Sunday, September 08, 2002
 

Yesterday's Baurdrillard was unexpectedly popular, prompting a number of you readers to e-mail me, accusing me of spreading tides of depression and asking if I had considered medication or counseling, among other things. Since I interpret that as a positive response, I thought I'd share two thoughts today (before I go back to hauling literary butt).

First, a quotation from Osip Mandelstam (who died on a forced march to Sibera during the Stalinist regime): "Why do you think you ought to be happy?"

And, next, on a somewhat more positive note (sort of), one of my favorite Rilke poems, from Sonnets to Orpheus:

See the sky. Is there no constellation
called "Rider"? For this is strangely impressed
on us: this earthly pride. And a second,
who drives and holds it and whom it bears.

Is not the sinewy nature of our being
just like this, spurred on and then reined in?
Track and turning. Yet at a touch, understanding.
New open spaces. And the two are one.

But are they? Or do not both mean
the way they take together? Already
table and pasture utterly divide them.

Even the starry union is deceptive.
But let us now be glad a while
to believe the figure. That's enough.

Elvisette philosophized at 6:41 PM