worth watching the whole thing, but esp. part 2 for the heavy metal mass (that is a really cool protestant church) and my friend Titus Hjelm doing his thing.
Saw this on DB. Man Ray was one of the first photographers I really learned about (from BB, I confess, as with many artists) and I still enjoy his work at lot.
Friends, Some news yesterday reminded me of the conclusion of Full Metal Jacket. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmILOL55xP0 the mickey mouse song wove in and out of my night... now looking at the thing again I am reminded that Joker said that while the world around him is askew he is alive and not afraid, going on as best he can with his comrades, that is a positive thought isnt it? Speaking of the movie I like that its effect is neither dovish nor hawkish, it is non-political in that way. The peace sign and the 'born to kill' on Joker's helmet show the poles within which his road runs... Kubrick the director was nonpolitical...His Barry Lyndon is a film I like,for its theme music perhaps the most moving music to me that I know(sarabande) but also its bitter sweet view of life...The music is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erKsIJyfB_Q and the visual clips epitomize the mood nicely...
Else thinking about Thanksgiving and hoping to formulate a plan so I will not be forlorn. The family I am usually with is not doing a Thanksgiving this year. Perhaps I could drive somewhere on a two day vacation although it would cost money.
In Autumn the leaves turn red and yellow but also some of the reds shade into purple and the photo at the end today shows a bit of that, and it is a transformation I particularly like... If you also like purple leaves and would like to see this photo from yesterday a little larger click here.( Read more... ) If only we could also have some blue leaves!
Else reading along in the four books I am reading (perhaps I will add on one or another) One by and one about Kandinsky, Nabokov's Gift and the Conjure Man Dies. I think for many of us it can be more of a useful thing to read than to write novels. I say subversively of nanowrimo. But really I understand how it is a creativity for many and for of course some of you (I think also for some there could be publishable elements that might appear within a novel unpublishable as a whole and that is great) and its just that I ,likely rightly, sense I dont have any worthwhile novel in me. Old Japanese story of writer doing a novel based on his father, and then one on his also deceased mother, looking across breakfast table at his wife and saying "you know I think I have one more novel in me."
Today these various...they are in effect just a few purple leaves maybe...and as always I invite all your thought on these or anything else, yours +Seraphim . Purple leaves...the whole rather like a painting perhaps? larger form within the post.
Friends, Good discussion yesterday on the duties of a literary executor... Today I will go get a seasonal flu shot at noon. Hope not much in terms of side effects. Advent is coming...and of course the season is iteself a permanent place on the inner map as it were or maybe it is,or may or even ought be,a permanent orientation. I have started reading several books, four perhaps I will add another, so that can be a way to enter the outward season. Here is a quote today, which someone posted. I think it is simple and good and perhaps best served by presentation without more on it from me. “The widest thing in the universe is not space; it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions. And one of the world's greatest tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is room in them for little beside ourselves.” A. W. Tozer
Well we could make one comment without being intrusive perhaps and that is that as to Advent, if there is no inner space then there can be no Advent. Else Autumn recedes, grey skies, more bare branches though still some leaves, perhaps you will join me in liking this image at the end and as always I invite all your comment on anything at all and am yours +Seraphim .
Friends, A lot of small things on mind. Preparing talk for banquet next Tuesday of OCMC--Orthodox Missions Center. I will not work that here in this journal as I have some papers. This Saturday we will go to Pushkin little tragedies (the first performance of it, Stanislavsky failed to stage it) and I am told our Peter Von Berg petervb42 is great in it. Anyone able to join us for 2pm matinee contact me. Also Dr Steven Ware of Nyack agrees to meet our group Transfiguration on December 5. But for here I have perhaps not much special to say today ...
I am interested in reading of a 'new' book of Vladimir Nabokov , made from notes left by the author and released by his son Dimitri Nabokov after many 30 years of family and inner debate--The Original of Laura Now my question, to order or not to order? Out on November 17th. Michiko Kakutani(New York Times) summarizes "in a sketchy hall of mirrors Nabokov jousts with death and reality". She is of two minds as to whether it should have come out at all.Perhaps I should wait for the New York Post review?
