Dear American Literati and Colleagues
Across the CurriculumNote: my courses
don't "teach" anything anyone doesn't
already know. If you didn't know it,
how could you re-cognize it?. IT, I said.
Do I have to be spelling IT out all the time?
Across the CurriculumNote: my courses
don't "teach" anything anyone doesn't
already know. If you didn't know it,
how could you re-cognize it?. IT, I said.
Do I have to be spelling IT out all the time?
PERCEPTION : Figure/Background,
Re-cognition. That Evening Sun,
Anecdote of the Jar Bly’s Poems
No thing can be seen by itself, only in comparison
to/with some other.These black letters stand out
as figures against white screen.(background)
It is the case that we focus our efficient attention
on the FIGURE(letters,.words, Nancy’s fear, a
jar on a mountain, snowflake on a horse's mane).
If you are by nature classified as “attention deficient”
it is probably because you are focusing your attention
efficiency on background items, the tear rolling down
Nancy’s face, the use of the word “nigger” over and
over, the mountain before someone puts a jar on it
(and defines it by making it Not-Jar), the fields that
seem to kneel to the car in driving.
Figure AND background, and if you are savvy you will
factor both in plus the relationship between the 2
1) What’s the figure? 2) What’s the background?
3) what's the Relationship between 1&2?
These images are intentionally ambiguous: figure/background
IN PLAY— rather than are normal perceptual habit offocusing
on FIGURE andignoring background
No thing can be seen (perceived) by itself, but only in
RELATIONSHIP (ratios, rationalization)
with some Other.
READING: PERCEIVING: RE-COGNIZING
Mostly we ignore this aspect of RELATIONSHIP (reason: ratios)
and pay our efficient attention to the FIGURES. It is left to the
diagnosed AttentionDeficient to pay attention to the Background
if not to the relationship between them
If I’ve done an injustice to Attention Efficiency and Attention Deficiency--
forgive me.I’ve intentionally flipped the figure/background relationship
here, and suggestedthat our Attention Focus is itself a deficiency.
Need we argue?
Best, Sam
THE VISION OF CHRIST that thou dost see
ReplyDeleteIs my vision’s greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.
Socrates taught what Meletus
Loath’d as a nation’s bitterest curse,
And Caiaphas was in his own mind
A benefactor to mankind.
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read’st black where I read white.
Mine speaks parables to the blind, hates the world that you call thine: thy heaven doors are my hell gates. Most are in their own minds benefactors to all mankind. Read black.
DeleteRead white. Don't let one deny or slight.
"Blake’s lines move from a sophomoric argumentative innocence about the Bible, to a more sobering adult experience, in which intense biblical study leads some to the conclusion that they must, in the name of a higher good, annihilate those who they perceive are the Bible’s enemies".
DeleteAll this chatter . . . all this politicking. Don't shut up, but GEEZ us.
ReplyDeletePoliticking? Provoking? Don't conflate, collapse, and confuse the 2. There's a difference.
ReplyDeleteOne allows the annihilation of the enemy, the other urges the loving of the same. However, there are those who conflate loving with hating and annihilation. Very pretty.
ReplyDeleteComes with a sword--not to bring peace but to separate father and son, mother and daughter, in-laws too. Annihilating might be an overstatement, but the normal common sense of "love" don't fit easily into this notion.
ReplyDelete" Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scoling, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. (T.S.Eliot)
Give him an unfair trial and connive to have him put to death.
ReplyDeleteHIM? Socrates? Jesus? Of course: put them both to death. Royal pains in the ass. Corrupting the minds of the youth. Discomforting the church ladies and true believers. Big Bad Wolf come to blow my house down and quiver the whiskers on my chinny chin chins.
ReplyDeleteIt's pure sophistry when it's never about what is being said and who is supposed to judge what. A pure injustice.
ReplyDeleteI don't follow this--or understand what you are saying here.? As you know--I am an injustice doer--nothing pure about me or what I see or say. And I'm always aware that any utterance is not just about what it seems to be about, but about the relationship of the sayers saying. It's the denial and cover up that generates the toxicity.
ReplyDeleteYou use "pure" twice. Immaculate. Sane: sanitary.
.