Deze inspirerende presentaties van schrijvers moet je zien

ADORNO - on Valéry - … the drive to recreate in the work, immanently, some of the objectivity it loses when it stops at a subjective reaction to something pregiven, whatever form it takes (p. 142) - Hence art does not fuse perfectly with total rationality, because by its very nature it is deviation; only as deviation does it have a right to exist in the rational world and the power to assert itself The aesthetic metaphor for this kind of paradox is chance, that which is non-identical to ratio, the incommensurable as a moment within identity, a moment of rational lawfullness of a specific type – statistical lawfullness, something to which Valéry’s thoughts turn frequently.

- Chance negates law for the sake of aesthetic freedom and yet in its heteronomy remains the opposite of freedom. Valéry : ‘In all the arts – and that is precisely why they are arts – the sense of having become so out of necessity, something a work brought to succesful completion must plausibly convey to us, can be evoked only through an act of free creation.

- The joining and ultimate harmonization of traits that are independent of one another and must be woven together is achieved not through a recipe or an automatic mechanism but by miracle or ultimately by effort – by miracle in conjunction with efforts borne by a will’ - But chance also marks the limits of rationality in the material that rationality processes; - The estrangement from meaning that chance imports into every work imitates the estrangement of the age; through its unvarnished acknowledgment of the totality’s estrangement from meaning, chance lodges a protest against it. - Like Mallarmé, [Valéry] sympathized with chance without reservation or apology, splendidly unconcerned about the contradiction with his primary inclination, despite the fact that his whole pathos stems from the notion that the way the mind gains possession of itself is through the process of the work’s gaining possession of the mind. - … the dignity of artistic techniques that involve fire: ‘But all the fire worker’s admirable vigilance and all the foresight learned from experience, from his knowledge of the properties of heat, of its critical stagess, of the temperatures of fusion and reactions, still leave immense scope for the noble element of uncertainty. They can never abolish chance.’ - Valéry sets as much store by necessity as by what escapes necessity, and in chance hopes to find the neutral point between the two. It is this moment in chance, the moment that is alien to meaning, a true treshold value in temps espace, that he associates with the Bergsonian temps durée, involuntary memory as the sole form of survival. * [Valéry] is much too self-reflective to deceive himself about the fact that even artists who disdain economic considerations remain tied to the precarious status of the min in the dominant society, with which they must comply even while opposing it. Artists … are what social theory calls “third persons”: they live on profit that has been diverted to them. We mogen dus representeren hoe ‘the hand that gives’ eruitziet. * … the autonomous ego’s avowed power to control the unconscious. ‘Morning brings a sloughing off of our dreams, dispelling all that has taken advantage of our neglicence and absence to proliferate, clutter us up; … dirt, mistakes, stupidities, terrors, obsessions. The beasts go back to their dens. The Master is back from a journey; the witches’ sabbath is put to rout. - ‘We take refuge in the unknown. We hide in it from what we know. On the unknown hope stakes its hopes. Thought would die out with the end of indetermination. Hope is a mental activity that promotes ignorance, transforms a solid wall into a cloud;’ - Ultimately, for him art is not an unfolding of truth, as it was for Hegel, but rather, to use Hegel’s language, a pleasant chiming of bells. The wordly and civilizing element in it is considerable enough in comparison with the imprisonment in a kingdom of the mind that the prisoner takes literally and absolutizes. - Did “the pleasures of the Roi Solei somewhat [surpass] those enjoyed in front of the television screen”? Een open vraag. - A poem should be a festival … of the intellect. … A festival, that is to say, a game, but a solemn controlled, significant game; an image of what one is normally not, of the state in which efforts are rhythms and thus redeemed. We celebrate something by enacting it or representing it in its purest, loveliest state. - Even in the slightest of compositions one must thing of duration, that is, of memory, which is to say form… - Art is imitation, but not of something material; rather, it is mimetic behavior. In the name of such imitation, even the aesthetic category that seems to be purely subjective, the category of expression… it becomes the imitation of the language of the things themselves … ‘Poetry is an attempt to reproduce or restore by means of an articulated language those things of that thing that cries, tears, caresses, kisses, sighs, and so forth struggle obscurely to express … * Art is an imitation not of what has been created but of the act of creation itself. * To follow Valéry’s abyssal passage about the prehistoric person who, ‘must have been the first to run his fingers absentmindedly over a rough vase, and feel inspired thereby to model another, made to be caressed’, art might be the imitation of creative love itself. * It is only through blind obsession with itself and not by means of a clear-sighted intention directed toward something that would be more than itself, that the work of art becomes more than it is. Its resemblance to itself turns it into language. * Pay attention to this subtle continuous sound; it is silence. ‘What has most value should cost nothing.’ ‘All he hopes for is to make us his friends, the companions of his contemplation of a fine day, from dawn until night.’ * on Ernst Bloch… - For it is one thing to believe in ghosts and another to tell ghost stories. One is almost tempted to concede true pleasure in these stories only to the person who does not believe in them but rather gets involved in them precisely in order to enjoy his freedom from myth.

Leonard Cohen, "How to Speak Poetry"

From Death of a Lady's Man:

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material. What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad sex. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. The bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit have destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on. This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These pieces were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. Be good whores. The poem is not a slogan. It cannot advertise you. It cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition. Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them. The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps ans sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence. Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty.