November 2008

"Is the voyage worth making that does not enhance awareness of our shared humanity?"

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Staff Biographies

"Giving well is the best revenge."
  --Douglas Milburn.

Voluntaries from the Invisibles

Douglas Milburn

Part the Second

Facta est quasi vidua,
domina gentium.
(She is as a widow
who once was mistress of the nations..)
                          --Jeremiah.

1. Dimly aware (if at all) of the real wounds we inflict or suffer
(I mean the ones beyond the ken of novelists, theologians, and physicists),
we stumble through life thinking ourselves fortunate
if we reach three (or four) score and ten.

2. Decisions made in wisdom reverberate helpfully.

3. The only folly greater than the pursuit of twoness
is the pursuit of oneness.

4. Truth retain visible form
even beneath the grim of ages
the static of distance,
the stench of death.

5. Out of Africa, across the earth, rising into space, diving the quantum depths,
we remain and remain driven children of irrational wanderlust.

6. Play on the surface can be fun, beautiful, painful, dangerous.
Beware the tyranny of the narrowly focused eye.

7. Few writers achieve the ultimate luxury:
the opportunity and ability to say nothing.

8. Only death stops the play.
The most we can hope for, apart from a good performance,
is hints and glimpses of what lies outside the theater.

9. Illusions are fine as long as you know their true nature
and can easily give them up. Otherwise, watch out.

10. Greed for constancy blinds us
to the seasons of the soul.

11. When in doubt, change the lighting.

12. If you find yourself doubting the level and antiquity of the confusion,
just remember that "fallen man" is theological while "fallen woman" is sexual.

13. The search for the metaphysical compass:
Without it we are primitives limited to canoeing along known coastlines.

14. Castles of power, cathedrals of knowledge, hovels of wisdom,
and always beyond, the forests, the seas, the stars.

15. The moebius strip of days.
Each time around old ruts or new embroidery.
The choice is always and constantly yours.

16. The metaphysically deaf seek applause,
the metaphysically blind acumen,
the metaphysically numb love.

17. Much of our confusion comes
from the ignorant and unnecessary multiplication of symbols.

18. It is almost impossible for a verbal acrobat to determine
whether a good trick is more than just that.

19. We continue not to know,
and not to want to know,
how damaged we all are as children.
Metaphysical filicide.

20. When the tide of unreason rises,
get to higher ground
as far as possible from the yammering
of the happily drowning.

21. Anorexic minds. No matter the journey,
we all pass way stations, rest areas, daily,
and, failing to see them,
don't stop.

22. What good is a crow's nest if you don't use it?

23. The puzzlement of language
is sometimes maze, sometimes swamp.
The right path is never through, only up.

24. Incomprehensibility of that which is the case
is absolute, complete, perfect, inexpressible.
The quest for and pretense of comprehension is at best
a playpen activity.

25. Beware of American writers who make their residence
in remote cities whose names not even BBC announcers can pronounce.

26. Laying bare our limited intelligence and lack of maturity,
we persist in demanding of the gods the two behaviors
(out of the 10,000 possible ones) that interest them the least:
verbal communication and material intervention.

27a. First version: We've tried storming, knocking politely, and sitting quietly.
The lack of response at what we take to be the gates of heaven
should give even the dullest pause.

27b. Second version: Among our favorite, equally futile wastes of time:
storming the gates of heaven,
knocking politely on the gates of heaven,
sitting patiently before the gates of heaven.
The problem is not that the gates of heaven don't exist (they do)
but that they appear closed only to the severely myopic.

28. When the air thing, steps become fewer, smaller, and slower.

29. The cognitive mind has to learn/be taught how to get out of the way.

30. The invisibles. The next discovery is that we are not alone here
in the way that sciences and our everyday senses perceive us to be
nor in the way that religionists hoe we aren't.

31. Saying they are invisible says about as much about them
as saying the sea is blue says about the sea.

32. Which is the sadder sight--
the newspaper writer who thinks his words ephemeral
or the poet who believe his words more enduring than bronze?

33. Pain remains
beyond balm
sans surcease.
Where lies
heart's ease
muted mind
whole sour?
Desert and
oasis
bother beckon.

34. The world doesnt want saving,
at least not by those with a vested religious interest in saving it.

35. Yes, a metaphysical elite exists. How to find it?
First, eliminate all those who either publicly or privately think they belong to it.

36. In the realm of literature the only thing more futile
than gay novelists praising other gay novelists
is straight novelists praising other straight novelists.

37. Put-upon humans (and that would be everybody, yes?)
are too much given to editing the universe in their own favor.

38. In many ways Houston seems the most un-Texan of Texas cities.
Which means the idea of Texas is either wrong or must be radically re-adjusted.

39. Access to the invisibles is easy for all who escape
the prison of tyrant ego and impossible for all who dont.

40. New Appendages. As the movement from sea to land,
so the movement from the visible to the invisible.

41. The fish are aware of us only when,
intentionally or accidentally,
we intrude on their world.

42. Though we havent exhausted the visible, it has pretty near exhausted us. Time to move on.

43. As with patriotism, piety that advertises itself is wholly false.

44. History: the taming of the shrewd.

45. Man is the topotropic animal.

46. We awake
in a pasture
or desert
where after
some wandering
we await
a train
or plane.

47. Cosmologies: At play in the dimensions of the Lords.
Metaphors for Cosmic Relief:
1. Step one is to determine the nature of the chains
holding Prometheus to the rock.
Without this knowledge, other action is futile.
2. If the wind is not at your back,
the most tedious tacking is the only way forward--or back.

48. Bearers of hope surprise themselves
as much as they do the rest of us (1790s, 1960s, etc.)

49. Without the muteness of true humility and pure piety
all applause rings, and is, false.

50. Good Christians exist, as do good Muslims, good Jews, good Buddhists, good Hindus.
Theres just one problem: Theyre invisible.

51. Cosmic travel tip: Relatives, even distant ones, want visiting.

52. Even after Joyce there was (we thought)
nothing to do but keep writing.
Just as after Shakespeare there was
nothing to do but keep talking,
and after Eastman
nothing to do but keep painting.

53. Some (many?) burn with such nostalgia
that they build lives and careers
on the hope that it is possible
to do Rome (or Florence) again. And again.

54. Taking dictation is hard work.
God only knows what its like to give it.

55. The number of mysteries varies directly with the number of clues.

56. If our vaunted All turn out to be the tiniest of irruptions
on some unseen, unimaginable skin
enclosing multiple moebius-strip concatenations of recessive universelets
coloring the spittle of, oh, call it a "god",
where does that leave those spawning children
who then sit around trying to imagine
such an unlikely turn of events?

57. That original Rembrandt hanging on your wall?
What does your dog make of it,
or of Gould's Goldbergs pouring from your speakers?
What is in our daily field of vision (and hearing)
whose, um, higher (other) meaning
we fail to grasp or even guess at?

Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Third >> 

Leçons de Ténèbres Part the First
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Second
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Third
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Fourth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Fifth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Sixth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Seventh
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Eighth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Ninth

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