Proteus
- Thread starter version
- Start date
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
Rock, paper, scissors < water, like chi
version
Well-known member
luka
Well-known member
And the boy came to, again, with the racket,
And looked out over the bows,
and to eastward, and to the Naxos passage.
God-sleight then, god-sleight:
Ship stock fast in sea-swirl,
Ivy upon the oars, King Pentheus,
grapes with no seed but sea-foam,
Ivy in scupper-hole.
Aye, I, Acœtes, stood there,
and the god stood by me,
Water cutting under the keel,
Sea-break from stern forrards,
wake running off from the bow,
And where was gunwale, there now was vine-trunk,
And tenthril where cordage had been,
grape-leaves on the rowlocks,
Heavy vine on the oarshafts,
And, out of nothing, a breathing,
hot breath on my ankles,
Beasts like shadows in glass,
a furred tail upon nothingness.
Lynx-purr, and heathery smell of beasts,
where tar smell had been,
Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
eye-glitter out of black air.
The sky overshot, dry, with no tempest,
Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
fur brushing my knee-skin,
Rustle of airy sheaths,
dry forms in the æther.
And the ship like a keel in ship-yard,
slung like an ox in smith's sling,
Ribs stuck fast in the ways,
grape-cluster over pin-rack,
void air taking pelt.
Lifeless air become sinewed,
feline leisure of panthers,
Leopards sniffing the grape shoots by scupper-hole,
Crouched panthers by fore-hatch,
And the sea blue-deep about us,
green-ruddy in shadows,
And Lyæus: "From now, Acœtes, my altars,
Fearing no bondage,
fearing no cat of the wood,
Safe with my lynxes,
feeding grapes to my leopards,
Olibanum is my incense,
the vines grow in my homage."
The back-swell now smooth in the rudder-chains,
Black snout of a porpoise
where Lycabs had been,
Fish-scales on the oarsmen.
And I worship.
I have seen what I have seen.
When they brought the boy I said:
"He has a god in him,
though I do not know which god."
And they kicked me into the fore-stays.
I have seen what I have seen:
Medon's face like the face of a dory,
Arms shrunk into fins. And you, Pentheus,
Had as well listen to Tiresias, and to Cadmus,
or your luck will go out of you.
Fish-scales over groin muscles,
lynx-purr amid sea...
And of a later year,
pale in the wine-red algæ,
If you will lean over the rock,
the coral face under wave-tinge,
Rose-paleness under water-shift,
Ileuthyeria, fair Dafne of sea-bords,
The swimmer's arms turned to branches,
Who will say in what year,
fleeing what band of tritons,
The smooth brows, seen, and half seen,
now ivory stillness.
And looked out over the bows,
and to eastward, and to the Naxos passage.
God-sleight then, god-sleight:
Ship stock fast in sea-swirl,
Ivy upon the oars, King Pentheus,
grapes with no seed but sea-foam,
Ivy in scupper-hole.
Aye, I, Acœtes, stood there,
and the god stood by me,
Water cutting under the keel,
Sea-break from stern forrards,
wake running off from the bow,
And where was gunwale, there now was vine-trunk,
And tenthril where cordage had been,
grape-leaves on the rowlocks,
Heavy vine on the oarshafts,
And, out of nothing, a breathing,
hot breath on my ankles,
Beasts like shadows in glass,
a furred tail upon nothingness.
Lynx-purr, and heathery smell of beasts,
where tar smell had been,
Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
eye-glitter out of black air.
The sky overshot, dry, with no tempest,
Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
fur brushing my knee-skin,
Rustle of airy sheaths,
dry forms in the æther.
And the ship like a keel in ship-yard,
slung like an ox in smith's sling,
Ribs stuck fast in the ways,
grape-cluster over pin-rack,
void air taking pelt.
Lifeless air become sinewed,
feline leisure of panthers,
Leopards sniffing the grape shoots by scupper-hole,
Crouched panthers by fore-hatch,
And the sea blue-deep about us,
green-ruddy in shadows,
And Lyæus: "From now, Acœtes, my altars,
Fearing no bondage,
fearing no cat of the wood,
Safe with my lynxes,
feeding grapes to my leopards,
Olibanum is my incense,
the vines grow in my homage."
The back-swell now smooth in the rudder-chains,
Black snout of a porpoise
where Lycabs had been,
Fish-scales on the oarsmen.
And I worship.
I have seen what I have seen.
When they brought the boy I said:
"He has a god in him,
though I do not know which god."
And they kicked me into the fore-stays.
I have seen what I have seen:
Medon's face like the face of a dory,
Arms shrunk into fins. And you, Pentheus,
Had as well listen to Tiresias, and to Cadmus,
or your luck will go out of you.
