decimal system in 1967 as did the British.

** Calorie is related to the Latin ofr heat and e.g. in Spanish the word for heat is indeed "calor" - so relates to the amount of energy (converted to heat or work) used in x amount of sugar oxydised, or meatbolised, in each body cell)

*** This doesn't rule out using weights or excercise devices but they are only an aid not the be all and end all - a very good exercies for most people to start with is walking or swimming (anything easy to get onto and not expensive, enjoyable, and whatever one likes - some people e.g. play a lot of tennis and may want to take tennis up aginon casual basis but walking is very good if appropriate).

Appendix - 

>

"The health problems associated with obesity are numerous. Obesity is not just a cosmetic problem. It's a health hazard. Someone who is 40% overweight is twice as likely to die prematurely as is an average-weight person. This is because obesity has been linked to several serious medical conditions, including:

• Heart disease and stroke.
• High blood pressure.
• Diabetes.
• Cancer.
• Gallbladder disease and gallstones.
• Osteoarthritis.
• Gout.
• Breathing problems, such as sleep apnea (when a person stops breathing for a short time during sleep) and asthma.

Doctors generally agree that the more obese a person is the more likely he or she is to have health problems. People who are 20% or more overweight can gain significant health benefits from losing weight. ..."

            Giggle.

I have carefully extracted "giggle",
and placed it on this page.

Its Origins, its resonations —
rise from it. It waits.

You cannot imagine with what
intense tension, with what
age-old sharpness my heart
waited - my hand trembling -
to recommence.

Or how my lungs —
soldier like - kept stiffly to attention,
as I teased, and eased, and tickled, and slid —
gently, gently, as an ancient lover's whisper
—Or the first touch. The —

—Such immensity of blank, encyclopaedic meaning,
unfolding, or just being —

like those electron shells
with their secret numbers,

Clinging to the thinking night of time.

and those numerals: so knowing,
so smirking in their numberness —
the wrench-squig of their symbolic:

we go deeper, penetrating the reds,
the greater resonations, the oak wood,
the teak dark depths.

So many petals.

You cannot conceive
the intense concentration as my head
transformed to a vast glass sphere:
with a precise, and tireless, and all-watching eye:

- and intented thru, like all the winter's winds
had seized themselves into the glass.

fingers like leafic fingers –

And the silence: you -
you would never know that silence:

You struggle toward the word,
but it dashes thru time, spinning, and blurring;

- and, I cant. I try though:

I shove my hand into the Nothing Flower.

It's sort of like the difference
between eating glass powder,
or touching a red rose to a nipple:

it erecting, it massing:

And you recall, the surprise in dead eyes.

The word waits in the unseen dark.

But the music begins, colours brighten,
And it all wakes up, the whirling;
the cacophony - it was never dead —
and the merry-go-round
zips up the centuries:
"giggle" is placed,

wet, limp, and lifted gently by a scalpel,
& extracted as a stamp
is lifted from damp paper.

I place Its Honour at the top
of this page: reverentially.

If we had not forgotten its ancient speech
or lost its transmit frequency —

I would have listened to it with one of my
antennae that sprout on my bulging,
and vitreous head.

I gently slide, or transfer,
the delicate, foetal 'giggle' onto the page.

It dries and recovers.

After breakfast,
a hot bath, coffee, and bacon and eggs,
"giggle" feels cleaner, repleter, contenter.

I touch giggle on its 'gs'
and smile, and think of
its long evolve — the four billion years —
the stories it could tell:

the gulfs we have crossed,

And that strange sense you get
when you open a door in a stone wall,
and see the same, but totally unrecognisable face,

staring at you: trying to signal something.

Launch comments of Imaginary Museum of Atlantis.

Nights With Giordano Bruno, by Jack Ross. Reviewed by Auckland writer Richard Taylor.

Unpaginated, chaotic -- yet controlled in form, with an intense and brutal content, Nights With Giordano Bruno is transpierced throughout with sex, suffering, and a burning joy and queerness. Its multiplex of intersecting themes and symbolic resonances ... adventure, death, no-death, mystère, echo down enigmatic "thought corridors" that entice, torment, and constantly intrigue the reader.

