Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis:

Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in its body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insects, fish, amphibians, mollusks and crustaceans undergo metamorphosis, which is often accompanied by a change of nutrition source or/ and behavior.

In short, metamorphosis is the phenomenon of the caterpillar turning into the butterfly.

The caterpillar is an eating machine and as such does very well, its behavior is that of an eating machine: stay where there is food and eat it. A butterfly behaves quite differently, instead of staying in one very limited area and doing nothing but eat the butterfly moves in a far greater space and is on the lookout for potentially good new feeding ground and sex partners. 

We humans are one of the most changeable creatures on earth, it could be said that we undergo metamorphosis many times in our life, not so much a physical but a mental one. 

The butterfly does not remember its life as a caterpillar and therefore does not regret it. We, on the other hand, who remember our past, our former lives, we who undergo metamorphosis in behavior, character, lifestyle, we often feel regret at the thought of a phase in our lives irretrievably lost. 

We desire change and aim to change, at the same time we are deeply afraid of change, maybe this is a very human trait and the motor for most of our endeavors in science and art. 

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Ethics vs. Aesthetics

Ethics vs. Aesthetics:

In light of the vehemence of rejection which met the publication of Woody Allen’s latest biography the question arises (once more and hopefully not for the last time) how to handle the fact that art is never made by good people only. 

What follows if one allows ethics to undermine aesthetics? It would mean that only art of morally impeccability of morally impeccable artists in morally impeccable institutes would be allowed to be seen, heard or read - this would be the end of art, such art, stripped of its core, would be worthless.

Artists are human beings, as prone to ethical and moral snares as everyone else. A number of artists come to mind whose personal conduct and believes are hard to reconcile with the admiration and inspiration their art generates.

Woody Allen’s personal conduct, for example, might not have been that of a saint and I am sure there have been situations in his life, as in everyone else’s, in which he made dubious decisions. This should not affect our reception of his art. I personally like most of his movies, their fascination with the absurdities of life.

Emil Nolde, the German expressionist painter, was an antisemite and nationalist. And yet his art deeply moves me on more than one level. Pablo Picasso would not have survived the #MeToo movement, he would have been considered a swine. Richard Wagner, not really one of my favorites, but undoubtedly a good composer, also was an antisemite. And the list could continue, with Klaus Kinski, James Brown, Miles Davis, Michael Jackson… Art is being made by assholes, too. This is the sorry truth we have to recognize.

We also have to recognize that there is no Black/ White, no absolutes, no overall valid morale. It is always dangerous to rely on morale only. Where moralization rules, sanity and reason tend to go down the drain. Morale is the continuance of religion with different means, a very subjective endeavor. As long as we continue to think morally (simplistic) we divide the world in friend and foe, in good and bad, in rules and interdictions.

Should we allow ourselves to be fascinated, moved, inspired and touched by art who’s creator does not meet our moral approval? The answer to that dilemma might lie in a space beyond morale. Maybe it is more about the question which contradictions we should learn to endure. Not all of them are solvable, some of them we just have to learn to live with and thus continue living the absurdity of life.

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Youth - And Why We Shouldn’t Shed Tears When It Is Gone

Youth - And Why We Shouldn’t Shed Tears When It Is Gone:

Undoubtedly our youth is one of the most important and well remembered phases in our life, the one which led from what we were then to what we are now. Youth is the seed out of which our life developed, it is a life forming agent.

But, once over, it is not really a thing to shed sirupy tears over because one has “lost“ it.  

Yes it is true, there are things which a younger body is more capable of doing, and the joy of feeling my body in extremis is still something I dearly remember, as I do remember the thrill, the euphoria and ecstasy of first-time experiences. I have lost the ability to run as fast and arduously as I used to or jump over fences, swim across wide rivers or dance through endless nights. My skin developed cracks and crinkles, the smoothness, the good looks, the capability to please, seduce and win over just with these alone - all gone. Those days are over.

.

Most of what people say they miss when asked about their youth are physical attributes. Admittedly, loosing these is a somewhat unpleasant experience. Beauty is something I still very much cherish and youth and beauty seem to go together. But life has taught me that all, and I mean: all, is ending. So, loosing my youthful beauty falls into the same category as the sad regret I feel when I drop a cherished vase. I do feel sorry for the loss, grieve a while for the irrevocability of beauty now destroyed and gone, but I am grateful, too for the time I have been allowed to enjoy and revel in it. 

