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Amiga Forever and C64 Forever 7 “R2” Update released
Cloanto corporation has released a new update of it’s commercial Amiga and Commodore64 emulation package. The new release offers several improvements and bugfixes. The 7th forever version of Amiga Forever adds enhanced PowerPC support, autostart PC into favorite Amiga configuration, a high DPI UI for 4k+ displays, and so much more. Amiga Forever 7 is a preservation suite, it’ll successfully play anything you wish to throw at it, classics or otherwise. More than that, you can create your own games in there, or edit code, play around with the famous Amiga operating system, watch videos, read articles and check out awesome demos that made the Commodore Amiga popular. By purchasing Amiga Forever, you’re also purchasing the best software based Amiga ever, and that means more than games to somebody who loved the system in the eighties or nineties. Amiga Forever has most useful options preconfigured or easily selectable via icons placed around the emulation window itself. Full-screen controls, input devices, save states and more are all accessible here. Links to legal download repositories for many lost Amiga classics are built into the software, so when you tire of the included content, finding more isn’t difficult. All standard Amiga formats are supported, so your own library of converted disks can be used as well. It’s all designed to be as painless as possible, and it works like a charm. Amiga Forever 7 Value Edition will only cost 9,95 euros, Amiga Forever 7 Plus Edition 29,95 euros, Amiga Forever 7 Premium Edition 49,95 euros. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
On November 6 ,2015, Bernardo Elbaz, 31, aka Bernardo Garcia Teixeira Elbaz, aka Bernardo Garcia a filmmaker, screenwriter, director, producer who lived in Manhattan, New York was sailing with his newlywed husband of one year, Erik Elbaz on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate Erik's birthday aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) Oasis of the Seas.
Cruise Bruise covered this case, extensively. On our Cruise Ship Deaths page for the incident, we quote the lawyer in this case numerous times. ". . . the attorney for Mr. Elbaz says,"The cruise line is saying this was a domestic dispute and a suicide, but it was anything but that." The attorney goes on to say, "There was a big altercation at the Solariam bar, as a result of that Bernardo who went overboard, went back to his room and was furious..."
Now, the lawsuit filed on November 1, 2016, states, "On or about November 6, 2015, Bernardo Texeira Garcia and his legally married spouse, Erik Elbaz, were paying passengers on Defendant’s vessel, Oasis of the Seas, which was in navigable waters.
On said date, the decedent, Bernardo Texeira Garcia, fell from his stateroom on deck 7, landed on the life boats on deck 6, and eventually fell overboard into the ocean – approximately 55 feet without any floatation devices. Prior to the fall into the ocean, this legally married gay couple was repeatedly exposed to homophobic taunts and slurs by Defendant’s employees.
Royal Caribbean’s employees were present when the decedent fell and despite having grabbed Mr. Garcia by his hands, failed to secure him and pull him up to safety. Thereafter, Royal Caribbean negligently and/or willfully and/or recklessly did not initiate a reasonable search and rescue of the decedent in the ocean. Royal Caribbean failed to deploy lifeboats within a reasonable time and failed to promptly stop and/or turn the ship around. Consequently, the decedent was lost at sea, never to be found.
On or about November 6, 2015, Bernardo Texeira Garcia and Erik Elbaz, were paying passengers on the Defendant’s vessel, Oasis of the Seas, which was in navigable waters, for a cruise which began on or about October 31, 2015.
Mr. Garcia and his legal spouse, Erik Elbaz were victims of Royal’s unfailing and repetitive anti-gay insults throughout their cruise. Since the first day of the cruise, Garcia and Elbaz were the subject of continuous abusive homophobic slurs. They were repeatedly called a “lipstick” by a bartender on the first day of the cruise.
Mr. Garcia and his spouse, Erik Elbaz, complained to Royal Caribbean’s management about the incidents immediately. Again, on the evening of November 5, 2015, the decedent, Bernardo Texeira Garcia, was called a pedophile and other anti-gay slurs by Royal Caribbean’s employees.
Mr. Garcia was extremely distraught by the employees’ discriminatory and offensive insults, he left the pool and returned to his stateroom. Once at his stateroom (deck 7), he told his legal spouse, Erik Elbaz, about the insults he was a victim of and became even more distraught.
Shortly thereafter, RCCL’s security officers reported to the decedent’s stateroom and engaged in an argument with Garcia and Elbaz, threatening to incarcerate Mr. Garcia.
A series of events that ensued in the stateroom between Mr. Garcia and the security officers which ultimately led Garcia to end up on the Sixth (6) deck life boats, where Mr. Garcia was holding on for his dear life for several minutes.
Several RCCL security officers and/or crewmembers grabbed Mr. Garcia by his arms and had a hold of him for several minutes, but ultimately failed to secure and rescue him from falling overboard. Mr. Garcia fell approximately 55 feet into the cold and dark ocean waters. See video
Mr. Elbaz witnessed the entire incident.
Mr. Elbaz repeatedly begged and cried for Royal Caribbean officials to stop the ship and rescue his spouse. In response, Royal Caribbean officials failed to rescue Mr. Garcia, they simply kept telling Mr. Elbaz to “calm down.”
Despite having rescue boats, and first-hand knowledge of Mr. Garcias’ fall into the ocean, the Oasis of the Seas maintained its course and speed, and rescue boats were never timely deployed.
Royal Caribbean’s rescue boats took an unreasonable period of time after Mr. Garcia fell overboard to be deployed. As a result, in all likelihood Mr. Garcia had to endure a horrific and painful drowning. Royal Caribbean’s willful and/or reckless conduct warrants the imposition of punitive damages.
The United States Coast Guard initiated a search and rescue operation after receiving a distress communication from the Oasis. Mr. Garcia’s body was never found."
The complaint alleges, " At all times material, Erik Elbaz repeatedly cried and begged for Royal Caribbean officials (crew members, security staff, ship officers) to help rescue his spouse, and repeatedly requested Royal Caribbean employees to stop the ship and deploy rescue boats. Instead of taking Mr. Elbaz’s cries for help more seriously and taken affirmative action, Royal Caribbean confined Mr. Elbaz’s against his will in order to isolate him from other passengers.
Mr. Elbaz had to endure unnecessary confinement and isolation, during which he suffered severe emotional distress, while he continued to beg Royal Caribbean officials to search and rescue his spouse. As time passed, Mr. Elbaz feared for his spouse’s imminent death, and felt helpless, visualizing his spouse floating in the middle of the ocean by himself without a life jacket.
Moreover, Mr. Elbaz was so distraught by the fact that RCCL employees let his spouse fell overboard that he immediately contacted his family in the United States to seek help. Mr. Elbaz was uncontrollably crying for help as he felt his like his heart was being stabbed.
Mr. Elbaz is still undergoing therapy to help him manage the severe emotional distress caused as a result of the result of this incident."
The lawsuit further states, "Erik Elbaz experienced in the past mental and emotional anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, impairment and inconvenience in the normal pursuits and pleasures of life. In particular, Mr. Elbaz has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. Since the incident, Mr. Elbaz also has difficulty sleeping, and experiences nightmares on a daily basis. These losses continue into the future."
Editor's Note: The lawsuit, "Erik Elbaz v. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines" claims Elbaz fell overboard. But the video captured by filmmaker Bernardo Elbaz hosted on Vimeo shown on the law firms blog displays willful intent to go overboard, as an act of defiance against the cruise line. https://www.lipcon.com/blog/oasis-of-the-seas-baez-overboard-full-video/
This entire segment that follows is clipped from the law firms public blog, within the clip is Bernardo Elbaz final statement that was clipped from the video shown here in bold.
"He then sets down the cell phone in the corner of the room and looks at the camera and says, in half Portuguese half English, “because of this, I am throwing myself…” While he says this, Bernardo Elbaz is pointing toward the Royal Caribbean crewmembers. The six second portion is blacked out because of the family’s wishes.
Nonetheless, it is clear that Bernardo Elbaz’s exclamation, so Erik Elbaz and security can hear, is made in an effort to underscore his continued mistreatment by Royal Caribbean. As he approaches the balcony, Erik Elbaz opens the door and runs after his husband, followed by security who effectively tackles Erik Elbaz at the balcony, pushing into Bernardo Elbaz and sending him over the cabin balcony and onto the lifeboat platform below where he landed with his entire body on the platform. [CBI Editor Comment: It is curious how this statement is not mentioned in the lawsuit which claimed he fell.] Bernardo Elbaz is then repositioned on the lifeboat platform by Royal Caribbean’s security so that he is desperately hanging onto the platform. He ultimately loses his grip and falls into the ocean.
After Bernardo Elbaz falls into the ocean, Royal Caribbean security reports, “he fell overboard.” You can hear Erik Elbaz immediately correct them in the video: “He didn’t fall. You pushed him! You killed him! He didn’t jump. He didn’t jump! You had him; why? Why?” At the end of the second part of the video you can clearly hear Bernardo Elbaz open the door to the balcony as he prepares to go overboard prior to his final on camera statement, “because of this, I am throwing myself…”. The video continues after Erik Elbaz rushes to the balcony followed by the crew-members. The lawsuit makes no mention of the blog entry, "Erik Elbaz opens the door and runs after his husband, followed by security who effectively tackles Erik Elbaz at the balcony, pushing into Bernardo Elbaz and sending him over the cabin balcony"
Soon after Erik Elbaz's husband jumped over the railing and began clinging to lifeboat support, Erik Elbaz began screaming, "you murdered him", combined with Bernardo Elbaz’s last statement, this appears to be an intentional set-up by both men.
Both men, the plaintiff and his filmmaker husband were video taping the incident on their cell phones. See the Cruise Ship Deaths page for full information on the history of this incident. Royal Caribbean Cruise Line RCCL Helpful Links
RCCL Schedules
RCCL Consumer Ratings
RCCL Webcams
RCCL Webcams Supporting Information & Resources:
Case Resources Erik Elbaz v. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Video: Bernardo Texeira Garcia Falling into Sea
Bernardo Elbaz Cruise Ship Deaths page
Featured or New Cruise Ship Incidents
Related Cruise Bruise Investigations
Cruise Bruise Investigates
Suggested Reading
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Participatory action research in practice: a case study in addressing domestic violence in nine cultural communities.
Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly recognized as a viable approach to developing relationships with communities and working closely with them to address complex public health problems. In the case of domestic violence research, where ensuring the safety of women participants who are battered is paramount, participatory approaches to research that include advocates and women who are battered in research design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination are critical to successful and mutually beneficial projects. This article presents a case study of a PAR project that conducted formative qualitative research on domestic violence in nine ethnic and sexual minority communities. The article describes the specific ways in which a PAR approach was operationalized and discusses in detail how community participation shaped various stages of the research. Furthermore, specific actions that resulted from the research project are reported. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Top things to do this week: Fetish Con, comedians Doug Benson, Jim Florentine
ALESSANDRA DA PRA | Times (2017)
Stripper Ariel, 26, of Riley, NC, in rope suspension at the annual Fetish Con trade show and convention at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront on Saturday, August 12, 2017, in St. Petersburg, Fla.
HOLLYWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 27: Actor Doug Benson arrives at the Premiere Of HBO\u2019s Final Season Of \u201CEastbound And Down\u201D at Avalon on September 27, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
KINK: Fetish Con
Now in its 18th year, Fetish Con returns to the downtown Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront for four days of antics this weekend, bringing hundreds of bondage and fetish models, as well as vendors and exhibitors selling clothing, latex, corsets, shoes, rope and toys. It’s not all kink. There are also lectures, workshops and demonstrations, plus an erotic art show, private dungeon space and an exclusive Pervy Pool Party for pass holders. You must be 18 or older to attend. It opens with a Kinky Red Carpet at 7 p.m. Thursday and runs through Sunday, with the third annual Fetish Awards, followed by a Fetish Ball and Bash After Party. 333 First St. S, St. Petersburg. $40 per day; $100 all access. (727) 894-5000. fetishcon.com.
COMEDY: Doug Benson, Adam Ray, Jim Florentine
Some edgy comedians will be swinging through the Tampa Bay area this week, including stoner king Doug Benson doing a one-night-only show on Wednesday at the Improv at Centro Ybor. When he was last here, the Super High Me star recorded his hugely popular comedy podcast Doug Loves Movies, but this time it will be his standup routine. 8 p.m. 1600 E Eighth Ave., Tampa. (813) 864-4000. $20. improvtampa.com.
You might remember comedian Adam Ray from his role in the Sandra Bullock-Melissa McCarthy buddy comedy The Heat, when he played a nightclub manager who had to be distracted so a bug could be placed on his mobile phone. His podcast About Last Night with Fun Size comedian Brad Williams is a mainstay on the iTunes Charts, bringing along celebrity friends including Bullock and comedians Jim Jefferies and Iliza Shlesinger. Friday through Sunday, he’ll be doing standup at the Improv. $12-$15.
Best known from the Comedy Central prank show Crank Yankers and VH1’s That Metal Show, comedian Jim Florentine this year released a new book Everybody’s Awful; Except You that unleashes his rage at Twitter trolls, Facebook braggarts and Instagram exhibitionists. He’s known as a bitingly edgy comedian with a dark side and he’s performing Thursday through Sunday at Side Splitters Comedy Club, 12938 N Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa. $10-$16.50. (813) 960-1197. sidesplitterscomedy.com.
KIDS: Last Blast of Summer
We’re closing on the last weekends of summer vacation, so let the kids blow off some steam at Great Mess-Ploration. From 9 a.m.-noon Saturday, Great Explorations Children’s Museum explores messy art and science including shaving cream art, shake painting, tie dye and sticky sand castles. 1925 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg. Included with admission. $10, $9 seniors, 1 and younger free.
And over at the Glazer Children’s Museum, they will be having a Last Blast of Summer party 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and 1-4 p.m. Sunday with games and snacks including an ice cream social, summer crafts, corn hole, sack races, agility courses, parachute play and more. 110 W Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa. Included with admission. $15, $12.50 military/seniors, $9.50 children, 1 and younger free. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
CallbackHandler handles Bitbucket redirection URI requests and adds the
Bitbucket access token and User to the ctx. If authentication succeeds,
handling delegates to the success handler, otherwise to the failure
handler.
StateHandler checks for a state cookie. If found, the state value is read
and added to the ctx. Otherwise, a non-guessable value is added to the ctx
and to a (short-lived) state cookie issued to the requester.
Implements OAuth 2 RFC 6749 10.12 CSRF Protection. If you wish to issue
state params differently, write a http.Handler which sets the ctx state,
using oauth2 WithState(ctx, state) since it is required by LoginHandler
and CallbackHandler. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
Return current web path in PHP
Currently developing a PHP framework and have ran into my first problem. I need to be able to drop the framework into any folder on a server, no matter how many folders deep, and need to find that directory to use as a base URL.
For example, it currently works if I put the framework in the root of the server (http://cms.dev/), but if I were to put it in http://cms.dev/folder/ it does not work.
A:
__FILE__ is a magic constant that returns the entire path of the current script. Combine with dirname and add ".." appropriately. It's more reliable than getcwd, since it cannot change during execution.
You can then strip off the web root, to get the relative path to your script (should map to URL). There are many $_SERVER variables that have this information. I suggest using the file system to determine:
If your script is publicly accessible?
At which depth / URL prefix?
Then combine with your base URL. If your script's path ==
/home/public/foo_1/script.php
... and your $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] ==
/home/public
Then you can rewrite your URL as /foo_1/script.php. You don't need the fully qualified URL, unless you want it. This technique works best if you execute it from a central location, like an autoloader.
A:
There are four existing answers, but they all seem to deal with file paths, and you're asking about a base URL for web requests.
Given any web request, you get a bunch of keys in $_SERVER that may be helpful. For example, in your mock example, you might have the following:
http://cms.dev/folder/ — $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == /folder/
http://cms.dev/folder/index.php — $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == /folder/index.php
http://cms.dev/folder/index.php/some/pathinfo — $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == /folder/index.php/some/pathinfo
http://cms.dev/folder/some/modrewrite — $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == /folder/some/modrewrite
Thinking critically, how would you pull out the base URL for any given subrequest? In certain cases you can look at $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] and strip off trailing elements if you know how deep in your hierarchy the request is. (For example, if your script is two folders deep, strip off the last two path elements.) When PATH_INFO or mod_rewrite are in use, things become less clear: as longer and longer URLs are provided, there is no clear indication where the paths end and the dynamic URL begins.
This is why WordPress, MediaWiki, phpBB, phpMyAdmin, and every application I've ever written has the user manually specify a base URL as part of the application configuration.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Nathan Johnstone, The New Atheism, Myth, and History: The Black Legends of Contemporary Anti-Religion , (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) 309 pp.
Since 2015 I have been arguing on this blog that many anti-theistic and anti-religious activists often abuse and distort history while making their case against religion. Too many New Atheists use outdated, naive, over-simplified or simply plain wrong ideas about history in their arguments and claim to be “rational” while doing so. Now historian Nathan Johnstone has written an excellent monograph arguing precisely the same thing and drawing on a number of the same examples of New Atheist bad history.
Johnstone, a former history lecturer at Christ College Cambridge and the University of Portsmouth, begins his book by noting that while New Atheist polemicists bolster their case against the belief in God via a range of scientific and philosophical arguments, when they turn to making the case for the malevolence of religious belief, they rely heavily on history:
“[T]he focus of the God debate on scientific naturalism and justification for belief has overshadowed the fact that much of the New Atheist critique of religion is actually based in areas such as politics, sociology, …. cultural studies, education, criminology, literature and, of course, history” (p.3)
Johnstone notes that their emphasis on history in particular “is far from a secondary concern” for the New Atheists. Their objective is not to simply show that belief in God and the practice of religion is not well founded, irrational or even plain silly, but also to show that it is evil. For all their scientism, to do this they have to turn to history to show religious belief is not just malevolent now, but always has been.
Indeed, the general New Atheist view of religion is based on a framework that is “a literal battle of past and present” (p. 14). They see us in a historical context whereby we have escaped, or all but escaped, a horrible past but, as Hitchens puts it, “gnarled hands … reach out to drag us back to the catacombs and the reeking altars and the guilty pleasures of subjugation and abjection” (God is Not Great, p. 283). This perspective is founded on a broad and simplistic caricature of history:
New Atheists identify a counter tradition of virtuous scepticism that, originating in Antiquity, and barely surviving the Christian and Islamic supremacies, was ultimately to coalesce and flourish in the Enlightenment’s outright attack on superstition and in the unshackling of science. (p. 7)
Johnstone notes that the issue is not that no argument can be made that religion can and has been oppressive, violent and retardant or that an argument cannot be made that it is often or even necessarily so. The problem is that the New Atheists “are cavalier regarding the disciplines that seek to understand how these effects [of religion in history] occur” (p. 5). Far from seeking to understand history by putting aside their assumptions and presuppositions, they approach it with their conclusions already fixed in place and then cherry-pick the “evidence” they believe supports them. They are, as Johnstone puts it “hunter-gatherers” not “explorers”:
Their attitude is proprietorial, and the humanities are treated as a grab-bag from which to seize examples of the peculiar malefaction of believers. (p. 7)
Counter-examples, context, an understanding of the complexity of the issues they touch on are either ignored, brushed aside or openly condemned as “revisionism” or even “apologism”. Most of this extended exercise in a priori motivated reasoning is predicated on an outdated pseudo historiography of value judgements and presentism, where anything in the past which seems (however superficially) to be like modern ideas is judged “good”, while anything that does not (or cannot be superficially painted as doing so) is condemned as “bad”. History, to them, is a long struggle of the things they deem “good” against the regression, retardation and suppression of religion. Anything that does not fit this caricature is ignored, dismissed or ruled out of court.
Of course, this is precisely the kind of motivated reasoning that the same polemicists rightly condemn in others – e.g. Creationists and conservative Christian apologists. When it comes to the sciences, they hold everyone to a high standard of evidentialism.
But respect for the importance of rationalism and empiricism cannot be demanded if we ourselves practice it only when it is convenient …. those who preach evidentalism, and presume superiority over others on that basis, forfeit the luxury of reading lightly. (p. 6-7)
As Johnstone’s examples go on to show, the New Atheists he holds to account can barely even be accused of reading history lightly – many of them seem to have barely read any at all. Indeed, most of them work from popular cliches, non-specialist overviews and the occasional work of skewed polemic that fits their views, however dated, dusty, amateur or undistinguished. When you start with your conclusion, actual deep understanding really does not matter. Nuance and context just get in the way of the onrush of dogmatic conviction:
The New Atheism actively eschews “relativist” attempts to understand the development of fundamentalism and religious violence as manifesting in specific political climates, arguing that to do so distracts attention from the dominant role played by religion itself. Destructiveness is not one characteristic that might emerge under certain conditions; it is religion’s innate and unchanging nature; artificially contained at such times it is deprived of power. (p. 15)
All of this is based on a series of unexamined assumptions and an understanding of the history of religion in society that is, at the very least, 70 years out of date. Modern historians rely on that very so-called “relativism” and contextualisation that New Atheists so vigorously reject for ideological reasons. The more we examine histories of religion using the tools of modern historiography, the less valid the New Atheists’ bedrock assumptions prove to be. But they do not care about this. They accept their assumptions with a dogmatism and deep faith that would put any Creationist to shame.
New Atheism’s Black Legends
New Atheist authors rarely even bother to argue any point of history in detail. To them, this is unnecessary – they need only gesture to the historical evidence that is in the common understanding of their readers. As Johnstone puts it, they “are not levelling an accusation so much as calling on their readers to remember a conviction” (p. 21). Since none of the leading New Atheists is trained in history and exhibit little to no genuine interest in it beyond utilising it for polemical purposes, they assume their popular understanding of it to be serviceable enough for their purposes and assume (probably correctly) that their readers will have the same understanding.
So on topics like the Witch Craze or the Inquisition they feel no need to actually make the case that these complex historical phenomena conform to and undergird their arguments, they just assume they do. After all, what could be more clearly evidence that religious irrationality leads to violence and murder than the Witch Craze: a religious frenzy in which many thousands died for a crime that did not and could not exist? Johnstone quotes several leading New Atheists as they drive home this point:
“To be accused of demonic possession or contact with the Evil One was to be convicted.” (Christopher Hitchens)
“In the 1400s the Inquisition changed its focus [from heresy] to witchcraft and thousands of women were tortured into confessing and then burned or hanged.” (Victor Stenger)
“Witch hysteria raged for three centuries with estimates of the number executed ranging from a hundred thousand to two million.” (Victor Stenger again)
These and other references to the Witch Craze sound as though they support the argument that unfettered religion leads to such atrocities without bothering to ensure that their details are correct. Except, in fact, they are not:
[The] anti-religionists seem unconcerned to check whether their understanding is accurate. Contra Hitchens, no-one was accused of being diabolically possessed for the simple reason that possession was not a crime but a diagnosis. And only in the ‘superhunts’ that for a few decades afflicted a handful of areas in the Holy Roman Empire, may something like the equation of suspicion with conviction have existed. Contra Stenger, the Inquisitions killed very few witches and no serious historian now believes the number of executions for witchcraft exceeded 50,000. (p. 21)
Again, not only do these champions of checking your facts not bother to check their facts, but that nuance, contextualisation and so-called “relativism” that they tend to reject undermines their simplistic story. In his book The Meaning of Things (2001), A.C Grayling tries to use history to argue that religion is always potentially murderous while science must be “perverted” by “politics and politicians” to become destructive (Grayling, pp. 116-17). So he turns to the fate of Urbain Grandier, who was burned as a witch in 1634.
Grandier’s story has been popularised by the 1952 Aldous Huxley novel The Devils of Loudun and by the gloriously silly 1971 Ken Russell film The Devils. He was a smart and charismatic priest who was probably sexually promiscuous. He also had a penchant for annoying prominent people, and had written a critique of clerical celibacy and a satire of Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of France. In 1630 a number of nuns of the local Ursuline convent began to exhibit hysterical behaviour and, when investigated, accused Grandier of sending a demon to possess them. But when these claims were investigated by the rather sceptical Bishop of Poitiers and the Archbishop of Bordeaux, they were found to be fanciful and dismissed.
However, further public defiance of Cardinal Richelieu by Grandier brought the claims back to attention in 1633. This time it was the Cardinal who ordered re-examination of the case and a bizarre show trial ensued, where the “demons” themselves gave evidence in court (via the “possessed” nuns), public exorcisms were performed, Grandier was tortured and a pact with Satan – written in backwards Latin and signed by the priest and, allegedly, several demons – was dramatically produced. On the strength of this circus, Grandier was convicted and burned.
For any modern, looked at from a safe distance, this is a deliciously bizarre and macabre story, complete with sex, demonism and death – thus all the attention from Dumas, Huxley and Russell. But as a proof of Grayling’s argument it fails totally. As Johnstone notes, “rather than an exposé of faith, Grayling has given us a story of political intrigue” (p. 22). Far from being met with bloodthirsty credulity, the original claims were sceptically examined and dismissed by the religious authorities. It was only when Richelieu saw the accusations as a way to take political revenge on a particularly “turbulent priest” that the affair turned deadly, and not even Grayling pretends that the cardinal was motivated by any genuine witch-hunting zeal. In fact, Grayling concludes “[to] read about the terrible fate of Urbain Grandier is to follow … a black story of intrigue, politics, malice, duplicity, credulity, suffering and madness”. The problem here is obvious – yes, this is indeed a story of politics and intrigue. So why does Grayling present it as evidence that religion is inherently violent while science requires, as he puts it, the external machinations of “intrigue, politics, malice [and] duplicity” to be so? Grayling seems oblivious to the fact that his own anecdote undermines his argument.
Johnstone observes wryly that “it is difficult not to suspect that for Grayling, any witchcraft narrative will do because he has predetermined, quite wrongly, that they will all speak to his conclusions” (p. 23). When subjected to just the slightest contextualised analysis, his story fails to deliver what he claims, but he is so convinced that it does he does not notice the failure.
Other New Atheist attempts to use the Witch Craze to bolster their arguments suffer from similar problems. Because the New Atheist approach to history is to cherry-pick at it for examples that fit their theses, they prefer easily digestible secondary sources and tend toward those which are generalist, written by non-historians and, usually, rather dated. After all, current scholarship by professional peer reviewed scholars working from primary documents tends not to give them the stuff they like. So when Sam Harris turns to the Witch Craze in his The End of Faith (2004), he draws mainly on Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) by the poet Charles Mackay and Religion and Science (1935) by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Russell, in turn, depends on William Lecky’s The Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism (1878) and Andrew Dickson White’s notorious A History of the Warfare between Science and Theology (1897). Cutting edge, modern, objective scholarship of the topic this is not.
But these biased and dated books give Harris the kind of stuff he prefers. To make the New Atheists’ point, it is imperative that the Witch Craze be depicted as widespread, all pervasive and as deadly as possible. After all, if it was so common across all Christian Europe and led to large scale suffering and a massive death toll of obviously innocent people, this drives home the point that religion unfettered by reason and science is necessarily evil and genocidal. So New Atheists have joined neo-pagans, New Agers and some feminists in uncritically accepting the more fanciful estimates of the Witch Craze’s death toll. One figure still bandied about is the estimate by Gottfried Voigt (1740-1791), a German antiquarian who used a flawed methodology to arrive at the startlingly precise figure of 9,442,994 executions for witchcraft. Johnstone makes the dry observation that, based on modern techniques and over a century of exhaustive archival research, “[Voigt] was out by around 9,400,000” (p. 27).
But the New Atheists prefer sources that give very high estimates of the toll. One of Harris’ sources, Mackay, assures his reader that “thousands upon thousands” of victims were consigned to the flames and puts the rate of executions as high as “two per day”. His other main source, Russell, shakes his jowls over the “age of faith” in which he says “millions of unfortunate women [were] burnt as witches”. As already noted, Stenger settles on a wide range from 100,000 up to a whole two million victims, though on this he depends on James Haught’s lurid and amateurish Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness (1990) which in turn drew on secondary works, only one of which was published after 1973.
Harris, at least, has bothered to consult some modern scholarship and so notes the far more accurate estimate of “perhaps 40,000 to 50,000 over three hundred years” (Harris, p. 87). This is taken from Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (1996) – a work of actual, current, professional historical scholarship by a genuine expert in the field. But Johnstone notes that Harris is not entirely comfortable with this much lower estimate and is at pains to stress (in a footnote) that “such revaluation of numbers does little to mitigate the horror and injustice of this period” (Harris, p. 255, n. 19).
Of course, there is no denying that each of the 40-50,000 people executed underwent a terrible ordeal and clearly did die because of a delusion. But the problem with the much lower death toll is that it undermines the New Atheist argument that this phenomenon is clear evidence of what happens when religion is unrestricted in its power. If we accept an estimated population of Europe at around 100 million in 1600 and posit around 100,000 witch trials between 1560 and 1660, the likelihood of anyone having any direct knowledge of a trial, let alone falling victim to one, is minute. This is hardly indicative some wild craze seizing the whole of Christian Europe – it is more like evidence of a sporadic and fairly unusual phenomenon. Which leaves us with the question: if the source of the madness was late medieval and early modern religion generally, why was this phenomenon not far more common and widespread?
This problem is made more stark by the fact that instances of witch hunting were not uniform across Europe or across the time period of 1500 to 1700. On the contrary, Johnstone notes the trials and executions clump together in certain locations and periods:
The overwhelming majority of executions took place within the Holy Roman Empire. …. Of the 30,000-35,000 executions believed to have taken place between 1560 and 1660, 25,000-30,000 were inflicted [in the Empire], and only two major witch-hunting centres – Scotland and Denmark – lay outside is jurisdiction. (p. 29-30)
France and the Empire had comparable populations, yet the latter had executed c. 30,000 “witches” by 1650, while the former had killed 500. And the executions are not spread evenly across the patchwork of 300 states that made up the Empire in this period – a handful of Imperial territories saw the “superhunts” that account for most of the Empire’s much larger death toll.
This means the New Atheists’ glib but simplistic picture of unfettered religion gone mad not only needs to account for why the executions were so sporadic, but also why they are concentrated in some places and times and not others. Actual historians have begun to do this using the very tools that the New Atheists so dislike: objective and dispassionate analysis, contextualisation and an examination of what local and particular factors (politics, economics, climate) meant the Craze flared in one place but not other or raged in one valley but left the next untouched – see Ronald Hutton’s excellent recent work The Witch: A History of Fear (2017) for a careful summary of the scholarship here. This means that while a change in theology in the fifteenth century meant that former medieval scepticism about the existence of witches gave way to an official acceptance that they did, this did not therefore lead to common or widespread witch hunting. It took local, social and/or political factors to trigger sporadic outbreaks and only in some areas. Vast swathes of Europe saw few to no witch trials at all, despite having the same religious and theological basis for them as the places that saw regular or massive outbreaks of the hysteria. The simplistic New Atheist formulations are wrong.
Appropriating Atoms
As already noted, the New Atheist conception of history is based on an assumed narrative of two opposing views of the world: religiously based credulousness and naturalistic rationalism. Anyone who can be seen as or is depicted as championing the latter is held up as a hero of the story and as an ancestor of modern anti-religious secularists. Anything else, especially anything or anyone who opposed or differed from the narrative’s heroes, is depicted as the villains of the story and the historical precursors of modern fundamentalists, theocrats and and other “faithheads” (as Dawkins sometimes calls religious believers).
This is a neat story and it is a consistent framework into which pretty much any historical element can be jammed, with the application of sufficient rhetorical brute force. Johnstone notes that where a person fits into this tale is determined by a simple formula: the heroes are the ones who question and doubt while the villains are the ones who believe or impose belief. He notes that Hitchens draws on historian Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book Doubt: A History (2003), but that he uses it only as a mine from which to pick out various historical doubters and hold them up as champions and heroes in the New Atheist narrative. Hecht’s actual thesis, however, is that both doubt and belief are driven by the same “great schism” between human experience of “reason and plans, love and purpose” and the realisation that the universe seems quite empty of these qualities. A secular person may well have strong sympathy with the doubters’ response to this realisation – the striving to work out what this inhuman universe means for us. I certainly do and so, clearly, does Hecht herself and, I gather, Johnstone. But as an actual historian, Hecht is objective and clear-eyed enough to see both this response and its religious alternatives come from the same place and pays the non-secular processes of thought due respect as a valid and very human response. Hitchens and his cohorts do not.
One of the oddities of this rigid historical narrative is the way the New Atheists have to work so hard to make everyone and everything fit into it. This is achieved by a rigorous, steel-edged presentism, whereby often remote and disparate people and phenomena are either marshalled into the ranks of “Doubt” or consigned to the wickedness of “Belief”. Johnstone stresses in this “the role of hindsight in creating an impression of a constant philosophical rectitude”:
Those naturalistic aspects of historical rationalism and proto-science that appear most familiar to us are represented as fundamental and defining. Their similarities to modern scientific understandings are taken always to be prescient rather than coincidental. (p. 123)
So we end up with an image of the Greeks and Romans as wise and rational, the medieval period as the epitome of a “dark age” mired in superstition and the “Renaissance” and “Enlightenment” as stages in a long Whiggish struggle toward the sunlit uplands of modern secularism, constantly threatened by Hitchens’ “gnarled hands” of religious belief that want to drag us backwards.
This is a fairy story – a fantasy pseudo history that requires careful shaping of the historical elements out of which it is constructed to get the pieces to fit just so. This is why Giordano Bruno gets painted as a scientist or at least a rational free thinker, rather than as a mystic, magician and eccentric pantheist who waved aside empirical science as the work of mere “geometers”. It is also why Hypatia of Alexandria’s study of mathematics and astronomy gets emphasised, while the fact that it was a ancillary adjunct to her highly mystical and fundamentally theistic neo-Platonist cosmology is ignored. That way she too can be painted as a rationalist scientist, or even as an atheist, who was murdered by dirty, ignorant monks who hated her learning, when she was nothing of the sort and her murder was purely political. Similarly, the complex tangle that is the Galileo Affair gets reduced to a cartoonish caricature where Galileo is the defiant champion of a proven scientific consensus on heliocentrism and the Church opposes him out of pure wilful ignorance; refusing even to look through his telescope. New Atheists can only make history conform to their agenda by warping it.
The elements in history which look, superficially, a little like something we moderns recognise as scientific – parts of Bruno’s mystical cosmology, say, or Hypatia’s mathematical treatises and astronomical commentaries – are taken as sufficient to ram these figures and their ideas into the side of “Good” and to appropriate them for the simplistic narrative of “Thinkers” versus “Believers” in a centuries long conflict. As Johnstone details, the way some New Atheists depict atomism is illustrative.
In the fifth century BC, Leucippus of Miletus and Democritus of Abdera argued for a universe made up of combinations of fundamental particles called “atoms” – literally “uncuttables”. These tiny particles and their aggregates account for all matter, these Greek philosophers argued, and everything can be accounted by reference to them. This certainly looks like what modern science has confirmed about the foundations of the universe and various New Atheist luminaries are thus suitably impressed:
Hitchens writes of ‘the mighty Democritus’ and of ‘the brilliant atomist school’; Victor Stenger of ‘the brilliant intuition’ and ‘the remarkable feat of human perception’; whilst for Michael Onfray the atomist revelation was ‘a stroke that never ceases to amaze’. p. 127
The thing that enthrals these writers is not just the connection between ancient atomism and modern science, but the contrast between this “brilliant intuition” and religious thinking. Faced with an unknown and mysterious cosmos, theists imagined anthropomorphic gods and weird mysticism, while these clear-eyed rationalists intuited material systems based on logic. Given that it was the latter which came to be confirmed by science, what better evidence can there be of the superiority of rational doubt over superstitious mysticism? And given that the Church and other religions have historically rejected atomism, even persecuting its proponents as heretics, what better evidence of the historical wickedness of religion?
This last point is argued with particular enthusiasm by several New Atheist writers. For Hitchens, Christian thinkers rejected atomism because they knew it “offered a far better explanation of the world than did religion” (Hitchens, p. 259). For Onfray, their rejection was simply because “the Church has always been wrong about everything: faced with an epistemological truth, it automatically persecutes the discoverer” (Onfray, In Defence of Atheism, p. 88). So atomism presents us, they argue, with a key historical example of rationalists arriving at a logical “epistemological truth”, religion rejecting it and persecuting the rationalists who keep this precious idea alive, only for it to be triumphantly validated by empirical science in the modern era. This is a neat little story, but it is a fairy tale.
This is because while ancient atomism bears some superficial resemblance to modern scientific ideas, this resemblance blurs considerably on closer examination. For the Greek atomists, the colour white is produced by smooth “shining” atoms, while black is the result of rough atoms that “cast shadows”. Very small, fine “soul atoms” produce sensation and consciousness and the loss of them causes death, while breathing ingests them and so maintains life. It is very hard for a modern to find anything recognisable in these odd ideas. As Johnstone comments:
Those parts of ancient atomism that appear familiar to us are celebrated as prescient fundamentals. The remainder are relegated to the status of the status of the theory’s disposable ephemera …. When an ancient philosophy is described only in terms of what it got right, it will appear to have been uncommonly right. And when that philosophy is taken to exemplify a certain perennial mindset, that mindset will appear uncommonly insightful. p. 133
Just as they cherry pick historical anecdotes that seem to fit their theses, these New Atheists select the aspects of ancient atomism that look superficially most scientific and pretend the rest – spiky atoms that cause the taste of bitter foods, for example – somehow are not important. Johnstone quotes the scientist (and atheist) Peter Atkins’ rather shrewd observation:
‘The Greeks thought a great deal about matter and proposed so many different hypotheses about its nature that at least one of them was likely to be right.’ p. 136
Very true, especially if its “rightness” is enhanced by emphasising the elements that actually are right (more or less) while ignoring all the many parts that are wrong. The fact is that the atomists’ ideas were no more scientific or even logical than Miletus and Thales’ conception that everything was actually made of water, Anaximander’s ultimate creative principle of apeiron, Anaximenes’ idea that air was the fundamental element of all things, Heraclitus’ belief that fire was the creative basis of the cosmos, or Empedocles’ combination of the elements (fire, water, air and earth) that came to dominate Aristotelian and therefore medieval and early modern cosmology. To hold up atomism, shorn of its weirder aspects, and claim it represents an “epistemological truth” that was somehow different to all these other Greek speculations is, as Johnstone notes, merely “an illusion of hindsight” – a contrived exercise in ideologically-motivated presentism that ignores context, and shrugs off relevant but inconvenient details. Which is pretty much a summary of the whole New Atheist approach to history.
The Historical Innocence of Atheism
Christian apologists and other critics of atheism often try to turn the historical tables on atheists by noting that, in the twentieth century in particular, atheism proved itself as bloodstained as any religion. Notorious conservative commentator and apologist Dinesh D’Souza is typical:
Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades. It’s time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history. (“Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history”, The Christian Science Monitor, November 21, 2006)
This is typically overblown rhetoric and tries to attribute atrocities that had many intersecting motivations to “atheism” and to lump the distinctly non-atheist regime of the Nazis in with the atheistic ideology of Marxist regimes. But there is a kernel of a genuine issue here for the New Atheists: if atheism can be as capable of inspiring mass murder as any other idea, then their claim that religious ideas are uniquely or particularly malevolent loses its force. Johnstone notes their various lines of defence against this problem. Dawkins tries to brush the issue aside, arguing “individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism” (The God Delusion, p. 315). In a similar line of argument, Keith Parsons notes that atheism is, by its nature, not an ideology but the absence of one, saying “atheism …. just does not have sufficient content to constitute a worldview” (“Atheism – Twilight or Dawn” in R.B. Stewart, ed., The Future of Atheism, 2008, p. 55). Sam Harris tries the tack of arguing that atheism at its essence an antidote to dogma, prejudice and absolutism so any atheists who indulge in these things are, ipso facto, no longer acting as atheists. So he claims the regimes people like D’Souza use to attack atheism are ones that became “cultic and delusional” and so effectively religions by another name (see The End of Faith, p. 79, 231). Hitchens makes this argument at greatest length in Chapter 17 of God is Not Great:
Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it. The solemn elevation of infallible leaders who were a source of endless bounty and blessing; the permanent search for heretics and schismatics; the mummification of dead leaders as icons and relics; the lurid show trials that elicited incredible confessions by means of torture . . . none of this was very difficult to interpret in traditional terms. (p. 84)
None of these arguments work particularly well. Harris’ argument is little more than an example of the No True Scotsman Fallacy by trying to redefine “true” atheists as ones who do not do murderous things in the name of atheism. This is not convincing when Christians try to do the same thing to brush aside the Inquisition or the Crusades, so it is equally ineffective when the boot is on the other foot. Hitchens, in typical style, uses many eloquent words to try to redefine Soviet Marxist Leninism as a religion and so dodge the implications of its murders, but this is just smoke and mirrors. Whatever outward trappings and superficial similarities Stalin’s ideology may have with some forms of religion, it was inherently atheistic and, at several key points, overtly and murderously anti-religious. The argument that atheism per se is not an ideology so cannot be blamed for anything done by an actual ideology is cute, but disingenous. As Johnstone notes:
But politically, sociologically, culturally, even biologically, atheism is no longer an answer but a question. If there is no God, why has mankind been so disposed to believe in one? …. How far are we obligated to reshape our cultures in line with scientific naturalism, and is continued supernaturalism now a barrier to human well-being? (p.179)
To pretend that Soviet Marxist Leninism having atheism as a core tenet did not mean that it therefore proposed answers to this and related questions is being wilfully blind. And to pretend that, especially at certain points, it did not decide to enforce that tenet and its attendant ideological answers to these questions by force is being wilfully ignorant of history.
Of course, D’Souza and his ilk are trying to argue that there is something inherently immoral in an ideology that had no room for God. This is simply an extension of the apologist argument from morality, that assumes no true ethical system is possible unless it is based on objective absolutes mandated by a divine power – which is a dubious proposition, as any undergraduate moral philosophy student could explain to D’Souza (not that he would listen). But while it is hard to blame the totality of Soviet Marxist Leninism’s millions of murders on the supposed inherent wickedness of Godlessness, it is impossible for the New Atheists to dodge the fact that at least some of this murderous oppression was based on atheism as a central idea in the ideology.
Marxism grew out of a radical tradition in Europe that had always been inclined toward atheistic materialism. Lenin and Trotsky were atheists and enshrined atheism in the ideology of the new Soviet state, but thinking on how this should be practically applied in a political program differed among the early ideologues and Soviet policy towards religions shifted and changed over time. Some Communist thinkers believed that religion would inevitably wither naturally in the face of the inexorable historical process that was Dialectical Materialism, and so the congregations of churches and mosques should be left to dwindle as the benefits of Marxism become clear. Others thought this process needed a helping hand from the state in the form of propaganda, legal restrictions, financial constraints and, eventually (because the expected dwindling did not seem to be happening) via persecutions.
In two periods in particular – initially during the Civil War and then with more organised intensity from 1922-1941 – the Soviet regime confiscated and destroyed churches and other places of worship, seized money and valuables for the state and harassed, arrested, imprisoned, exiled, tortured and killed thousands of clergy and other believers purely because of their opposition to Soviet anti-religious policies. Religious festivals were banned and private observance of them brought official scrutiny and possible persecution. Outspoken critics of atheist ideology were targeted, usually on trumped up charges of “counter-revolutionary activity”, and were imprisoned, sent to gulags, executed or simply disappeared. The Soyuz voinstvuyushchikh bezbozhnikov or “League of the Militant Godless” was established as an official arm of the Communist Party in 1925 and by 1941 it had 3.5 million members, 95,000 offices. It published a national newspaper, a monthly magazine and hundreds of books and pamphlets, as well as lecturing in schools and at Komsomol youth meetings. Its members also took part in tearing down religious icons, smashing church bells and exposing religious opponents of the regimes policies to the authorities.
Stalin reigned in the anti-religious campaign in 1941, when he realised firstly that it was not working and secondly that religion could be harnessed in the existential struggle that was the war with Nazi Germany. New Atheists like Hitchens like to skip over the inconvenient pre-War campaigns to impose atheism by force and highlight Stalin’s wartime co-opting of the Orthodox Church as “proof” that the Soviet regime was not actually anti-religious at all – yet another example of convenient New Atheist cherry picking history to make it fit their ideas. Johnstone makes it clear that this gambit and all the others used by the New Atheists fail to avoid the key problem: when an ideology that was based on atheism arose it not only proved as murderous as any religious regime, but actually did persecute and murder in the name of state-mandated atheism. Around the time Johnstone’s book was released, Wesleyan University historian Victoria Smolkin brought out A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton: 2018), which makes exactly the same point and goes through the various ways Soviet ideological atheism was forcibly imposed in even greater scholarly detail. An article on the New Atheist rhetorical dodging of these facts of history will be part of my “Great Myths” series in the future.
As with the failure to show that the Witch Craze was purely religious in motivation and so different to non-religious ideological persecutions, the attempts to claim that the persecution of religions by the Soviets and other Communist regime had nothing much to do with atheism relies on some weak rhetorical gambits. The historical fact is that an ideology that had atheism at its core showed that it could be as murderous as any religious fanaticism.
Atheism and Anti-Religion
Atheism, per se, is not an ideology, but simply a position on the question of the existence of God or gods. Johnstone notes that we atheists have a wide variety of responses to religion, ranging from an accepting acknowledgement of it as a valid human response to the search for meaning to outright militant anti-religious zealotry of the kind manifested in the Soviet Union. But the more anti-religious end of this spectrum has both problems and dangers. Atheist philosopher Julian Baggini does not indulge in the semantic and rhetorical fiddling noted above and has stated clearly “what happened in Soviet Russia is one of the reasons why I personally dislike militant atheism” (quoted by Johnstone, p. 263). Of course, none of the New Atheists are advocating believers be sent to gulags or shot, but many of them make statements which indicate a disturbing combination of intolerance and overly dogmatic certitude.
Most New Atheist objectives are nebulous, fairly inchoate and, thus, seem generally benign. Atheists, they argue, should encourage rationality, foster science education and resist religious egregious intrusions into politics and education. But some of their language and lines of argument go further. Atheists must “destroy” faith, says Harris. The “enemy” of religion must be “cleared” from our collective minds, says Hitchens. Onfray looks forward to the dawn of a atheistic “new order”. And Peter Boghossian proposes how an army of trained “street epistemologists” must go forth to actively “intervene” with believers in everyday situations. Stenger waxes apocalyptic, warning this must happen “if humanity is to survive”. And Boghossian declares stridently that “atheists have a right and duty to attempt to de-faith others unsolicited.”
Grayling says that secularism should be welcomed by the religious, because it guarantees their freedom of worship. But Grayling’s secularism is simply there to give religion room to fail and die:
Grayling’s clear expectation is that, deprived of its financial power and cultural privileges, religion will simply become the reserve of the few most irrational …. It is difficult to read Grayling’s ideas without being reminded of the aspirations of the Bolsheviks. (p. 266)
Of course, Grayling is no totalitarian and stresses that he will “fight hard to protect the right of the benighted to the stupidest beliefs”. But once your tolerance gains this level of reluctance, the temptation to be less tolerant grows. Boghossian’s street preachers are told they have the right, or even the obligation, to “intervene” with believers in the most mundane of circumstances: after overhearing a conversation in a coffee shop, for example, or taking a friend’s child to choir practice. And where does tolerance end if you can characterise religious belief as “an unclassified mental illness” (Boghossian) or religious education as actual “child abuse” (Dawkins; Grayling)?
The New Atheist distortion of history – both the history of religion and the history of anti-religious unbelief – warps the ideology of militant secularism. Johnstone concludes:
It is only by recognising the absolutist potential of certain forms of atheism that those who would wish to can work towards maximising its progressiveness. The past does indeed show us what atheism can be. Is is lesson worth learning and applying to ourselves. (p. 279)
This is precisely what I have been arguing on this blog and elsewhere for around 15 years – if we are going to try to use history, we have to get it right and be honest about what it does and does not tell us. Johnstone is not the first to note the many problems with New Atheist history and historiography. The theologian David Bentley Hart skewers some of the more silly examples in his Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale: 2009) and historian Borden W. Painter covers similar ground to Johnstone in his short work The New Atheist Denial of History (Palgrave Macmillan: 2014). But Johnstone’s monograph is more extensive and systematic than either and has the added advantage of being written by someone who is not a religious believer. This is an excellent book and should be required reading for any atheist who wants to practice the ideals of critical scrutiny and the avoidance of confirmation bias. Highly recommended.
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Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name is Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa Kalani Waiakua Kalanikau Iokikilo Kīwalaō i ke kapu Kamehameha when he ascended the throne.
Under his reign Hawaii evolved from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy with the signing of both the 1840 Constitution, which was the first Hawaiian Language Constitution, and the 1852 Constitution. He was the longest reigning monarch in the history of the Kingdom, ruling for 29 years and 192 days, although in the early part of his reign he was under a regency by Queen Kaahumanu and later by Kaahumanu II.
His goal was the careful balancing of modernization by adopting Western ways, while keeping his nation intact.
Early life
Kauikeaouli was born at Keauhou Bay, on Hawaii island, the largest island of the Hawaiian Islands archipelago. He was the second son of King Kamehameha I and his highest ranking wife, Queen Keōpūolani, born in Maui. Early historians suggested June or July 1814, but one accepted date is August 11, 1813. Biographer P. Christiaan Klieger cites 17 March 1814 as his birthday.
He was of the highest kapu lineage. Kauikeaouli was about 16 years younger than his brother Liholiho, who ruled as Kamehameha II starting in 1819. He was named Kauikeaouli (placed in the dark clouds) Kaleiopapa Kuakamanolani Mahinalani Kalaninuiwaiakua Keaweaweulaokalani (the red trail or the roadway by which the god descends from heaven) after his maternal grandfather Kīwalaō.
He was promised to Kuakini in adoption, but as at birth he appeared to be delivered stillborn, Kuakini did not wish to take him. But Chief Kaikioewa summoned his kaula (prophet) Kapihe who declared the baby would live.
Kauikeaouli was cleansed, laid on a rock, fanned, prayed over and sprinkled with water until he breathed, moved and cried. The prayer of Kapihe was to Kaōnohiokalā, "Child of God". The rock is preserved as a monument at Keauhou Bay. He was given to Kaikioewa to raise.
Kauikeaouli had a troubled childhood. He was torn between the Puritan Christian guidelines imposed on the kingdom by the kuhina nui (Queen Regent) who was his stepmother Kaʻahumanu, and the desires to honor the old traditions. Under the influence of Oʻahu's then governor, Boki, and a young Hawaiian-Tahitian priest named Kaomi, Kauikeaouli's aikāne partner, he rebelled against his Christian teachings, created the secret order of Hulumanu (Bird Feather), and named Kaomi his co-ruler in place of Kīnaʻu. By 1835 he had returned to ways of the missionaries.
Reign
When Kauikeaouli came to the throne in 1835, the native population numbered about 150,000, which was already less than one third of the Hawaiian population at the time of Captain Cook's arrival to Hawaii in 1778. During his reign, that number would be halved again, due to a series of epidemics.
