Just another photo from the tile museum in Lisbon. I remember when I made my students track down their favorite tiles when I led a student trip to Portugal (and Spain). Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, they had a ball doing it. One of the lessons I learned about Champlain students is they love games and challenges, which I quickly brought into my class assignments.
I've already spent more time blogging today than I actually have to spare, but I did get all of my grading down yesterday so I guess I've earned a little reprieve. Still, this is just an introduction to a later richer post on a visit from my summer trip to Portugal. While there I finally made my way to the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, the tile museum, in the outskirts of Lisbon. I was hoping to bring my students there on a proposed March trip, but my undependable health led, sadly, to the cancelling of that course. It is a lovely museum, and I'll share some more pictures on a later date.
The generation I belong to was born into a world where those with a brain as well as a heart couldn't find any support. The destructive work of previous generations left us a world that offered no security in the religious sphere, no guidance in the moral sphere, and no tranquillity in the political sphere. We were born into the midst of metaphysical anguish, moral anxiety and political disquiet.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 175
In a time of extreme disquiet, I suppose it's not surprising Pessoa continues to resonate so profoundly. When I watch the talking heads dissect this distressing election (and I've made an effort to watch as little as possible) it's obvious that they don't have the power to do so, mainly because they are viewing the issue on the micro level (i.e. mistakes in the Democratic platform or in a particular speech - or Trump's decision to double-down on racism and grievance) and not even trying to grapple with the problems revealed on the macro level (the religious, moral, and political spheres that Pessoa referenced above). And it's not simply the generation voting now which so alarmingly displays any sort of depth of thought or humanity (or even common sense) that I find so troubling. After the election I wrote to several of my friends who had daughters and told them that, as bad as I feel at this moment, I feel much worse for them. Think of the lives that those young women will be forced to lead - and think of the non-lives of the children they won't have, and not because of abortion, but because of their decision to not have children, because, well, why would they? What dream for the future is inspired by this electoral abortion?
In times like these - when I could readily understand ascetics and recluses, were I able to understand how anyone can make an effort on behalf of absolute ends or subscribe to a creed that might produce an effort - I would create, if I could, a full-fledged aesthetics of despair, an inner rhythm like a crib's rocking, filtered by the night's caresses in other, far-flung homelands.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 207
In the cold, cruel days after this last election, I guess it would be far too easy to give up to "a full-fledged aesthetics of despair." Obviously, it's not normally how I roll. My classic response to bad moments like this, and I've had more than my share, is to give myself over to a short period of despair, allowing myself to wonder why I even bother and considering the beautiful option of surrendering, but then I quickly turn things around and plot how to overwhelm those foolish enough to pick a fight. However, this may be different. I was making this point with a couple folks the other day: there's something about 51% of Americans voting for this cruel, incompetent, orange con artist that is difficult to get past. There are so many people who voted for him, and who don't really have a safety net and can thus ill-afford the disaster that awaits, who will suffer because of a vote inspired by greed or racism or misogyny or xenophobia or Islamophobia or, well, simple cruelty. I choose the last word carefully and intentionally. We've reached the late Roman stage where the powers that be view a large part of their job, and their hold on power, in producing a blood sport to amuse/distract the masses, hungry for the suffering of others. In my Nature of Evil class we read a much too short piece from Emanuel Levinas's "Useless Suffering," where he made the point about how so much of the suffering of the 20th century was based on a fascination with our own suffering, often over-blown if not entirely self-generated, while ignoring the suffering of others - when our greatest emphasis should be on the suffering of others. So, it should not be "America First," but rather "Humanity First." Instead, we've taken a very dark turn, and one of my goals is to not let my despair give way to a schadenfreude at the inevitable suffering of people who threw their support behind one of the largest cults in world history, and clearly the largest in American history. So many of these people have truly suffered through the ravages of late stage Capitalism, and whose suffering was all too often ignored by the elites in the Democratic party and manipulated by elites in the Republican party. I would be taking away the entirely incorrect message from Levinas if I celebrated a decision on their part which is only going to make their lives worse. That said, it doesn't mean that I have to hang around watch it happen. I've been thinking about relocating overseas, to "far-flung homelands," for some time, and I think we've reached that tipping point. It's not simply that I don't want to live among the ruins, but rather that I want to live a saner, more moderate life, one of balance and relative peace and quiet, not a plaything of the greedy rich and heartless corporations.
One of the soul's great tragedies is to execute a work and then realize, once it's finished that it's not any good. The tragedy is especially great when one realizes that the work is the best he could have done. But to write a work, knowing beforehand that it's bound to be flawed and imperfect; to see while writing it that it's flawed and imperfect - this is the height of spiritual torture and humiliation.
Fernando Pessoa The Book of Disquiet, document 231
This probably popped into my head because I've managed to get in no meaningful writing lately. I wrote so much over the summer, and maybe that's why I had that totally unrealistic goal of finishing the epics book before the summer ended - that is, once the school year began I knew that my time would shrink to nothing and my meaningful output would be even less. Of course, what Pessoa is getting out is something even more profound: why do I bother when I know it won't be any good anyway? He answers the question in the next paragraph: "So why do I keep writing? Because I still haven't learned to practice completely the renunciation that I preach." He reflects that the first poems he wrote as a child were perfect, or at least they seemed perfect to him at the time. Pessoa laments that, "I'll never again be able to have the illusory pleasure of producing perfect work." How delicious and necessary is that "illusory pleasure." He reflects, "I weep over those first dreadful poems as over a dead child, a dead son, a last hope that has vanished." I don't think I've even earned that "illusory pleasure," because what have I ever created that amounted to anything? I can't even pretend that it amounted to perfection, because, like Oakland, there's no there, there.
"What I am essentially - behind the involuntary masks of poet, logical reasoner and so forth - is a dramatist. My spontaneous tendency to depersonalization, which I mentioned in my last letter to explain the existence of my heteronyms, naturally leads to this definition. And so I do not evolve, I simply EVOLVE. (. . .) I continuously change personality, I keep enlarging (and here there is a kind of evolution) my capacity to create new characters, new forms of pretending that I understand the world or, more accurately, that the world can be understood."
(From a letter of Fernando Pessoa, 20 January 1935), A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, p. 273
Since this upcoming semester may actually be my last one (doubtful, but who knows) I decided to keep a promise to myself and focus a class on Fernando Pessoa. I'm adapting my COR 204 Marxism & the Movies class and, while maintaining, largely, a film structure, I'm going to examine issues of self and identity, which I guess will make this a class on Self, Identity, & Film. I'm going to have the students read Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet and also the poetry collection, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe. This will allow me to bring in films such as Bergman's Persona and Kurosawa's Ikiru and Kieslowski's Blue and Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 and Ford's The Searchers. I'll probably bring in some choice selections from Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, because, well, why not? I think I'm going to, shadowing Pessoa, have the students write a factless autobiography. Somehow, this will all make sense.
The last few months have been, obviously, more than a bit chaotic, which means that certain things ended up being pushed, unintentionally, to the back burner. One of them was a CFL trip. As is well-documented on this blog I've attended a lot of CFL games over the years (and dragged along family and friends, often kicking and screaming). I'm always happy to spend money on the CFL, in a way that I'm no longer interested in spending money on the NFL or even MLB. Usually, in the course of a season I'll attend two or three CFL games, however, I don't normally attend three in one week. I had proposed a Montreal and Ottawa doubleheader (as we've discussed, one of the beauties of the CFL is that although they only play four games a week they are sometimes spread over three or four days, which opens up the potential for bunching games). We couldn't make the schedule work, but happily our excellent friend Andy got into the CFL schedule and figured out a Hamilton and Toronto doubleheader. Happily, our friend Kevin (who clearly likes the CFL more than he will admit) could make it work. They were great travelling companions, and, despite buying the tickets, they took care of all of the other logistics. We found an AirBnb in between Hamilton and Toronto, and off we went, catching a Calgary Stampeders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats game on Friday night, and following it up with an Ottawa REDBLACKS and Toronto Argonauts game last Saturday afternoon. However, why would you stop at two CFL games when you can go to three? I dragooned Gary and his wife Ali, and yesterday we went up to catch a Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Montreal Alouettes game. The two teams met in last year's Grey Cup and are once again the two best teams in the league, which made the game a probable preview of this year's Grey Cup. It was a great game, and all the starters played the entire game, even though neither team had anything to play for (yet another reason why the CFL is better than the NFL, where most of the skill players would have taken the day off). The Blue Bombers won on the last play of the game, after a devil's wind, clearly blowing in from Winnipeg, knocked down an Alouettes punt and gave the visitors one last chance. Now, should I just go ahead and buy tickets for the Alouettes playoff game in two weeks?
