Anxiety, taste, discretion, and the fugitive caesura in blogging

More or less, everything

that can be done to dis-

sipate the mass and gloss

of the invasive cistern

seems to have been ex-

ecuted with poise. I'm

not so sure that the rem-

edy hasn't more than un-

derscored the anxiety to

achieve that end. I won-

der how impractical it

would have been to en-

fold the chilly intruder

in rustic materials, and

restore the fertile mig-

ration of shadows to an

alcove, respected.

..

For the beauty of the al-

cove is not the work of

some clever device ..

though we know perfectly

well it is mere shadow,

we are overcome with the

feeling that in this

small corner of the at-

mosphere there reigns

complete and utter si-

lence, that here in the

darkness immutable tran-

quillity holds sway.

I wish a text, even a

scrolling one such as a

blog, could exploit the

gainful amenities of jap-

onesque architecture, as

nourishing hiatuses. Beth

Nelson has gone the fur-

thest, in my observation,

in exploiting picture ed-

iting and layout to this

positive advantage, and

this spiritual refuge of

composition is profound

in photographers cited

in Context. 

The communication of the

peace of adding nothing

is past remarking in music;

anyone who revisited Va,

pensiero here the other

day, will have seen that.

In an epistolary blog, the

challenge is considerable

to be able to say, almost

if not completely unliter-

ally, draw peace from this

space. Adjustments acquire

an aura of mood swings, in-

congruous pleadings; a sus-

picious advertisement.

I agree with Tanizaki and

with Terestchenko, who has

written of this as well as

exhibiting it in his work,

that the well-framed mys-

tery is no mere void. It

is an irony of the argu-

mentative mode, that this

can be achieved one of two

ways - discoursing to the

adoptive, or adapting the

essay to the sonata form,

so that in place of the

caesura's expressive si-

lence there can have been 

a beginning, middle, and 

end of some formal resolu- 

tion. But that remains, 

audible, space-occupying: 

a restaurant.  

That compromise, the promise

of the essay form, is still the

most rational where the writer

and the reader may be crossing

paths, but not necessarily, pur-

poses. A visitor is likelier in-

terested in the stimulation of

light; his host may be trying

to turn away from the fray where

it emerges. This is why I do

respect argument, not to turn

away from light or implore its

remission, but to savour its 

lenity in the end.

Tanizaki Junichiro

In praise of shadows

Thomas J. Harper and

Edward G. Seidensticker

  translation

Leete's Island Books, 1977©