This is a book born in the twentieth century that constantly recalls to us the recent (in human historical terms) events and changes of the last two millennia. Giordano Bruno, a wild, heretical man (at least according to legend), was burnt at an auto-da-fe in 1600 for challenging the Church with a set of blasphemous views which amounted (possibly) to a total rejection of Christianity, and (definitely) to severe doubts -- but not necessarily to the abandonment of faith. He claimed that Christ was not God's son, but had made grave errors and therefore deserved to die; also, that there were an infinite number of worlds. (Ross's protagonist, a robot-human, can be seen "scanning" these innumerable stars by one of the young women he has just been fucking and eating out -- in his disinterested yet pleasure-maximizing manner! -- in one of the narratives which interlock to make up the novel.)

Bruno's challenge came at a time when astronomer-scientists such as Galileo and Kepler were also disputing the oppressive views of the Church. But (just as now) these challenges were offset with a belief in astrology and the mysterious powers of the zodiac. Ross -- perhaps ironically -- posits these dubious creeds as a counter to hard positivism or atheism, and as a real possibility for order. Chaos is thus set against design. Kepler, a deeply religious man, was also a great scientist who first described the elliptical orbits of the planets. Believing that there was a supreme order and a "music of the spheres," he tried to reconcile his heliocentric view of the universe with the calculations (included by Ross from his Harmonica Mundi) that equate the angular rotation of the planets with musical intervals (generally based on powers of 2.)

Kepler, like Galileo, Newton and many other philosophers, artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers of that time, helped to inaugurate what we now think of as the "modern age" of technology and science. But, like Bruno, he was at a dividing point (a "division" if you will): he had to enquire, but that enquiry risked the venom of the authorities (or "authors") -- also the horror of the knowledge of death. (It was no accident that Bruno was put to death close to the midpoint of the last millennium). Jack Ross's novel -- or text, or texts, or poem -- has much to do with death. In fact, the first narration begins in a graveyard, where Bruno (or the author/protagonist) is buggering a young man on a tombstone whilst ruminating on Les Onze Mille Verges [The Eleven Thousand Pricks] by Apollinaire.

But while it is "about" death, Ross's book is also concerned with the mystery of human existence, and hence that of consciousness. For Nabokov, this was the greatest mystery -- and I would concur. Outside our very important and joyful daily experiences, there is no greater question: for me it overrides, sub specie aeternitatis, contingent political concerns. Thus, as in Eliot's beautiful and paradoxical opening to Burnt Norton, the book is caught up in St Augustine's agonizing doubts about the ephemeral nature of the human mind (for him, the soul). But this enigma is also the predicament of love, which leads to Eros and the physical, mental, and spiritual continuum which is realised or "worked upon" in Nights With Giordano Bruno. Its various narratives take us into regions or psychic realms of intense suffering and intense eroticism -- which is also intellection. The physical and the mental are weirdly (impossibly?) juxtaposed in this brilliant work. (I use the term "brilliant" advisedly, as I've only seen its equal in John Mulgan's Man Alone, or Vincent O'Sullivan's Let the River Stand. Maybe we need to look to -- or beyond -- Faulkner.)

But let's not muck about: Ross's book is stylistically very different from the majority of "conventional" novels (if novel it be). In fact, the difficulty of readily assigning it to any set category is a part of its puzzling power. There are, of course, many great and relatively normative works around. But it equals even the best of these (very excellent) works in at least one vital respect: in the intensity of its representation of human consciousness and Being's peacock scream for and against existence. There is a justifiable darkness and seriousness in this fractured dream-real document of journeys into the desert, space, the sea, or the vastness and cold of the Antarctic -- into the inner mind. The questions posed here, like all scientific and religious questions, like the great musician Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question", are simultaneously totally urgent and totally unanswerable.

Which brings us to how Ross's book is structured. Nights With Giordano Bruno is not only without page numbers, but has as its main "device" a series of narratives confined to the right-hand side of each spread. These are more or less continuous, but interleaved, so that the first page begins on Auckland's K Road, the second gives us a ship-wreck at sea, then there are a couple more departures before we return to the original story. This is not as irritating as one might imagine: I found myself intrigued and drawn into the various stories. New stories begin, but there is a thematic interaction between the texts so that one has the sense of reading a single work.

