Saturday commute lxvii: attempting heaven's coast

I'm glad not to expect

to get beyond a delight-

ed shock, on seeing in

someone's house I might

visit, the little snap-

shot framed on a night

table or a desk, of a

moment of play such as

this from the beach. My

surprise amuses me, as

I know it must mark my

years, and memories of 

times when this would

be unthinkable. Does

it take boldness to be

happy nowadays? What
would it be like, if
not?

         In a diary for Heaven's Coast, Mark Doty
         wrote during Wally's illness: 

         I have this feeling that there's a word
         behind my life I can't quite say, a word
         that's pulling at everything, a word
         that's keeping me from writing because
         it's just too hard to say it.

One recognises a fierce, tenacious
literature that's in these often
campy little keepsakes, right away.
They portray the defeat of morbid-
ity, in games with which a whole
life came into being by destroy-
ing it. I always wince, still, at
the excessive privilege of setting
eyes on private memories of Kauai
or Cape Cod, but they enhance my
respect, erasing any envy. I never
feel left out, somehow, but let in.

      

                     


















     So you saw, then,
     Hercule, that my
     shoulder framed
     this hand to be
     anyone's, not
     just mine.

     Never just yours,
     Auguste, or ever
     just anyone's. 

Mark Doty
Heaven's Coast
  A memoir
Harper Collins, 1996©

On being under-led and knowing better

     

  A persistent characteristic

  of any perceived emergency

  is its tendency to bait and

  switch a fellow's focus, in-

  to absorption with pressing

  momentary details. There is

  no wonder, then, how celeb-

  rants of a status quo ante

  exploit an anxiety for the

  familiar, even maladjusted

  and unjust, conditions lately

  interrupted. The President

  has never been able to sus-

  tain his progressive obliga-

  tion while covering his ass.

The syndrome of being under-led 
and knowing better is familiar 

to the condition of awakening,

which is the natural state of

the free life. Even Ayn Rand

knew this, she just saw this

as a predatory posture. Now a

progressive encounters the pred-

ator in American political life

and needs to accept this oppor-

tunity as found consideration,

in the path of leadership he 

has chosen; for the logic of

anxiety has drawn the predator

out with the most generous can-

dour. And yet the President con-

tinues to embrace the predator's

pretense of meaning well, and

the condition of awakening is

thwarted thus by forfeit.

                     A sustainable critical dis- 

                     tance, that touchstone of

                     what is sometimes called,

                     the cultivated life, is

                     impossible without the em-

                     pathy of progressivism. It

                     is always timely for the

                     progressive to resist the

                     seductions of emergency,

                     which for him is nothing

                     other than the natural dis-

                     order of things.

History so large

                            

This evening, there will be an op-

portunity to listen to the first

President of the United States, ev-

er to seek election on the basis

of securing actual rights which did

not exist until he fought for them

and won them. There had never been

a right to health care in this na-

tion until he secured it as a mat-

ter of law. There had never been a

right to serve in the armed services

until he secured it as Commander in

Chief and with permanent legislation, 

irrespective of gender preference.

There is still not now a universal 

right to marry in the United States,

and he is the first President ever to

call for it and to campaign for it.

At the same time, it is striking, that

he is implacably opposed by one Party

which vows to destroy each of these

rights, and that their policies still

draw mesmerised attention. Who is anim-

ated in this land, every day on get-

ting out of bed, by the prospect of

destroying someone's life as a matter

of political satisfaction? 

There is, indeed, a candidate for the

Presidency who is willing to wear our

shame and to promulgate it, zealously.

I am thankful there is Barack Obama to

defeat him, and I cannot conceive of

a more worthy human act.

iii    Francisco Lachowski

iv     Andrew Cooper

v      André Boleyn

viii  Hedi Slimane, photography

x      Stonewall Inn, 1969

xiii  Clément Chabernaud

xv    Anderson Weisheimer

Suppose they were just to say, We are not afraid

 The nature of our res-

 tiveness is an absence

 of security, yet much

 more prevalently an ab-

 sence of fear. This is

 the gift of a release

 from exceptionalism: a

 restoration of power. 

    

iii  Philip Johnson

      Johnson residence, New Canaan

iv   Matas

Living for one's soul

I read some remarks of Michael's

in The New York Times last night,

and I thought of a man who has

lived for his soul. It was how we

were taught to create our work, 

without putting it into so many

words. It has been a magnificent,

fortunate weekend: there is the

exciting new study of James, and

a revival of a beautiful life of

Horace, by a traveling friend of

Chatwin's. Theirs are voices that

will go on forever, and have fig-

ured continuously here, inexhaus-

tible as they are.

The Fall will be rich, with such

resources, and not taken from us;

you can feel the gathering in the

scent of the page, the scratch of

the nib in the notebook of "the

gentleman scholar," the burn of a

passable Sherry in a preceptor's

study, hexameters unraveling em-

bedded warmth of daytimes to re-

member. 

And now in a short piece, Michael 

Graves has written so well of the 

recklessness of our pursuit of the 

humane communion, as an extract of 

the human hand. This, in answer to

Horace's doubt of purpose in his

ode to a wealthy lawyer, Torquatus,

is one of the prettiest things I

have read in a long time, I am not

surprised to say.

   i.

   Who knows whether tomorrow the gods will have

   Anything more to give than they have given?

   What you can give to your own dear heart today

   Will not fall into the clutch of your heir tomorrow.

   ii.

   Who knows if Jove who counts our score

   Will toss us in a morning more?

   What with your friend you nobly share

   At least you rescue from your heir.

   iii.

   Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add

   The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?

   Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had

   The fingers of no heir will ever hold.

Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae

   tempora di superi?

Cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico

   quae dederis animo.

  

ii   George King

iii  Michael Graves

      Temple of Juno, Paestum

Michael Graves

Architecture and the Lost Art

  of Drawing

The New York Times

September 1, 2012

Horace

  Ode to Torquatus

  iv, 7

Translation 

  David Ferry (i)

  op. cit.

  Samuel Johnson (ii)

  A.E. Housman (iii)

Peter Levi

Horace

  A Life

Duckworth, 1997©

I.B. Tauris & Co., Ltd, 2012©

 

Aren't you glad you waited?

How well we know, it can't have been easy. Anything you want, they said, as if they saw you coming.

Something told you, this thing is going to get better, I just know it is, and I'll know when it's right for me.

         

                      

     Good play. 

iv  Benjamin Eidem