What many don’t realize, though, is this enormous gain in other fields, mainly those of the mind, the soul, the over-all sense of being.

Gone are the days of insecurities and fears, of constantly felt anxieties, of that permanent pressure to please and fit in, this nagging need to live up to the (real or imagined) expectations of fellow co-beings or the world.

Gone are also the days of not really knowing what I am, where I belong to, what purpose or sense this life of me serves.

One of the great advantages of being older, if all goes moderately well, is the knowledge one picks up on the way, knowledge which helps to meet new situations less fearful, less surprised, less overwhelmed. At a certain age one has lived through almost every aspect of human life and experienced all manners of situations: kids were born, parents died, friends parted, relationships ended, former life-partners are no longer part of one’s life, one lived through illness, has had luck and has had bad luck. Very few remains menacing theory, reality has lost its terrifying power, one has learned to cope with it.

Dealing with everyday life became more relaxed and lead to (do I have to spell it out) a quieter, more content existence. I can act now instead of freeze in shock and fear. An invigorating achievement not to be underestimated. 

Somewhere I read (I think it was Iris Murdoch) that human beings are “finders of substitutes“. In regard to my life I find that knowledge, experience, ease, calm and content are a good substitute for the desperate struggles of youth.

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“A Fairly Honourable Defeat” by Iris Murdoch - review

“A Fairly Honourable Defeat” by Iris Murdoch:

In her thirteenth novel, published 1970, Iris Murdoch depicts a social network of which the nucleus is the seemingly intact and harmonious marriage of Hilda and Rupert Foster who live a quiet, content, fairly comfortable life in one of the better-off suburbs of London. 

Into this world comes Julius King, rich, handsome, clever, seductive, deceitful and diabolic. He machinates his victims (and there are not a few) by silently and cunningly isolating them and therefore making it impossible for them to talk to each other. He uses them as puppets in a play, employs their fears, their jealousies and insecurities to his advantage, uses flattery and critique and thus creates a tormenting atmosphere for his victims who, a muddling philosopher, a shy youth, a straying woman, an aging housewife, a gay couple, all succumb with tragic results to his machinations and loose their until then harmonious environment. 

This alone would make a great story but it is with great humor, wit and brilliant dialogue that Murdoch elevates the story into regions of divine comedy. The book vibrates with verbal energy, intense, funny, comical, tragic. With Murdoch, a keen observer of the human mind, it is always about the mechanisms of relationships, the inner workings, the why we act the way we act.

The extremely humane and honest representation of the gay couple especially, in which Murdoch explores deeply and without prejudice what it is that makes a marriage a marriage, is remarkably well done. One should not forget that this was 1970, just three years after the decriminalization of private homosexual acts in the UK. Even today, fifty years later, it remains a very beautiful piece of literary representation of a same-sex marriage.

This novel is a gem in philosophical and psychological insights and testifies of a grand understanding of the human mind. And yet this tale is not a dark one only, it shines and shivers with silent, repressed laughter.

As in a Shakespearean comedy, not all is lost in the end, there still remains hope, some order was destroyed but some important lessons were learned and the future seems far more full of hope than hopeless. 

**Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. 

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Another Recipe for Yet Another Dreary Day

After my success with the red wine cake (see previous blog entry) I went on a search for another mind soother and found this recipe: Cookie bars with bacon and dark beer, white and brown sugar, caramel, peanut butter, chocolate chips, potato chips and salt pretzels.

Amazing, how a little tastebud stimulation can jolly up your day! :)

I found it on ”baketotheroots.de” - Here is the link:

https://baketotheroots.de/cookie-bars-mit-bacon-und-schwarzbier/

Thank you, Marc!!! :)



Ingredients:
For the dough:
3/4 cup (170g) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups (260g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. dark beer (e.g. Guinness Stout)
2 slices of fried bacon, chopped
3/4 cup (100g) chocolate chips


For the topping:
8.5 oz. (240g) caramels
1/4 cup (60ml) dark beer (e.g. Guinness Stout)
1 tbsp. peanut butter
3/4 cup (35g) salted potato chips
1/4 cup (20g) pretzels
2-3 slices of fried bacon, chopped
1/2 cup (60g) chocolate chips
melted chocolate to drizzle

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F (175°C). Line a 9×9 inch (23x23cm) square baking pan with baking parchment and set aside. Fry the bacon for the batter and topping and let drain on a paper towel.

