Quotes 2017 #16 (replaced)

"At the end of a short period I began to feel that the prayer had, so to speak, passed to my heart. In other words I felt that my heart in its natural beating began, as it were, to utter the words of the prayer. For instance, ONE "Lord"; TWO "Jesus"; THREE "Christ," and so forth. No longer did I say the prayer with my lips, but listened attentively to the words formed in my heart, remembering what my departed elder told me about this state of bliss. Then I began to feel a slight pain in my heart, ..."
The Way of a Pilgrim.

今年の引用集、１月分は終わりましたが、#1, 15, 16がフランス語だったので、英語で読めるものに差し替えます。学生たちの日々の英語学習という目標のために。もっとも、前のものもそのまま残しておきます。

Quotes 2017 #15 (replaced)

"Anyway, I loved Graham Greene. His words were filled with a discomfort I related to. There were all kinds of discomforts on offer. Discomforts of guilt, sex, Catholicism, unrequited love, forbidden lust, tropical heat, politics, war. Everything was uncomfortable, except the prose.
      I loved the way he wrote. I loved the way he'd compare a solid thing to something abstract. 'He drank the brandy down like damnation.' I loved this technique even more now, because the divide between the material and non-material worlds seemed to have blurred. With depression. Even my own physical body seemed unreal and abstract and partly fictional."

Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive.

Quotes 2017 #1 (replaced)

"Supposing it wasn't true that the earth had already existed long before I was born---how should we imagine the mistake being discovered?"

(Angenommen, es sei nicht wahr, dass die Erde schon lange vor meiner Geburt existiert hat, wie hat man sich die Entdeckung dieses Fehlers vorzustellen?)

Wittgenstein, On Certainty.

Quotes 2017 #31

"No woman would kill a whale. Whales give birth to livin' young, they don't lay eggs like fish. They feed their babies with milk from their breasts, like women, and we never killed them. The man who killed the whale never tasted whale meat from the time of his first kill until after he'd retired as a whaler. And neither did his wife, because he had to be purified and linked to the whale and the link was through his wife, by way of the woman's blood and woman's milk, and this was a promise made by Copper Woman, through the magic women, to the whales. No one linked to them will eat of them. It is a promise."

Anne Cameron, Daughters of Copper Woman.

Quotes 2017 #30

"The job I mentioned lasted just one day. I took the men out and carried the thing through to success, sore feet, and numb limbs, --but, --there was no work to be done next day, nor the next, ...

Hart Crane, Letter to William Wright, Oct. 17, 1921.

Quotes 2017 #29

"In the morning I felt so fresh for writing, but now the idea that I am to read to Max in the afternoon blocks me completely. This shows too how unfit I am for friendship, assuming that friendship in this sense is even possible."

Kafka, December 30, 1911.

Quotes 2017 #28

"A man can't sleep. He takes a job driving a cab all night. On his first shift a woman gets in. 'By the river,' she says. They drive downtown, across the sleepy clacking of the bridge. At the far end of the bridge the road simply descends underwater. The man is surprised but strangely unalarmed. The cab sinks down below the lamps and sidewalks, into the waves. 'This is fine here,' says the woman. When she pays, the scales on her body shimmer in the man's eyes."

Barry Yourgrau, Wearing Dad's Head.

何のために？

ところで。なぜ毎日、引用文を載せているか、不審に思われるかもしれません。これ、もっぱらうちの大学院生を念頭に置いてます。英語の勉強をしたいといいつつ、なかなかそのための時間をとれない／とらないかれらに対して、毎日せめてこれだけは読んでごらん、というのが意図。フラ語のものも２つほどありましたが、今後は英語に限定する予定。もっとも、学生たちが実際に読んでいるかどうかは知りません。なんとか１年つづけてみます。ずいぶんいろいろな文章のサンプラーにもなるはず。

Quotes 2017 #27

"H.'s stories yesterday in the office. The stone breaker on the highway who begged a frog from him, held it by the feet and with three bites swallowed down first the little head, then the rump and finally the feet. -- The best way to kill cats, who cling stubbornly to life: Squeeze their throats in a closed door and pull their tails..."

