I can't sleep…
I emphasize this.
I will do anything to avoid boredom.
It is the task of a lifetime.
You can never know enough,
never work enough,
never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough,
never impede the movement harshly enough,
never leave the mind quickly enough.
—Anne Carson, “Introduction.” Short Talks, 1992
Notes:
It’s Tuesday morning. A great night’s sleep. I’m Regenerated. I rise. I rise. I rise.
I walk to the train station to catch the 5:40. 62° F. The Air is still. The Birds are singing. Blue skies.
It’s Quiet.
The Train pulls up. 5:39am. Second train of the day. It’s packed.
I wedge past another commuter and take the window seat.
A Lady, mid-60’s, is facing me. She’s in a 3-seater, on a full train, with her purse blocking the seat to her right and a bottle of Poland Springs water blocking the left. “Prickly.” She has a cup of coffee in an unmarked styrofoam cup in her left hand and she’s pecking away on a crossword puzzle on an iPad. She does not lift her head as I pass.
It’s Quiet. The soft hum of the electric current powering the train. The clickety-clack of the tracks. And the Lady snorting and re-snorting phlegm up her nasal passages. Is she swallowing it?
The Conductor breaks the silence on the P.A.: Good morning! I have an important announcement. He pauses. The heads in the car all bob up to listen. Today’s Danny’s last day after 20 years with MetroNorth. He’s covering the middle cars. Danny, we all wish you good luck in your retirement. God Speed. Continue reading “Riding Metro-North. With The Gremlin.”
You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that?
And I said,
Where can I put it down?
– Anne Carson, excerpt from “The Glass Essay“
Anne Carson, 63, is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. She was born in Toronto. She is known for her supreme erudition—Merkin called her “one of the great pasticheurs”—Carson’s poetry can also be heart-breaking and she regularly writes on love, desire, sexual longing and despair. She taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University. She was a Guggenheim Fellow and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. A high-school encounter with a Latin instructor, who agreed to teach her ancient Greek over the lunch hour, led to her passionate embrace of classical and Ancient Greek classical literature, influences which mark her work still. She teaches ancient Greek and she frequently references, modernizes, and translates Ancient Greek literature. She has published eighteen books as of 2013, all of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation, dramatic dialogue, fiction, and non-fiction. (Sources: Wiki & The Poetry Foundation)
Another favorite Anne Carson quote: “What is a Quote?”
Sources: Quote: Larmoyante. Portrait: Book Review. Find this poem: Glass, Irony & God
“What is a quote? A quote (cognate with quota) is a cut, a section, a slice of someone else’s orange. You suck the slice, toss the rind, skate away. Part of what you enjoy in a documentary technique is the sense of banditry. To loot someone else’s life or sentences and make off with a point of view.”
— Anne Carson, “Foam (Essay with Rhapsody)” (from Decreation)
(Sources: Quotes – leopoldgursky, via othernotebooksareavailable. Image Credit)