Seamless Subsubsubjectivity
Quixote Voyage life southdeath, boat, cabs, train, steps, errante two men at once hybrid criollo doublings/splittings two lineages, two deaths, dreams and fantasies/reality Catriel fighting for both sides, the passion – time scarlet past and the present pink memory youth/age future/past.. solitude, county/city solitude North South history repetition and more repetition Derrida summer after summer. . . , certainty becomes unfixed and SOMETHING HAPPENS! And again! Choices are made to live….even in possible death – Quixote Eternity/Instant/mortality/immortality READING AND WRITING …..CREATING . . . . .
And Martín Fierro? The knife fighting gaucho a past lived with passion in face of the reality, not the abstraction of (physical) death
Arabian Nights (with pages missing!) tales ending only to begin again- fate – Dahlman subject of his fate. He takes the stairs, and something brushes his forehead! Bat/death AWAKE! Flavour of all things monstrous Eight days also eight hundred years, like old man outside time. Cab- A Room that Was not His Own. Cell Well cave. Virginia Wolf. The body. Death is not abstract but always part of our present. Dahl = valley?
Symmetries and anachronisms of reality. Cab – City and house public/private memory yellow light interior courtyards.
Cab- South = older and stabler world almost secret courtyard, the familiar old in the unfamiliar new
Café illusory contact with cat pane of glass transparencies and reflections. Time in Successiveness/The Eternity of The Instant. Magical Arabian Nights challenge to evil to the torment of the spirit/body
Train and the wonder of Being, Scherazade’s superfluous miracles. Wondrous fact of Being! Allowed himself Simply to Live!
The body and memory bouillon
Two Men at Once! Voyage/Imprisonment. Spirit/body. World/Nostalgic Literary Knowledge!
Rushing train White to Yellow to Red Sun. The plains and time transfigure the train/life. All Vast and Intimate – Secret Perfect/Hostile solitude. Accepting the different station, the uncanny curve in life’s trajectory to the
Unfamiliar
The Subject accepts the adventure Walking slowly inhaling with the grave happiness the smell of clover.
RED passion of past sorry architecture Paul et Virginie naturaleza/sociedad, The doubling of the owner, unfamiliar/familiar back to sanitorium To Add Yet Another Event to That Day = Subject
Youth/Age THE GAUCHO/HISTORY POLISHED AS A STONE BY WATER BY A SAYING BY GENERATIONS OF HUMANKIND OUTSIDE TIME IN A SORT OF ETERNITY
Darkness smells sounds Something brushes his face bread/life – past, indigenous youth labourer/present criollo writer
Arabian Nights to block out reality They are feeling their oats and He Is Named
No longer an accidental face
Insults as though he were far away from life? Exaggeration of drunkenness fierce and mocking
SOMETHING UNFORSEEABLE HAPPENS – The South decides he must accept the challenge – instinct and action life not allowed LIFE NOT ALLOWED IN SANITORIUM
ENOUGH STALLING! ENGAGE!
No hope, no fear creating his fate – rejecting One death unaware in the sanatorium in favour of life and choice with death as part of life CATRIEL/FIERRO THE ROMANTIC DEATH/The WRITER In A Room of his own creation CREATING . . .
OPTICS
January 2022. We are sitting in the classroom of a vacant building when a figure shouldering several heavy plastic bags and coughing violently passes the open door. We are mildly aware that this must be one of UBC’s ‘other’ residents heading for the restroom and continue with the class.
When we later take our usual restroom break, however, we are horrified when we hear more intense hacking coming from a bathroom stall. The intruder is probably homeless and shooting up in there! The retching must indicate COVID! We’ll be contaminated with untold viruses! The trespasser might become violent or die on us! Business is much faster than usual.
Safely back at our sanitized desks, we reflect (sort of): we don’t want an overdose near our eco-friendly, tech-enhanced classrooms. Optics affect the bottom line. Besides, isn’t there a COVID policy in effect on campus?
So we call the ‘campus cowboys’ to escort the sick, likely dangerous visitor out of our almost empty building. The answer is shocking, even insulting: security cannot do anything about an individual making use of a public washroom. Ridiculous! We shake our heads and throw up our arms but soon go back to our computer screens, headphones now filtering out humanity.
So much for UBC’s strategy to “cultivate a diverse community that creates and sustains equitable and inclusive campuses.” Has the meaning of ‘public’ changed? No, it has always been this way.
‘Normal’ be damned!
OR
Look forward to more pandemics.