I loathe the happiness of all these people who don't know they're unhappy. Their human life is full of what, in a true sensibility, would produce a surfeit of anxieties. But since their true life is vegetative, their sufferings come and go without touching their soul, and they live a life that can be compared only to that of a man with a toothache who won a fortune - the genuine good fortune of living unawares, the greatest gift granted by the gods, for it is the gift of being like them, superior just as they are (albeit in a different fashion) to happiness and pain.
That's why, in spite of everything, I love them all. My dear vegetables!
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 313
FP - "the genuine good fortune of living unawares, the greatest gift granted by the gods, superior just as they are (albeit in a different fashion) to happiness and pain." How long have humans tried to live lives equal to that of the gods? The answer is exactly how long the gods have punished them for wanting exactly that. Yahweh tossed Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the crime of essentially trying to rival God. However, in the end, at least according to Pessoa, we were trying too hard. the truth is not a studied Stoic or Buddhist transcendence, but instead a witless "living unawares." Of course, are they actually living? Way too many people - apparently around 46% of the adult US population - are apparently living, and voting, vegetatively.
I feel more kinship and intimacy with certain characters described in books and certain images I've seen in prints than I feel with many so-called real people, who are of that metaphysical insignificance known as flesh and blood. And 'flesh and blood' in fact describes them rather well: they're like chunks of meat displayed in the window of a butcher's, dead things bleeding as if they were alive, shanks and cutlets of Destiny.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 317
OK, first off I should just go ahead and admit that one of my fantasy baseball team is going to be retitled Shanks and Cutlets of Destiny of next year. In the Irrational League, which I helped found thirty-five years ago, my team is a bottom dweller season after season, mainly because I just don't pay much attention to baseball any more. I'm hanging around in the league mainly to be supportive of my friends. Consequently, I tend to swap out the names pretty routinely now, mainly to preserve the sanctity of the Atlanta Crackers - my original team name, and one in which I won a lot. My gross incompetence now besmirches the legacy of that proud name, and I rotate in and out of other names And, seriously, who could not root for the Shanks and Cutlets of Destiny.
More importantly, Pessoa is, once again, discussing his love of the world of literature and art, where true reality resides, and his mistrust of the coarse physical world that surrounds us. Yes, he's being more than a bit of over the top, but he's correct in recognizing that what we think is important is often anything but. Not that family and friends aren't important, obviously, and he was loyal to both, but instead that we place so much importance on people who are of absolutely no importance whatsoever. What's more, our society - now more than then - focus our attention, endlessly, on the "famous" and "interesting" at the expense of truly meaningful. Is it any wonder that we live in the age of Donald Trump?
When I moved into the cabin I assumed that Cici (aka Nut Job aka the Vertical Cat) would be my boon companion, but it turned out to be Mollie. It might just be an issue of scheduling in that Cici makes it to Janet's lap first in the morning, and Mollie uses me as a fallback. However, she's usually up here at my desk, lounging on one of my prayer rugs, when she's not trying to knock my laptop to the ground because I have the temerity to try and write when she needs/demands attention.
