after night.

arcche is the greek for beginning, foundation, and power.

archaeology.
hierarchy.
anarchy.

rickshaw
Originally uploaded by olidhar.

walkabout at last, and followed by a night of four.

agamben (a rough idea here and here) came yesterday. the kingdom and the glory.

quite apart from all things else, i cannot stop wondering about many years of work, study and scholarship. to be able to make accessible things -- whatever the discipline or area might be -- spanning 2000 and more years.
life is here and now and of this world.
and it must be a wonderful way to spend one's life.

a gave me shipton.
on the 1933 everest expedition:

'The next day Wyn Harris, Birnie and Boustead started up with ten porters, intending to reach 25,500 feet to choose a site for Camp V. But they were forced to retreat from 24,500 owing to the wind. Actually there waws some difference of opinion about the wisdom of this decision, and a hot-tempered argument raged most of the succeeding night, by the end of which the subject under debate had become rather confused. Nerves were already frayed, and we were all liable to lose our temoers at the slightest provocation, and to take our silly grievances sorely to heart. This seems to be a common manifestation of the effects of life at high altitudes. In our case it was undoubtedly aggravated by the rough handling we had received from the weather, and by having been forced to spend so much of our time during the past month cooped up in a tent with too little to do and too much to anticipate. Being unable to speak above a whisper, I found it difficult to quarrel successfully with anyone, and it would have been too exhausting to attempt to pull my companion's beard. Had I been psycho-analysed at the time, I would no doubt have been found to be suffering from some fierce repressions.'

Eric Shipton, Upon that Mountain (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1943)

greenblatt came today. shakespeare and the ethics of authority.

i find it entirely believable that given lear, shakespeare sort of DIDN'T know where to go in the end. thence the strange and strangely powerful consolation and exhortation that we speak what we feel, not what we ought to say...
as a says, comfort greater than truth.
the play IS astoundingly full of comfortings and very quiet murmurs of kindness. all prevailingly ineffective in causing greater change etc. so that the need for kindness is recurring and constant and growing. gentleness so quiet and so emphatic that one does not know where to look. art cold?

messner is a fair explosive.
i wish the whole was here, though. but the gallery has some photos i had never seen before.

"people say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading"

melvyn bragg and guests on borges.