2. In a large bowl mix the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Mix the flour with baking soda and add together with the beer to the bowl – mix until well combined. Add the chopped bacon and chocolate chips and fold in. Transfer to the baking pan. The dough is quite thick, so you have to press it into the form and the edges. Smooth out the top and bake for 24-26 minutes – the edges should have a bit of a golden color. Take out of the oven and let cool down completely in the pan.

3. Add the caramels and beer to a small sauce pan and heat up until the caramels are melted – don’t go to high with the temperature, or the caramel will burn. Let bubble over low heat for about 5-8 minutes – you need a thick mixture but it should be still a bit liquid, so don’t overcook it ;)

4. Cut the fried bacon into small pices, crush the potato chips and salted pretzels a bit, so you have (not too) small pieces. Mix with the bacon and chocolate chips and set aside.

5. When the cookie is cooled, spread the beer caramel evenly on top. Spread the peanut butter on top of that (works best with a small spatula or the back of a spoon) and sprinkle with the potato chips-pretzel-bacon-chocolate-chip mixture. Press a bit into the caramel and let cool down.

6. Take the big cookie out of the pan and cut into bars. 

.

A Recipe for A Dreary Day

These last days have been very, very dreary and grey. Typical Berlin after holidays: Cold, wet, grey, not very nice. And, I have to admit, it affects one's mood. Whilst browsing through old notes I found an old recipe, sleeping there for at least 20 years, from my grandmother (not a cliché, she existed, her name was Johanna).  It is a recipe for a Rotweinkuchen, a red wine cake. Delicious! And easy to do! I immediately set to baking it and the result improved my mood for the next 3 days, not to mention my waistline.

Here is the recipe for the Rotweinkuchen:

Ingredients:
For the cake:
250g butter, room temperature
250g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 medium eggs
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
125ml dry red wine
250g all-purpose flour (Typ 405)
1/2 tsp. baking powder (Backin)
1/2 tsp. baking soda (Natron)
1/2 tsp. of salt
100g semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

For the glaze:
150g semi-sweet chocolate glaze
1 tbsp. coconut oil


Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 190 °C. Line a baking form (preferably a Marmorkuchen or Gugelhupf form) with baking parchment or grease and dust with finely ground breadcrumb (Semmelbrösel). Set aside.


2. Put butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl and mix until fluffy and light. Add the eggs one after another and mix in well. Mix the flour with baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and cocoa. Then slowly mix in the red wine until well combined. Fold in the chopped chocolate (keep about 2 tablespoons for the decoration). Pour the batter into the prepared baking form, smooth out the top and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Take out of the oven and let cool down and then remove carefully from the form and let cool down completely on a wire rack.


3. Chop the chocolate for the glaze and put into a heatproof bowl together with the coconut oil, place on a pot with simmering water and melt. Mix until well combined. Take off the heat, let it cool down a bit and then pour over the cake, sprinkle with the remaining chopped chocolate.

Aesthetics are not an Absolute

Aesthetics are not an Absolute:

This picture shows a painting by Jean Siméon Chardin, the 18th century French painter (1699-1779), considered to be a master of still life. Carefully balanced compositions, soft diffusion of light and granular impasto characterize his work.

I first encountered this painting on a CD-cover of a selection of piano pieces by Jean-Philippe Rameau, performed by Tzimon Barto "A Basket full of Wild Strawberries", a jewel in its own (2005). It is also the title of the painting " Le panier de fraise des bois".

I have always admired this lovely still life, its composition with the abundant redness of the strawberries, the contrasting white flowers in the front and the delicate transparency of the glass of water.

And yesterday I showed it to a friend who immediately took to the picture, too, but had one small critique to offer. To him the glass of water seemed like any ordinary water glass and not appropriate to accompany the erotic, sensual exclusivity of the strawberries. He suggested a metal beaker on another of Chardin's paintings to go with it. 

