tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post6369686954543804418..comments2024-03-07T12:57:35.296-05:00Comments on Varieties of Unreligious Experience: The Enormous RoomConrad H. Rothhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-29427625291266441812007-02-25T18:52:00.000-05:002007-02-25T18:52:00.000-05:00Thanks, Lori; hope to see you here again.Thanks, Lori; hope to see you here again.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-91361413486355558232007-02-25T13:38:00.000-05:002007-02-25T13:38:00.000-05:00Only sporadically, but always uncomfortably, insom...Only sporadically, but always uncomfortably, insomniac. <BR/><BR/>I love how you take those irritating grains of sleepless sand and spawn pearls. I've written a few poems when sleep won't come -- my own slight effort to wring something good from insomnia's sandpaper abrasions.<BR/><BR/>(Found you via MountShang, and am glad I did.)Lori Witzelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-79339853044131504882007-02-21T10:18:00.000-05:002007-02-21T10:18:00.000-05:00insomnia is a rotten, rotten disease. there is no...insomnia is a rotten, rotten disease. there is nothing worse than not being able to sleep. my commiserations.Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-52271362675803176752007-02-21T09:05:00.000-05:002007-02-21T09:05:00.000-05:00DEDICATIONYe wavering forms draw near again as eve...DEDICATION<BR/>Ye wavering forms draw near again as ever<BR/>When ye long since moved past my clouded eyes.<BR/>To hold you fast, shall I this time endeavour?<BR/>Still does my heart that strange illusion prize?<BR/>Ye crowd on me! 'Tis well! Your might assever<BR/>While ye from mist and murk around me rise.<BR/>As in my youth my heart again is bounding,<BR/>Thrilled by the magic breath your train surrounding.<BR/><BR/>Ye bring with you glad days and happy faces.<BR/>Ah, many dear, dear shades arise with you;<BR/>Like some old tale that Time but half erases,<BR/>First Love draws near to me and Friendship too.<BR/>The pain returns, the sad lament retraces<BR/>Life's labyrinthine, erring course anew<BR/>And names the good souls who, by Fortune cheated<BR/>Of lovely hours, forth from my world have fleeted.<BR/><BR/>They do not hear the melodies I'm singing,<BR/>The souls to whom my earliest lays I sang;<BR/>Dispersed that throng who once to me were clinging,<BR/>The echo's died away that one time rang.<BR/>Now midst an unknown crowd my grief is ringing,<BR/>Their very praise but gives my heart a pang,<BR/>While those who once my song enjoyed and flattered,<BR/>If still they live, roam through the wide world scattered.<BR/><BR/>And I am seized with long-unwonted yearning<BR/>Toward yonder realm of spirits grave and still.<BR/>My plaintive song's uncertain tones are turning<BR/>To harps aeolian murmuring at will.<BR/>Awe binds me fast; tear upon tear falls burning,<BR/>My stern heart feels a gentle, tender thrill;<BR/>What I possess, as if far off I'm seeing,<BR/>And what has vanished, now comes into being.<BR/><BR/>J.W. von Goethe: Introitus to Faust (transl. by George Madison Priest, http://www.levity.com/alchemy/faust01.html)Erikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08731308036195016808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-4853882103377112382007-02-21T00:59:00.000-05:002007-02-21T00:59:00.000-05:00Ram: You're quite right. No to Ballard, yes to Bor...Ram: You're quite right. No to Ballard, yes to Borges. How well you know me!<BR/><BR/>Shawn: I am not spared the discomfort, alas. Is it perhaps like reading the Varieties?<BR/><BR/>Robert: thank heavens for your eternally unpredictable responses!<BR/><BR/>Ashley: thanks. Actually I find that the sporadism of my dreaming helps me to remember it--I tend to wake up in the middle.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-38143548131014119102007-02-21T00:26:00.000-05:002007-02-21T00:26:00.000-05:00Good God, Mr. Roth. I'd love to meet a girl who th...Good God, Mr. Roth. I'd love to meet a girl who thinks like you.<BR/><BR/>The last sentence of the post spoke to me particularly. There are several girls with whom I have been involved that I still cannot put out of my mind. I ceased trying to do so long ago. It seems the only thing to do is reassure oneself of the vitality and importance of the present. Do not live in the past, for it is gone forever, and when the spectres of past experience float in the darkness smile upon them as a learning experience, a class taken in this Great University.