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http://DoctorMate.stumbleupon.com/review/27074227/

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 09:21:47 -0800

Smoke and Mirrors

He sat in a bookstore coffee shop where
A woman's face stared blindly from a glossy
Magazine cover, crowning a mountain of monthlies
Covered by her still stare-- an unreachable ice cap
Concealing an unfeeling corpse whose life might have been his--
He seemed stuck in a valley dinned by nearby discussions--
Unintelligible with the bottled water, soft oatmeal cookie,
And the coffee cup strewn about an ersatz wooden table--
Like remains in crusts of silt--
Ancient layers of things left in place as they were-- buried memories.

His mind succumbed to the smoke and mirrors
Of these disparate desultory desiccated things--
Luring his thoughts, masking his feelings...
When he slipped and fell onto some frozen river of time...
Awareness jolted him as he broke his fall,
Serendipitously his gloved hands brushed away
The veneer of particulate snowflakes--
-- cracking thin, opaque, icy dimensions
Through which memory arose-- a resurrection when,
One Easter afternoon's flood of light infused a quiet to a room--
So still it was that no thing moved, awed by a revealing essence--
Where he sat upon a sofa listening--
As a devout woman of great beauty
Read as he thought no one before had read
The unsynoptic gospel-- written by a mysterious John.

Nothing could be more resonant than her voice--
A joyful prescience of some thing dropping,
Dropping into his deep auditory well--
A forgotten wormhole to his heart-- a tomb
Now empty as hope arose from the dead.
And he knew-- just as he could grasp the warm paper cup
And taste the searing black coffee-- he could bring her back to him
To fill his heart with her loving spirit-- when...
Figures in white sitting at every end of his barren heart chanted,
"She is not here... you will see her by the bank of the
River of No Regret, flashing sunlight from her breast of armor--
Shielding her from the smoke and mirrors of what doesn't matter."

--Dr.M

http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u122/DoctorMate?action=view¤t=DrMateatDanandJuliesWedding9262008.jpg

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:15:03 -0700

At the wedding...
9/26/2008

Me-- wondering how to post something interesting on Stumbleupon. Honest, the dinner plates on the tray are not mine! Funny, but no one asked me to hear their confession... :)

To be serious for a moment... I am not a priest, minister, rabbi, or man (person)"of the cloth", in any sense. I respect all manner of beliefs so long as their espousal and practice brings no harm to any human being. I don't believe that there is some formula that will bring peace to this heart of mine or to any other human heart. Late in my life I found peace when I began to help others. This I mostly do when I teach (I hope!) children in NYC public schools. I feel lucky to have an awareness of some kind that has led me to believe, but not to know, that I am part of something called "being." I believe, though I do not know, that we are all part of this "being". I have been blessed in this life, and hope that when I falter some one will always remind me to count my blessings. Just being able to share these thoughts with you here is a blessing, a miracle if you will.

There is also something about human language that others much much much much smarter than me have stated or theorized. I am especially thinking about Ludwig Wittgenstein, my favorite philosopher of all, about whom I hope sometime to post what I have tried to understand. Understanding completely the meaning of another human being is impossible because no two people in the world use the same language. I believe (I am not certain that I am representing him in a way that he would find acceptable... in this way I "justify" my claim below that I will be silent about him) that Wittgenstein's meaning was somehow embodied in this latter idea. He used the term, "language games". Reading his writings and comments about philosophy and other things seem to me to be to like reading poetry. In the only major work that he published during his lifetime, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (His other major work, Philosophical Investigations, along with his other works and his notebooks and transcriptions of his lectures were edited and translated where necessary, and published after his death), centered on the nature of philosophical propositions. Wittgenstein's final statement in his Tractatus was, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." I believe that I cannot speak about Wittgenstein and I hopefully will be silent except for certain intriguing biographical aspects of his life that I have read.� http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/ten.html

http://DoctorMate.stumbleupon.com/review/25833174/

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:05:31 -0700

Julie and Dan

My dear friend Julie is getting married today to Dan, a very nice guy. I can't remember the last time I went to a wedding-- a celebration that I believe, perhaps more than any other, contains more of everything good and blessed about this life than a human heart may hold. Peace and love to everyone, and on this day, especially to Julie and Dan.