Marriage and children
In ancient Hawaii, upper classes considered a marriage with a close royal family member to be an excellent way to preserve pure bloodlines. His brother Liholiho (King Kamehameha II) and his Queen Kamāmalu were a half-sister and brother couple. He had loved his sister Nāhienaena and planned to marry her since childhood, but the union was opposed by the missionaries due to their perceptions of incest.
It was proposed in 1832 that Kamanele, the daughter of Governor John Adams Kuakini, would be the most suitable in age, rank, and education for his queen. Kamanele died in 1834 before the wedding took place. Instead Kamehameha III chose to marry Kalama Hakaleleponi Kapakuhaili, against the wishes of Kīnau. Kalama's father was Naihekukui. After his sister's death in late 1836, he married Kalama February 14, 1837 in a Christian ceremony. Kamehameha III and Kalama had two children: Prince Keaweaweulaokalani I and Prince Keaweaweulaokalani II who both died while infants.
He and his mistress Jane Lahilahi, a daughter of his father's advisor John Young, had twin illegitimate sons: Kīwalaʻō, who Kamehameha initially took to raise, died young, while the other twin Albert Kūnuiākea survived and was later adopted by Kamehameha and his wife Queen Kalama. Kūnuiākea lived to adulthood but died childless (1851–1902).
Government
In 1838, senior advisor Hoapili convinced former missionary William Richards to resign from the church and become a political advisor. Richards (although he had no legal training himself) gave classes to Kamehameha III and his councilors on the Western ideas of rule of law and economics. Their first act was a declaration of human rights in 1839.
In 1839, under a French threat of war, Roman Catholicism was legalized in the Edict of Toleration and the first statutory law code was established. He also enacted the Constitution of 1840, Hawaii's first. This laid the groundwork for the establishment of judicial and executive branches of government, and a system of land ownership was implemented under the Mahele in 1848.
Over the next few years, he moved the capital from Lahaina to Honolulu. In September 1840 Charles Wilkes arrived on the United States Exploring Expedition. Kamehameha III was happy to support the explorers, and appointed missionary doctor Gerrit P. Judd to serve as translator. Judd treated many of the sailors who suffered from altitude sickness on their ascent of Mauna Loa. Wilkes vastly underestimated the task, and did not leave until March 1841.
In February 1843, British Captain Lord George Paulet pressured Kamehameha III into surrendering the Hawaiian kingdom to the British crown, but Kamehameha III alerted London of the captain's rogue actions which eventually restored the kingdom's independence. Less than five months later, British Admiral Richard Thomas rejected Paulet's actions and the kingdom was restored on July 31. It was at the end of this period of uncertainty that the king uttered the phrase that eventually became Hawaii's motto: Ua Mau ke Ea o ka Āina i ka Pono — "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness." July 31 was celebrated thereafter as Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day, an official national holiday of the kingdom. Later that year, on November 28, Britain and France officially recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and that too became a national holiday, Lā Kūʻokoʻa — Independence Day.
Through the 1840s a formal legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom and cabinet replaced the informal council of chiefs. The chiefs became the House of Nobles, roughly modeled on the British House of Lords. Seven elected representatives would be the start of democratic government. The cabinet consisted of a Privy Council and five powerful government ministers. Judd was appointed to the most powerful post of Minister of Finance. Frontier lawyer John Ricord was Attorney General, Robert Crichton Wyllie was Minister of Foreign Affairs, Richards Minister of Public Instruction, and Keoni Ana was Minister of the Interior.
Kamehameha III also presided over formalization of the court system and land titles. Cases such as those of Richard Charlton and Ladd & Co. had prompted the incidents of 1843 and subsequent litigation. Lorrin Andrews became a judge for foreign cases in 1845. William Little Lee (the first to actually graduate from law school) became first Chief Justice.
A commission to Quiet Land Titles was formed on February 10, 1846.
This led to what is called the Great Mahele of 1848 which redistributed land between the government, king, nobles, and commoners. Foreigners were allowed to own land fee simple in Hawaii for the first time.
Many commoners were unaware of the program and lost out on the distribution. The domination of his cabinet by Americans (balanced only by Scot Wyllie and half-Hawaiian Keoni Ana) also discouraged the people.
This was not the end of foreign conflicts either. In 1849 admiral Louis Tromelin led a French invasion of Honolulu. The French sacked and looted the city after the king refused his demands.
In September 1849 Judd was sent with the heir apparent Prince Alexander Liholiho and Kamehameha V on a diplomatic mission. They returned with a new treaty with the United States, but failed in visits to London and Paris.
The Constitution of 1852 and subsequent legislation continued to liberalize politics. The court system was unified, instead of having separate courts for Hawaiians and foreigners. Local Hawaiian magistrates became Circuit Judges, and a Supreme Court was formed with Lee, Andrews, and John Papa ʻĪʻī as members. Voting rules were formalized and the role of the House of Representatives was strengthened.
Later years
The California Gold Rush brought increased trade, but also some unwelcome visitors. Previously the long trips around Cape Horn or from Europe meant infected sailors were either recovered or buried at sea by the time they arrived. The short voyage from California brought several waves of diseases that decimated the native Hawaiians who had no immunity.
In the summer of 1853 an epidemic of smallpox caused thousands of deaths, mostly on the island of Oahu. Judd, always at odds with Wyllie, lost the backing of others who blamed him for not containing the disease (or had other political reasons to want him out of power). Judd was forced to resign on September 3, and was replaced by Elisha Hunt Allen as Minister of Finance.
Hawaii became a popular winter destination for frustrated prospectors in the 1850s. Some were rumored to be filibusters hoping to profit from a rebellion. One of the first was a group led by Samuel Brannan, who did not find the popular support for an uprising that they expected. By the end of 1853 the threats, whether real or imagined, caused petitions for the king to consider annexation to the United States. Wyllie and Lee convinced the king to insist that annexation would only be acceptable if Hawaii became a U.S. state.
In 1852 a group of missionaries set out from Hawaii for the islands of Micronesia. They carried with them a letter of introduction that bore the official seal of King Kamehameha III, the then ruling monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. This letter, originally written in Hawaiian and addressed to the various rulers of the Pacific Islands, said in part: "There are about to sail for your islands some teachers of the Most High God, Jehovah, to make known unto you His Word for your eternal salvation. . . . I commend these good teachers to your esteem and friendship and exhort you to listen to their instructions. . . . I advise you to throw away your idols, take the Lord Jehovah for your God, worship and love Him and He will bless and save you."
On May 16, 1854 King Kamehameha III proclaimed the Hawaiian Kingdom neutral in the Crimean War in Europe. The present crises had passed, but the king's health declined, often attributed to his renewed drinking. The annexation question also did not go away. The British minister William Miller and French representative Louis Emile Perrin objected to the plan. New U.S. Commissioner David L. Gregg received instructions from Secretary of State William L. Marcy and negotiated a treaty of annexation with Wyllie by August 1854. It was never signed, and might not have been ratified by the Senate. Although there was some support in the U.S., it would take 105 more years before full statehood of Hawaii.
Death and funeral
Kamehameha III died suddenly on December 15, 1854 after a brief illness, which may have been related to a stroke.
He was succeeded by his nephew and adopted son Alexander Liholiho, who was styled as King Kamehameha IV.
In 1865 Kamehameha III was reburied in the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii known as Mauna Ala.
Legacy
The access to his birthplace at Keauhou Bay is via Kamehameha III Road from the north from Hawaii Belt Road, at and Kaleiopapa Street from the south at .
His successor described his reign:
The age of Kamehameha III was that of progress and of liberty—of schools and of civilization. He gave us a Constitution and fixed laws; he secured the people in the title to their lands, and removed the last chain of oppression. He gave them a voice in his councils and in the making of the laws by which they are governed. He was a great national benefactor, and has left the impress of his mild and amiable disposition on the age for which he was born.
On July 31, 2018, a 12-foot bronze statue of Kamehameha III and a flagpole flying the Hawaiian flag was unveiled at Thomas Square in a ceremony honoring the 175th anniversary of the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty in 1843. The statue was created by Oregon artist Thomas Jay Warren for $250,000 allotted by the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts and is part of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s plans to revamp the park.
Family tree
Ancestry
See also
List of bilateral treaties signed by the Kingdom of Hawaii
References
Further reading
External links
Category:1813 births
Category:1854 deaths
Category:19th century in LGBT history
Category:Royalty of the Kingdom of Hawaii
Category:House of Kamehameha
Category:House of Līloa
Category:Kingdom of Hawaii Protestants
Category:Protestant monarchs
Category:Modern child rulers
Category:Burials at the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii
Category:Monarchs of the Hawaiian Islands
Category:Hawaiian adoptees (hānai)
Category:Chief Justices of the Kingdom of Hawaii
Category:Disease-related deaths in Hawaii
Hawaii
History
Category:LGBT royalty | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Members of the opposition in Venezuela have accused security forces of stealing from protesters demonstrating against President Nicolás Maduro. Footage posted to Instagram appears to show one police officer removing a watch from a woman’s arm while she recovers from being teargassed | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Review "Unconditional"
by repmetsyrrah
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Dan Savage bibliography
American author Dan Savage (born October 7, 1964) has written six books, op-ed pieces in The New York Times, and an advice column on sexual issues in The Stranger (an alternative newspaper from Seattle, Washington). A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Savage began contributing a column, Savage Love, to The Stranger from its inception in 1991. By 1998 his column had a readership of four million. He was Associate Editor at the newspaper from 1991 to 2001, when he became its editor-in-chief, later becoming its editorial director in 2007.
Savage's books have had successful sales results and have been generally well received. Savage Love: Straight Answers from America's Most Popular Sex Columnist was published in 1998 and features selections from his advice column. His next book The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant was published in 1999, and recounts his experiences with his boyfriend whilst deciding to adopt a child. The book received a PEN West Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction, and an Off-Broadway musical based on the work was the recipient of the BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre. Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America, published in 2002, describes the author's experiences indulging in the seven deadly sins. The book was featured in The Best American Sex Writing 2004, and won a Lambda Literary Award.
Savage's 2005 book The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, recounting his personal experience deciding to marry his partner Terry Miller and analyzing same-sex marriage, reached The New York Times Best Seller list, and Nielsen BookScan noted it sold approximately 300,000 copies. After founding the It Gets Better Project in 2010 to reach out to teenagers after incidents of suicide among LGBT youth, his edited compilation of submissions It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living was published in 2011. The book features notable contributors, including David Sedaris, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Sales of the book were successful, and IndieBound reported it reached a list of best-sellers in the United States less than one week after publication. It reached 16th on The New York Times Best Seller list in April 2011. Savage collaborated with Lindy West, Christopher Frizzelle, and Bethany Jean Clement on a college guide, How to Be a Person, which was published in 2012. His 2013 book American Savage reflects on Savage's experiences throughout the founding of the It Gets Better Project and was well received by The Washington Post and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Works
Books
Author
Editor
Contributor
Newspapers edited
The Stranger (Seattle, Washington: Tim Keck; Index Newspapers, LLC). .
Savage served as Associate Editor from 1991 to April 4, 2001, when he became editor-in-chief.
He became editorial director in September 2007.
Advice column
1991–present
By 1998, Savage's advice column had a total of four million readers, and was syndicated to 21 newspapers located in Canada and the United States.
Internet
"It Gets Better", part of the It Gets Better Project (YouTube), with Terry Miller (September 21, 2010)
Television
This American Life Live!, Bard Entertainment, National CineMedia, with Mike Birbiglia, Ira Glass, Starlee Kine, Joss Whedon (2009)
Savage appeared on a live episode of This American Life in 2009, where he criticized the Catholic Church and discussed his views on atheism. He reflected on his experience during his mother's death.
It Gets Better: MTV Television Special (MTV; MTV Studios). February 21, 2012.
It Gets Better was a collaborative project between MTV and the It Gets Better Project. Along with his partner Terry Miller, Savage hosted the episode and informed the audience about three youths and their experiences coming to terms with their LGBT status.
Savage U (MTV; MTV Studios). 2012.
MTV featured Savage in its program Savage U, wherein he traveled to college campuses in the United States to speak about sexuality and answer students' queries. The series premiered on MTV on April 3, 2012.
It Gets Better 2: MTV Television Special (MTV; MTV Studios). October 9, 2012.
It Gets Better 2 was hosted by Savage and featured an examination of LGBT young adults as they dealt with issues surrounding their alternative sexuality.
The Real O'Neals was a sitcom that aired on ABC from March 2, 2016 to March 14, 2017. The series was loosely based on Savage's early life, and he was also one of the show's executive producers.
Theatre
It's a Lon Mabon Christmas Carol, Charlie Brown (1993) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan. The play was co-written by Charles Smith.
Play was performed at the Tugs Belmont in Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington. It's a Lon Mabon Christmas Carol, Charlie Brown was an LGBT-themed adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The play included a satire of activist Lon Mabon, and a parody of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Performances by two actors in the production received recognition by The Seattle Times in the "Footlight Awards".
The Importance of Being Earnest (1993) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Savage adapted the play from the original by Oscar Wilde. The original play was concurrently being performed at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington. Savage's adaptation was shown at the Re-Bar Tavern and was billed as the "queer version" of the Intiman Theatre production. The play was styled in the form of a cabaret.
The Comedy of Errors (1993) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Male actors took the roles of females, and actresses portrayed the male characters in the play.
Macbeth (1994) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage interpreted and adapted the play from the original William Shakespeare and directed; he was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Savage incorporated gender reversal for the actors cast to portray the male and female roles. The play was successful and its run was extended for an additional month past its intended wrap date.
Macbeth as adapted by Savage and produced for Greek Active was performed again in 1996; with Savage as director.
Mourning Becomes Electra (1994) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Savage adapted the piece from the original play by Eugene O'Neill. He chose to select a slate of only men as actors, and compressed the running time from six hours to two and a half.
A Christmas Carol (1994) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Savage modified the production to incorporate cross-dressing actors.
Saint Joan (1995) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Savage adapted the play from the original by George Bernard Shaw; Shaw himself is included as a character in the production, who appears to inspect the set and then is pulled offstage.
Winner of the 1995 Seattle Pretty Inclusive Theater (SPIT) Award in the comedy category.
The Best Man (1996) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Savage adapted the play from the original by Gore Vidal. Male actors performed roles of both men and women characters. Savage updated the play to make to more relevant to ongoing political elections at the time.
The Children's Hour (1996) — play produced by Greek Active, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage directed and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
The play was an adaptation of the original by Lillian Hellman. Classmates at an educational institution in the Southern United States were played by lesbian women; drag queen men were cast as the instructors at the school that the students claimed were lesbians.
Egguus (2001) — play performed at Consolidated Works, Seattle, Washington; Dan Savage wrote and directed the adaptation and was credited as Keenan Hollahan.
Egguus was an adaptation by Savage from the 1973 play Equus by Peter Shaffer.
The Kid (2010), Michael Zam (book), Andy Monroe (music), Jack Lechner (lyrics). Off-Broadway, Theatre Row, New York City, The New Group.
Musical adaptation based on Savage's book The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant; Savage gave feedback to the production team during the adaptation process, and provided them with numerous notes and comments. Savage stated in an interview with Time Out New York, that the production team were responsive to his feedback.
The Kid was recognized with the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre, in the category of Best New Musical. Composer Jerry Bock, a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award recipient, chose the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop-developed musical himself to receive the award. It received nominations in 2011 for five Drama Desk Awards including Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Lyrics, and Outstanding Book of a Musical; in addition to nominations for a Lucille Lortel Award and a GLAAD Media Award. The Kid won the 2011 Outer Critics Circle Award in the category of Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical.
Miracle! (2012) written and directed by Dan Savage, performed at Intiman Playhouse, Seattle, Washington.
Savage wrote the play as a parody of The Miracle Worker, utilizing drag queen actors.
It Gets Better Tour (2013). Collaboration between the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles with Dan Savage and others including Lily Tomlin and LeAnn Rimes.
Articles
The Capital Times
The New York Times
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Slate magazine
Wisconsin State Journal
Awards
See also
Gay literature
LGBT social movements
List of LGBT writers
References
Further reading
External links
Savage U – Savage's MTV show
Savage Love – Savage's weekly sex advice column
Savage's podcasts
Category:Dan Savage
Category:Bibliographies by writer
Category:Journalism bibliographies
Category:Bibliographies of American writers
Category:Dramatist and playwright bibliographies
Category:Articles containing video clips | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Quality of life is a key outcome indicator for the planning and evaluation of health services, primarily those for populations with chronic disorders, such as individuals with severe mental disorders \[[@CR1]--[@CR3]\]. Mental health studies on quality of life emerged when individuals with severe mental disorders began to be discharged from psychiatric hospitals and treated in the community \[[@CR4], [@CR5]\]. Interest in the impacts that poverty, housing, personal safety, loneliness and other socio-demographic variables have on mental health has also stimulated interest in quality-of-life research \[[@CR6]\]. Improving the quality of life of individuals with severe mental disorders is now an objective for all new mental health programs, practices and services \[[@CR7]\]. Indeed, poor quality of life is a strong predictor of relapse among individuals with schizophrenia \[[@CR3]\], alcohol addiction \[[@CR8], [@CR9]\] and maybe other mental disorders.
There is an absence of consensus on the definition of quality of life \[[@CR3], [@CR10]\]. The earliest conceptualizations of quality of life among individuals with severe mental disorders focused on dimensions important for their community integration such as personal safety and psychosocial support \[[@CR10]\]. Several new conceptual models of quality of life have emerged more recently, where quality of life for patients is defined in various ways: as the gap between individual expectations and achievements \[[@CR11]\]; as the outcome of interactions among psychotic symptoms, medication side effects and psychosocial performance \[[@CR12]\], or between an array of distress and protective factors \[[@CR13]\]. Quality of life is also viewed as equivalent to reintegration into normal living \[[@CR14]\] or improvements in lifestyle, greater autonomy and positive self-concept \[[@CR15]\]. This proliferation of definitions suggests perhaps why multiple instruments have been designed to measure quality of life among mental health patients \[[@CR10]\]. Moreover, while most of these instruments were expert-rated, others are self-report instruments, both of which may introduce a bias into the results \[[@CR16]\].
Quality of life is, in fact, a heterogeneous concept \[[@CR2]\] with objective and subjective dimensions. Objective dimensions refer to aspects related to the social environment and social functioning, while subjective dimensions include "well-being," "happiness" or "life satisfaction"\[[@CR1]\]. Several studies have shown that objective and subjective quality of life (SQOL) are not strongly correlated \[[@CR5], [@CR17]--[@CR19]\]. The perception of SQOL in individuals with severe mental disorders is linked to multiple factors \[[@CR20], [@CR21]\]. Cross-sectional and comparative studies have found associations between a secondary diagnosis, such as a mood disorder \[[@CR22]--[@CR25]\] or an anxiety disorder \[[@CR24]\], and lower SQOL, in individuals with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. A strong association between serious needs and lower SQOL has also been reported in the literature \[[@CR26]--[@CR28]\]. Socio-demographic variables are less strongly correlated with SQOL. However, some studies have found higher SQOL in females \[[@CR29], [@CR30]\], older individuals \[[@CR30]\], individuals with a higher income \[[@CR31]\] and individuals in the work force \[[@CR32]\].
A number of longitudinal studies has investigated predictors of SQOL in individuals with severe mental disorders \[[@CR17], [@CR21], [@CR33]--[@CR44]\]. Those studies found that a reduction in the number of serious needs \[[@CR34], [@CR37], [@CR40], [@CR44]\], symptom severity \[[@CR35], [@CR36]\], anxiety \[[@CR38]\] or substance abuse \[[@CR21], [@CR45]\] improves SQOL. A strong social network \[[@CR21], [@CR36], [@CR40]\] and health service use \[[@CR21]\] are other predictors of improved SQOL reported in the literature. However, while regression analysis used in longitudinal studies allows identification of predictors of SQOL, it is not possible to establish a typology of individuals according to their SQOL and other associated variables.
Cluster analysis is a useful method for establishing a typology of individuals with mental disorders \[[@CR46]\]. This type of analysis allows them to be included in subgroups characterized by different profiles correlated with clinical variables (e.g., diagnoses, needs), socio-demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, civil status), and health service use (e.g., help received from services, continuity of care). Cluster analysis has previously been used to identify profiles of individuals with severe mental disorders \[[@CR46]\] or common mental disorders \[[@CR47]\], hospitalized for the first time \[[@CR48]\], hospitalized with co-occurring severe mental and substance abuse disorders \[[@CR49]\], frequent users of in-patient mental healthcare services \[[@CR50], [@CR51]\], individuals with schizophrenia treated in the community \[[@CR52]\] and homeless people with severe mental disorders \[[@CR53], [@CR54]\]. However, to the best of our knowledge, cluster analysis has never been used to analyse predictors of SQOL.
Using cluster analysis, this study aims to create a predictive typology of quality of life at five-year follow-up among individuals with severe mental disorders, on the basis of clinical, socio-demographic, and health service use variables.
Methods {#Sec1}
=======
Study design and healthcare network characteristics {#Sec2}
---------------------------------------------------
This prospective study involved individuals with severe mental disorders followed at a mental health university institute (MHUI), located in south-west Montreal (Québec, Canada). A total of 258,000 inhabitants live in this urban area. Healthcare for the population is covered by the MHUI and by two health and social service centres (HSSCs) created through the merger of general hospitals, community local health centres and nursing homes. The MHUI offers specialized mental health services (i.e., second-line and third-line services) while the HSSCs provide primary mental health services. Other professionals and organizations offering health services in this area have been identified in greater detail in previous publications \[[@CR44], [@CR55]\].
Sample selection criteria and recruitment of the main sample {#Sec3}
------------------------------------------------------------
Inclusion criteria for participation in the study were: (1) age 18--65 years; (2) having been diagnosed with a severe mental disorder according to the DSM-IV (e.g., schizophrenia, mood disorders); (3) living in south-west Montreal; (4) being followed up by the MHUI at baseline; (5) allowing the research team to examine the participant's medical record; and (6) agreeing to refer the research team to the participant's principal case manager. For eligible candidates, case managers would subsequently be contacted and asked to complete a questionnaire on their patient's functional status. Patients considered unable to complete questionnaires (i.e., clinically too fragile or unstable) were excluded from the study. Moreover, since the study had to assess quality of life among individuals with severe mental disorders transferred to, or living in, the community, people undergoing involuntary psychiatric treatment, as determined by a judicial board, and those hospitalized in inpatient services at the time of the recruitment were excluded from the study.
Baseline recruitment (T0) involved diverse strategies: posters displayed at the Douglas MHUI and in HSSCs for participant self-referral; recruitment at out-patient clinics; and information sessions or flyers explaining the project to mental healthcare providers or housing resources staff in the district. The research team worked closely with an advisory committee of decision makers from the mental health district to assist with data collection.
Participant data were collected from December 2008 to September 2010 (baseline, T0), from January 2011 to November 2011 (T1), and from June 2013 to April 2014 (T2). The 5-year study period was equivalent to the implementation period of the Quebec Mental Health Action Plan \[[@CR56]\], a major reform of the Quebec mental healthcare system targeting the transfer of patients from institutional settings to the community where they would be followed by primary care services. The choice of conducting T1 follow-up at 2 years was to perform a "halfway evaluation". The baseline window (T0) was 22 months, as we needed to enrol a large number of participants (at least 350). For TI and T2, participants were contacted consecutively, according to their entry into the study, such that data collection for each participant was spaced throughout a period of two to five years. The measurement period took a maximum of one year for T1 and T2 respectively.
At each measurement time, participants were met by trained clinical research agents to help them complete the instruments (except for the community functioning scale). Research agents maintained close contact with a research coordinator and the research team in order to maintain quality data processing. With the exception of self-referrals, the selected participants were first contacted by their case manager, who gauged their interest in participating in the study, and subsequently referred the participants to the research team. Each participant was required to sign a consent form after the study was described. Two 90-min interviews, held at one-week intervals, were conducted for each participant. The study protocol was approved by the ethics boards of the MHUI and the two HSSCs. Further details on sample selection criteria and recruitment of the main sample are shown in Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}.Fig. 1Flowchart of the sample from baseline (T0) to third measurement (T2)
Instruments {#Sec4}
-----------
Data were collected from seven questionnaires, administered in either English or French, and from participants' medical records at the MHUI. SQOL was assessed with the modified version of the Satisfaction with Life Domains Scale (SLDS), initially developed by Baker and Intagliata \[[@CR4]\], translated into French and validated by Caron et al. \[[@CR57]\]. Like other instruments such as the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile \[[@CR58]\], the Quality of Life Interview Scale \[[@CR59]\] or the Wisconsin Quality of Life Index \[[@CR60]\], the SLDS is an expert-reported scale designed specifically for individuals with chronic mental disorders \[[@CR3]\]. The SLDS assesses satisfaction in 20 life domains. Participants are asked to indicate their emotional state \[[@CR61]--[@CR63]\] by choosing from among seven stylized faces and rating each on a seven-point scale, ranging from the saddest face (score 1) to the happiest face (score 7). The item scores were added up to arrive at a total score. The psychometric properties of the SLDS are good. The internal consistency of the overall scale is excellent (Cronbach's alpha of 0.84 according Baker and Intagliata \[[@CR4]\] and of 0.92 for the French version validated by Caron \[[@CR57]\]), and the temporal stability of the SLDS proved good (*r* = 0,73; \[[@CR57]\]) which makes it an effective instrument for measuring SQOL. The SLDS is among the scales that were included in their entirety in the Wisconsin Quality of Life Index, a multidimensional instrument containing 113 items \[[@CR60], [@CR64]\].
Other questionnaires used were (1) the Multnomah Community Ability Scale (MCAS), assessing patient functional status in the community (e.g., obstacles to functioning, social competence; CA: 0.87) \[[@CR65]\]; (2) the Social Provisions Scale (SPS), exploring patient levels of social integration and support (e.g., reassurance about one's value, the need to feel useful; CA: 0.92) \[[@CR66]\]; (3) the Montreal Assessment of Needs Questionnaire (MANQ), measuring the number and severity of need, and the level of help received from relatives or from services \[[@CR67]\]; (4) the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), evaluating alcohol consumption levels and consequences (CA: 0.88) \[[@CR68]\]; (5) the Drug Abuse Screening Test-20 (DAST-20), assessing patient drug use and consequences (CA: 0.74) \[[@CR69]\]; and (6) the Alberta Continuity of Services Scale for Mental Health (ACSS-MH), measuring service continuity (e.g., system access, team function; CA: 0.78 to 0.92) \[[@CR70]\]. All questionnaires were completed by the participants, except for the MCAS, which was completed by their principal case managers.
Analyses {#Sec5}
--------
Missing values were less than 5 % per variable and were replaced by mean values. Univariate and cluster analyses were carried out using SPSS version 21. Univariate analyses included frequency distributions for categorical variables, and mean values for continuous variables. The trend in SQOL (according to the SLDS score) from baseline (T0) to the second follow-up period (T2) was estimated by subtracting the mean value of the furthest time from that of the most recent time (SLDS score at T2 -- SLDS score at T0). The overall objective was to obtain three groups with acceptable sample sizes that would insure sound statistical comparisons. The same cut-off method was used by Ruggeri et al. \[[@CR6]\]. Participants with SLDS trend scores between −10 and +10 were considered "stable." Those with scores lower than −10 were considered "deteriorated," while those with scores higher than +10 were considered "improved."
The participant typology was developed by means of TwoStep Cluster Analysis in the SPSS Statistics 21.0 package \[[@CR71]\]. This analysis proceeds in two steps: pre-clustering of participants into small subclasses, followed by the final clustering of subclasses into an appropriate number of classes based on specific statistical tests, or into a number of classes determined by the statistician according to the optimal interpretation of the model. Cluster analysis is similar to latent class analysis (LCA) run with the SAS package. These two techniques were introduced in the 1950s \[[@CR72], [@CR73]\]. They are similar in that they are both designed to identify latent clusters of subjects with similar profiles. They generate mutually exclusive and exhaustive classes; and use an objective method to determine the number of classes (the Bayesian Information Criterion for LCA or the Schwarz Bayesian criterion for two-step clustering); they work with categorical and continuous variables. Cluster analysis has the advantage of being more widely known and used than LCA.
Variables selected were classified as continuous or categorical. Categorical variables measured at baseline (T0) were gender, education, sources of income, civil status, housing status, primary diagnosis: mood disorders and psychotic disorders (schizophrenia, schizophrenia spectrum disorders and delusion); and secondary diagnosis: anxiety disorders, and personality disorders. Continuous variables measured at baseline (T0) were: age, severity of needs (MANQ score), addiction to drugs and alcohol (DAST-20 score and AUDIT score), functional status in the community (MCAS score), social support (SPS score), level of help received from services or relatives (MANQ score), and service continuity (ACSS-MH score). The variables taken into consideration were those which, according to previous studies, could influence a change in SQOL in individuals with severe mental disorders \[[@CR21], [@CR30], [@CR32], [@CR33], [@CR36], [@CR40], [@CR45]\]. The SLDS score, measured at T2, was the outcome variable. Categorical variables were entered first, followed by continuous variables. The log-likelihood method was used to determine inter-subject distance and specific classification of participants. The first model was produced using the Schwarz Bayesian criterion, yielding two classes. Many different models were subsequently produced using a different number of predetermined classes. The final number of clusters was set at four, according to their overall contribution to inter-class homogeneity, as determined by the diagnostic model improvement test.
Results {#Sec6}
=======
Overall, 437 individuals were recruited at baseline (T0), with 352 (80.5 %) consenting to participate. Of the 352 participants enrolled at baseline (T0), 297 (84.4 %) were interviewed at T1 \[[@CR45]\]. The 85 individuals who refused to participate were compared with the study participants with respect to age and type of housing. No statistically significant differences were found with respect to the following variables: (1) intermediary resource participants (Chi-square: 5.999 (*P* = 0.199)); (2) foster home participants (Chi-square: 4.482 (*P* = 0.482)); or (3) other types of housing (Chi-square: 3.229 (*P* = 0.665)). Participants were also compared with respect to gender distribution (total sample). No statistically significant difference was found (Chi-square: 1.210; *P* = 0.271). Of the 297 participants at T1, 207 (69.6 %) were interviewed at T2; 32 (10.8 %) refused to participate; 12 (4.0 %) were excluded due to incapacity; 6 (2.0 %) were deceased, and 40 (13.5 %) had moved away from the study area or were lost to follow-up. Of the 207 participants at T2, 3 were excluded because of the large amount of missing data. The retention rate after five years was thus 59 %. Comparison analyses using cross-tabulation on categorical variables showed no differences in terms of gender and education, either between T0 and T2 samples (gender: *X*^2^ = 0.001, *p* = 0.982; education: *X*^2^ = 0.606, *p* = 0.436) or between T1 and T2 samples (gender: *X*^2^ = 0.099, *p* = 0.754; education: *X*^2^ = 0.942, *p* = 0.344). Moreover, comparison analyses using one-way ANOVA on MCAS scores (community ability) at T0, T1 and T2 yielded no significant differences between the three measurement times (*p* = 0.406). Comparison analyses were also carried out between participants lost-to-follow-up and those remaining in the sample, with baseline characteristics for age (*p* = 0.174), and MCAS score (*p* = 0.533). No statistically significant differences were found.
Participant socio-demographic, clinical and health service use characteristics at baseline are displayed in Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}. Males represented 52 % of the sample. The mean age was 51 years. Only 40 % had some post-secondary education. More than 50 % of the sample lived in independent apartments and 85 % were single. The main diagnoses were psychotic disorders (schizophrenia: 36 % of the participants, schizophrenia spectrum disorders: 14 %, delusion: 7 %; Total: 49 % of the participants) and mood disorders (42 %). Several participants had more than one mental disorder, the mean being 1.6 (s.d. = 0.9). Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"} also shows participant characteristics according to deterioration, stability or improvement in relation to the SQOL score. Only 18.6 % (*n* = 38) of participants saw an improvement in their SQOL over time, while 41.7 % (*n* = 85) showed stability and 39.7 % (*n* = 81) experienced a deterioration. Females were more likely to experience improvements in their SLDS scores over time, compared with males, while older participants (50 yrs. and over) were more likely to report a deterioration in their SQOL, compared with younger participants (under 50 yr.). Deterioration in the SLDS score was found in participants living in supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing (group homes, foster homes), whereas stability was found in participants living in independent apartments. Participants with mood disorders and addiction to drugs and alcohol also experienced improvement~~s~~ in their SLDS scores, whereas those with psychotic disorders seemed to deteriorate, and those with personality disorders showed stability.Table 1Patient distribution according to deterioration, stability or improvement in SLDS scores from baseline to T2Variables at baselineTotal sampleDeterioratedStableImproved(*n* = 204)(*n* = 81)(*n* = 85)(*n* = 38)n/mean%/SDn/mean%/SDn/mean%/SDn/mean%/SDSocio-demographic variablesAge (n, %)\<40 yr.4321.11619.81821.2923,740--49 yr.6632.42429.62731.81539.5\>50 yr.9546.64150.64047.11436.8Gender (n, %)Female9848.03846.93844.72257.9Male10652.04353.14755.31642.1Civil status (n, %)Other than single3014.71012.31315.3718.4Single17485.37187.77284.73181.6Education (n, %)Primary/Secondary school12360.35365.44957.62155.3College/University8139.72834.63642.41744.7Sources of income (n, %)Welfare12963.25972.84957.62155.3Other7536.82227.23642.41744.7Type of housing (n, %)Independent apartment12159.34049.45969.42257.9Supervised apartment or other types of supervised housing8340.74150.62630.61642.1SPS scores^a^ (mean, SD)71.06.670.95.771.46.770.68.1Clinical variablesSeverity of needs^b^ (mean, SD)43.329.540.528.044.128.647.334.8MCAS score^c^ (mean, SD)65.610.064.110.567.29.065.310.4Primary diagnosis (Severe mental disorders)Mood disorders (n, %)8642.22429.63844.72463.2Psychotic disorders^d^ (n, %)10049.05061.73844.71231.6Secondary diagnosisAnxiety disorders (n, %)2512.378.61416.5410.5Personality disorders (n, %)5828.41417.33440.01026.3Addiction^e^ (mean, SD)8.57.37.96.68.67.79.48.0Number of mental disorders (mean, SD)1.60.91.50.91.70.81.70.9Health service use and appreciationHelp from relatives^f^ (mean, SD)23.023.019.120.425.425.025.923.1Help from services^g^ (mean, SD)35.221.336.422.534.019.835.522.1ACSS-MH score^h^ (mean, SD)122.113.3123.211.1122.19.5119.822.2^a^Social Provisions Scale (SPS) score: Min = 24, Max = 96; Higher = positive^b^Severity of needs (MANQ score): Min = 0; Max = 260; Higher = negative^c^Multnomah Community Ability Scale (MCAS) score: Min = 17; Max = 85; Higher = positive^d^Psychotic disorders = schizophrenia + schizophrenia spectrum disorders + delusion^e^Addiction = Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score + Drug Abuse Screening Test-20 (DAST-20) score^f^Help form relatives (Montreal Assessment of Needs Questionnaire (MANQ) score); Min = 0; Max = 260; Higher = positive^g^Help from services (MANQ score); Min = 0; Max = 260; Higher = positive^h^Alberta Continuity of Services Scale for Mental Health (ACSS-MH) score: Min: 24; Max: 168; Higher = positive
Table [2](#Tab2){ref-type="table"} displays the four classes of participants generated from the two-step cluster analysis. The cluster model retained twenty-three variables based on their importance for the characterization of the participants and their discriminative results between clusters. This process led to the elimination of the functional status in the community (MCAS) score, the social support (SPS) score, and help received from relatives (MANQ) score, all of which had yielded very similar mean scores among clusters.Table 2Predictive typology of subjective quality of life among participants with severe mental disorders: A longitudinal two-step cluster analysisClasses1234Combined*n* = 49 (24.0)*n* = 45 (22.1)*n* = 48 (23.5)*n* = 62 (30.4)*n* = 204 (100)Age categories at T0 \[n(%)\]\<40 yr.6 (14.0)14 (32.6)10 (23.3)13 (30.2)43 (100.0)40--49 yr.12 (18.2)19 (28.8)26 (39.4)9 (13.6)66 (100.0)50 yr. and over31 (32.6)12 (12.6)12 (12.6)40 (42.1)95 (100.0)Gender at T0 \[n(%)\]Females33 (33.7)29 (29.6)15 (15.3)21 (21.4)98 (100.0)Males16 (15.1)16 (15.1)33 (31.1)41 (38.7)106 (100.0)Education at T0 \[n(%)\]Secondary school or less11 (8.9)33 (26.8)17 (13.8)62 (50.4)123 (100.0)College or over38 (46.9)12 (14.8)31 (38.3)0 (0.0)81 (100.0)Sources of income at T0 \[n(%)\]Welfare12 (9.3)25 (19.4)38 (29.5)54 (41.9)129 (100.0)Other37 (49.3)20 (26.7)10 (13.3)8 (10.7)75 (100.0)Civil status at T0 \[n(%)\]Non-single19 (63.3)7 (23.3)4 (13.3)0 (0.0)30 (100.0)Single30 (17.2)38 (21.8)44 (25.3)62 (35.6)174 (100.0)Housing status at T0 \[n(%)\]Independent apartment34 (28.1)45 (37.2)28 (23.1)14 (11.6)121 (100.0)Supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing15 (18.1)0 (0.0)20 (24.1)48 (57.8)83 (100.0)Mental disorders at T0First diagnosis (Severe mental disorders)Mood disorders \[n(%)\]42 (48.8)28 (32.6)5 (5.8)11 (12.8)86 (100.0)Psychotic disorders^a^ \[n(%)\]0 (0.0)0 (0.0)48 (48)52 (52.0)100 (100.0)Second diagnosisAnxiety disorders \[n(%)\]13 (52.0)6 (24.0)3 (12)3 (12.0)25 (100.0)Personality disorders \[n(%)\]5 (8.6)32 (55.2)3 (5.2)18 (31.0)58 (100.0)Addiction^b^ \[mean (SD)\]6.7 (5.1)10.9 (11.0)8.9 (6.7)7.7 (5.4)8.5 (7.3)Severity of needs^c^ at T0 \[mean (SD)\]40.7 (29.4)61.4 (35.0)43.2 (26.2)32.1 (20.9)43.3 (29.5)Help from services^c^ at T0 \[mean (SD)\]29.1 (18.0)33 (19.7)37 (18)40.3 (25.6)35.2 (21.3)ACSS-MH^d^ score at T0 \[mean (SD)\]116.2 (19.2)123.4 (10.4)124 (11.1)124.4 (9.3)122.1 (13.3)Subjective quality of life (SLDS) score at T2 \[mean (SD)\]99.1 (18.9)89.9 (20.0)97.9 (14.6)106.7 (16.2)99.1 (18.3)^a^Psychotic disorders = schizophrenia + schizophrenia spectrum + delusion; ^b^Addiction = AUDIT + DAST-20; ^c^: Montreal Assessment of Needs Questionnaire (MANQ) score; ^d^ = Alberta Continuity of Services Scale for Mental HealthClass 1: "Highly functional older females having mood and anxiety disorders receiving little help from services and with little continuity of access to services but with a mean SQOL"Class 2: \"Young females with serious needs and co-occurring mental and addiction disorders living in independent apartments and with a very low SQOL"Class 3: "Middle-aged males, well-educated, but poor and single with psychotic disorders and a mean SQOL"Class 4: "Older, poorly educated single males living in supervised apartments or in other types of supervised housing, with psychotic disorders but few serious needs, receiving a large amount of help from services and with a very high SQOL"
Class 1 contained a higher proportion of participants who were older, female, who had a higher level of education, and who had sources of income other than welfare (i.e., employment income). This class had the highest proportion of individuals with mood and anxiety disorders, and no individuals with psychotic disorders. People in this class had the lowest ACSS and addiction scores (AUDIT and DAST), and the least amount of help from services. They ranked second in terms of SQOL score at T2. This class was labelled as "highly functional older females having mood and anxiety disorders receiving little help from services and with little continuity of access to services but with a mean SQOL."
Class 2 contained a higher proportion of participants who were younger, female, less educated, mostly affected by personality disorders, mood disorders and addiction, and all living in independent apartments. People in this class had the highest severity of needs scores and the lowest SQOL scores at T2. They ranked second in terms of mood disorders. This class was labelled as "young females with serious needs and co-occurring mental and addiction disorders living in independent apartments and with a very low SQOL."
Participants in Class 3 were mostly middle-aged (40 to 49 yr.), predominantly male, and well educated, but living on welfare. The majority lived alone. Most of them had psychotic disorders. This class had the third highest SQOL scores at T2. This class was labelled as "middle-aged males, well-educated, but poor and single with psychotic disorders and a mean SQOL."
Class 4 was composed mainly of older participants (50 yr. and over). They were all single and poorly educated, and the majority were males receiving welfare and living mostly in supervised apartments or in other types of supervised housing. The highest proportion of people with psychotic disorders was in this class. They had the highest ACSS-MH scores, the highest amount of help from services, and the lowest severity of needs scores. They ranked first in terms of SQOL at T2. This class was labelled as "older, poorly educated single males living in supervised apartments or in other types of supervised housing, with psychotic disorders but few serious needs, receiving a large amount of help from services and with a very high SQOL."
Discussion {#Sec7}
==========
The proportion of participants who saw improvements (18.6 %) in their SQOL after five years was lower in the present study than the 26.4 % reported in the study by Ruggeri et al. \[[@CR6]\]. Moreover, the proportion of individuals who saw deterioration in their SQOL was higher than that found in Ruggeri et al. \[[@CR6]\] (39.7 % vs 19.8 %). Differing study timeframes (five-year vs two-year follow-up) and choice of instruments (the SLDS vs the Lancashire Subjective Quality of Life Profile \[[@CR58]\]) may explain these differences. Moreover, our study was conducted during a major reform of the Quebec mental healthcare system \[[@CR74]\]. Under Quebec's 2005--2010 Mental Health Action Plan, patients living in specialized psychiatric services had to be assessed, and those deemed sufficiently stable were identified and transferred to the primary care sector in order to facilitate their integration into the community. This reform may very well have affected some participants, and may explain deterioration in their SQOL.
Four profiles emerged from the cluster analysis. In one of them (Class 4), the SQOL was higher than the mean at T2; in another one (Class 2), SQOL at T2 was lower; and in the last two (Class 1 and Class 3), SQOL scores at T2 were at the mean. Classes 2 and 4 did not share any of the variables included in the cluster analysis, except for education level, civil status and continuity of care. Interestingly, a large majority of the participants included in the cluster with the highest SQOL (Class 4) lived in supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing, were over the age of 50 years, were single and poorly educated, and had psychotic disorders. A possible explanation for these high scores may be that these individuals were satisfied with living in supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing and had consequently lowered their life expectations \[[@CR1], [@CR75]\]. Moreover, given that they all lived in supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing, Class 4 participants received more help from services and benefitted from greater continuity of care. Access to a regular source of healthcare is strongly associated with service use \[[@CR76]\] and helps build a good therapeutic alliance between individuals with severe mental disorders and health professionals \[[@CR77]\]. This situation often leads to a reduction in unmet needs and an improvement in health outcomes. Not surprisingly, the severity of needs among Class 4 participants was much lower than that in the other classes. According to the literature, the absence of serious needs is the most important predictor of a high SQOL in individuals with severe mental disorders \[[@CR26], [@CR39]\]. Furthermore, individuals with psychotic disorders, more particularly schizophrenia, often have a higher SQOL than those with mood disorders or other mental disorders \[[@CR6], [@CR75]\], even though their living conditions and life circumstances may be more adverse \[[@CR75], [@CR78]\]. This perception may, however, also be the result of poor insight and affective blunting among this clientele \[[@CR75]\], or an overestimate of their level of functioning \[[@CR79]\].
Conversely, Class 2 contained a higher proportion of personality disorders and addiction, and the second highest proportion of mood and anxiety disorders. It is recognized that individuals with personality disorders are more likely to have a lower SQOL than those affected by other mental disorders \[[@CR80]\]. They are also more likely to have a greater number of unmet needs, mainly in the areas of self-care, psychotic symptoms, psychological distress, safety to self, safety to others, alcohol use, sexual expression, and money \[[@CR81]\]. Individuals with co-occurring addiction and mental disorders are also very likely to experience unmet needs and are less likely to view their treatment as effective in comparison with those who have mental disorders only \[[@CR82], [@CR83]\]. Unlike the Class 4 participants, who lived mainly in supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing, all the Class 2 participants lived in independent apartments. Given that this type of housing offers less access to services, individuals living in independent apartments are required to interact more with their social environments in order to reduce their isolation and improve their SQOL \[[@CR17]\].
Like the Class 2 participants, those in Class 1 were mainly females receiving little help from services. Moreover, no participant in these two classes was affected by psychotic disorders. The main differences between Class 1 and Class 2 emerged in the areas of diagnosis, severity of needs, age, education level, sources of income and civil status. Class 1 participants were more affected by mood disorders and anxiety disorders. However, they were less affected by addiction and personality disorders, which may explain their higher SQOL. Moreover, the Class 1 participants were older, better educated, non-single and likely to have better incomes, all variables associated with a higher SQOL \[[@CR30]--[@CR32]\]. They were also less likely than the Class 2 participants to be suffering from loneliness and isolation.
Like Class 4 participants, those in Class 3 were mainly male, single, receiving welfare as a source of income, and affected by psychotic disorders. The main differences between Class 3 and 4 were in the areas of education level, age, type of housing and severity of needs. Unlike the Class 4 participants, a large majority of the Class 3 participants had pursued a post-secondary education. The fact that most of the Class 3 participants received welfare benefits as their source of income may thus have been a major source of frustration, which could account for both their higher severity of needs and their lower SQOL. Individuals with severe mental disorders living in the community are often victims of stigma in the job market \[[@CR84]\]. It is also possible that the individuals with higher education, mainly those who were middle-aged, were more aware of their rights and had difficulty accepting jobs and social conditions below their educational status. Finally, it is possible that, like the Class 2 participants, those in Class 3 living in independent apartments lacked the ability to interact with their social environments.
Limitations {#Sec8}
-----------
Our study had a few significant limitations. First, given that the number of variables introduced into the cluster analyses was limited, our results would not be generalized to other samples or populations if a different model were used. Second, because our sample represented a heterogeneous group of individuals with severe mental disorders, the results may not be applicable to a sample composed exclusively of individuals with psychotic or mood disorders. Third, as the SLDS is an expert-reported instrument, it is possible that some results were interviewer biased \[[@CR16]\]. Fourth, the judgment of some participants may have been affected by their mental state at the time of the interview, possibly resulting in distorted responses on perceived SQOL \[[@CR75]\]. Finally, a large number of participants were lost to follow-up, mainly at T2.
Conclusions {#Sec9}
===========
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to establish a predictive typology of SQOL in individuals with severe mental disorders. Using cluster analysis was also innovative in that it included socio-demographic, clinical and health service use variables at T0, along with SQOL measured at a five-year interval (T2). Four different profiles were identified, showing considerable heterogeneity in SQOL after a five-year follow-up, mainly in terms of age, gender, diagnoses, type of housing and severity of needs. Given that predictive SQOL varies in relation to different combinations of socio-demographic, clinical and health service use variables, it would be useful for programs to target predictors specific to the various profiles. The results also show that SQOL at five-year follow-up was particularly low in the class that included more cases of co-occurring mental disorders and addiction and greater severity of needs (Class 2).
Our study highlights the need for mental health service planning and delivery to be better adapted to client profiles in order to improve SQOL. According to the severity of substance abuse problems, priority should be given to the provision of a variety of different services or interventions, including integrated dual disorder treatment, harm reduction or self-help groups such as Alcoholic Anonymous. Concerning individuals in Class 1, who were affected mainly by mood and anxiety disorders and exhibited low severity of needs, access to a regular source of healthcare, such as a family physician, could be sufficient to improve or maintain their SQOL. For individuals in Class 3, who have a high level of education but live on welfare, access to a job integration program seems to be a priority in order to improve their SQOL. Finally, our results show that supervised apartments or other types of supervised housing are adequate for older individuals with psychotic disorders, singles and those with low education, such as the participants in Class 4. Residential services matching the level of functioning of individuals with severe mental disorders should be maintained or developed.
**Competing interests**
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
**Authors' contributions**
MJF and GG designed the study. JMB carried out the statistical analyses. All the authors wrote the article, read and approved the final manuscript.
The study was funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR-MOP-84512). We would like to thank this granting agency, and all the individuals and organizations that participated in this research study.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Central |
Q:
Finding only the parent DIV's and then child DIV's within the parents with Vanilla JS
Give the following HTML;
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>DIV Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<h1>Hello 1</h1>
<div>
<h1>Hello 1</h1>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 2</h1>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 2</h1>
<div>
<h1>Hello 1</h1>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 2</h1>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 3</h1>
<div>
<h1>Hello 1</h1>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 2</h1>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 4</h1>
<div>
<h1>Hello 1</h1>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 2</h1>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 5</h1>
<div>
<h1>Hello 1</h1>
</div>
<div>
<h1>Hello 2</h1>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
How would I use Vanilla JS to return only the parent divs? For example, using the code var x = document.getElementsByTagName("div"); at the moment it will return 15 div's, what code could I use to return only the parent div's which would be 5?
A:
You can get the top level divs with document.querySelectorAll('body > div')
For example, document.querySelectorAll('body > div').length to get the count.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
---------------------- Forwarded by Phillip M Love/HOU/ECT on 07/31/2000
12:15 PM ---------------------------
Enron North America Corp.
From: Eric Bass 10/29/99 02:05 PM
To: Phillip M Love/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: Frogapult
---------------------- Forwarded by Eric Bass/HOU/ECT on 10/29/99 02:04 PM
---------------------------
Brian Hoskins
10/28/99 06:06 PM
To: Dick Jenkins/HOU/ECT@ECT, Matthew Lenhart/HOU/ECT@ECT, Eric
Bass/HOU/ECT@ECT, Hector Campos/HOU/ECT@ECT, Roberto Martinez/HOU/ECT@ECT,
John House/HOU/ECT@ECT, Eric Mason/HOU/ECT@ECT, Charles Ray/HOU/ECT@ECT,
Lenine Jeganathan/HOU/ECT@ECT, Timothy Blanchard/HOU/EES@EES
cc:
Subject: Frogapult
---------------------- Forwarded by Brian Hoskins/HOU/ECT on 10/28/99 06:05
PM ---------------------------
From: Denise Naiser@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT on 10/28/99 02:32 PM
To: Martin Sonesson/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT, Brian Hoskins@ECT,
Damon Harvey/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
cc:
Subject: Frogapult
---------------------- Forwarded by Denise Naiser/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT on
10/28/99 02:27 PM ---------------------------
Ophelia Mottu@ECT
10/28/99 02:13 PM
To: Grisela Escamilla/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], Denise
Naiser/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT, [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
cc:
Subject: Frogapult
a lil' something to occupy your time!!!!
philly
---------------------- Forwarded by Ophelia Mottu/HOU/ECT on 10/28/99 02:08
PM ---------------------------
Brent Spiller
10/28/99 01:20 PM
To: Stephanie Gardner/HOU/ECT@ECT, [email protected], Ophelia
Mottu/HOU/ECT@ECT, Kristie Youngblood/HOU/ECT@ECT, Roger
Spiller/OTS/Enron@ENRON, Tina Spiller/HOU/EES@EES, Monica Butler/HOU/EES@EES
cc:
Subject: Frogapult
Subject: Frogapult
An alternative to Solitaire . . .
