The spit that directly disgusts me

Happy Fernando Pessoa's birthday. Here is a little of The Book of Disquiet, rendered by two different translators. 

Travel? One need only exist to travel. I go from day to day, as from station to station, in the train of my body or my destiny, leaning out over the streets and squares, over people’s faces and gestures, always the same and always different, just like scenery. (Richard Zenith, p. 370)

You want to travel? To travel you simply need to exist. In the train of my body or of my destiny I travel from day to day, as from station to station, leaning out to look at the streets and the squares, at gestures and faces, always the same and always different as, ultimately, is the way with all landscapes. (Margaret Jull Costa, p. 75)

I envy all people, because I’m not them. Since this always seemed to me like the most impossible of all impossibilities, it’s what I yearned for every day, and despaired of in every sad moment. (RZ, p. 39)

I envy in everyone the fact that they are not me. Of all impossibilities, and this always seemed the greatest, this was the one that made up the greater part of my daily dose of anguish, the despair that fills every sad hour. (MJC, p. 139)

I’m astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. (RZ, p. 136) 

I’m always astonished whenever I finish anything. Astonished and depressed. My desire for perfection should prevent me from ever finishing anything; it should prevent me from even starting. (MJC, p. 129)

I have no social of political sentiments, and yet there is a way in which I’m highly nationalistic. My nation is the Portuguese language. It wouldn’t trouble me if all Portugal were invaded or occupied, as long as I was left in peace. But I hate with genuine hatred, with the only hatred I can feel, not those who write bad Portuguese, not those whose syntax is faulty, not those who used phonetic rather that etymological spelling, but the badly written page itself, as if it were a person, incorrect syntax, as someone who ought to be flogged, the substitution of i for y, as the spit that directly disgusts me, independent of who spat it. 

Yes, because spelling is also a person. (RZ, p. 225) 

I have no political of social sense. In a way, though, I do have a highly developed patriotic sense. My fatherland is the Portuguese language. It wouldn’t grieve me if someone invaded and took over Portugal as long as they didn’t bother me personally. What I hate, with all the hatred I can muster, is not the person who writes bad Portuguese, or who does not know his grammar, or who writes using the new simplified orthography; what I hate, as if it were an actual person, is the poorly written page of Portuguese itself; what I hate, as if it were someone who deserved a beating, is the bad grammar itself; what I hate, as I hate a gob of spit independently of its perpetrator, is the modern orthography with its preference of ‘i’ over ‘y.’
For orthography is just as much a living thing as we are. (MJC, p. 233)

Overlapping Landscapes

“Eternal tourists of ourselves, there is no landscape but what we are. We possess nothing, for we don’t even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hand will I reach out, and to what universe? The universe isn’t mine: it’s me,” said Fernando Pessoa.

“The floor is something we must fight against,” Russell Edson wrote.

The clutter of my mind gets tidied up in “Overlapping Landscapes,” an essay in the inaugural issue of Lunch Review.

202

Happy Charles Dickens’ birthday.

I was lucky to add The Pickwick Papers to the asset side of my reading equation last month, a buoyant, rich and very funny book. As Dickens’ first book, you see the seed of some of his later work here: the interminable law suits (Bleak House), the beloved relative in the debtors’ prison (Little Dorrit), the finger-wagging spirits (A Christmas Carol), and more. 

This book was the favorite of both Fernando Pessoa and Giuseppe Lampedusa, and such high-brow admiration made me a bit afraid of what it would be like. I’d also heard there wasn’t much of a story line, so I worried. Would there be a plot? Would there be characters to follow? Wouldn’t it suck if I didn’t like it? 

I worried for naught, for though the narrative is somewhat liquid, running off on various tangents, there is a plot to frame it, and the characters are marvelous, especially --as anyone who’s read it knows -- Sam Weller, Mr. Pickwick’s servant. Mr. Pickwick himself radiates benevolence, and as always with Dickens, the outright melodrama of it all is like a little kindling in your hands. 

Dickens is a great observer, and his scenes and dialogues can be hilarious. Take, for example, Sam Weller’s father’s explanation of the character of pike keepers:

"Wery queer life is a pike-keeper's, sir."

"A what?" said Mr. Pickwick.

"A pike-keeper."

"What do you mean by pike-keeper?" inquired Mr. Peter Magnus.

"The old 'un means a turnpike keeper, gen'l'm'n," observed Mr. Samuel Weller, in explanation.

"Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, "I see. Yes; very curious life. Very uncomfortable."

"They're all on 'em men as has met vith some disappointment in life," said Mr. Weller senior.

"Ay, ay?" said Mr. Pickwick.

"Yes. Consequence of vich, they retires from the world, and shuts themselves up in pikes; partly with the view of being solitary, and partly to rewenge themselves on mankind, by takin' tolls."

"Dear me," said Mr. Pickwick, "I never knew that before."

Hey, me neither! But now I do. 

Like Pessoa, I can now say that a great tragedy of my life is having read The Pickwick Papers, since I can never read it for the first time again.

Midweek

Sunny and cold enough to see your breath this morning. First turtleneck of the year: teal green. Found a moth hole later, not too difficult to conceal. 

Yesterday I forgot my book on my desk when I left work and have now done the work-->home & home-->work commute without it. I know the emptiness of trains, and the anxiety of not knowing what to do with myself. 

“Feel? Let those who read feel,” wrote Fernando Pessoa.

We 2 kings

May & June are peppered with Catholic holidays, and today was one. Bang Thursday and no work. I decided to take a walk and couldn’t think of a good park so I went down the road to the cemetery. It’s the best possible park, huge and fabulous with trees. Sometimes a person goes by; most of the time not. I chose a bench among the many insects and birdsong and sat reading for over an hour: Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, which says in section 404 -

To wrap the world around our fingers, like a thread or ribbon which a woman twiddles while daydreaming at the window...
Everything comes down to our trying to feel tedium in such a way that it doesn’t hurt.
It would be interesting to be two kings at the same time: not the one soul of them both, but two distinct, kingly beings. 

To be honest, though, I was on a relatively open path, and worse, I was looking at the back of headstones, and I hate that. It’s like sitting in a restaurant with your back toward the door. If you’ve ever seen a mafia movie you know that is a mistake. So I set out for a more sheltered bench and switched to Little Dorrit, in which Mr Clennam asks, 

“The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly influential interest among (Dorrit’s) creditors. Am I correctly informed?”
It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on any account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle said, “Possibly.” 

This was the funniest passage so far, not least because of that name. And so, though I am not truly able to be two kings at once, reading two good books on one afternoon in pleasant weather did give me the feeling I could be two distinct, kingly beings, both, at the same time.

I’ve never kept sheep, / but it’s as if I did. / My soul is like a shepherd.

Buffalo Carp turned down five poems. Too bad. I will try again probably. With other poems.

Kaleidowhirl accepted “Henry, the World,” which is a veiled epistle to an old boyfriend of mine, who is named Peter and not Henry, and “Hurricane Season,” which is, believe it or not, a hurricane poem.

Crab Orchard rejected five poems. They put a note at the bottom saying they’d liked “Used Books,” which I’d withdrawn. They’re taking submissions on the theme of adolescence now for anyone so inclined.

Opium accepted “On the Way to Meet my Daughter’s Teacher“ for Opium5. It’s a variety of suicide poem. But it uses the phrase “kill myself” instead of “suicide” for the sake of subtlety.

Wicked Alice took “Stovetop,” an empty nest poem, and “Snorkeling,” a snorkeling poem. I've never been snorkeling, but it’s as if I have.