das kunstwerk im zeitalter seiner technischen reproduzierbarkeit. is when i wish i was able to follow a little of the language. here courtesy of harry zohn and other philanthropes, of course.

all this benjamining came up with the business of photography. the small history, and so on.

i cannot have any contention with kracauer when he tells of the sign of the fear of death (more accessibly, here, perhaps). i fully admit it. what i wonder, then, is whether it is possible to look through the lens and actually love, or bless, or give deep, deep benediction. and thus to click. and thus to preserve. whether it is possible to tell through the lens of love. to tell of great longing and of desperate prayers and of such blessings as can only be given with the full fatal knowledge of the tremendous contingency of the moment.

but i probably have no business asking such a question. i have seen it to be possible, i think.

the two men and the motorcycle are all quite lovely. now awaiting the bolivian diary, actually, if such can be.

deep mountains. following the bhagirathi in and the alakananda out, and then the two meeting in dev prayag. the one growing younger as we climbed, and the other simply growing as we followed it down. every day the sky a deeper blue and the akash ganga brighter every night, for the moon rises just a little later every night after the full moon.

the sheer highlands give you clean lungs.

strange lands, really. meditating mountains, and very quiet when the wind is quiet. very deep and indrawn. bhagirathi, shivling, kedardome, kedarnath, vasuki parbat, satopanth, chandra parbat, sweta parbat, avalanche peak, kalindi parbat. it feels good to be handed over from one to the next. greater and greater shelter.

and glaciers are living things. way more life than have us bits crawling over them. as also have the permanent blankets of the whitelands. but there are also such mountains there that are all rock, for they are either too steep or too windward.

landscapes of marble, mica, and red, green, and black slate. silver sands. rocks rocks rocks.

for the greater part of two whole days (before and after the camp at upper nandanvan), not a blade of grass, and no water. the whole world composed of a very few colours: brown, white, and blue.
later we found snow to melt and drink.

and a few men to match the generosity of the mountains. particularly sarbandaju, who led us, cooked for us, and bludgeoned us into all forms of unprecedented obedience.

the last day before vacations begin. everybody LOVES panchami. it's the day before shashthi. but nobody wanted to leave and actually begin their vacation, even after the Meeting got over. nobody left for a long time even after work was done. i didn't, either.

this happens every year. it is almost the best part of pujo.

but to be quite fair, there was possibly another reason today.
s has been quite wonderful there. we know that. we won't come back and find him there, though. we know that, too.



there are bamboo thingummies for lights within the campus. the first years are clambering all over them, and all the other years are gently egging them on.
no one wants to submit internal assessment assignments. i am at my wits' end.

p has posted a bit by s. it is chracteristically lovely.

swam to class today.
greek, of course, for what else could quite justify to ploion?

in the course of the holy enterprise, a chanced on some interesting latin: 'i bet you don't know what tripudium means.'
he told us, in a state of ill-contained excitement.
now i cannot stop thinking about the ruddy thing.
your turn.

i grow up every day.

on youth now, after boyhood.
but then, i rather like coetzee.

which reminds me of this from the days of foe and the rest.

'hoper edei deixai' and related have this many options!

hoper edei poiesai.

this is actually seneca.
the roman public bath was, then, just the most terribly socially and otherwise active place!
pity casson doesn't say which letter of seneca's, and dated when, the following is from. seneca is recognisably seneca, though, i must say:

'I live right over a public bath. Just imagine every kind of human sound to make us hate our ears! When the muscular types work out and toss the lead weights, when they strain (or make believe they are straining) I hear the grunting,and whenever they let out the breath they've been holding in, there's the whistling and wheezing at maximum pitch. If it's a lazy type I'm up against, someone satisfied with the cheap massage given here, I have to hear the crack of the hand as it hits the shoulders, one sound when it's the flat of the hand, another when it's the cupped hand. But if a ball-player arrives on the scene and begins to count shots, then I'm done for. Add the toughs looking for a fight, the thieves caught in the act, and the people who enjoy hearing themselves sing in the bath-tub. Add also the people who dive into the pool with a deafening splash. On top of all these, who at least make ordinary sounds, don't forget the hair-removal expert forever forcing out that thin screech of his to advertise his services, and only shutting up when he's plucking a customer's armpit and can make someone else do the yelping for him. Then there's the drink-seller with his famous cries, the sausage-seller, the cake-seller, and all the managers of the restaurants, each hawking his wares with his own special intonation.'


and then there was also this little latin verse on a plaque in front of an inn. anonymous authorship, this one's:

'If you're clean and neat, then there's a house ready and waiting for you.
If you're dirty -- well, I'm shamed to say it, but you're welcome too.'


Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994)

i think thomas coryat is quite priceless. he is a rather hardboiled example of acquired taste, mind you.
but he has friends called M. Pasticrust and M. Protoplast.

the mention of the long strider here is interessant, too. i won't know until i have read it, of course, but things should be very, very, intriguing if our traveller is a dwarf.

the e-f has reminded me of certain happy days, though.

'"Yes, but not in the South", with slight adjustments, will do for any arguments about any place, if not about any person.'

rather a pity there aren't volumefuls here. but the bits will have to do.

here it is. one is spinning, btw.

the idea seems fairly simple: find a picture that is even further explicit about one's prodigal powers than those around one would normally suspect.

only, i beg leave to remind my gentle reader that it is worthwhile to contemplate the constitution of the man who took the photograph with steady hands, while said one went round and round and round.

[the e-f got me, just when i was having a good quiet hoot of my own.
in turn, i exercise my privilege, and thirst for the blood of thehaplessoutsider.]

s has scrapped me the link to eliot's wasteland read by himself.
sweeney read by eliot is simply wonderful, too. i wish i knew where that was, if available on the net.

the same philanthrope, i think, is responsible for this.




p.s.

the picture of stephen fry, btw, goes directions of its own!
and while we are at it, there's also this.

and i can't resist quoting :'I can remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. I was listening to the news.'
but that was simply a taste.

travel in the himalaya is always, always interesting.
a gave me smythe's kamet.

'The next morning, before leaving camp, Greene was called upon to do some more work. One of his patients was a small boy who complained, apparently, among other things, of a sore throat. Greene examined him, but could find nothing in particular wrong. He decided, however, that, as the boy's tonsils were none too healthy, it would be a good thing if they were to come out on the spot. He was preparing to perform this operation when the terrified boy explained that it was not he who was ill, but his father in the village below, and that he had come on his behalf, and had merely tried to enact his ailments.'
F. S. Smythe, Kamet Conquered (London: Camelot Press Ltd, 1932).

now, only if smythe got his names right...

adventures in quadruplicate. and the triplicate certainly knows.
u see, it is not only that things get done, but that they really do get done, and i have very lovely people around me. leaves me feeling rather good.

pleased as punch again.
and again.
you get the drift.

lessons learnt this weekend:
-abandoned hedonism agrees with me.

-momos agree with me.

-chocolate agrees with me.
-ice-cream agrees with me.
and
-i agree with plato quite some.

pleased as punch.
there are more things in heaven and earth etc etc...

Jazz at nuntii latini
and this is the album.

-Why did you take 10 years to complete your painting course at the J.J. School of Art?
-I was doing other things.

-What?
...

i tell you it is extremely galling to read someone, like them, and discover that they are dead. when they might well not have been, i mean.

really must meet ruskin bond.

butch cassidy:
who'll go?

sundance kid:
i'll go.

butch cassidy:
this is no time to be brave.
i'll let you.

butch cassidy and the sundance kid (1969).

-quid facis hodie?
-optime.

went out yesterday again. all of us save r, and that because we couldn't reach her. ruddy charger gone bust, and we all felt the ruddyness of the ruddy charger rather keenly yesterday.
what is important, however, is that the campus is very pretty on a pretty day, and even s behaves like a normal human being in it, and keeps her threats of going home to a minimum. it is also remarkable that very little persuasion indeed is needed to get a out and bouncing to a very old tune. i am an easy case, of course. i spend a nice day anyway, and then have food given me when i am hungry.
things will get very busy very soon, but it would be such a shame not to roll this luxurious hedonism around the tongue while it lasts.