An Inability to Think

 Today the world belongs only to the stupid, the insensitive and the agitated. Today the right to live and triumph is awarded on virtually the same basis as admission into an insane asylum; an inability to think, amorality, and nervous excitability.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 175

On my trip to Portugal last week I visited and revisited a number of museums, I think I averaged around two a day (and my legs let me know their displeasure in complete clarity). On the museum visits I felt that I was trying to "see" the museums through the eyes of a nineteen year old, as compared to the eyes of a sixty-four year old professor. Teachers always do this, I guess, although it can be a big of a challenge; why wouldn't the students find this _______ fascinating, I do? Maybe a better question is to ask whether or not they will actually "get" Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet? I hope so, because the entire class is based on it. In my imagination - or my delusional dreaming - I think that I would have appreciated Pessoa when I was nineteen. Students, oddly, tend to feed off of my unabashed enthusiasm for works, I think mainly because I'm both sincere and make it clear that they should think it's cool but that I'm not going to try and make them care and if they don't care it, naturally, reflects badly upon them. Strangely, this almost universally works. I want them to understand Pessoa not simply in a kneejerk goth way, but instead as a clarion call for beauty in an increasingly ugly world. 

Everyday Souvenir

 OK, so this is a pretty silly post, as compared to all of my other pretty silly posts, to be fair. The week before last I made it back to Portugal for a week, which, naturally, I'll have more to say about later. I'm planning on leading a student trip there in March 2025 (inshallah) so heading over now allowed me to get in some serious prep. It was a very productive trip. Along the way I picked up several souvenirs for Janet, including the Continente grocery bag below. Continente is one of the big grocery chains in Portugal, and there are also Continente Bom Dias, which are smaller versions that they squeeze into urban centers. Janet and I have always had a soft spot for Continente because we shopped there on our first trip to Portugal together. Plus, they have remarkably big grocery bags, two of which we've brought back before. There was a little Continente Bom Dia around the corner from my Airbnb apartment in Lisbon, and one day I picked up a new bag as a souvenir for Janet. She was actually very excited to find it in the stash of souvenirs that I brought back for her.

It may be the only souvenir that we make use of all the time, and which always brings a smile.

Metaphysically Glib

 All my life I've been metaphysically glib, serious at playing around. I haven't done anything seriously, however much I may have wanted to. A mischievous Destiny had fun with me.

To have emotions made of chintz, or of silk, or of brocade! To have emotions that could be described like that! To have describable emotions!

I feel in my soul a divine regret for everything, a choked and sobbing grief for the condemnation of dreams in the flesh of those who dreamed them. And I hate without hatred all the poets who wrote verses, all the idealists who saw their ideals take shape,  all those who obtained what they wanted.

I haphazardly roam the calm streets, walking until my body is as tired as my soul, grieved to the point of that old and familiar grief that likes to e felt, pitying itself with an indefinable maternal compassion set to music.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, no. 135

When I think about Pessoa - and I think about Pessoa a lot (I told my sister yesterday that The Book of Disquiet is the book of my 60s - what really hits home with me is what a fragile, damaged, soul he was. And by this I don't mean to simply fall back on the tortured artist trope. Rather, I think Pessoa was a person who was horrified by the crass, artificial, commercial, cold world around him. There is, as I've pointed out previously, a beautiful internality to his writing. Pessoa wrote an extraordinary amount, very little of which found its way into publication during his own lifetime. In his writings in general, and specifically in this passage, you clearly get the sense of his frustration with himself. When he says, "I hate without hatred all the poets who wrote verses," he's turning the lens on himself more on them. So, why didn't he publish more in his own lifetime? In the end I think he couldn't handle the grief of handing over his work to that brutal external world that he abhorred so completely. If he didn't publish it, if it remained locked up in that infamous wooden chest, then not only did he still possess it entirely, he also assured that it was protected, safe in a womb, far away from the brutality of the world.

