cross-hatch

caffeine = life after death in a casino money cage

found out tonight that my 25 year old cousin almost died in the Ignacio Reservation casino, working in the money cage she collapsed of dehydration and was unable to be revived, taken to hospital where she finally regained consciousness. too much caffeine, stress and late nights. she has this annoying habit of calling me Jo-Jo. I can't express how much I hate this sudden nickname. these cousins never wanted to play with us, to hang out with my brother and I when we were little. these cousins who think it's funny to give our mom crap and I being, well, more than slightly protective of my mom... just bugs me. she wakes up. my mom calls to make sure she's okay and the first thing she asks my mom is to make sure she says hi to jo-jo. reminds me, makes me realize that I can't take lightly her sudden affinity for me, this jo-jo she thinks I am, this jo-jo I am to her. I don't know how to reckon it, to rectify. I don't understand who I am to her. a money cage in a small town, in a reservation casino. little water and too much caffeine. 25. guess those red bull will give you wings, eh, and I don't mean that laughing. life is too bloody weird. too heavy and too light.

line-scape

fleshword

next to nothing

Haven't written anything here for a few. Thought I'd add a bit here.

So my obsession with Beckett isn't going to stop any time soon; I'm not working toward making my ideas about Beckett and his poetics involving the 'void' into a book. We'll see how it goes.

I also finally figured out how to revise one of my manuscripts (my thesis); I've put down my ideas and will hopefully start towards that revison soon.

Also, I've finally started my new manuscript.

All at once. Plus, I'm working to get all my Yeats reading done. I just want to get the essay done for that class so I can focus on my book on Beckett, and my two poetry manuscripts.

gargoyle fountain

Watt's: Can I get a witness

Thought you might be interested in seeing some of the research I've been doing and how the images below mesh with this research and drafting. So, I've filled in some of the other posts with some of my draft I've been working on.

Also relevent is further notes about witness, which continues on from the quote below about Knott & Watt:

“But what kind of witness was Watt, weak now of eye, hard of hearing, and with even the more intimate senses greatly below par?
“A needy witness, an imperfect witness.
“The better to witness, the worse to witness.
“That with is need he might witness its absence.
“That imperfect he might witness it ill.
“That Mr Knott might never cease, but ever almost cease.” (203)

And, also: “When Mr Knott moved in the midst of his garden, he did so as one unacquainted with its beauties, looking at the trees, looking at the bushes, looking at the vegetables, as though they, or he, had been created in the course of the night” (203)

witness: Beckett's Watt & Mr Knott

Not being clever; just a quote from Beckett's novel, Watt:

"And Mr Knott, needing nothing if not, one, not to need, and, two, a witness to his not needing, of himself knew nothing. And so he needed to be witnessed. Not that he might know, no, but that he might not cease" (202-203).

close-up of Bosch's Christ

Also striking to me that Beckett uses this particular image; interesting eh, that the figure demands to be looked in the eye? And further curious how perfectly Irish this figure is? Hm. Hm.

A quote I found describing this painting is also curious:

“Four torturers surround Christ, pressing towards him, while he looks out at us. Bosch’s picture emphasizes the contrast between the brutality of his tormentors and the mind suffering Christ."

[...]

“Its emotional intensity is achieved in a variety of ways. The half-length figures create a sense of proximity, and the lack of recession in the painting makes it appear claustrophobic. From the centre of the picture Christ seems to appeal to us to share his sufferings.”

(emphasis mine, from The National Gallery website: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk ---painting number NG4744).

Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns) by Hieronymous Bosch

All of the below is quoted from the draft of my paper/book/chapter on Beckett's novel Watt:

----------------------------

This curious duality of narrator being and not being like Watt comes up in another image and twist of language. In this section, the narrator describes Watt as Christ-like, and uses an image of Christ in a painting by Bosch (hanging in Trafalgar Square) as reference to how Watt looked. And through a turn of phrase, likens himself to the image and thus to Watt. The language does the same as earlier, allowing the narrator to become Watt, while at the same time asserting the narrator’s ‘actual’ existence and his authorial status; which in turn, forces Watt’s ‘actualness’ of being, and both of their non-being at the same time.

This moment occurs in the narrator and Watt’s meeting in the ‘void.’ This passage reads:

"His face was bloody, his hands also, and thorns were on his scalp. (His resemblance, at that moment, to the Christ believed by Bosch, then hanging in Trafalgar Square, was so striking, that I remarked it.) And at the same instant suddenly I felt as though I was standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I, and the very birds tossing in the wind, so that I looked at my hands, and felt my face, and glossy skull, with an anxiety as real as unfounded. (For if anyone, at that time, could be truly said not to resemble the Christ supposed by Bosch, then handing in Trafalgar Square, I flatter myself it was I.)" (159)

Again the narrator aligns himself with Watt; however, what is strikingly different about this episode is the dramatic realization of his similarity to Watt, and Watt’s situation. At first, Watt is separate, a “person” or thing to be described—Watt is Christ-like—not fully man—Watt is akin to an image of Christ, further removed from actual reality…when suddenly, Watt becomes the narrator’s double: “And suddenly I felt as though I was standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I”… (159). By asserting Watt’s likeness as that of an image in a painting, the narrator is disassociating himself from Watt—no longer is the narrator considered within the text, no longer is he a character trapped in textual reality, a mere textual fabrication. He is the narrative authority; after all, he saw this painting, this “real” painting (“Christ Mocked”) by a real painter (Hieronymous Bosch) in a real location (The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, London). Thus, through this disassociation from Watt, the narrator aligns himself with the author.

However, the switch is full circle via the mirror: “I felt as though I was standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I, and the very birds tossing in the wind” (159). Hence, the narrator’s panic, to prove to himself that he is indeed not Watt and is indeed something “actual”—not an image, like that in a painting. He does what only a ‘real’ person could; he notes: “I looked down at my hands, and felt my face, and glossy skull, with an anxiety as real as unfounded” (159). Unfounded, yes, because he could not really be like Watt; thus he asserts the validity of his emotion: the anxiety was “real.” Then, parenthetically, he quickly asserts that he, of course, does not at all resemble the Christ-image in Trafalgar Square—which only perpetuates his textual bind. Through this assertion, he attempts to, again, disassociate himself from Watt, but again, through this assertion he only inscribes himself more completely within the text. And having finally submerged within the text—in the textual landscape, is able to discover the ‘void’ and is able to find Watt in this space between.

jaded