We'll drink to that

Prohibition was repealed on this date in 1933.

"Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life." -- George Bernard Shaw.

Most of his life’s activity, it occurred to Sully, had consisted in just about equal parts of sports, reading and drinking. The rest had been sheer boredom. All of it had been boredom, to one degree or another, for that matter. Life was short only in retrospect; when it was happening it could take forever. -- The Misforgotten, Chapter 22.

The absurdity is that it goes on and on

The great Czech writer Franz Kafka was born on this day in 1883.

"The meaning of life is that it stops," Kafka wrote.

Or a noisy headache in a long street

English poet (and onetime Poet Laureate) John Masefield was born on this day in 1878. He wrote:


"Life is a long headache in a noisy street."
 

   Most of his life’s activity, it occurred to Sully, had consisted in just about equal parts of sports, reading and drinking. The rest had been sheer boredom. All of it had been boredom, to one degree or another, for that matter. Life was short only in retrospect; when it was happening it could take forever.  --  Chapter 22, The Misforgotten.

I've no burning desire to be one

On this day in 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy.


"It is too readily assumed that 'non-attachment' is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult; in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true.


"Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

"If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for 'non-attachment' is a desire to escape from the pain of living." -- George Orwell.

"Shut up," he explained

Author Flannery O'Connor was born on this day in 1925.


"Shut up, Bobby Lee," the Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life." -- "A Good Man Is Hard To Find."

A house that must last a long, long time

French writer and aphorist Michel de Montaigne was born on Feb. 28, 1533.


"The ceaseless labor of a man's whole life," he wrote, "is to build the house of death."

Ah, sweet metronome of life!

Birthday of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, born 1892. She wrote:


"It is not true that life is one damn thing after another--it is one damn thing over and over."

One thing he knew, he’d had a genuine taste for the stuff. It hadn’t always been like that; he’d had to develop it. He loved to drink. Life was, he’d seen early on, a monotony. Drinking made things interesting, at least. Therein lay his desire for it, he supposed.  --  Chapter 36, The Misforgotten.

Aliteracy, fraternite, egalite

The first magazine in the U. S. was published on this day in 1741.

"I see no point in reading." -- Louis XIV of France (1638-1715).

He’d taken to reading early on, as a way of filling up time. But beyond that, a good reader and a good book could create a world unto itself, and shut out the real one. He’d been a good reader, however, only at times. For the most part it had been a mere habit, an unhealthy one at that it seemed to him now. All those ill-read books! He’d gone through thousands of them, most of them no more than a title now, if not utterly forgotten. What did he remember, say, of Moby Dick or Madame Bovary? “The heartless voids and immensities of the universe.” That was Melville, wasn’t it? Or was it Flaubert? The universe was as inhospitable to Emma as it was to Ishmael, equally cruel, capricious and senseless on land or at sea. That was what he’d carried away from books. The inscrutable pointlessness of life. The hostility it had in store for us. A hero or heroine, brimming with hope and good will, sets out in a novel to engage with life, prepared for a skirmish, for its inevitable bumps and bruises, and ends up crushed, demolished.


Life took you where it would, but who needed books to learn that?  --  Chapter 22, The Misforgotten

God's forever blowing bubbles

Today is the birthday of Francis Bacon, English philosopher and essayist. He wrote:

"The world's a bubble; and the life of man less than a span."

Let's all set a goal for the New Year

Samuel Johnson, the English writer, lexicographer, critic, wit and subject of Boswell's Life of Johnson, died on this day in 1784. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

"The goal of all life is death." -- Sigmund Freud.

For some of Johnson's thoughts on the subject of death (and life leading up to it), visit farewells.blogspot.com.
 