Praca do Giraldo

 Here are a couple shots of the Praca do Giraldo, the public square in Evora, Portugal. It has a long, and often bloody history (including the public burning of Inquisition victims), but now it's mainly a lovely place to grab a bit and people watch. Evora is the current leading option for places where we'd settle if we move to Portugal: nice size (not too big or too small), great places to eat, a pretty vibrant cultural life, only a hour and a half by train to Lisbon, and they have a great bookstore. Oh, and I can imagine us sitting in this square, grabbing lunch and taking in the sights.

An Armour of Realities

 The truly wise man is the one who can keep external events from changing him in any way. To do this, he covers himself with an armour of realities closer to him than the world's facts and through which the facts, modified accordingly, reach him.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, no. 97

I've commented, repeatedly, about the fact that one of the things that I love about Pessoa is his internality, and his recognition of the essential importance of defending ourselves from the crass, cold, and artificial outside world. When I get up in the way too early morning - I'm one of those people who is usually up before the alarm buzzes at 5:03 a.m. - I grab coffee, make room for our cat Mollie on my lap, and begin to peruse the news (eventually I transition into working on Portuguese and then writing). What has increasingly amazed/saddened me is the amount of time that the pseudo-news and social media devotes to trying to convince me to care about certain things, usually celebrities or this year's non-trauma (usually a white person being inconvenienced). It's so easy to get drawn into this nonsense, and almost impossible to avoid it. This is one of the biggest reasons why, in the space of a couple weeks, I dropped off of Instagram, Facebook, and finally even Twitter (which I used to love before Musk turned it into a right wing hellscape). It's like the soul is a baby animal that has to be lovingly protected against a violent world. When Pessoa discusses "an armour of realities closer to him than the world' facts" I don't think he's talking about ignoring the world, but instead constantly considering what the world tells us we should care about. Most of the time those are no more truly "real" than childish hobgoblins. 

Vermont Lake Monsters Opening Day Excellence 2024

 Janet, Marcel, her brother Roger, Kevin, and I attended one of the social events of the Vermont season: the Opening Day of the Vermont Lake Monsters season. They announced at the game that it was the 30th anniversary of the current group owning the Lake Monsters. This made me consider my own history with the Lake Monsters, and I realized that I've been to at least one Lake Monsters (or Vermont Expos) game for every year I've lived in Vermont. So, I guess I have a 2r year streak going myself. Later this season my excellent friend Mike's son Nicky will be pitching for the Lake Monsters, which will make the passage of time even more poignant since I used to babysit him!

As I've long opined: it doesn't matter what level it is, it's still baseball, and that means I still love it.

Janet and Marcelle obviously enjoying the game.

How many pictures of this crazy girl hamming it up do I have?

Kevin and Roger are focused on the game, and Marcelle is focused on convivial splendor.

I think this will find its way onto our Christmas card.

An Aesthetics to Wasting Time

 There's an aesthetics to wasting time. For those who cultivate sensations there's an unwritten handbook on inertia, with recipes for all the forms of lucidity. T develop the right strategy for fighting against the notion of social mores, against the impulses of all instincts and against the solicitations of sentiment requires a study that no every aesthete is prepared to undertake. A rigorous aetiology  of our scruples should be followed by an ironic diagnosis of our concessions to normality. We must also learn how to ward off life's intrusions; a [unclear] caution is necessary to make us impervious to outside opinions, and a velvety indifference to insulate our soul again the invisible blows of coexisting with others.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, no. 315

This is just about the most Pessoa-esque Pessoa statement imaginable - and also just about the most perfect statement to describe life in Portugal. Recently I read an article that that pointed out that Portugal is one of the least, if not the least, productive nations in Europe. My response was, "And this is yet another reason why I love them." I rankle every time I hear someone at Champlain champion the importance of productivity, which is one of the great diversionary attributes of late stage capitalism. Why are you not giving more to the corporation (even if the corporation is your university)? And, of course, what makes it even more insidious is that the same corporation (university) will mention work-life balance, which they're not concerned about in the least, but know that they can continue to grind you away if they've mentioned work-life balance in a public meeting. I never heard the response from the Portuguese to their low ranking on the productivity ranking, probably because they were at a café with family and friends. As I always opine, the Europeans are simply more sane than we are.