. .(See attached file: frogpult.exe)
- frogpult.exe | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Enron Emails |
Academics save Martin Hirst from the sack after a Herald Sun column on a tweet aimed at alleged trolls got him suspended
A university journalism professor will keep his job after spending three months suspended without pay for describing his alleged Twitter trolls as “stupid as fuck”.
Martin Hirst was accused of bringing Deakin university into disrepute after right-wing press columnist, Andrew Bolt, posted a series of the tweets on his blog in the Herald Sun.
But after a letter to the university authorities signed by 150 academics and PhD students, the case was settled on Wednesday and Hirst reinstated.
The row can be traced back to 2008 when Hirst posted a photo of himself at Karl Marx’s grave at Highgate cemetery in London, which he later used as a profile picture on his personal Twitter account.
In April 2014 Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Blair posted the photo on his blog, describing the photo as “the finest leftie selfie ever taken”.
A Twitter user began mocking Hirst for the photo, and a back-and-forth between the troll and Hirst ensued, prompting other people to join in.
In his final response to his alleged Twitter trolls, Hirst adopted a tweet by US actress Kirstie Alley: “... dear stupid as fuck people who just like to be stupid, go be stupid with other stupid people. #stupidfuckcity”
Bolt then intervened, posting the comments along with a quote from university vice chancellor, Jane den Hollander, which described Deakin as: “A premier university in driving the digital frontier to enable globally connected education for the jobs of the future and research that makes a difference to the benefit of our students, our staff and the communities we serve.”
The university suspended Hirst without pay for serious misconduct, amid claims he had brought the university into disrepute.
It was not the first time Bolt had written about Hirst. Hirst has also written about Bolt, accusing him of crocodile tears after he was called a racist by academic, Marcia Langton.
Hirst appealed his suspension, with the final hearing due on Wednesday. But the case was settled after the supporting letter was sent to den Hollander on Tuesday.
“We can understand your concern at Dr Hirst’s actions and the unwelcome attention that Mr Bolt’s blog posts brought to Deakin University,” the letter said. “However, we do not believe that terminating Dr Hirst’s employment is the right decision in this matter. It is not, in our opinion, in the best interests of Dr Hirst or the University.
“We are assured that Dr Hirst has recognised his mistake in engaging with the offensive and anonymous trolls and indulging in the same vile language that they employed against him. We are also pleased to know that Dr Hirst apologised for his actions immediately that Mr Bolt’s attempt to smear him and the University was brought to his attention.”
An email also circulated among staff calling on them to sign the letter in support of Hirst, saying; “It is scandalous that Andrew Bolt and the Murdoch press should have such control over Deakin university’s hiring and firing policies.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Hirst released a statement on his website and on Twitter saying he was remorseful for the tweets and that he would be keeping his job with the university.
Hirst said: “I am pleased and relieved that the matter is resolved.”
Bolt hung up on Guardian Australia before any questions could be asked.
Den Hollander said; “We believe universities have a role to set standards of behaviour and we are delighted the matter has been resolved,” and said no further comment would be made. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Q:
std::sort going overboard
I'm trying to sort a vector of objects using a predicate function and I'm getting some segfaults...
I have a class Item and a list of Items in a vector< Item > _items. I needed to sort it according to a display order (numerical member of the class) and I just called a simple sort with a predicate function.
sort(_items.begin(), _items.end(), sort_item_by_display_order);
where the predicate function is
bool sort_item_by_display_order (Item i, Item j)
{
return i.GetDisplayOrder()>j.GetDisplayOrder();
}
and GetDisplayOrder is
int Item::GetDisplayOrder()
{
return display_order;
}
but... I got some segfaults while doing this. I then added a counter to the predicate function to check how many times it was called and I discovered that when this crashed the counter was bigger then the size of the vector.
After some reading I changed the code to use iterators instead of using the .begin() and .end() (Shouldn't this be the same?!)
So what I have now is
vector<Item>::iterator it_start, it_end;
it_start = _items.begin();
it_end = _items.end();
sort(it_start, it_end, sort_item_by_display_order);
with the same predicate function.
And now it doesn't crash, but... for most of the sorting I do I get more iterations then the size of the vector I am sorting (which is probably normal)
So... What is the difference between calling sort with _items.begin() or _it_start. From what I can tell they are the same right?!
One more note. Item is a simple base class declared as
class Item
{
private:
(...)
public:
(...)
}
As reference I used http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/algorithm/sort/ and http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366064.
In the second link they add a const and & to the predicate function arguments which would make my function something like this
bool sort_item_by_display_order (const Item& i, const Item& j)
{
return i.GetDisplayOrder()>j.GetDisplayOrder();
}
but I get a compiler error:
Item.cpp|1485|error: passing `const Item' as `this' argument of `int Item::GetDisplayOrder()' discards qualifiers|
arghhh... The question is... What am I doing wrong?
A:
First, it's completely normal for the comparison function to be called more times than you have elements in the collection. That's part of what's meant when we say a sorting algorithm's complexity is O(n log n), for example. The number of comparisons performed on a collection of size n will be about n × log(n). (In fact, n is pretty much the minimum number of times to call it; otherwise, we wouldn't even be able to tell whether the collection was already sorted in the first place.)
Second, you get an error when you make the parameters be const references because you've declared GetDisplayOrder as a non-const method. You're not allowed to call non-const member functions on a const object because the compiler assumes the method will attempt to modify the object, even though in this case it doesn't modify anything. Add const to the end of the declaration and definition:
int GetDisplayOrder() const;
int Item::GetDisplayOrder() const {
return display_order;
}
Finally, there's the matter of the segmentation faults. The code you've shown here isn't enough to pinpoint a cause. You're correct that changing the way you pass the iterators to sort shouldn't have any effect. My suspicion is that your Item class needs a copy constructor and an assignment operator, but that they either aren't implemented, or they're not implemented properly. Sorting a vector obviously involves moving items around in the collection, and that requires a working assignment operator. Passing those items to your original comparison function, which accepted parameters by value instead of by const reference, requires a working copy constructor. If you're doing any dynamic memory allocation (such as with new or malloc) you need to make sure you either make a "deep copy" of the memory when you assign or copy an object, or you figure out a way for multiple objects to share the same allocation. If multiple objects think they all own the same block of memory, one of them is likely to free that memory before the others are finished with it, and that can certainly lead to segmentation faults (as you access freed memory).
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Editor’s Note (Trevor): Hot off the presses! It never ceases to amaze me how unsophisticated is the approach of these people who try to enforce political correctness against the truth movement. EVERY TIME, it backfires, and they are left just standing there with their pants down, sucking their thumbs. By now I am sure the many savvy readers of TUT have deduced that, while Judaism and its Rosemary’s baby, Zionism, are the problem, that it is actually the left that protects the operation. The ‘political correctness’ enforcers of the Jewish left are the very equivalent of the force field protecting the Death Star. This piece is a tribute to our beloved, fearless capitan, none other than Mr. Mark Glenn, the man who taught each of us to be our own Luke Skywalkers… And one day, one of us will be the one who, as if in the scene in the original Star Wars movie, will switch off our Gentile X-Wing Fighter’s instrumentation, and using the force of truth as our only guide, get inside our enemy’s best defenses and deliver the shots which will finally connect with the core and detonate the Judaic Death Star once and for all. Inshallah, TUTers!!
Trevor LaBonte
By Trevor LaBonte
October 8, 2014
It is becoming clear that the ‘anti-war’ left is one of the most major hindrances in the truth community. They are the premiere enforcers of ‘political correctness,’ a cultural Marxist invention to remove all pragmatic solutions and effective discourse from the parameters of socially acceptable discourse.
Gareth Porter has made a rather stunning display of this phenomenon with his recent statements and curious behavior regarding the ‘New Horizons’ conspiracy conference in Tehran. Porter hurled epithets at author and political commentator Mark Glenn for disbelieving in the insulting and physically impossible official 9/11 story and for pointing out a very uncomfortable fact that Judaism has no benefits for the gentile world, but is a religion of unchecked self-worship and moral relativism. Others gentiles who have investigated Judaism have determined that it’s core is composed of pure anti-gentile narcissism, which is extremely relevant due to the fact that the nuclear rogue, ethnic cleanser known as ‘Israel’ just so happens to define itself as ‘The Jewish State.’ Why would ‘anti-war’ activists endeavor to make this CRUCIAL discussion of Israeli politics within the context of Jewish culture into such a taboo?
Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 11.43.45 PM
Porter’s tactics are typical tactics for the Anti-Defamation League, the unofficial Public Relations firm for the Zionist ethnic-cleansing project in Palestine. But for a supposed ‘anti-war’ journalist, it exposes a very interesting and crucial facet of why the truth movement has difficulty gaining traction.
Anytime anybody gets the right answer, they are immediately called ‘anti-semites,’ ‘holocaust deniers,’ and ‘conspiracy theorists.’ Interestingly, the Zionists and their gatekeepers, possibly plagued by guilt and suffering badly from intellectual fatigue, often jumble up their own terminology, calling people ‘holocaust deniers’ simply for making independent inquiries about 9/11 or the JFK assassination, two events which happen to be damningly COVERED in Israel’s and the American jewish mob’s fingerprints. How is that ‘holocaust denial?’ On top of that, how can someone ‘deny’ the holocaust if it is presented as a foregone conclusion that this event unfolded as presented in textbooks which happen to be published by the Rothschild jewish mob itself, and people are not even allowed to make up their own minds in the first place, before they can even be in a position to confirm or deny anything?
Looking at just the facts of 9/11, the entire internet is covered with hard evidence that Israel was the perpetrator. So why is the left making it impossible to discuss this? Why would Porter want to prevent Mark Glenn from speaking at the conference? Why was Porter so offended that speakers at the conference were discussing how to make knowledge of Israel’s well-known attack on 9/11 go mainstream? Who does he think he is? Vladimir Lenin??? What would he do if someone wanted to expose Israel’s and elements within the US Government’s collaboration on the infamous attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, which was yet another false-flag attack, with the exact same motive as 9/11, to deceptively draw America into a war for Israel’s bloody expansionist plans in the Middle East?
Mark Glenn
I find it odd that an American is trying to kill free speech in Iran of all places. Zio-Brainwashed Americans (sorry to be so redundant) will certainly have great cognitive dissonance trying to figure that one out, since they rather stupidly believe America to be a free country, and Iran, that country about which our ‘friend’ Bibi Netanyahu is observably and frantically spreading the fattest whoppers imaginable regarding its alleged but totally non-existent ‘nuclear weapons program,’ is supposed to be filled to the brim with Moooooooooslamic extremists and other Zionist-conjured scarecrows and apparitions.
But we really need to thank clumsy gatekeeper shills like Porter for providing us with this important opportunity to determine exactly what the shill agenda is. Look at this statement that Porter selected out of the 15,000 posts at The Ugly Truth/Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement website, written by Mark Glenn, and ask yourself if these statements are based on ‘anti-Semitism’ or are just statements of pure fact:
‘Judaism is nobody’s friend, short of those few who profit from it, and they are certainly small in number, as we have already discussed. Whether these people are one of ‘God’s chosen’ who do the bidding of their overlord Rabbis or whether they are one of those lowly Gentile types who were created for the purpose of serving ‘God’s chosen’, it is the sameJudaism is not their friend. It works to no one’s real benefit, short of those at the top who are giving the marching orders. It does not belong in the same class with other faiths dedicated to improving the individual and making him or her more pleasing to the one responsible for all creation. It does not make people better, it makes them worse. It is like a highly radioactive element that can bring nothing but sickness and eventual death. It does not bring liberation but rather enslavement.’
If this statement caused so much woe and ire for Porter, why did he fail to point out what is troublesome or incorrect about it? All Porter did was throw a hissy fit and hurl epithets, perhaps even more pathetically as Barack Obama trying to throw a baseball… but provided no facts upon which to base a real argument. This is the last bastion of lefty gatekeeper tactics, and signals to the truth community that the left have just burned their last chance of keep the truth concealed. To this author, there is nothing more satisfying that watching Zionists panic and sweat ice-cold bullets when their horrid crimes are discovered.
Surely by now, Porter should have been able to deduce that when worn-out epithets like the ones he used so viciously are used where they don’t apply, such as in cases of legitimate criticism of Judaism or against people bringing 9/11 facts to the table, what it means is that these epithets can no longer function effectively at silencing anything. Did Mark Glenn threaten to boycott the conference because someone he didn’t like was slated to speak there? There’s not a snowball’s chance on Bibi’s fevered, sweltering forehead that anyone other that a treacherous gatekeeper shill would stoop so low. It makes even me just feel embarrassed for Porter that he would be so thoughtless as to screw up his own operation like this. I’m in shock, quite frankly.
Jewish power has been so thoroughly exposed for the corrupting agent that it is, that the standard cries of ‘anti-Semitism’ no longer work, as the public is quickly waking up to the fact that the many malfeasances and treacherous false flag attacks by the ‘Jewish state’ have been defended in this very suspicious ad hominem manner. It has gotten to the point that the ‘anti-Semite’ label has become nothing short of a badge of honor for courageous and true journalism. Now that the term is dead and devoid of all meaning, what the hell are they going to call us now?
The website ‘Buzz Feed’ ran the story about Porter today in a sad attempt to disgrace the Tehran conference which hosted massive heros like Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ken O’Keefe, but ended up unwittingly further exposing the cowardly, tactless, fact-less shill tactics of the left. Gareth Porter shot himself and his globalist friends in the foot, but only after sticking that foot right in his mouth. The entire truth movement KNOWS that Israel did 9/11, so why is it necessary to call someone an ‘anti-Semite’ for pointing out what is bloody obvious to everyone who has taken ten minutes to investigate the event, starting with the facts and evidence, which all lead straight to Israel??
The gatekeeper establishment is finding it impossible to stem the flood of comments on their websites from people who aren’t having any more ‘official’ lies. The truth is going mainstream. It is going absolutely viral, due to a huge number of fed-up people being able to interact directly with news outlets in real time. The lies are being shot down just as soon as they take off, and it just so happens that the alleged ‘conspiracy theorists’ are the ONLY people there providing facts and evidence.
Beneath the fluff article, I found these comments already obliterating the obligatory paid-Israeli hasbara:
Nikademus Lawman · FollowFollowing · Top Commenter
The truth is anti-Semitic. So what is pro-Semitism? Anyhow, Porter is persona non-grata to the professional geopolitical experts and has been since he associated with Zbigniew Brzezinski’s trojan horse of NIAC, who is equally in bed with the MEK who they had a faux litigation bout with and siphoned donors’ monies to pay for an extravagant $180,000 sanction as a result of their loss against Hassan Dai. Porter’s book is no revelation, but a series of stolen commentaries a la another Zionist gatekeeper, Noam Chomsky. The tactics of the fake left anti-war establishment are burned.
Nikademus Lawman · FollowFollowing · Top Commenter
Laughing. So Carl Bernstein, Watergate Breaking journalist, a Jewish-American, the super-majority of US INTCOM, the former director of the US Army War College, Dr. Alan Sobrosky (also Jewish), countless academics, Larry Silverstein’s insurance sorcery, the third building falling from which he could not ‘mysteriously’ recoup, the 5 Israelis on record as being arrested for taping the event as it occurred and then being outed as Mossad agents, the Carl Cameron/Brit Hume expose only 3 months after 9/11 on pre-Murdoch purchased Fox News on Israeli spying in America and setting up the very NSA apparatus Snowden blew the whistle on years later, CIA documents showing Israeli Mossad posing as CIA agents to hire Jundullah, a known foreign terrorist organization to commit atrocities against Iran and its civilian to start a fake war (see Foreign Policy Magazine), Jeff Stein’s exposes in Newsweek on how Israel is a top spy threat to the US, and the countless mountains of evidence pointing to real Israeli guilt, along with inside assets and Saudi intelligence, are anti-Semitic conspiracy ‘theories’? What is pro-Semitic? Take meds, get help — stop defending the crimes of your elite with fake ‘race cards’.
John Edward Kendrick· Top Commenter
Shame on Mr. Porter for being part of the cover-up with such dismissive treatment of those activists who have investigated and who know that these names are key suspects in 9/11: Silverstein, Hellerstein, Hauer, Zelikow, Zakheim, Kristol, Goff, Lowy. Even Bibi said 9/11 benefitted Israel. Muslims have been slaughtered, cultures destroyed, countries overtaken based upon the big lies of 9/11. We must open the Pandora’s box that connects psychopathic zionists and Israel to 9/11.
Medea Benjamin left the 9/11 movement and operates to conceal the Israeli connections to 9/11. She is Jewish. It was not muslims who planned, executed and continue the cover-up. One of the biggest clues is Jewish-dominated mass media complicity in the cover-up.
http://ReDiscover911.com/
Nikademus Lawman · FollowFollowing · Top Commenter
They simply just exposed themselves. I suppose 9/11 truth is the litmus test and has always been. Ask Noam Chomsky about that.
It appears the inept left can only succeed in exposing itself as the last line of defense to fall before the dam breaks and the truth about 9/11 and other jewish terrorist attacks bursts forth and covers the entire landscape. This is a most positive development. The real truth and real anti-war movement is about to overtake the phonies who have dominated for decades up to this point. We are going to give birth to a truth baby; the time is here, and no one, not even the do-gooder Jewish left, can do a thing to prevent it from being born, wailing loudly, and changing everything about the way things used to be.
Hopefully, next year, Iran will catch on to the lefties and their transparent game to silence real, accurate, hard-hitting criticism of the type which is so important and so sorely lacking in the kosherized discourse. Iran should apologize profusely to Mark Glenn for its terrible blunder, and invite him to come back and deliver his address at the next conference, which will undoubtedly be even bigger than this most recent one.
All that being said, now that Porter has pantsed himself and the shill agenda to silence the entirely sane, fact-based arguments of good people like Mark Glenn has been exposed like a skinny, white butt, it follows logically that one should read entries on Glenn’s blog to see what the Zionists and their gatekeeper stooges like Porter are so desperate to conceal. Also, here can be Mark Glenn’s many, many articles which should be required reading for anyone who is serious about obtaining truth and trying to prevent the massive war the Jewish banksters are doing everything in their power to plunge us all into. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Author/ Authors/ Presenter/ Presenters/ Panelists:
Location
Hall of Governors
Start Date
4-7-2017 4:00 PM
End Date
4-7-2017 6:00 PM
Abstract
Background and Purpose: The purpose of this case report is to describe the physical therapy episode of care for a patient status post lumbar spinal fusion surgery in an inpatient rehabilitation hospital setting. The importance of patient education on pain, including limiting fear avoidance behaviors and the mechanisms of pain are discussed due to the patient presenting in extreme pain with numerous fear avoidance behaviors documented.
Case Description: The patient was an 85-year old Caucasian female who entered inpatient rehabilitation for a 14-day episode of care following a successful L2/L3 spinal laminectomy, interbody arthrodesis, and placement of interbody device resulting in fusion of the L2/L3 vertebra. The patient received extensive patient education along with traditional physical therapy exercises.
Outcomes: The patient successfully met all four goals established during the initial evaluation and was discharged home to continue therapy services. The patient was able to maintain spinal precautions, manage pain, transfer independently, and ambulate community distances using an assistive device.
Discussion: Current literature confirms the importance of limiting pain in order to increase the likelihood of a positive outcome following lumbar spinal fusion surgery. Not all patients require inpatient rehabilitation following lumbar spinal fusion surgery, and a contributing factor for this admission was pain. Self-limiting behaviors due to pain were documented and patient education was provided regarding rating the Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), mechanisms of pain, and fear-avoidance behaviors. While not a formal cognitive based therapy program, clinical judgment noted marked improvement once the patient was provided with this education.
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The importance of providing patient education on pain mechanisms and pain ratings for 85 year old female patient status post lumbar spinal fusion surgery in an inpatient rehabilitation setting: A case report
Hall of Governors
Background and Purpose: The purpose of this case report is to describe the physical therapy episode of care for a patient status post lumbar spinal fusion surgery in an inpatient rehabilitation hospital setting. The importance of patient education on pain, including limiting fear avoidance behaviors and the mechanisms of pain are discussed due to the patient presenting in extreme pain with numerous fear avoidance behaviors documented.
Case Description: The patient was an 85-year old Caucasian female who entered inpatient rehabilitation for a 14-day episode of care following a successful L2/L3 spinal laminectomy, interbody arthrodesis, and placement of interbody device resulting in fusion of the L2/L3 vertebra. The patient received extensive patient education along with traditional physical therapy exercises.
Outcomes: The patient successfully met all four goals established during the initial evaluation and was discharged home to continue therapy services. The patient was able to maintain spinal precautions, manage pain, transfer independently, and ambulate community distances using an assistive device.
Discussion: Current literature confirms the importance of limiting pain in order to increase the likelihood of a positive outcome following lumbar spinal fusion surgery. Not all patients require inpatient rehabilitation following lumbar spinal fusion surgery, and a contributing factor for this admission was pain. Self-limiting behaviors due to pain were documented and patient education was provided regarding rating the Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), mechanisms of pain, and fear-avoidance behaviors. While not a formal cognitive based therapy program, clinical judgment noted marked improvement once the patient was provided with this education. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Nigeria’s bishops fear embracing gay marriage will make them lose their culture of ‘self-love’.
The group of religious leaders have sent a statement to the Vatican’s news agency saying: ‘It is deeply disappointing that Nigeria is blessed by an abundance of resources that do not reflect the lives of its children.’
The bishops expressed concern about ‘the continuous attempts by foreign agencies to introduce unhealthy values in our society in their campaigns for abortion, condom distribution and promotion of homosexual unions’.
‘We condemn these actions. We launch an appeal to the good people of Nigeria so that they also reject these attempts, otherwise we risk losing our faith, our identity and our culture of self-love.’
In recent months the Nigerian government has increased its anti-gay legislation, antagonizing foreign diplomats as much as its LGBT citizens.
In July, Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry denied the country would allow diplomats with same-sex spouses to do their job in the country. The week before, Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru assured: ‘If we have diplomats with same sex spouses posted to Nigeria, we have no choice but to accredit them accordingly because they come from countries where such law is in place.’ The Foreign Ministry later said Ashiru’s words were misinterpreted and the country would extend it’s legal ban on homosexuality to foreigners.
In May this year, Nigeria’s House of Representatives passed a ‘Jail All The Gays’ law that banned same-sex marriage, outlaws anyone from forming organizations supporting gay rights and sets up prison terms of up to 14 years.
The language used by Nigerian bishops and government officials reflects the belief in the majority of Nigerian society in believing homosexuality is ‘unnatural’.
This weekend Nigerian ‘scientist’ Chibuihem Amalaha used simple experiments using magnets to demonstrate that same-sex attractions are ‘wrong’.
Amalaha incorrectly used lion mating behavior as another example of how same-sex behavior is ‘unnatural,’ even though scientists have observed same sex attraction in hundreds of species – including lions.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
— Asked by Anonymous
Sometimes people aren’t willing to put effort into understanding others’ experiences and instead spend their free time trying to make other people feel bad about themselves, instead of doing something productive, like reading a book or baking cookies. These are sad people.
Honestly though, I can only speculate. I think there are two kinds of people. The first kind was simply not brought up to be open-minded. This kind of person probably only accepts homosexuality because it’s the only socially acceptable opinion to have anymore, in most places, and not because they took the time to empathize with other humans who are being denied their rights.
The second is people who have a need to be right about everything. They like everything they encounter to fit into the framework of the world which they’ve constructed in their mind. This by itself isn’t a bad thing, but if you can’t make room for synthesizing new concepts, it is unhealthily restrictive. Because of this they pass judgements quickly, instead of taking the time to listen and analyze different perspectives of a new concept in order to fully understand it. A good dose of compassion and empathy can balance out this overwhelming rationality.
Most of all of this is due to misunderstanding. Some people think demisexuals are trying to make themselves out to be special or oppressed, but 90% of demisexuals I’ve interacted with simply identify as such because the word helps them understand themselves better and feel more secure. They don’t feel special or oppressed; they just like talking to other people who share their experiences and having a specific word to describe how they function. At worst, you could write them off as pedants. It doesn’t have anything to do with other people, but for some reason, detractors take it personally.
Ultimately though, I don’t know. I’m happy to spend my free time reading books and baking cookies instead of bullying random people on the Internet. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Friday, December 9, 2016
We all know that I don't have very much luck when it comes to love. People who like me tend to be into some sort of criminal activity (my prom date was recently released from jail after serving 8 years for a drug-related murder), people that I like are usually not interested, and during those rare times where the universe aligns and the person that I find attractive also thinks I'm pretty, I never seem to be quite good enough to date. I have had three separate occasions where things seem to be going really well with someone, then they go on some sort of outdoor adventure and at some point during their commune with nature they decide that they are no longer interested. Or they just want to sleep with me for 10 years but then date someone else. Because of this, people have been telling me to try online dating, especially Tinder. I had always refused, since I have never felt the need to include the internet into the clusterfuck that is my love life. Until I got my shelf.
Back in February, I ordered a shelf off of Amazon, because I wanted a little place to store all of the stuff that was on my floor. Apparently I am really bad at knowing how sizes work, because when the shelf got to my house it was in a box that was almost as tall as me. I opened it, and the first thing the instructions said was "shelf requires two or more people to put together". I was in a little bit of a friend drought at that point, so I was like "well......fuck". Then I thought about it a little bit harder and was like "haha that would make a really funny Tinder bio". I then proceeded to leave the pieces of shelf on my floor and go about my day. A week later, I still had shelf pieces on my floor, and I was like "huh. I wonder if I really could get someone off of Tinder to build me a shelf. And maybe get a boyfriend out of it. Or at least meet someone cool. Even if that doesn't work, at least it'll be a really funny story". So with visions of sexy construction workers dancing in my head, I set up my profile, and all I put in the bio was "I bought a shelf that requires two people to put together, so if someone could help me out that would be great". Then I started swiping.....
[Pause for dramatic effect]
Holy shit y'all, I hate Tinder. This app is the worst. First of all, it showed me how disgustingly shallow I am. I very well could have swiped left on my soulmate, but I would have no idea because his face didn't catch my attention in the first .07 seconds of seeing his profile. Seriously, I didn't even look at the bio unless I decided the person was attractive. It also gave me a weird sense of power, so I would start flying through them, swiping left just for the sake of swiping; but at the same time I wanted to personally apologize and assure all of them that they would find a different girl who would love them for who they were. It was very weird. I also didn't really understand how it worked, so I kept accidentally super liking people that I didn't even mean to match with, or I would get so into swiping that I would accidentally swipe left on a babe and then be super grumpy about the entire thing. Plus the people who liked me tended to look just a little bit off, like they had a weird week back in 2007 where they had casually dabbled with meth. One excellent example of this is Michael (age 30) who used his mugshot as a profile picture and said he was a "professional at pretending things are wonderful". I'm pretty sure Michael had done a little bit more than casually dabbling in meth.
The people that I matched with really didn't end up being any better. A surprising amount of people thought that "help me build my shelves" was a code for some sort of sex thing, and others were super judgmental, telling me that "assembling stuff from Ikea really isn't that difficult". Then I had to be like "um ok thanks it's not even from Ikea". My personal favorite response was from some guy who told me that he would help me with my shelves on the condition that one of us would be "in the nude". His words, not mine. I politely declined, because naked construction seems awkward and potentially dangerous, since there is a lot of possibility for pinching. Then he told me that I obviously was not very committed to getting my shelves built and I was like "boy bye". I had all but given up hope when I finally matched with Matt (not his actual name, but I'm not changing it to protect his privacy, I just don't remember what his name was) who seemed super cute and incredibly normal. We talked for a little bit, then decided to meet up for dinner the next day. The date was............fine. There was no spark, but he seemed like a nice guy and he said that he would call me so he could help me with my shelves that weekend. Remember, this was in February. The next time I heard from him was when he texted me in June asking if I still needed help with my construction needs.
In case anyone is wondering, I ended up deleting Tinder and just put the shelves together by myself because I am a strong, independent woman who don't need no man. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Measuring breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer screening with medicare claims data.
Evaluating the use and effectiveness of cancer screening is an important component of cancer control programs. Medicare claims may be a useful source of data when screening older populations, but they are limited in terms of completeness and the ability to distinguish screening tests from those provided for diagnosis or surveillance. A review of the major screening modalities for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer, Medicare's policies for covering these tests, and the procedure codes used to identify them in Medicare claims. Although Medicare's coverage has been extended to include screening mammography, colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, fecal occult blood tests, double-contrast barium enema, and prostate-specific antigen tests, providers have been slow to adopt the corresponding screening codes. Challenges persist in measuring screening use, and innovative approaches are required to distinguish screening tests from diagnostic and follow-up evaluations. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
The goal of this new proposed IMSD Program is to increase the number of minority students who enter careers in biomedical and behavioral research in which they are under-represented. Our proposed comprehensive program will play a significant role in overcoming the still-existing disparities, between minority and non-minority undergraduate and doctoral students at Rutgers, in their progressing into careers in biomedical/behavioral research. Through accomplishing this goal, our proposed IMSD Program will improve our overall Institutional outcomes. To accomplish this goal, our objectives are to provide the undergraduate and doctoral students in our Program with the academic and research skills, self-efficacy, motivation, and credentials that are essential to developing their competitiveness toward entering the next phases of their career - i.e., doctoral programs or postdoctorates, respectively. Thus, our proposed IMSD Program will: " Provide the undergraduate and doctoral students with a carefully-mentored, rigorous research experience that includes supervised conceptualization, formulation, performance, analysis, presentation at professional scientific conferences, and publication of their own research or doctoral dissertation project;" Provide a sequentially-coordinated, closely and continuously monitored spectrum of academic and personal support components to promote the students'highest academic performance levels, including, e.g., academic enrichment classes in gate-keeper courses, test-taking skills workshops, psychological counseling services, career guidance workshops, mentored graduate school and postdoctoral application processes, all designed to develop the students'professional self-efficacy, ensure their personal well- being and retention through to completion of their undergraduate or doctoral training on campus, and facilitate their entry into doctoral or postdoctoral programs;" "Mainstream" the students into the academic campus community by articulating our IMSD Program with other relevant University programs, prominent among which is the new "Garden State LS-AMP Program." The lead institution for this major new Program is Rutgers-Newark, so our campus will play a major role in its development, and it would be a major new interaction opportunity for our IMSD Program. " Cast a wide net to recruit potential IMSD students -- especially doctoral students, who are particularly underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral-related departments on our campus -- from multiple venues both on and off-campus, including the new Garden State LS-AMP Program and its participating New Jersey institutions, and the greater metropolitan New York City institutions with significant under- represented minority student populations totaling several hundred IMSD-eligible students in relevant major fields. " Monitor continuously the performance of our IMSD Program via data gathering, analysis, and review of our quantitative goals by the IMSD PD and staff, and regular meetings with our IMSD participants, toward eliminating any gaps in performance between our IMSD students and the students in the university community at large. Assisting in this assessment process will be annual formal evaluations by SageFox Consulting, which will perform interviews, provide and analyze questionnaires, and provide feedback and recommendations to the students, mentors, advisory board, and PD of our Program. " Among the quantitative expected outcomes for our IMSD undergraduate students: at least 90% of the undergraduates accepted into our IMSD Program will earn the baccalaureate, of whom at least 70% will proceed to enter a Ph.D. or Ph.D./M.D. program. And at least 90% of the doctoral students accepted into our IMSD Program will earn the Ph.D., of whom at least 80% will proceed to a postdoctoral position. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of this new proposed IMSD Program is to increase the number of minority students who enter careers in biomedical and behavioral research in which they are under-represented. Our proposed comprehensive Program will play a significant role in overcoming the still-existing disparities, between Minority and non-Minority undergraduate and doctoral students in our Institution, in their progressing into careers in biomedical/behavioral research. Through accomplishing this goal, our proposed IMSD Program will improve our overall Institutional outcomes. To accomplish this goal, our objectives are to provide the undergraduate and doctoral students in our Program with the academic and research skills, self-efficacy, motivation, and credentials that are essential to developing their competitiveness toward entering the next phases of their career - i.e., doctoral programs or postdoctorates, respectively. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | NIH ExPorter |
The present invention relates generally to semiconductor-based lasers, and more particularly, to Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs).
Optical data communication systems provide an important way for transferring large amounts of data at high speeds. An important component in these optical data communication systems is an optical transceiver. On the transmission side, the optical transceiver functions to translate data in the form of electrical signals (e.g., digital information in the form of 1s and 0s) into optical signals that are suitable for transmission via a transmission medium (e.g., fiber optic cable). On the reception side, the optical transceiver converts the received optical signals back into data in the form of electrical signals. An important component in the optical transceiver design is the transmitter for transmitting optical data. Typically, the transmitter is implemented with a light emitting diode (LED) for megabit applications and a semiconductor laser diode for gigabit applications.
Semiconductor laser diodes were originally fabricated in a manner that provides an optical cavity formed parallel to the surface of the semiconductor wafer. In this structure, light is emitted from the edge of the wafer. Unfortunately, this structure does not lend itself to low cost xe2x80x9cmassxe2x80x9d manufacturing or to the cost-effective fabrication of two-dimensional arrays of laser diodes.
A new class of laser diodes is fabricated such that the optical cavity is formed perpendicular to the surface of the semiconductor wafer, and the light is emitted perpendicular to the surface. These laser diodes are commonly referred to as Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs). A typical VCSEL consists of an active region which emits light and surrounding mirrors constructed from alternating layers of materials having different indices of refraction. These lasers are better suited for the fabrication of arrays and are widely utilized in optical data communication systems.
The lateral dimension of VCSELs is defined by confining the current flowing vertically in the VCSEL to a small area. Early designs utilized either etched mesa or ion-implanted regions to contain the current flow. However, these approaches are not satisfactory for small size devices. For the etched mesa approach, there is the problem of light scattering. For the implanted approach, there is the problem of optical confinement in the implanted structure.
In response to these shortcomings, a method for restricting the current flow and also for providing optical confinement was developed. This method utilizes an oxide aperture created by a wet oxidation process to convert one or more high aluminum content layers within the VCSEL structure to some form of aluminum oxide.
There are two main VCSEL structures that each has a different approach to form this current-restricting oxide aperture by oxidizing a single or multiple aluminum-containing layers in mirror stacks by using different surface topologies. A first type of prior art VCSELs uses a so-called mesa-type or pillar-type structure having a relatively tall etched xe2x80x9cpillarxe2x80x9d mesa, with a relatively small oxidation area, which enables it for high speed operations. One such mesa-type VCSEL is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,577, entitled xe2x80x9cEfficient Semiconductor Light-Emitting Device and Method,xe2x80x9d by Choquette et al.
One problem with the mesa-type oxide-confined VCSELs is the nonplanar geometry encountered in fabricating such devices. In general, the bottom of the mesa has to be etched deep enough to get access to the oxide aperture forming layers, which is usually several microns below the original epitaxial surface (typically 4xcx9c7 xcexcm). To provide access to the layer being oxidized, the device is first etched to form a mesa structure with the edges of the various mirror layers exposed. The exposed edges are then subjected to a wet oxidation process. The oxidation process proceeds along the layer from the outer edge of an etched mesa toward the center of the mesa. The process is stopped prior to converting the entire layer, thereby leaving a small unoxidized area in the center of the mesa, which defines the laser aperture. The mesa-structure is generally more difficult to fabricate than the planar approach described hereinbelow.
A second problem is that these mesa-type structures requires a thick insulative filling (e.g., polyimide) in order to bridge the top metal contact and the metal bond pad, which can sit on the polyimide or on a semi-insulating substrate. Since the insulative layer has a thermal coefficient that is quite different from the thermal coefficient of the semiconductor layer, the polyimide layer tends to apply severe stress to the semiconductor during the both the fabrication process of and operation of the VCSEL. For example, when the device is subject to thermal or electrical stress, the differences in the thermal coefficient of the polyimide and the semiconductor layer can potentially cause the device to physically or structurally fail. Consequently, it has been a challenge from a manufacturing point of view to fabricate highly reliable and high speed oxide-confined VCSEL based upon the mesa-type structure.
The second type of prior art VCSELs features a planar topology. One such planar-type VCSEL is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,408, entitled xe2x80x9cNear planar native-oxide VCSEL Devices and Arrays Using Converging Oxide Ringlets,xe2x80x9d by Corzine et al. This approach has the advantage of a relatively simple wafer fabrication process and suitable for low-cost mass production. This planar structure has proven to be able to provide sufficient performance for current 1 Gb/s to 2 Gb/s data transmission rates. However, due to the fact that, in order to connect the oxide fronts originated from adjacent oxidation holes (or other geometry) to form a closed perisphere oxide aperture, the oxidation process is typically long and thus the oxidation area is large which may limit its performance at higher data transmission rates.
Another planar-type VCSEL is described in a paper entitled, xe2x80x9cVCSEL Based Modules for Optical Interconnects,xe2x80x9d by Strzelecka, E. M., Morgan, R. A., Liu, Y., Walterson, B., Skogen, J., Kalweit, E., Bounak, S., Chanhvongsak, H., Marta, T., Skogman, D., Nohava, J., Gieske, J., Lehman, J., Hibbs-Brenner, M. K, Proceedings of the SPIExe2x80x94The International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 3627, pages 2-13, 1999. This approach uses multiple trenches or segments. Unfortunately, this approach does not adequately address parasitic capacitance issues. Consequently, this approach may suffer in performance especially at high data rates.
As the bit rates of data transmission increase to greater than two gigabits per second and beyond, new design considerations and mechanisms are required to achieve these types of data transmission speeds. Unfortunately, the prior art approaches do not identify or address these design considerations for high-speed VCSEL design. The inventors of the present invention have identified the parasitic capacitance of the VCSEL as an important design consideration for those devices operating at greater than two gigabits per second and especially for devices designed to operate at greater than ten gigabits per second.
Unfortunately, the prior art approaches do not provide any mechanism to adequately address and reduce the parasitic capacitance of VCSEL structures. Consequently, the prior art structures may suffer from high parasitic capacitance that can limit the VCSEL""s speed performance at the high-speed transmission rates given above.
Based on the foregoing, there remains a need for a high speed vertical cavity surface emitting laser that overcomes reduces the parasitic capacitance of the device and at the same time overcomes the disadvantages set forth previously.
In one embodiment, the present invention is a VCSEL with a nearly planar top surface on which the top electrode is disposed. A VCSEL according to the present invention includes a top electrode that is preferably a ring contact, a top mirror having a top surface, a light generation region, and a bottom mirror for reflecting light toward the top mirror. At least one of the mirrors includes a plurality of planar electrically conducting layers having different indices of refraction. At least one aperture-defining layer having an isolatable material is provided in at least one of the bottom mirror structure and the top mirror structure. The isolatable material can be oxidized, etched, or oxidized and then selectively etched, to form an insulating region that has an aperture-defining surface for defining at least a portion of an aperture.
A single trench that has a continuous geometry for reducing the parasitic capacitance is etched down from the top surface of the VCSEL through or beyond those layers having the isolatable material. At least one of these isolatable layers is used for an aperture-defining purpose. The trench can be utilized to expose the isolatable layer to an isolating agent (thereby converting the isolatable material to an insulating region), thereby oxidizing and/or etching the isolatable layer. The partial isolation of the layer converts the layer to one having a conducting region surrounded by an electrically insulating region, the conducting region being positioned under the top electrode.
Preferably, the aperture-defining layer has a conducting region, an insulating region having an aperture-defining surface for defining the conducting region, and a single trench adjacent to the insulating region for use in generating the insulating region. The trench has a continuous geometry for reducing the parasitic capacitance of the VCSEL.
In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, a ring shape conductive contact is replaced with a transparent disk-shape conductive contact. The transparent disk-shape conductive contact features a larger contact area, as compared to the first embodiment, in order to reduce the contact resistance. Furthermore, this embodiment allows an optimization of oxidization depth, thereby reducing the parasitic capacitance.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a VCSEL structure with or without a near planar top surface can be fabricated to include a plurality of isolatable layers where each layer has an insulating region (e.g., an oxide ring). These multiple insulating regions provide a mechanism for reducing the product of the total parasitic capacitance and the differential resistance at the VCSEL""s bias point.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a VCSEL structure with or without a near planar top surface can be fabricated to include a capacitance-reducing implantation region that can serve as another mechanism for reducing the product of the total parasitic capacitance and the differential resistance at the VCSEL""s bias point.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a VCSEL structure with or without a near planar top surface can be fabricated to include an insulating layer (e.g., a low k dielectric layer) disposed on at least a portion of the near planar top surface of the device. A conducting material for electrically coupling a bond pad to an emitting area is then deposited on at least a portion of the insulating layer. The insulating layer serves as a mechanism for reducing the parasitic capacitance due to the contact between the semiconductor surface and a conductive contact. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
Case: 14-10313 Date Filed: 11/20/2014 Page: 1 of 5
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-10313
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 9:13-cr-80082-KAM-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
GARY JAY GOLDBERG,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(November 20, 2014)
Before MARTIN, JULIE CARNES, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Case: 14-10313 Date Filed: 11/20/2014 Page: 2 of 5
Gary Jay Goldberg appeals his below-guideline, 156-month sentence,
imposed after he pleaded guilty to one count of enticing a minor to engage in
sexual activity. Goldberg argues that the district court erred in applying a two-
level sentence enhancement for unduly influencing a minor to engage in prohibited
sexual conduct. After careful consideration, we affirm.
I.
We review a district court’s interpretation and application of the Sentencing
Guidelines de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Bane,
720 F.3d 818, 824 (11th Cir. 2013). For a finding to be clearly erroneous, we
“must be left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
committed.” United States v. Rothenberg, 610 F.3d 621, 624 (11th Cir. 2010)
(citation omitted).
United States Sentencing Guideline 2G1.3(b)(2)(B) requires a two-level
enhancement if the district court finds that the defendant “unduly influenced a
minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct.” In determining whether to apply
the enhancement, the district court “should closely consider the facts of the case to
determine whether [the defendant’s] influence over the minor compromised the
voluntariness of the minor’s behavior.” USSG § 2G1.3, comment. n.3(B). To
assess whether the defendant’s conduct constitutes undue influence, “the district
court may look to a variety of factors, including whether the defendant displays an
2
Case: 14-10313 Date Filed: 11/20/2014 Page: 3 of 5
abuse of superior knowledge, influence and resources.” United States v. Panfil,
338 F.3d 1299, 1303 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (citation omitted).1 A
rebuttable presumption of undue influence applies where, as here, the defendant is
at least ten years older than the minor victim. USSG § 2G1.3, comment. n.3(B).
II.
Goldberg pleaded guilty to enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). According to the unchallenged factual basis of
his plea, Goldberg sent a text message to MW, aged fifteen, saying “Let’s play,”
with a smiley face; he also sent a photo of fanned-out United States currency to
MW, accompanied by a message asking “Can you and me hang out?” The same
day, he picked up MW and her friend JS, aged seventeen, and drove them to his
office, where he gave them alcohol and one hundred dollars each to allow him to
take sexually explicit pictures of them. He then drove them to a nearby gas station,
where he performed oral sex on MW in the gas-station bathroom.
According to the Presentence Investigation Report, Goldberg also
communicated via text message with JS. JS asked him for money and cigarettes,
1
In Panfil we discussed the factors a district court may evaluate when considering whether to
enhance a defendant’s sentence under USSG § 2A3.2(b)(2)(B)(ii). See Panfil, 338 F.3d at 1303.
That section, which is not the one at issue here, applies to a different sex crime against minors,
but it has an identical threshold requirement: the defendant must have “unduly influenced the
minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct.” USSG § 2A3.2(b)(2)(B)(ii); see also USSG
§ 2G1.3(b)(2)(B) (requiring that the defendant “unduly influenced a minor to engage in
prohibited sexual conduct”). Therefore, we have “previously held that our interpretation of the
undue influence enhancement under [the former section] applie[s] to [the latter].” United States
v. Jerchower, 631 F.3d 1181, 1186 n.2 (11th Cir. 2011).
3
Case: 14-10313 Date Filed: 11/20/2014 Page: 4 of 5
and in response he asked for pictures of her, which she sent. JS reported that on
other occasions, Goldberg drove her places and gave her money. On one such
occasion, while she was in the front seat of his car, Goldberg asked her to pull
down her pants so he could take a picture of her genital area. On this evidence, the
probation officer determined that the undue-influence enhancement applied.
Goldberg objected. Though he “acknowledge[d] some degree of influence
based on the age difference between him and M.W. and J.S.,” and admitted to
paying them money, he maintained that the “degree of [his] influence was
countered by the voluntary and assertive participation of M.W. and J.S.” He
contended that because MW and JS “were already immersed in a lifestyle of drugs,
parties, and sex[]” before meeting him, as evidenced by their text message
conversations, they “were voluntary participants motivated by money, drugs, and
parties.” He insisted that he did not coerce, threaten, force, or persuade them to
participate. He explained that the first contact between himself and the minors was
when he gave MW his business card at a gas station, and that it was MW and JS
who later contacted him asking to arrange a meeting.
The government responded that the enhancement was justified because
Goldberg “took advantage of minors who . . . had a drug problem,” and who
“wanted money.” Goldberg, the government explained, “had money, and he used
money to entice them,” as evidenced by the picture of fanned-out currency he sent
4
Case: 14-10313 Date Filed: 11/20/2014 Page: 5 of 5
to MW. The government introduced a text-message conversation between MW
and JS on the day Goldberg took them to his office, gave them money and alcohol,
and had sexual contact with MW at the gas station, in which MW wrote that she
“hope[d] he doesn’t expect sex.” On that same day, MW also wrote: “I know it’s
like he’s creepy, but not. I’m confused.” The district court overruled Goldberg’s
objection and applied the enhancement.
III.
The district court did not clearly err by enhancing Goldberg’s sentence under
USSG § 2G1.3(b)(2)(B). Undisputed evidence in the record supports the district
court’s finding that Goldberg unduly influenced his minor victims to engage in
prohibited sexual conduct. As the district court explained, Goldberg, a “very
mature adult male[,] reach[ed] out to a 15-year-old in the first instance”; “made the
first contact”; “us[ed] money to entice her into a relationship which she says at one
point she’s confused about,” after she had “indicat[ed] she’s not really interested in
having sex.” Goldberg thus displayed “an abuse of superior . . . influence and
resources,” Panfil, 338 F.3d at 1303 (citation omitted), that supports application of
the undue-influence enhancement. For these reasons, we affirm the sentence.
AFFIRMED.
5
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
Ex-president urges India to intervene to end Maldives crisis
On Monday, MaldivesPresident Abdulla Yameen declared a 15-day state of emergency.
The crackdown on judges and the emergency came after the top court ordered release of Yameen's political rivals, besides enabling exiled politicians, including former president Mohammad Nasheed to take part in upcoming elections.
"Maldivians have had enough of this criminal and illegal regime", Nasheed said.
4400-Year-Old Tomb of Ancient Priestess Found in EgyptEgypt hopes the inauguration of the new museum, along with the recent discoveries, will draw visitors back to the country. Other scenes also depict a monkey - in pharaonic times, monkeys were commonly kept as domestic animals - picking fruit.
"I have not anything to warrant my arrest".
The Maldives has experienced political unrest since Mohamed Nasheed, the island's first democratically-elected leader, was forced to quit amid a mutiny by police in 2012. It has shuttered parliament and resisted worldwide calls to respect the judicial order and restore democracy.
As India closely monitors the situation in Maldives, almost 30 years ago, it was the Indian government which solved the political crisis in the island nation and successfully foiled a coup to overthrow the then Maldivespresident Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
In a statement, Department of State spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States "is troubled and disappointed" by reports of the state of emergency.
"The Maldivian government must uphold its obligations under global human rights law and not use measures adopted under the state of emergency as a justification for further human rights violations".
The U.S. National Security Council said it stands "with the people of Maldives".
"This [emergency] can not become a licence for further repression", Omar Waraich, the group's deputy South Asia director, said on Twitter.
According to industry estimates, around 60, 000 Indians travel to Maldives every year and October to March being the peak season now 4500 Indian tourists are estimated to be present at the island nation.
Akshay Kumar's PadMan to release in Russia - Deets inside
Later makers of PAD MAN chose to give a clear window to PADMAAVAT and pushed their film from January 25 to February 9. Akshay Kumar is an Indian-born Canadian actor, producer, martial artist, stuntman and television personality.
Zidane disgusted after Real concede late equaliser
Tonight however, Real Madrid were forced to chase the game late on, with both Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale on the bench. Now Real Madrid have gone from champions to chokers as they are now the ones dropping points late in the game.
Polish president to signal controversial Holocaust invoice…
The ruling party's critics say that the new draft legislation is mainly meant to fuel nationalistic sentiments in the country. Analysts say that the legislation has isolated Poland from Israel, a key ally of the United States and neighbouring Ukraine.
British judge upholds Assange warrant
Assange could face charges in the United States that include espionage, conspiracy and theft, according to Wikileaks . Months later Swedish authorities sought to question him about an allegation of rape which he denied. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Nawaf Ahmed
Nawaf Ahmed (born 17 February 1992) is a Kuwaiti cricketer who plays for the Kuwait national cricket team. In July 2019, he was named in Kuwait's Twenty20 International (T20I) squad for the Regional Finals of the 2018–19 ICC T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier tournament. He made his T20I debut for Kuwait against Malaysia on 22 July 2019.