Together with C.G.Jung's even more important Red Book, which I have on order, this makes two great publishing events this Fall of works which were not intended for publication by their authors.
That leads to the following poll if anyone is interested. It is an old question in literature. Sometimes it has personal ramifications. When my father died he told me to destroy all his papers. I did in general. certainly all the personal papers, all the notebooks in small illegible hand writing recording books and concerts. but not all of his writing. This I feel he would have been happy that I cared to keep, and it is not I think at this point publishable in any case. Anyway: Poll #1483965The Death and Destruction Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35
With publications this year of posthumous work of Jung and Nabokov the question arises of obying author's wishes to not publish a work after his death...
I tend to think the author's wish to have remaining work destroyed or anyway not published should be obeyed 11 (31.4%)
I tend to think that works that may have value should be made available in any case 24 (68.6%)
Of course the title of the poll is a bit gaudy and the options are not very exact but it seems to me that a subject that divides people can have some interest in seeing how they divide...just if you are interested and it may add to interest if you will add a comment. really the poll cannot measure fine points but it can show what is the first gut reaction and that can have interest. otherwise I have only a photo from yesterday at a nearby pond.( Read more... ) and a Kandinsky at the end,and I am yours inviting all your response, +Seraphim . Kandinsky Several Circles
Friends, Notes and asides today... 1. 'The Conjure Man Dies" by Rudolph Fisher is a Harlem murder mystery from 1932. It is out of print and not available cheap unfortunately. I am reading a library copy but just the note that it deserves availability--not great writing, not I think(looked ahead to end)a great story either, but atmospheric and with a fine ear for talk.
2.Fr.Vinogradov remarks on the critique of Evdokimov on icons by Jacques Ellul (this entry is rapidly devolving into a 'talking heads' thing isn't it?). I find it on line Ellul's most, to my mind, effective point is this-- "This theology of the icon rests on a certain conception of the incarnation that utterly fails to take into account its unfulfilled aspect:the waiting and hope.". My response would be to regret the word 'utterly'--why could he not be satisfied to say 'perhaps risks to insufficiently take into account etc' and to wish that thoughts could be placed side by side(of course intent readers here if there are any will recall my preference for complementarity ,for allowing opposite statements to complete each other)rather than in either/or form. If he would say 'a somewhat romantic iconology like Evdokimov's risks, entirely contrary to its intent, to undervalue openness to the future, expectation and hope'...it might be better?
3.Whether or not icons are separate from 'art history' here is an image I like by Paul Klee, Magic Garden I will put it large here with such commentary as I find on line.( Read more... ) I would be happy for some other commentary from some reader here or from some writer to put more clearly what we like in this image. Perhaps it is essentially musical...
4.Here ,speaking of musical, is a Kandinsky I especially liked at the exhibit at the Guggenheim. Black Arch( Read more... ) Perhaps this time I do not feel an urge for interpretation or verbal appreciation. Is it that the arch seems a simpler image than the goblet or chalice at the center of the Garden?
Today these, I think it can be enough, and as always invite all your response and am yours +Seraphim . Magic Garden. Paul Klee. larger image within post.
