apocalyptic guest posting

Le Blog de Jean-Paul Sartre

October 19, 2012 by Quin Finnegan at 3:41 pm

A little existentialism from the New Yorker. My favorite:

Monday, 27 July, 1959: 4:10 A.M.
Lunch with Merleau-Ponty this afternoon in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I was disturbed to hear that he has started a photoblog, and skeptical when he told me that although all its images are identical—a lonely kitten staring bleakly into space as rain falls pitilessly from an empty sky—he averages sixteen thousand page views per day. When I asked to see his referrer logs, he muttered evasively about having an appointment with an S.E.O. specialist and scurried away.

So this is hell.

Basically me looking at Potter, back when I used to post at the Quotidian. Back when, you know, I used to post at all.

14 Comments Filed Under: apocalyptic guest posting, backward glances, finnegan, for self-examination, fragments of philosophy, me, my back pages

Ja Kool

September 16, 2012 by Quin Finnegan at 8:18 pm

People may be asking (or maybe they aren’t), Why doesn’t that guy put up more posts? Well, what happened is that I started working on another essay and presentation on the way Walker Percy used the work of so called existential philosophers in his novels, this time Kierkegaard. Naturally, I moved to Copenhagen to do research at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre Foundation (FSKC).

And naturally, I drive a bus to support my independent scholarly activities. Yes, I grew a mustache.

6 Comments Filed Under: apocalyptic guest posting, driver's ed, Kierkegaard, marginalia, the day job, travels and visitations, YouTubular

The Prophet Speaks

August 8, 2012 by JOB at 9:41 am

And genuflecting to the shoreline,
Unsheathing meaning in Lushootseed,
He chiefly paints on water: more than
An ancient oak, his lush shoots seed
The acorn’s fire; his tongue is bladed,
An oar that cuts the sound, though faded:
I give these words to future chiefs,
Who know the dead will speak beliefs
Beyond these flames: once more with water
And mud, with feathered fin again,
With web and spider’s tale, let pen
Produce the vessels, let the potter
Rebuild Seattle’s house of words;
Let beards entangle clever birds.

8 Comments Filed Under: apocalyptic guest posting, Bird's Nest in Your Hair, confessions and/or retractions and/or korrektions, finnegan, Happy Birthday Dear Pushkin, House of Words, JOB, JOB's poetry, potter, Seattle, webb Tagged With: not to be outdone...

The Prophet Rises

August 8, 2012 by JOB at 9:27 am

June 7, 1889

The smoking signal of disaster
Is blanketing the sky and makes
Its message known: the cracked pilaster
And crumbled tombs on Blake’s
Discovered island rumble thunder –
The earth, a curtain, slips from under
The waking ghost of Chief Sealth
Upon the dawn, his day of death,
The seventh day of June, some twenty
And three Duwamish seasons dead,
Has raised a hand above a head
Still crowned in clouds of silver, flinty
As words that sparks his tongue to speak
And cut through smoke on mountain’s peak.

2 Comments Filed Under: apocalyptic guest posting, backward glances, Catholicish writers, Happy Birthday Dear Pushkin, JOB, JOB's poetry, pushkin, Seattle Tagged With: I want a Lushootseed dictionary for Christmas

From Korrektiv’s Lost and (Re)Found Department

June 13, 2012 by JOB at 12:23 pm

“The Bavarian State Library in Munich announces that Origen’s homilies on the Psalms have been discovered in an 11th century Greek manuscript,” reports Patristics blogger Alin Siciu.

Most of the rest is in German, but – (They got pictures!) – check it out anyway.

This exciting news of course immediately raises a practical question which classicist blogger Roger Pearse is on top of like Alciabiades on top of a …well never mind.

It all sounds rather originel, if you ask me.

5 Comments Filed Under: Academentia, apocalyptic guest posting, backward glances, bookish, breaking into song, Catholicish writers, consumer alert, fragments of philosophy, JOB, Love in the Ruins, pubs and presses, reportage and/or commentary, research Tagged With: apocalyptic politics, the other picture was a meat slicer...

Found

April 21, 2012 by Matthew Lickona at 8:51 am

Concerned souls will be relieved to hear that a crow just alighted on the bust of Joseph just outside my dwelling’s door and dropped the expertly fileted exoskeleton of a desert locust at my doorstep. A clear message that Cubeland Mystic is alive and well – I know of no one else who can manage it so neatly. I can only imagine which of the world’s sins has been revealed to him and impressed on his soul that he should undertake so great a fast as the one he seems to be on, but I am glad he’s out there.

By way of marking the occasion, here’s a silly chunk from the screenplay for The Cloister.

SCENE: MCMANUS AND RECTOR PREPARING FOR MASS:

McManus: Brother Jerome told me that you and Tomaso did the chapel.

Rector: Yes.

McManus: It’s beautiful.

Rector: Yes.

McManus: Why don’t you let Tomaso teach painting?

Rector: Because this is not an art school.

McManus: If you think he’s dangerous, why do you let him roam around?

Rector (quoting from Job, almost to himself): “Whence have you come?” “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” (to Father) Mind your work, Father, and I’ll mind mine.

The Grand Inquisitor rendered into an Onegin Stanza

April 19, 2012 by Quin Finnegan at 12:26 am

Christ came, and seen by all Seville,
distracted good folk from feeding sticks
to a hot fire under an iron grill,
where lay well-done, screaming heretics.
Amidst His miracles passed the Roman
Catholic cardinal, erect gnomon
to His shadow, Grand Inquisitor,
finger pointed at the visitor.
“Is it thou? Be silent! Off to prison!
For fifteen hundred years, we ate bread
blessed by thou. Really now; the dread
spirit of dessert supplies the frisson
de plaisir we require. Enough tricks! We
prefer fire, crackling and whistling. Dixi!”