References
External links
Category:1992 births
Category:Living people
Category:Kuwaiti cricketers
Category:Kuwait Twenty20 International cricketers
Category:Place of birth missing (living people) | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Vakola police on Monday arrested a 25-year-old man for letting his friends rape his wife, possibly in exchange of money, in addition to harassing her for dowry, and keeping her locked up inside their residence for three years. His sister-in-law was also detained in this regard.The matter came to light last week when the accused left his wife at a relative’s place, after showing forged divorce documents.Police said the accused, Maksood alias Babloo Shaikh, who owns a medical shop, had been having an affair with his sister-in-law Shabnam for the past few years. Shabnam’s husband left her a couple of years ago after coming to know about the affair. Nearly three years ago, Maksood’s parents got him married to a woman from Azamgarh. Soon after the wedding, the accused started harassing his wife, while continuing the affair with Shabnam.The victim told police, “They (Maksood and Shabnam) would get intimate in front of me and would force me too. When I raised an alarm, they would call his friends to our residence, who would rape me one by one in front of them. They even burnt my hand recently. I have been a prisoner for the past three years. I don’t even know my neighbours. They locked me in and used to assault me whenever I tried to get out. I came to know about their affair after the wedding.”She also said if her relatives came to meet her, Maksood would always be by her side. Last week, after the victim was left at a relative’s place at Santa Cruz, her family went to Vakola and assaulted the accused.Though initially reluctant, the woman finally lodged a police complaint on Sunday. In her complaint, the victim also accused Maksood of forcing her to have unnatural sex, among other things. Three more unidentified men, friends of accused who used to rape the victim on a regular basis, have been charged as well.Meanwhile, Vinayak Mule, senior police inspector of Vakola police station, said, “We have registered a complaint of rape, dowry harassment and assault against five people. We are investigating the case and will make arrests accordingly.” | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Rope of Silicon posted a video of the Iron Man 2 panel at this year’s Comic-Con. The quality is not the best but it’s still an enjoyable viewing. You can view the video here.
Mtv also posted a video – this one is of a short interview with Scarlett on the red carpet. She talks about whether or not Black Widow is a hero or a villain and how much ass she kicks in the movie. You can view this video after the cut. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
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Per popular request, the following is the (tran)script of the speech that I gave at my Court of Love. At least, it is the document that I read from. It also is the last Chapter of my new book The Korihor Argument, which documents my journey out of Mormonism from my mission call in 1999 to my excommunication in 2013.
This is an excerpt from The Korihor Argument, available on paperback and autographed paperback here.
Delivered to the LDS Disciplinary Council for Joseph L. Rawlins in American Fork, Utah, Aug 10, 2013. The resulting decision after delivery of this testimony was Excommunication on the grounds of Apostasy and conduct unbecoming a Member of the Church.
Histories matter.
Brethren, I want to thank you for the opportunity to say a few words on why we are here. Time is a precious thing these days and I know as you do that there’s little time as sacred as dinner time, so let’s get through this, ASAP.
Histories matter. Mine. Yours. The Church’s.
while serving in Peru I experienced some doubts that would eventually lead to the questions on my character here today.
No doubt, by my records, you know that I have been a Mormon all my life and grew up very active in the Church. I believed that the Atonement could wash away my sins. I prayed and wept bitterly for the sorrow that I had caused my Savior such pain. And I believed with all my heart that God’s Plan would work for me. And serving God on a mission was the most important thing in the world to me.
In 2001, while serving in Peru I experienced some doubts that would eventually lead to the questions on my character here today. I want to pause and say that I am very grateful to my father for having sent me on my mission, paid for it and encouraging me while I was there. We grew closer as father and son. He doesn’t remember all of that but he’s old and retired now. He’s upset that he spent so much to get me to Peru only to have me wind up here but if he’s forgiven me for twice voting for Obama, there’s hope yet for us.
I grew to love the people of Peru with a ferocity I feel still today. I didn’t love them as Mormons and Catholics, as converts and rejects. I just love them pure and simple. I miss them terribly.
Sometimes I tweet. Sometimes I Periscope. Follow me on Twitter. I promise that “follow” is just a Twitter thing. It’s not like we are going to run away to Waco to grow organic produce and collect assault weapons or anything.
For the purpose of why I am to be disciplined, it’s necessary that you understand how I came by my doubts and then the rest of my story will make much more sense.
I did not encounter them by reading literature contrary to the Church but by pondering the Doctrine and Covenants.
It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.
It’s a commandment to learn doctrine, even if it’s uncomfortable. The General Authorities say we should not treat the Church as a social club but should be diligent about studying the doctrines and pondering the Scriptures.
D&C 131:2-4, (Ramus, IL, May 16-17, 1843)
2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];
3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.
6 And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.
Now “Damned” is such a loaded word these days. In this case, it even says that you can enter the Celestial Kingdom and yet be damned for not being married in the Temple. The Bible Dictionary sheds some light on this part of Church Doctrine.
BIBLE DICTIONARY: Damnation
“…Damnation is the opposite of salvation, and exists in varying degrees. All who do not obtain the fulness of celestial exaltation will to some degree be limited in their progress and privileges, and hence be damned to that extent.”
I’d like to point out that again in verse 6 of this section we read: “It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.”
no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
In the previous section, also given in Ramus only a few weeks before, we learn that knowledge we attain to in this life rises with us in the resurrection. What can be more “damning” than the sin of omission of knowing that there is more but not wanting to discover it for fear of what we will find?
Let’s go forward a few weeks back home to Nauvoo.
D&C 132: 3-4 (Nauvoo, IL, July 12, 1843)
3 Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.
4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
If the first law of the Gospel is obedience, then a command like “all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same” is very serious.
D&C 132:16-17
16 Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.
17 For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.
Saved by honoring the covenants they make at Baptism, but damned because they fail to be married according to the Holy Spirit of Promise.
let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses
D&C 132:51-57
51 Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.
52 And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.
53 For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.
54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.
55 But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.
56 And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice.
Did Joseph Smith take The Book of Mormon‘s astronomy from Galileo?
Richard Bushman, a faithful LDS historian, laments that most members of the Church still don’t think polygamy started until Brigham Young’s ministry
On my mission, it came to my mind how Joseph received the Word of Wisdom. How this same rebellious Emma got down on her hands and knees and scrubbed tobacco spittle off of the floor of her home above Newell K. Whitney’s General Store from where the School of the Prophets met. Brethren, is it not common in our doctrine to learn a little about the events surrounding revelations and how the Lord uses circumstances to usher in a new revelation?
So what are the events surrounding the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage?
Seven months prior to this revelation, Emma Smith, who is so roundly chided here, delivered a stillborn male child. He was her sixth to not survive infancy. Six months prior to that, in June of 1842, Eliza R. Snow – who lived in the Smith Mansion as the tutor to Emma’s surviving children – was sealed to Joseph Smith and lived as one of his wives. This is in his very journals and I checked it in the Joseph Smith papers online – it’s there and the Church knows it.
This is an excerpt from The Korihor Argument, available on paperback and autographed paperback here.
Eliza was not the first spirit-wife nor the last, though Richard Bushman, a faithful LDS historian, laments that most members of the Church still don’t think polygamy started until Brigham Young’s ministry.
Church lore goes much further into what happened to prompt this revelation, you’ve probably heard about a confrontation between Eliza and Emma when Emma discovered the prophet in her best friend’s embrace in the confines of her own home, prompting Joseph to explain that an Angel with a drawn sword had threatened to kill him if he put off practicing the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage. The details of this confrontation are mostly old pioneer stories, but they line up with the language here in Section 132.
we are not here so that I may judge the Church but so that the Church may judge me
The offense Emma must forgive Joseph for is quite apparently having hidden his marrying Eliza and others while Emma faithfully raised his children and even while she had been pregnant with children who died severely disfigured, premature and sickly. One can imagine what goes through Emma’s mind to find him taking other wives in secret? The offense that Emma commits against God would appear to be Eliza’s miscarriage from being thrown down a flight of stairs. Some records discuss the miscarriage and some not, but most agree there was a physical altercation and it’s an inconvenient question but Emma asking whether or not such a baby was really Joseph’s would explain whole verses dedicated to the subject that Eliza or any others who came to Joseph would be destroyed if they were impure…
All we know is what was recorded. But naturally, these events are not regarded on equal footing in the eyes of the Church as say: the brethren spitting chewing tobacco in Bishop Whitney’s store?
Brethren, as you know, we are not here so that I may judge the Church but so that the Church may judge me and I am satisfied with that. So I turn it back to me:
In 2006, after my first daughter was born, I was asked to meet with my Bishop in Arizona, Bishop Lambson. President Mitchell knows that I confessed, earlier this week, to intending to lie to the Bishop so that I could bless my daughter in sacrament meeting though it had been years since I left both practice and faith. This is not one of my proudest moments but I did resolve to lie to Bishop Lambson in order to keep my family together.
This, I thought, was what my wife wanted – for me to play the part, to go along and get along like so many do, in this Church or any church. Instead, she told me that she wanted me to be honest, that she would stand by me and not leave me. I’m a very fortunate man that she takes that vow so seriously.
I surveyed 100+ Ex-Mormons who had to confront their spouse about their decision to leave the Church and the results of the survey were at once encouraging and a warning to other spouses harboring guarded doubts about the Church. Don’t hide that shit. Come clean to your spouse about your doubts, because the longer that you wait, the harder they will take it.
they are neither married nor given in marriage but are ministering angels of God and damned for it!
I told Bishop Lambson that I didn’t believe in God, anymore because I couldn’t believe in Joseph Smith, anymore. Of all the offenses that the Doctrine and Covenants say a man should be excommunicated for, adultery is at the top of the list. Does Joseph sneaking around for more than a year with women all over the Illinois countryside, marrying them in secret constitute adultery? D&C 132 says that the First Wife has to give her consent. Emma Hale Smith maintained until the day she died that there were no other women, even though Joseph’s own journals confess that he married many more. Men of stronger faith might be able to take that hit, but I couldn’t.
What’s more, I told the Bishop that it disturbed me that the scriptures we read here are very plain that people who escape as righteous souls from this life are damned. People who are mentally challenged, children, missionaries taken in the prime of their lives – damned through no fault of their own. Bishop Lambson told me that he knew that God had a plan for them. I responded that I knew what it was! It was Doctrine and Covenants 132! Joseph said it – they are neither married nor given in marriage but are ministering angels of God and damned for it!
could Joseph Smith survive a council like this one?
…Bishop Smith read to us the entirety of the Proclamation to the World Regarding the Family. I found it quite interesting that he made special emphasis on the first paragraph:
“WE, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”
Some people have mentioned that my neighbors and I joked at my Court of Love about my political support for Barack Obama (this was right after the elections). Back in July, I predicted the Bernie Sanders surge.
An eternal principle that the family is the basic universal unit for the organization not only of humans, but of Gods. The whole premise of Exaltation depends on this heart-warming concept that we can only progress into the eternities as families, hence the Church gave undisclosed amounts of resources in time, money, organization and manpower to pass the colloquially-known “Proposition H8” in California. After all, the Proclamation does read:
“Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets…
WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.”
How quickly this Church condemns others for violating this fundamental unit of “a man and a woman”, today? But could Joseph Smith survive a council like this one?
What if there weren’t laws that put the FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs behind bars, today? According to D&C 132, would the Brethren not have to change the Proclamation’s definition of marriage to “a man and a woman and a woman and a woman”?
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that not this priesthood nor this Council nor this Church nor this God had power to define me as a sinner or a Saint.
Bishop Lambson had no answers for me. The Bishop is just a mortal man like you or I and he makes mistakes. He told me “You know what I think? I think you never had a testimony.”
Why? Because that is so much easier. Brethren, you and I have always been told that there’s only one reason why people leave the Church and that’s because they’re too prideful to quit breaking the rules. For three years after I stopped believing I didn’t drink, I didn’t have sex with women (or men, if you’re curious), I didn’t smoke, I swore only as occasionally as I ever did. I even attended meetings from time to time. I just didn’t believe in Joseph Smith, anymore.
Because I’m on a mission for me – a mission to tell every lost soul that I can find that there’s no God and no Church and no Priest who can give your life the meaning that you can find in yourself if you embrace your value not as a cog in the wheels of Zion but as a living, breathing conscious being who makes a difference.
But brethren, I never knew a God who wasn’t the Ahman or Elohim or Son-Ahman or Jehovah who appeared in a grove of trees to Joseph Smith in upstate New York. So my God was gone. No Savior. No plan. Just me and a cruel Universe that didn’t give two shrugs if I lived or died.
In those precious years, I learned to love myself not as a son of God but as a son of Glen. I learned to love being alive and embrace a reality that you only get one go on this rock and every chance that goes by to say “I love you” is a missed opportunity to do something good in the world. I found comfort in the idea that I controlled whether or not I was a good person and that not this priesthood nor this Council nor this Church nor this God had power to define me as a sinner or a Saint.
I’m just Joe. And I always have been. One man on a journey to love as fiercely as I can and to share with others that they can be free from the emotional pain of shame and guilt and prejudice.
Alma argues in The Book of Mormon for what is known as The Teleological Argument. Read this excerpt from The Korihor Argument for free.
Of all things I’ve done and will do in my life, brethren, that love is my great sin. Because I’m on a mission for me – a mission to tell every lost soul that I can find that there’s no God and no Church and no Priest who can give your life the meaning that you can find in yourself if you embrace your value not as a cog in the wheels of Zion but as a living, breathing conscious being who makes a difference.
But you and I know that there’s no room for conscientious objectors in God’s Army.
But you and I know that there’s no room for conscientious objectors in God’s Army.
So here’s your rap sheet:
All of the things you are about to hear are things I have knowingly done after having been endowed in the Temple. You six might write some of these down.
Since 2003, I drink alcohol with moderate frequency and I love it and never intend to give it up. I smoke only on occasion but that’s because it irritates my asthma.
I swear, including taking the Lord’s name in vain and I feel that anyone who takes offense to that does so in vain, also.
In 2003, I took off my garments for the last time. I didn’t dispose of them according to Church standards, I just walked to a dumpster and threw them away.
In October of 2005, I met the most beautiful creature in the world and she moved in with me from that point until now. Every day for three months between when we met and when we were married, we lived in sin. That fornication, my wife repented of with her Priesthood authorities. I never have and I doubt I ever will. I loved every minute of it.
I speak ill of the Lord’s Anointed, including Thomas S. Monson, who – it does pain me to say – has greatly disappointed me. As disappointing as that may be to you, I spare you of far worse that I have to say particularly of Boyd K. Packer, Richard G. Scott, and others. This pales by comparison of what I have learned and said about Prophets in history all the way back to Joseph Smith.
But most importantly: In my life, several members of the Church have come to me, surprised to learn of my disbelief. I do not evangelize or promote it. But when I’m asked, I tell, which is direct contradiction of what Elder Holland said in last year’s general conference:
“Don’t dwell on old issues or grievances… toward this true and living Church…We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory …of an incident in Church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them. Even if one of those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you.”
But someone has to admit they were wrong in order to begin that healing process.
A few weeks ago, Elder Hans Mattson, an Area Authority Seventy from Sweden confessed to the New York Times that his flock in Europe was having a hard time keeping its members because they Googled Church History and discovered some of these “incidents in Church History”…Even a visit from Elder L. Tom Perry of the Twelve could not dispel the doubts that leaders in Sweden suffered.
And why not! How many Apostles have we lost over time? How many Stake Presidents or High Councilors?
Does that history even matter?
Of course it does. Everything any of us has believed rises and falls on the question of whether or not Joseph Smith was a liar.
Dr. Richard Bushman says: “Since the rise of the Internet, more people have come across unsettling historical facts. Earlier it might have been plural marriage or blacks and the priesthood. There has always been something.”
Since then, the Church has launched more historical content on lds.org and encouraged Members of the Church to do their searches for Church History there instead of on search engines. But this still puts the gate’s guarding in the hands of the Church and discourages participation from the scholastic community who have a lot to contribute! But most importantly, it doesn’t constitute an admission of how implicit Church leaders have been in occluding the truth from Members of the Church and it makes no effort to educate the membership generally.
History matters, brethren. Being honest about it is responsible because it means having a little faith in your flock to practice Christian love and forgive. But someone has to admit they were wrong in order to begin that healing process and that’s a hard thing for a Church who claims that its leaders are the literal vicars of God.
“Not our Church. That doesn’t happen in our Church.”
Coming to associate with other people who have left the faith, you begin to see why Church leaders like Bishop Smith, here, warn us not to associate with people who leave the Church. Because they are bad influences? No.
Because it hurts to see this Church from the other side. Parents whose children don’t get to see their grandparents or cousins because Grandma and Grandpa are waiting for you to “come around”. I’m glad my girls have better grandparents than that.
Husbands and wives torn apart by divorce, not because anyone cheated or abused the other – but because a partner was told that because their spouse was unworthy, that they had lost their exaltation and the only way, according to D&C 132, to repair that damage is to leave your spouse and marry another.
I tell you this and you may say “Not our Church. That doesn’t happen in our Church.” But if you’re not associating with these people as I have done, then you’re not in the position to say so. Perhaps in your minds, they are all liars and sinners. WE are all liars and sinners. But in my experience, they’re just people whose pain is inflicted in the name of love. In the name of Christ.
“This was us. We did this and it was wrong. And we’re sorry.”
A man cannot be saved in ignorance. There’s a better term for that, now. It’s called “Cognitive Dissonance”… out-of-sight, out-of-mind! If we don’t talk about Blacks and the Priesthood, does that make it go away? More importantly: if we say “We’ve put that behind us now,” does that answer the question of whether or not Joseph and Brigham and almost a dozen of their successors were wrong? Does it address the question of whether or not a prophet can stand at the pulpit and say “Thus saith the Lord” and be WRONG? The Church says that we are accounted for our obedience to the most current doctrines, but that doesn’t mean our ancestors were taught something evil.
It reminds me of the movie Donnie Brasco where Al Pacino tells Johnny Depp that a “made guy” is always right. “Even when he’s wrong, he’s right!”
A memorial was erected by the Church to the families who survived the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. But read President Hinckley’s dedication and it’s loving and sweet but there’s no admission in it. No responsibility or accountability for the roles that Brigham Young and George Albert Smith and others played in it.
What if we learned to say “This was us. We did this and it was wrong. And we’re sorry.” Wouldn’t the worst thing that could happen be that you trust the Christian hearts of your flock to forgive?
The Church is wrong on gender and sexuality, brethren.
The Church is wrong on gender and sexuality, brethren. The science is clear, where not once but twice the First Presidency has issued official statements and proclamations that gender and sexual attraction are assigned from before the womb, science shows that it is ambiguous for some time after and has nothing to do with souls and everything to do with chemistry and biology and discoveries as earth-shattering to this dogma as Copernicus saying that the Earth revolved around the Sun!
And when I think of all the men and women who I know who live with this product of biology as a part of who they are and must suppress it, must feel ashamed for it, must be punished for acting on it, warned against thinking about it, and shamed for feeling it, even encouraged to act in contrary to it, it breaks my heart. I’m not gay. But just as the “Blacks and the Priesthood”… an injustice on some of us is injustice on us all.
I have collected testimonies from Gay Mormons for my documentary Mormon Sex. You can learn more about the documentary and how you can support the production at mormon-sex.com
that one time there was a group of people who were persecuted because they violated the “a man and a woman” definition of a family – and they were called the Mormons
While preparing this pompous and prideful pontificating, brethren, I was asked by both parents, my wife and others “Do you really think that you’re going to convert 15 High Priests away from the Church?” or “Do you really think that anything that you say is going to change anything? That it will fall on anything but deaf ears?”
Of course not. I don’t doubt but that at least half of the people within the sound of my voice hear the words I say and dismiss them out-of-hand and that’s cool.
But the worth of souls is great and if I can convince one person on this council to hear the confession of a gay person and stop and consider if only for a moment that this person is being asked to struggle against who they are and that one time there was a group of people who were persecuted because THEY violated the “a man and a woman” definition of a family – and they were called the Mormons – Then I will consider it a success…
the problems that we face will persist and only responsible men like you who are on the inside can fix it.
Can I convince you that there are more reasons why people leave the Church than just their pride or because they read Leaving the Saints or Under the Banner of Heaven? That they leave for more reasons than just that “a member of the congregation offended me”? Can I make you pause and think in one Court of Love like this one “how will I live with myself if this doctrine changes as we know doctrine does?”? If I can at the very least put in your hearts and minds a seed that would drive you to encourage others to be honest about the Church’s history, I am satisfied.
I want to close with this. I know that what I have said here is hard and possibly not even appropriate for this forum. I apologize for that. But it needs to be said in every possible opportunity. People need to stand up and be counted.
Now you must judge me. Let’s not parse words. That’s what it is. I would encourage you to be bold and be honest when you judge me as when you judge yourselves.
President Mitchell, you said that you hope we can walk away from this afternoon as friends and neighbors. I have to admit: I like you. I tried not to. I think if I got to know any of you, I’d like you.
The word “quixotic” comes to my mind. It means to lance at some big, unsurmountable thing like Don Quixote lancing at the windmill he thinks is a giant.
My words here are quixotic and evaporate into the thin air and will one day be lost in the sands of time. But long after what is decided here is long forgotten, the problems that we face will persist and only responsible men like you who are on the inside can fix it.
In my eyes, I’ve done nothing wrong,
I wish with all my heart that a man could be saved in ignorance. I wish that I could have the bliss of thinking I will be with my Molly and Scarlett and Eloise forever. I wish I didn’t have to say words that hurt my parents so. I wish the way that I felt didn’t break my mother’s heart. But there are things I can’t change. I can’t change what this Church teaches. I can’t change what Joseph Smith did any more than you can. And I can’t put them out of my mind. The truth is – I can’t live as a Mormon and be at peace when I lie down at night and there’s no one but me and the back of my eyelids and I have to admit: this is not who I am.
I’m not big on Jesus, these days, so I won’t profane his name in your presence. But that is my testimony. In my eyes, I’ve done nothing wrong, but I know that in the eyes of Church, I cannot be redeemed with a rebellious heart and I leave that decision to your wisdom.
Thank you.
This is an excerpt from The Korihor Argument, available on paperback and autographed paperback here. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Three-quarters of women killed by men in the UK in 2017 knew the perpetrator, according to a report on femicide.
The Femicide Census, conducted by Women’s Aid and the campaigner Karen Ingala Smith, found that of the 139 women known to have been killed by men in the UK last year, 105 (76%) knew their killer. Thirty women were killed by strangers, with 21 of the 30 killed in terrorist attacks.
The report found that 64 of the women, or 46%, were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Another 24 (17%) were killed by a man known to them – such as a colleague, neighbour or friend – while 17 (12%) were killed by a male family member, of whom 10 were killed by their son. The perpetrator’s relationship to the victim could not be established in four cases.
A sharp instrument was used as a weapon in 66 cases, or 47%, while 82 (59%) were killed at home. More than half of women killed by a former partner were killed within the first month of separation; almost 90% of the same subset were killed within the first year of separation.
For the first time, the Femicide Census collected data on “overkilling”, killings where the force or method used was greater than that required to kill the victim. “Overkilling” was evident in 58 (42%) of the cases.
In one case, a victim was stabbed 175 times, while in others women were “hit 40 times with an axe”, “bludgeoned repeatedly” and “battered virtually beyond all recognition”.
Ingala Smith, the chief executive of the domestic violence charity Nia, said: “The use of excessive violence or desecration after death challenges narratives of momentary loss of control that are especially prevalent in relation to domestic violence.
“Instead it highlights the brutality and misogyny that men bring to their violence against women whether dead or alive and challenges benign rationales given by men which are often accepted and repeated in media coverage of the killings of women.”
Smith said the report challenged widely held assumptions about the nature of violence in society. “The dominant perception of knife crime is one of young men and street violence yet the Femicide Census tells us that 47% of women were killed by knives or sharp objects; in fact, this is the most common method used by men to kill women,” she said.
“It may also surprise some to learn that 40% of women killed by men were aged over 45 and 14% were over the age of 66. Where analyses of violent crime do not look at sex disaggregated data, violence against women continues to be overlooked and made invisible.”
Katie Ghose, the chief executive of Women’s Aid, called on the government to ensure its domestic abuse bill, due to be published imminently, delivered both the legislation and the resources needed to respond effectively to domestic abuse.
“Time and time again, we hear of cases where a woman has been killed by a man as an ‘isolated incident’; yet the latest Femicide Census report shows yet again that this is not the case,” she said. “The majority of these cases are not isolated incidents. There are too many similarities in the circumstances where women are killed by men.”
The Femicide Census contains information on more than 1,000 women killed by men in England and Wales since 2009, Northern Ireland as of 2015 and Scotland as of 2017. A number of cases of suspected femicide are still under investigation, making it likely that the real 2017 figure is higher than that recorded by the report. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Young Gunz Grown Man Lyrics
Last updated: 12/16/2005 10:00:00 AM
[Verse (Chris)]
She My Down Ass Chick
Love me plus she like to come down my strip
Get paralyzed wipe down my Shit
I love you boo, you, my bug-a-boo
Type bug ya boo
All day all night then I merk on tha 1st chirp
[Chorus:]
Yeah, yeah
If you want it (yeah, yeah)
Baby you can get it
Still doin shows an afta party’s
And afta tha party, And afta tha party
Its back to tha party at our crib
Yeah, yeah
If you want it (yeah, yeah)
Baby you can get it (yeah, yeah)
Still doin shows and afta party’s
And afta tha party
its back to tha party At our crib
[Verse: (Chris)]
Niggas stingy we part it were I live
Niggas offended like beg ya parting that’s my chick
(Is that you chick?)
Excuse me this aint our first time here
Don’t approach me like dat, get roasted like dat
Damm shorty playin with ya emotions like dat
You a grown man she got you open like dat
Yu put something around her finger, now
She got you rapped around her finger its official
Well that’s you, that’s what you get for trickin
Keep giving her doe she takin care of Chris and
I’ll play my position up give her da dick
Con her to come and soon as im donr
Tell her im skipping
She like now that you got what you want you acting
Different and I’m like…. (Woo!)
[Chorus:]
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Still doing shows and afta party’s
And afta da party its back to tha Party at our crib
If you want it (yeah, yeah)
Baby you can get it (yeah, yeah)
Still doin shows and afta party’s and afta the party
It’s back to party at our crib
[Verse: (Neef)]
If you want it you can get it
You could come but you cant live here
If I hit it I want Chris to hit it to
I know you wit it bitches
Mad cause I parted and danced wit ya girlfriends
Smoked a bit, mainly drunk off crys
And I wasn’t even feelin that bitch
She acting al pissy same time sadidey
A little bit silly, I can’t even get a quickie
Neva dat got a are codes for every city
Couple young freaks, couple old heads
That dig me, thinking they gone hold me,
Knowing they don’t control me
Youngin been fuckin old heads aint shit you showed me
Got a walk like George and I talk like Goldie
Nope you can’t hold me from hittin up ya homies
I do enough rappin at work, listen to oldies
[Chorus:]
Yeah, yeah
If you want it (yeah, yeah)
Baby you can get it
Still doin shows an afta party’s
And afta tha party, And afta tha party
Its back to tha party at our crib
Yeah, yeah
If you want it (yeah, yeah)
Baby you can get it (yeah, yeah)
Still doin shows and afta party’s
And afta tha party
Its back to tha party At our crib | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
¿Cómo separar los campos concatenados en MySql?
Una consulta por favor. Requiero poder separar los campos concatenados (comenzando por Ms, Mr. Dr. Mrs luego el nombre, apellido título del cargo, desde y finalizar con fecha y hora) debo agregar dentro de la concatenación la palabra Trabaja como después del apellido para identificar el cargo de cada persona, así como también después del cargo agregar la palabra desde para cerrar con fecha y hora.
Estoy trabajando con la tabla empleados (employees) de la base de datos Northwind de MySql
La sintaxis que estoy trabajando en la siguiente:
select concat(TitleOfCourtesy, FirstName, LastName, Title, BirthDate) Nombrecompleto
from employees
Debería listarse de esta forma:
Ms. Nancy Davolio trabaja como Sales Representative desde 1948-12-08 00:00:00'
A:
Disculpa si no es la respuesta pero así te entendí.
Deseas concatenar valores en formato de string al resultado de una consulta que obtienes de tu base de datos
Entonces solo debería bastar con pasarle todos los argumentos necesarios separados por comas en el lugar donde esperas que aparezcan de este modo:
Aquí declaro una variable:
SET @ValorNuevo = 23;
Aquí la sentencia SQL en la cual concatenaré múltiples parámetros
SELECT CONCAT("Hola hoy es: ", NOW(), " No lo puedo creer ", "además tengo: ", @ValorNuevo)
Dando como resultado:
Hola hoy es: 2019-10-04 17:07:06 No lo puedo creer además tengo: 23
Dentro de tu CONCAT y:
Los valores que vienen de la base de datos, tendrán el nombre de la columna a recuperar
Aquellos valores que son strings deberán ir entre comillas
Aquellos valores que sean variables entonces deben estar precediddas por el símbolode @
Las funciones propias del gestor de bases de datos deben ir sin comillas y con la sintaxis que este mismo exige para que funcionen por ejemplo el caso de NOW()
Quedando tu consulta así:
select concat(TitleOfCourtesy, FirstName, LastName,
"trabaja como ", Title, " desde ",BirthDate) Nombrecompleto
from employees
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Containers or vessels for storing various types of materials are available in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Generally, the size, shape and color or label of the container varies with the particular material therein. It is often desirable to place various types of cosmetic materials, such as make-up creams or lotions in more elegant containers than generally available by merely applying a label or other typical indicia to the container. Accordingly, there are available various types of cosmetic materials in containers having metal coverings on the container and closure. While the metal covering may be of any desired color, a gold coloring obtained by anodizing a punched aluminum skin is particularly elegant. However, in the constructions available in the prior art, that portion of the metal skin covering the top curved or shoulder region of the container tends to exhibit stress lines or wrinkles caused by the crimping to follow the container shape.
In some constructions using a plastic insert the skin is left abutting a lip in order to avoid the wrinkling effect. This is not desirable as it leaves exposed a portion of the inner plastic surface of the container exposed. The plastic inner containers are force-fit into the metal skin which has been pressed into a cup shape dimensioned to receive the inner container. This procedure of force-fitting a metal skin onto a container cannot be utilized with a glass jar as the dimensions of the jar cannot be controlled sufficiently. For this reason the available glass jars with metal coverings must be crimped about the shoulder region of the jar to hold the metal skin in place.
In these conventional metal covered glass jars or bottles, the metal covering is a cylindrical capsule or cup havng a bottom and a vertically extending side wall dimensioned to receive the jar. While such metal covered containers, including the glass jars provide an elegant appearance, the stress marks in the metal in the shoulder region tend to distract from an otherwise elegant appearance. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a container with a metal skin or covering which avoids the stress marks in the region of the shoulder found in conventional constructions. It would be further desirable to provide a method of fabricating such a container particularly well suited for use with a glass jar having a metal skin which does not form stress marks and does not add significantly to production costs. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
Two major challenges when building a home lab is figuring out the power consumption and heat dissipation that will radiate from the systems. These two are usually coupled together: a system that is hungry for power usually needs a bit more cooling and emits a fair amount of noise. I pondered on these same challenges when building my home lab and came up with the idea that it must be possible to “go green” and still have a viable home lab. The first time I formally wrote on the idea was around building a new, green workstation in my “Building A Green Performance Desktop” challenge. But I never did take the time to really go over those same underlying efforts that punctuated the home lab build.
Let’s dig into my home lab’s green design strategy and go over some key decisions that were made along the way.
Functional Design Comes First
As with any good design, the first step is to figure out exactly what you are trying to accomplish. In my case, it was “to build a playground for learning geeky stuff.” Fair enough, you might comment, but that doesn’t really drive an intelligent discussion around design, does it? I’ll break my original lab thoughts down into these 5 items:
Physical vSphere hosts in a realistic cluster, able to run about 10 VMs each Physical networking infrastructure, 1GbE to all ports, multilayer switch abilities (layer 3) Shared storage via NAS, both NFS and iSCSI Entire lab should be relatively quiet for a person sitting 4 feet away Able to run on a single UPS that can plug into a 15A socket (standard for most homes in the US)
This isn’t a full fledged set of requirements and constraints, but was a good start to getting my thoughts onto paper. Sometimes the starting point is the most difficult, but I find just dumping thoughts to paper can help get things kicked off.
Incorporating Green Ideas
My design strategy was divided into several major sections. If you look at the parts list on my Supermicro ESXi 5 Whitebox build, you’ll get an idea of my thoughts behind each item.
The Processor
For servers I find this is relatively straight forward. Each item usually has a few variations. The CPU, for example, comes in multiple wattages. I chose the latest for the time with “Sandy Bridge” CPUs running at 80W, which was roughly middle of the road on power consumption. Some CPUs were greater than 100W, while others were near 65W. This seemed like a good niche for keeping away from incredibly high performance, and as such, high heat.
Moving Parts
Another way to go green is by using as few moving parts as possible. In my case, I chose a USB stick to be the boot device for each server. This results in negligible amounts of power, heat, and noise. It’s also a bit cheaper than a pair of spinning drives and significantly cheaper than SSDs, but has the downside of being a single point of failure. Fortunately, the hypervisor is relatively unimportant, and rebuilding on top of a replacement USB stick is a small amount of effort. USB 2.0 has the added bonus of being a limitation on power draw, since a device is limited to 500 mA (or about 2 watts) of power.
Power Plant and Fans
Stock fans are usually garbage and should never be trusted. They are typically noisy, small, and consume too much power for the CFM (airflow) that is provided. I always shop for custom fans that are large in size and low in dBA (noise). All of my servers are equipped with 120mm fans that spin at about 800 RPM. They are so quiet (about 10 dBA) that you literally can not hear them.
It is also rare that you would want to use the included power supply with a server. It’s typically a throw away unit that sucks up power and pumps out noise and heat. My advice is to go with something that is rated Platinum (or better) by 80 Plus. This is a measure of efficiency of the unit, with a higher rating meaning more power is actually being produced with less waste. At Platinum, you’ll see about 90% or higher efficiency across a variety of loads. The cost will be a tad higher on your initial purchase, but the savings will return to you in the form of low heat, quiet operation, and a reduced power bill.
Thoughts – And Home Lab End Results
If you’ll notice on the “My Home Lab” page – I have a screen shot of the UPS system showing about 423 watts being consumed during normal operation. The entire list of gear on the page is tied to that single UPS. I’m quite pleased with putting the thought of being green into my lab, as it is both more environmentally friendly and person-sitting-next-to-it friendly. 🙂 | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
10 Worst Things About Being An Author
It's Easy To Get Lost In Your Own Thoughts
An #author's mind is a mixing pot of ideas and interwoven #plot points. There are more voices than can possibly be healthy. We're always inclined to write down what we're thinking too, because those words, that feeling, that brokenness is exactly what our next #book needs. Just as much as a #reader will lose themselves in a #book, #authors lose themselves in the world of #imagination that creates those books.
Your Back Hurts
#Authors spend a ridiculous amount of time hunched over a notebook or laptop. There is just no avoiding the inevitable bad back. And neck. By the time a #book is finished, I can hardly walk and I just want to curl up in a ball and forget everything, unless someone is willing to walk on my back.
Throughout history most of the saddest people were #writers. Health.com even says that #writing is one of the top ten professions most likely to lead to depression. I don't know if its because that unhappiness leads to genius or that the genius leads to unhappiness, but its fair to say, we writers are a temperamental, emotional bunch.
We spend all day #writing, sat alone at our desk or in a coffee shop. We watch the world go by and #write, all the while forgetting what it actually is to interact with other human beings.
The Financial Uncertainty
Most of the time we ignore the fact that there are absolutely no guarantees. We say it doesn't matter that we have no idea how much #money we'll make from our next #release. It doesn't matter if it's enough to live or cover #expenses. That's just the price of #art. But god, in the dark at night, when I'm lying in bed thinking about it... yeah, it matters then.
Feeling Exposed
With every new book, we show a little more of our #soul to the world outside. We uncover some #secret we'd vowed never to share or we sob as we #write our own #feelings onto the paper. It's scary as hell and we get through it by telling ourselves that it's just the character's feelings, not ours.
Writer's Block
More often than I care to admit, I hit a wall. My #writing stagnates and anything that I actually put to paper is pure SHIT! But for the most part, I can't even get the words onto the paper.
Selling Yourself
#Authors have to work hard to #promote their work but at the same time it's super awkward and we really don't want to be #spammy asshats. So we try to build #relationship instead. We try to introduce you to us the person and hope that you might actually like us.
Comparing Yourself
There's always another #author who is doing better, making more #money, #writing better #books. Sometimes, it is easy to forget that we've all got different #stories to tell. It's important to #learn from others, compare yourselves just enough to improve but never enough to get downhearted.
Family Expectations & Pressure
When I first started #writing, I was terrified what my #family might think. So scared in fact, that I kept it a #secret for over a year. Now, I'm more willing to open up about it, although I still get #nervous. My gran tells everyone about my #books and is always asking me for the next one. Seriously, she finishes one and expects the next one to be on the way. I'm quick but I'm not that quick. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
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headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3887)[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4754: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3887)[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4755: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3887)[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4756: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3887)Strangeways • View topic - Week 19: WordsAsOldAsSin
Next weeks nomination is forthcoming, but here is the main event-- what we've allll been waiting for--- WORDS AS OLD AS SIN!
I absolutely love travelling- do you have any funny travelling stories?
I'm afraid all the funny things that happen tend to be at the airport rather than the destination. If I'm honest, nothing extremely funny has happened to me before so this is pretty bad, I'm sorry I cant give you a better answer
I've had quite a few funny airport stories:
- The time we were late to get on our plane and just before we went to the place of boarding my mum dropped the tickets and the wind picked them up and blew them away: there were like 4 mad people in the airport screaming and running after the tickets, I swear we must have looked ridiculous to everyone else.
- what with all the extra airport security, "random" checks have been happening more often, I cant tell you how much fun we've had with all of this :/
Once this woman wanted to check my mum's bag and she looked so petrified of us (I swear if we were carrying guns, she could have not looked more scared). So when she took the bag, my mum offered to open it for her and screamed "NO! DON’T TOUCH THE BAG!" back at her and she was shaking a little bit. She kept taking items out the bag really slowly like any second something was going to explode. Naturally, you cant take these things too personally otherwise you'd just get upset so as the women finished checking the bag and put the stuff back in it, my mum took the bag back, leaned in close to the woman and said really quietly "boo" the woman actually jumped in fear. You had to be there but it was just so funny!
Tell us something neat that would otherwise never come up on the forum!Something neat? Hmmm, how about some fun facts? (bet you wished you never asked now ):
- The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad! (Want proof? Come to Egypt and shout the name Muhammad, see what happens…)
- Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing! (go on, try it, I know you want to )
- The electric chair was invented by a dentist! (Bet you're scared now!)
- It's against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas! (aww dammit)
- Alaska law says that you can't look at a moose from an airplane. (don’t do it folks, its just not worth it)
- In North Carolina, it is against the law for dogs and cats to fight.
What did you do yesterday?
Yesterday, I had an Economics midterm exam (Macro economics for those who are especially interested.) I think it went ok; I revised quite hard for it so I was hoping I'd feel confident doing the exam. I've done 4 out of 5 midterm exams now, I've only got Arabic left, which is actually the one I'm most worried about (since I lived in England for so long my Arabic speaking is good but my reading and writing is a bit weak :/). I've got the exam on Saturday, wish me luck!
What brought you to Morrissey and the Smiths?ooh erm, I always hate admitting this because it’s a little bit embarrassing.
Ok so, flash back to 4/5 years ago, I was in a maths class and somehow the topic of 'charmed' came up, so I mentioned that I loved the theme tune but I had no idea who it was by. A girl next to me then tells me that it's by a band named The Smiths and that I should check them out.
So I was really excited when i heard this because I thought it was the smiths who sang that version on the charmed theme tune. When I got home I searched the song and listened to it only to find that I wasn’t the version I was looking for, naturally, I was disappointed but for some reason, I didn’t want to stop listening to this band just yet, in a 'related songs' section of this website I found a song called ' hand in glove' and decided to listen to that.
I discovered how much I liked it and started listening to other songs by them; soon, I was an addict and started listening to them everyday and trying to find out more about this amazing band.
Fast forward five years later and I still can't stop listening to this band
Are the Smiths your favourite band?
Yes. I can honestly say, I have never felt the same way about any other band as I do for the smiths, they’ve been such a big part of my life for the last five years that I don’t think I can really like any other band more.
Do you play any instruments?Yes I do but not very well I have to say .
I've been playing drums for 4 years and Bass guitar for 3. I'm probably more of a Bass guitar girl though
*Poof* I am a magical genie! You have been given three wishes, what are they?
1. I would call a meeting with all the world leaders and have a huge discussion about what is the most prominent problem in the world right now and what can we do to stop it, then, I would ask you, genie, to eliminate this problem from the world whether it be war, world hunger, Paris Hilton, Aids, cancer…you get the idea
2. I would then ask the genie to make sure that me, my family and all the future generations are financially secure for the rest of our lives.
3. I'd probably waste this wish on something trivial because I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, or maybe I could save it for later?
What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?
Oh wouldn’t you like to know ;p
What prompted you to move to Egypt?Many reasons, I'll try to keep it brief so that the forum doesn’t die of boredom:
First and foremost, my mum had been struggling to keep doing what she was doing in England; her job was too stressful, she didn’t have many friends and since we have no family in England we were really quite isolated. At the same time, I was getting bored of doing the same thing day in, day out and was looking for some sort of new adventure so I agreed to it and thought, why not?
Also, what most people don’t understand is that, you do miss your home country, no matter how great another country may be, there's nothing like your own.
I've met many Palestinians who were living in England and dying to go back to Palestine, despite the dangers over there. There is just something about being in your original home that you can't quite beat
What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?
I wouldn’t say this is the most embarrassing but this one certainly sticks in my mind:
I saw my friend on the road in Egypt one day so I went up to her and was like "hi!!"
So in Egypt to greet people you air kiss them on both cheeks, so I did that. Since I hadn’t seen her for such a long time I was like "omg, I've missed you so much, how've you been? You look great! How's your family?, oh do say hi to your mum for me" and I pretty much kept talking to her for like five minutes without really giving her a chance to speak. When she finally got a word in edgeways, she looked at me stunned and said
Turns out it wasn’t actually my friend but someone who looked exactly like her :S, the girl looked quite scared of me
What have you enjoyed most about living there? Least?
I'm assuming you mean in Egypt?
The things I most enjoyed:
1. The food – oh god, travel the whole world if you want to but I promise you there is NOTHING like Egyptian cooking, you’re a food fanatic like myself, you'll appreciate the beauty of its diverse cuisine. We're obviously very influenced by the Mediterranean with foods from Greece, turkey, Italy etc. Egyptian food is truly the most delicious type you will come across.
2. The weather: sun, sun and more sun. You will NEVER get tired of waking up to it , right now its sunny with a cool breeze.
3. The life: this applies to most of Egypt but especially to Cairo. This is the real city that never sleeps, and I mean not even for a second. Usually when I'm off uni , I go out everyday and come home around 4 a.m, and that’s nothing out of the ordinary since my grandmother does the same!
You see, the Egyptians love to talk, interact and eat and none of this is possible when they're asleep so they don’t really go to sleep much
Worst things about living here:
the traffic and pollution – most of the Egyptian population (around 8 million) live in Cairo or Alex (for several reasons which would really bore you if I started discussing!). This means that these cities have become largely over crowded and polluted. What once was a journey that took us 15 minutes by car now takes us 45 minutes.Ok, you want proof? To get to my uni every single day it should take me around 45 mins to an hour. It takes me approximately 2 hours going there and 2 and 1/2 hours coming back and this has become completely normal now. Take note, if you ever want to live in Egypt you better get used to loving your ipod/radio because its going to be what you spend your most time with in the car.
2. The corruption – there's a lot of corrupt people over here, that’s all I'm saying.
Would you consider moving to any other country in the Midddle East?
Urm… right now most Middle East countries are not exactly the safest places to live so it would be difficult but if I had a choice it would be:
LebanonJordanSyriaBut Egypt is the nicest one so….i don’t think id want to move
How did you feel about middle school (or whatever name your school system gives to being in school at 12 and 13 years old)?
Well….. I think it was alright, it wasn’t the worst experience of my life but it wasn’t the best either.
I mean , I used to have ADD (I say used to because it was quite prominent back then but its mild now) so I didn’t make a lot of friends around 12-14 , around 15 though, I started to come out of own world a little bit more and started to make friends.
It wasn’t all that bad but I wouldn’t want to repeat it.
What are your goals and ambitions for your life?1. To live a good life doing good things that help people and please God.
2. I want to be genuinely happy from the heart with whatever I end up with, whether it be a great job, a wonderful mansion and loads of money or a modest flat with a big family and simple life.
3. I think id like to be fulfilled job wise too, Id want to a job that was interesting and I was good at
What's the best thing about being you?My family: I really do have such a nice family, I thank God everyday that im with them, they get me through the hardest times.
Whats the worst thing about being you?urmm..... i think the worse thing is having to travel 4 hours everyday to uni
ahh no, I'm not sure, i think people would hate to be me if they realised how paranoid i was.
Is there a question you wish you had been asked? If yes, please tell us and answer itI think you guys really went all the way with these questions but i always like to be asked questions on certain things i know a lot about (just so i can babble on really!) but i think some of you have already done that with regards to questions about Egypt.
oooh i know! no one asked the dessert island cliche question!
Q. If you were on a dessert island, what would be the one thing you'd bring with you?
A. If the Island had signal then a mobile but if it didn't then an ipod with limited memory and charge.
What's your dream job?
I really want to be a journalist for the Egyptian media, i feel right now , it's stuck in a rut and id like to be the one of the people to change it!
If you were given one global-scale problem to solve in any means you wished, what would it be, and how would you go about designing and implementing a solution?
Personally i think the very basic world thirst and hunger are the most important issues today, i mean, it's the minimal requirement of living.
I don't think i know enough about the ways in which to solve this problem so i would definitely call in the experts, anyone that has an idea, i would even send ads and notices asking people for help and ideas (millions of brains are better than one!). I would then look and analyse, with my experts, the best ideas and use more than one to see what would be the most effective.
I'd start off with the place most in need (personally, i think Darfur is in pretty bad shape right now) and if this plan worked there then i would go on to use it with all other countries.
What is life to you? (Note: "42" is not a valid response. )
aww and that was going to be my answer as well! (kidding, i swear!)
wow..........thats not an easy one to answer.
this is for ME personally, i think everyone should be free to believe and think whatever they want but this is my personal opinion which applies to me exclusively:
A big part of my everyday life and how i handle things comes from my faith, Islam.
I believe in doing good things that benefit everyone and not just yourself. Selfless acts which should come naturally and not with resentment.
I think we are put on this earth for a certain reason and if we are given the capabilities to do things and we dont then we have wasted our purpose. for example:
if God gave you brains - you try to figure a cure for cancer/become a teacher to others
if God gave you money - you use to help those who dont have it, afterall, if we were in their place we'd want the same help.
Therefore, life to me is about serving a certian purpose, something which is not only helpful to you but to others aswell.
You seem very creativeâ€â€Âquickly, make up a fake biography for your life… as a superhero!
such a good question!!
urmmm, this is off the top of my head quick so if its rubbish , you only have yourself to blame!
lets see: i'd be a super hero everyone needs and my hip super name would be "right change girl"
imagine the scenario:
you're in tescos/wallmart buying some chewing gum for 25p/cents when OH NO! all of a sudden you discover all you have is a crisp £20/$20 note that you really dont want to break into, i mean just look at that note, its clean and pretty and if you break into it you know you'll get all this awkward change that will hang around in your wallet for years to come. Oh the horror!
but HAVE NO FEAR, RIGHT CHANGE GIRL IS HERE!
i will magically transform whatever pound notes you have into the right change you need so you're not left with a wallet full of 5ps and 20ps.
How did i get this way you ask?
its a sad story actually, one day, i was attempting to pay for a mars bar at my local corner shop when all of a sudden, this radioactive till comes to life and starts chasing after me, i tried to run but it was just too fast , so this radioactive till bit me and gave super human right change powers.
and the rest...is history
(haha, okay, i challenge anyone to make up a more lame story, i will personally pay you if you can!)
What is the one thing you most want people to remember about you?
I guess that i'm a good person who would gladly help anyone if they ask for it.
That would be a sweet thing for people to remember me by.
And when life is all said and done, what would your epitaph be?Here lies Nourana fun lovera hard workerand a generally all around nice girl
A note upon his desk"P.S. Bring Me Home And Have Me!"Leather elbows on a tweed coat-Oh!-Is THAT the best you can do ?So came his reply :"But on the desk is where I want you!" | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Randomised clinical trial: deep remission in biologic and immunomodulator naïve patients with Crohn's disease - a SONIC post hoc analysis.
As treatment goals in Crohn's disease (CD) evolve, targets now include clinical remission (CR), mucosal healing (MH) and biological remission [C-reactive protein normalisation (CRPnorm )]. To evaluate the association of baseline factors and treatment with the achievement of different composite remission parameters at week 26. This post hoc analysis of the SONIC trial evaluated different composite remission measures at week 26 in a subgroup of patients with Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) scores, CRP, and endoscopic data available at baseline and week 26 (N = 188). Assessed composite remission measures were: CR (CDAI < 150) and MH (absence of any mucosal ulcerations), previously referred to as 'deep remission;' and alternative composite endpoints: CR + CRPnorm (CRP < 0.8 mg/dL); CRPnorm + MH; and CR + CRPnorm + MH. Among analysed patients, 136/188 (72.3%) achieved CR and 90/188 (47.9%) achieved MH at week 26. All composite outcomes were significantly greater (Bonferroni significance level, P ≤ 0.016) with combination therapy (i.e. infliximab and azathioprine; 52.3-63.6%) vs. azathioprine monotherapy (12.9-29.0%; p ≤ 0.005 for all comparisons). Composite remission rates including MH were significantly greater with combination therapy (52.3-56.9%) vs. infliximab (25.6-32.3%; P ≤ 0.015 for all comparisons except CRPnorm + MH, P = 0.017) and vs. azathioprine monotherapy (12.9-20.4%; P ≤ 0.002 for all comparisons). Median serum trough infliximab concentrations among patients who achieved MH or CR + MH were greater when compared with those among patients who did not achieve MH (P = 0.018) or CR + MH (P = 0.053). Among the subgroup of patients with early Crohn's disease, MH alone or in combination with composite remission criteria significantly improved clinical outcomes of patients who received combination therapy. Combination therapy was more effective in achieving various composite remission measures vs. azathioprine or infliximab monotherapy. These data illustrate that 'deep remission' is achievable with combination therapy in a high percentage of patients with early Crohn's disease. ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT00094458. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Amber's right, I like this essay. Especially the point about how men shouldn't view looking hot as something that takes away their intellectual cred, or whatever other cred they've been cultivating. But just the general idea that straight men should do what they can, within reason, to look good, this I support. Stamp of approval. With a few caveats:
-The heart's in the right place - yes, women assess male looks, yes, this fact of life is underreported - but the answer isn't to exactly transcribe male sexuality onto women. The scenario where the woman who looks normal enough to other women walks by, and men one after the next turn their heads to get a better look at her ass (something that we've all seen happen on the street, but also, memorably, something I saw in one of my high school classes, whenever this one girl would stand up. Teachers, do not do this.) Women's heads turn when hot guys walk by, but it's not typically so anatomical. Whenever you've seen images ("I'm a Samantha!") of women doing this, of women hooting, hollering, and leering at the backsides of men, what you're witnessing is a point being made, that women can be just as visual as men. But it's about making a point - women who are being visual don't typically show it in the same way as men.