I'm afraid my post about this is less interesting than it could be. To be sure, there was a lot of coverage of it here, but this was something that didn't really trickle down into the circles I roam in (i.e. students.) It's well-captured by the discussion we had in my Deutsch als Fremdsprache class. We briefly read a short piece about the importance of the day for German history - Nov. 9 also marks the end of the German monarchy (1918) and the Reichspogromnacht (better known as Kristallnacht - 1938). Yet people had much more to say about the pogroms than the fall of the wall. Our teacher understood why: "I was in a crib when it happened. Does anybody in here remember it?" I was the only person who was old enough to actually be cognizant of it. I explained that I was in music class at school (RPDS!) and a teacher burst in announcing the event. We all watched it on TV. "So, did you understand the event?" Asked the German teacher yesterday. "Not really! We all knew it had something to do with the Russians." She looked a little insulted - I tried to explain that, for kids in the 80s, the DDR cast much less of a shadow on our daily lives and culture (Rocky IV! Olympic hockey! Most NES games!) than the U.S.S.R. I don't think she was quite convinced, but I don't care; she doesn't remember the DDR at all, and, like most young people here, the whole thing is a footnote in history that plays itself out in discussions of domestic economic policy but little else.
(Incidentally I wonder if this is true in the east, which is truly economically-depressed; Heidelberg is full of some of the most well-to-do people in the country.)
Friends, At St Gregory's yesterday I was given a Georgian cap (skoufia ) made in Montreal , Frs Alex and Michael already had them so we took a photo after liturgy which reminds me of the movie Three Amigos.
. M.Plekon S.Sigrist A.Vinogradov "Wherever there is injustice, You will find us! ... We'll be there! Wherever liberty is threatened, You will find.....The Three Amigos!"
Trailer at the end reminds pleasantly of that Steve Martin film --or introduces if you haven't seen it. Besides this I look up to look at again a painting I saw at the Kandinsky exhibit. It has a particular interest, not as one of his masterworks ,but because it --made when he was briefly back in Russia in 1920 --is a step back from pure abstraction and is an image of the city of Moscow. for this please click to the right here( Read more... ) Today these, lighter than yesterday but you may say something serious as well as light if you wish, all welcome, yours +Seraphim
Friends, At the end of today's an inner view of the Guggenheim museum looking up. It is where I was at the wonderful Kandinsky exhibit yesterday, if you are anywhere near New York you must see it at least once before it closes in January. Yesterday it seemed everyone was there, a long line but moving quickly for tickets.
On the way in passing through Harlem we could see many new housing units like condominiums, a very genrified upscale uptown is emerging in parts alongside the old Harlem. I borrow the dvd of Cotton Comes to Harlem based on what I remember as a wonderful novel by Chester Himes celebrating the eccentric characters of the old Harlem. Also think to read The Conjure Man Dies a Harlem mystery novel from the 1930s. I have not been much in Harlem but I sense that something will be lost... Anyone knowledgeable on Harlem? Do you have a feeling of it losing as well as gaining?
Now this morning I made my sermon on St.Michael the Archangel. It is a fairly major production for me as anyone who has read this journal in recent days knows, not really so much a sermon as a paper or a meditation... I will give it all here with footnotes added. I hope you may be interested to read it and having read it that you may have found something of interest and even share in turn your thought. Here it is if you will click to the right.( Read more... ) I have added some pictures of the Guggenheim Museum, and the street outside... as always I invite all your thought on the subject of the text on Archangel Michael or the footnotes of course you do not need to read it all unless you are interested. It will not be on the final exam. or the pictures or on Kandinsky or on Harlem or on whatever else you have today, light or serious all welcome and I am yours, +Seraphim . Guggenheim Museum looking up...the museum tier upon tier of its winding path might remind also of Jacob's great dreamed ladder on which the angels moved to and from absolute Height.
Friends, I think we had enough on the Archangel Michael yesterday to last a while. It is not a topic you hear discussed much on the street or in pubs or salons is it? However it is there if anyone is interested. well I will add one thought that the old image of the world in its spheres rising in height on height is of course quite different from the contemporary myth (=model) in which it extends endlessly like a level sea to a horizon lost in the mist. I expect the sense of the Angelicals we have to the extent we are within one world image or another will differ. Klee's "Angel of the Future" in the userpic seems rather between or outside either which may not be bad...
But there I go again.We would not wish to dwell on a somehow esoteric topic here! Quelle Idee! as we say in the trade.
