When I was growing up there was a man who lived up the road. Brigadier Something-or-Other was his name. He wore a bowler hat, read the Telegraph, took the same train every morning from Farnborough to Waterloo and sat in the same first class compartment. He was - as they say - something in the City. 

Then it all changed. Being something in the City meant something else. I remember Viv Stanshall in an interview lamenting the disappearance of 'insouciance'. 

Thatcher. Reagan. There are other names.

And now.

This week. Last week. And the week before that. A feeling of having watched something developing in slow motion. Each headline seems to have been written years ago yet only now coming to fruition. It's tempting to say "I told you so" but are my hands clean?

spend this evening listening to Ghedalia Tazartes' CD 'Diasporas'.

Today's Lesson

Tomorrow I'm heading back for Brussels.

It's been a strange week but - fingers crossed - everything's looking good.

An enormous thank you to the surgeons and nurses at the Atkinson Morley wing of St. George's for looking after my Dad. In a week when the stockmarket has been seesawing up and down I know to whom I'd award six figure bonuses.

I'm packing the laptop & so who knows - I might squeeze in a post or two.

If all goes to plan, normal service will be resumed in a week's time.

change of plan: ferry from Calais then drive! ETA mid-afternoon Sunday.

& now the Eurostar is out of action. It just gets better. Will things be up and running by Sunday morning? I hope so ...

Dear old England ... trying to arrange car insurance for next week and discovering all the obstacles that have been created if you live abroad, don't have a UK licence, etc. And car rental isn't much easier - and costs an arm and a leg.

Dear old England ... where hospitals rearrange operations at the last minute and throw all your plans awry.

If you're around the St Pancras area 9am on Sunday morning let me know.

*

Starting to teach 'Heart of Darkness' (how many times now?) and a colleague lends me 'Deconstruction in a Nutshell' a series of conversations with Jacques Derrida. Years ago these kinds of coincidences were commonplace - today I found that funny tingling down the spine again.

*

Radio 4 early morning while shaving: the bee problem. Due to the bad weather bees are suffering. The expert explains the effect of a large raindrop on the bee's flight. Sudden sense of Deleuzeian becoming.

*

"So I think we have to read them again and again and I feel that, however old I am, I am on the threshold of reading Plato and Aristotle. I love them and I feel I have to start again and again and again. It is a task which is in front of me, before me." (Derrida, The Villanova Roundtable, p.9)


This kind of statement cheers me enormously.

keep it to yourself
___________________

write it down

...

language being only social
__________________________

banks with the most branches are shadiest

...

you're so alienated you don't even know it
__________________________________

of course i took it as a compliment

...



(from 'Lines', in David Bromige's The Harbormaster of Hong Kong)


Once again, it's the discovery of a little form that allows something to happen. Bernadette Mayer pulls this off again and again.

*

Reading Claire Colebrook's 'Deleuze' (Routledge Critical Thinkers) on and off throughout the week. The chapter on 'Minor Literature' makes me realise I have to do a complete rethink of 'Riddles of Form'. So much she touches on is relevant and suggests ways of developing ideas. e.g. my reiteration that I do not know how to read Ray DiPalma.

The good news: that I can now see ways to explore.

The bad news: five classes to teach Monday-Friday. And that's before marking.

*

Tomorrow: 'Jabberwocky'. (Which, I see, forms a key part of 'The Logic of Sense').

*
Il était Roparant, et les Vliqueux tarands
Allaient en gibroyant et en brimbulkdriquant
Jusque-là où la rourghe est à rouarghe à ramgmbde et rangmbde à rouarghambde:
Tous les falomitards étaient les chats-huants
Et les Ghoré Uk'hatis dans le Grabugeument

(Antonin Artaud)

*

Il e'tait grilheure; les slictueux toves
Gyraient sur l'alloinde et vriblaient:
Tout flivoreux allaient les borogoves;
Les verchons fourgus bourniflaient.

«Prends garde au Jabberwock, mon fils!
A sa gueule qui mord, à ses griffes qui happent!
Gare l'oiseau Jubjube, et laisse
En paix le frumieux Bandersnatch!»

Le jeune homme, ayant pris sa vorpaline épée,
Cherchait longtemps l'ennemi manziquais...
Puis, arrivé près de l'Arbre Tépé,
Pour réfléchir un instant s'arrêtait.

Or, comme il ruminait de suffêches pensées,
Le Jabberwock, l'oeil flamboyant,
Ruginiflant par le bois touffeté,
Arrivait en barigoulant.

Une, deux! Une, deux! D'outre en outre!
Le glaive vorpalin virevolte, flac-vlan!
Il terrasse le monstre, et, brandissant sa tête,
Il s'en retourne galomphant.

«Tu as donc tué le Jabberwock!
Dans mes bras, mon fils rayonnois!
O jour frabieux! Callouh! Callock!»
Le vieux glouffait de joie.

Il e'tait grilheure; les slictueux toves
Gyraient sur l'alloinde et vriblaient:
Tout flivoreux allaient les borogoves;
Les verchons fourgus bourniflaient.

(Henri Parisot)

(sourced: http://www.waxdog.com/jabberwocky/translate.html)

lined up for tomorrow's class: 'What the Chairman told Tom' (Bunting), 'Constantly risking absurdity' (Ferlinghetti) and 'The Poet' (Stewart Home). An introductory series of classes to sound out preconceptions about what poetry 'is'.

I'll be interested to see what they make of these texts. What would I have made of them - aged 16 - for that matter?

*

looks like I'll be in the UK next week

*

Deleuze & time - plenty to think about here

grapefruit juice tuesday

Sonnet (in One Line)

I am anxious too to see the Author of the Sonnet to the Sun

__

first day back at the chalk face and this arrives unexpectedly. Strange.

First taste last night ...