-The women are born with it, men must work out for it argument: Here, I think, too much of a distinction is being made between men and women. Faces are hugely important for both sexes, and unless all you need is the removal of a harmless but enormous mole, any attempts to make major structural changes will only make you look odd. (Or so tell me the moments I've caught of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.") Then comes the importance of male physique beyond abs or no abs - a slender, broad-shouldered man is not going to "need" to work out the same way as a heavyset, round-all-around one will. And yeah, the height thing - women who don't notice short men won't start noticing them if they start working out. The women who already do notice short men have already proven they're not noticing men on account of those men's conventional attractiveness, and are unlikely to be swayed by a bicep.
-Meanwhile, female beauty is natural? I will disabuse all of that notion with one word: weight. Women who are naturally slim - as in, who don't need to agonize or diet or work out to maintain physiques that would not in a million years be called "fat", are already few and far between. But even such women were once girls, and girls - all girls - are taught how not to become fat. It's virtually impossible to be a woman in our society who doesn't associate food with unwanted weight gain. Women's relationship to food is just fundamentally different from that of men, such that whereas some men worry about their weight for aesthetic reasons, all women do. Even women who couldn't get fat if that were the desirable build and they ate cheesecakes every night in the hopes of piling on the pounds. The big breasts-flat chests distinction the author makes is one that, assuming we're talking about What Men Want, is only being applied to women who are already thin. Thinness is assumed. Not the same thinness as one finds on the runways, but still many sizes down from what most women in America fit into.
But even if there were some class of woman aged up-to-23 (at which point we all degenerate into hags - "23" is coming, let me be clear, from the post, not from four years past-it me) who could effortlessly seduce all men by parading by in bikinis, what good are a lot of naturally beautiful coeds? For all the talk of 40-year-old men who "only" date women under 25, the fact is that there aren't a whole lot of very young women in the grown-up dating pool. Even the rare non-rich, non-famous man who finds himself a 24-year-old girlfriend will, if things go well, soon enough have a 28-year-old on his hands. Point being, the Naturally Beautiful Woman for all intents and purposes doesn't exist.
-Yes, people should take care of themselves. But is working out really the behavior that women demand? Women notice looks, but not necessarily in predictable, "the more he looks like Brad Pitt, the better," ways. Given how men's clothing works, as the poster remarks, women don't know, in a classroom, party, or workplace setting, which guys have abs, unless they really are big-time bodybuilders. Height, face, hair, general body-shape (some physical activity helps, but it doesn't need to be at the level of regular gym-going - it might help some obese men lose weight, or some sickly-looking men look more hearty, but for a man of average build?), these are the factors according to which looks-judgements are made; barring any major surprises underneath clothing, looks are no longer an issue. Frankly, I don't think heterosexual women, certainly not past junior year of high school, expect abs. Unless the guy's a professional athlete, it would, to many women, seem strange if a man took off his striped button-down and underneath were abs like the ones comically painted onto aprons. For a grown man to have "abs" is equivalent to a grown woman having no cellulite whatsoever - it's a trait far more likely to be advantageous in a career as a model for exercise-equipment ads than a deciding factor in gaining attention from opposite-sex partners.
Those were the minor quibbles. The major one: Yes, whether she wants to be a poet or an astronaut, a woman still knows she has to put on lipstick. But there's a tradeoff: the fact that women pay attention to our physical appearances is viewed as making us less serious than men in the same fields. Oh, women can be serious (think Cuddy vs. House, women in Apatow flicks...), but we don't have the option of being too-brilliant-to-bathe. In fact, not caring adds to the appeal of some men in some fields - the rock star, poet, professor, artist, editor end of things, not, say, law, medicine, or finance. By not caring, a man might signal that he's so talented that it would lower him to the rank of mere mortals if he cleaned up nice. Or, long story short, it's assumed (incorrectly, which is another story) that men strive for career success in part for glory and in part to get women, making their drive greater than that of women, whose professional achievements if anything detract from their sex appeal. For a man who ought to be able to "get girls" from professional success alone, any obvious effort when it comes to self-presentation or even just social ease is viewed as a flaw.
But not all men are tortured geniuses, let alone in fields where posing as one would be tolerated. Even so, women who don't just wear chic clothes but think about clothes have pretty much thrown in the towel. There's an element to female concern about our own looks that isn't about pleasing the opposite sex, or even about conforming to gendered social norms. It is enjoyable for many women to dress up. If the mere facts of having long hair or wearing lipstick are viewed as suspect, any interest taken above and beyond what's necessary to attract men or look reasonable in professional settings is... you might as well start twirling your hair and greeting people with a chipper, "Like, hi!" Because an interest in fashion is mistakenly conflated with an interest in looking at one's self in the mirror and grinning smugly (see Quinn on "Daria" - Vice President of the Fashion Club), an interest in self-presentation is confused with vanity, vanity with idiocy and superficiality, and so on. Or, in less rambling terms, it's possible to dress up "for one's self" and inadvertently please the opposite sex, but because dressing up for fun is something associated with women (and, fine, gay men), the only kind of attention men are allowed to take is... abs. Where oh where are these straight women rejecting otherwise viable men on account of their abs?
6 comments:
I'm not sure that the OP is saying that the only form of attention men are permitted to take is abs. There's far too much emphasis on men's consciousness of self-presentation through embrace of particularized personae for that (so much, in fact, that FLG took pains to reject the essay on that ground). It's more that, as noted in the first couple of paragraphs, 1) traditional Western men's clothing allows for a relatively limited range of expression; 2) working out is cheap/free whereas new wardrobes cost money; and 3) improvement in physical appearance through increased musculature is compatible with whatever existing aesthetic or form of self-presentation men currently embrace.
Too, I'm not sure that "abs" necessarily means 300-style heavy contouring; more likely, it means that there is some discernible muscle not obscured by fat. These are not the choices. And even in a shirt and tie among men of average build, it's often clear which work out moderately and which do not.
First off, it's my own damn fault for clicking on an ab-improvement link in a coffee shop.
As for the rest, points well taken. Point 3 especially - the idea that certain "types" of man aren't compatible with a hot bod is ridiculous. Or - and this is what I was getting at here - it should be ridiculous. But there's a way in which certain guys - the Great Genius Success types - take pride in slovenliness, and end up paradoxically impressing enough women with their too-brilliant-to-bathe-or-exercise attitude that there's really not much in it for such men when it comes to working out. Granted not that many men are in that category, but more think they are than are, and sometimes giving the impression is enough. If that makes sense.
Anyway, I think an alternative might be simpler - for example urging significantly overweight men to lose some weight, significantly underweight ones to gain some. This could be done in part through exercise, but such changes, difficult as they are and as much as they'd come up against the 'but I want to be me objection mentioned in the post, would be of great use for men who want to vastly expand their options. I mean, maybe it's sometimes possible to tell which averagely-built men work out and which don't. I find it hard to believe this would be a deciding factor in many straight women's assessments of them. (Or, at least, I care plenty about male appearance, as has been well established, and have dated across the workout-like-crazy to what-are-sneakers spectrum, and I can't imagine this being something I'd take into account.) Whereas I don't find it at all hard to believe women reject men for being obese or emaciated.
As someone formerly susceptible to the "too brilliant to ____" type, my response would be that these things tend to work themselves out, no pun intended. And the more men are pushed toward considering self-presentation, the more likely that counterexamples in the form of Geniuses with Abs will arise and snap brain-groupies from their trances. (In retrospect, it seems so obvious that any true genius could manage to read cutting-edge scholarship or think deep thoughts while exercising.)
But should the pressure come from intelligent straight men urging one another to work out? I'd think the best place for this change to begin would be with women themselves. If the schlubby geniuses stop being able to get dates, they'll get less schlubby. Realistically, I could see this happening once there are enough established female geniuses that women attracted to intelligence start seeing this as a trait one seeks in a peer, as opposed to one one must "win" with big breasts and shiny hair.
"urging significantly overweight men to lose some weight, significantly underweight ones to gain some" is hardly a new idea, is it? And men are told plenty already. I mean, I'm not exactly obese, though definitely overweight (BMI of 26), but people still keep telling me to lose weight often enough.
If you're a straight man, I suspect whatever pressure there is on you to lose weight is far less than that on far slimmer women.
Since you mention BMI, I'm wondering if what you're referring to is pressure from a doctor to lose weight. There, men and women probably do confront similar levels of pressure. But in the dating world, there's no comparison.
Book forthcoming!
In Spring 2017, my first book (of many, no doubt, if I disable Netflix) will be appearing, with St. Martin's Press. Its working title is The Perils of Privilege. For a taste of what's to come, try the "YPIS" tag here. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
632 N.E.2d 377 (1994)
John BIBERSTINE, Appellant-Defendant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
No. 70A01-9306-CR-195.
Court of Appeals of Indiana, First District.
April 18, 1994.
Transfer Denied June 22, 1994.
*378 Michael R. Burrow, Wolf & Burrow, Greenfield, for appellant.
Pamela Carter, Atty. Gen., Louis E. Ransdell, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
BAKER, Judge.
Today, we decide whether the erroneous admission of sexually explicit evidence constitutes fundamental error or ineffective assistance of counsel. Appellant-defendant John Biberstine seeks a new trial based upon the erroneous admission of a sexually explicit magazine and related testimony during his jury trial for Child Seduction,[1] a Class D felony, three counts of Child Molesting,[2] two Class C felonies and one Class D felony, and Battery,[3] a Class A misdemeanor. In addition, Biberstine attacks the consecutive sentencing.
FACTS
On July 5, 1992, Biberstine and his wife engaged in a heated argument which erupted into a physical altercation. Biberstine's sixteen-year-old step-daughter, A.B., called her minister for help. During the telephone call, A.B. related that Biberstine had been molesting her for four years. The minister contacted the police that day. Upon obtaining A.B.'s incriminating statement, the police arrested Biberstine. His wife consented to a search of their residence, wherein the police confiscated a sexually explicit magazine about incest, entitled "Homestyle Affairs," and Biberstine's calendar.
*379 On July 6, 1992, Biberstine confessed to the police that he had been molesting A.B. for approximately four years. During his confession, he admitted that he recorded in red ink on his calendar the number of times that he had oral and sexual intercourse with A.B.
At the jury trial, Biberstine recanted his confession and denied molesting A.B. He maintained that the calendar entries in red ink indicated the number of times he masturbated, not the times he had intercourse with A.B. Biberstine admitted that he had had Playboy and Penthouse magazines but had destroyed them days before A.B.'s accusations. He denied ever possessing the "Homestyle Affairs" magazine, and claimed that someone planted it in his basement.
A.B. testified that Biberstine had told her that he recorded their sexual interludes on his calendar in red ink. A.B. further testified that he had shown her his "girly magazines." Three police officers identified the "Homestyle Affairs" magazine as the only one found in Biberstine's basement. The magazine was admitted into evidence without objection and passed to the jury members. No objections were made concerning any testimony about the magazine. Biberstine was convicted on all five charges. The trial court ordered his sentences to be served consecutively.
DISCUSSION AND DECISION
I. Fundamental Error
Biberstine first argues that the "Homestyle Affairs" magazine and the related testimony were irrelevant and unduly prejudicial. Biberstine acknowledges that he did not object at trial to the admission of the magazine into evidence or the related testimony, and he recognizes that failure to object results in waiver of the issue. See Steelman v. State (1992), Ind. App., 602 N.E.2d 152, 157. He contends, though, that the admission of this evidence constituted fundamental error; and thus, he did not waive this error by failing to object at trial. For an error to be fundamental, and thus transcend the procedural requirement that an objection be made at trial, the error must have been so prejudicial to the defendant's rights that he could not have received a fair trial. Id. at 157-58.
Biberstine relies upon Rafferty v. State (1993), Ind. App., 610 N.E.2d 880, in which sexually explicit paraphernalia and related testimony were deemed irrelevant and unduly prejudicial where the evidence was never linked to the alleged child molestations. In Rafferty, obstinate objections to the admission of the prejudicial evidence were timely made but overruled. On appeal, we found that the erroneous admission of the evidence was not harmless error because it bolstered the State's witnesses' testimony which was the only evidence against the defendant. Id. at 884. Since Rafferty involved merely a credibility contest, we ordered a new trial because the erroneous admission of the irrelevant evidence prejudiced Rafferty's right to a fair trial. Id.
Biberstine correctly contends that the admission of the magazine and related testimony were irrelevant. The State failed to ascertain whether Biberstine showed the magazine to A.B. as a prelude to the molestations. Moreover, A.B. was not asked to identify the "Homestyle Affairs" magazine. Because the magazine was never linked to the charged crimes, it was irrelevant. See Rafferty, at 883. However, a new trial is not required here because Biberstine's trial differs greatly from Rafferty in that it was not simply a credibility contest. Besides A.B.'s testimony, the jury also heard Biberstine's admissible confession of the crimes. Although he recanted at trial, claiming that he confessed only because he thought that it would show A.B. how important his family was and prompt her to retract the accusations against him as false, his confession was substantial independent evidence that supports the jury's verdict. Thus, we find that the evidentiary error was harmless. See Ind. Trial Rule 61. Because Biberstine has not shown that he could not have received a fair trial, his fundamental error claim fails.
II. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
In a further attempt to avoid waiver of the erroneous admission into evidence of the magazine and related testimony, Biberstine *380 contends that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. An ineffective assistance claim requires a showing that counsel was deficient and that prejudice resulted from the deficient performance depriving the defendant of a reliable trial result. Marshall v. State (1993), Ind., 621 N.E.2d 308, 321.
Specifically, Biberstine asserts that his counsel was deficient in not objecting to the admission of the magazine and the related testimony. First, we note that Biberstine's defense was that A.B. fabricated the molestations out of anger. In corroboration of this defense, he denied possession of the "Homestyle Affairs" magazine and urged that someone planted it in his basement in order to buttress A.B.'s allegations of incest. The courts will not speculate about more advantageous strategies. Fugate v. State (1993), Ind., 608 N.E.2d 1370, 1373. We find that under the specific circumstances here, the decision not to object to this evidence was one of trial strategy. Although Biberstine's defense strategy was unsuccessful, it was not ineffectiveness of counsel. See id.
Additionally, in light of our fundamental error discussion, Biberstine's ineffective assistance claim similarly fails because he cannot establish that the trial result was unreliable.
III. Consecutive Sentencing
Biberstine's third claim is that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering his five sentences to be served consecutively for a total of sixteen years and one hundred twenty days, of which five years was suspended. Trial courts have broad discretion in imposing consecutive sentences, but they must explain the reasons underlying the sentencing decision. May v. State (1991) Ind. App., 578 N.E.2d 716, 723. To be adequate, an explanation must include: 1) a list of the significant aggravating and mitigating factors, 2) a statement of the specific reason why each factor is aggravating or mitigating, and 3) an evaluation and balancing of the factors. Id. Biberstine argues only that the trial court did not satisfy the second requirement. See Sims v. State (1992), Ind., 585 N.E.2d 271, 272. The trial court's explanation cannot merely recite the statutory factors, but rather must relate in some detail the facts peculiar to the defendant and the crime in order to facilitate appellate review of sentencing. May, at 723.
Biberstine correctly contends that the trial court did not delineate the particular facts of the case for each factor cited. The trial court identified the following aggravating factors: 1) Biberstine's complete lack of empathy for the victims, 2) the crimes were repeated over a long period of time, 3) they required a great deal of calculation, 4) there was more than one victim, 5) Biberstine's need for rehabilitation appropriate in a penal facility, 6) the carefully contrived execution of the crimes, and 7) Biberstine's attitude reflected in the police statements, at trial, and at the sentencing hearing indicated a high probability that the crime could recur. One aggravating factor may support the imposition of consecutive sentences. Jones v. State (1992), Ind., 600 N.E.2d 544, 548; Berry v. State (1990), Ind. App., 561 N.E.2d 832, 840. The last aggravating factor cited is an adequate explanation that illustrates the trial court's reasons for ordering consecutive sentences.
Additionally, we find the sentencing hearing transcript supports the trial court's recitation of the other aggravating factors. See Jones, at 548 (appellate court may examine the record for indications that the trial judge engaged in the required evaluative process). Thus, although the trial court did not articulate its reasons for each aggravating factor supporting consecutive sentences, we have examined the record and found indications that the trial court engaged in the proper evaluative process and the aggravating factors are supported by the record.
Judgment affirmed.
NAJAM and RUCKER, JJ., concur.
NOTES
[1] IND. CODE 35-42-4-7(e).
[2] IND. CODE 35-42-4-3(c) and (d).
[3] IND. CODE 35-42-2-1.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
WATCH: Jennifer Lawrence Reacts To Her SAG ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’
Jennifer Lawrence continues her media takeover with not one, but two television appearances on Thursday night. However, the busy taping schedule did cause a bit of a hiccup — she taped her interview for “Jimmy Kimmel Live” earlier in the evening, causing her to be late to “Piers Morgan Tonight”, which is actually broadcast live. Don’t worry, Morgan let it slide.
Lawrence rushed onto Morgan’s set in a black top with sheer sleeves and a red pencil skirt, and the host immediately bombarded her with a quote from Rolling Stone about her personality traits: “She’s rude, dirty, funny, foulmouthed, sloppy, sexy, vibrant and vulnerable, sometimes all in the same scene, even in the same breath.” She admits to all of them, except for the sexy part, which she just laughs off: “[I] try to figure out what to do with what I got.”
Then Morgan showed her and Silver Linings Playbook director David O. Russell the “wardrobe malfunction” at the SAGs (which he actually mistakenly referred to as “the Globes”) for the very first time. Her subsequent play-by-play is just hilarious. “My pants fell off!” Watch it right here:
Later on that same night, Lawrence’s pre-recorded interview with Kimmel airs on the tube, and we get another look at her enviable hair, and at a curve-hugging peplum Emilio Pucci dress, which appears to have a little hole right in the side seam. Whatever, she still looks good.
Lawrence chatted about taking two tequila shots with the show’s producers, being sick with pneumonia for most of awards season (she blames the Hollywood Foreign Press for infecting her), and how easy it is to get her parents tickets to the Oscars. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
[en] Our focus is on the joint analysis of longitudinal nonnormal responses and early discontinuation in (pre)-clinical trials. Separate models are fitted to the two series (response and discontinuation) to account for covariate and time effects. The serial dependence and the dependence between response and drop-out are also modeled. This is done using particular dependence functions, called copulas. Copulas are used to create a joint distribution with given marginal distributions. Applications are given for the analysis of heart rate/morbidity in toxicology and pain severity/intake of rescue medications in a trial on migraine. Using copulas, the level of dependence between two variables remains invariant to changes in the marginal distribution of either variable. This proves interesting in modeling the association in a longitudinal setting when responses change over time. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
(CNN) The Senate returns for a critical three-week period when Republicans will try to salvage their health care bill. But it's clearly in deep trouble and they might not be able to save it.
Things are looking especially tough after the bill hung out there over the recess (which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell badly wanted to avoid) and it got battered by voters and senators.
Watch Tuesday's Senate lunch -- that's when we might get the first real indications of the week on which direction leadership is moving, and it'll be an opportunity for leaders to take the temperature of the conference on how they're feeling after the week-long recess.
Maybe the clearest sign that things aren't looking good? President Donald Trump's tweet Monday morning : "I cannot imagine that Congress would dare to leave Washington without a beautiful new HealthCare bill fully approved and ready to go!"
CNN's latest whip count on the "no" votes: 10
At least 10. Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota became at least the 10th GOP senator to publicly oppose the bill in its current form with remarks he made to local media and a public statement released during the July 4 holiday.
*First caveat: 10 = only the Republicans who have publicly said no. There could be more, and other Republicans -- while perhaps not saying directly that they'd oppose the legislation as written -- described concerns or reservations they had about the current proposal.
*Second caveat: Plenty of the "no" folks have said they want to get to a yes, and some ultimately could.
What's the deal with McConnell?
What he said in Kentucky last week: Republicans might need to work with Democrats to prop up Obamacare if they fail to pass repeal and replace legislation.
No, McConnell isn't giving up on health care, and he's not yet close to pulling the plug. (And these weren't new comments -- McConnell has brought up the possibility of having to work with Democrats to stabilize markets the day he delayed the vote two weeks ago.)
Two ways to read McConnell's comments:
This has been a genuinely difficult process. The needle that he's trying to thread to get to 50 "yes" votes is very, very tough. It's not a secret that there is real frustration about how long the health care exercise has dragged on.
This is a warning shot to Republicans -- They can either suck it up, and vote for a bill that isn't perfect (and it's never going to be perfect for everyone). Or they can let the bill fail and stomach the political reality of reneging on a promise they've been making for years and years -- and the fact that the next necessary step would be to work with Democrats to do damage control on Obamacare.
What happened over the July 4 recess?
JUST WATCHED Collins still a 'no' on GOP health care bill Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Collins still a 'no' on GOP health care bill 00:53
Exactly as McConnell had feared and expected -- Senate Republicans got an earful over the July 4 recess. Just a sampling of the political heat GOP senators got when they went home last week:
Hoeven made clear he was against the bill.
Sen. Susan Collins: People in Maine are telling her "they don't want me to support it."
Sen. Jerry Moran: Said at a town hall in Palco, Kansas, that he's still a no , and that the bill would hurt rural communities.
Sen. Dean Heller, who is currently a "no" on the bill, got yelled at by a man back home to vote for the bill. So the pressure goes both ways.
Protesters cropped up everywhere: Outside Sen. Pat Toomey's office; at a Sen. Ted Cruz event in Texas and inside two offices of Sen. Rob Portman in Ohio
What happened over the weekend?
Sen. John McCain did not sound optimistic about his party's chances when he told CBS' John Dickerson on "Face the Nation" when he said the health care proposal was "probably going to be dead."
"I fear that it's going to fail, and then we should convene a Republican Conference and say, what are we going to do? Introduce a bill," the Arizona Republican said Sunday. "Say to the Democrats, here's a bill. It doesn't mean they don't -- that they control it. It means they can have amendments considered. And even when they lose, then they're part of the process. That's what democracy is supposed to be all about."
Also Vice President Mike Pence -- who's been active with Hill Republicans' health care discussions -- went horseback riding Saturday with Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference Roy Blunt of Missouri as well as another crucial White House voice on health care: Seema Verma , administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Thanks @RoyBlunt for joining @SeemaCMS @SecretaryZinke & me on ride thru Rock Creek Park & thanks to @usparkpolicepio for your work everyday pic.twitter.com/rWSM0Gyznh — Vice President Pence (@VP) July 8, 2017
What changes could be made to the bill?
Short answer is we don't know yet what the revised bill will look like. Those conversations will have to happen this week. But we do know at least two potential revisions to the bill that were sent to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring before members left town for the July 4 recess:
The Cruz amendment: Known as the "consumer freedom" amendment, it would allow insurers who offer plans under Obamacare to also offer plans that are unregulated under the law. (Conservatives like this, because they say it would lower premiums; critics -- including some moderate Republicans -- hate it, because they think it means skyrocketing premiums for the sick, as well as weakened protections for those with pre-existing conditions.)
Flexibility for Health Savings Accounts: Another provision that conservatives find appealing, it would offer more flexibility on how people can use HSAs, including using them to pay for premiums.
Don't expect that Cruz amendment to be a silver bullet. A telling comment from one GOP aide last week : "I think there's very little interest in the caucus in touching pre-existing conditions, so I have a hard time seeing the addition of the 'Consumer Choice Amendment.' And outside health policy folks have said that would set up a death spiral for the markets."
Asked about the Cruz amendment, Marc Short, White House legislative affairs director, said: "The White House is very comfortable with the policy. I think the question we all need to address is does it add votes or subtract votes?"
'We'll have a better sense this week after it is scored" and after Cruz talks with more senators himself.
What is the White House saying?
Short acknowledged that the messaging around the health care repeal effort has not been strong and faults all parties involved -- including the administration and congressional Republicans.
"I think it's fair to say the messaging throughout has been underwhelming, collectively, among Republicans," Short told CNN over the weekend. "It's a complicated subject."
Short said a lot of things were under discussion when it comes to how Trump might engage in this sales effort, but was reluctant to say for sure what the President would do beyond additional phone calls.
"You might see the President travel," he said. "You might see more messaging coming from him too." Short would not expand on what that messaging could look or sound like.
If the President does travel to try to sell the bill, he is likely to visit states of wavering Republicans, like Ohio or West Virginia -- though there are no plans for travel set in stone.
A vote next week?
There will be a vote when McConnell decides he has 50 "yes" votes. He's not there yet.
Talk from the White House of a possible vote next week? Just remember how many times the White House predicted votes when the House was considering its bill earlier this year, and how many times those predictions were not accurate. The White House doesn't determine the Senate schedule.
When will we see new CBO score(s)?
Still unclear. But, Senate GOP leaders have been in constant touch with CBO -- all so that when they're ready to pull the trigger, they can get a score from the CBO as quickly as possible.
Short said he expects the CBO score on the latest drafts in the next seven to 10 days.
"This week will be more focused on continuing to talk about the policy that is in the bill with the various senators that are undecided," he said. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to glass manufacturing device.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, methods for manufacturing glass workpieces often include the following steps: cutting a glass substrate into a number of preforms having the same size and shape; gluing the preforms in position using ultraviolet (UV) glue; grinding edges of the preforms to obtain the workpieces; then removing the UV glue to separate the workpieces, which is complicated and time-consuming.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a glass manufacturing device that can overcome the above-mentioned limitations. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
MRC Attacks The Messenger, Won't Admit O'Reilly Is A LiarTopic: Media Research Center
In promoting the Brian Williams controversy, the Media Research Center wanted to make sure you knew that Williams was a liar. With Bill O'Reilly, not only does the MRC refuse to concede he has lied, it's attacking anyone who dares to point out that inconvenient fact.
Jeffrey Lord made the MRC's O'Reilly agenda clear in a Feb. 28 NewsBusters post declaring that O'Reilly lies are irrelevant:
There is a lesson from all of this O'Reilly story, a reminder of exactly how the American Left works. Make no mistake. This story of what Bill O'Reilly did or did not say or do decades ago during the Falklands War is not what this latest dust-up is really all about.
The first objective here was to try and ruin Bill O'Reilly's career. To get him off of Fox News and shut him up. Not coincidentally sending a torpedo into Fox News itself - and more. Much more.
The disturbing fact is that Bill O'Reilly is but the latest figure in what is called "conservative media" to have this experience. And worse? This obsessive drive to destroy - not disagree with, but destroy - conservatives or even those like Bill O'Reilly who do not self-identify as a conservative, (O'Reilly sees himself as a traditionalist or "T-Warrior" as in "traditionalist warrior" and is well out there, as here saying that "I vote all over the map") has spread well beyond conservative media.
Lord makes no mention of Williams -- probably because he cannot plausibly claim that the right-wingers who glommed onto that controversy were not motivated by an "obsessive drive to destroy" Williams. Indeed, as we noted, the MRC was fundraising off it.
The MRC's hypocritical strategy was made even more clear in a March 2 MRC item by Mike Ciandella huffing that "liberal groups attacking Fox News host Bill O’Reilly about his past reporting got more than $15 million from left-wing billionaire George Soros." It's so insidious, according to Ciandella, that "Even some outlets pushing this story that are not funded by Soros have Soros connections."
At no point does Ciandella dispute the accuracy of what this outlets are saying about O'Reilly -- he's just trying to kill the messenger.
And that's the MRC's agenda. Conservatives never lie and anyone who point out that they do obviously has a nefarious puprose. It's easier than admitting the truth.
WorldNetDaily wasn't the only one to fall for a false anti-gay story peddled by a right-wing legal group.
In a Feb. 6 MRC TV post, Kristine Marsh uncritically repeated the Pacific Justice Institute's claim that "a Bay Area high school’s freshman English classrooms were taken hostage by the school’s “Queer Straight Alliance” group and grilled about each student’s opinions on gender and sexuality."
Marsh quotes only from a PJI press release, adding that PI and its leader, Brad Dacus, "have good reason to complain. This isn’t the first incident of sexual propaganda and intimidation students have undergone at Acalanes High School."'
But as Media Matters reported, the story is bogus. Unlike Marsh, Media Matters contacted the school district, which confirmed that PJI's biased version of events "does not reflect what actually took place."
Will Marsh correct her blog post? It appears unlikely -- it's been nearly two weeks since PJI's deception was exposed, and her post remains uncorrected.
The Media Research Center went nuclear on the exaggerations of NBC's Brian Williams, despite the fact that MRC chief Brent Bozell is guilty of much more serious falsehoods. But the MRC won't call out Fox News' Bill O'Reilly for making similar exaggerations, and as they continue to pile up, the MRC has now taken to sniping at O'Reilly's accusers.
Bozell has been utterly silent on O'Reilly -- after all, liars stick together. Thus, the role as chief sniper has fallen to Tim Graham, despite his role in helping Bozell hide the fact that he ghost-wrote Bozell's syndicated columns for years. (If Graham didn't speak out on the issue, he helped conceal it.)
Graham grumbled in a Feb. 24 NewsBusters post: "The left is trying to knock off O’Reilly after the Brian Williams scandal." As if the MRC's attack on Williams wasn't motivated much more by partisan hatred than concern for journalistic integrity.
The fact that Graham's post is mostly about an irrelevant side issue of whether a Washington Post blogger should have disclosed his wife's employment with Mother Jones, the magazine that first disclosed O'Reilly's exaggerations, shows that the MRC will be playing blame-the-messenger on O'Reilly in a way it didn't regarding Williams.
Indeed, Graham attacked another messenger in a Feb. 25 post, bashing GQ for daring to opine on O'Reilly:
No one looks to GQ for political analysis. It would be like looking to Rolling Stone for religion coverage. But they can still ape the rest of the liberal media and mock Fox News. As the Fox haters campaign to get Bill O’Reilly canned, GQ (not an abbreviation for Genius Quotient) has come up with a mocking list of “18 Things That Actually Would Get Bill O'Reilly Fired.”
Graham took it even farther promoting his post on Twitter, seemingly questioning the sexuality of anyone who questions O'Reilly by sneering that GQ is "Foppishly against Fox":
In a response to ConWebWatch, Graham denied he was questioning the sexuality of O'Reilly's critics: "'Foppish' doesn't mean gay, you doof."
Graham's not alone in aggressively ignoring the substance of the charges against O'Reilly. In a Feb. 25 NewsBusters post, Randy Hall similarly borrowed from the kill-the-messenger playbook: "Could this assault on the most popular person in cable news for 15 years be an attempt to balance the scales after the liberals recently lost former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams? Only time -- and ratings -- will tell."
At no point does Hall acknowledge the factual basis behind the accusations against O'Reilly.
MRC Deflects '50 Shades' By Bring Up 'Passion of the Christ'Topic: Media Research Center
While WorldNetDaily went into full freakout mode over the "50 Shades of Grey" film, the Media Research Center took a different appoach: unfavorably comparing it to the film "The Passion of the Christ."
During its opening weekend at the box office, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ came close to being the top grossing R-rated movie with a February opening in history, raking in $81.67 million during its first weekend in theaters – Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Feb. 13-15 -- but it still fell short of the $83.85 million record set by ‘The Passion of the Christ’ in 2004.
According to a weekend box office report from Universal Pictures, ‘Fifty Shades” easily dominated movie theaters on Valentine’s Day weekend, but failed to top Mel Gibson’s hit depicting the death of Christ released more than a decade ago on Feb. 25, 2004, the Ash Wednesday of that year.
Hughes was apparently citing an estimate of "50 Shades'" weekend take; the link she provides as evidence currently shows that "50 Shades" took in $85.1 million that weekend, topping "Passion" for best February opening.
MRC officials Brent Bozell and Tim Graham spent their Feb. 21 column harrumphing that "50 Shades" "debuted to far less controversy than The Passion of the Christ in 2004." They continued:
Before and after The Passion's release, there was great derision about its supposed anti-Semitism. CBS called it an "ecumenical suicide bomb." The New York Daily News ridiculously claimed it was "the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II."
Actually, far from "ridiculous," there is a very solid case to be made for "Passion" containing anti-Semitism. As the National Catholic Reporter notes:
[Director Mel] Gibson made a film that confirmed many stereotypes of the Jews, such as depicting the moment when the bag of silver was tossed to Judas in slow motion and Judas looked at it lovingly; the "bad" Jewish men with fang-like teeth and the "good guys" with nice teeth; the sneering hatred from the high priest when he questions Jesus; and Pilate calling the Jews "filthy rabble." Certainly not the first to do so, Gibson uses stereotypes, some more subtle than others, to create a group of "bad" Jews to confront the "good" Jews consisting of Jesus, Mary and their followers who would be thought of as aligned with Christians today.
That Gibson was making a conscious choice to reject and negate Judaism is indisputable when we see the sign on the cross. "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" is written only in ecclesial Latin and Aramaic. He rejects the Greek as detailed in John 19:20, and Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire at that time. Thus, according to Adlerstein, Gibson creates "a tension between Aramaic/Hebrew; he does not create a bond but severs it."
Further, the fact that Gibson has since revealed himself to hold anti-Semitic sentiments would seem to bolster the case that "Passion" includes anti-Semitism.
The Media Research Center went ballistic on Brian Williams' exaggerations -- not because it cares about journalistic integrity so much, but because it saw an opportunity to futher the personal destruction of a despised target.
But now that questions have been raised about beloved conservative-leaning personality Bill O'Reilly's exaggerations about being in a war zone during the Falklands conflict, what do we hear from the MRC now?
Crickets, essentially.
The story has been out for a good three days now, and the the only thing to appear on any MRC outlet about O'Reilly is a Feb. 20 News Busters post by Matthew Balan promoting former CNN newsman Frank Sesno's claim that O'Reilly's exaggerations aren't as severe as Williams'.
Well, right-wing liars have to stick together -- after all, MRC chief Brent Bozell spent 15 years lying that he wrote his syndicated column.
Kristine Marsh is very excited to use a Feb. 12 Media Research Center item to promote a study that conforms with the anti-gay agenda of her and her employer (boldface is hers):
Now a new larger-scale and more scientific study in the U.S. has been published with contrary results, and all we get from the media is embarrassed silence.
The study titled "Emotional Problems among Children with Same-Sex Parents: Difference by Definition," was conducted by sociologist and priest Donald Sullins of the Catholic University of America and published in “The British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioral Science” this month.
Sullins set out to discover whether the Australian study’s findings could be replicated using more reliable methodology. So he took a larger representative sample from the general population: 207,007 children, including 512 with same-sex parents, from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey.
The results of the study were not good for children of same-sex parents:
Eight of 12 psychometric measures used in the study showed that children with same-sex parents experienced more distress than children of opposite-sex parents. The results were "clear, statistically significant," and "of substantial magnitude," after controlling for age, sex, race, education and income. For four of the measures of emotional and behavioral problems, children raised by same-sex parents were at least twice as likely to experience difficulties compared to children raised by opposite-sex parents.
While Marsh was quick to attack as "flawed" an earlier study showing that children of gay parents, in her words, "were healthier and happier than children of hetero parents" (parroting the anti-gay Family Research Center) she exhibited no interest in hesitating to promote Sullins' study before others whose political agenda is less invested in its results could take a look at it.
And it appears to be even more flawed than Marsh claims the earlier study is. Steve Williams at Care2 outlines the numerous problems with the study, starting with the fact that Sullins has conducted research for the FRC's Marriage and Religion Research Institute and, thus, his objectivity on the issue is in question.
Williams points out that the "207,007 children" Marsh touts as being studied by Sullins as lacking significant research controls:
If we are studying same-sex parents and comparing them to opposite-sex parents, it logically follows that, given marriage offers a raft of benefits that support child-rearing, we should control for whether the same-sex parents were married like (presumably) most of the heterosexuals in this study were, or at least inquire as to the marriage status of all involved. This is not controlled for in the study.
Secondly, we would also take into account one key fact: if the same-sex attracted parents had a child as the result of a previous heterosexual relationship, this obviously will have a bearing on the child’s emotional well being because they will most probably have had to endure a break-up and divorce. The study does not adequately account for this fact either.
Third, the study should also have controlled for whether the same-sex parents were in stable longterm relationships that specifically included the cohabiting partners each taking on a parenting role. By the study’s own admission, same-sex parents were classed only as “those persons whose reported spouse or cohabiting partner was of the same sex as themselves.” Again, there appears to be no adjustment for this meaningful variable.
Williams also notes that Sullins' framework is designed to produce unfavorable results for same-sex parents, he makes assertions that his own study doesn't support, and that the study's results appear to have been rushed with an eye toward influencing court cases on same-sex marriage.
Don't expect Marsh to go back and update her article with Sullins' flaws -- after all, only his initial conclusions matter. Such further research at the MRC is only for studies that don't advance the MRC's agenda.
A new poll commissioned by the Media Research Center reveals that the tales Brian Williams told – which led to his eventual suspension without pay – have severely undermined his credibility with the American people. In a survey of 1,007 respondents: -
- 66.1 percent said Brian Williams should have been fired after he was caught in numerous lies. Williams famously lied about being in a helicopter that was shot down over Iraq and seeing a dead body float by his New Orleans hotel during Hurricane Katrina.
-- An overwhelming 71.6 percent of respondents said that despite the anchorman's apology and suspension, he should still resign.
-- In the same poll, 61.6 percent said they are less likely to trust NBC News if Brian Williams is allowed to return as anchor of NBC Nightly News.
But the post omitted a couple of important things: the full results of the poll -- which most pollsters provide -- and the specific wording of the questions (which would be stated in the full poll results). That raises questions about exactly how fair the poll was.
One bit of information was noted that points us toward the answer: the poll was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates. NewsBusters doesn't disclose it, but McLaughlin & Associates primarily works for Republican and conservative causesand candidates, which tells us that McLaughlin likely crafted the poll's questions to get the result the MRC wanted.
The article on the poll by Barbara Hollingsworth at CNSNews.com also failed to provide the full poll results or disclose that the MRC's pollster is a conservative operation, but she did include the wording of questions:
“NBC suspended ‘Nightly News’ anchor Brian Williams for six months after he was caught in numerous lies, including fabricating a story about being shot down in a helicopter over Iraq and seeing a dead body float by his hotel in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. In your opinion, should he have been fired?” pollsters asked.
[...]
“[If] Brian Williams is allowed to return as NBC’s anchor, reporting the nightly news after being caught in numerous lies, are you more or less likely to trust NBC News?” respondents were asked.
The MRC and McLaughlin are overstating the facts -- deliberately so, one must assume. It hasn't been definitively proven that Williams "lied" about what he saw in New Orleans; others in New Orleans have expressed doubt that Williams could have seen what he claim he did.
And even Williams' story of "being shot down in a helicopter over Iraq" is not the "fabrication" the MRC wants you to believe it is. The pilot of Williams' helicopter admits that it was struck by small-arms fire during the incident in question (but not the rocket-propelled grenade that actually struck another copter in the convoy in which Williams was embedded).
The fact that the questions emphasize the "numerous lies" Williams allegedly told demonstrates the slanted nature of the poll. The MRC must be pleased that it got the results it paid for.
Of course, the MRC presentation of its slanted poll would not be complete without MRC chief Brent Bozell ranting against Williams:
“This poll confirms that the American people no longer trust Brian Williams to report the news. When the American people believe by such wide margins that your lead anchor is a liar, you have no other option but to fire him if he will not do the honorable thing and resign. Any effort by NBC News to rehabilitate its tarnished brand can only begin under new leadership for its flagship nightly news program. This is no longer about Brian Williams’ reputation. This is about NBC News having any chance of being a credible source of news.”
We can probably assume that the poll never asked a question about whether a syndicated columnist who passed off the work of others as his own -- as Bozell did for 15 years -- should also be fired. But since the MRC has refused to make the full results of the poll public, we may never know.
That Brian Williams six-month suspension has fallen flat. His critics aren't mollified. His supporters are clearly dispirited. Everyone knows this one is not over -- though his tenure at NBC may very well be done.
The suspension isn't going to work for the same reason his apology went nowhere. It resolves nothing.
Hubris. So many celebrities -- be they politicians, journalists, artists -- refuse to accept that the cover-up and obfuscation is always worse than the crime. Time and again, when honesty and humility beckon, they are nowhere to be found.
Bozell might as well be writing about himself. As we've documented, Bozell has yet to face any punishment for years of presenting Graham's work ghostwriting his column as his own -- only when it was exposed last year did Bozell consent to adding Graham's byline to his, and he still won't retroactively credit Graham for his earlier work.
Yet he has the hubris for attack Williams for exaggerations that led to the suspension. Ofcourse, Bozell and Graham don't care about journalism -- they care about having Williams as a scalp on the walls of the MRC's spacious new headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C.
But Bozell and Graham not content to wallow in hypocrisy -- they also want to rewrite history as well, setting up St. Ronnie as an example of how to handle a scandal:
Ronald Reagan did address Iran-Contra immediately, personally taking responsibility and firing staff responsible. But the body language of his administration and supporters (we were in that number) was different: The Contra cause was noble (and it was), therefore the funding was, well, clever. Except it was illegal.
When the Lebanese newspaper "Al-Shiraa" printed an exposé on the clandestine activities in November 1986, Reagan went on television and vehemently denied that any such operation had occurred. He retracted the statement a week later, insisting that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal. Despite the fact that Reagan defended the actions by virtue of their good intentions, his honesty was doubted. Polls showed that only 14 percent of Americans believed the president when he said he had not traded arms for hostages.
Bozell and Graham conclude by lecturing:
Brian Williams lied. The honorable thing was to apologize honestly and completely, and resign. His career would have been resurrected immediately. If he refused to, the honorable decision from Comcast/NBC was termination and a corporate apology (which they owed anyway). Neither happened. Instead it was a bizarre long-term suspension, and another self-inflicted wound, and more bleeding as the Peacock Network's credibility disintegrates.
We'll believe their sincerity about this when Bozell does the honorable thing by apologizing for his years of deception and resign as MRC president. But Bozell simply doesn't have the guts to live up to his own self-proclaimed standards.
Again, everything appearing under Bozell's name about Williams may as well be writing about Bozell himself. Is that perhaps Graham's revenge for years of unsung ghostwriting?
Jorge Bonilla -- the current face, near as we can tell, of the Media Research Center's MRC Latino operation -- starts his Jan. 30 NewsBusters post rather boldly:
The central premise of a recent New York Times article is simple enough: If only Republicans were to submit to Univision (and, by extension, anchor Jorge Ramos) on immigration, then they may receive more favorable coverage that does not depict them to the network’s Hispanic viewership as hateful, racist, anti-immigrant monsters, and then they may have a chance to garner more of the Hispanic vote, with the blessing of the community’s self-appointed gatekeeper.
Bonilla, however, couldn't be bothered to actually quote from the Times article he's attacking, so apparently he wants us to take his word for it.
Thus, unambitious NewsBusters readers will miss the part of the Times article pointing that Ramos, in addition to being critical of Republicans' anti-immigration stance, has called out President Obama for "breaking his 2008 campaign promise — made directly to Mr. Ramos — that he would propose an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system in his first year in office, and for deporting two million people since."
Bonilla quickly ratchets up the rhetoric, accusing the Times (and, by extension, Ramos) of figuratively (or maybe literally) wanting to kill interview subjects:
The first thing that comes to mind with the Times’ take on the subject is a sense of (with apologies to Yogi Berra) déja vu all over again. What we are witnessing here is the return of the nasty plata o plomo tactics (literally "silver or lead" - the Spanish phrase that means you either cooperate by giving a bribe, or you get a bullet) previously deployed during Univision’s 2011 war on Senator Marco Rubio.
Apparently, holding Republicans accountable on immigration is much worse than, say, suggesting that those doing so are engaging in violence, figuratively or otherwise.
In case it isn't clear, Bonilla and the MRC have Ramos in their (figurative) crosshairs for the sin of not spouting conservative rhetoric on immigration. Indeed, five of Bonilla's last seven NewsBusters posts are focused on Ramos.
Bonilla takes another shot at Ramos in a Feb. 16 post, sneering that Ramos "is fond of reading his own press" and that conservative attacks on him are "legitimate." Then Bonilla -- who accused Ramos of "plata o plomo tactics" -- complained that Ramos "had the audacity to complain that conservatives want to SILENCE him as a result of his biased coverage."
Bonilla then complains that "No journalist that encourages activism, abandons neutrality, and routinely spits out partisan talking points should expect to go unchallenged." If Bonilla is really serious about challenging biased journalists, he doesn't even have to leave the MRC headquarters to do so -- he can readthebias at CNSNews.com.
The Media Research Center normally frowns on media outlets airing videos made by terrorists. MRC chief Brent Bozell (well, to be perfectly accurate, his deputy Tim Graham) has denounced al-Jazeera as "a video jukebox for Osama bin Laden and other Arab terrorist fanatics."
But when Fox News was the only major media outlet to air graphic footage from an ISIS video showing a Jordanian pilot being buried alive -- then posted the full, unedited video on the Fox News website -- Bozell and his MRC crew had nothing to say about it.
A search of the MRC and NewsBusters websites found no statements whatsoever on Fox News serving as the PR agent for terrorists as numerous media and terrorism analysts condemned it --hen Fox's in-house media critic, Howard Kurtz, said he disagreed with the corporate decision to air the video because "we are helping spread the fear that ISIS so badly wants to spread."
This is another example of the MRC refusing to apply its own standards against those with whom it ideologically agrees. We've detailed how the MRC wouldn't criticize "60 Minutes" reporter Lara Logan for bungling a story on the Benghazi attack because her distortions and falsehoods furthered the right-wing agenda to exploit Benghazi against President Obama.
CBS “Evening News” attempted to show that there is no link between vaccines and autism on Feb. 10, but seemed confused that anti-vaccination views got “traction at all.”
CBS News National Correspondent Jim Axelrod did a good job of showing how a “discredited” study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield scared parents away from the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, but he failed to acknowledge that his own network played a part in that fearmongering.
He failed to criticize CBS’s role in publicizing the false claims of a link between autism and MMR vaccinations, even as he aired earlier “60 Minutes” footage of parents who blamed their son’s autism on the shot. Axelrod also ignored the fact that the three broadcast news networks combined helped sustain anti-vaccination views by airing 171 stories that mentioned vaccines and autism over 15 years.
Rossell doesn't mention that one of the chief promulgators of anti-vaxxer sympathy at CBS was Sharyl Attkisson, now a right-wing darling for her factually challenged anti-Obama reporting.
As we've documented, the MRC criticized Attkisson's anti-vaxxer reporting at the time but has been virtually silent about it since she became a conservative cause celebre.
By ignoring Attkisson, Rossell avoids having to confront the uncomfortable question of why Attkisson couldn't be trusted then but is unimpeachable now.
NEW ARTICLE: Lies And The Lying Liars Who Attack Others About Their LiesTopic: Media Research Center
Perhaps Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell -- who lied for years about writing his own column -- is not the person who should be calling for NBC anchor Brian Williams' resignation over a falsehood. Read more >>
On the Feb. 6 edition of Sean Hannity's Fox News show, Bozell asserted that Williams was "lying about everything" and that "the honorable thing for him to do is to resign."
As we'vedocumented, Bozell spent more than 15 years perpetuating the lie that he actually wrote his twice-weekly syndicated column, until the lie was exposed last year. And unlike Williams, Bozell has yet to even discuss his lies publicly -- despite having a weekly guest shot on Fox News -- let alone apologize for his deception or doing the honorable thing of resigning from the MRC.
How ironic that the man calling out an alleged liar is a liar himself.
Bozell's fellow guest, former military pilot Amber Smith, claimed Williams had told a "10-year lie." How would she feel if she knew she appeared on "Hannity" with a man who told a 15-year lie?
We've highlighted how Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell has no moral authority or credibility to demand that NBC's Brian Williams be fired over a falsehood -- after all, Bozell still has a job despite lying for 15 years about the authorship of his syndicated column.
Now, Bozell is in vendetta mode. A letter he sent to the MRC's mailing list starts:
I need you to take immediate action to help us bring down one of the most partisan left-wing propagandists on television.
NBC’s Brian Williams shamelessly LIED about being inside a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq.
The fact that Bozell begins with his plan to "bring down one of the most partisan left-wing propagandists on television" before he gets to Williams' falsehood tells you that he doesn't actually care about the lie itself. He does care that he can exploit the lie as a cudgel to achieve a his goal of personally destroying Williams.
Demonstrating this further, Bozell goes on to rant in his letter:
Brian Williams’s influence extends far beyond NBC Nightly News viewers. He is beloved by the liberal entertainment media and routinely makes the rounds on Comedy Central and the late night talk show circuit.
This makes him all the more powerful.
Brian Williams is one of the biggest Obama cheerleaders on television. This is a man who infamously BOWED to Obama. He is a left-wing partisan who is committed to advancing the Left’s agenda.
And now he’s been exposed as a LIAR. He has no credibility and MUST be ousted.
Oh, and Bozell wants you to send money to his multimillion-dollar organization to accomplish this:
NBC News is feeling the heat. But we MUST maintain momentum to force NBC to pull the trigger on Brian Williams.
There is one major roadblock to our effort…we did not plan for this campaign and so we did not budget for it.
Your generous donation will make the difference between Brian Williams continuing to anchor NBC Nightly News or losing his job.
Needless to say, Bozell does not explain to his readers why a shameless liar has any moral authority to lead this crusade.
As we said previously, if Bozell ever had the guts to apply the standards he's forcing on Williams to himself, he would resign from the MRC immediately and profusely apologize for misleading his readers for more than 15 years.
But Bozell is not a man of integrity; he is a man who has a vendetta to carry out.
NEW ARTICLE: Envy and Spite At The MRCTopic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writers' disdain for the success of the political satire of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert sure looks a lot like jealousy. Read more >> | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Periodontal disease among indigenous people in the Amazon rain forest.
People are not all equally susceptible to periodontitis. To understand the epidemiology and natural history of this disease, it is important to study populations with varying genetic backgrounds and environmental exposures. Characterize the periodontal condition of a sample of indigenous adults in a remote region of the Amazon rain forest and determine the association of periodontal disease with various demographic, behavioral and environmental factors. A cross-sectional evaluation of 244 subjects aged 20-70 years was conducted. Pocket depth (PD), clinical attachment level (CAL), bleeding on probing (BOP), plaque and calculus were assessed for the Ramfjord index teeth. These people had high levels of plaque, calculus and BOP. The mean PD was rather shallow (2.45 mm in 20-29 year-olds to 2.73 mm in 50+ year-olds) and did not increase significantly with age. Mean CAL (0.57 mm in 20-29 year-olds and 2.26 mm in 50+ year-olds) and mean location of the free gingival margin in relation to the cemento-enamel junction changed significantly with age (p<0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed that increasing age, bleeding on probing and calculus scores were positively associated with mean CAL (p<0.01). Sex, ethnicity, level of modern acculturation, use of coca or tobacco paste, frequency of dental visits and plaque were not associated with mean CAL. Periodontal disease in these people was mainly associated with gingival recession rather than deep pockets. Most people had clinical attachment loss but despite poor oral hygiene and extensive gingival inflammation, they did not have very severe periodontal destruction. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
(Getty)
Eight men have been arrested for holding a “gay party” in Indonesia.