I realise the contradiction in what I have just said. Of course it is a single work: but I was also aware of an effect of fragmentation and multi-complexity. On the left-hand pages of each spread the author has strewn references to medieval texts, numerological tables, emblemata, the music of the spheres, a letter about piobaireachd from his brother, musical scores, quotes from various books (including the Gospel of St John in English, Greek and other languages), many old Latin, French and Italian texts. The left-hand side is active and busy and diagrammatic, while the right hand side is as word-filled as a "normal" novel might be. It would be simplistic to denounce Ross as thus moving away from realism (however one interprets that term), since life is indeed multi-narrational. This kind of leap-frogging through narrative levels has occurred previously in many experimental and so-called normative novels (or texts), but Ross's originality lies in the total effect of his methodology. It is a truism that in life and in our minds there are many "narratives" or processes occurring. As Joyce changes stylistically from chapter to chapter in Ulysses, working by parodying and reworking older writer's styles, so does Ross. But he works in a more "parallel" manner. Nights With Giordano Bruno is structured and chaotic, resistive of interpretation, and "writerly", but it can also be read (I feel) as a kind of poem without going into its potential complexities.

One might well ask why the book has been constructed in this way. I would say that it was dictated by the writer's need. There are (for me, in any case), too many Forsterian "beginning, middle and end" novels that fail to challenge the reader or even attempt to convey intensities and complexities. But what Ross has written transgresses our expectations as readers, conventional Christian notions of morality and sexuality, fundamental ontological certainties, and the question of human love or its absence. The planetary configurations and strange numerical tables, the references to Earth, Air, Fire and Water, all react in the reader's mind to create an effect like a great carnival or a sprawling, multicoloured, postmodern edifice partaking of physical shape, music, words and shades that scrawl uncertainties.

This very strangeness, this abîme that Ross is presenting, can be seen (it should be said) even in Forster -- despite (because of?) his Aspects of the Novel -- in the Marabar caves which lie at the centre of A Passage to India. Remember that we are dealing here with sexuality: lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality, buggery, sadism, cunnilingus, a gang-bang rape ... even heterosexuality. As I have said, the book begins in a graveyard. And for much of the "novel" we seem to be in Hell (as Professor Don Smith suggested in his speech at the launch), but delighting in it. There is a Dantesque sense of near nightmare about it -- a waking nightmare where it is always night. And Bruno is there, in the graveyard, having survived even death by fire, buggering a young man on a grave slab. Simultaneously, there is another parallel but related narrative in the protagonist's mind that runs on in French as he "replays" a story from Apollinaire that mixes sexual savagery and extreme beauty of language. The next narrative is from an imagined or reconstructed movie "script" (with Bruno Laurence as the main actor!) describing torpedoed sailors climbing into life rafts. Then we find Bruno in a "wheel" in space where he sets up house with two young bisexual women. This Bruno is searching for something. He is an android who has been programmed (by The Great One?) to seek, he knows not what.

Of course there's a comic aspect to all this, yet there is also a strangeness, an unrelenting and unceasing self-awareness: an awareness which is coextensive with consciousness. In another guise Bruno questions some young evangelicals, including an attractive young woman who is charmed by the narrator/Ross (we are never certain which is which in this book) about what he really wants to know: what God said. The old trope of the quest is invoked. The "real" Bruno postulated infinite numbers of worlds and questioned whether Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He seems, in fact, to have questioned everything. But unlike St Augustine, another great philosophic questioner, Bruno moved away from faith. Ross's Bruno is sleepless. He cannot sleep because of the questions he must ceaselessly ask.

The narratives resume and new ones intrude as Bruno is "discovered" in the desert (again seeking: this time for some ancient archaeological or philosophical treasure). But although these narrations have certain common themes -- seeking, sexuality -- nothing is sure in Jack Ross's world or worlds. Like Tiresias in Eliot's Waste Land, the sexuality of everyone and everything (echoing the gender constraints of inflected, non-analytical languages) is called into question. As Giordano Bruno challenged the authority and "normality" of the tenets of the Church of his time so the "rightness" or certainty of heterosexuality is challenged here. The Church thrives on the negative power of sexual guilt. Buggery is considered to be evil (though it was perhaps not always so -- even in Christianity), and a man and a woman should have only sex in decent marriage. Yet such one-to-one relationships are (or can be) a kind of unchanging death. Unlike sin or adultery, they contain no risk. Uncertainty, sleeplessness (evoking either the horror or the wonder of eternal life), and the mystery inherent in life, love and sex, are themes that are echoed and "remembered" on the left-hand pages, with their many illustrations from medieval and renaissance incunabula. The Music of the Spheres and the science of Astrology combine to challenge the orthodoxies both of the Church of God and the new Church of Science.