While I couldn't find any fault in the composition it nevertheless kept me pondering on if and how much aesthetics are influenced by the values of the society we are part of.

Aesthetics are not an absolute, they are prone to change like everything else man-made and respond to the zeitgeist and the general agreement on value. In this case I remembered that back then, in about 1750, there must have been a different value accorded to glass than today, simply because the production was by far harder. So in that time this water glass was most definitively considered to be something of value, something exclusive and therefore quite fitted to go with the exclusivity of the delicious strawberries. A metal or even gold beaker would have worked well, too - probably. But I think Chardin, who is said to have been quite a humble person, chose the water glass instead, most likely because of its unobtrusive and ephemeral exclusivity.

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Music and Memory

Music and Memory:

For the last 2 weeks, out of over 9.500 titles, I have been editing and completing a music playlist for streaming purposes, one for classical music and one for Jazz. 

All my favorites, one after the other, continuously playing in an endless, uninterrupted stream: the joys of modern life, somehow always new, always exciting, thanks to random-mix mode. 

And thanks to this accomplishment I am rediscovering music I had not heard for ages, music which quietly went into oblivion on my cd-shelf, music I forgot the existence of, music I had lost myself in, music I would have metaphorically died for, music I thought I couldn’t live without and then forgot, music strongly attached to situations, events, people, episodes and phases in my life. 

Now, under a downy warm blanket, I lie on my couch and listen again to sounds almost forgotten. Mahler’s 9th, for example, the last slow, 25 minutes long, movement with its heartrending climaxes and its long, almost unbearably bittersweet fading out of this world. So many memories go with it, so many emotions and ghosts rise up from the depth of the past. 

Different times, different ages, they all are still there and even though I knew they were, was aware those memories must still exist somewhere, must still be encrypted in my brain, now, with the help of this music, they are as easy accessible as if they happened only yesterday. This is, among other spells, the magic that music is capable of. Music creates markers in the memory encrypting process. As do other strong tools: taste, smell, touch. Or color. 

It seems our brain uses our fundamental senses to help memorize, store, anchor and retrieve events by simply attaching sensations to them. 

Bartok is coupled with The Shining and early adolescence,  Ligeti’s Requiem with Space Odyssey and a very curious 12 year-old self and a certain person. The Preludes by Debussy make me think of, relive, re-feel, my moods, my joys, my despairs of a time in Nuremberg; Rameau, Satie and Mompou bring back a specific phase in Berlin (as does David Bowie), Bach makes a lost, dear dead friend return, Poulenc recreates the moment of a significant artistic insight. 

This is how I imagine and wish for, old age could be, the long afternoon of my evening of life. Given that I then will still have the necessary mental capacities, this is not an unattractive outlook. Recline on your couch, simply turn on the music and let your life pass by. It’s not them but me who plays “Our Song”!

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‘Identity’ - poem

Identity

When Hans Hofmann became a hedgehog

somewhere in a Germany that has

vanished with its forests and hedgerows

Shakespeare would have been a young actor

starting out in a country that was

only a word to Hans who had learned

from those who had painted animals

only from hearing tales about them

without ever setting eyes on them

or from corpses with the lingering

light mute and deathly still forever

held fast in the fur or the feathers

hanging or lying on a table

and he had learned from others who had

arranged the corpses of animals

as though they were still alive in full

flight or on their way but this hedgehog

was there in the same life as his own 

looking around at him with his brush

of camel hair and his stretched

parchment of sheepskin as he turned to each sharp

particular quill and every black

whisker on the long live snout and those

flat clawed feet made only for trundling

and for feeling along the dark undersides

of stones and as Hans took them in he

turned into the Hans that we would see

                                    W. S. Merwin (1927 - 2019)*

*William Stanley Merwin (1927 – 2019) was an American poet and translator who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose and received twice the Pulitzer Prize.

*Hans Hoffmann was a German painter (1530-1591)

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“The Tremor of Forgery” by Patricia Highsmith - review

“The Tremor of Forgery” by Patricia Highsmith:

Recently, in search of a light read which would get me over the first, always dreary, days of January, I was recommended a book by Patricia Highsmith, “The Tremor of Forgery“, published first in the UK in 1969.