The two alleged organisers of last night’s event in Surabaya, the second biggest city in Indonesia, could face up to 15 years in prison.
Six other attendees have had charges filed against them under the country’s strict anti-pornography law, according to Agence France-Presse.
Shinto Silitonga, the local police’s head of detectives, said there were 14 men in two hotel rooms watching gay porn and performing “deviant sexual acts”.
“This is the first time we enforce the law and arrest gay people in the city,” he told AFP.
Silitonga, who regularly posts on his Facebook page about arrests he’s made, wrote that police had confiscated motorcycles and cars from the arrested men at what he called a “GAY PARTY”.
He claimed the men had been stroking each other’s chests, adding: “May the law enforcement approach be one instrument to minimise similar actions.”
It is not clear what damage the men were causing – or, indeed, what law they were breaking – by allegedly stroking each other.
Being gay is not illegal in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, except in Aceh, a province which won this concession from the government in 2005 as part of a peace deal.
Just last month, two men were arrested under this law, and face being hit up to 100 times each with a cane.
The 20 and 23-year-old men were informed on by their neighbour, who took video footage of them allegedly having gay sex.
The country is secular, but its anti-pornography law, passed in 2008, is seen as trying to target liberals and the LGBT community.
The law was heavily backed by Islamic parties who helped to draft it, and opposed by minority groups.
Last year, the government announced it would ban access to Tumblr because the site featured LGBT content and porn, before eventually reconsidering.
And anti-LGBT discrimination is generally widespread in Indonesia, to the extent that a study last month found it could be costing the country $12 billion per year.
This is because attitudes towards LGBT people have become steadily more extreme in recent years, despite a growing gay population.
The Indonesian Psychiatrists Association classifies homosexuality, bisexuality and being transgender as illnesses.
And in January, petitioners argued in the country’s Constitutional Court that sex outside of marriage – such as LGBT sex – could turn Indonesia into an “uncivilised nation” and should be criminalised.
A gay couple from the country’s North Sulawesi province were arrested last year after they posted photos on Facebook showing them kissing in bed.
Also last year, it was announced that the country’s government would clamp down on gay culture – instituting a ban on online “gay propaganda” after a request from the police.
Communications ministry spokesman Noor Iza confirmed that apps including Grindr, Blued and BoyAhoy would be blocked, claiming they were “promoting gay lifestyles”. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Allegedly drunk RTD bus driver sentenced to 1 year
According to an announcement by the Denver District Attorney, a man who was detained for driving drunk while working as a contract driver on an RTD bus was sentenced to one year in jail. The man’s sentence was handed down on Jan. 26 at his sentencing hearing.
Reportedly, the man was arrested in September 2014 after a passenger on the bus allegedly noticed he was driving erratically in the area of Clermont Street and East Ninth Avenue. After officers removed the man from the bus, his blood alcohol concentration allegedly registered .211 percent.
While the legal limit for driving in Colorado is .08 percent, it is only .04 percent for commercial drivers. The man entered a guilty plea to attempting to endanger public transportation and DUI in November. This conviction reportedly marked the man’s fifth DUI offense. In addition to the one-year sentence, an additional year in jail was suspended. He will be required to complete two years of alcohol treatment and probation upon his release from jail. If he violates the conditions, the additional year may be imposed.
The man’s plea and resulting sentencing demonstrates that in some cases, working towards obtaining a favorable plea bargain may be the best option. The man’s original charge, endangering public transportation, is a felony offense in Colorado, carrying the potential of a prison sentence. People who have been accused of a DUI offense and who also have several prior convictions may want to seek the help of a criminal defense attorney. A defense attorney may be able to negotiate a favorable plea even if the arrest and charges are sound. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
879 F.Supp. 403 (1995)
SPEAR, LEEDS & KELLOGG, Plaintiff,
v.
CENTRAL LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY, Alexander Hamilton Life Insurance Company of America, Inc. and Canada Life Assurance Company, Defendants.
No. 94 Civ. 0868 (KTD).
United States District Court, S.D. New York.
March 30, 1995.
Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, New York City (Howard Schiffman, Woody N. Peterson, Jeffrey A. Spector, of counsel), Washington, DC, and Rogers & Wells, New York City (John M. Quitmeyer, Barry W. Rashkover, of counsel), for plaintiff Spear, Leeds & Kellogg.
John J. Phelan, III, P.C., New York City and Weisenfels & Vaughan, P.C., Kansas City, MO (J. Michael Vaughan, of counsel), for defendants Central Life Assur. Co., Alexander Hamilton Life Ins. Co. of America, Inc., Canada Life Assur. Co.
MEMORANDUM & ORDER
KEVIN THOMAS DUFFY, District Judge.
Plaintiff Spear, Leeds & Kellogg ("SLK") seeks a preliminary injunction against three life insurance companies: Central Life Assurance Company, Alexander Hamilton Life Insurance Company of America, Inc., and Canada Life Assurance Company, (collectively referred to as "Defendants"). Plaintiff seeks to enjoin Defendants from compelling Plaintiff of submit to arbitration. For the reasons stated below, Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction is granted.
Plaintiff is a registered futures commission merchant and a member of the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE" or "Exchange"). As such, is subject to the Constitution of the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE Constitution") and the Exchange Arbitration Rules ("NYSE Rules"). Defendants are life insurance companies who are not members of the NYSE. Pursuant the NYSE Constitution and Rules, Defendants filed an arbitration demand seeking recovery of monies they paid out on life insurance policies of a customer of SLK. Plaintiff claims that it is not subject to NYSE arbitration because it has no transactional nexus with Defendant, and therefore, the NYSE Constitution and Rules relied upon by Defendant do not apply.
Plaintiff opened a commodities account for Marvin Goodman in 1990. Prior to opening the account, SLK states that they conducted a background check on Goodman, and found no financial or regulatory problems. Plaintiff set up Goodman's account in the same way that Goodman's previous account with Balfour Maclaine Futures, Inc. ("Balfour"), also a NYSE member, was established. Goodman transferred his account from Balfour to Plaintiff. Goodman maintained various subaccounts with Plaintiff, all of which bore his name and social security number. Some of these subaccounts had debit balances *404 and some had credit balances. According to Plaintiff, SLK sent these account statements on a regular basis to Goodman and to people specified by Goodman.
Goodman had also obtained life insurance policies from Defendants and others in excess of $23 million. Part of the applications for the life insurance required Goodman to supply Defendants with his financial statements. Apparently, Plaintiff's account statements were among those submitted by Goodman. Defendants supplied $3 million and upon Goodman's sudden death were required to pay $1.9 million to the policy beneficiaries. Many of the recipients of this money were clients of Goodman's for whom he had made various investments. Goodman apparently hid from his clients that their investments had lost money. According to Plaintiff, Goodman had been "doctoring" the account statements when he received them from SLK and sending out inaccurate statements to his clients. SLK alleges that they knew nothing of Goodman's actions until after his death. Defendants allege that Plaintiff either falsified the documents or knew of the falsification and seeks to hold SLK liable for the amounts paid out on the insurance policies. To this end, Defendants filed a "Statement of Claim" in an arbitration demand with the NYSE. The instant action to enjoin arbitration followed.
DISCUSSION
The standard for granting a preliminary injunction is well settled in this Circuit. The plaintiff must show "(1) irreparable harm and (2) likelihood of success on the merits." Reuters, Ltd. v. United Press Int'l, Inc., 903 F.2d 904, 907 (2d Cir.1990) (quoting Coca-Cola Co. v. Tropicana Products, Inc., 690 F.2d 312, 314-15 (2d Cir.1982)). In the alternative, the plaintiff must show that there are "sufficiently serious questions going to the merits to warrant litigation and a balance of hardships in favor of the movant." Roso-Lino Beverage Distributors v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 749 F.2d 124, 125 (2d Cir.1984).
If a court determines that a valid arbitration agreement does not exist or that the matter at issue clearly falls outside the substantive scope of the agreement, it is obliged to enjoin arbitration. PaineWebber Inc. v. Hartmann, 921 F.2d 507, 511 (3d Cir.1990). (hereinafter referred to as "Hartmann"). In the present case, there is no agreement between the parties, and thus, no arbitration clause to bind the parties. A party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has not agreed to so submit. AT & T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers of America, et al., 475 U.S. 643, 648, 106 S.Ct. 1415, 1418, 89 L.Ed.2d 648 (1986). A party so situated will suffer per se irreparable harm if a court compels the party to submit to arbitration when it has not agreed to do so. See Hartmann, 921 F.2d at 515. Never having agreed to arbitrate, SLK will suffer irreparable harm if it is forced to submit to arbitration.
The second factor to be considered on a preliminary injunction motion is whether Plaintiff has a likelihood of success on the merits. The determination of, whether a matter is arbitrable is one to be made by the court. Litton Financial Printing Division v. NLRB, 501 U.S. 190, 208, 111 S.Ct. 2215, 2226, 115 L.Ed.2d 177 (1991). Both the Constitution and the Rules are clear and unambiguous as to the arbitration of disputes. The issue lies in whether there is a sufficient relationship between the member (Plaintiff) and the non-member (Defendants).
It is undisputed that Plaintiff never had any direct contact or business transaction with Defendants. Goodman obtained the life insurance policies independently of Plaintiff and without Plaintiff's knowledge. Defendants do not claim they were customers of Plaintiff.[1] Defendants do not claim there was any contractual relationship with Plaintiff. In fact, Defendants do not allege any contact with Plaintiff at all. Rather, Defendants claim that their reliance on falsified documents, whether by the fraudulent conduct of Goodman or that of Plaintiff, makes Plaintiff accountable to Defendants.
*405 Defendants issued various life insurance policies to Goodman which named various trusts as the beneficiaries. Upon Goodman's death, Defendants paid the proceeds of the insurance to the trusts. The requirements of the trusts resulted in the money being paid to Goodman's customers. Defendants seek to hold SLK liable for the misdeeds of its customer. Whether Defendants claims have merit is not for me to determine. The matter before me involves solely the arbitrability of Defendants' claims.
In order for Defendants to compel Plaintiffs to submit to arbitration, they must show that the relationship between the parties is of the nature specified in the NYSE Constitution and the Rules. See Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, Inc. v. The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., 728 F.2d 577, 580 (2d Cir.1984) (hereinafter referred to as "Paine, Webber"). The NYSE Constitution, art. XI, ¶ 1501, § 1 provides, in pertinent part:
... any controversy between a member ... and any other person arising out of the business of such member ... shall at the insistence of any such party be submitted for arbitration in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution and such rules as the Board may from time to time adopt.
Id.
The Rules state substantially the same provision:
(a) Any dispute, claim or controversy between a non-member and a member ... arising in connection with the business of such member ... shall be arbitrated under the Constitution and Rules of the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. as provided by any duly executed and enforceable written agreement or upon the demand of the nonmember.
Id.
The question becomes whether the dispute between Plaintiff and Defendant "arises out of" the business of Plaintiff. This is a case of first impression and one that was expressly left open by the Court of Appeals in Paine, Webber. 728 F.2d at 580 n. 5. If the claims arise out of the business of Plaintiff, then the matter must be arbitrated. However, if it is determined that the claims do not arise out of Plaintiff's business, Plaintiff cannot be forced to submit to arbitration. Defendants base their claims on the fact that financial statements generated originally by Plaintiff were apparently supplied to them by Goodman. There is a question as to when the documents were altered. Defendants assert that the documents were prepared falsely by Plaintiff. Plaintiff states that it provided Goodman with accurate account statements, and that it learned subsequently that the documents were altered and sent to Defendants.
Defendants mischaracterize the role of the NYSE Arbitration system. They cite to the presumption in favor of arbitration, and argue that the court should defer to the presumption. (Def.'s Mem.Opp'n Prelim.Inj. at 9); see Pearce v. E.F. Hutton Group, Inc., 828 F.2d 826, 829 (D.C.Cir.1989). Defendants' reliance is misplaced. In Pearce, the Court applied the presumption due to the existence of an arbitration agreement between the parties. Id. The statement emphasized by Defendants that the NYSE is an example of an industry that effectively utilizes an arbitration system is accurate, but nonetheless is inapplicable to this situation. The Pearce court also noted that "arbitration is a creature of contract." Id. (citing Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U.S. 213, 218, 105 S.Ct. 1238, 1241, 84 L.Ed.2d 158 (1984)). Given the absence of a contract between the parties, there is no presumption of arbitrability.
In determining the arbitrability of the claims, I look not to the merits of each party's case, but to the nature of the dispute and the people involved. The absence of any agreement whatsoever is fatal to Defendants' case. There is no indication that Plaintiff intended that the NYSE Constitution and Rules be applicable with regard to Defendants. This is because Plaintiff never transacted any business with any of the defendants. In fact, there is no indication that Plaintiff even knew that Goodman had obtained life insurance, much less be subject to arbitration of a dispute resulting therefrom. To rule otherwise would lead to the absurd: "[A]ny rule extending the arbitration provisions to controversies not arising out of exchange-related *406 business would do significant injustice to the reasonable expectations of exchange members. Such a rule would require every exchange member, at the insistence of the nonmember, to submit to exchange arbitration every dispute it has with any entity in the world, no matter what the subject matter." Paine, Webber, 728 F.2d at 581.
The arbitration provision contained in the NYSE Constitution and Rules which provides for arbitration between members and nonmembers has largely been applied in purchase and sale of securities. See Paine, Webber, 728 F.2d at 579, 580. In these cases, the NYSE Rules on Arbitration were incorporated by reference and made part of the agreements. Id. at 580. Here there is no agreement, no sale, and therefore no contractual obligation to arbitrate.
Plaintiff is bound to abide by the NYSE Constitution and Rules. However, it is not bound to Defendants in any way. The fact that Goodman supplied Defendants with incomplete or inaccurate financial statements does not rise to the level necessary to involve the creator of the original documents. In all its papers, Defendants do not once refer to the existence of any transaction or business with Plaintiff. I cannot find any relationship between the NYSE member and the nonmember, except that the nonmember was the insurance carrier of a customer of the member. There is no authority establishing the point at which a sufficient nexus is reached between the parties to warrant NYSE arbitration, but wherever that point may be, this situation is far from it. Accordingly, Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction enjoining Defendants from compelling them to submit to arbitration is granted.
SO ORDERED.
NOTES
[1] At one point in their brief, Defendants argue that they "stand in the shoes" of the customers, but this argument is unfounded. (Def.'s Mem. Opp'n Prelim.Inj. at 26); see 16 Couch, Cyclopedia of Insurance § 61:8 (2d rev. ed. 1983).
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
Yes. Same-sex marriage will deliver economic benefits
How on earth could same-sex marriage deliver 10 years' worth of economic benefits? And why on earth do 18 of Australia's leading economists expect it to?
The experts were surveyed this week by the Economic Society of Australia. Thirty answered this question: "Will changing the law to allow same-sex couples to marry generate net economic benefits for the nation as a whole over the next 10 years?"
Almost always whenever someone claims something will benefit the economy they are wrong. Look at a graph of GDP either side of the Sydney Olympics and you won't see anything other than a drop in GDP during the Games. Tourism flatlined then fell after the Games. It didn't start growing strongly again until 2004. Even the Olympic Stadium, which we were told would be a lasting legacy, is, according to the premier, so clapped out it ought to be torn down.
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Kirsty Albion and Kelly McKenzie, who plan to marry early next year, at the marriage equality plebiscite announcement.
KPMG, which wanted work associated with the Games, produced a much-hyped study for the NSW government saying the Olympics would boost economy growth by $7 billion. A decade later, an examination of what actually happened found it had clipped economic growth. Like countless expressways, stadiums and mega projects before and after it, it had cost more to create than it could ever produce in benefits.
One of the reasons the spruikers almost always get it wrong is that they add up the costs of the project (that's the easy bit) and then subtract them from the project's benefits. For sports events, those benefits include extra spending as people pour into Olympic Park or into Melbourne Park for the tennis. What the spruikers forget, often, is that the people who spend at big events would have spent something anyway, perhaps in their own suburb or at another sporting event or at the theatre. They forget to subtract the spending that won't be done in order that the spending at the big event can be done.
It's a trap for people expecting benefits from same-sex weddings. Professor Kevin Davis from Monash University put it this way in response to the Economic Society survey: "There may be more expenditure on weddings etc, but there is no obvious reason this would not be at the expense of other expenditures."
There can be a localised benefit in a country town. A really big wedding or special event can draw people into the town who never would have spent there. But the gain to that town will be a loss to the region or town from which those people have come.
So why are the experts so sure there will be benefits from permitting same-sex marriage?
Partly, because it's cheap. Passing a law costs nothing compared to building a stadium.
Here's how Lin Crase of the La Trobe University puts it: "Constraints that impinge on individuals' full participation in society necessarily reduce economic welfare. It follows that removal of those constraints should lead to some gains."
Constraints that impinge on individuals' full participation in society necessarily reduce economic welfare
Professor Lin Crase, La Trobe University
This would be true even for people in same sex relationships who decided not to take advantage of the opportunity to marry.
Professor Mardi Dungey of the University of Tasmania says that when we remove impediments to improving people's ability to satisfy their wants, with no material harm to others, we necessarily improve people's welfare.
And Curtin University's Professor Margaret Nowak identifies broader benefits: reduced health costs, especially in the area of mental health, reduced suicide rates among youth, and reduced discrimination in the workforce "resulting in more optimal allocation of workers".
For what it's worth, married couples also spend more. Dr Gigi Foster from the University of NSW says married heterosexual couples invest more in the kind of things that shacked-up couples don't. And she says something else.
Legalising same-sex marriage will allow politicians and the public to move on and focus on other things that could produce further economic benefits. There's a chance. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
You are here
ASIAN 207: Special Topics In Literature And Culture Of Asia
Autumn 2013
Section ID:
AH
SLN:
10494
Meets GE Requirements:
Meets Other Requirements:
Instructor:
F 12:30-13:20
DEN 213
Introduction to the literature of one or more Asian traditions considered in its cultural context. Content varies depending on the specialization and interest of instructor. Texts in English translation. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Colonization with community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in children with atopic dermatitis: a cross-sectional study.
Bacterial infection with Staphylococcus aureus is a common complication of atopic dermatitis (AD). The incidence of community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus infection (MRSA) in the AD population is unknown. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of S. aureus and MRSA in pediatric patients with AD, to compare disease severity, and to characterize the clonal diversity of the isolates. We carried out a prospective, cross-sectional study of 200 patients with AD. The severity of AD was defined as mild, moderate, or severe depending on a composite AD severity score. A swab was taken from the nares of each patient and another from affected skin or folds. Genotyping of all S. aureus isolates was conducted by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the S. aureus protein A (spa) gene. According to the severity score, 66.5% of subjects were ranked as having mild AD, 29.5% as having moderate and 4% as having severe AD. Staphylococcus aureus colonization was seen in 61.5% of all patients, represented by 43.7% of skin swabs and 48% of nares swabs. Only one of the isolations represented MRSA. Older age and higher AD severity scores were associated with S. aureus colonization (P = 0.03 and P < 0.001, respectively). No significant associations were noted for attendance at day care, family members with frequent skin infections, or family members working in healthcare. Isolates from spa CC015 were cultured in 19.2% of patient samples. The single MRSA culture showed a new spa type that belonged to CC127. The results of this study confirm a high rate of S. aureus colonization of pediatric patients with AD. The low rate of MRSA requires further proof from larger prospective studies. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Our thanks to Woman’s Hour today for broadcasting a thoughtful and informative item about the recent unprecedented spike in teenage girls presenting to the Tavistock gender clinic in London. We are very glad to see this subject covered, when usually we only hear an unquestioning positive account of “transgender kids” throughout the mainstream media.
1,398 children and adolescents have been referred to the Tavistock Clinic this year (compared to 697 last year) and of that number almost 1,000 are girls. Girls have been over-represented at the clinic for the past five years, with the disparity between boys and girls increasing year on year.
Throughout their interview, both Polly Carmichael and Bernadette Wren from the Tavistock clinic referenced the “social revolution” and the rapidly changing context within which teenage girls are making the decision to transition. Various points were made, such as the fact that people are much more accepting now and we live in a world where people surgically alter their bodies, a possibility which did not previously exist. Dr Wren’s view: “I don’t think we should necessarily take a negative view of this” was echoed in her neutral stance on the “phenomenal unexpected increase” in the number of girls referred to the Tavistock this year: “it’s not for us to approve or disapprove.”
Although it was reassuring to hear that the clinicians see their job in terms of “holding” these girls, enabling them to “get on with their lives without necessarily jumping into the physical interventions,” we feel there does need to be an ethical debate about whether this is a positive or negative development, given that we are talking about medically unnecessary invasive interference with healthy bodies, with some irreversible effects and a lack of research on the long-term health effects. This is not something about which we can afford to be neutral. Use of terms like “social revolution” make it very clear that the recent transgender phenomenon is sold as a social justice cause rather than a medical one, but those adolescents caught up in it will nevertheless be medical patients for life as long as they identify as transgender.
There was some exploration of the reasons why teenage girls in particular may feel that “being male and having a male body” is an attractive proposition: that many young girls have problems with their bodies, hate the development of their secondary sex characteristics and find developments such as menstruation especially distressing. Reference was made to the pressure on girls from our very “visual culture” but it would have been nice to hear a more serious and thorough exploration of how much the highly sexualised, pornified culture which surrounds young girls today has exacerbated the body dysmorphia already common amongst teenage girls. The “anxiety about being forced down a particular path” posited as a motivation to transition would seem to fit what we already know of how the normalisation of porn has vastly increased the societal pressure on girls to accept their role as being primarily sexual commodities for men. Is it really surprising that so many teenage girls don’t want to become women?
The typical case scenario was described as a girl who has already gone through puberty, who previously thought her feelings of being different and not fitting in were to do with her sexuality, but “starting to learn about trans” at around age fourteen or fifteen has given her an alternative interpretation of her feelings. Although this was seen as “positive,” this is the aspect of trans culture which we feel needs the most serious examination: if young lesbians are being encouraged through online trans forums to re-identify themselves as heterosexual transgender men, this amounts to the erasure of lesbians. People may be more accepting of transgenderism now, but how accepting is our culture of lesbianism? Compared to the media circus around all things trans, lesbians are almost invisible. What help and support is there for teenage girls to accept and celebrate a lesbian identity?
Within the changed “social landscape” referred to as an explanation for the increased “honesty” in girls’ reasons for wanting to transition, there is no mention of this relentless media promotion of transgender ideology as truth, nor the susceptibility of young minds to the influence of the media’s portrayal of transgender people as cool, special and glamorous.
The interview with Sasha, a 26-year-old former transgender man, now identified as non-binary, represented clearly the reason why there is a great need for more understanding of girls’ typical problems at adolescence as well as a recognition of the social contagion of trans blogs, websites and forums: “There is a lot more information out there now and it is mainly females who look at these sites” says Sasha.
This very thoughtful young person described a history of being depressed at age twelve, with suicidal feelings expressed by cutting and self-harm; an adolescent who “didn’t fit in” and felt that life would be easier as a man because “certain paths would be more suited to who I am,” a clear expression of the rigid cage many girls feel themselves to be trapped in.
Sasha took puberty blockers at age eighteen, halting menstruation which eased the more triggering symptoms of dysphoria, and then moved on to testosterone after a year. Two years on testosterone was followed by a double mastectomy and chest reconstruction surgery.
What jumps out from this account are Sasha’s statements around the changing nature of identity:
“I identify as non-binary now, neither male nor female, very different to when I went to the Tavistock. My identity has become more fluid recently. I don’t regret anything, my decisions were right for what I was feeling then. But now I think there may have been more options I didn’t consider then – I wish I’d taken things a bit slower and waited a bit longer.”
This was a very moving and honest interview which demonstrated clearly the issue of the immaturity of adolescents whose identity is not fixed but developing. It is noteworthy that Sasha’s current age is 26, just over the age when the brain reaches full adult development.
Given the current climate of silencing any debate, it was brave of Sasha to speak so honestly, and brave of Woman’s Hour to broadcast an account of a trans/non-binary person who expresses reservations about the process of transitioning. As far as we know this is the first time that a mainstream media outlet has done so, and they will no doubt face outrage from transgender lobbyists who will pronounce Sasha’s story as atypical and unrepresentative.
For all teenage girls however, and perhaps especially lesbians, stories like this need to be heard and we salute Woman’s Hour for giving this issue airtime on national radio.
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| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
You probably don't want to leave them plugged in all at once for various reasons. First and foremost, if the amp doesn't have a switch for the outputs, that means it's likely wiring each up all the time (in parallel) and when you plug in more than one you will changing the impedance of the output dramatically. r = 1 / ((1 / r) + (1 / r2) + (1 / r3) ...)). In your specific case,
1 / ((1 / 32) + (1 / 50) + (1 / 300)) = 18.32 so you're now driving an 18.32 ohm load. That might be stable for that amp, but keep in mind the current draw will also be increased dramatically while the voltage is the same across each.
Your headphones will also have a very different sensitivity. The volume knob at 9 o'clock will be driving the RS1s and LCD2 a lot louder than the HD800s so if you decide to crank up the HD800 you may damage the other 2 in the process.
You may also get some interesting side effects from background noise caused by each headphones bleeding into each other. I'm only guessing here, but moving magnets produce their own current and voltage which will be put on the same wires as your other headphones. I doubt you'd hear it, but it'd probably be measurable.
Basically what I'm saying is, don't do it unless you have an amp with three amp circuits that can drive each independently. Studio monitor amps can have this kind of thing, but not high end audiophile amps. Like this http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/HA4700.aspx
So now I will need to either keep plugging/unplugging the headphones or get dedicated amps.
The latter should be more fun because even if I do get DEDICATED amps, this will undoubtedly end up in me switching headphones and trying different amps.
So now the (amp)hunt begins.
Any suggestions are most welcome
By the way, I don't think I bumped the thread "often", it was just once. And that too because of the time zone difference
It was bedtime here and I would have had to wait till the next morning ( which, in any case, is exactly what happened)
Quote:
Originally Posted by dan1son
No need to bump the thread that often. Maybe once a day.
You probably don't want to leave them plugged in all at once for various reasons. First and foremost, if the amp doesn't have a switch for the outputs, that means it's likely wiring each up all the time (in parallel) and when you plug in more than one you will changing the impedance of the output dramatically. r = 1 / ((1 / r) + (1 / r2) + (1 / r3) ...)). In your specific case,
1 / ((1 / 32) + (1 / 50) + (1 / 300)) = 18.32 so you're now driving an 18.32 ohm load. That might be stable for that amp, but keep in mind the current draw will also be increased dramatically while the voltage is the same across each.
Your headphones will also have a very different sensitivity. The volume knob at 9 o'clock will be driving the RS1s and LCD2 a lot louder than the HD800s so if you decide to crank up the HD800 you may damage the other 2 in the process.
You may also get some interesting side effects from background noise caused by each headphones bleeding into each other. I'm only guessing here, but moving magnets produce their own current and voltage which will be put on the same wires as your other headphones. I doubt you'd hear it, but it'd probably be measurable.
Basically what I'm saying is, don't do it unless you have an amp with three amp circuits that can drive each independently. Studio monitor amps can have this kind of thing, but not high end audiophile amps. Like this http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/HA4700.aspx
Maybe you're one of the lucky ones in the UAE and have some cash to spend :p. The best advise I can give you is to not trust the audio advise of others. I like my HD800. At our Brisbane meet, many people were... disappointed with them. They thought they would love them. They were wrong.
I think having 3 headphones plugged into one amp is kind of silly. If you're wanting to switch between different headphones, go buy a switch! It would be a pretty easy DIY job too. :).
There are a lot of options out there, especially considering you're willing to drop several thousand dollars on amps.
I'm more of a low-end audiophile grade guy since I don't have that kind of cash to spend on gear at the moment (22 month old/wife due Monday with #2), and I don't find the extra grand you can spend worth that much in sound quality.
Either way... my suggestion to you is not just go for different sound sigs across styles of amps, but also try different types of amps. Get some solid state amps (discrete and opamp based), tube amps, hybrid amps perhaps, with/without DAC, etc. Tubes might sound great with the HD800, but mediocre with the Grados... might as well have the other option at hand.
The tube and opamp based amps also have the interesting ability to be changed by rolling opamps or tubes and getting slightly different sound signatures (I say slightly, because the differences across high end components are quite minor, but there).
I won't pretend to give advice on what any of the stuff you're looking at sounds like; I haven't spent any time with em. As Momiji mentioned everyone likes something different, but it seems as though you're willing to buy one of everything to see what you like the best. Definitely one of the methods.
Maybe you're one of the lucky ones in the UAE and have some cash to spend :p. The best advise I can give you is to not trust the audio advise of others. I like my HD800. At our Brisbane meet, many people were... disappointed with them. They thought they would love them. They were wrong.
I think having 3 headphones plugged into one amp is kind of silly. If you're wanting to switch between different headphones, go buy a switch! It would be a pretty easy DIY job too. :).
I'm going to watch this thread to see what you do.
Pardon me, but I don't fully agree with you to not trust other peoples' audio advise.
I have relied on it and am quite happy with my collection of headphones so far.
I do however agree that personal tastes & preferances vary (that's the reason I said that I do'nt FULLY agree :)
I personally prefer the Grados and HD800 to the LCD-2, just to vindicate your point
In any case I did not have much choice since I live in Dubai where there are absolutely no places to audition headphones, amps, etc.
A local dealer is helping me and has promised to get The Schiit Amps in a few weeks so I will be able to audition them with my headphones.
Either way... my suggestion to you is not just go for different sound sigs across styles of amps, but also try different types of amps. Get some solid state amps (discrete and opamp based), tube amps, hybrid amps perhaps, with/without DAC, etc. Tubes might sound great with the HD800, but mediocre with the Grados... might as well have the other option at hand.
Thanks dan, thats exactly what I want to do ; try all the different kinds of delicious tastes & flavours of music | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Zuma 'Shocked' At Winnie's Death
The former president made a low-key visit to the struggle heroine's home in Soweto on Wednesday to pay his respects.
Jacob Zuma says no one can erase the contributions made by struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in liberating South Africa.
The former president was speaking to the media after he made a low-key visit to the struggle heroine's home in Soweto on Wednesday to pay his respects.
Zuma said he had travelled from his homestead in Nkandla to visit the family, after hearing the news of her passing on Monday. He said his entire family had been shocked when they heard the news, even reflecting that he did not know she had fallen ill.
"One of our pillars has fallen. One of our leaders has departed. She was a leader recognised not just by the ANC, but the country... I was shocked, because I was in the rural areas. We were sitting, when the news came that our mother is no more."
Zuma said Madikizela-Mandela had played a great role in mobilising the oppressed to fight against the apartheid system.
"She represented many of the mothers who had their husbands in prison; in exile – whose names are not known ... She represented that type of a citizen in our country. She also encouraged [sic] that you could not just sit and say, 'my husband is in exile'; you join in and fight."
He said Madikizela-Mandela was recognised the world over, not because she was married to another struggle hero, Nelson Mandela, but due to her own efforts to continue with the fight against white domination while he and other leaders were jailed on Robben Island.
"A very remarkable and noticeable contribution in many respects ... influencing the oppressed to fight for their freedom ... There are many who joined the struggle because they saw her fighting, with her husband in prison, not knowing when he will come out," said Zuma.
Zuma thanked President Cyril Ramaphosa for declaring an official funeral. As a national heroine, she deserved such an honour to show recognition, respect and dignity for her role as the nation's mother, he added.
"To us, it's a big loss. To us, there is a pain of losing a mother, of losing a comrade, of losing a leader who has seen it all. She has been detained, tortured, exiled ... but she stood"
During his short media briefing, Zuma was flanked by Madikizela-Mandela's grandson Zondwa.
The former president was largely criticised by Madikizela-Mandela during his term in office, as public confidence in him waned over a number of alleged scandals.
Zuma said he was going back to Nkandla following his visit. He is expected to appear in the Durban High Court on Friday for his first appearance on corruption and fraud charges. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
In true 2016 Kanye fashion, he took to the web to get them tweets off about Future, Young Thug, the Grammys, and some more shit that was burning his brain. He closed his more recent rant claiming that he was going to “steal Demna from Balenciaga”. For those out of the loop, Kanye is referring to the founder of the Vetements creative collective making big waves in fashion on both the men’s and women’s sides. If you’re still on your retard, Vetements is the brand behind the oh so popular hoodie with the dramatic titanic front graphic and “COMING SOON” printed in red down the sleeves that every lil fashion nigga has been sporting as of late. To date, they’ve only put out womenswear, but will soon be branching out into menswear, as many of there customers have been dudes.
The Vetements leader was recently appointed as the creative director for Balenciaga taking over after Alexander Wang. I’ve read a recent interview from Mr. Gvasalia, and he seems pretty focused in his new role. I’d be very surprised if the Almighty West can manage to get him to dump the big time Parisian fashion house for the Yeezy season initiatives, as we can’t forget my nigga Ye swore Kylie wouldn’t sign with Puma, which she ultimately did. What I can imagine, however, is getting some sort of creative input from Gvasalia on some part time shit. As a true Ye fan, and one who likes to see him succeed in spite of his naysayers, I would like to see Demna aid Kanye in pushing his collections further, as he is one of the hottest designers in this shit right now. Only time will tell, or rather, Kanye, himself, via Twitter.
Follow me on twitter if you want to talk shit, or see pics of shit that I’m too lazy to write about here. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
The present invention relates generally to transferring data to and from storage media for storing the data. More particularly, the present invention relates to detecting the fly height of a head over a storage medium.
In storage media systems, it is important to maintain the fly height of the head within a prescribed region. If the fly height is too great, the signals transmitted and read by the head will be too weak for accurate data storage and retrieval. If the fly height is too small, the head can physically contact the medium, causing physical damage to the medium and loss of the data stored on the medium.
Methods for detecting fly height generally employ a known pattern written on the storage medium. In response to the pattern, the head produces one or more pulses. One conventional method to detect fly height measures the peak amplitude of the pulse. Another conventional method is to measure the duration of the pulse, for example at its half-amplitude point. Still another method involves measuring the area under the pulse. These method are unreliable because the amplitude of the pulse, and the area under the pulse, are affected unpredictably by factors such as the gain of the storage system. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and system for recording semiotic data, and more particularly to recording semiotic data in the context of law enforcement applications, with highly reduced impact on privacy and minimized danger of misuse of such semiotic data.
2. Background Description
Several technologies have recently become available that allow capturing, storing, and retrieving biometric data. Fingerprints have long been used in the context of identification, in particular for criminal identification. Now, more biometric data, often of a more complex nature (e.g., such as DNA), can be captured in digital form, stored, and retrieved for identification. The benefit of such new data types, for identification or verification purposes, is that it can complement more traditional biometric information that might not be available at the crime scene. The ease with which DNA information can become available (e.g., through any sample of blood, semen, hair, or skin), is very beneficial in making quick and accurate identifications and the like. However, it is just such easy availability which makes the systematic use of such data a threat to civil liberties. This is at least true in the view of some segment of public opinion (e.g., the size of this segment being very variable with time, geography, political status, etc.).
Furthermore, technologies which allow analysis and manufacturing of biometric data are available. These technologies may allow someone to fabricate false copies of some data for criminal purposes (which can then be used to incriminate innocent people).
Consequently, there is strong resistance to the widespread adoption and collection of biometric data to be used as highly probative (e.g., incriminating or discriminating) evidence. This is especially true of DNA data, which is so readily available. This may result in government policies that prohibit or strongly regulate all use of such methods, despite their undeniable usefulness in fighting organized crime and in protecting innocent people, who have been wrongfully accused.
Hitherto the present invention, there has been no method for processing biometrics which would allow their use without being a threat to privacy and which would also prevent any misuse of the data. Thus, the conventional systems and methods have been deficient in at least the above area. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
Inhibition of histamine-induced Ca2+ efflux in cultured vascular smooth muscle cells by an antihypertensive drug, cicletanine.
The effect of cicletanine, a new antihypertensive drug, on histamine-induced Ca2+ release in cultured vascular smooth muscle cells from guinea-pig aorta was examined. In 45Ca2+ labelled cells, histamine increased in a dose-dependent manner the Ca2+ efflux (EC50 = 8 x 10(-6) M). This stimulation of 45Ca2+ efflux was also observed with an H1-agonist [2-pyridylethylamine dihydrochloride (2-PEA)] but not with an H2-agonist (dimaprit). Histamine- or 2-PEA-induced 45Ca2+ efflux was inhibited by an H1-antagonist (mepyramine), whereas an H2-antagonist (cimetidine) had no effect. Cicletanine was as effective as the H1-antagonist in inhibiting histamine- or 2-PEA-stimulated 45Ca2+ efflux in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 = 10(-6) M). Only the racemic form and the R(-) enantiomer of cicletanine behaved as histaminergic antagonists, the S(+) enantiomer having no effect. These results suggest that the direct effect of cicletanine on the mobilization of Ca2+ by blocking H1-receptors may participate in an antihypertensive mechanism by producing relaxation of blood vessels. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
L'ORDRE PHILOSOPHIQUE
COLLECTION DIRIGÉE PAR ALAIN BADIOU
ET BARBARA CASSIN
Du même auteur
PHILOSOPHIE
Le Concept de modèle
_Maspero, 1969_
Théorie du sujet
_Seuil, coll. « L'ordre philosophique », 1982_
Peut-on penser la politique ?
_Seuil, 1985_
L'Être et l'Événement
_Seuil, coll. « L'ordre philosophique », 1988_
Manifeste pour la philosophie
_Seuil, coll. « L'ordre philosophique », 1989_
Le Nombre et les nombres
_Seuil, coll. « Des travaux », 1990_
Conditions
_Seuil, coll. « L'ordre philosophique », 1992_
L'Éthique
_Hatier, 1993_
Deleuze
_Hachette, 1997_
Saint Paul. La fondation de l'universalisme
_PUF, 1997_
Abrégé de métapolitique
_Seuil, 1998_
Court Traité d'ontologie transitoire
_Seuil, 1998_
ESSAIS CRITIQUES
Rhapsodie pour le théâtre
_Imprimerie nationale, 1990_
Beckett. L'increvable désir
_Hachette, 1995_
LITTÉRATURE ET THÉÂTRE
Almagestes. Prose
_Seuil, 1964_
Portulans. Roman
_Seuil, 1967_
L'Écharpe rouge. Romanopéra
_Maspero, 1979_
Ahmed le subtil. Farce
_Actes Sud, 1994_
Ahmed philosophe
_suivi de_ Ahmed se fâche. Théâtre
_Actes Sud, 1995_
Les Citrouilles. Comédie
_Actes Sud, 1996_
Calme Bloc ici-bas. Roman
_POL, 1997_
ESSAIS POLITIQUES
Théorie de la contradiction
_Maspero, 1975_
De l'idéologie
en collaboration avec F. Balmès
_Maspero, 1976_
Le Noyau rationnel
de la dialectique hégélienne
en collaboration avec L. Mossot et J. Bellassen
_Maspero, 1977_
D'un désastre obscur
_Éditions de l'Aube, 1991_
ISBN 978-2-02106824-5
ISBN 2-02-034886-1
© Éditions du Seuil, octobre 1998
_Ce document numérique a été réalisé parNord Compo_
Par « inesthétique », j'entends un rapport de la philosophie à l'art qui, posant que l'art est par lui-même producteur de vérités, ne prétend d'aucune façon en faire, pour la philosophie, un objet. Contre la spéculation esthétique, l'inesthétique décrit les effets strictement intraphilosophiques produits par l'existence indépendante de quelques œuvres d'art.
A. B., avril 1998
Table des matières
Couverture
Collection
Copyright
Table des matières
1 - Art et philosophie
2 - Qu'est-ce qu'un poème, et qu'en pense la philosophie ?
3 - Un philosophe français répond à un poète polonais
4 - Une tâche philosophique : être contemporain de Pessoa
5 - Une dialectique poétique : Labîd ben Rabi'a et Mallarmé
6 - La danse comme métaphore de la pensée
7 - Thèses sur le théâtre
8 - Les faux mouvements du cinéma
9 - Être, existence, pensée : prose et concept
10 - Philosophie du faune
Annexe - Textes publiés utilisés comme matériau dans la composition de ce livre
1
Art et philosophie
Lien qui depuis toujours est affecté d'un symptôme, celui d'une oscillation, d'un battement.
Aux origines, il y a le jugement d'ostracisme porté par Platon sur le poème, le théâtre, la musique. De tout cela, il faut bien dire que le fondateur de la philosophie, évidemment connaisseur raffiné de tous les arts de son temps, ne retient, dans la _République_ , que la musique militaire et le chant patriotique.
À l'autre extrémité, on trouve une dévotion pieuse envers l'art, un agenouillement contrit du concept, pensé comme nihilisme technique, devant la parole poétique qui seule offre le monde à l'Ouvert latent de sa propre détresse.
Mais déjà, après tout, le sophiste Protagoras désignait l'apprentissage artistique comme la clef de l'éducation. Il y avait une alliance de Protagoras et de Simonide le poète, dont le Socrate de Platon tente de déjouer la chicane, et d'asservir à ses propres fins l'intensité pensable.
Une image me vient à l'esprit, une matrice analogique du sens : philosophie et art sont historiquement couplés comme le sont, d'après Lacan, le Maître et l'Hystérique. On sait que l'hystérique vient dire au maître : « La vérité parle par ma bouche, je suis _là_ , et toi qui sais, dis-moi qui je suis. » Et l'on devine que, quelle que soit la subtilité savante de la réponse du maître, l'hystérique lui fera savoir que ce n'est pas encore ça, que son _là_ se dérobe à la prise, qu'il faut tout reprendre, et beaucoup travailler, pour lui plaire. Par quoi elle prend barre sur le maître, et devient maîtresse du maître. Et de même l'art est toujours déjà là, adressant au penseur la question muette et scintillante de son identité, cependant que par sa constante invention, sa métamorphose, il se déclare déçu de tout ce que le philosophe énonce à son propos.
Le maître de l'hystérique n'a guère d'autre choix, s'il rechigne à l'asservissement amoureux, à l'idolâtrie qu'il doit payer d'une épuisante et toujours décevante production de savoir, que de lui donner du bâton. Et de même le maître philosophe reste divisé, au regard de l'art, entre idolâtrie et censure. Ou il dira aux jeunes gens, ses disciples, que le cœur de toute éducation virile de la raison est de se tenir à l'écart de la Créature, ou il finira par concéder qu'elle seule, cette brillance opaque dont on ne peut qu'être captif, nous instruit du biais par où la vérité commande que du savoir soit produit.
Et puisque ce qui nous requiert est le nouage de l'art et de la philosophie, il apparaît que, formellement, ce nouage est pensé sous deux schèmes.
Le premier, je le nommerai le schème _didactique_. La thèse en est que l'art est incapable de vérité, ou que toute vérité lui est extérieure. On reconnaîtra certes que l'art se propose (comme l'hystérique) sous les espèces de la vérité effective, de la vérité immédiate, ou nue. Et que cette nudité expose l'art comme pur _charme_ du vrai. Plus précisément : que l'art est l'apparence d'une vérité infondée, inargumentée, d'une vérité épuisée dans son être-là. Mais – et c'est tout le sens du procès platonicien – on rejettera cette prétention, cette séduction. Le cœur de la polémique platonicienne concernant la _mimésis_ désigne l'art, non tant comme imitation des choses que comme imitation de l'effet de vérité. Et cette imitation tire sa puissance de son caractère _immédiat_. Platon soutiendra alors qu'être captif d'une image immédiate de la vérité _détourne du détour_. Si la vérité peut exister comme charme, alors nous perdrons la force du labeur dialectique, de la lente argumentation qui prépare la remontée au Principe. Il est donc requis de dénoncer la prétendue vérité immédiate de l'art comme une fausse vérité, comme le semblant propre de l'effet de vérité. Et telle est la définition de l'art, et de lui seul : être le charme d'un semblant de vérité.
Il en résulte que l'art doit être ou condamné ou traité de façon purement instrumentale. L'art, étroitement surveillé, peut être ce qui accorde à une vérité prescrite _du dehors_ la force transitoire du semblant, ou du charme. L'art acceptable doit être sous la surveillance philosophique des vérités. Il est une didactique sensible dont le propos ne saurait être abandonné à l'immanence. La norme de l'art doit être l'éducation. Et la norme de l'éducation est la philosophie. Premier nœud de nos trois termes.
Dans cette perspective, l'essentiel est le contrôle de l'art. Or ce contrôle est possible. Pourquoi ? Parce que si la vérité dont l'art est capable lui vient du dehors, si l'art est une didactique sensible, il en résulte, et c'est un point capital, que l'essence « bonne » de l'art se livre, non dans l'œuvre d'art, mais dans ses effets publics. Rousseau écrira : « Les spectacles sont faits pour le peuple, et ce n'est que par leurs effets sur lui qu'on peut déterminer leurs qualités absolues. »
Dans le schème didactique, l'absolu de l'art est donc sous le contrôle des effets publics du semblant, eux-mêmes normés par une vérité extrinsèque.
À cette injonction éducative s'oppose absolument ce que j'appellerai le schème _romantique_. La thèse en est que l'art _seul_ est capable de vérité. Et qu'en ce sens il accomplit ce que la philosophie ne peut qu'indiquer. Dans le schème romantique, l'art est le corps réel du vrai. Ou encore ce que Lacoue-Labarthe et Nancy ont nommé l'absolu littéraire. Il est patent que ce corps réel est un corps glorieux. La philosophie peut bien être le Père retiré et impénétrable. L'art est le Fils souffrant qui sauve et relève. Le génie est crucifixion et résurrection. En ce sens, c'est l'art lui-même qui éduque, parce qu'il enseigne la puissance d'infinité détenue dans la cohésion suppliciée d'une forme. L'art nous délivre de la stérilité subjective du concept. L'art est l'absolu comme sujet, il est l' _incarnation._
Cependant, entre le bannissement didactique et la glorification romantique (d'un « entre » qui n'est pas essentiellement temporel), il y a, semble-t-il, un âge de paix relative entre l'art et la philosophie. La question de l'art ne tourmente pas Descartes, ou Leibniz, ou Spinoza. Ils ne semblent pas avoir à choisir, ces grands classiques, entre la rudesse d'un contrôle et l'extase d'une allégeance.
N'est-ce pas Aristote qui a déjà signé, entre art et philosophie, une sorte de traité de paix ? Oui, il y a de toute évidence un troisième schème, le schème _classique_ , dont on dira que, dès l'abord, il _déshystérise l'art._
Le dispositif classique, tel que monté par Aristote, tient en deux thèses :
a) L'art – comme le soutient le schème didactique – est incapable de vérité, son essence est mimétique, son ordre est celui du semblant.
b) Ce n'est pas grave (contrairement à ce que croit Platon). Ce n'est pas grave, parce que la _destination_ de l'art n'est nullement la vérité. Certes, l'art n'est pas vérité, mais aussi bien il ne prétend pas l'être, et donc il est innocent. Aristote ordonne l'art à tout autre chose qu'à la connaissance, et le délivre ainsi du soupçon platonicien. Cet autre chose, qu'il nomme parfois _catharsis_ , concerne la déposition des passions dans un transfert sur le semblant. L'art a une fonction thérapeutique, et non pas du tout cognitive ou révélante. L'art ne relève pas du théorique, mais de l'éthique (au sens le plus large du terme). Il en résulte que la norme de l'art est son utilité dans le traitement des affections de l'âme.
Les grandes règles concernant l'art s'infèrent aussitôt des deux thèses du schème classique.
Tout d'abord, le critère de l'art est de plaire. Le « plaire » n'est en rien une règle d'opinion, une règle du plus grand nombre. L'art doit plaire, parce que le « plaire » signale l'effectivité de la _catharsis_ , l'embrayage réel de la thérapeutique artistique des passions.
Ensuite, le nom de ce à quoi renvoie le « plaire » n'est pas la vérité. Le « plaire » s'accroche à cela seul qui, d'une vérité, prélève l'agencement d'une identification. La « ressemblance » au vrai n'est requise que pour autant qu'elle engage le spectateur de l'art dans le « plaire », c'est-à-dire dans une identification, laquelle organise un transfert, et donc une déposition des passions. Ce lambeau de vérité est bien plutôt _ce qu'une vérité contraint dans l'imaginaire_. Cette « imaginarisation » d'une vérité, délestée de tout réel, les classiques l'appellent la « vraisemblance ».
Finalement, la paix entre art et philosophie repose tout entière sur la délimitation entre vérité et vraisemblance. Et c'est pourquoi la maxime classique par excellence est : « le vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable », laquelle énonce la délimitation, et réserve _à côté_ de l'art les droits de la philosophie. Philosophie qui, on le voit, s'accorde la possibilité de n'être pas vraisemblable. Définition classique de la philosophie : l'invraisemblable vérité.
Quel est le prix payé pour cette paix ? Sans doute, l'art est innocent, mais c'est qu'il est innocent de toute vérité. C'est-à-dire registré à l'imaginaire. En toute rigueur, dans le schème classique, l'art n'est pas une pensée. Il est tout entier dans son acte, ou son opération publique. Le « plaire » ordonne l'art à un service. On pourrait dire cela : dans la vision classique, l'art est service public. C'est bien ainsi du reste que l'entend l'État, tant dans la vassalisation de l'art et des artistes par l'absolutisme que dans la chicane moderne des crédits. L'État (sauf peut-être l'État socialiste, plutôt didactique) est, quant au nouage qui nous importe, essentiellement classique.
Récapitulons.
Didactisme, romantisme, classicisme sont les schèmes possibles du nœud entre art et philosophie, le tiers terme de ce nœud étant l'éducation des sujets, et singulièrement de la jeunesse. Dans le didactisme, la philosophie se noue à l'art dans la modalité d'une surveillance éducative de sa destination extrinsèque au vrai. Dans le romantisme, l'art réalise dans la finitude toute l'éducation subjective dont l'infinité philosophique de l'Idée est capable. Dans le classicisme, l'art capte le désir et éduque son transfert par la proposition d'un semblant de son objet. La philosophie n'est ici convoquée qu'en tant qu'esthétique : elle donne son avis sur les règles du « plaire ».
Ce qui caractérise à mon sens notre siècle finissant est qu'il n'a pas introduit, à échelle massive, de nouveau schème. Bien qu'on prétende qu'il est le siècle des « fins », des ruptures, des catastrophes, pour le nouage qui nous concerne je le vois plutôt comme un siècle conservateur et éclectique.
Quelles sont, au XXe siècle, les dispositions massives de la pensée ? Les _singularités_ massivement repérables ? Je n'en vois que trois : le marxisme, la psychanalyse et l'herméneutique allemande.