Right but here is a poem by the painter Wasilly Kandinsky which I think you will like! . Notice how the border between what one sees and does not see fades away as the fish descends....perhaps there are other features of interest.
And here are more late Autumn leaves here today in the lower Hudson Valley( Read more... ) And as always I invite your response on these or on anything else at all, yours +Seraphim .
Friends, The leaves become fewer and yet the remaining ones against a sparer background have their own fragile beauty... Here is a picture from this morning in which we can see each leaf in a way we could not when there were more, as if the whole were a mobile hanging in space. I am trying to think about three difficult things at once and it is too much. So I put aside the book "Menorah for Athena" which I have on interlibrary loan about the relation of Charles Reznikoff to his Judaism. It seems, in the triage of things, more than I need to know on the subject. Secondly my little unit on Kandinsky, have several open books as it were. But I am not spending enough time with them to take in much especially given my lack of background in art. Still I like his poems in Sounds and here is one with its illustration, the Kandinsky poem Seeing if you will ( Read more... ) Thirdly thinking, for this Sunday ,about St Michael and All Angels. After those of yesterday and the day before a further coordinate for thinking about Michael( Read more... ) These today quite various, Perhaps you will find even some parallel between Kandinsky's poem and its rising from the 'gloom' and St Michael as we set it out. Of course anything in a sense parallels anything, but Kandinsky's work is always a spiritual journey too... and here are our leaves remaining and floating in the air like a mobile and as always welcome all you have on these or any other, yours +Seraphim .
Friends, I am burned out as a Yankee fan and was long ago, but (like some believer whose practice has been set aside for a time and who yet goes through a church door at Christmas) I still like Andy Pettitte and so if the Yankees win tonight with him pitching I will be happy. and if they lose I will think of Alex Rodriquez.
Now here at the end of the post is an image from forioscribe,John Palcewski, who lives on the isle of Ischia--multi talented writer, critic, keen observer of life and not least photographer. He posted today this image as a response to ours of yesterday on the Angelicals and citing the words which I put under it here.
It seems to me somehow that my little thought and this image do resonate well to each other and it shows that livejournal can really be a little creative and fun too. Now I will say a couple more things about Angelicals, in the runup to my sermon for St Michael's day on the Eastern calendar this Sunday. They may be nonlinear a little and just added coordinates to go with those yesterday. and finally a greeting to all named Michael. If you will click to the right here( Read more... ) Today these and as always I invite all your response and am yours, +Seraphim
. ""...ones own ideal self, that which one is called to be, and draws to the ascent of the levels of inner life..."
Friends, Listening to radio on way to library this morning,two hosts discussing seeing in some press release the word 'opprobrium' which no-one in the studio could identify until the producer looked it up on the computer. This is a difference I have with those who feel the 'culture wars' crisis is about controverted social issues. I would say the deep crisis is in the evaporation of what culture we have. End of above, and not a moment too soon you may say...
Speaking of culture wars a friend sends me this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_E4haW1upw "The Ultimate Praying Championship" adding Mystery Science Theater type commentary to a Jerusalem brawl between Greeks and Armenians. He says it is 'a bit edgey but funny' well it is a real event and one might as well smile as anything else...
Continuing my little study of Kandinsky I discover a wonderful book Kandinsky the language of the eye by Paul Overy. Unlike many art books it is more than a glorified catalog, a real study of the artist's inner life. Speaking of prayer It seems that during his years at the Bauhaus Kandinsky went to Dresden every Easter for the Orthodox Liturgy and his wife records that he also prayed every night in private. In general prayer and church life is so various isn't it? Some receive communion every day and some once a year and yet...well there is no 'ultimate praying championship' really, just the ways of each in an effort to fidelity to ones own given way...
Well here at the end is an interesting late work of Kandinsky and I will add a note on why it interests me in connection with my sermon preparation for this Sunday if you will click here.( Read more... ) Today these, and as always I welcome all your response on them or on anything else, yours +Seraphim . Red Circle. 1939
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