I was of the impression up until then that I had read all the books by Highsmith, even if that was a long time, decades, ago. Well, I was wrong, this one I had not read. And what a pleasant surprise it was.

Patricia Highsmith, American crime novelist (1921-1995) was by far more famous outside of the USA. And this did not change even after her novel “Strangers on a Train“ was bought and adapted for cinema by Alfred Hitchcock.

Her most famous figure could well be the talented Mr. Tom Ripley, to whom she dedicated 5 books alone. The first of the series was also made into a film, at least twice, one featuring Alain Delon in “Plein soleil“ by René Clement in 1960, and recently Matt Damon in “The Talented Mr. Ripley“ by Anthony Minghella from 1999.

The Tremor of Forgery marks somehow a departure from its predecessors as it is playing much more on the internal life of its protagonist, tells the story solely from the perspective of one single character. It is often considered to be her best novel, even Graham Greene gave it high praise. 

It tells of Howard Ingham, an American writer, who travels to Tunisia in order to meet and work with a friend on a screenplay. The friend never shows up, having committed suicide and Ingham, shaken by this news, resolves to write his next novel instead on site and stays. He gets sucked into the strangely different life of Tunisia, observing the Tunisian society around him, reflecting on its attitudes and how he feels about those cultural differences. 

He meets and befriends another American, a strange bigot character, and a friendly, lonely, gay Dane with a dog, who is a painter.

He ponders his own sexuality, deliberating on his latent homosexual tendencies whilst also embarking on a brief fling with a young woman. He even questions the very nature of his existence.

In following his thoughts or his conversations on a variety of topics with his friends it makes for a rich and rewarding reading experience. And there are mysteries at the heart of the story.

There's a hint of espionage with the American friend, there is the incident of an attempted break-in at Ingham's hotel bungalow, during which Ingham throws his typewriter in defence against the intruder; thereafter he is haunted by the notion that he might have killed the man.

All the while he waits for news of his girlfriend who later comes to visit him and tells him she has had an affair with his suicidal friend and was the reason for his killing himself.

On first perception the novel might seem uneventful but, as with almost every Highsmith novel, it grows on you in suspense and psychological drama. The true complexity and the depth of this novel come from the questions of morality and crime and how they can become relative in a given situation, forcing one to rethink well-trodden paths.

*Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer best known for her psyhological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels novels and numerous sshort stories.

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‘I Forget Myself’ - poem

I Forget Myself

I forget myself like a cloud,

I sing and I sing

and I spin to the future

in mists of white washed wool

when a bird flew past the window, 

making the room seem to blink,

making me remember myself. 

                                   Robert Faeth

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Plato (again) - as seen by Iris Murdoch

Plato (again) - as seen by Iris Murdoch*:

Art, this “fiction-making-process“ has always been, from the very beginning, mankind’s companion. And most of us are grateful for its existence, the solace, inspiration and insights we derive from it.

Which has not prevented some of the world’s finest writers and philosophers to debate the validity and morality of art, to question the principles of this “fiction-making“.

Among the first and perhaps also most vocal critic of art we find, sadly surprising: Plato! He who recommended (The Republic) exiling poets of drama from the “ideal state“ and he who also proposed a thorough program of censorship (The State).

Plato’s views on art and artists in general are one of the subjects of The Fire and the Sun - Why Plato Banished the Artists by Iris Murdoch, the Irish novelist and philosopher (1919 – 1999) best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. The Fire and the Sun - Why Plato Banished the Artists (1978) is an essay that provocatively tries to illuminate the esthetics of Plato and to defend art against his views.

Murdoch introduces us to Plato’s view on life by evoking the famous Allegory of the Cave. In this fable mankind is represented by a group who is held captive in a cave, chained to face the back wall, where all they can see are shadows cast by a fire which is behind them, some sort of laterna magica, and they take these projections for reality.

Eventually the prisoners find out the truth (by turning around) and then even manage to escape the cave and, for the first time, see the daylight in all its glory. Finally they see the sun itself, the form of the Good, in whose light the truth may be devined.