Or il est clair qu'en matière de pensée de l'art le marxisme est didacticien, la psychanalyse classique, et l'herméneutique heideggerienne romantique.
Que le marxisme soit didacticien ne doit pas se prouver d'abord par l'évidence des oukases et persécutions des États socialistes. La preuve la plus sûre se trouve dans la pensée déliée et créatrice de Brecht. Pour Brecht, il y a une vérité générale et extrinsèque, une vérité de caractère scientifique. Cette vérité est le matérialisme dialectique, dont Brecht n'a jamais douté qu'il constituait le socle de la rationalité nouvelle. Cette vérité, dans son essence, est philosophique, et le « philosophe » est le personnage-guide des dialogues didactiques de Brecht ; c'est lui qui est en charge de la surveillance de l'art par la supposition latente de la vérité dialectique. En quoi du reste Brecht est stalinien, si l'on entend par stalinisme, comme il le faut, la fusion de la politique et de la philosophie matérialiste dialectique sous la juridiction de cette dernière. Ou disons que Brecht pratique un platonisme stalinisé. Le but suprême de Brecht était de créer une « société des amis de la dialectique », et le théâtre était, à bien des égards, le moyen d'une telle société. La distanciation est un protocole de surveillance philosophique « en acte » des fins éducatives du théâtre. Le semblant doit être mis à distance de lui-même afin que soit _montrée_ , dans l'écart même, l'objectivité extrinsèque du vrai.
Au fond, la grandeur de Brecht est d'avoir obstinément cherché les règles immanentes d'un art platonicien (didactique), au lieu de se contenter, comme le fait Platon, de classer les arts existants en bons et mauvais. Son théâtre « non aristotélicien » (ce qui veut dire : non classique et, finalement, platonicien) est une invention artistique de première force dans l'élément réflexif d'une subordination de l'art. Brecht a rendu théâtralement actives les dispositions antithéâtrales de Platon. Il l'a fait en centrant l'art sur les formes de subjectivation possibles de la vérité extérieure.
De là, du reste, l'importance de la dimension épique. Car l'épique est ce qui exhibe, dans l'intervalle du jeu, le _courage_ de la vérité. Pour Brecht, l'art ne produit nulle vérité, mais il est une élucidation, sous supposition du vrai, des conditions de son courage. L'art est, sous surveillance, une thérapeutique de la lâcheté. Pas de la lâcheté en général, mais de la lâcheté _devant la vérité_. C'est évidemment pourquoi la figure de Galilée est centrale, et aussi pourquoi cette pièce est le chef-d'œuvre tourmenté de Brecht, celui où tourne sur lui-même le paradoxe d'une épopée intérieure de l'extériorité du vrai.
Que l'herméneutique heideggerienne soit encore romantique est à mon avis évident. Elle expose en apparence un entrelacement indiscernable du dire du poète et du penser du penseur. L'avantage reste cependant au poète, car le penseur n'est que l'annonce du retournement, la promesse de la survenue des dieux au comble de la détresse, l'élucidation rétroactive de l'historialité de l'être. Alors que le poète effectue pour ce qui le concerne, dans la chair de la langue, le gardiennage oblitéré de l'Ouvert.
On peut dire qu'au revers du philosophe-artiste de Nietzsche Heidegger déplie la figure du poète-penseur. Mais ce qui nous importe, et caractérise le schème romantique, c'est que _c'est la même vérité qui circule_. Le retrait de l'être vient à la pensée dans le conjointement du poème et de son interprétation. L'interprétation ne fait que _livrer_ le poème au tremblement de la finitude, où la pensée s'exerce à endurer le retrait de l'être comme éclaircie. Penseur et poète, dans leur appui réciproque, incarnent dans la parole le déclos de sa clôture. En quoi le poème reste, proprement, inégalable.
La psychanalyse est aristotélicienne, absolument classique. Il n'est pour s'en convaincre que de relire aussi bien les essais de Freud sur la peinture que ceux de Lacan sur le théâtre ou la poésie. L'art y est pensé comme ce qui organise que l'objet du désir, lequel est insymbolisable, advienne en soustraction au comble même d'une symbolisation. L'œuvre fait s'évanouir, dans son apparat formel, la scintillation indicible de l'objet perdu, par quoi elle s'attache invinciblement le regard ou l'oreille de celui qui s'y expose. L'œuvre d'art enchaîne un transfert, parce qu'elle exhibe, dans une configuration singulière et retorse, l'entame du symbolique par le réel, l'extimité de l'objet a, cause du désir, à l'Autre, trésor du symbolique. Par quoi son effet dernier reste imaginaire.
Je dirai alors : ce siècle, qui n'a pas pour l'essentiel modifié les doctrines du nouage entre art et philosophie n'en a pas moins éprouvé la _saturation_ de ces doctrines. Le didactisme est saturé par l'exercice historique et étatique de l'art au service du peuple. Le romantisme est saturé par ce qu'il y a de pure promesse, toujours rattachée à la supposition du retour des dieux, dans l'appareillage heideggerien. Et le classicisme est saturé par la conscience de soi que lui accorde le complet déploiement d'une théorie du désir : d'où, si on ne cède pas aux mirages d'une « psychanalyse appliquée », la conviction ruineuse que le rapport de la psychanalyse à l'art n'est jamais qu'un service rendu à la psychanalyse elle-même. Un service gratuit de l'art.
Que les trois schèmes soient saturés tend à produire aujourd'hui une sorte de dénouage des termes, un dé-rapport désespéré entre l'art et la philosophie, et la chute pure et simple de ce qui circulait entre eux : le thème éducatif.
Les avant-gardes du siècle, du dadaïsme au situationnisme, n'ont été que des expériences d'escorte de l'art contemporain, et non la désignation adéquate des opérations de cet art. Elles ont eu un rôle de représentation plutôt que de nouage. C'est que les avant-gardes n'ont été que la recherche désespérée et instable d'un schème médiateur, d'un schème didactico-romantique. Didactiques, elles l'étaient par leur désir de mettre fin à l'art, par la dénonciation de son caractère aliéné et inauthentique. Romantiques aussi bien, par la conviction que l'art devait renaître aussitôt comme absoluité, comme conscience intégrale de ses propres opérations, comme vérité immédiatement lisible de soi-même. Considérées comme proposition d'un schème didactico-romantique, ou comme absoluité de la destruction créatrice, les avant-gardes étaient avant tout anticlassiques.
Leur limite a été qu'elles n'ont pu sceller durablement d'alliance ni avec les formes contemporaines du schème didactique ni avec celles du schème romantique. Empiriquement : le communisme de Breton et des surréalistes est resté allégorique, tout comme le fascisme de Marinetti et des futuristes. Les avant-gardes ne sont pas parvenues, comme c'était leur destination consciente, à être la direction d'un front uni anticlassique. La didactique révolutionnaire les a condamnées à raison de ce qu'elles avaient de romantique : le gauchisme de la destruction totale et de la conscience de soi façonnée _ex nihilo_ , l'incapacité à l'action large, la division en groupuscules. Le romantisme herméneutique les a condamnées à raison de ce qu'elles avaient de didactique : l'affinité révolutionnaire, l'intellectualisme, le mépris de l'État. Et surtout, parce que le didactisme des avant-gardes se signalait par un volontarisme esthétique. Or on sait que, pour Heidegger, la volonté est l'ultime figure subjective du nihilisme contemporain.
Les avant-gardes ont aujourd'hui disparu. La situation globale est finalement la suivante : saturation des trois schèmes hérités, clôture de tout effet du seul schème tenté en ce siècle, qui était en fait un schème synthétique, le didactico-romantisme.
La thèse autour de laquelle ce petit livre n'est qu'une série de variations se dira alors : au regard d'une situation de saturation et de clôture, il faut tenter de proposer un nouveau schème, un quatrième mode de nouage entre philosophie et art.
La méthode d'investigation sera d'abord négative : qu'est-ce que les trois schèmes hérités, didactique, romantique et classique, ont en commun, dont il importerait aujourd'hui de se défaire ? Ce « commun » des trois schèmes concerne, je crois, le rapport de l'art et de la vérité.
Les catégories de ce rapport sont l'immanence et la singularité. « Immanence » renvoie à la question suivante : est-ce que la vérité est réellement intérieure à l'effet artistique des œuvres ? Ou bien l'œuvre d'art n'est-elle que l'instrument d'une vérité extérieure ? « Singularité » renvoie à une autre question : la vérité dont l'art témoigne lui est-elle absolument propre ? Ou peut-elle circuler dans d'autres registres de la pensée œuvrante ?
Or, que constate-t-on ? Que, dans le schème romantique, le rapport de la vérité à l'art est bien immanent (l'art expose la descente finie de l'Idée), mais non pas singulier (car il s'agit de _la_ vérité, et la pensée du penseur ne s'accorde à rien qui diffère de ce que dévoile le dire du poète). Que, dans le didactisme, le rapport est certainement singulier (seul l'art peut exposer une vérité _sous la forme du semblant_ ), mais pas du tout immanent, car en définitive la position de la vérité est extrinsèque. Et qu'enfin, dans le classicisme, il ne s'agit que de ce qu'une vérité contraint dans l'imaginaire, sous les espèces du vraisemblable.
Dans les schèmes hérités, le rapport des œuvres artistiques à la vérité ne parvient jamais à être simultanément singulier et immanent.
On affirmera donc cette simultanéité. Ce qui se dit aussi bien : l'art _lui-même_ est une procédure de vérité. Ou encore : l'identification philosophique de l'art relève de la catégorie de vérité. L'art est une pensée dont les œuvres sont le réel (et non l'effet). Et cette pensée, ou les vérités qu'elle active, sont irréductibles aux autres vérités, qu'elles soient scientifiques, politiques ou amoureuses. Ce qui veut dire aussi que l'art, comme pensée singulière, est irréductible à la philosophie.
Immanence : l'art est rigoureusement coextensif aux vérités qu'il prodigue.
Singularité : ces vérités ne sont données nulle part ailleurs que dans l'art.
Dans cette vision des choses, que devient le troisième terme du nœud, la fonction éducative de l'art ? L'art est éducateur tout simplement parce qu'il produit des vérités, et qu'« éducation » n'a jamais voulu rien dire (sinon dans des montages oppressifs ou pervertis) que ceci : disposer les savoirs de telle sorte que quelque vérité puisse y faire trou.
Ce pour quoi l'art éduque n'est rien d'autre que son existence. Il ne s'agit que de _rencontrer_ cette existence, ce qui veut dire : penser une pensée.
La philosophie a dès lors comme rapport à l'art, comme à toute procédure de vérité, de le _montrer_ comme tel. La philosophie est en effet l'entremetteuse des rencontres avec les vérités, elle est la maquerelle du vrai. Et de même que la beauté doit être dans la femme rencontrée, mais n'est nullement requise de la maquerelle, de même les vérités sont artistiques, scientifiques, amoureuses ou politiques, et non pas philosophiques.
Le problème se concentre alors sur la _singularité_ de la procédure artistique, sur ce qui autorise sa différenciation irréductible, par exemple d'avec la science, ou d'avec la politique.
Il faut bien voir que, sous sa simplicité manifeste, je dirais presque son ingénuité, la thèse selon laquelle l'art serait une procédure de vérité _sui generis_ , immanente et singulière, est en réalité une proposition philosophique absolument novatrice. La plupart des conséquences de cette thèse sont encore voilées, et elle contraint à un considérable travail de reformulation. On en voit le symptôme lorsqu'on constate que Deleuze, par exemple, continue à distribuer l'art du côté du sensible comme tel (affect et percept), en continuité paradoxale avec le motif hégélien de l'art comme « forme sensible de l'Idée ». Il disjoint ainsi l'art de la philosophie (vouée à l'invention des seuls concepts) selon une modalité qui laisse encore tout à fait inapparente la véritable destination de l'art comme pensée. C'est qu'à ne pas convoquer dans cette affaire la catégorie de vérité on ne parvient pas à établir le plan d'immanence où procède la différenciation entre art, science et philosophie.
La difficulté principale me paraît tenir au point suivant : quand on entreprend de penser l'art comme production immanente de vérités, _quelle est l'unité pertinente de ce qui est nommé « art »_ ? Est-ce l'œuvre d'art, la singularité d'une œuvre ? Est-ce l'auteur, le créateur ? Ou encore autre chose ?
L'essence de la question touche en réalité au problème du rapport entre infini et fini. Une vérité est une multiplicité infinie. Je ne peux établir ici ce point par voie démonstrative, comme je l'ai fait ailleurs. Disons que c'est ce qu'ont bien vu les tenants du schème romantique, pour aussitôt oblitérer leur découverte dans le diagramme esthétique de la finitude, de l'artiste comme Christ de l'Idée. Ou, pour être plus conceptuel : l'infinité d'une vérité est ce par quoi elle se soustrait à sa pure et simple identité aux savoirs établis.
Or une œuvre d'art est essentiellement finie. Elle est finie en un triple sens. D'abord, elle s'expose comme objectivité finie dans l'espace et/ou dans le temps. Ensuite, elle est toujours normée par un principe grec d'achèvement : elle se meut dans le comblement de sa propre limite, elle indique qu'elle déploie toute la perfection dont elle est capable. Enfin et surtout, elle instruit en elle-même la question de sa propre fin, elle est la procédure convaincante de sa finitude. C'est du reste pourquoi (autre trait qui la distingue de l'infini générique du vrai) elle est en tous ses points insubstituable : une fois « laissée » à sa propre fin immanente, elle est telle qu'elle est pour toujours, et toute retouche ou modification lui est inessentielle, ou destructrice.
Je soutiendrais même volontiers que l'œuvre d'art est en fait la seule chose finie qui existe. Que l'art est création de finitude. Soit d'un multiple intrinsèquement fini, qui expose son organisation dans et par la découpe finie de sa présentation, et fait enjeu de son bornage.
Si donc on soutient que l'œuvre est vérité, il faudra soutenir du même mouvement qu'elle est descente de l'infini-vrai dans la finitude. Mais cette figure de la descente de l'infini dans le fini est précisément le noyau du schème romantique, qui pense l'art comme incarnation. Il est frappant de voir que ce schème subsiste encore chez Deleuze, pour qui l'art entretient avec l'infini chaotique un rapport plus fidèle que tout autre, précisément parce qu'il le configure dans le fini.
Il ne semble pas que le désir de proposer un schème de nouage philosophie/art qui ne soit ni classique, ni didactique, ni romantique soit compatible avec le maintien de l'œuvre comme unité pertinente d'examen de l'art sous le signe des vérités dont il est capable.
D'autant qu'il y a une difficulté supplémentaire : toute vérité s'origine d'un événement. Là encore, je laisse cette assertion à l'état d'axiome. Disons qu'il est vain d'imaginer qu'on puisse _inventer_ quoi que ce soit (et toute vérité est invention) si rien ne se passe, si « rien n'a eu lieu que le lieu ». Car on serait alors renvoyé à une conception « géniale », ou idéaliste, de l'invention. Le problème qui doit nous occuper est qu'il est impossible de dire de l'œuvre qu'elle est _à la fois_ une vérité et l'événement qui origine cette vérité. Il est très souvent soutenu que l'œuvre d'art doit être pensée comme singularité événementielle, plutôt que comme structure. Mais toute fusion entre événement et vérité reconduit à une vision « christique » de la vérité, puisque alors une vérité n'est que l'autorévélation événementielle d'elle-même.
La voie à suivre me paraît tenir dans un petit nombre de propositions.
– En règle générale, une œuvre n'est pas un événement. Elle est un fait de l'art, elle est ce dont la procédure artistique est tissée.
– Une œuvre n'est pas non plus une vérité. Une vérité est une procédure artistique initiée par un événement. Cette procédure n'est _composée_ que d'œuvres. Mais elle ne se manifeste – comme infinité – dans aucune. L'œuvre est donc l'instance locale, le point différentiel d'une vérité.
– Ce point différentiel de la procédure artistique, on l'appellera son _sujet_. Une œuvre est sujet de la procédure artistique considérée, ou à laquelle cette œuvre appartient. Ou encore : une œuvre d'art est un point-sujet d'une vérité artistique.
– Une vérité n'a nul autre être que des œuvres, elle est un multiple (infini) générique d'œuvres. Mais ces œuvres ne tissent l'être d'une vérité artistique que selon le hasard de leurs occurrences successives.
– On peut dire aussi : une œuvre est une _enquête_ située sur la vérité qu'elle actualise localement, ou dont elle est un fragment fini.
– L'œuvre est ainsi soumise à un principe de nouveauté. Car une enquête est rétroactivement validée comme œuvre d'art réelle en tant qu'elle est une enquête _qui n'avait pas eu lieu_ , un point-sujet inédit de la trame d'une vérité.
– Les œuvres composent une vérité dans la dimension postévénementielle qui institue _la contrainte d'une configuration artistique_. Une vérité est finalement une configuration artistique, initiée par un événement (un événement est en général un groupe d'œuvres, un multiple singulier d'œuvres), et hasardeusement dépliée sous forme d'œuvres qui en sont les points-sujets.
L'unité pertinente de la pensée de l'art comme vérité immanente et singulière est donc en définitive, non pas l'œuvre, ni l'auteur, mais la configuration artistique initiée par une rupture événementielle (qui en général rend obsolète une configuration antérieure). Cette configuration, qui est un multiple générique, n'a ni nom propre, ni contour fini, ni même totalisation possible sous un seul prédicat. On ne peut l'épuiser, seulement la décrire imparfaitement. Elle est une vérité artistique, et chacun sait qu'il n'y a pas de vérité de la vérité. On la désigne généralement par des concepts abstraits (figuration, tonalité, tragédie...).
Que faut-il entendre, plus précisément, par « configuration artistique » ?
Une configuration n'est ni un art, ni un genre, ni une période « objective » de l'histoire d'un art, ni même un dispositif « technique ». C'est une séquence identifiable, événementiellement initiée, composée d'un complexe virtuellement infini d'œuvres, et dont il y a sens à dire qu'elle produit, dans la stricte immanence à l'art dont il s'agit, une vérité _de cet art_ , une vérité-art. La philosophie portera trace de la configuration, en ceci qu'elle aura à montrer en quel sens cette configuration se laisse saisir par la catégorie de vérité. Inversement, du reste, le montage philosophique de la catégorie de vérité sera singularisé par les configurations artistiques du temps. De sorte qu'il est vrai que le plus souvent une configuration est pensable à la jointure du procès effectif de l'art et des philosophies qui le saisissent.
On citera par exemple la tragédie grecque, maintes fois saisie comme configuration, de Platon ou Aristote à Nietzsche. L'événement initiateur a nom « Eschyle », mais ce nom, comme tout nom événementiel, est plutôt l'index d'un vide central dans la situation antérieure de la poésie chantée. On sait qu'avec Euripide la configuration est saturée. Plutôt que le système tonal, dispositif trop structural, on citera en musique le style classique, au sens où en parle Charles Rosen, séquence identifiable entre Haydn et Beethoven. On dira sans doute que, de Cervantès à Joyce, le roman est un nom de configuration pour la prose.
On remarquera que la saturation d'une configuration (le roman narratif aux alentours de Joyce, le style classique aux alentours de Beethoven, etc.) ne signifie nullement que la configuration est une multiplicité finie. Car rien, de l'intérieur d'elle-même, ne la borne ou n'expose le principe de sa fin. La rareté des noms propres, la brièveté de la séquence sont des données empiriques sans conséquence. Du reste, au-delà des noms propres retenus comme illustrations significatives de la configuration, ou points-sujets « éclatants » de sa trajectoire générique, il y a toujours en réalité une quantité virtuellement infinie de points-sujets mineurs, ignorés, redondants, etc., qui n'en font pas moins partie de la vérité immanente dont l'être est la configuration. Il arrive certes que la configuration ne donne plus lieu à œuvres nettement perceptibles, ou à enquêtes décisives sur elle-même. Il arrive aussi qu'un événement incalculable fasse apparaître rétrospectivement la configuration comme obsolète, au regard des contraintes d'une nouvelle configuration. Mais, dans tous les cas, à la différence des œuvres qui en constituent la matière, une vérité-configuration est intrinsèquement infinie. Ce qui veut clairement dire qu'elle ignore tout maximum interne, toute acmé, toute péroraison. Il se peut du reste toujours qu'elle soit ressaisie dans les époques d'incertitude, ou réarticulée dans la nomination d'un événement nouveau.
De ce que le dégagement pensable d'une configuration se fasse souvent aux lisières de la philosophie – parce que la philosophie est sous condition de l'art _en tant que vérité singulière_ , et donc en tant que disposé en configurations infinies –, il ne faut surtout pas conclure que c'est à la philosophie qu'il revient de penser l'art. En réalité, _une configuration se pense elle-même dans les œuvres qui la composent_. Car, ne l'oublions pas, une œuvre est une enquête inventive sur la configuration, qui pense donc la pensée que la configuration _aura été_ (sous la supposition de son achèvement infini). Plus précisément : la configuration se pense dans l'épreuve d'une enquête qui simultanément la constitue localement, en dessine l'à-venir, et en réfléchit rétroactivement la courbure temporelle. De ce point de vue, il faut soutenir que l'art, configuration « en vérité » des œuvres, est en chaque point pensée de la pensée qu'il est.
Nous héritons alors d'un triple problème :
– Quelles sont les configurations contemporaines ?
– Qu'en est-il ainsi de la philosophie sous condition de l'art ?
– Où en est le thème de l'éducation ?
Nous laisserons le premier point. Toute la pensée contemporaine sur l'art est remplie d'enquêtes, souvent passionnantes, sur les configurations artistiques qui ont marqué le siècle : sérialisme, prose romanesque, âge des poètes, rupture de la figuration, etc.
Sur le deuxième point, je ne peux que redire mes propres convictions : la philosophie, ou plutôt une philosophie, est toujours l'élaboration d'une catégorie de vérité. Elle ne produit par elle-même aucune vérité effective. Elle saisit les vérités, les montre, les expose, énonce qu'il y en a. Ce faisant, elle tourne le temps vers l'éternité, car toute vérité, en tant qu'infinité générique, est éternelle. Enfin, elle compossibilise des vérités disparates et, de ce fait, énonce ce qu'est ce temps, celui où elle opère, en tant que temps des vérités qui y procèdent.
Sur le troisième point, on rappellera qu'il n'y a d'éducation que par les vérités. Tout l'insistant problème est qu'il y en ait, faute de quoi la catégorie philosophique de vérité est purement vide, et l'acte philosophique une ratiocination académique.
Ce « il y en a » indique une coresponsabilité de l'art, qui produit des vérités, et de la philosophie, qui, sous condition qu'il y en ait, a pour devoir, et tâche très difficile, de les montrer. Les montrer veut essentiellement dire : les distinguer de l'opinion. En sorte que la question d'aujourd'hui est celle-ci, et nulle autre : y a-t-il autre chose que de l'opinion, c'est-à-dire, on pardonnera (ou non) la provocation, y a-t-il autre chose que nos « démocraties » ?
Beaucoup répondent, et moi avec eux, oui. Oui, il y a des configurations artistiques, il y a des œuvres qui en sont les sujets pensants, il y a de la philosophie pour disjoindre conceptuellement tout cela de l'opinion. Notre temps vaut mieux que la « démocratie » dont il se targue.
On procédera d'abord, pour nourrir chez le lecteur cette conviction, à quelques _identifications_ philosophiques des arts. Poème, théâtre, cinéma et danse en seront les prétextes.
2
Qu'est-ce qu'un poème,
et qu'en pense la philosophie ?
La critique radicale de la poésie, dans le livre X de la _République_ , manifeste-t-elle les limites singulières de la philosophie platonicienne de l'Idée ? Ou est-elle, au contraire, un geste constitutif de la philosophie elle-même, de la philosophie « telle quelle », qui manifesterait ainsi originellement son incompatibilité avec le poème ?
Pour ne pas affadir la discussion, il importe de saisir que le geste platonicien au regard du poème n'est pas, aux yeux de Platon, secondaire ou polémique. Il est réellement crucial. Platon n'hésite pas à déclarer ceci : « La cité dont nous venons de fixer le principe est la meilleure, avant tout en raison des mesures prises à l'encontre de la poésie. »
Il faut absolument conserver intact le tranchant de cet énoncé extraordinaire. Il nous dit sans détour que ce qui sert de mesure au principe politique est proprement l'exclusion du poème. Ou du moins de ce que Platon nomme la « dimension imitative » du poétique. Le destin de la politique vraie se joue sur la fermeté de l'attitude à l'égard du poème.
Or, qu'est-ce que la politique vraie, la _politéia_ bien fondée ? C'est la philosophie elle-même, pour autant qu'elle assure la prise de la pensée sur l'existence collective, sur le multiple rassemblé des hommes. Disons que la _politéia_ est le collectif venu à sa vérité immanente. Ou encore, le collectif commensurable à la pensée.
Il faut donc, si l'on suit Platon, poser ceci : la cité, qui est le nom de l'humanité dans son rassemblement, n'est pensable que pour autant qu'on en tient le concept à l'abri du poème. Abriter la subjectivité collective du charme puissant du poème est nécessaire pour que la cité s'expose à la pensée. Ou encore : tant qu'elle est « poétisée », la subjectivité collective est aussi soustraite à la pensée, elle lui demeure hétérogène.
L'interprétation usuelle – largement autorisée par le texte de Platon – est que le poème, situé qu'il est à une distance double de l'Idée (imitation seconde de cette imitation première qu'est le sensible), interdit tout accès au principe suprême dont dépend que la vérité du collectif advienne à sa propre transparence. Le protocole de bannissement des poètes dépendrait de la nature imitative de la poésie. Une seule et même chose serait d'interdire le poème et de critiquer la _mimésis_.
Or, il ne me paraît pas que cette interprétation soit à la mesure de la _violence_ du texte platonicien. Violence dont Platon ne dissimule pas qu'elle est aussi dirigée contre lui-même, contre l'incoercible puissance du poème sur sa propre âme. La raisonnable critique de l'imitation ne légitime pas entièrement qu'il faille arracher de soi les effets d'une telle puissance.
Posons que la _mimésis_ n'est pas le fond du problème. Qu'il soit nécessaire, pour penser la cité, d'interrompre le dire poétique, requiert, comme en amont de la _mimésis_ , un malentendu fondateur.
Il semble qu'il y ait, entre la pensée telle que la philosophie la pense, et le poème, un discord bien plus radical, bien plus ancien, que celui qui concerne les images et l'imitation.
C'est à ce discord ancien et profond que Platon fait, je crois, allusion, quand il écrit : , « ancien est le discord de la philosophie et du poétique ».
Cette antiquité du discord porte évidemment sur la pensée, sur l'identification de la pensée.
À quoi, dans la pensée, la poésie s'oppose-t-elle ? Elle ne s'oppose pas directement à l'intellect, au , à l'intuition des idées. Elle ne s'oppose pas à la dialectique, comme forme suprême de l'intelligible. Platon est très clair sur ce point : ce que la poésie interdit, c'est la pensée discursive, la _dianoia_. Le poème, dit Platon, est « ruine de la discursivité de ceux qui l'écoutent ». La _dianoia_ , c'est la pensée qui va à travers, la pensée qui enchaîne et déduit. Le poème, lui, est affirmation et délectation, il ne va pas à travers, il se tient sur le seuil. Le poème n'est pas franchissement réglé, mais offrande, proposition sans loi.
Aussi bien Platon dira que le véritable recours contre le poème, c'est « la mesure, le nombre et le poids ». Et que la partie antipoétique de l'âme, c'est « le labeur du _logos_ calculant », . Il dira aussi que, dans le poème théâtral, ce qui triomphe est le principe du plaisir et de la douleur, contre la loi et le _logos_.
La _dianoia_ , la pensée qui enchaîne et traverse, la pensée qui est un _logos_ soumis à une loi, possède un paradigme : c'est la mathématique. On peut donc soutenir que ce à quoi, dans la pensée, le poème s'oppose, c'est proprement à la juridiction sur la pensée elle-même de la rupture mathématique, de la puissance intelligible du mathème.
L'opposition fondatrice est bien finalement celle-ci : la philosophie ne peut commencer, et ne peut se saisir du réel politique, que si elle substitue l'autorité du mathème à celle du poème.
Le motif profond de cette opposition entre mathème et poème est double.
D'une part, c'est le plus évident, le poème reste asservi à l'image, à l'immédiate singularité de l'expérience. Alors que le mathème prend son départ dans l'idée pure, et ne fait ensuite confiance qu'à la déduction. En sorte que le poème entretient avec l'expérience sensible un lien impur, qui expose la langue aux limites de la sensation. De ce point de vue, il est toujours douteux qu'il y ait réellement une pensée du poème, ou que le poème pense.
Mais qu'est-ce pour Platon qu'une pensée douteuse, une pensée indiscernable de la non-pensée ? C'est une sophistique. Il se pourrait que le poème soit en réalité le complice capital de la sophistique.
C'est bien ce qui est suggéré dans le dialogue _Protagoras_. Car Protagoras s'abrite derrière l'autorité du poète Simonide, et c'est lui qui déclare que, « pour un homme, la partie cruciale de l'éducation est d'être compétent en matière de poésie ».
On pourrait donc poser que ce que la poésie est au sophiste, la mathématique l'est au philosophe. L'opposition du mathème et du poème soutiendrait, dans les disciplines qui conditionnent la philosophie, l'incessant travail de la philosophie pour se disjoindre de son double discursif, de ce qui lui ressemble et, par cette ressemblance, corrompt son acte de pensée : la sophistique. Le poème serait, comme le sophiste, une non-pensée qui se présente dans la puissance langagière d'une pensée possible. Interrompre cette puissance serait l'office du mathème.
Mais, d'autre part, et plus profondément, à supposer même qu'il y ait une pensée du poème, ou que le poème soit une pensée, cette pensée est inséparable du sensible, elle est une pensée _qu'on ne peut discerner ou séparer comme pensée_. Disons que le poème est une pensée impensable. Alors que la mathématique est une pensée qui s'écrit immédiatement comme pensée, une pensée qui précisément n'existe qu'autant qu'elle est pensable.
On pourrait donc aussi bien poser que pour la philosophie la poésie est une pensée qui n'est pas pensée, ni même pensable. Mais que, précisément, la philosophie n'a pas d'autre enjeu que de penser la pensée, d'identifier la pensée comme pensée de la pensée. Et qu'elle doit donc exclure de son champ toute pensée immédiate, s'appuyant pour ce faire sur les médiations discursives du mathème.
« Que nul n'entre ici s'il n'est géomètre » : Platon fait entrer la mathématique par la grande porte, en tant que procédure _explicite_ de la pensée, ou pensée qui ne peut s'exposer que comme pensée. Dès lors, il faut que la poésie, elle, sorte par l'escalier dérobé. Cette poésie encore omniprésente dans la déclaration de Parménide comme dans les sentences d'Héraclite, mais qui oblitère la fonction philosophique, parce que la pensée s'y accorde le droit de l'inexplicite, de ce qui prend puissance dans la langue d'ailleurs que de la pensée qui s'expose comme telle.
Cependant, cette opposition dans la langue de la transparence du mathème à l'obscurité métaphorique du poème nous pose, à nous modernes, de redoutables problèmes.
Déjà Platon ne peut tenir jusqu'au bout cette maxime, qui promeut le mathème et bannit le poème. Il ne le peut, parce que lui-même explore les limites de la _dianoia_ , de la pensée discursive. Quand il s'agit du principe suprême, de l'Un, ou du Bien, Platon doit convenir que nous sommes là , « au-delà de la substance », et par conséquent hors de tout ce qui s'expose dans la découpe de l'Idée. Il doit avouer que la donation en pensée de ce principe suprême, qui est la donation en pensée de l'être au-delà de l'étant, ne se laisse traverser par aucune _dianoia_. Il doit lui-même avoir recours aux images, comme celle du soleil, aux métaphores, comme celles du « prestige » et de la « puissance », au mythe, comme celui d'Er le Pamphylien, qui revient du royaume des morts. Bref : là où ce qui est en jeu est l'ouverture de la pensée au principe du pensable, quand la pensée doit s'absorber dans la saisie de ce qui l'institue comme pensée, voici que Platon lui-même soumet la langue à la puissance du dire poétique.
Mais nous, modernes, endurons de tout autre façon qu'un Grec l'intervalle langagier du poème et du mathème.
D'abord parce que nous avons pris entière mesure, non seulement de tout ce que le poème doit au Nombre, mais de sa vocation proprement intelligible.
Mallarmé est ici exemplaire : l'enjeu du coup de dés poétique est bien que surgisse, « issu stellaire », ce qu'il appelle « l'unique nombre qui ne peut pas être un autre ». Le poème est au régime idéal de la nécessité, il ordonne le désir sensible à l'avènement aléatoire de l'Idée. Le poème est un _devoir_ de la pensée :
Gloire du long désir, Idées
Tout en moi s'exaltait de voir
La famille des iridées
Surgir à ce nouveau devoir.
Mais en outre, le poème moderne s'identifie lui-même comme pensée. Il n'est pas seulement l'effectivité d'une pensée livrée dans la chair de la langue, il est l'ensemble des opérations par lesquelles cette pensée se pense. Les grandes figures poétiques, qu'il s'agisse pour Mallarmé de la Constellation, du Tombeau ou du Cygne, ou pour Rimbaud du Christ, de l'Ouvrier ou de l'Époux infernal, ne sont pas des métaphores aveugles. Elles organisent un dispositif consistant, où le poème vient machiner la présentation sensible d'un régime de la pensée : soustraction et isolement pour Mallarmé, présence et interruption pour Rimbaud.
Symétriquement, nous modernes savons que la mathématique, qui pense directement les configurations de l'être-multiple, est traversée d'un principe d'errance et d'excès dont elle ne peut elle-même donner la mesure. Les grands théorèmes de Cantor, de Gödel, de Cohen marquent, dans le siècle, les apories du mathème. Le discord entre l'axiomatique ensembliste et la description catégorielle établit l'ontologie mathématique dans la contrainte d'options de pensée dont aucune prescription purement mathématique ne peut normer le choix.
En même temps que le poème advient à la pensée poétique de la pensée qu'il est, le mathème s'organise autour d'un point de fuite où son réel est en impasse de toute reprise formalisante.
Disons qu'en apparence la modernité idéalise le poème et sophistique le mathème. Par quoi elle renverse le jugement platonicien plus sûrement que Nietzsche ne le désirait du biais de la « transvaluation de toutes les valeurs ».
Il en résulte un déplacement crucial du rapport de la philosophie au poème.
Car ce n'est pas de l'opposition du sensible et de l'intelligible, ou du beau et du bien, ou de l'image et de l'Idée, qu'un tel rapport peut désormais se soutenir. Le poème moderne est d'autant moins la forme sensible de l'Idée que, bien plutôt, c'est le sensible qui se présente comme nostalgie subsistante, et impuissante, de l'idée poétique.
Dans _L'Après-midi d'un faune_ , de Mallarmé, le « personnage » qui monologue se demande s'il existe dans la nature, dans le paysage sensible, une trace possible de son rêve sensuel. Est-ce que l'eau ne porte pas témoignage de la froideur d'une des femmes désirées ? Est-ce que le vent ne se souvient pas des soupirs voluptueux de l'autre ? S'il faut écarter cette hypothèse, c'est que l'eau et le vent ne sont rien au regard de la puissance de suscitation par l'art de l'idée de l'eau, de l'idée du vent :
le matin frais s'il lutte,
Ne murmure point d'eau que ne verse ma flûte
Au bosquet arrosé d'accords ; et le seul vent
Hors des deux tuyaux prompt à s'exhaler avant
Qu'il disperse le son dans une pluie aride,
C'est, à l'horizon pas remué d'une ride,
Le visible et serein souffle artificiel
De l'inspiration, qui regagne le ciel.
Par la visibilité de l'artifice, qui est aussi la pensée de la pensée poétique, le poème surpasse en puissance ce dont le sensible est capable. Le poème moderne est le contraire d'une _mimésis._ Il exhibe par son opération une Idée dont l'objet et l'objectivité ne sont que de pâles copies.
La philosophie ne peut donc saisir le couple du poème et du mathème dans l'opposition simple de l'image délectable et de l'idée pure. Où donc fait-elle passer la disjonction de ces deux régimes de la pensée dans la langue ? Je dirai que c'est au point où l'une et l'autre de ces pensées trouvent leur innommable.
Posons, en diagonale du bannissement platonicien des poètes, cette équivalence : poème et mathème sont, examinés du point de la philosophie, l'un comme l'autre inscrits dans la forme générale d'une procédure de vérité.
La mathématique fait vérité du multiple pur comme inconsistance primordiale de l'être en tant qu'être.
La poésie fait vérité du multiple comme présence venue aux limites de la langue. Soit le chant de la langue comme aptitude à présentifier la notion pure du « il y a », dans l'effacement même de son objectivité empirique.
Quand Rimbaud énonce poétiquement que l'éternité est « la mer allée/ avec le soleil », ou quand Mallarmé résume toute la transposition dialectique du sensible en Idée par les trois mots « nuit, désespoir et pierrerie », ou « solitude, récif, étoile », ils fondent au creuset de la nomination le référent qui colle aux vocables pour faire exister intemporellement la disparition temporelle du sensible.
En quoi il est toujours vrai qu'un poème est une « alchimie du verbe ». Mais cette alchimie, à la différence de l'autre, est une pensée, la pensée de ce qu'il y a, en tant que « là » désormais suspendu aux puissances d'évidement et de suscitation de la langue.
Du multiple imprésenté et insensible dont la mathématique fait vérité, l'emblème est le vide, l'ensemble vide.
Du multiple donné ou éclos, retenu aux lisières de sa disparition, dont le poème fait vérité, l'emblème est la Terre, cette Terre affirmative et universelle dont Mallarmé déclare :
Oui, je sais qu'au lointain de cette nuit, la Terre
Jette d'un grand éclat l'insolite mystère.
Or toute vérité, qu'elle soit enchaînée au calcul ou extraite du chant de la langue naturelle, est d'abord _une puissance_. Elle a puissance sur son propre devenir infini. Elle peut en anticiper fragmentairement l'univers inachevable. Elle peut forcer la supposition de ce que serait l'univers si les effets complets d'une vérité en cours s'y déployaient sans limite.
C'est ainsi que, d'un théorème nouveau et puissant, on suppute les conséquences, qui réorientent la pensée, et l'ordonnent à de tout nouveaux exercices.
Mais c'est ainsi que, d'une poétique fondatrice, se tirent de nouvelles méthodes de la pensée poétique, une nouvelle prospection des ressources de la langue, et non pas seulement la délectation d'un éclat de présence.
Ce n'est pas pour rien que Rimbaud s'exclame : « Nous t'affirmons, méthode ! » ou qu'il se déclare « pressé de trouver le lieu et la formule ». Ou que Mallarmé se propose d'installer le poème comme une science :
Car j'installe, par la science,
L'hymne des cœurs spirituels
En l'œuvre de ma patience
Atlas, herbiers et rituels.
En même temps qu'il est, comme pensée de la présence sur fond de disparition, une action immédiate, le poème, comme toute figure locale d'une vérité, est aussi un programme de pensée, une anticipation puissante, un forçage de la langue par avènement d'une « autre » langue à la fois immanente et créée.
Mais en même temps qu'elle est une puissance, toute vérité est une impuissance. Car ce sur quoi elle a juridiction ne saurait être une totalité.
Que vérité et totalité soient incompatibles est sans doute l'enseignement décisif – ou posthégélien – de la modernité.
Jacques Lacan l'exprime par son aphorisme fameux : la vérité ne peut se dire « toute », elle ne peut que se mi-dire. Mais déjà Mallarmé critiquait les Parnassiens, lesquels, disait-il, « prennent la chose entièrement et la montrent ». Par là, ajoutait-il, « ils manquent le mystère ».
De quoi que ce soit qu'une vérité soit vérité, on ne saurait prétendre qu'elle l'investit « entièrement », ou en soit la monstration intégrale. La puissance de révélation du poème s'enroule autour d'une énigme, en sorte que le _pointage_ de cette énigme fasse tout le réel d'impuissance de la puissance du vrai. En ce sens, le « mystère dans les lettres » est un véritable impératif. Quand Mallarmé soutient qu'« il doit y avoir toujours énigme en poésie », il fonde une éthique du mystère qui est le respect, par la puissance d'une vérité, de son point d'impuissance.
Le mystère est proprement que toute vérité poétique laisse en son centre ce qu'elle n'a pas le pouvoir de faire venir à la présence.
Plus généralement, une vérité rencontre toujours, en un point de ce qu'elle investit, la limite où se prouve qu'elle est _cette_ vérité singulière, et non la conscience de soi du Tout.
Que toute vérité, quoiqu'elle procède à l'infini, soit également toujours une procédure singulière, s'atteste dans le réel par un point au moins d'impuissance, ou, comme dit Mallarmé, « un roc, faux manoir tout de suite évaporé en brumes qui imposa une borne à l'infini ».
Une vérité bute sur le roc de sa propre singularité, et c'est là seulement que s'énonce, comme impuissance, qu'une vérité _existe._
Appelons cette butée l' _innommable_. L'innommable est ce dont une vérité ne peut forcer la nomination. Ce dont elle ne peut anticiper la mise en vérité.
Tout régime de la vérité se fonde en réel sur son innommable propre.
Si nous revenons alors sur l'opposition platonicienne du poème et du mathème, demandons-nous ceci : qu'est-ce qui différencie « en réel », et donc quant à leur innommable propre, les vérités mathématiques et les vérités poétiques ?
Ce qui caractérise la langue mathématique est la fidélité déductive. Entendons par là la capacité à enchaîner des énoncés de telle sorte que cet enchaînement soit contraint, et que l'ensemble des énoncés obtenus soutienne victorieusement l'épreuve de la _consistance_. L'effet de contrainte relève du codage logique sous-jacent à l'ontologie mathématique. L'effet de consistance est central. Qu'est-ce en effet qu'une théorie consistante ? C'est une théorie telle qu'il existe des énoncés qui sont impossibles dans la théorie. Une théorie est consistante s'il existe au moins un énoncé « correct » du langage de cette théorie qui est ininscriptible dans la théorie, ou que la théorie n'admet pas comme véridique.
De ce point de vue, la consistance atteste la théorie _comme pensée singulière_. Car si n'importe quel énoncé était admissible dans la théorie, cela voudrait dire qu'il n'y a aucune différence entre « énoncé grammaticalement correct » et « énoncé théoriquement véridique ». La théorie ne serait alors qu'une grammaire, et ne penserait rien.
Le principe de consistance est ce qui assigne la mathématique à une situation d'être de la pensée, ce qui fait qu'elle n'est pas un simple ensemble de règles.
Mais nous savons, depuis Gödel, que la consistance _est précisément le point d'innommable de la mathématique_. Il n'est pas possible, pour une théorie mathématique, d'établir comme véridique l'énoncé de sa propre consistance.
Si nous nous tournons maintenant vers la poésie, nous voyons que ce qui en caractérise l'effet est la monstration des puissances de la langue elle-même. Tout poème fait venir dans la langue un pouvoir, le pouvoir de fixer éternellement la disparition de ce qui se présente. Ou de produire la présence elle-même comme Idée par la retenue poétique de son disparaître.
Cependant, ce pouvoir de la langue est précisément ce que le poème ne peut nommer. Il l'effectue, en puisant dans le chant latent de la langue, dans l'infini de sa ressource, dans la nouveauté de son assemblage. Mais, précisément parce que c'est à l'infini de la langue que le poème s'adresse pour en orienter le pouvoir vers la retenue d'une disparition, il ne peut fixer cet infini même.
Disons que la langue comme puissance infinie ordonnée à la présence est précisément l'innommable de la poésie.
L'infini langagier est l'impuissance immanente à l'effet de puissance du poème.
Ce point d'impuissance, ou d'innommable, est représenté par Mallarmé de deux façons au moins.
Tout d'abord, par ceci que l'effet du poème suppose une garantie qu'il ne constitue pas, ni ne peut valider poétiquement. Cette garantie est la langue saisie comme ordre, ou syntaxe : « Quel pivot, j'entends, dans ces contrastes, à l'intelligibilité ? Il faut une garantie – La syntaxe. » La syntaxe est, dans le poème, le pouvoir latent où le contraste de la présence et de la disparition (l'être comme néant) peut se présenter à l'intelligible. Mais la syntaxe n'est pas poétisable, si loin que je pousse sa distorsion. Elle opère sans se présenter.
Ensuite, Mallarmé indique clairement qu'il ne saurait y avoir de poème du poème, de métapoème. C'est tout le sens du fameux « ptyx », ce nom qui ne nomme rien, qui est « aboli bibelot d'inanité sonore ». Sans doute le ptyx serait-il le nom de ce dont le poème est capable : faire surgir de la langue une venue en présence antérieurement impossible. Sauf que, justement, ce nom n'est pas un nom, ce nom ne nomme pas. En sorte que le poète (le Maître de la langue) emporte avec lui ce faux nom dans la mort :
Car le Maître est allé puiser des pleurs au Styx
Avec ce seul objet dont le Néant s'honore.
Le poème lui-même, en tant qu'il effectue localement l'infini de la langue, reste, pour le poème, innommable. La puissance de la langue, le poème, qui n'a pas d'autre office que de la manifester, est impuissant à la nommer véridiquement.
C'est aussi bien ce que Rimbaud veut dire quand il taxe son entreprise poétique de « folie ». Certes, le poème « note l'inexprimable », ou « fixe des vertiges ». Mais la folie est de croire qu'il peut aussi ressaisir et nommer la ressource profonde et générale de ces notations, de ces fixations. Pensée active qui ne peut nommer sa propre puissance, le poème reste pour toujours infondé. Ce qui, aux yeux de Rimbaud, l'apparente au sophisme : « J'expliquai mes sophismes magiques avec l'hallucination des mots. »
Dès le début de son œuvre, Rimbaud remarquait du reste qu'il y a dans le poème, conçu subjectivement, une irresponsabilité. Le poème est comme un pouvoir qui traverse la langue involontairement : « tant pis pour le bois qui se trouve violon », ou « si le cuivre s'éveille clairon, il n'y a rien de sa faute ».
Au fond, pour Rimbaud, la pensée poétique a pour innommable cette pensée elle-même _dans son éclosion_ , dans sa venue. Ce qui est bien aussi la venue de l'infini de la langue comme chant, ou symphonie qui ensorcelle la présence : « j'assiste à l'éclosion de ma pensée : je la regarde, je l'écoute ; je lance un coup d'archet : la symphonie fait son remuement dans les profondeurs, ou vient d'un bond sur la scène ».
Disons que l'innommable propre du mathème est la consistance de la langue, cependant que l'innommable propre du poème est sa puissance.
Aussi bien, la philosophie va se placer sous la double condition du poème et du mathème, tant du côté de leur puissance de véridicité que du côté de leur impuissance, de leur innommable.
La philosophie est théorie générale de l'être et de l'événement, tels que noués par la vérité. Car une vérité est le travail _auprès_ de l'être d'un événement évanoui dont il ne reste que le nom.
La philosophie reconnaîtra que toute nomination d'un événement, convoquant la retenue de ce qui disparaît, toute nomination de la présence événementielle, est d'essence poétique.
Elle reconnaîtra aussi que toute fidélité à l'événement, tout travail auprès de l'être guidé par une prescription que rien ne fonde, doit avoir une rigueur dont le paradigme est mathématique, se soumettre à la discipline d'une contrainte continue.
Mais elle retiendra, de ce que la consistance est l'innommable du mathème, l'impossibilité d'une fondation réflexive intégrale, et que tout système comporte un point d'entame, une soustraction aux pouvoirs du vrai. Un point proprement inforçable par la puissance d'une vérité, quelle qu'elle soit.
Et de ce que la puissance infinie de la langue est l'innommable du poème, elle retiendra que, si forte puisse être une interprétation, le sens qu'elle atteint ne rend jamais raison de la capacité au sens. Ou encore, que jamais une vérité ne peut délivrer le sens du sens.
Platon bannissait le poème parce qu'il soupçonnait que la pensée poétique ne peut être pensée de la pensée. Nous accueillerons quant à nous le poème, parce qu'il nous évite de supposer qu'on puisse remplacer la singularité d'une pensée par la pensée de cette pensée.
Entre la consistance du mathème et la puissance du poème, ces deux innommables, la philosophie renonce à établir les noms qui obturent ce qui se soustrait. Elle est en ce sens, après le poème, après le mathème, et sous leur condition pensante, la pensée toujours lacunaire du multiple des pensées.
Elle ne l'est toutefois qu'en se gardant de _juger_ le poème et, singulièrement, de vouloir, fût-ce par des exemples empruntés à tel ou tel poète, lui administrer des leçons politiques. Ce qui veut le plus souvent dire, et c'est bien en ce sens que Platon comprenait la leçon philosophique donnée au poème : exiger la dissipation de son mystère, fixer d'avance des limites à la puissance de la langue. Ce qui revient à forcer l'innommable, à « platoniser » contre le poème moderne. Et il arrive même à de grands poètes de platoniser en ce sens. Je vais en donner un exemple.
3
Un philosophe français
répond à un poète polonais
Il y a quelques années, quand les États socialistes commençaient à s'effondrer, un poète est venu de l'Est, un vrai poète. Reconnu par son peuple. Reconnu par le prix qui chaque année, sous la garantie d'une neutralité du Nord, désigne solennellement au monde ses Grands Écrivains.
Ce poète a voulu nous donner une fraternelle leçon. Qui donc, « nous » ? Nous, gens de l'Ouest, et plus singulièrement français, saisis dans le lien de langue à nos poètes les plus récents.
Czeslaw Milosz nous a dit que, depuis Mallarmé, nous étions, et l'Ouest avec nous, enclos dans un hermétisme sans espoir. Que nous avions tari la source du poème. Que l'abstraction du philosophe était comme une glaciation du territoire poétique. Et que l'Est, armé de sa grande souffrance, gardien de sa parole vive, pouvait nous rendre le chemin d'une poésie chantée par tout un peuple.
Il nous a dit aussi, ce grand Polonais, que la poésie de l'Ouest avait succombé à une fermeture et à une opacité dont l'origine était un excès subjectif, un oubli du monde et de l'objet. Et que le poème devait retenir et offrir une connaissance dévouée à la richesse sans retenue de ce qui se présente.
Convié à donner mon sentiment, j'ai fait ce court triptyque, que je dédie à tous les points cardinaux.
a) Hermétisme
Mallarmé est-il un poète hermétique ? Bien vain de nier qu'existe une surface énigmatique du poème. Mais à quoi nous convie cette énigme sinon au partage volontaire de son opération ?
Cette idée est capitale : Le poème n'est ni une description ni une expression. Il n'est pas non plus une peinture émue de l'étendue du monde. Le poème est une opération. Le poème nous enseigne que le monde ne se présente pas comme une collection d'objets. Le monde n'est pas ce qui objecte à la pensée. Il est – pour les opérations du poème – ce dont la présence est plus essentielle que l'objectivité.