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11441032952952378525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-63433060155522732582007-02-20T22:27:00.000-05:002007-02-20T22:27:00.000-05:00A new reader of your blog--very much enjoying it.I...A new reader of your blog--very much enjoying it.<BR/><BR/>I've never slept through a single night in my life and never hope to. <BR/><BR/>My sleep is so sporadic that I rarely dream (or, perhaps, remember) anything at all. <BR/><BR/>The only dream I continually have is of walking in the middle of a dark river with other folks similarly interested in an end. <BR/><BR/>My other dreams are so mundane they make me ashamed of my inner life.Ashleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087525094694077687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-41452244644032355792007-02-19T17:34:00.000-05:002007-02-19T17:34:00.000-05:00Conrad, what an interesting thought for a February...Conrad, what an interesting thought for a February Monday. I was talking at lunch to an eminent Musician and his wife on the subject of composing; and yes he does have to get up in the night to write it down, tune after tune simply pours out of him from dreams. <BR/><BR/>And as for; <BR/><BR/>....Love unrequited…this takes one to a lighter hearted scene:<BR/><BR/>“For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich – <BR/>Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage – <BR/>And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations – <BR/>They're a ravenous horde – and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.<BR/>And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon);<BR/> …”etc<BR/><BR/>Gilbert <BR/> <BR/>With apologies to you and the Lord Chancellor.<BR/><BR/>http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/iolanthe/web_op/iol20.html<BR/><BR/>and as for the palliasse…..<BR/><BR/>http://www.warof1812.ca/bedding.htm<BR/>“Every pair of soldiers was supplied with a palliasse or bed case by the Barracks Master to sleep upon. Each palliasse measured 6 ft by 7 ½ ft (183 cm x 229 cm) and was made out of two pieces of ticking osnaburg. To show government ownership, the palliasse were "stamped each with durable marking stuff (G.R) in each corner." Thirty-six pounds (16.33 kg) of straw were supplied for filling each palliasse and replenished every three months. Typically palliasses were filled through length-way slits in the centre top side, were either tied or buttoned closed after the palliasse was full. When not in use as mattresses "the palliasse which is to be doubled once from the length" with the bolster inside. <BR/>I filled my palliasse with straw and spent many adolescent dreams upon it in 1965; no, not especially comfortable and can’t remember the dreams in detail. Wish I could!<BR/><BR/>As a Lord Chancellor, also in a wretched condition, said; "....and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, <BR/>and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover;<BR/>But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long – ditto, ditto my song – and thank goodness they're both of them over!Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00533678970029159873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-49975991323604768452007-02-19T13:13:00.000-05:002007-02-19T13:13:00.000-05:00I dream of rooms and hallways I've known, building...I dream of rooms and hallways I've known, buildings usually remembered in the wrong city. And how they might be navigated on foot, or by a fly, or by a rubber ball thrown very hard, or by a laser and a set of well-placed mirrors. The people I've known are there, mismatched with the places I've known them. They melt imperceptibly between ages, identities and genders, maybe to spare me the discomfort of dwelling on any one of them for long.<BR/><BR/>It is something like the feeling of reading a miscellany. Pleasant and unpleasant sensations, hints trailing off in different directions, and a mild sense of confusion at the end.Shawn Thurishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09594444415956471021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-47774820681248947422007-02-19T06:40:00.000-05:002007-02-19T06:40:00.000-05:00When I saw this title, I thought it might be a ref...When I saw this title, I thought it might be a reference to the J. G. Ballard story of the same name…until I realized that (1) the story is in fact called ‘The Enormous <I>Space</I>’ and (2) I certainly wouldn’t have had you down as a J. G. Ballard fan. Borges, yes, but not Ballard.Raminagrobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12008850757226541475noreply@blogger.com