Floruit, floret, floreat!

Cheltonia's children cry... Time flees, 17 years, 19, a blink just, a second, a fate - and not a bad one at all actually. Possibly, maybe even likelt just one out of an infinity, there possibly, maybe even likely is an infinity of infinities. There for sure are strange harmonies, breathtaking beauty here in this ice cold world, in this wild, ever untamed experience of being here. Time flees, tempus fugit.

Late empire decadence revisited

There is a famous quote by Henry James about the meaning of the First World War, here its essence:

 "The plunge of civilization into this abyss of blood and darkness... is a thing that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be, with whatever abatement, gradually bettering".

I rather think that this mad, bloody circus of an era gives away the effects of Washington consensus and the full liberalization and deregulation of capital movements. The sobering effects of the world wars have gradually worn off, the central meaning of the resolution of them was not human rights and liberal democracy but making the world again safe for destructive, blind, ever corrupt, ever corrupting, ever corrosive capitalism. And so here we go again.

Appi, ma vajan armastust

Those furious affections of earlier times chime ever more faintly, that certainty of burning desire, whether fulfilled or not was the test of living once. Now, having burned out of that fierce fire I still feel, I still am convinced of love as being the measure of us. More protective love now for my children, less burning desire for other minds, other bodies. But still both there, love in its many forms, desire in its single purpose, I am still living, still desiring.

Pray not for Gutiérrez

Nor for Boudin torn to pieces.

Oh, pray for a stubborn warm good woman, my mother, dead at 94 years, happy to go with the Pietist rites, happy to finally let go, proportionally, traditionally. Much left unsaid, much left unsettled. But tones of voices, touches by the end, the loyalty of being there. For the love that was ever unearned that saved my life in those vicious evil storms. A reconciliation of sorts, far short of what there should have been, but a reconciliation, my ice cold heart at least partially melted. And the proportion of that dignified going, into death as into life. Not a cold going of it. A reconcialiation was achieved, a softness of touch, of heart.

Things fall apart

The 1930's are clearly back in fashion, an ever increasingly repeated theme on this blog of 20 years. I really think there should be a certain limit to all pragmatism and centrism. Like passionate convictions, incomprehensible terms for many people I'm sure both conviction and passion. There really are hard limits, no negotiations, come hell or high water. This is how history is made, standing fast or endlessly retreating. And that's why our pragmatic, technocratic "liberal" foundations are so weak. These positions are not passionately, irrationally held.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

If there ever was a writer who made me despair of my skills... Tom Stoppard was such a joyous revelation. Not solemn, not pompous, light and deadly, and deadly funny, effortless. He reminds me of Austen in a strange way, the same kind of steely glittering there. Arcadia at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, all that brilliance hiding a tragedy, a deep serious loss. Being engaged on all levels, intellectual, emotional, historical. One of the wonders of the modern world.

Looking for a Saltire pin

Scotland was a revelation, beautiful and kind of Nordic. The atmosphere was clearly different from Ireland and England. Still not a fan of the SNP though, their brand of incompetently bullying their way through, and not even succeeding. But I noticed how shockingly cold towards England I now feel, with the good bits, and they really are pretty damn good bits, now totally drowned in Brexit, in the unfathomably corrupt media, in the general unspeakable stench of capital and corruption that is the metropolitan UK. Scotland will be so much better off without that utter shitshow.

Orwell on Dickens

No secular saints (nor religious either) in this world - I well know Orwell certainly was not one. Deeply flawed, a man of his dark times in so many things indeed. But reading his heavenly prose, his humane thoughts... One imagines him rather like he imagined Dickens. Two free intelligences.

Phony Beatlemania

The West is trembling, our foundations are shaking. Christian-humanist values are giving in for the toxic, poisonous, totally blind billionaires and giant corporations sowing hatred and discord with their deregulated, unlimited money. Adding to this the ever more plentiful of external enemies simultaneously throwing gasoline to the flames - but still, they could do nothing much without this internal rot, this current shakiness, this utterly plutocratic, corrupt shaking. Interesting times for sure. Would no doubt be good if the current elites, if these vaguely liberalish technocrats would know what to believe in, to have an unpragmatic faith in liberal democracy, in liberalism. I certainly have no doubts in that direction, not maybe totally happy but totally happily joining this particular battle. No shades of grey here.

I was a rock

Just random surfing this Sunday morning. And suddenly a song bringing back memories of my largely barren youth, not so painful this time (of many times), not anxious, mostly just resigned and slightly sad. I was a wall, protected by my books and my poetry, gazing through the window to the streets below, for only too many burning years. In the past, in the past tense now, no longer a rock, no longer an island - a kind of a success story, no, a true success story. But the path could have shorter been, to quote myself...

Passionate intensity

A wild unsafe ride is this experience. We have had a moment of (largely unsteady) progress in our most recent history and even that at a horrible cost. Now there are atavistic forces, atavistic emotions rising again in our animal minds. Yes, we are not entitled to perfect pessism or perfect optimism but it seems so obvious that storm clouds are now gathering, that yet again there is a rough beast slouching towards Betlehem. There really is no real security for us here, and likely never will be. 

Garp 35 years later

I must have been 18 at most, probably a couple of years younger. The multiple sexual bits were absolutely the most fascinating parts - themes like parenthood, marriage, relationships of all kinds, feminism kind of flew over or were just half-noticed. But it was a strong,  experience, varied, fiercely tolerant, if not of intolerance, of narrowness. All these years after one still approves and enjoys, a great humanistic text. I'm sure it does not tick all the correct boxes - and at the same time it actually does if seen with generosity, with imagination, with the selfsame attitude the text itself celebrates.

Macaulay's prose, Macaulay's world

A suitable summer holiday pastime: reading Macaulay's essays - that English rings and echoes, robust and clear, majestic. And not just an estethetic joy but intellectual whether you agree with all those often rash, often mistaken judgements and encapsulations. But with many of them you actually do agree. Obviously a man of his time which was racist, eurocentric, imperialist, and so he. But there is another note there, of trust in progress and enlightenmentm, in honest intellectual enquiry, a note of confidence in liberalism however narrow whig kind of variety. There is something very inviting in that attitude, in that confidence. The defects are temporal, the strengths for all time. We lack that confidence and that honesty now and have lacked for a long time. Has that been for the better?

Dutch "realistic" art of the 17th century

A great varied tradition for which my absolutely amateur musings will do no justice. My observations are scattered and my knowledge scant. But realistic those still paintings aren't, they are mystical, inexplicable. I have loved and been fascinated by them since boyhood, of that silence, more fantastic that any surrealism, any abstraction. One could lose oneself in contemplation of all that eternity.

Pane tähele

Times are quick, ever threatening, dark clouds abound. My first years occurred under an even greater danger but then there were miraculously much milder winds, certain defining sensations, an essential experience of youth of growing into a trust. Which seen from this moment was obviously rather ephemeral, basically just an illusion. But it was a huge privilege nevertheless, regardless. Damn the torpedoes. And now no absentmindedness should follow any defeats hereafter. We must witness, and we must fight.