Kafka's Diary, September 18, 1912.

Quotes 2017 #26

"Dad has always had a fear of flying. They were the only times in my childhood that I could recall him drinking. As a rule, he avoided flying, we traveled by car if we were going anywhere, regardless of how far it was, but sometimes he had to, and then it was a case of knocking back whatever alcoholic drinks were available in the airport café."

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle Book 1.

Quotes 2017 #25

"It's curious to think of the ground between the trenches, a bank which is practically never seen by anyone in the daylight, as it is only safe to move through it at dark. It's full of dead things, dead animals here and there, dead unburied animals, skeletons of horses destroyed by shell fire. It's curious to think of it later on in the war, when it will again be seen in daylight."

T.E. Hulme, quoted by John Gray in The Silence of Animals.

道は遠い、遠い

「UＰ」１月号に小沼純一くんが下村寅太郎の『数理哲学・科学史の哲学』についての長い書評を書いていて、おもしろく読んだ。ぼくは数学がぜんぜんダメで、その方面の感覚がまったく育たず、どれだけおもしろい世界を逃してきたことかと思っている。でも数学について人が語る言葉には実際興味を惹かれることが多く、小沼くんのように音楽好きな人にとっては音と数の宇宙の呼応には、ついのめりこみたくなる魅惑があることだろう。

長い書評は、的確な引用をゆったりと組み込めるし、また他の本との「本脈」をしめすこともできるので、いい。いい書評は対象の１冊を超えて、ある問題系に対する興味を広くかきたてるものだが、朝からこういう文を読むと図書館に直行して、そのまま一日を薄暮の夢想に過ごしたくなる。今日みたいな冬の青空の日でも。

覚えておきたいことのメモ。

１）下村による「科学」のナショナルな伝統の指摘。サイエンスはベーコン的な人間論的＝実践的性格。ヴィッセンシャフトはライプニッツ的な普遍学的性格。シアンスはデカルト的な知性的性格。なるほど、そうかもしれないな。トランスナショナルな「科学」の成立なんて、あるいは２０世紀も後半以後のことかも。

２）ボエティウスによる音楽の３分類。ムジカ・ムンダーナ（宇宙の音楽）、ムジカ・フマーナ（人間の音楽）、ムジカ・インストゥルメンターリ（器具の音楽）だって。といっても、そのままでは理解できない。最初のものは星の運行、季節のめぐり。次のものは、人が理解し洞察したことをしめすもの。つまりは知識、そして一般詩学か。最後のものだけがいわゆる「音楽」、空気の振動により奏でられる音の塊、配列。当然、ピュタゴラス的な数の比例とも関係してくる。

「ムンダーナ」とかいわれると、つい「世界音楽？ワールド・ミュージック？」と聞き返したくなるけれど、そうではなかった。

ところで。高３の夏休みに京都で『思想のドラマトゥルギー』（林達夫＋久野収）を読んで以来、大学ではヨーロッパ精神史を専攻しようかと思っていたけれど、そうはならかった。ひとつにはヨーロッパに行ったことがなくて、結局、エモーショナルな積み立てが育たなかった。林達夫（１８９６年生まれ）は１９７１年になるまでヨーロッパに行ったことがなくて、下村（１９０２年生まれ）も初のヨーロッパ旅行は１９５６年。そういう世代だった。それでよくあんなに燃えるような知的好奇心を、ヨーロッパに対して持ち続けられたものだと思う。すごいが、どこか、はかない。

林達夫は自分を歴史家と規定し「西洋二千年の歴史往来」というフレーズを使っていた。学ぶべきことは無限。道は冬の青空のように遠い。

「コヨーテ歩き撮り」第２６回

更新されました、ぜひごらんください。

http://keisobiblio.com/2017/01/23/coyote026/

Quotes 2017 #24

"What's certain, what I immediately experienced, when, around the age of thirty, I began to enjoy writing, was that this pleasure always communicated somewhat with the death of others, with death in general."