I've often noticed that certain fictional characters assume a prominence never attained by the friends and acquaintances who talk and listen to us in visible, real life. And this make me fantasize about whether everything in the sum total of the world might not be an interconnected series of dreams and novels, like little boxes inside larger boxes that are inside yet larger ones, everything being a story made up of stories, like A Thousand and One Nights, unreally taking place in the never-ending night.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 285
As we've discussed, to understand Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet you really need to grasp his ceaseless and beautiful interiority. I think you also need to understand that, in a lot of ways, Pessoa is not quite certain that the external world exists. By this I don't mean in a surface-level and fairly witless Matrix version, but rather that the external world is so unimportant that it essentially doesn't exist. It's crass and it's ugly, but it's also so pointlessly bereft of meaning that it has no tangibility, intellectually or emotionally or philosophically or spiritually. Hence, when Pessoa identifies The Book of Disquiet as "a factless autobiography" he's not simply being typically weird, he's making a far more profound point. One of the reasons why biographies or autobiographies can be so unsatisfying and unproductive is because a listing of things that you did doesn't really tell me anything about you. I'm hoping to teach a class centered around The Book of Disquiet in the spring, and I'm going to start off by asking the students to write a couple pages autobiography, which I'll, utterly predictably, gently mock in class, following up on the point above that a chronicle of jobs you had or places you visited doesn't actually tell the reader much of anything about the subject. Of course, this also relates to the previous post about my growing sense of fear that I won't end up moving to Portugal, because, after all, the Ganges does run by the Rua dos Douradores. Would a new external existence in Portugal actually change anything, unless, of course, it helped me change myself internally. With all this in mind, I think you could see why Pessoa proposes "an interconnected series of dreams and novels." If the external world is so gossamer fleeting in its significance, then the characters in a novel probably are more important than most of the people in my "actual" life.
Today, in one of the pointless and worthless daydreams that constitute a large part of my inner life, I imagined being forever free from the Rua dos Douradores, from Vasques my boss, from Moreira the head bookkeeper, from all the employees, from the delivery boy, the office boy and the cat. In my dream I experienced freedom, as if the South Seas had offered me marvelous islands to be discovered. It would all be repose, artistic achievements, the intellectual fulfilments of my being.
But even as I was imagining this, during my miniature midday holiday in a café, an unpleasant thought assaulted my dram: I realized I would feel regret. Yes, I say it as if confronted by the actual circumstance: I would feel regret. Vasques my boss, Moreira the head bookkeeper, Borges the cashier, all the young men, the cheerful boy who takes letters t the post office, the boy who makes deliveries, the gentle cat - all this has become part of my life. And I wouldn't be able to leave it without crying, without feeling that - like it or not - it was a part of me which would remain with all of them, and that to separate myself from them would be a partial death.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 7
Later in The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa reminds us that, "The Ganges passes by the Rua dos Douradores. All eras exist in this cramped room . . ." (text 420) Lately, I've been thinking a lot about these two passages. Maybe it's becoming obvious to me that maybe I won't ever move to Portugal after I retire. It could be something as quotidian as my health: now that the Mayo Clinic has rejected my request for an appointment am I just going to slowly lose the ability to walk (or at least walk more than fifty yards) - and are my current heart problems going to be more than just a temporary annoyance and turn into something more truly dangerous or debilitating? Or maybe I'll just lose my courage (not that the previous issues doesn't impact this one) and I can't rally myself to face the challenge. Or, maybe, I'm starting to realize that I would miss this life, even my versions of Vasques and Moreira and the office boy.
"When one of my Japanese teacups is broken, I imagine that the real cause was not the careless hand of a maid but the anxieties of the figures inhabiting the the curves of the porcelain [missing text here]. Their grim decision to commit suicide doesn't shock me: they used the maid as one of us might use a gun. To know this (and with what precision I know it!) is to have gone beyond modern science."
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 416
I'm sure I shared the bizarre story of the time when I was in Omaha, Nebraska for a conference, which had to be something like thirty years ago. I was coming back from dinner when I found myself in front of an antique shop. Featured in the window were a couple old suitcases, sort of like the one that George Bailey received as a gift from Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life. I remember feeling so sad, and it just seemed so unfair that suitcases which might have circled the globe were ending their days on a neglected side street in Omaha, Nebraska. At that moment an incredible desire came over me to smash the window of the shop and free the suitcases. Our ability, or at least my ability, to animate the inanimate - and probably inanimate the animate - never ceases to amaze me.
I've undertaken every project imaginable. The Iliad composed by me had a structural logic in its organic linking of epodes such as Homer could never have achieved. The meticulous perfection of my unwritten verses makes Virgil's precision look sloppy and Milton's power slack. My allegorical satires surpassed all of Swift's in the symbolic exactitude of their rigorously interconnected particular. How many Horaces I've been?
