The Living Howls

I didn’t have a chance to share excerpts from A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman, whose book has an excellent chapter on the plague:

Petrach’s brother Gherardo… buried the prior and 34 fellow monks one by one, sometimes three a day, until he was left along with his dog and fled to look for a place that would take him in (91).

St. Roch… retreated to die alone in the woods, where a dog brought him bread each day. “In these sad times,” says his legend, “when reality is so somber and men so hard, people ascribed pity to animals” (108).

Organized groups of 200 to 300 scourged themselves with leather whips “tipped with iron spikes until they bled… These bands put on regular performances three times a day, twice in public in the church square and a third in privacy” (114).

There was an interesting argument about context and preparation for violence in class today. I don’t know that historical footage/violence needs a introduction because in real life, violence is enacted on millions pretty swiftly and nearly always without a context. To only observe it with the distance of time and geography helping curb its effect is usually not too difficult. But I think it helps me to be frightened and genuinely moved, however it happens.

If it’s not video games, what is the “murder simulator?” Is there one? It might have something to do with how we receive violence (and history!) without any context. History in school was like: here’s the meat of the thing, you don’t really need to know what happened before, what’s going on now, why people did what they did. This seems dangerous and deeply confusing, especially if none of the power-players in textbooks look anything like you!

I thought they were signal towers but they’re not. Their red lights blossom in turns. I looked at the stars and expected them to blossom, too. A star’s steady glow is more immense, more perfect.

Spring break in Jackson Hole, WY. Mountains in the distance have a blue veil. Up close, they’re too present, too dimensional, beyond dimensional! Went to sleep every night with them in my eyelids.

We should “share what’s at stake in a project.” What was gained or lost? What was our fear? – Projections can signal perspectives and transcendence beautifully, especially on the body, across a torso. – The jellyfish is the animal of acceptance? What is a “power animal?” – Isn’t is the “hardest thing to tell yourself ‘I love you?’”- What is a digital-age coffin? We are so plugged into our devices, it’s a kind of death.

Some great filmaking: imaginary scenes frame real ones and hte overlapping speech/imagery represent withdrawal or struggle. Also, the red light works with the heartbeat and butterfly wings. In Beloved, the spirit rejects its position and manifests as a pool of red light. In Diving Bell, the red light is a space for emotional distress. The use of mirrors and other reflections, and photographs enhance the constant representation of the past vs present self, the abled body and the stunned body.

Some interesting commentary on writers/the poet and what they do when “outside the moment.” I admit to being in a terrible situation and thinking, ooh, this will make a great poem one day. I enjoy that Bethany’s hair has hopes, desires, and ambitions.

I’ve been thinking for months about the “tangible factors” mentioned in Chief Justice Earl Warren’s 1954 ruling in the Brown v. Board decision. What are the intangible factors? What separates us from others? What is in a soul, and what can make it transcend the body?

We use the same word for the transformation space AND the husk. That’s so odd to me.

Also, what is it that keeps what it takes? The movie Endurance says it’s the ice.