R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 19

Ereg (Erg)

In Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles spells it EREG. I finally found it as ERG, which shares a space with erg: a unit of energy.

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Anyway, ereg (or erg), from Arabic: a large dune or sand field, having little or no vegetation.

Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky

The "sheltering sky" bit: Came out of nowhere. Almost nowhere. An interesting bit, but does it fit?;)

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HIS CRY WENT ON through the final image: the spots of raw bright blood on the earth. Blood on excrement. The supreme moment, high above the desert, when the two elements, blood and excrement, long kept apart, merge. A black star appears, a point of darkness in the night sky’s clarity. Point of darkness and gateway to repose. Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.

Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky

Turning her back to the rain she gripped the iron railing and looked directly into the most hideous human face she had ever seen. The tall man wore cast-off European clothes, and a burlap bag over his head like a haïk. But where his nose should have been was a dark triangular abyss, and the strange flat lips were white. For no reason at all she thought of a lion’s muzzle; she could not take her eyes away from it. The man seemed neither to see her nor to feel the rain; he merely stood there. As she stared she found herself wondering why it was that a diseased face, which basically means nothing, should be so much more horrible to look at than a face whose tissues are healthy but whose expression reveals an interior corruption. Port would say that in a non-materialistic age it would not be thus. And probably he would be right.

Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky

He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home. Before the war it had been Europe and the Near East, during the war the West Indies and South America. And she had accompanied him without reiterating her complaints too often or too bitterly.

Paul Bowles: Let It Come Down

He was not even trying to find the Bar Lucifer; he had given that up. He was trying to lose himself. Which meant, he realized, that his great problem right now was to escape from his cage, to discover the way out of the fly-trap, to strike the chord inside himself which would liberate those qualities capable of transforming him from a victim into a winner.

Tertullian: I believe because it's absurd

Credo quia absurdum is a Latin phrase that means "I believe because it is absurd", originally misattributed to Tertullian in his De Carne Christi.  It is believed to be a paraphrasing of Tertullian's "prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est" which means "It is completely credible because it is unsuitable", or "certum est, quia impossibile" which means "It is certain because it is impossible". These are consistent with the anti-Marcionite context in which they occur.  Early modern, Protestant and Enlightenment rhetoric against Catholicism and religion more broadly resulted in this phrase being changed to "I believe because it is absurd", displaced from its original anti-Marcionite to a personally religious context.

Little Blue Heron (Video)

 

Paul Bowles: Let It Come Down

Eunice left the American Legation about four o’clock. They had been most civil, she reflected. (She was always expecting to intercept looks of derision.) They had listened to her, made a few notes, and thanked her gravely. She on her side thought she had done rather well: she had not told them too much, —just enough to whet their interest. “Of course, I’m passing on this information to you for what it may be worth,” she had said modestly. “I have no idea how much truth there is in it. But I have a distinct feeling that you’ll find it worth your while to follow it up.” (When she had gone Mr. Doan, the Vice-Consul, had heaved an exaggerated sigh, remarked in a flat voice: “Oh, Death, where is thy sting?” and his secretary had smirked at him appreciatively.)

Paul Bowles: Let It Come Down

She was always pleased to have Americans come to the house because she felt under no constraint with them. She could drink all she pleased and they drank along with her, whereas her English guests made a whiskey last an hour—not to mention the French, who asked for a Martini of vermouth with a dash of gin, or the Spanish with their glass of sherry. “The Americans are the nation of the future,” she would announce in her hearty voice. “Here’s to ’em. God bless their gadgets, great and small. God bless Frigidaire, Tampax and Coca-Cola. Yes, even Coca-Cola, darling.” (It was generally conceded that Coca-Cola’s advertising was ruining the picturesqueness of Morocco.)

Paul Bowles: Pages from Cold Point

One must have lived in the United States to appreciate the wonder of this place. Still, even here ideas are changing each day. Soon the people will decide that they want their land to be a part of today’s monstrous world, and once that happens, it will be all over. As soon as you have that desire, you are infected with the deadly virus, and you begin to show the symptoms of the disease. You live in terms of time and money, and you think in terms of society and progress. Then all that is left for you is to kill the other people who think the same way, along with a good many of those who do not, since that is the final manifestation of the malady.