Lately, however, his days and nights on the barstool had been preoccupied with strolls down memory lane. Perhaps that signaled a new interest in life. Or a fascination with death. His summing up. Whatever it was, he’d found that the most insignificant of events, the meagerest of impressions, could trigger them, these images and their associated narratives. Just to be alive was to remember, but heretofore the buzz and hum of everyday thought had held his memories at bay, for the most part. Had the reoccurrence of desire prompted, in some way, these waves, these floods of recollections?  --  Chapter 29, The Misforgotten.

We'll drink to that

Prohibition was repealed on this date in 1933.


"Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life." -- George Bernard Shaw.

Most of his life’s activity, it occurred to Sully, had consisted in just about equal parts of sports, reading and drinking. The rest had been sheer boredom. All of it had been boredom, to one degree or another, for that matter. Life was short only in retrospect; when it was happening it could take forever...

Alcohol was a great sage and a great liar. Its way was toward life, and toward death. That is, it revealed life for what it was, a dream, and hastened one toward death, that dreamless sleep. The dream of life would give way to death, and death in turn, as a nullity abhorred by nature, would give way to new life, not a botched one this time but a fully realized one at last.  --  Chapter 22, The Misforgotten.

He wrote more, but we fell asleep reading it

English novelist Samuel Butler (Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh) was born on this day in 1835. He wrote:

"Life is one long process of getting tired."

He was weary, worn out. His strenuous inner life, his contemplative exertions had taken their toll. Man was a thinking reed, but a reed. Sully’s weariness was profound. It couldn’t be assuaged even by eternal rest.   --  Chapter 45, The Misforgotten.   

Britney Spears, are you listening?

The first broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry was today in 1925.

"Music is essentially useless, as life is." -- George Santayana.
 
Maybe he’d hang around, listen to some music for a change. Although he had to say, most of what passed for music today left him cold. No lyrics or melodies. Say what you would about some of the shit he’d grown up listening to, at least you could find a tune in there somewhere, usually. But now…what had happened?


What had happened to him, maybe that was it. Was he that old, that the music had totally changed, as if it were from some other world, far in the future? Or rather, that he was from some other world, far in the past?  --  Chapter 31, The Misforgotten.

What about the meaningless absurdity of Sarah Palin?

Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist (War and Peace), died on this day in 1910. Near the end of his life he wrote:


"The meaningless absurdity of life is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to man."

Today's Perverse Verse:

If you think life's absurd,
You may not have heard
There's another one waiting,
Even more excruciating.
If you long for -- at long last -- death,
Save your breath.

The eternal mystery

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, died on this day in 1930.

"What is the meaning of it, Watson?" said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear?It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end?"

On Monday morning, the game was afoot. Sully, on his stool, was in a brown study.

“Let’s look at the facts in the matter,” he said, as Henny Cavanaugh, three seats away, yawned and lit up a cigarette. “Jimmy, give me another one.”
...“Have I stated the facts plainly enough?” he asked, squinting at Cavanaugh.
“What are you talking about?” Cavanaugh blew smoke from both nostrils and ordered a beer.
“The man, as I’ve pointed out, has no irregular habits. No distinguishing characteristics. Nothing to draw attention to himself. Therein lies the mystery.”
Cavanaugh coughed and yawned again.
“Don’t you see? How could anyone, in plain sight for so long, go completely unobserved? A purloined letter. I’m afraid the mystery, my dear chap, is in our selves.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Cavanaugh said.
“You make a piss-poor Watson, you know that?
                     --Chapter 14, The Misforgotten.
 

Hiding; go seek

Franz Kafka was born on this day in 1883.  He wrote:

"Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come."

I’m reading Kafka. We’ll be passing through Prague at some point soon and perhaps I can visit his grave. Gregor thinks of his family with tenderness and love, and then just before sunrise comes “the last faint flicker of his breath.” The sun is rising out of the sea here and in a couple of hours we’ll have breakfast, which Pinto, that old dung beetle, plans to attend. Giving us our marching orders, I presume. Some day, on my deathbed maybe, I’ll think back on Pinto with tenderness and love.  --  Chapter 30, The Misforgotten.