Murdoch explains how Plato saw artists as the creators of illusion, who, willfully or naively, accept the appearances at the walls of the cave for reality instead of questioning them as they should. A writer who portrays a doctor, in Plato's view, does not possess a doctor's skill but simply "imitates doctors' talk." Because of the charm of their work, such artists may be mistaken as authorities, thereby misleading people further. "Surely any serious man would rather produce real things, such as beds or political activity, than unreal things which are mere reflections of reality.“ Plato considers artists to be meddlers, independent and irresponsible critics. 

She further elaborates on Plato’s often shockingly puritanical view on art and ventures the suspicion that his feelings may contain “an element of envy“. "He had been himself a writer of poetry; and when a man with two talents chooses (or at any rate concentrates upon) one, he may look sourly upon the practitioners of the other."

Lastly she concedes that art in itself is not essential to survival, might even be unnecessary. But she argues that, even if we could be saved without having seen all the beauty art has to offer, “great art points in the direction of the good and is at least more valuable to morale than dangerous”. Providing an easy form of escapism is not what art aims for. Art is there to help to communicate and reveal the nature of reality. If art is "jauntily at home with evil and quick to beautify it," it can also "show how we learn from pain."

"The spiritual ambiguity of art," she writes, "its connection with the 'limitless unconscious, its use of irony, its interest in evil, worried Plato. But the very ambiguity and voracious ubiquitousness of art is its characteristic freedom. Art, especially literature, is a great hall of reflection where we can all meet and where everything under the sun can be examined and considered."

*Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. 

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Imperfection and Love - After Reading Plato, Again

Imperfection and Love

Over the holidays I have been reading a bit of Plato again, mainly out of a spontaneous need for clarification of what LOVE might be. Mostly I indulged into the Symposium. And then I moved on to a contemporary academic female voice: Martha Nussbaum, who, in Upheavals of Thought (2001), criticizes Plato’s account for its focus on perfection.

The non-sexual, purely intellectual relationship that we understand as ‘Platonic love’ is quite distinct from the account we get in Plato’s works, which are predominantly focused on a striving for perfection through beauty. Modern everyday understandings of personal love, ranging from motherly, sibling, family to romantic love, are quite different.

Plato seems to regard all information gained through our bodily senses as being potentially corruptive to the soul. And seems to be very much in favour of a life led in abstinence of sensual pleasure. The “true philosopher“ should aspire to higher ideals, as far away as possible from the body. When I first read Plato I was quite surprised to find this (in my view) very puritanical line of thought, anchored in a time 2000 years ago. I thought only Christianity had brought this about.

The negation and avoidance of sensual input seems to me a significant error and even a betrayal on our bodies, the true, grand and only instrument given to us with which we are able to feel, explore, discover and simply live life. 

Sensual input, pleasure, eros, emotion, love  - they all are only possible through and with this body and seem to me to be at the root of every human thought and deed. 

Plato seems to be all for perfection. If one really loves life, though, then one has to incorporate, accept and yes: love, imperfection, too. Simply because it is also part of this life and plays an essential role: the sensitization towards perfection.

I am much in favour of values like reason and logic, pure thought. They help us sometimes to understand the complexities of life. But they should be used together with the emotional, sometimes even, irrational insights our bodies can give us. Just think of how much more insight and the feeling of understanding a simple embrace can give.

Erotic love or eros can be a very good mediator and guide towards the ultimate goal, the perfect being, that connects with the eternal and thus allows us, who are mortal, to somehow become immortal. Eros is the lust for possession and can lead to a more general lust for possession of knowledge, beauty or philosophy and thus aims at transcending mankind’s existence.

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. 

A Book Beginning I Always Adored

A Book Beginning I Always Adored:

THE TRAIN came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. The earth lay white under the night sky. The train pulled up at a signal stop. 

(from Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata)

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‘I Knew’ - poem

I Knew

Peeling off like wet skin 

from a wound you inflicted. 

You had to, didn’t you?

You couldn’t just pass me by,

harming me in not noticing,

harming me in not harming me?

I still feel wet sometimes,

the lost, translucent wetness that I liked 

so much, then,

when you and - was it really me?

put arms and limbs and 

milky threads around our web

of homeless clouds.

I flew then, I knew, how.

I sank then, under the bow

of our boat, so lovely,

so full, so achingly brave,

so far away, so remote now.

I drank then, I gulped then,

I breathed then, I knew.

                      Robert Faeth

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