For Julie and Dan on their wedding day. September 26, 2008

The Wedding Cake

A wedding cake with many layers of life--

Is sweet as life may often be--

Amid doubt, toils and strife,

Their Love is more powerful than any "maybe"--

A marriage may be just the icing

Upon a wedding cake... And though

Their marriage promises to be a "piece of cake"--

Their marriage promises more, time will show--

In love, kindness, devotion, and commitment they shall make.

This bride and groom part their wedding cake,

And share the first and sweetest piece--

A magisterial custom at a wedding feast.

Together they will share in never-ending

Pieces of sweet Love and Peace ascending

Above this lovely confection reflecting affection--

Where a bride and groom will always be--

At the top of their wedding cake-- on top for all to see.

And they share their wedding cake blest

In all the infinite complexity of Love--

For the sake of us, their admiring guests--

So that all having the honor to be here,

And nowhere else could be as dear

As this heaven that was sent from above.

--Dr.M

http://DoctorMate.stumbleupon.com/review/25432995/

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:17:59 -0700

The Poetry of Life
Such a pretentious, affected title for this post, but I didn't know how else to do it.

There are these brief "little" scenes from life that touch our senses. I think of them as poems. The poems of life. It may be impossible to capture the fire or the joy of the experience of a little poem in writing. At least not completely. I am not sure about this, but I believe that it is possibly true. Or maybe it is the way that my senses perceive the little poem from life, be it sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or some combination of these. Maybe it is just true for me. I don't know. There seem to be so many of these scenes going on every day. I feel lucky when I chance to be aware of them.

On Saturday, I was waiting at a corner for a light to change so that I could walk across. I noticed a young woman standing barefoot who was, with her companion, also waiting for the light to change. The barefoot woman's companion's feet were shod. The light changed and, together, they crossed the street. I wondered why the young woman was wearing no shoes while walking on a New York City sidewalk. I can't remember the last time I saw a woman walking barefoot outside in New York City. Then I noticed that under her left arm were tucked a pair of espadrilles. I imagined that they were no longer comfortable to her, or maybe they had broken somehow. The two women kept up a spirited pace and I smiled thinking about how charming this vision was. When they had arrived on the other side they stopped and entered a shoe store! I presume that the barefoot woman was going to buy a new pair of shoes. She did seem to be in a hurry. And the name of the store is, "Shoe Mania", a place for men and women to buy discount shoes. Well, that was a "little poem".

Earlier, that same day I passed by the window of a dry-cleaning and tailoring shop. I saw a woman sitting at a table holding a piece of cloth. The cloth was dark, possibly woolen, and I couldn't make out its shape. It could have been a skirt, or a pair of trousers, but I couldn't tell in the brief time of my passing the window. What struck me hard was the way this woman studied the piece of fabric, gently and intensely. It was as though her focus had been probing into every last secret of the weave... contemplating what she was going to do. Perhaps she was visualizing the way she wanted it to be and maybe even the way the cloth was meant to be for the client, the customer who had entrusted this piece of cloth to her. It seemed as though my walking past the store window had taken a good deal of time. It also seemed that this experience took not time at all. No time. She reminded me in some way of Vermeer's painting, "The Lacemaker", whose work demanded great focus, skill and intensity. Yet it seemed to me that the lacemaker felt no demands upon her for she loved her work and reached those rare moments of awareness when she applied her skills. The woman in the window in her act was to me another little poem.

I remember another experience from many years ago while I rode on a New York City subway train. Sitting next to me was a woman and her young child, her daughter. They were talking and I heard the little girl say to her mother, "Will I die, mommy? Will I die?" I couldn't hear her mother's answer. Such a lovely little poem that I'll never forget.

