R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 106

LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES

I'll fault Benjamin for getting me sidetracked on The Mystery of the Yellow Room. He mentioned Gaston Leroux (had never heard of him before now, though perhaps I should have from his Phantom fame). Mystery is not usually one of my genres, though I'm admitting I dip into it occasionally.:)

I suppose what also caught my attention, after running down Leroux, was the subgenre of Locked-room Mysteries. Will I ever return to "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" or read for the first time Carr's "The Hollow Man"? Only time will tell.

*


Wikipedia Link

"Clips" from Walter Benjamin's "Reflections"

The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses Anyone intending to embark on a major work should be lenient with himself and, having completed a stint, deny himself nothing that will not prejudice the next. Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion. In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semirelaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an étude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds. Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable. Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens. Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it. Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Literary honor requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a meeting) or at the end of the work. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written. Intuition will awaken in the process. Nulla dies sine linea—but there may well be weeks. Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight. Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there. Stages of composition: idea—style—writing. The value of the fair copy is that in producing it you confine attention to calligraphy. The idea kills inspiration, style fetters the idea, writing pays off style. The work is the death mask of its conception.

*

Ordnance

I had arrived in Riga to visit a woman friend. Her house, the town, the language were unfamiliar to me. Nobody was expecting me, no one knew me. For two hours I walked the streets in solitude. Never again have I seen them so. From every gate a flame darted, each cornerstone sprayed sparks, and every streetcar came toward me like a fire engine. For she might have stepped out of the gateway, around the corner, been sitting in the streetcar. But of the two of us I had to be, at any price, the first to see the other. For had she touched me with the match of her eyes, I should have gone up like a magazine.

 

In Time of Plague, Pics from around the Shore & Heights

I'm still walking, though the venues have narrowed a bit. And yes, like all good Long Beachers, I'm practicing "social distancing."

*

Reading-wise, I've finished The Fall (went for weeks playing the judge-penitent), but probably won't, at least anytime soon, reread The Plague. Last time out I found it somewhat boring. Instead I've been thinking about rereading Death in Venice. We'll see.

***

T. E. Hulme: "The Embankment"

FROM THE POETRY FOUNDATION

Another "Clip" from "The Fall" [3/23/20]

In any case, here it is: I have never been really able to believe that human affairs were serious matters. I had no idea where the serious might lie, except that it was not in all this I saw around me—which seemed to me merely an amusing game, or tiresome. There are really efforts and convictions I have never been able to understand. I always looked with amazement, and a certain suspicion, on those strange creatures who died for money, fell into despair over the loss of a “position,” or sacrificed themselves with a high and mighty manner for the prosperity of their family. I could better understand that friend who had made up his mind to stop smoking and through sheer will power had succeeded. One morning he opened the paper, read that the first H-bomb had been exploded, learned about its wonderful effects, and hastened to a tobacco shop.

Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

This came to mind because of all the snow in the Midwest (don't know how much, probably not a lot, but if you're pining for SPRING ...). So: this is for all the shut-ins and snowed-ins, longing for spring to come and/or wanting to get back to England's Lake District (I swear I saw a crowd of daffodils off the path to Buttermere -- years ago).

This "clip" is brought to you by the Poetry Foundation: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

*

Morning @ TJ's [Long Beach CA]

Another "Clip" from "The Fall" [3/22/20]

That is what no man (except those who are not really alive—in other words, wise men) can endure. Spitefulness is the only possible ostentation. People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves. What do you expect? The idea that comes most naturally to man, as if from his very nature, is the idea of his innocence. From this point of view, we are all like that little Frenchman at Buchenwald who insisted on registering a complaint with the clerk, himself a prisoner, who was recording his arrival. A complaint? The clerk and his comrades laughed: “Useless, old man. You don’t lodge a complaint here.” “But you see, sir,” said the little Frenchman, “My case is exceptional. I am innocent!” We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something! Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.

Marken (Netherlands)

Clip re Marken Island (now Pennisula)

Have thought about going there once or twice. Relatively close to Amsterdam. Once it was an island in the Zuiderzee, a causeway now makes it a pennisula.

*

Doll Village "Clip":

A DOLL’S village, isn’t it? No shortage of quaintness here! But I didn’t bring you to this island for quaintness, cher ami. Anyone can show you peasant headdresses, wooden shoes, and ornamented houses with fishermen smoking choice tobacco surrounded by the smell of furniture wax. I am one of the few people, on the other hand, who can show you what really matters here.