Michel Foucault, Speech Begins after Death.

My understanding

"Is my understanding only blindness to my own lack of understanding? It often seems so to me." (Wittgenstein)

(Ist mein Verständnis nur Blindheit gegen mein eigenes Unverständnis? Oft scheint es mir so.)

Quotes 2017 #23

"The myth is always the starting point of all poetry, including the realistic, except that in the latter we accompany the myth in its descent, in its fall. This collapse of the poetic is the theme of realistic poetry."

José Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Quixote.

「山のうた、ひかりの葉」

２月１１日、みんなで山に行きませんか？　シンガー・ソングライターの優河さんと、以下のイベントをします。きっとお天気、きっと気持ちいいよ。

http://ignitiongallery.tumblr.com/post/155372364532/%E7%AE%A1%E5%95%93%E6%AC%A1%E9%83%8E-%E5%84%AA%E6%B2%B3%E5%B1%B1%E3%81%AE%E3%81%86%E3%81%9F%E3%81%B2%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8A%E3%81%AE%E8%91%89

ドリアン助川さんと

１月３１日は下北沢B＆Bへどうぞ！　ドリアン助川さんと、サン＝テグジュペリ『星の王子さま』についてとことん語り合います。原文朗読もやるよ。

http://bookandbeer.com/2017/01/31/

来週末は台湾文化センターで

２７日（金）〜２９日（日）にかけて、Port Bと鳳甲美術館による北投ヘテロトピアのまとめのイベントを、台湾文化センターで開催します。この驚くべきプロジェクトの全貌を知る、またとない機会です。ぜひ、いらしてください。

http://theatercommons.tokyo/program/portb/

Quotes 2017 #22

"The rule is not not to eat animal meat. The rule is not to kill. So when we encounter a dead doe on the road, we express our gratitude to Earth and eat it. We must eat it so that life is not wasted. When we stumble upon a dead pigeon in the dark, we thank Heaven and pluck it. Thus I've eaten rabbits, weasels, raccoons."

Kyoko Yoshida, "Squirrel Heaven"

I just love, love, love this piece. She's definitely one of the most exciting English-language writers today!

Quotes 2017 #21

"The first stuffed animals were produced, and the most expensive were covered with real animal skin--usually the skin of still-born calves."

John Berger, About Looking.

Quotes 2017 #20

"Essays should always be written neatly and legibly. Only a bad essay-writer forgets to apply himself to the clarity of both the thoughts and the letters. You should always think first before you write."

Robert Walser, A Schoolboy's Diary (Damion Searls trans.)

コヨーテ歩き撮り

更新情報を忘れていました。昨年１月から月に２回、勁草書房のウェブサイト「けいそうビブリオフィル」で「コヨーテ歩き撮り」という旅行写真の連載をしています。その最新版は、これ。

http://keisobiblio.com/2017/01/10/coyote025/

ときどき、ごらんください！

Quotes 2017 #19

When I was four I followed my youngest uncle
five miles across fields reclaimed from the sea,
on and on until my little legs were buckling
by the time we reached the sea that went soaring up to the sky.

Ko Un, "The Wife from Kwi Island"

Quotes 2017 #18

"Here I am inclined to fight windmills, because I cannot yet say the thing I really want to say." (Ich bin hier geneigt, gegen Windmühlen zu kämpfen, weil ich das noch nicht sagen kann, was ich eigentlich sagen will.)

Wittgenstein, On Certainty.

Quotes 2017 #17

"Supermarket produce sections have long been one of America's underappreciated wonders. We think of supermarkets as being the places where food is bought and sold, but they are simply the most visible part of the massive, hidden network that sprawls out beneath them---and this is especially true when it comes to produce."

Tracie McMillan, The American Way of Eating.

Quotes 2017 #16

"Philosopher commence plutôt avec ce que j'ai, le mal dont je souffre, la pathologie qui me travaille. Avoir donc, plutôt que Être..."

(Jean-Clet Martin, Deleuze)

日本現代詩人会で

１４日、日本現代詩人会にお招きいただき、ぼくと小池昌代さんがそれぞれ４５分の講演を行いました。ぼくは動物主義の詩、動物の命、リワイルディング。小池さんは歌人としての源実朝について。ますます磨きがかかった小池さんの闊達な話術に魅了され、実朝をすぐに読みたくなりました。

歴程賞を受賞された石田瑞穂さんをはじめ、会員のみなさまの朗読も非常に興味深かったのですが、何より、冒頭の以倉紘平さんの会長挨拶がすばらしかった。筋ジストロフィーの子供たちが書いた詩についてのお話で、深く胸を打たれました。浜江順子さんをはじめ、お世話になったみなさま、ありがとうございました。

Quotes 2017 #15

"La soirée sur FR3 (il y a déjà longtemps) a été bouleversante. Vous donnez à la poésie une vie, une force, une rigueur qui n'a d'égale que chez les plus grands poètes. Vous êtes de ceux-là."

Gilles Deleuze à Gherasim Luca, 4/3/89

Quotes 2017 #14

"I hesitated some time, not knowing whether to open these memoirs at the beginning or at the end, i.e., whether to start with my birth or with my death."

Machado de Assis, Epitaph of a Small Winner (trans. by William Grossman)

Quotes 2017 #13

"There will soon be nothing more than self-communicating zombies, whose lone umbilical relay will be their own feedback image - electronic avatars of dead shadows who, beyond death and the river Styx, will wander, perpetually passing their time retelling their own story."

Jean Baudrillard, Telemorphosis. (Drew Burk trans.)

Quotes 2017 #12

"The center of Sophia has not changed in seven thousand years. Neolithic excavations say as much: Sophia is the only European city that has stubbornly preserved its heart for so many millenia."

Julia Kristeva, Interviews.

This makes me want to go to Sophia... 

Quotes 2017 #11

"Ah, I do like people who can get angry. Kraus gets angry on the slightest pretext. That is so beautiful, so humorous, so noble."

Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten.

「週刊朝日」１月２０日号

「週刊朝日」１月２０日号の「今週の一冊」コーナーに長めの書評を書きました。フランスを拠点に活躍する仲野麻紀さんの『旅する音楽　サックス奏者と音の経験』（せりか書房）について。

「そしてすべての音楽は他の音楽に誘いをかけ、匂いをかぎ、一緒に踊りたがっている。野生動物のように。彼女の音の旅はつづく。」

今年もKyのツアーを楽しみにしてます！

「ミて」１３７号

新井高子さん編集の詩の季刊誌「ミて」１３７号に５９行の詩「青空ジュークボックス」を寄稿しました。

　しんとした青空は透明な心のすみか
　登れば登るほど昔の心に近づく。

ぜひ読んでみてね。

Quotes 2017 #10

"To say goodbye, and to have it said to me, is terrible. At such moments something gives human life a shake, and one feels vividly how nothing one is."

Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten.

この２番めのセンテンスのshakeをshapeに変えてみるのもおもしろい。何にせよヴァルザー最高！

MLA 2017

文学関係の学会としては世界最大の Modern Language Associationの年次大会、終了しました。今年はフィラデルフィアで開催。参加者は１万人ともいわれ、ものすごい数のパネルが木曜から日曜までびっしり行われます。古い友人たちとの情報交換や、文学・文化研究の新刊書を手にとってみるのにもいい機会。また大学のポジションに応募した人たちにとっては面接が行われるときでもあり、緊張した面持ちの若手の研究者がたくさん会場を行き交っています。