David Foster Wallace: Idealistic skeptic - Los Angeles Times

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:52:33 -0700

David Foster Wallace won a cult following for his dark humor and ironic wit, which was on display in "The Broom of the System," his 1987 debut novel; "Girl With Curious Hair," a 1989 collection of short stories; and "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments" (1997). The writer was found dead Friday night in Claremont, reportedly a suicide. He was 46.His insightful, energetic writing helped transform American fiction in the 1980s.

An Appreciation
David Foster Wallace: Idealistic skeptic
By David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2008 I didn't know David Foster Wallace all that well. We met a couple oftimes, and once, I interviewed him onstage at the Writers Guild Theaterin Beverly Hills. I asked him on a few occasions if he'd review for thepaper, but he said he'd had a bad experience and had sworn offreviewing for good. We shared a literary agent.

In the lead-up to the 2004 presidential election, we spent an hour or soon the phone one afternoon discussing politics, which he followed withthe rabid fascination of someone who, despite all better judgment, believed the process mattered, that somehow, somewhere, there was acandidate who might see us through. I never got a chance to discuss the current presidential race with Wallace; no one did. That'sour loss, for Wallace, who reportedly hanged himself Friday night atage 46, was an astute observer, sharp and clear-eyed, idealistic and skeptical all at once.

His 2000 Rolling Stone profile of John McCain -- reissued inJune as the slim, stand-alone volume "McCain's Promise: Aboard theStraight Talk Express With John McCain and a Whole Bunch of ActualReporters, Thinking About Hope" -- offers a vivid example of thisperspective. Wallace sees the campaign mechanism for what it is while still recognizing something fundamentally different, real even, about the candidate, who eight years ago was in some sense the Barack Obama of his time. Here we have a hallmark of Wallace's writing, his unwillingness to take anything at face value, the penetrating focus of his thought.

An auspicious debut
Wallac eemerged out of nowhere with the publication of his first novel, "The Broom of the System," in 1987. He was 25, a graduate of Amherst and themaster of fine arts program at the University of Arizona, and along with a handful of other then-emerging writers (William T. Vollmann,Jonathan Franzen), he helped transform American fiction in a fundamental way.

The 1980s, after all, was the era of "DirtyRealism," of small-bore, naturalistic stories in the style of Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. For such writers, literature was essentially domestic, but Wallace blew that approach away. Exuberant, picaresque, cynical but also heartfelt, "The Broom of the System" hit the literary circulation system like a 450-page burst of amphetamine. It wasn't a perfect book; like much of Wallace's early fiction, it wore its inspirations -- especially that of Thomas Pynchon -- on its sleeve.

But what "The Broom of the System" did was to offer up a set of possibilities, to remind us that the novel could be expansive, that it was possible to push the boundaries, to create a larger social landscape in fiction, that it wasn't wrong to be ambitious, to use literature to get at the unknowable heart of the world.

The remainder of this appreciation is available at: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-wallace15-2008sep15 ,0,6321434.story

http://DoctorMate.stumbleupon.com/review/25419684/

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:24:46 -0700

David Foster Wallace
1962-2008

Sadly, one of the most brilliant writers of our age is gone.� I was stunned to find the report of his death in the online edition of the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. His wife found him dead at home. The police considered his death as an apparent suicide caused by hanging. His most famous work of fiction-- his masterpiece, was a long novel, Infinite Jest (1996), over 1,000 pages with over 300 footnotes.

There is a great interview of Mr. Wallace by Charlie Rose (1997) available at this link: http://www.charlierose.com/shows/1997/03/27/2/an-interview-with-david-foster-wallace . Watching the interview, I was struck by the young author's honesty and humility.� It is obvious that he was uncommonly intelligent.

The appreciations for and commentaries on the late author are mounting in the media, available on the Internet for this writer whose work touched a great many human beings. Here is a Google link to items appearing in the news about David Foster Wallace: http://news.google.com/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=david+foster+wallace&um=1&ie=UTF-8&resnum=1&scoring=n

http://DoctorMate.stumbleupon.com/review/24821749/

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:30:51 -0700

"As I give you my hand to hold
So I give you my life to keep"

"allerhand" by Ruth Ine

http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/channel/10/extra/new/display/14042634

laurazmartins blog - StumbleUpon

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:20:50 -0700

Lovely pages, rendered with a sensitive touch... thank you...