But this too is paradoxical. The search for mystical or scientific knowledge or certainty in sex or love are constantly (necessarily?) undercut in life and literature. Hence the dislocations, doubts, and intertextualities of Ross's Nights With Giordano Bruno, where Romanticism, Modernism and Postmodernism intersect.

The significations and semiotic potential of Nights are endless. The manner of its layout and construction can therefore be seen to be important both to understanding this doubting, questing work, and the way in which Ross has felt compelled to communicate his unique vision. That vision, after all, has allowed us entry to a reader-writer conspiracy of noise and beauty: a carnival (in all connotations of that word) and a feast -- indeed a fest -- of sensuality, sexuality, mystery, poetic prose, energy, savagery, structural stochastic semantic clashes (à la Xenakis perhaps?), and a sense of urgent being. It contains in its land and language the sheer joy of constant copulations and creations and recreations: dream and desire, while tragedy or comedy and transcendence intersect or violently veer away from each other in vertiginous sheerness.

One might persist: where, in all this, is love? Love and beauty, all the universals are there. Love is there: implied, or "hidden" in the leaves. But I will leave those leaves, and any further complexities or subtle interpretations for others. The book is both challenging and inviting. Potential readers can work with it on whatever level they find most satisfying, decide for themselves how it all works together. I found Nights With Giordano Bruno fascinating. For me it is a work of major significance to NZ literature.

Obtain it somehow: beg, buy, steal, or borrow it, but at least read it. See what you think. But I'm sure that the wits among you will enjoy it. For that is its other "purpose": jouissance, and plaisir.

Richard Taylor

2001

For it had not always been as now, but if you wish to whisper me some
Sweet intended tenderness, you can, for there must have been
tenderness, togetherness, touching.

And on some immortal goat clapped road our ways did. Never did we panic then. Peculiarly, I'm not that young couple.

She had her hand fiercely on his arse. It wont last, part of you,
the cynic, says, but freedom dies not out with the giant oak's
demise; and in the woodlands gay and dark are such flowers, such blossoms
as Schubert or Werther mused. That he - Goethe's Werther I mean - drowned, or, as we say, "topped hisself", is the shady aspect. Did he? After all his "Winterreisse", for example, or, "The Death of the Maiden" is such music, such love's food I would: 
gladly die for -  well, in words I  ...

Indeed its not now as it was, and, after all, we did the Name Thing.

Would we do it all again? The wind whips the question from your lips and
just then a great foot descends to squash you in profile. It's absurd, if
sad. In another example, the top of a head pops up, like a lid. But life
is more than doublings, there are true ways and straight as just now the
agents explode in some Chirician street where the sense as of the Unreal
hovers so perpetually that nightmares seem normal. In Robbet-Grillet's
"Jealousy" for example, or his "Labyrinth", the fabled detail endlessly
redefines the aching sense of possibility. The very withholding of plot
or human intercession is indeed the terrible power of everything about to
happen. And think of Jason in "The Sound & Fury" by Faulkner.
Reading the latter there is the feeling so palpably transmitted of a
thumping petrol migraine, and of minds and worlds corrupted, indeed
evil, except perhaps for Caddy and Benji (who'se the Idiot) and Dilsey
the good nigger, and maybe the other Quentin who drowns himself, and to
cap it all the tiny preacher. But this isn't something on paper.

And here must cease my hallowed musings.

Just then, to his amaze, a harsh voice peered from behind a yellow rock:
"Hullo, I am Herr Gotz, you are under arrest Mr Spring." It croaked.

I nod.  It is time.

For all around do sleek things rush, as things thicken,
and speed to the dark dawn woods.

Adam Withershins

Anti clockwise
his unluck held, sexless &
immortal in the bright
& static void - fortunate
he stood, sans time, until
heard he the first faint

mutating marks -

by which hope
the dream of the
exact dull picture

and the homily hell,

palled him to chronic
thought begin:

Naughty - he might set alight
some burny crackly —
some blood and hate
hate and pain -
to maybe warm him, lively, actious,
to because things -
from cold as death to "poss-death":
cause "un no", yet, then, Yes
who nothing knew 'till Eve:
and he entered her

that day of genetic genesis:

and it all began to begin.

Richard Taylor

"Wolves roam in where Jackals dare depart", was one of the sayings of the ancient tribe, whose hymns and lamentations rose uselessly into the silent and exquisite air.

Their photographs, as I behold them now, were curled reminders of yellowed
and exhausted yesteryears, whose alliterated kiss to gone words doth add.

