You Are Given Second Chances and You Take Them

As you were crossing Lexington you thought about last night's dream - it wasn't a good one. You also considered red and yellow, the colors, how they work together, yet if you were designing the perfect outfit as you rose from your bed like the undead from a coffin, yet if you were to imagine a blouse awaiting on hanger at Macy's or the Good Will as you flip flopped on sidewalks tacky with phlegm and ambition, never - not once - would you imagine a blouse red and yellow. Not once, yet it could work. You've seen silk sheaths blending statement colors with more sophistication than the Chinese flag. Your dream had something to do with a volunteer gig and poetry. A distasteful gig you abandoned and as you did, you dropped a prop related to the gig, something big as fire extinguisher. But then you conscience-stricken love bundle, you turned back. The dropped prop was damaged but found. The guy organizing the gig shrugged. He knew and cared and didn't. No one wore red and yellow. You returned to the room of poets doing crafts but not good ones. The poets were hopeful. Hope being a fly to swat at.  You returned - it's not a nightmare.  You were given second chances and you took them. Take a chance, dear one, take a second chance. You can rise like steam or a flame or a shard seeking grace and holy love.

[Sarah Sarai, June 12, 2013] [written because you remembered colors] [written because the dream could be worse] [written because you need someone to talk to]

[Sorry I missed yesterday.]

Solids, Liquids, Spherical Shapes, and I Lost My Train of Thought

*

Apparently Titian didn't paint mockingbirds. It would seem Mary Cassatt couldn't be bothered. Titian's first name was Jordan. Mary Cassatt's first name was Camryn. I googled "mockingbird art" and discovered mockingbirds aren't artists. Why the mockingbird? I don't imagine that you, reader, inquires. I imagine I ask because it's what I expect: a question. The Question In Pre-Modernity. Solids, Liquids, Spherical Shapes, and I Lost My Train of Thought. Camryn Mary Cassatt: couldn't be bothered or wouldn't be bothered? The heart has wings so why the fuck not the suckling child? Tell you the truth, I dread work today. But I love getting paid now and then, the now and then I get paid. Even $25 for reviewing a book is a thrill but Christ it's a lot of work. The end.

[Sarah Sarai, June 10, 2013] [written because blame habit] [written because I watched a show] [written]

[That's a royalty-free stock photo of a northern mockingbird. In 3-D.]

Spinoza to Simon De Vries: No Experience Necessary



from Spinoza in Cartoons*

Respected Friend,—You ask me if we have need of experience, in order to know whether the definition of a given attribute is true. To this I answer, that we never need experience, except in cases when the existence of the thing cannot be inferred from its definition, as, for instance, the existence of modes (which cannot be inferred from their definition); experience is not needed, when the existence of the things in question is not distinguished from their essence, and is therefore inferred from their definition. This can never be taught us by any experience, for experience does not teach us any essences of things; the utmost it can do is to set our mind thinking about definite essences only. Wherefore, when the existence of attributes does not differ from their essence, no experience is capable of attaining it for us. ...[Italics mine, more info below]**
Letter XXVIII, courtesy of Online Library of Liberty.

To which I, Sarah Sarai, say, what?  Experience doesn't teach us a thing's essence? Okay, then. I vote for intuition and a holy flash of understanding. Experience can be a first step, but if something is what it is, well, then, that's that, and it can stay on the top shelf in a Chinese pagoda while I know it, just know it, from afar. My oldest sister experienced Europe. She came back and said, "It's just old." Living in New York City after having lived in Seattle for ten years and Los Angeles for over twenty-five years, I got it, believed her, understand the essence of her critique. It's old here in Manhattan, too. The infrastructure is weak and every tall building is on a sinkhole of mildew resulting from poor caulking. Trust me. Without experiencing the absolute collapse of European culture I nonetheless tell you it's inevitable. Move west. West.

[Sarah Sarai, June 9, 2013] [written because I was blown away] [written because Spinoza's torments were worse than mine and he got a grip] [written because I ain't kidding anyone anyway] [written because yowza writing's fun ((not sure if all these are prose poems but they are definitely probably paragraphs))]

*** Spinoza, pg. 316-317 of Benedict de Spinoza's On the Improvement of Understanding/The Ethics/Correspondence tr. by R.H.M. Elwes, Dover Books. BUY IT! [Italics, mine] [He continues a few more lines to talk of eternal truths.]

Spinoza in cartoons. I'd like to see him in Khartoum.

How Mel-Mel's Mind Works: I Had Fun With This One!

Not Tarzana but an echo of.

Okay. So here's the deal. Mel-Mel doesn't like sharing, not ongoings of her life, not with strangers, i.e., occasional workmates. Not unless the ongoings are stored in a pink plastic folder she can pull from her purse, ta dah. Not unless they are her ice skates and she can tell her pudgy, finger-in-the nose classmates about the rink in Tarzana. Which abuts Encino. Which whistles to Sherman Oaks. And there's North Hollywood going cheek-to-cheek with Burbank. This train of thought is going loop-de-loop, a description of a thought's rotation in the heavenly spheres of the conscious-ish mind. She likes pictures in frames. Narratives are pictures. But the personal is not framed. It romps wild in dreams and echoes in chambers of the heart of a judge. So now Mel-Mel is in trouble because this workmate has hurt feelings. Mel-Mel is nervous because there are always consequences in her awkward life. Every inaction rates an action in her life. Mel-Mel has too logical a mind to understand her workmate's locker of hurt feelings.

[Sarah Sarai, June 8, 2013] [written because she wishes she were different but she's not] [written because so what iimperfection is revealed] [written because she likes feeling relieved] [written because writing is the best]