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, Text 290
First off, obviously, I swiped this reference to Homer and Virgil for the epics book. It will live happily in the Conclusion, or maybe the Introduction, but either place it will shine even brighter cause of the dullness of my own prose. Pessoa is not talking smack here, but rather regretting the books that he never wrote. This may be the only thing that Fernando Pessoa I have in common: an inability to finish projects. Except, sadly, I make FP look energetic and focused by comparison. Why can't I finish my projects? They are queued up, one after the other, and sometimes I tell myself that maybe I shouldn't be that terrified by retirement because I'll finally be able to move on to a different and more profitable (intellectually if not financially) stage of my life. I could champion my lack of intelligence and talent, and this is unquestionably true. Or it could be a testament to my general laziness (while growing up, and I'm sure now, my father opined that I was the laziest man in the world), and there's truth in that. In the end, however, I suspect it's cowardice as much as anything.
It is the birthday of this amazing young woman. I'm so happy that Ali is now a member of the family.
I was going back through my camera (which, oddly, has less pictures than I would have thought) in early preparation for November's Venice trip (and, well, my first round of papers for the semester arrived and everything is better than grading) and I came across this picture of the granaries from our first trip to Portugal in July 2022. It's funny to think that we weren't even married then. I definitely need to get back to Lindoso. There's definitely a horror story waiting to be written there.
Over the weekend Gary and Ali got married. It was an extraordinary day, and even now my heart is almost too full to discuss it. At the very least, I'm not going to try and tackle it all together (although maybe down the road). So, expect a series of small glimpses. Here's a picture of the two of them sharing the traditional "you may kiss the bride moment," although there was little traditional about the moment. In a world that is so hateful and crass and materialistic, and, well, mostly awful, it's such a gift to witness a moment of sheer, unadulterated, pure joy.
Like all cat owners, it is useless to attempt to read when they expect attention. I was laying on the floor, because the vertical cat, Cici, was sitting in my chair, when Mollie, the horizontal cat, decided I was paying too much attention to the book. The beautiful thing here is that I was reading The Problem of Evil, which seemed to have a natural connection to an evil agent like a cat.
In one short month Kevin and I will be heading west, and meeting Andy who will be driving in from Michigan, for our CFL Doubleheader Event of Excellence. Clearly, if you're going to show up at the game you have to support your team. And while I have t-shirts for every one of the nine CFL teams, I didn't have any sweatshirts. And, well, no doubt it will be a little chili in Hamilton and Toronto in mid-October.
Gods and men - they're all the same to me in the rampant confusion of unpredictable fate. They march through my dreams in this anonymous fourth-floor room, and they're no more to me than they were to those who believed in them. Idols of leery, wide-eyed Africans, animal deities of hinterland savages, the Egyptians'' personified symbols, luminous Greek divinities, stiff Roman gods, Mithras lord of the Sun and of emotion, Jesus lord of consequences and charity, various versions of the same Christ, new holy gods of new towns - all of them make up the funeral march (be it a pilgrimage or burial) of error and illusion. They all march, and behind them march the dreams that are just empty shadows cast on the ground but that the worst dreamers suppose are firmly planted there; pathetic concepts without body or soul - Liberty, Humanity, Happiness, a Better Future, Social Science - moving forward in the solitude of darkness like leaves dragged along by the train of a royal robe stolen by beggars.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 273
I think this is an especially brilliant passage, and there's a lot to unpack here. First off, I'm shamelessly stealing his reference to "luminous Greek divinities, stiff Roman gods," for my epics book. I've often proposed, and not originally, that the Greek gods were gods for the individual, while the Roman gods were more gods for the state (and you could more generally make the same argument about Greek vs. Roman heroes), so I guess it's not too surprising that Pessoa would refer to the Greeks gods as "luminous" or the Roman gods as "stiff." Of course, Pessoa is also talking about other "empty shadows" as well, including Liberty or Happiness or a Better Future, all of which "march through [Pessoa's] dreams in this anonymous fourth-flood room." I don't think I'm necessarily agreeing with Pessoa here, because we need dreams, even if they are "pathetic concepts without body or soul." Some people, mainly on the right, have been making fun of Kamala Harris's message of hope, but to me that's just a postured world weariness. Thucydides, when discussing the Peloponnesian War, reminded us how fear can warp the human soul. Trump both feeds off fear and also generates more fear, because it is a good marketing strategy, but this fear doesn't exist in a vacuum - I do think it is warping the soul of America.