None even cares about statement, or cute "to the point" nastiness. If anything, everything seems to float in some sort of interminable anteroom. And we sat in the new rooms, despite the above: or even my very real fears: the accumulated bills, for example, that litter my desk.

The new classrooms were new, and better. Much better. Miss Trent was the kindest.

So there we sat: tired or elated by turns, wishing they would not picture us. After all, we could be Boltanskied, or de-obliterated by some politico-humanist Conceptualist say...in a country like Colombia. Named after Colombia.

There is lassitude, and verily can I attest, this … this lack of relation.

Most of us are speechless with thought.

But our ears, they were peculiar. And our songs! How we could sing!

Gosh!

And our strangeness felt uneasy in our quelling fingers. And bees, unhampered, grew as big as monster balloons, whose coordinates made vectors of swinging light.

Some things are gigantic with truth: like dead brains.

They'd spoken of syndrome. But we resounded the hills, and nothing could touch us, not death's sting, or a snowman's erotic grin.

In the old way, under the palm, trees so to speak, we danced,
had normal desires, yet, we too, were engulphed by the galloping stasis.

Remember us, you must remember us. Like bones in a quartet we lie
scattered yet not disjoint, and hideous and beautiful and heaving
cries of joy fill the seasons, as birch trees.

The cat questeth.

I must. I must betake myself to other ways: and to
render unto silence what sound is.

For all who dumbly watch are deeply shaken that their lives do buzz with normal ill.

Come on down, we'll meet you. And I will be there. These shall have conclusion, you'll see.

Rent a bus, then flash thru our woods and necks -

we shall reach out hands in indifferent and murderous love.

R Taylor

the dimensions are not just one
two or three as in stones,
or bookshops,
but, as you search your
touchy hand in the roughness,
there is a further -

a turning dimension -

a power of x

whose eyes

are blue with sound.

the old crusty Bricky
seeks a cigarette.

in the ensuing quotidian nightmare
the battlements
reek with visors -

and all is red with a roar
as of banners, and smoke, and death.

standing among the forms

- feeling like Titian
bending among the Nagouchi's

and, all around, in never
ending somethings,
those ochraceous beckonings -

are textures of twists:

each seeking a looker.

they are tall like fingers —
and their glare is peniscate
sentinels in their world

and full of think

they..

on the myopic laboratory bench

the ants wander, uncertain:

the spin cycle.

the baked bean can.

an old yellow-faced lotto ticket.

                         white line

           the  directions which   white line  quasi
           in  the  where  move  the  movements
           and    white line    quasi     into   black
           with semi and   directions   and  cubes
           moves    white line  and   quasi  quasi
           in     the     quasar     but     red   and
           directions   white line  it  repeats  and
           and    semi     its    hands   but    now
           the      white line     quasi       in    the
           quarry  searching   it  never goes and
           the       line       but      white line     it
           gets  into  blue  curved by   directions
           which    when    the     white line   the
           double    quasi     thing   in  the  bleak
           black  white  blackness two four eight
           one      white line      in       the    light
           yet      these    are    tiny    these  zig
           zags    under   under  white line    re-
           turning     it    in    turn     it    returns
           in     white line  the  directions  which
           the   quasi   thing  –   given   that  the
           words   get    in   your   blood     and
           babble   like   brooks  full of  books -
           but     white line     returns   to   burn
           the    semi     and    moves     the   in
           the direction of  the quasi  queerness
           when  the  squares   came   and   the
           semi    –     but    the    white line    it
           burns  again  along   the direction   it
           skips and  the  whiteness  pulses with
           quasi   in     the   curve     of    things
           where  the   silence.   but.   white line
           and  there   is    nothing    inside   the
           nothing   now.     so:    quasi    quasi
           semi    white line   semi     and   stop

Playing chess all the time online - I mean from time to time - I am also doing quite bit of reading - started reading (a very hard to get) book of about 50 poems by Alan Brunton - NZ poet (died sadly about 2002) calld 'Fq' - yes 'rhymes' with what you think it does and also could be a code  for 'Faerie Queene' (long book/poem by Spencer - that is it is a "quest" or it is in the "Quest Poem " tradition -  the Faerie Queen BTW was really Queen Elizabeth - Spencer's Poem is allegorical and has strange Knights  who battle monstrous and strange dragons etc - the dragons may be for example - The Catholic Church - to Spencer  and the Elizabethans symbolizing evil and corruption and so on -but as a story (or series of  "adventures"  they are - or Spencer's poem (never finished) is quite extraordinary -it is as very long - I haven't finished it -Brunton was well aware of that poem/book but I also realised the debt owed to Joyce so I hauled out Finnegans's Wake. This lead me to consisderign a htorgh re-read of Ulysses by Joyce - I then got some books of explication and used online notes etc and read quite a few chapters - I have never felt so powerfully INSIDE a book....

