nondualism for rooftops

I had a conversation with a college friend on the rooftop this Saturday where I wrongly described Daoism as involving nondualism – I think I was thinking of Zen Buddhism, koans, and such. Daoism has more to do with going with the flow right?

Anyways, I’m reading an interview with Garth Greenwell which reminded me of the mistake in the conversation, and a quote from Bertolt Brecht that my Modern Architecture professor Joseph Masheck brought up a couple times in class. that was….ok maybe it was actually from F. Scott Fitzgerald instead oops…but y’know the one – about keeping two ideas in your head. I swear Brecht had one though that Masheck used in a disparaging way when thinking about a historical American mindset surrounding moral truths. How we couldn’t hold more than one in mind –

Forget about all that, Brecht has so many other sexy quotes:

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

“No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.”

a lot of these quotes are uncomfortably pertinent: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/26853.Bertolt_Brecht

Dipping everywhere, back to Greenwell talking about logistics and the seriousness of imagining a world in all its details. Communicating the physicality of how bodies move during sex scenes. And paying serious attention to logistics in all art. 🖼 I’m a mess, I over-abstract, pare things down to be opaque, I don’t know how to do details. I reference as a substitute. I’m bad about details!

Alexander Chee had some advice. Or god, I hope it was him. Anyways: Write one sentence that you feel is absolutely true. And then write another.

I think there’s some writer or serious person I’ve read who really disdains the word “anyways” – um. Anyways, I –

“We falsify the world in order to try to make it accommodate the simplicity of our moral tools” – Greenwell talking about writing I think. Writing to figure things out. he puts all this a lot better.

An Interview with Garth Greenwell

I used to think Garth Greenwell was like an old writer, part of the canon, or whatever – but I think I was thinking of Graham Green lol who was mentioned in Donnie Darko. My mind is a terrible office.

i love her

Advertisement

Movie Marathon 2

Movie Marathon 2!!!

I’m not sure if I should be calling these marathons, I mean each movie is distinct and different from the last, but here are the movies I’ve watched tonight alone:

Donnie Darko (again)

Devil’s Path

Slacker

and last and arguably best: Dead Man…

All of them were amazing though in their own unique respects. Devil’s Path had a nice plot with really cool elements of mystery and a connection at the end that tied the whole movie together, I did skip portions of the movie though. Slacker was just utterly fulfilling, I don’t think I’ve ever watched a film with so many characters, and what’s weird is that even though it jumps around, the characters aren’t shallow, their viable and strong, each person adding to the overall halcyon mood of the movie. If Richard Linklater was trying to convey the amicable environment of 1990s Austin, I think he did it. It provides hope for humanity! Haha, the fact that it’s so casual makes a society like that seem actually possible, I just can’t see that here where I live. That’s why I want to visit Austin…I wonder if it’s still like that? Keeping an eye out for Boyhood, which is getting REALLY good reviews. Anyways, yes DEAD MAN. Film by Jim Jarmusch 1995 with Johnny Depp. The whole story is set in black and white, and the filming fades in and out of blackness with a lot of transitions. This was a hero’s journey, when watching this I couldn’t help but draw on archetypes; Nobody as the Sage, Bill as the Outcast variant of the Hero, Colin Wilson as the Villain and embodiment of evil. I tried to pinpoint the exact moment Bill turns into a killer, and I don’t really know, maybe if I watched it again. I thought at first it was after he went to take a piss, but that doesn’t sound like a very transformative experience, so I’m thinking maybe the night before when Nobody leaves him. All this literary analysis is stemming from Dante’s Inferno, something we’re reading in English right now. Three beasts, three hunters. Rivers, contrasts between Christianity and Shamanistic religions. Bill sharing the same name as the famous English poet William Blake was a detail whose significance I haven’t picked up yet. The wound he has from the bullet that went through Thela is also important. Theme’s of death, the afterlife, corruptive love, greed, morality, and the battle between good and evil. Also character development of Bill is extraordinary. The markings on his face, isolation from both societies (West and Indian), fawn scene with the vertical blood marking….There are also characters I’m not too sure about, like the three people at the campfire, one dressed as a women, the fireman from the beginning, and, well everyone on a certain level, some more than others.