Fish-scales over groin muscles,
lynx-purr amid sea...
And of a later year,
pale in the wine-red algæ,
If you will lean over the rock,
the coral face under wave-tinge,
Rose-paleness under water-shift,
Ileuthyeria, fair Dafne of sea-bords,
The swimmer's arms turned to branches,
Who will say in what year,
fleeing what band of tritons,
The smooth brows, seen, and half seen,
now ivory stillness.
sus
Moderator
Early 1970s and Annie Dillard is sticking her head around
the Galápagos. She comes to see “the curious shapes soft
proteins can take”; she watches the lava spatter “inchoate”
from the sloshing sea, harden “mute and intractable on
nothing’s lapping shore.” She cites Darwin’s “species are
not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable,” the same
line that stuck out to Lorine Niedecker, two generations pri-
or. Like Nelson, Dillard uses the Heraclitean “flux,”
and
the phrase “process of becoming.”
the Galápagos. She comes to see “the curious shapes soft
proteins can take”; she watches the lava spatter “inchoate”
from the sloshing sea, harden “mute and intractable on
nothing’s lapping shore.” She cites Darwin’s “species are
not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable,” the same
line that stuck out to Lorine Niedecker, two generations pri-
or. Like Nelson, Dillard uses the Heraclitean “flux,”
and
the phrase “process of becoming.”
sus
Moderator
Y: The philosophy of escape we’ve been talking about: get out of
whatever box you find yourself in. Gender, genre, genus, genere. You
want flexibility, but every rep. has its baggages; ambiguations become
ossified, attract their own preconceptions. Others’ expectations can’t
be avoided, only strategized around; cannot be erased, only updated.
Categories not as pitfalls to be avoided, but situationally useful
divisions or maps deserving conscious manipulation, which become
dangerous when reified, when taken as sole window on truth. fn Chris
Kraus here: “Where there are no walls there is only chaos. And so you
break it down,” erect barriers, which is why there’s section breaks in
this text. Seeing categories as true in relation, true in chronotope. Boxes
are degrading, they reduce something high-dimensional into lower
dimensions. But the degradation comes when it goes unacknowledged
that such a compression has taken place
whatever box you find yourself in. Gender, genre, genus, genere. You
want flexibility, but every rep. has its baggages; ambiguations become
ossified, attract their own preconceptions. Others’ expectations can’t
be avoided, only strategized around; cannot be erased, only updated.
Categories not as pitfalls to be avoided, but situationally useful
divisions or maps deserving conscious manipulation, which become
dangerous when reified, when taken as sole window on truth. fn Chris
Kraus here: “Where there are no walls there is only chaos. And so you
break it down,” erect barriers, which is why there’s section breaks in
this text. Seeing categories as true in relation, true in chronotope. Boxes
are degrading, they reduce something high-dimensional into lower
dimensions. But the degradation comes when it goes unacknowledged
that such a compression has taken place
sus
Moderator
Rober MacFarlane Lol: "For Roger, water flowed fast and wildly through culture; it was protean, it was slip-shape—to borrow Alice Oswald's portmanteau from her river poem Dart... That was how he followed it, moving from a word here to an idea there, pursuing waters influences, too fast for his notes or audience to keep up with"
IdleRich
IdleRich
To me the Theseus' Ship example stands out from the others as they are truly flowing and continuous whereas that is discrete. Replacing one plank and then another seems like a much clunkier, clumsier way of changing form, completely at odds with the sinuously flowing river... in fact, wait a minute, it's not the same at all as the other two is it? I thought the whole point of that example is it raises the question of how it can be that you can change all the parts of the ship and yet it is still Theseus' Ship. In other words it's saying that you can step in the same river twice.
But forget about that, that's just how the example was used in the past. Butt I do think that the difference between continuous change and discrete is worth noting. When continuous flowing change is contrasted with the piecemeal discrete version - the latter feels like something that can't truly morph like the other making a kind of crude attempt to copy what it does. And I suppose it turns out to be exactly that in fact - we can model analogue things by using increasingly fine discrete approximations.
But forget about that, that's just how the example was used in the past. Butt I do think that the difference between continuous change and discrete is worth noting. When continuous flowing change is contrasted with the piecemeal discrete version - the latter feels like something that can't truly morph like the other making a kind of crude attempt to copy what it does. And I suppose it turns out to be exactly that in fact - we can model analogue things by using increasingly fine discrete approximations.
version
Well-known member
Yeah, I made it on a whim with the idea it might develop into something as it goes along.
version
Well-known member
There's the bit in Ulysses where Stephen talks about this in terms of cells of the body being shed,
-- As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where it was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff time after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father the image of the unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.