But the "intellectual" chapters concentrate on Stephen Dedalus (James Joyce himself) and his brilliant but probably (in typical satric device - a Rabellasian satire of himself - drawing on many writing traditions (such as Dickens) - Joyce was vastly well read -some might say too well read)  - for satire and and character etc - in any case  Stephen/Joyce the cocky intellectual and philanderer - contrasts with the more "real" Bloom, humane but even more "flawed':  the "wandering  jew" -not now very "jewish" but still an "outsider" and also father figure - thus the importance of Hamlet in Ulysses  - so I re-read Hamlet! Now Joyce in one sentence quotes from two Shakspeare plays and a line from "Milton" by Blake - realising I hadn't read that but had a facsimile of it with the plates (basically the same size as Blake's original works) - I then read it right through (meanwhile reading and reading Tyger (possibly the greatest poem I have ever read) and other poems of "Songs of Innocence"  and reading a study of  Blake in the Boris Ford lit.series) )  - my copy also had a detailed and enlightening  explication of "Milton" . "Milton"  and and "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" are two very great works of literature and art (the Doors took their name from Blake's "The Doors of Perception in "The M of H & H'  (also a study by Aldous Huxley) - I also have a facsimile edit of that but am quite familiar with it ) but then  I bought Ellmann's biography (second hand - not sure any buying has helped my finances as I  have a big power bill, speed camera fines etc) of Joyce which is nearly as long as Ulysses itself - so I started on that - I recalled that Ibsen was great playwright for Joyce and that  JJ had learnt Norwegian to appreciate him better - so - yes - in the last few days I read five  plays by Ibsen ( and his incredible poem play Brand - that I had had for years but   thought for a long time was another "social play" but it is a great work centred on a man of powerful religious/ethical  principles and morality, and strength of will; who is almost a kind of superman (this is virtually pre Nietzsche (but Joyce was keen on N's writings) - and I am sure Ibsen probably had never read Schopenhauer) ...but it is more than that ...there is mystery,pathos,poetry etc there and tragedy and  strangeness  - in any case I finished it - it is the work that first made Ibsen famous (he had been quite poor and had left his native country to live mostly in Germany and Italy) -so then I started on Peer Gynt - which I had known about since I was 15 - as I know the music that Edvard Grieg composed for it very well... I had read it before but was puzzled by it -it is kind of an antidote to the relentless Brand (as play - a kind of benign "Tamburlaine" - the near atavistic,powerful, relentless, merciless, and savage play by Marlowe (but to get to Ghosts, and the Enemy of the People (also a play of a man with a powerful moral mission who will not compromise his integrity - and written by Ibsen at "white heat" in protest at the outrage and reaction to Ghosts)  and the "social plays one almost needs to read these foundational plays) (Ibsen influenced almost all modern theatre - (as well as Joyce and possibly Yeats)) such as Shaw, Brecht, (perhaps Strindberg) and Chekov (I love his plays and his short stories as I love Katherine  Mansfield's stories also) and many others owe him a debt...)) - but Peer Gynt is marvelously 'mad' - almost surreal - irrepressible (some have suggested it was pre-Freudian psychological play, a poem of the subconscious)) - where Brand is dark and powerful - Peer Gynt is strange and light - mischievous - but there are trolls so beware reader! - (but perhaps just as troubling for its fantasticality etc)... and I am l reading it now.

Tonight, after a long  look at Alan Sondheim's Blog and his (incredible) philosophical project - see links to the on my EYELIGHT  (on Blogger)   - I spent some time on UBU web  - see also my EYELIGHT blog and the link to it there - listened to readings of some Beckett, and also some refigured work of Gertrude Stein's. Both writers are writers I am and have been for some time a great fan of  - I have read just about everything Stein wrote and - although I am not interested in her autobiography - just the interesting  and revolutionary poems -pieces - and Beckett - incredible (and often very funny) writer... but Ubuweb is a great resource of avant garde and experimental writing, Language poetry, music etc..it is  a must for any writer or intelligent person..