This sums pretty much all of it up in one sentence

But this is the exalted melancholy of our fate, that every Thou in our world must become an it.



Good ole' Martin Buber, again.

If Chaos is the new black, then Buber is the new Chaos.

The person who experiences has not part in the world. For it is "in them" and not between them and the world that the experience arises.

The world has no part in the experience. It permits itself to be experienced, but has no concern in the matter. For it does nothing to the experience, and the experience does nothing to it.

Martin Buber, from I and Thou

The definition of the word

For years I have been contemplating, ever-so-subconsciously, the meaning behind the word melancholy, which has been at turns a true friend and an annoying and constant companion, as well as an overused cliche in recent months (or years)...

But the current hypnotist that I am engaged with, Roberto Bolano, has convinced me to revisit my previous attractions to said word and state. The book of his I am currently reading, By Night In Chile, is not only an engrossing and oddly fluid read, but it is packed with brilliant contemplations without seeming like a fowl-stuffed-with-too-much-sauce-and-other-mini-fowls one would find being served at a nervous man's thanksgiving.

In other words, it is ripe with wisdom but offers a somewhat miraculous space in which to breath in. And it is within these open spaces one finds Bolano offering us definitions like the one Friedrich Schelling had of melancholia, that of yearning for the infinite...

From such a perspective, I remember clearly now, a smell from childhood rushing past my nostrils on the crowded end-of-day bus, why melancholy meant so much to me at a certain point, and why it underpins but doesn't overwhelm the lives of so many people I know.

To yearn for the infinte is to feel your cells breathing and the desire to live through their inhales and exhales.

Of wind and the reminders of living dangerously

The wind's unusual gusto as of late, consistent only in its ability to second guess those objects and things that seem unmovable and static reminds me somehow of this passage from the book I am currently clawing, tearing, breathing through, The Winter Sun by Fanny Howe:

Be safe - you don't want to say these words to children. Instead, I remind them that Br'er Rabbit knew how to extract himself from the tar and brambles, so he could afford to get stuck to them.

Echoes of the possibilities of what life offers to me with smudged hand and dirty, grinning face every single day. Places of uncertainty, a call to action pushed from responsibility and tireless love for things-all-sizes-and-sorts, and a never-ending promise of instability that I can handle.

I haven't finished a book in one day, from start to finish, in a long, long time. But Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian is such a poetic, funny, sorrow-filled, celebratory, real, harrowing, uplifting, enlightening and just plain friggin' awesome read that I just had to eat it all up. Like really good fried chicken, free, at a rock show, (this actually did happen once) Alexie's tale is so exciting that you almost want to finish it quickly in case it disappears. One of those too-good-to-be-true books.

It's for "young adults", whatever that means, and yeah, it makes sense based on the fact that it's about high school and being 14. Yet it has notions and dreams and thoughts and sentiments that are worth pondering well into any age group or situation.

Definitely a great spending of some time. He mentions how much he loves KFC, so how can you dislike the guy? Oh man. I love Kentucky Fried Chicken. I know, I know, horrible...but true.

Current Reads

In typical fashion, I am at various stages of about 5 or 6 books right now. Tortilla Flat is sadly, almost coming to an end, the friends dispersing, Danny somewhere further than the rest. Another book I have just recently commenced is Zora Neale Hurston's, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was sent to me by my sister and is therefore worth reading in slow, fast and middle-of-the-road paced bouts. She has potentially the best taste in literature of anyone I know, and has introduced me to marvels like Middlemarch and good old what's-his-nut'z sonnets, so I am always elated when I get books from her.

Thus far it is an entertaining and interesting read. The main character in the novel, which was written in 1937 by Hurston, a black american woman, clearly struggles with a sense of identity and autonomy over her life and her circumstances. I'm not that far into it, but it's sad and reassuring and enlightening to know that regardless of the time period or political climate of people's situations, the human being will always have a conscious need to be seen and valued despite the crazy and completely ridiculous rules that those with powerful positions and lazy hearts apply to their lives and impose upon others.

Current Reads

I just got a really nice edition of Tortilla Flat, which is one of my all-time favourite books by John Steinbeck. He's not for everyone, as he shakes sentences down and strips them of all flourish and ornament. It would have been interesting to see Proust and this guy go at it, at a party, or your local bar.

However, like Bob Dylan or Bach, the man's got a knack for turning even the most hard-rock of phrase and the most simplistic seeming line into absolute poetry.

Here's one just for proof, you unbelievers: "The afternoon came down as imperceptibly as age comes to a happy man." This starts off Chapter V, entitled, "How St. Francis turned the tide and put a gentle punishment on Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria".

Oh, Steinbeck! How you woo me with such straightforward clarity!