One of the things that I love about our odd little corner of the world is that you really get brought (dragged?) into the local community. Beyond volunteering at cookouts or giving talks on Proust, there's always the opportunity to volunteer for local elections. This is not only a chore that is important, but it's one that gives me a lot of joy and a feeling of community.
And if I'm going to pass through the Midwest then, if at all possible, I need to swing by Cincinnati to see my old friend Dave. As always, we had a blast. We talked the long the first night that we missed closing time at Skyline Chili; fortunately, Gold Star was more dedicated to providing us with Chili Excellence.
Before the trip to Virginia, I made a trip to Indiana to spend some time with my father (a trip that I try to make twice a year) and the rest of my people. Fortunately, I was able to carve off some time to head up to Indianapolis, which allowed me to see my cousin Nick and my brother Eric. We had an absolutely wonderful time.
Most Fridays in July and August will find us grilling out at the Adamant Coop. The Friday night cookouts in the summer help us raise enough money to survive another long Vermont winter. Janet will also often serve as a Coordinator for a cookout, a task that happily is never handed to me. This past Friday was our last cookout of the season, which is both a relief and also somewhat melancholy.
I cannot complain about how many books my wife has because I'm always the one saying to her, "Why don't you let your husband buy you a couple books?" She readily, and happily, agrees.
Plus, well, I think this is a great picture of my lovely wife.
Anyone who knows me is well aware of a couple things: I'm task-oriented and stubborn in my pursuit of said tasks. Today I marked my 900th straight day of Duolingo. Essentially, at this point I've finished their course on Portuguese, which was always of relatively iffy value because it's Brazilian and not Portuguese Portuguese. Most language programs follow this path, which, I guess if you consider the question mathematically, makes sense, as there are 215 million Brazilians and only 10 million Portuguese. Of course, there are many similarities, although they sound dramatically different. Still, I suppose I've learned a ton of words from the Duolingo site, so, even though I've technically completed their course and I'm just doing refresher lessons, I suppose it doesn't hurt me too much. I was tinkering around with Italian for a while, in preparation for our upcoming trip to Venice, but I think my brain (and my dreadful language skills) were not going to allow me to do anything else other than confuse myself by trying to learn a bit of both. I devote most of my time to Pimsleur, which has sixty total lessons for Iberian Portuguese. Once I blow through that I'm going to start an online course.
And another nice shot from our recent trip down to Virginia to visit John and Jeanne. There was a bar across the street, literally, from their place. It featured a different food truck every night, and you purchased a personal restaurant credit card and went through a wall of taps to get exactly how much beer or wine you wanted. A bit pricey, but pretty cool - and I'm happy that it doesn't exist across the street from our cabin.
My great friend David, who is foolishly Chair of our By-Laws Committee, even more foolishly asked me to serve on said committee, and even more incalculably foolishly, I said yes. Over the past quarter century I'd hate to think how many times I've cycled in and out of the By-Laws Committee - probably as many times as I've cycled in and out of the Curriculum Committee (which I'm also on at the moment).
Thankfully, not one of my bratty sisters for a change. Here's a picture of John Pocorobba's bratty little sister, Janet. On our trip to Virginia we stopped by Dairy Queen for a treat.
With all of the health issues I've been fighting over the last three or four years, I guess it was inevitable that I'd end up with a minor heart scare. I've had some tightness in my chest and a little shortness of breath, but so far the tests aren't showing much of anything. I'm waiting to hear the results of an echocardiogram I had the other day, but I really don't feel too bad at all. I am, as my doctor will attest, the King of Imprecise Symptoms, so I suppose I shouldn't get my hopes up that they'll tell me anything specific. I'm also waiting to hear from the Mayo Clinic to see if they'll see me in regards to my mysterious leg ailments. So, this might be an eventful week on the health front.
