In the Studio of Joseph Baraz

Last week I attended a performance by Rick Newby, Wilbur Rehman, and Joseph Baraz. It took place in the studio of Baraz.

A former church, now Baraz's studio, it was a beautiful space filled with paintings, sculpture, poems (Newby), music (Rehman), and light, (Zeus.)

Revisiting the Vanishing Point

"Everybody can talk, but few can paint."

Marshall McLuhan in his introduction to THROUGH THE VANISHING POINT.

"The hand has no point of view."

When we paint in order to depict the world we paint abstractly.

Painting is the act of applying paint.

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What remains--the dried residue--lacks action.

Philosophy in a Can

Instant thought.

Just add ________________.

Is thought like the formulation of a glacier; or, more light lightning?
Glacial lightning
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Aphorisms mock the principles of reason while thriving entirely upon logic.
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Lichtenberg:
"Our sensibility is certainly NOT the measure of the beauty of the vast plan of nature."
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We can reach through water, through air, and light. Unless the water is too hot; or, turned to ice.
What then of frozen light in the form of a stone? Is matter light at rest? Still light?
Very, very slow light? ("Lighghtghghght.")
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Are there beings who can reach through stones
just as we can move through air

Panegyric To The Apothegm

I'm working on an essay about the aphoristic tradition in philosophy. Here are some preliminary notes:

Of syntomy I sing
Syntomy? (Conciseness. Brevity.)
An aphorism is a short philosophical sentence

Aphorisms are unruly logic. Lucid delirium.
Conceptual hooks: Pop tunes of thought.
Oops: Therefore I am.

Lichtenberg:
"The word itself is first encountered at the head of the so-called Corpus Hippocraticum: the collection of treatises, of which more than seventy are known, named after Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," and consisting of rules for good living and good health, brief reflections and other short writings of a kind which, from the description accorded them, we should now call aphoristic."

An aphorism is an entire essay condensed into an intellectual wink, a cogitative nudge.

Epigrams tend to be witty. Proverbs and maxims usually lack humor.
Lack of desire for words!
The fewer the words on the page
the deeper the dredge in the mind
--Perhaps: Anorlexia?--
Joseph Joubert:
"Ideas never lack for words. It is words that lack ideas."

Nietzsche La Rochefoucauld Chamfort Cioran Wittgenstein . . . Karl Krauss Pascal Canetti . . .

Gravestone prose.

Wittgenstein spoke of "whole clouds of philosophy" being condensed into linguistic drops.
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Aphorisms are weather reports from Hell. (In Heaven the weather is always the same. Except for when a new God comes to town and takes over with his gang of Angels.)

Poethics

I wish I had thought of this word.

Here's the link: http://jacketmagazine.com/32/p-osman.shtml

It's a great essay and, of course, I got it from Silliman's blog.

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How do words make war, or make peace?

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A question for our time. For any time.

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Back in Montana

Hiatus

I am in Las Vegas attending a secret conference with various cosmologists, catastrophists, and crustaceans.

Assuming I emerge from this meeting alive, I will post my account when the dust and debris have been cleared from the casino floor.

Until then, please enjoy the pre-apocalyptic music of the spheres that will begin ringing in your ears NOW!