ぼくが参加したパネルは １月６日（金）午後に行われました。"Nature and Disaster in the Contemporary Japanese Cultural Imagination" と題されたもので、ぼく、Alex Bates、Kathryn Hemmann、Douglas Slaymaker の４名が発表し、質疑応答がそれにつづきました。

ぼくの発表タイトルは "What About Animals? In the Wake of Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima" で、これまでに他のところでも話してきた古川日出男、木村友祐の震災後の作品を扱っていますが、時間が限られていることもあって、特に古川さんの戯曲『冬眠する熊に添い寝してごらん』に焦点を絞って話しました。途方もないユーモアをもって、明治以後の日本の歴史を鋭く問う傑作です。

奇しくもこのパネルの番号が「311」。まったくの偶然か、運営委員会の意図かは、わかりません。まもなく丸６年が経過しようとしているのに、原発事故を招いた＜近代＞の論理に対する反省のまるでないわれわれの社会の問題点を、これからも文学作品を手がかりとして考えてゆきたいと思います。

Quotes 2017 #9

"What does one remember of a face in the end? No, I didn't have a photograph, I only had my memory: and my memory was mine alone, it wasn't describable, it was the look I remembered on Xavier's face."

Antonio Tabucchi, Indian Nocturne.

Quotes 2017 #8

"The Chinese use meat almost as a condiment, adding flavor, instead of employing the Big Honking Slab culinary technique favored by Americans."

Bill McKibben, Eaarth.

Quotes 2017 #7

"We walked on. Ah, these corridors of compulsory suffering and of terrible deprivation seemed endless to me, and perhaps they really were endless. The seconds were like whole lifetimes, and the minutes took on the size of anguished centuries. "

Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten. (Christopher Middleton trans.)

Quotes 2017 #6

"For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist."

Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye.

Quotes 2017 #5

"If I close my eyes I see your ears, the left one sticking out more than the right. My best friend at school used to claim that human ears are like dictionaries and that, if you know how, you can look up words in them. Limpid, for instance, Limpid."

John Berger, From A to X.

Quotes 2017 #4

     " 'Why?' I asked. I was getting interested.

      'I write postcards. It's me who writes the ladies and gents of Philadelphia now. Postcards with a nice sea and the deserted Calangute beach, and on the back I write: Best wishes from Mailman Tommy. I've got up to letter C. Obviously I skip the areas I'm not interested in and send them without a stamp, the person who gets it pays.'"

Antonio Tabucchi, Indian Nocturne.

Quotes 2017 #3

"We only have sympathy to struggle and to write, Lawrence used to say. But sympathy is something to be reckoned with, it is a bodily struggle, hating what threatens and infects life, loving where it proliferates (no posterity or lineage, but a proliferation...).

Deleuze & Parnet, Dialogues (trans. Tomlinson & Habberjam)

「水牛のように」２０１７年１月号

今年発表の最初の作品は「水牛のように」の「狂狗集」。数年前にノートに書きつけてあったものを発見し、清書しました。ぜひごらんください！

http://suigyu.com/2017/01

Quotes 2017 #2

"The natives use human excrement for tanning leather. When Bernal Diaz came with Cortés to the great market-place of Mexico City, in Montezuma's day, he saw the little pots of human excrement in rows for sale, and the leather-makers going round sniffing to see which was the best, before they paid for it."

D.H.Lawrence, Mornings in Mexico, 1927.

2017! & Quote of the day #1

Happy new year to y'all, friends across the universe and multiverse! This year I will give you a quote a day. Here goes the first. Enjoy!

"L'écriture d'Artaud est située à un tel niveau d'incandescence, d'incendie, et de transgression, qu'au fond il n'y a rien à dire sur Artaud. Il n'y a pas de livre à écrire sur Artaud. Il n'y a pas de critique à faire d'Artaud. La seule solution serait d'écrire comme lui, d'entrer dans le plagiat d'Artaud."

Roland Barthes, Sur la littérature (avec Maurice Nadeau, 1980)