"...To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea"

"Unchained Melody"

Oh, my love
My darling
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?

I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh
Wait for me, wait for me
I'll be coming home
Wait for me

Oh, my love
My darling
I've hungered, hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?

I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

--Hy Zaret, Lyrics
--Alex North, Music

http://www.artshole.co.uk/arts/artists/01dec06/Bryony%20Smith/Woman-in-White-3.jpg

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:34:48 -0700

Woman in White
by Bryony Smith

http://DoctorMate.stumbleupon.com/review/24775770/

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:32:08 -0700

The Man Who Understood Simplicity

Jos� Raul Capablanca
(1888-1942 --world chess champion 1921-1927)
�� Yesterday, I spent an evening with friends at the Marshall Chess Club in Greenwich Village. The Marshall, housed in a beautiful brownstone built in 1837, is one of the world's leading chess clubs with an atmosphere and ambience steeped in tradition. I hadn't been at the club for a while and hadn't opened a chess book or looked at a chess magazine in ages. Moreover, I wasn't up to date as to the goings on in the world of chess. There was a time when I practically lived for the news on the game. News regarding that rarefied atmosphere of the leading chess players whose latest games are followed with the greatest interest not just by their rivals, but by serious students of the game and those who enjoy the beauty of the art, science and sporting aspects of this "noble little game", as Dr. Emanuel Lasker (world chess champion 1894-1921) once described chess. The current world chess champion is Vishwanathan Anand of India.
�� So, after playing some "blitz games" (fast games where each player has 5 minutes to play all of their moves, the games being timed with a "chess clock") and finding out how rusty I became :) , we discussed some of the ways one could improve their game. We all agreed that there is no substitute for playing, especially with stronger players. Yet that is not enough. There is study. Tearing apart the games that you play to try and find ways to improve. And studying the games of the great players. It was so great just to talk about chess again. Occasionally, I had been playing some games online, but there is no substitute to actually be with friends and lovers of the game-- the social aspect of chess that is diminished to a considerable extent when online.
�� Throughout the ages leading chess players have published treatises on chess, analyses of certain positions, and collections of their games with annotations. I recalled a book that had made a deep impression on me, My Chess Career (New York, MacMillan 1920) by Jos� Raul Capablanca of Cuba (world chess champion 1921-1927). As far as I know the book is still in print (Dover edition). In My Chess Career, Capablanca collected 35 of his best games starting with a game he played at the age of 12 (1900) in which he defeated the then Cuban champion, and ending with a game he played in 1919.
�� What made My Chess Career special for me was Capablanca's clear annotations that always went to the heart of the matter. He was a genius at making things simple. He could identify the critical points of the game, and explain what was at stake. Moreover, his annotations were not overloaded with details-- seemingly endless streams of moves and variations. He had details yes, but only those that he deemed relevant. Importantly, he would put into words what his plan was. Planning. The plan. In some ways the forming of a plan may be the highest level of human thought. And he explained his plans in simple words. And he reached out to me in a way that I could follow what was going on. Capablanca knew where the pieces belonged (plan or strategy), and he would work out ways (tactics) to get them there. Or, he would understand what his opponent's plan was, and that lead him to form a plan to stop that player's plan.
�� It seems that one can apply the lessons of this great player to life itself in some ways. Make a plan. Try to picture or understand what it is that you want (goal, plan, strategy, strategic goal), no matter what it is (!), and then it is easier to work out a path (tactics) to get there. Nowadays we know this to be a mantra of many sports psychologists. Capablanca discovered this on his own. Incidentally, Dr. Emanuel Lasker wrote a wonderful book, Lasker's Manual of Chess, in which he devotes an entire section to the plan. Another great chess book that I hope to scribble about here soon.Please forgive me if any of this sounded pedantic or didactic. I just had to write this, still under the spell of last night. I had such a good time last night.