The plans have been made for some epic CFL Doubleheader Excellence in October. Kevin and I are driving west - and Andy and Heidi are driving east - and we're meeting in the middle. We're catching the Stampeders and Tiger-Cats game in Hamilton on Friday 18 October and then the REDBLACKS and Argonauts game in Toronto on Saturday 19 October. Noted betting expert Mike Kelly has set the Over/Under number of TimBits consumed over the weekend at 108. I'm betting Over for me alone.
Tuesday the 23rd was our second anniversary, which doesn't seem possible, because it can't possibly be two years already, and it also seems that we've known each other forever. Janet's love and support is such an extraordinary blessing.
Pensar em Deus e desobedecer a Deus,
Porque Deus quis que o nao conhecessemos,
Por isso se nos nao mostrou . . .
To think about God is to disobey God,
Since God wanted us not to know him,
Which is why he didn't reveal himself to us . . .
Let's be simple and calm,
Like the trees and streams,
And God will love us, making us
Us even as the trees are trees
And the streams are streams,
And will give us greenness in the spring, which is its season,
And a river to go to when we end . . .
And he'll give us nothing more, since to give us more would make us less us.
Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa)
Fernando Pessoa is perpetually surprising, and not simply because he often spoke through his heteronyms. Of his three main poetic heteronyms, Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Alvaro de Campos, it is Caeiro who holds a special place. In fact, the other heteronyms, including Pessoa, referred to Caeiro as "the master." His is the more pastural vision, but also the most spiritual. The line, "To think about God is to disobey God," has quickly become one of my all-time favorite literary expressions (and I suspect will find its way onto my tombstone, probably in the original Portuguese). In a way, it reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the the Qur'an: "Remember your Lord humbly and in awe." That line, from the end of the seventh surah, expresses a simpler and quieter view of how one should address the divine. If anything, Pessoa's poetic admonition is even more stripped down. God is beyond rational thought, and can't be limited by it.
And here's another picture from last summer. On our last full day in Lisbon Janet had run off to catch up with a friend, leaving me to explore. I don't know how many pictures of beautiful churches or temples or mosques I've posted on this blog, but, nevertheless, here's another one. This was also just up the hill from our usual haunts in the Baixa Chiado.
And this is just up the hill from the scene captured in the last post. Clearly, I need to spend time at a place with the title Penso Ms Nao Existo (I think but I don't exist).
This is actually a picture that I snapped last summer (at this exact moment last year we were in Portugal - sigh). This is the front of the Hotel Borges Chiado, where we've taken to staying on our trips to Lisbon. The hotel itself is pretty solid, although the main reason is, as they say, location location location. It's right in the heart of the Baixa Chiado, which means that it's right down the hill from the Briarro Alto. Consequently, it cane be touristy, but there's also a real happy buzz there, complete with nice places to grab a meal and two great bookstores.
Some posts are rather important and thought-provoking (although never mine) and some fall more on the silly side of the spectrum. This definitely qualifies as one of the latter (even more than my usual nonsensical ramblings). One of our constant complaints, and by that I mean my constant complaints, is why it seems to be impossible to get Magnum White Chocolate ice cream bars in the US. They seem to be in every freezer in Portugal, which is another reason why I should move there, obviously.
If one day I become financially secure, so that I can freely write and publish, I know I'll miss this precarious life in which I hardly write and don't publish at all. I'll miss it not only because it will be a life, however mediocre, that I'll never have again, but also because every sort of life has a special quality and particular pleasure, and when we take up another life, even a better one, that particular pleasure isn't as good, that special quality is less special, until they fade away, and there's something missing.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 180
Now, will I miss this "precarious life in which I hardly write and don't publish at all"? To be fair, I have been writing a lot, every day, even if only a paragraph or two, but certainly not as much as I need to write. However, I'm certainly not publishing anything, although my goal would be to start sending around the Epics book in the fall (inshallah). However, will I miss this life, "however mediocre"? On the most basic level, yes, because I won't be teaching anymore, and teaching is something I truly love and maybe the only thing at which I've ever been any good. I did point out recently that the time I spent in my little apartment on the last trip felt like what I want retirement to be: writing in the morning and then having the afternoon to explore a beautiful and interesting world. I suppose we do mourn every passing age, if it was not a particularly interesting or important one, simply because it won't come again, and it means that we're coming closer and closer to death. Beyond that, is there something about this specific life that I would miss? I'll have to brood on that one.
Right around the corner from my little apartment in Estrela was the British Cemetery, which makes sense because it's also close to the British Embassy. Mainly I went there because it housed the grave of Henry Fielding (who went to Lisbon for his health, and then died about a month later - which is a very Portuguese thing to do) and also because I figured it would be lovely and shaded (which it was, much appreciated on another hot day). While there I met a very nice British lady who was the de facto boss of the cemetery (we discussed the impossibility of learning Portuguese), which shows the strange lives that we carve off for ourselves. I need a similarly constructed off overseas life.
Life in the wilderness, an endless series. Here's a picture of Mollie (aka Mush aka Sizzle Brain aka the Horizontal Cat) remaining non-committal in response to the invasion of turkeys in our side yard.
Just a snapshot from last summer's side trip to Madrid for our mad museum trip. I love that the Spanish include these tiled signs on their major streets. Plus, it reminded me that we were listening to a podcast recently where these wankers proposed that Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel Don Quixote was a book that you didn't really need to read. Idiots.
I'm not certain why I'm posting this picture, other than the fact that it captures my mood over the last few months. I snapped it down at Dartmouth Hitchcock during my latest, and apparently final, epidural. It was my third epidural over the last three years. The first one, in the spring of 2021, gave me some real relief, although that might have been from starting Gabapentin for the first time. My doctor had me start the med and get the epidural at the same time, and my kickback was that even if they helped wouldn't we be masking the cause of the improvement? I did have a lovely Indian Summer that last almost a year when I felt a lot better, but then it faded away. I had a second epidural in spring 2023 and this last one in spring 2024, and both of them gave me partial relief for about a week. And then nothing. And my neurologist told me that since neither had really worked it was doubtful that insurance would ever agree to pay for another one. It seems to sum up everything that has plagued the last three-plus years: no one figure out my problem, a lot of painful and expensive procedures, random medications based on no specific diagnosis, and a for-profit insurance company that doesn't really care. In the end I've gone off the meds they had me on, partially because the side effects far outweighed the minimal benefits - but also because it's almost necessary that the situation gets worse because it will increase the chance that exaggerated symptoms might attract some medical professional's attention. This is no way to run a railroad.
Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave or an intelligent servant, but you're not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you're forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others. This tragedy, yes, is your own and it follows you.
Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet, ch. 283
It's very easy to see Fernando Pessoa is just a very odd man, and, well, truthfully, he was a very odd man. He created dozens of heteronyms, the poets of which wrote in distinctly different styles. His greatest prose book sat in a trunk for decades before scholars began to put the different pieces together, which is why one publication of The Book of Disquiet can be completely different than another one. The Book of Disquiet is subtitled, A Factless Biography, so even when he's sharing who he is it would probably be better to say that he's sharing who he might be. He never married nor had a serious relationship not even, apparently, even had sex with anyone. So, yes, he was odd, but maybe it's better to recognize that he was also free. I've been reading a massive biography of Marcel Proust (although it's not as massive as Zenith's biography of Fernando Pessoa) and one of the topics that came up is the difference between loneliness and solitude, which are simply not the same thing. I've had more than one person propose that I'm a good friend and that I work really hard on my friendships, but I also crave my time alone. I love my time with my friends, but I don't think I ever get lonely. Of course, in comparison to Pessoa I'm an emotionally needy extrovert. Pessoa apparently had many friends and quite actively worked to get them published as well, but he disappeared into himself quite frequently (and The Book of Disquiet is a celebration of the latter instinct). I think Pessoa lived the life he wanted to live and he seems to have had no regrets at the end, which meant that he did achieve a level of freedom that most of us can't imagine.
I managed to revisit the Fado Museum on last month's trip to Lisbon. I'm thinking of bringing the students there on next March's trip as well as get them in to see some local Fado, hopefully at some dive bar in the Bairro Alto. What better way for the students to get into the heart and soul of Portugal than to listen to some Fado? This painting, Jose Malhoa's 1910 painting, O Fado, is prominently, and rightly, featured at the museum.
Here are some odd little things from last month's trip to Lisbon that reminded me why I love Portugal so much.