Pour penser la présence, il faut que le poème dispose une opération oblique de capture. Cette obliquité seule destitue la façade d'objets qui compose la tromperie des apparences et des opinions. Que la procédure du poème soit oblique est ce qui exige d'y entrer, plutôt que d'en être saisi.
Quand Mallarmé demande qu'on procède avec des mots « allusifs, jamais directs », il s'agit d'un impératif de désobjectivation, pour qu'advienne une présence qu'il nomme la « notion pure ». Mallarmé écrit ceci : « Le moment de la Notion d'un objet est donc le moment de la réflexion de son présent pur en lui-même ou sa pureté présente. » Le poème se concentre sur la dissolution de l'objet dans sa pureté présente, il est la constitution du moment de cette dissolution. Ce qu'on a baptisé « hermétisme » n'est que le momentané du poème, momentané qui n'est accessible que par une obliquité, obliquité que signale l'énigme. Le lecteur doit s'engager dans l'énigme pour parvenir au point momentané de la présence. Sinon, le poème n'opère pas.
Au vrai, il n'est licite de parler d'hermétisme que quand il y a science secrète, ou occulte, et qu'on a besoin pour comprendre des clefs d'une interprétation. Le poème de Mallarmé ne demande pas qu'on l'interprète, et il n'en existe nulle clef. Le poème demande qu'on entre dans son opération, et l'énigme est cette demande elle-même.
La règle est simple : s'engager dans le poème, non pour savoir de quoi il parle, mais pour penser ce qui s'y passe. Puisque le poème est une opération, il est aussi un événement. Le poème a lieu. L'énigme superficielle est l'indication de cet avoir-lieu, elle nous offre un avoir-lieu dans la langue.
J'opposerais volontiers la poésie, qui est poétisation de ce qui se passe, et le poème, qui est lui-même le lieu où ça se passe, qui est une passe de la pensée.
Cette passe de la pensée, immanente au poème, Mallarmé l'appelle « transposition ».
La transposition organise une disparition, celle du poète : « l'œuvre pure implique la disparition élocutoire du poète ». Remarquons en passant combien il est inexact de dire qu'un tel poème est subjectif. Mallarmé veut le contraire, un radical anonymat du sujet du poème.
La transposition produit, au creux de la langue, non pas du tout un objet, mais une Idée. Le poème est « un envol tacite d'abstractions ». « Envol » désigne son mouvement sensible, « tacite » que tout bavardage subjectif est éliminé, « abstraction » que surgit, à la fin, une notion pure, l'idée d'une présence. De cette idée l'emblème sera la Constellation, ou le Cygne, ou la Rose, ou le Tombeau.
La transposition, enfin, dispose, entre la disparition élocutoire du poète et la notion pure, l'opération elle-même, la transposition, le sens, qui agissent de façon indépendante dans la vêture de l'énigme qui en est la demande. Ou, comme le dit Mallarmé : « Le sens enseveli se meut et dispose, en chœur, des feuillets. »
« Hermétisme » est un mauvais mot pour désigner ceci : que le sens est pris dans le mouvoir du poème, dans sa disposition, et non dans son supposé référent ; que ce mouvoir opère entre l'éclipse du sujet et la dissipation de l'objet ; que ce qu'il produit est une Idée.
« Hermétisme », manié comme accusation, est le mot d'ordre d'une incompréhension spirituelle de notre temps. Ce mot d'ordre dissimule une nouveauté majeure : que le poème est simultanément indifférent au thème du sujet comme à celui de l'objet. Le vrai rapport du poème s'établit entre la pensée, qui n'est pas d'un sujet, et la présence, qui outrepasse l'objet.
Quant à l'énigme de la surface du poème, elle devrait bien plutôt séduire notre désir d'entrer dans les opérations du poème. Si nous cédons sur ce désir, si l'obscure scintillation du vers nous rebute, c'est que nous laissons triompher en nous un autre et suspect vouloir, celui, dit Mallarmé, « d'exhiber les choses à un imperturbable premier plan, en camelots activés par la pression de l'instant ».
b) À qui le poème est-il adressé ?
Le poème est, exemplairement, destiné à tous. Ni plus ni moins que les mathématiques sont destinées à tous. Par ceci, précisément, que ni le poème ni le mathème ne font acception des personnes, ils représentent, aux deux extrémités de la langue, la plus pure universalité.
Il peut exister une poésie démagogue, qui croit s'adresser à tous parce qu'elle détient la forme sensible des opinions du moment. Et il peut exister une mathématique abâtardie, parce qu'elle est au service des opportunités du commerce et de la technique. Mais ce sont là des figures étroites, qui définissent les gens – ceux à qui on s'adresse – par leur alignement sur les circonstances. Si on définit les gens, égalitairement, par la pensée, et tel est le seul sens assignable de la plus stricte égalité, alors les opérations du poème et les déductions de la mathématique sont le paradigme de ce qui s'adresse à tous.
Ce « tous » égalitaire, Mallarmé l'appelle la foule, et son fameux Livre inabouti n'avait nul autre destinataire que cette foule.
La Foule est condition de la présence du présent. Mallarmé indique rigoureusement que son époque est sans présent pour des raisons qui tiennent à l'absence d'une foule égalitaire : « Il n'est pas de Présent, non, un présent n'existe pas. Faute que se déclare la Foule. »
S'il y a aujourd'hui, nous le verrons, nous avons encore à le voir, une différence entre l'Est et l'Ouest quant à la ressource du poème, ce n'est certainement pas à la souffrance qu'il faut l'assigner, mais à ce que, de Leipzig à Pékin, la foule, peut-être, se déclare. Cette déclaration, ou ces déclarations, historiques, constituent un présent et modifient, peut-être, les conditions du poème. Son opération peut capter le latent de la foule, dans la nomination d'un événement. Le poème est alors possible comme action générale.
Si, comme c'était le cas à l'Ouest en ces tristes années quatre-vingt, et comme c'était le cas du temps de Mallarmé, la foule ne se déclare pas, alors le poème n'est possible que dans la forme de ce que Mallarmé appelle l'action restreinte.
L'action restreinte n'altère nullement que l'adresse du poème soit la foule égalitaire. Mais elle a pour point de départ, au lieu de l'événement, son défaut. C'est ainsi de son mal, de son manque, et non pas de sa suscitation déclarée dans la foule, que le poème fait matière pour le surgissement d'une constellation. Le poète doit sélectionner dans une situation pauvre de quoi monter la comédie sacrificielle d'une grandeur. Ses défections les plus intimes, ses lieux les plus indifférents, ses joies les plus courtes, l'action restreinte exige qu'il en prenne sur lui le théâtre, pour anticiper l'Idée. Ou, comme le dit superbement Mallarmé : « L'écrivain, de ses maux, dragons qu'il a choyés, ou d'une allégresse, doit s'instituer, au texte, le spirituel histrion. »
S'il y a aujourd'hui, peut-être, une différence entre l'Est et l'Ouest, ce n'est certainement pas en aval, quant au destinataire du poème, qui est toujours et partout en droit la Foule. C'est en amont, dans les conditions du poème, autorisé, peut-être, à l'Est, à l'action générale, contraint pour l'instant, à l'Ouest, à l'action restreinte. C'est tout ce que je suis en état de concéder à Milosz, à supposer que ces prédictions politiques se confirment, ce qui n'est pas assuré.
Cette distinction affecte moins l'Idée que son matériau. Elle sépare moins les opérations du poème que les dimensions de la langue que ces opérations mettent en jeu. Ou, pour reprendre une catégorie de Michel Deguy, il s'agit de savoir ce à propos de quoi on peut, dans le poème, dire que ceci est comme cela. Le champ d'exercice du « comme », d'où naît la notion pure, est restreint à l'Ouest, possiblement général à l'Est.
Car toute différence dans le poème s'établit moins comme différence entre les langues que comme différence, dans la langue, entre les registres qu'à tel ou tel moment les opérations du poème sont capables de traiter.
c) Paul Celan
Est-il de l'Est, ce Paul Antschel né en 1920 à Tchernovtsy ? Est-il de l'Ouest, ce Paul Celan marié à Gisèle de Lestrange, mort en 1970 à Paris, où il vivait depuis 1948 ? Est-il d'Europe centrale, ce poète de langue allemande ? Est-il encore d'ailleurs, ou de partout, ce juif ?
Que nous dit ce poète, le dernier, je crois, de toute une époque du poème dont le lointain prophète est Hölderlin, qui commence avec Mallarmé et Rimbaud, et qui inclut sans aucun doute Trakl, Pessoa et Mandelstam ?
Celan nous dit d'abord qu'un sens de pensée pour notre époque ne peut résulter d'un espace ouvert, d'une prise sur le Tout. Notre époque est désorientée et n'a pas de nom général. Il faut que le poème (nous retrouvons le thème de l'action restreinte) se plie à un passage étroit.
Mais, pour que le poème passe dans l'étroitesse du temps, il doit marquer et fracturer cette étroitesse par quelque chose de fragile et d'aléatoire. Notre époque suppose, pour qu'advienne une Idée, un sens, une présence, la conjonction dans les opérations du poème de l'étroitesse entrevue d'un acte et de la fragilité hasardeuse d'une marque. Écoutons Celan, dans la belle traduction de Martine Broda :
Un sens survient aussi
par la laie plus étroite,
que fracture
la plus mortelle de nos
marques érigées.
Celan nous dit ensuite que, si étroit et hasardeux que soit le chemin, nous en savons deux choses :
– Premièrement, qu'au rebours des déclarations de la sophistique moderne il y a un point fixe. Tout n'est pas glissement des jeux de langage, ou variabilité immatérielle des occurrences. L'être et la vérité, même descellés de toute prise sur le Tout, ne sont pas évanouis. On les trouvera, précairement enracinés, là où justement le Tout propose son rien.
– Deuxièmement, nous savons que nous ne sommes pas prisonniers des liens du monde. Plus essentiellement, l'idée de lien, ou de rapport, est fallacieuse. Une vérité est dé-liée, et c'est vers ce délié, vers ce point local où un lien se défait, qu'opère le poème, en direction de la présence.
Écoutons Celan nous dire, et ce qui est fixe, ce qui tient et dure, et l'emportement vers le délié :
Le roseau, qui prend pied ici, demain
tiendra encore, où que tu sois,
au gré de ton âme, emporté, dans le non-lié.
Celan nous enseigne enfin, dans la conséquence du règne du délié, que ce sur quoi une vérité prend appui n'est pas la consistance, mais l'inconsistance. Il ne s'agit pas de formuler des jugements corrects, il s'agit de produire le murmure de l'indiscernable.
Ce qui est décisif, dans cette production d'un murmure de l'indiscernable, est l'inscription, l'écriture, ou, pour reprendre une catégorie chère à Jean-Claude Milner, la lettre. La lettre seule ne discerne pas, mais effectue.
J'ajouterai : il y a plusieurs sortes de lettres. Il y a en effet les petites lettres du mathème, mais il y a aussi le « mystère dans les Lettres » du poème, il y a ce qu'une politique prend à la lettre, il y a les lettres d'amour.
La lettre s'adresse à tous. Le savoir discerne les choses, et astreint les divisions. La lettre, qui supporte le murmure de l'indiscernable, est adressée sans division.
Tout sujet est traversable par la lettre, tout sujet est translittérable. Ce serait ma définition de la liberté dans la pensée, liberté qui est égalitaire : une pensée est libre dès lors qu'elle est translittérée par les petites lettres du mathème, les lettres mystérieuses du poème, la prise des choses à la lettre par la politique, et la lettre d'amour.
Pour être libre au regard du mystère dans les lettres, qui est le poème, il suffit que le lecteur se dispose aux opérations du poème, qu'il s'y dispose littéralement. Il faut vouloir sa propre translittération.
Ce nœud de l'inconsistance, de l'indiscernable, de la lettre et de la volonté, Celan le nomme ainsi :
Sur les inconsistances
s'appuyer :
chiquenaude
dans l'abîme, dans les
carnets de gribouillages
le monde se met à bruire, il n'en tient
qu'à toi.
Le poème formule ici une haute directive pour la pensée : que la lettre, universellement adressée, interrompe toute consistance, pour qu'advienne le bruissement d'une vérité du monde.
Nous pouvons nous dire poétiquement les uns aux autres : « il n'en tient qu'à toi ». Toi, moi, convoqués aux opérations du poème, nous écoutons le murmure de l'indiscernable.
Mais d'où vient qu'on reconnaisse le poème ? Notre chance est que, Mallarmé le souligne, dernier mot qui n'est ni de l'Ouest ni de l'Est : « Une époque sait, d'office, l'existence du poète. »
Cette chance, toutefois, il faut l'accorder, nous tardons parfois à en animer notre pensée. Milosz, sans doute, touchait aussi à ce point. Toutes les langues ont ressaisi leur puissance dans d'admirables poèmes, et il n'est que trop vrai que nous, Français longtemps sûrs de notre destin impérial, avons parfois mis bien des années, ou bien des siècles, à le découvrir.
Pour rendre hommage à l'universalité du poème dans la variété des idiomes, je dirai maintenant comment j'ai fini par concevoir l'extraordinaire importance d'un poète portugais, et, bien plus loin dans le passé, d'un poète arabe. Je montrerai que, de ces poètes aussi, notre pensée, notre philosophie se _composent._
4
Une tâche philosophique :
être contemporain de Pessoa
Pessoa, mort en 1935, n'a été connu en France, de façon un peu large, que cinquante ans plus tard. Je m'inclus dans ce différé scandaleux. Car il s'agit d'un des poètes décisifs du siècle, et singulièrement si on tente de le penser comme condition possible de la philosophie.
La question peut en effet se formuler ainsi : la philosophie de ce siècle, y compris celle de ces dix dernières années, a-t-elle pu, a-t-elle su, se mettre sous condition de l'entreprise poétique de Pessoa ? Heidegger a certainement tenté un placement de sa spéculation sous la contrainte pensante de Hölderlin, de Rilke ou de Trakl. Lacoue-Labarthe est engagé dans une révision de la tentative heideggerienne, révision dont Hölderlin est l'enjeu, et dont Paul Celan est un opérateur crucial. J'ai moi-même désiré que la philosophie soit enfin contemporaine des opérations poétiques de Mallarmé. Mais Pessoa ? Disons que José Gil s'est attaché, non pas exactement à inventer des philosophèmes qui puissent accueillir et supporter l'œuvre de Pessoa, mais du moins à _vérifier_ une hypothèse : la compatibilité entre cette œuvre – plus particulièrement celle de Campos – et certaines propositions philosophiques de Deleuze. Je ne vois que Judith Balso qui soit engagée dans une évaluation d'ensemble de la poésie de Pessoa au regard de la question de la métaphysique. Mais elle procède à cette évaluation _du côté de la poésie elle-même_ , et non dans un mouvement directement interne au remodelage des thèses de la philosophie. Il faut donc conclure que la philosophie n'est pas, n'est pas encore, sous condition de Pessoa. Elle ne pense pas encore _à hauteur de Pessoa_.
On demandera évidemment : pourquoi le devrait-elle ? Quelle est cette « hauteur » que nous attribuons au poète portugais, et qui impose qu'on fixe comme tâche à la philosophie de s'y mesurer ? Nous répondrons par un détour, qui implique la catégorie de modernité. Nous soutiendrons que la ligne de pensée singulière déployée par Pessoa est telle qu'aucune des figures établies de la modernité philosophique n'est apte à en soutenir la tension.
Prenons comme définition provisoire de la modernité philosophique le mot d'ordre de Nietzsche, assumé par Deleuze : renversement du platonisme. Disons avec Nietzsche que tout l'effort du siècle est de « guérir de la maladie Platon ».
Que ce mot d'ordre organise une convergence des tendances hétéroclites de la philosophie contemporaine ne fait aucun doute. L'antiplatonisme est, au sens strict, le _lieu commun_ de notre époque.
Il est tout d'abord central dans la ligne de pensée des philosophies de la vie, ou de la puissance du virtuel, de Nietzsche lui-même à Deleuze en passant par Bergson. Pour ces penseurs, l'idéalité transcendante du concept est dirigée contre l'immanence créatrice de la vie ; l'éternité du vrai est une fiction mortifère, qui sépare chaque étant de ce dont il est capable selon sa propre différenciation énergétique.
Mais l'antiplatonisme est tout aussi actif dans la tendance opposée, celle des philosophies grammairiennes et langagières, tout ce vaste dispositif analytique marqué par les noms de Wittgenstein, de Carnap ou de Quine. Pour ce courant, la supposition platonicienne de l'existence effective des idéalités, et de la nécessité d'une intuition intellectuelle au principe de toute connaissance, est un pur non-sens. Car le « il y a » en général n'est composé que des données sensibles (dimension empiriste) et de leur organisation par ce véritable opérateur transcendantal sans sujet qu'est la structure du langage (dimension logique).
On sait par ailleurs que Heidegger et tout le courant herméneutique qui se réclame de lui voient dans l'opération platonicienne, qui impose à la pensée de l'être la découpe première de l'Idée, le commencement de l'oubli de l'être, l'envoi de ce qu'il y a d'ultimement nihiliste dans la métaphysique. Car l'Idée est déjà recouvrement de l'éclosion du sens de l'être par la suprématie technique de l'étant, tel que disposé et arraisonné par un entendement mathématicien.
Les marxistes orthodoxes eux-mêmes n'avaient nulle estime pour Platon, que le dictionnaire de l'Académie des sciences de feu l'URSS traitait benoîtement d'idéologue des propriétaires d'esclaves. Platon était pour eux à l'origine de la tendance idéaliste dans la philosophie, et ils préféraient de beaucoup Aristote, plus sensible à l'expérience, plus porté à l'examen pragmatique des sociétés politiques.
Mais les antimarxistes acharnés des années soixante-dix et quatre-vingt, les adeptes de la philosophie politique démocratique et éthique, les « nouveaux philosophes », comme Glucksmann, voyaient dans Platon, qui veut soumettre l'anarchie démocratique à l'impératif de la transcendance du Bien par l'entremise despotique du roi-philosophe, le type même du maître-penseur totalitaire.
C'est dire à quel point, dans quelque direction que la modernité philosophique cherche ses repères, on y trouve le stigmate obligé du « renversement de Platon ».
Notre question concernant Pessoa devient alors : qu'en est-il du platonisme, en ses différentes acceptions, dans son œuvre poétique ? Ou, plus précisément : l'organisation de la poésie comme pensée chez Pessoa est-elle moderne au sens du renversement du platonisme ?
Rappelons qu'une singularité fondamentale de la poésie de Pessoa est qu'elle propose les œuvres complètes de quatre poètes, et non d'un seul. C'est le fameux dispositif de l'hétéronymie. Sous les noms de Caeiro, de Campos, de Reis et de Pessoa-en-personne, nous disposons de quatre ensembles de poèmes qui, quoique de la même main, sont si différents quant aux motifs dominants et à l'engagement langagier qu'ils composent à eux seuls une configuration artistique complète.
Dira-t-on alors que l'hétéronymie poétique est une inflexion singulière de l'antiplatonisme, et que c'est en ce sens qu'elle participe de notre modernité ?
Notre réponse sera négative. Si Pessoa représente, pour la philosophie, un défi singulier, si sa modernité est encore _en avant de nous_ , et à certains égards inexplorée, c'est que _sa pensée-poème ouvre une voie qui parvient à n'être ni platonicienne ni antiplatonicienne_. Pessoa définit poétiquement, sans que la philosophie en ait à ce jour pris la mesure, un lieu de pensée proprement _soustrait_ au mot d'ordre unanime du renversement du platonisme.
Pourtant, un premier examen semble montrer que Pessoa est plutôt transversal à toutes les tendances de l'antiplatonisme du siècle, qu'il les a toutes traversées, ou anticipées.
On trouve chez l'hétéronyme Campos, singulièrement dans les grandes odes, et c'est ce qui autorise l'hypothèse de Gil, l'apparence d'un vitalisme déchaîné. L'exaspération de la sensation semble être le procédé majeur de l'enquête poétique, et l'exposition du corps à son démembrement multiforme évoque l'identité virtuelle du désir et de l'intuition. Une idée géniale de Campos est aussi de montrer que l'opposition classique du machinisme et de l'élan vital est toute relative. Campos est le poète du machinisme moderne et des grandes métropoles, ou de l'activité commerciale, bancaire, usinière, conçus comme dispositifs de création, comme analogies naturelles. Il pense, bien avant Deleuze, qu'il y a dans le désir une sorte d'univocité machinique, dont le poème doit capter l'énergie sans la sublimer ni l'idéaliser, sans non plus la disperser dans une louche équivoque, mais en saisissant les flux et les coupures à même une sorte de fureur de l'être.
Déjà, après tout, le choix du poème comme vection langagière de la pensée n'est-il pas intrinsèquement antiplatonicien ? Car, tel qu'il l'utilise, Pessoa installe le poème dans les procédures d'une logique distendue, ou retournée, qui ne semble pas compatible avec la _netteté_ de la dialectique idéaliste. C'est ainsi, comme l'a montré Jakobson dans un très bel article, que l'emploi systématique de l'oxymore déséquilibre toutes les attributions prédicatives. Comment en venir à l'Idée si presque n'importe quel terme peut, dans la forte cohérence du poème, recevoir presque n'importe quel prédicat, et singulièrement celui qui n'a avec le terme qu'il affecte que le rapport d'une contre-convenance ? De la même façon, Pessoa est l'inventeur d'un usage quasi labyrinthique de la négation, qui se distribue le long du vers de telle sorte qu'on n'est jamais assuré de pouvoir _fixer_ le terme nié. On peut dire qu'il y a ainsi, tout à fait à l'opposé de l'usage strictement dialectique de la négation chez Mallarmé, une _négation flottante_ , destinée à imprégner le poème d'une constante équivoque entre l'affirmation et la négation, ou plutôt d'une espèce très reconnaissable de réticence affirmative, qui autorise finalement que les plus éclatantes manifestations de la puissance de l'être soient corrodées par les plus insistantes rétractations du sujet. Pessoa produit ainsi une subversion poétique du principe de non-contradiction. Mais tout aussi bien, spécialement dans les poème de Pessoa-en-personne, il récuse le principe du tiers exclu. Le cheminement du poème est en effet diagonal, ce dont il traite n'est ni un rideau de pluie ni une cathédrale ; ni la chose nue ni son reflet ; ni le voir direct dans la lumière ni l'opacité d'une vitre. Le poème est alors là pour créer ce « ni ni », et suggérer que c'est _encore autre chose_ , que toute opposition de type oui/non laisse échapper.
Comment serait-il platonicien, ce poète qui invente une logique non classique, une négation fuyante, une diagonale de l'être, une inséparabilité des prédicats ?
On pourrait du reste soutenir qu'en même temps, ou presque, que Wittgenstein (qu'il ignore), Pessoa propose la forme la plus radicale qui soit d'identification entre la pensée et des jeux de langage. Car qu'est-ce que l'hétéronymie ? N'oublions jamais que sa matérialité n'est pas de l'ordre du projet ou de l'Idée. Elle est _livrée_ dans l'écriture, dans la diversité effective des poèmes. Comme le dit Judith Balso, l'hétéronymie existe d'abord, non en poètes, mais en poèmes. Dès lors, il s'agit bien de faire exister des jeux poétiques disparates, avec leurs règles propres, et leur cohérence interne irréductible. Et ces règles sont elles-mêmes, peut-on soutenir, des codes empruntés, en sorte qu'il y aurait comme une composition postmoderne du jeu hétéronyme. Caeiro n'est-il pas l'aboutissement du travail équivoque entre vers et prose, tel que déjà le voulait Baudelaire ? N'écrit-il pas : « je fais la prose de mes vers » ? Il y a dans les odes de Campos une sorte de faux Whitman, et dans celles de Reis, comme dans les colonnades de l'architecte Bofill, un faux antique assumé. Cette combinaison de jeux irréductibles et de _mimésis_ en trompe l'œil n'est-elle pas le comble de l'antiplatonisme ?
De plus, Pessoa, comme Heidegger, propose un pas en arrière présocratique. L'affinité entre Caeiro et Parménide n'est pas douteuse. Car ce que Caeiro fixe comme devoir au poème, c'est de restituer une identité de l'être antérieure à toute organisation subjective de la pensée. Le mot d'ordre qu'on trouve dans un de ses poèmes : « ne pas s'appuyer sur le couloir de la pensée », équivaut à un « laisser-être » tout à fait comparable à la critique heideggerienne du motif cartésien de la subjectivité. La fonction de la tautologie (un arbre est un arbre et rien d'autre qu'un arbre, etc.) est de poétiser l'immédiate _venue_ de la Chose sans qu'il faille en passer par les protocoles, toujours critiques ou négatifs, de sa saisie cognitive. C'est bien ce que Caeiro appelle une métaphysique de la non-pensée, au fond très voisine de la thèse de Parménide selon laquelle la pensée n'est rien d'autre que l'être lui-même. Autant dire que Caeiro dirige toute sa poésie contre l'idée platonicienne comme médiation du connaître.
Et enfin, s'il est vrai que Pessoa est tout sauf socialiste ou marxiste, il n'en est pas moins vrai que sa poésie est une puissante critique de l'idéalisation. Cette critique est explicite chez Caeiro, qui ne cesse de moquer ceux qui voient dans la lune dans le ciel autre chose que la lune dans le ciel, les « poètes malades ». Mais nous devons être sensibles, dans l'œuvre entière de Pessoa, à un matérialisme poétique très particulier. Bien qu'il soit un grand maître de l'image surprenante, ce poète se reconnaît à première lecture à une sorte de netteté presque sèche du dire poétique. C'est du reste pourquoi il parvient à intégrer dans le charme poétique lui-même une dose exceptionnelle d'abstraction. Disons que, constamment soucieux que le poème ne dise exactement que ce qu'il dit, Pessoa nous propose une poésie _sans aura_. Ce n'est jamais dans sa résonance, dans sa vibration latérale, qu'il faut chercher le devenir de la pensée-poème, mais dans l'exactitude littérale. Le poème de Pessoa ne cherche pas à séduire, ou à suggérer. Si complexe soit son agencement, il est à lui-même, de façon serrée et compacte, sa propre vérité. Disons que, contre Platon, Pessoa semble nous dire que l'écriture n'est pas une obscure réminiscence, toujours imparfaite, d'un ailleurs idéal. Qu'au contraire elle est _la pensée elle-même_ , telle quelle. En sorte que la sentence matérialiste de Caeiro : « une chose est ce qui n'est pas susceptible d'interprétation », se généralise à tous les hétéronymes : un poème est un réseau matériel d'opérations, un poème est ce qui ne doit jamais être interprété.
Pessoa, donc, poète _complet_ de l'antiplatonisme ? Telle n'est, d'aucune façon, ma lecture. Car les signes apparents d'un parcours par le poète de toutes les postures antiplatoniciennes du siècle ne sauraient dissimuler un face-à-face avec Platon, ni que la volonté _fondatrice_ de Pessoa est beaucoup plus proche du platonisme que des déconstructions grammairiennes dont notre époque se targue. Donnons de cette orientation quelques preuves majeures.
1. Un signe presque infaillible à quoi se reconnaît l'esprit platonicien est la promotion du paradigme mathématique, tant en ce qui concerne la pensée de l'être qu'en ce qui relève des arcanes du vrai. Or Pessoa se fixe explicitement comme projet d'ordonner le poème à la saisie de la mathématique de l'être. Mieux encore, il affirme l'identité foncière de la vérité mathématique et de la beauté artistique, car « le binôme de Newton est aussi beau que la Vénus de Milo ». Et quand il ajoute que le problème, c'est que peu de personnes ont le savoir de cette identité, il engage le poème dans cette essentielle _instruction_ platonicienne : conduire la pensée ignorante vers la certitude immanente d'une réciprocité ontologique entre le vrai et le beau.
De là, du reste, que le projet de pensée du poème de Pessoa peut se dire : qu'est-ce qu'une métaphysique moderne ? Même si ce projet prend la forme paradoxale, dont Judith Balso explore les détours infiniment subtils, d'une « métaphysique sans métaphysique ». Mais après tout, dans son démêlé avec les présocratiques, Platon ne désirait-il pas, lui aussi, édifier une métaphysique soustraite à la méta-physique, c'est-à-dire au primat de la physique, de la nature ?
Soutenons que la syntaxe de Pessoa est l'instrument d'un tel projet. Car il y a, chez ce poète, comme en dessous des images et des métaphores, une constante _machination syntaxique_ , dont la complexité interdit que restent souveraines l'emprise sensible et l'émotion naturelle. Sur ce point, en tout cas, Pessoa ressemble à Mallarmé : souvent, la phrase doit être reconstruite, lue une seconde fois, pour que l'Idée traverse et transcende l'image apparente. Car Pessoa veut doter la langue, si variée, surprenante et suggestive qu'elle soit, d'une souterraine _exactitude_ , que nous n'hésiterons pas à déclarer algébrique, et sur ce point comparable à l'alliance, dans les dialogues de Platon, d'un charme singulier, d'une constante séduction littéraire, et d'une implacable dureté argumentative.
2. Plus platonicienne encore est ce que nous pourrions nommer l'assise ontologique archétypale du recours au visible. Car ce recours ne nous laisse jamais ignorer qu'en définitive ce n'est pas des singularités sensibles qu'il est question dans le poème, mais de leur type, de leur onto-type. Ce point est déployé de façon grandiose au début de l' _Ode maritime_ , un des plus grands poèmes de Campos (et de tout le siècle), quand le quai réel et présent manifeste qu'il est le Grand Quai intrinsèque. Mais il est omniprésent chez tous les hétéronymes, et aussi dans le livre en prose du « semi-hétéronyme » Bernardo Soares, le désormais très connu _Livre de l'intranquillité_ : la pluie, la machine, l'arbre, l'ombre, la passante y sont poétisés, par des moyens très variés, dans la constante direction de la Pluie, de la Machine, de l'Arbre, de l'Ombre, de la Passante. Même le sourire du patron du bureau de tabac, à la fin d'un autre poème fameux de Campos, n'a lieu qu'en direction d'un Sourire éternel. Et la puissance du poème est de ne jamais séparer cette direction de la présence, éventuellement minuscule, qui en est l'origine. L'Idée n'est pas séparée de la chose, elle n'est pas transcendante. Mais elle n'est pas non plus, comme pour Aristote, une forme qui prescrit et ordonne une matière. Ce que le poème déclare est que _les choses sont identiques à leur Idée_. C'est pourquoi la nomination du visible s'accomplit comme parcours d'un réseau de types d'êtres, parcours dont la syntaxe est le fil conducteur. Exactement comme la dialectique platonicienne nous conduit au point où la pensée de la chose et l'intuition de l'Idée sont inséparables.
3. L'hétéronymie elle-même, conçue comme dispositif de pensée, et non comme drame subjectif, compose une sorte de lieu idéal, où les corrélations et les disjonctions entre figures évoquent les rapports entre les « genres suprêmes » dans le _Sophiste_ de Platon. Si, comme on peut le faire, on identifie Caeiro à la figure du même, on voit aussitôt que Campos est exigé en tant que figure de l'autre. Si Campos comme altérité à soi fuyante et douloureuse, exposition au dépeçage et à la polymorphie, est identifié à l'informe, ou à la « cause errante » du _Timée_ , on voit qu'il exige Reis comme autorité sévère de la forme. Si on identifie Pessoa-en-personne comme poète de l'équivocité, de l'intervalle, de ce qui n'est ni être ni non-être, on comprend qu'il soit le seul à ne pas être le disciple de Caeiro, lequel exige du poème la plus rigoureuse univocité. Et si Caeiro, présocratique moderne, assume le règne du fini, c'est que Campos fera fuir à l'infini l'énergie du poème. Ainsi _l'hétéronymie est-elle une image possible du lieu intelligible_ , de cette composition de la pensée dans le jeu alterné de ses propres catégories.
4. Même le projet politique de Pessoa ressemble à celui que Platon déplie dans la _République_. Pessoa a en effet écrit, sous le titre _Message_ , un recueil consacré au destin du Portugal. Or il ne s'agit en effet, dans ces poèmes, ni d'un programme ajusté à des questions circonstancielles de la vie portugaise ni d'un examen des principes généraux de la philosophie politique. Il s'agit d'une reconstruction idéale, à partir d'une systématique des emblèmes. De même que Platon veut fixer idéalement l'organisation et la légitimité d' _une_ cité grecque universalisable, déterminée quoique inexistante, de même Pessoa veut poétiquement susciter l'idée précise d'un Portugal simultanément singulier (par la reprise en blason de son histoire) et universel (par l'annonce de sa capacité idéelle à être le nom d'un « cinquième Empire »). Et de même que Platon tempère la solidité idéale de sa reconstruction par l'indication d'un point de fuite (la corruption de la cité juste est inévitable, car l'oubli du Nombre qui la fonde entraînera la suprématie démagogique de la gymnastique par rapport à l'enseignement des arts), de même Pessoa, suspendant le devenir de son idée nationale poétique à l'aléa du retour du roi occulté, enveloppe toute son entreprise, par ailleurs fortement architecturée, dans la brume et l'énigme.
Faut-il dès lors conclure à une sorte de platonisme de Pessoa ? Pas davantage qu'il ne fallait le subsumer sous l'antiplatonisme du siècle. La modernité de Pessoa est de révoquer en doute la pertinence de l'opposition platonisme/antiplatonisme : la tâche de la pensée-poème n'est ni l'allégeance au platonisme ni son renversement.
Et c'est ce que nous autres, philosophes, n'avons pas encore complètement compris. De là que nous ne pensons pas encore à hauteur de Pessoa. Ce qui voudrait dire : admettre la coextension du sensible et de l'Idée, _mais_ ne rien concéder à la transcendance de l'Un. Penser qu'il n'y a que des singularités multiples, _mais_ n'en rien tirer qui ressemble à l'empirisme.
C'est à ce _retard_ sur Pessoa que nous pouvons attribuer le sentiment très étrange que nous éprouvons à le lire, et qui est qu' _il se suffit à lui-même_. Quand nous ouvrons Pessoa, nous avons rapidement la conviction que nous en sommes pour toujours captifs, qu'il est inutile de lire d'autres livres, que _tout est là_.
Bien entendu, on peut d'abord imaginer que cette conviction a pour cause l'hétéronymie. Bien plutôt qu'il n'a écrit une œuvre, Pessoa a déployé une littérature entière, une configuration littéraire où toutes les oppositions, tous les problèmes de la pensée du siècle viennent s'inscrire. En quoi il a de beaucoup dépassé le projet mallarméen du Livre. Car ce projet avait pour faiblesse de maintenir la souveraineté de l'Un, de l'auteur, même si cet auteur s'absentait du Livre jusqu'à être anonyme. L'anonymat mallarméen reste prisonnier de la transcendance de l'auteur. Les hétéronymes (Caeiro, Campos, Reis, Pessoa-en-personne, Soares) s'opposent à l'anonyme, en ce qu'ils ne prétendent ni à l'Un, ni au Tout, mais installent originairement la contingence du multiple. De là qu'ils composent, mieux que le Livre, un univers. Car l'univers réel est à la fois multiple, contingent et intotalisable.
Mais, plus profondément encore, notre capture mentale par Pessoa résulte de ce que la philosophie n'en a nullement épuisé la modernité. De sorte que nous lisons ce poète, et ne pouvons nous en déprendre, pour autant que nous y découvrons un impératif, auquel nous ne savons pas encore comment nous soumettre : emprunter la voie qui dispose, entre Platon et l'anti-Platon, dans l'intervalle que le poète a ouvert pour nous, une véritable philosophie du multiple, du vide, de l'infini. Une philosophie qui rende affirmativement justice à ce monde que les dieux ont pour toujours quitté.
5
Une dialectique poétique :
Labîd ben Rabi'a et Mallarmé
Je ne crois pas beaucoup à la littérature comparée. Mais je crois à l'universalité des grands poèmes, même offerts dans cette approximation toujours presque désastreuse qu'est la traduction. Et la « comparaison » peut être une sorte de vérification expérimentale de cette universalité.
Ma comparaison concerne un poème de langue arabe et un poème de langue française. Elle s'impose à moi depuis que j'ai découvert le poème arabe, tard, trop tard, pour les raisons que j'ai dites. Ces deux poèmes me disent une proximité dans la pensée, qui est comme vivifiée, et en même temps assourdie, par l'immensité d'un écart.
Le poème de langue française est le _Coup de dés_ de Mallarmé. Dans ce poème, rappelons-le, on voit, sur une surface maritime anonyme, un vieux Maître agiter dérisoirement sa main, qui contient les dés, et hésiter si longtemps avant de les lancer qu'il semble s'engloutir sans que le geste ait été décidé. Alors, dit Mallarmé :
Rien, de la mémorable crise où se fût l'événement accompli en vue de tout résultat nul humain, n'aura eu lieu (une élévation ordinaire verse l'absence) que le lieu, inférieur clapotis quelconque comme pour disperser l'acte vide abruptement qui sinon par son mensonge eût fondé la perdition dans ces parages du vague en quoi toute réalité se dissout.
Et pourtant, à la dernière page, surgit dans le ciel une Constellation, qui est comme le chiffre céleste de ce dont il n'y aura jamais eu la décision ici-bas.
Le poème de langue arabe est une des grandes odes dites préislamiques, une _mu'allaqa_ attribuée à Labîd ben Rabi'a, que je reçois ici dans la traduction d'André Miquel. Ce poème naît lui aussi dans le constat d'un effondrement radical. Il proclame dès son premier vers : « Effacés, campements d'un jour et de toujours. » Le poème naît de ce que le retour du diseur au campement ne rencontre que le retour du désert. Là aussi, la nudité du lieu semble avoir englouti toute l'existence, réelle et symbolique, qui était supposée la peupler. « Vestiges ! Tous ont fui ! Vide, esseulée, la terre ! », dit le poète. Ou encore : « Lieux jadis pleins, lieux nus, délaissés au matin,/ Inutiles fossés, étoupe à l'abandon. »
Mais par une dialectique très subtile que je ne reconstitue pas ici, où les animaux du désert jouent un rôle métaphorique central, le poème va s'acheminer vers l'éloge du lignage, du clan, et susciter à la fin, comme ce à quoi était destiné le vide initial, la figure du maître du choix, et de la loi :
Toujours on voit les clans assemblés s'en remettre
À l'un de nous, qui tranche et impose ses vues.
Il assure leur droit à ceux de la tribu,
Répartit, diminue ou augmente, est seul maître
Des choix. Bon, incitant tous les autres à l'être,
Clément, il fait moisson des plus rares vertus.
Ainsi, chez Mallarmé, il y a l'impossibilité du maître à faire un choix ; il y a le fait que, dit le poème : « Le Maître hésite, cadavre par le bras écarté du secret qu'il détient, plutôt que de jouer en maniaque chenu la partie au nom des flots. » Et c'est de cette hésitation que résulte d'abord la menace que rien n'ait eu lieu que le lieu, puis le chiffre stellaire.
Pour Labîd ben Rabi'a, c'est du lieu nu qu'on part, de l'absence, de l'évanouissement désertique. Et on y puise la ressource d'évoquer un maître dont la vertu est le juste choix, la décision par tous acceptable.
Ces poèmes sont séparés par treize siècles ; leur contexte est, pour l'un, le salon bourgeois de la France impériale, pour l'autre, le nomadisme des hautes civilisations du désert d'Arabie. Leurs langues ne sont pas de même ascendance, même lointaine. L'écart est presque sans concept.
Et pourtant ! Admettons un instant que, pour Mallarmé, la Constellation qui surgit imprévisiblement après le naufrage du maître soit un symbole de ce qu'il appelle l'Idée, ou la vérité ; admettons aussi que l'existence d'un maître juste, qui sait, dit le poète, donner sûreté aux humains, faire surabonder et perdurer la part de tous, « bâtir pour nous une altière maison », oui, admettons que c'est bien aussi, un tel maître, ce dont un peuple est capable en fait de justice et de vérité. Alors, nous voyons que les deux poèmes, dans et par leur écart sans mesure, nous parlent l'un et l'autre d'une unique et singulière question. À savoir : quels sont les rapports du lieu, du maître et de la vérité ? Pourquoi faut-il que le lieu soit le lieu d'une absence, ou le lieu nu, qui n'est l'avoir-lieu que du lieu, pour que puisse être prononcé l'ajustement exact de la justice, ou de la vérité, et du destin du maître qui la supporte ?
Le poème du nomade face au campement aboli et celui du lettré occidental qui construit la chimère d'un éternel lancer de dés sur l'Océan comblent leur immense écart au point de la question qui les hante : le maître de vérité doit traverser la défection du lieu pour lequel, ou à partir duquel, il y a vérité. Il doit parier le poème au plus près d'une revanche absolue de l'indifférence de l'univers. Il ne peut donner chance poétique à une vérité que là où, peut-être, il n'y a que le désert, là où il n'y a que l'abîme. Là où rien n'a eu ni n'aura lieu. Autant dire que le maître doit risquer le poème exactement là où la ressource du poème semble avoir disparu. C'est ce que l'ode de Labîd ben Rabi'a dit avec une extraordinaire précision. On y compare en effet le campement disparu à une « écriture érodée au secret de la pierre ». On y établit une correspondance directe entre les dernières traces du camp et un texte écrit sur du sable :
Du camp reste un dessin mis à nu par les eaux,
Comme un texte où la plume a ravivé les lignes.
Le poète déclare même que l'appel poétique en direction de l'absence ne peut réellement trouver son langage :
À quoi bon appeler
Une éternité sourde, au langage indistinct ?
Il est donc tout à fait clair que l'épreuve du lieu nu et de l'absence est en même temps celle d'un effacement probable du texte, ou du poème. La pluie et le sable vont tout dissoudre et raturer.
Mais, dans des termes très voisins, Mallarmé évoque « ces parages du vague où toute réalité se dissout » et, s'agissant du maître, la quasi-certitude d'un « naufrage direct de l'homme, sans nef, n'importe où vaine ».
Notre question conjointe se précise alors : si la défection du lieu est la même chose que la défection du langage, quelle est l'expérience paradoxale qui lie à cette défection le couple poétique du maître et de la vérité ?
De cette question, l'ode arabe et le poème français nous donnent, certes, deux versions, ou deux articulations.
Pour Labîd ben Rabi'a, l'expérience désertique du campement aboli et de la langue impuissante conduit à la restitution du maître, on pourrait presque dire à sa suscitation. Elle y conduit en deux temps. D'abord un temps nostalgique, qui prend appui sur la figure de la Femme, seule rêverie qui soit à la mesure à la fois de l'absence et des traces que le sable et la pluie effacent comme un texte.
Ta nostalgie revoit les femmes qui s'en vont,
Les palanquins, abris de coton, les tentures
Qui claquent là-dessus, les fines chamarrures
Sur le berceau de bois qui d'ombre s'enveloppe.
Puis, dans un deuxième temps, une longue reconstitution d'énergie transite par l'évocation des bêtes de course du nomade, chamelle ou jument, comme des fauves auxquels elles ressemblent, loups et lions. C'est comme si à partir de cette énergie évoquée se composait le blason de la tribu.
Au cœur de ce blason vont venir le maître et la justice. Le cheminement poétique de la pensée se fait du vide à la nostalgie désirante, du désir à l'énergie du mouvement, de l'énergie au blason, et du blason au maître. Cette pensée place au début dans l'Ouvert le retrait de toutes choses, mais elle ouvre le retrait lui-même, parce que, évoquées selon leur absence, les choses ont une énergie poétique sans précédent, et que le maître vient sceller cette énergie libérée. La vérité est alors ce qu'un désir peut faire valoir quand il a habité et investi l'angoisse de la disparition.
Le propos de Mallarmé articule la question autrement. Le lieu vide est hanté par les traces d'un naufrage, et le maître est lui-même déjà à demi englouti. Il n'est pas, comme dans l'ode, un témoin penché sur l'absence, il est pris ou saisi par la disparition. Comme je l'ai dit, il hésite à jeter les dés, il fait s'équivaloir le geste et le non-geste. Et alors la Vérité surgit, comme un coup de dés idéal inscrit dans le ciel nocturne. Il faudrait sans doute dire : c'est le retrait de toutes choses qui est premier, incluant le maître. Pour que vienne l'Ouvert, il faut que le retrait soit tel qu'agir ou ne pas agir, lancer les dés ou ne pas les lancer, soient des dispositions équivalentes. Ce qui est exactement l'annulation de toute maîtrise, puisque, comme le dit exemplairement l'ode, un maître est celui qui est seul maître du choix. Pour Mallarmé, la fonction du maître est de faire s'équivaloir le choix et le non-choix. Alors il supporte jusqu'au bout la nudité du lieu. Et la vérité survient, totalement anonyme, au-dessus du lieu déserté.
On pourrait donc penser ceci, pour récapituler :
1. Il n'y a de vérité possible que sous la condition d'une traversée du lieu de la vérité comme lieu nul, absenté, désertique. Toute vérité est au péril de ceci qu'il n'y ait rien d'autre que le lieu indifférent, le sable, la pluie, l'océan, l'abîme.
2. Le sujet du dire poétique est le sujet de cette épreuve, ou de ce péril.
3. Il peut, soit en être le témoin, étant celui qui revient là où tout a disparu, soit être, de l'abolition, un transitoire survivant.
4. S'il en est le témoin, il forcera la langue à s'animer à partir du vide, à partir de sa propre impuissance, jusqu'à susciter l'intense figure du maître qu'il sera ainsi devenu.
5. S'il est le survivant, il s'efforcera de faire que l'action et la non-action soient indécidables, ou encore qu'en lui l'être soit strictement identique au non-être. Alors viendra, anonyme, l'Idée.
6. Il y a donc en apparence deux réponses possibles à notre question concernant le lien du lieu, du maître et de la vérité.
– Soit la vérité résulte de ce que le lieu, épreuve du vide et de l'absence, suscite nostalgiquement, puis activement, la fiction d'un maître qui, de la vérité, est capable.
– Soit la vérité résulte de ce que le maître a disparu dans l'anonymat du lieu vide et s'est, en somme, sacrifié pour que la vérité soit.
Dans le premier cas, le vide du lieu, l'expérience de l'angoisse créent une conjonction du maître et de la vérité.
Dans le second cas, le vide du lieu crée une disjonction du maître et de la vérité : celui-là disparaît dans l'abîme, et celle-ci, absolument impersonnelle, surgit comme au-dessus de cette disparition.
On pourrait dire que la force de la seconde voie, celle de Mallarmé, est justement de séparer la vérité de toute particularité du maître. C'est, pour parler comme en psychanalyse, une vérité sans transfert.
Mais elle comporte une double faiblesse.
– Une faiblesse subjective, parce qu'il s'agit d'une doctrine du sacrifice. Le maître reste en somme chrétien, il doit disparaître pour que la vérité surgisse. Mais un maître sacrificiel est-il ce qui nous convient ?
– Une faiblesse ontologique, parce qu'il y a finalement deux scènes, deux registres de l'être. Il y a le lieu océanique abyssal et neutre, où le geste du maître fait naufrage. Et puis il y a, au-dessus, le ciel où surgit la Constellation, et qui est, dit Mallarmé, « à l'altitude peut-être, aussi loin qu'un endroit fusionne avec au-delà ». Autrement dit : Mallarmé maintient un dualisme ontologique, et une sorte de transcendance platonicienne de la vérité.
S'agissant du poème de Labîd ben Rabi'a, forces et faiblesses philosophiques se distribuent tout autrement.
La grande force, c'est de maintenir strictement un principe d'immanence. La ressource de suscitation du maître juste au cœur du blason est poétiquement constituée à partir du vide du lieu. Elle est comme une façon de déplier cette « écriture usée », ce « texte où la plume a ravivé les lignes », dont le poète fait l'expérience quand il revient au campement abandonné. Jamais nous n'aurons une seconde scène, un autre registre de l'être. Jamais nous n'aurons une extériorité transcendante. Même le maître est, dit le poème, « l'un de nous », il n'est pas au-delà, il n'est pas la Constellation de Mallarmé.
D'autre part, ce maître n'est nullement sacrificiel ou paléochrétien. Il est au contraire établi dans la juste mesure des qualités terrestres. Il est bonté et clémence ; mieux encore, il « règle les dons de la nature » ; il est donc accordé à cette donation. Le maître que l'ode suscite, parce qu'il est un maître immanent, nomme l'accord mesuré de la nature et de la loi.
Mais la difficulté est que la vérité reste captive de la figure du maître, elle n'en est pas séparable. Le bonheur de la vérité est une seule et même chose que l'obéissance au maître. Comme le dit le poème : « Sois heureux des bienfaits du maître souverain ! » Mais peut-on être heureux de ce qui nous est distribué selon une souveraineté ? En tout cas, la vérité reste ici liée au transfert sur le maître.
Nous voici parvenus au cœur de notre problème.
Sommes-nous convoqués à quelque choix radical entre deux orientations de la pensée ? L'une, disjoignant vérité et maîtrise, exigerait la transcendance et le sacrifice. On y pourrait vouloir la vérité sans aimer le maître, mais ce vouloir s'inscrirait au-delà de la Terre, dans un lieu indexé à la mort. L'autre n'exigerait de nous ni sacrifice ni transcendance, mais au prix d'une inéluctable conjonction entre vérité et maîtrise. On y pourrait aimer la vérité sans quitter la Terre et sans rien céder à la mort. Mais il faudrait, inconditionnellement, aimer le maître.
C'est exactement ce choix, et l'impossibilité de ce choix, que j'appelle pour ma part la modernité.
Nous avons d'un côté l'univers de la science, non dans sa singularité pensante, mais dans la puissance de son organisation financière et technique. Cet univers dispose une vérité anonyme, complètement séparée de toute figure personnelle du maître. Seulement, la vérité, organisée socialement par le capitalisme moderne, exige le sacrifice de la Terre. Cette vérité est, pour la masse des consciences, totalement étrangère et extérieure. Chacun en connaît les effets, mais personne n'en domine la source. La science, dans son organisation capitaliste et technique, est une puissance transcendante, à laquelle il faut sacrifier le temps et l'espace.
Certes, l'organisation financière et technique de la science est accompagnée par la démocratie moderne. Mais qu'est-ce que la démocratie moderne ? C'est uniquement ceci : personne n'est obligé d'aimer un maître. Il n'est pas obligatoire, par exemple, que j'aime Chirac ou Jospin. En vérité, personne ne les aime, tout le monde les moque et les brocarde publiquement. C'est ça, la démocratie. Mais, d'un autre côté, je dois obéir absolument à l'organisation capitaliste et technique de la science. Les lois du marché et de la marchandise, les lois de la circulation des capitaux sont une puissance impersonnelle qui ne vous laisse aucune perspective, aucun choix véritable. Il n'y a qu'une seule politique, une politique unique. Comme le maître de Mallarmé, je dois sacrifier toute maîtrise du choix pour que la vérité scientifique, dans sa socialisation technique et capitaliste, suive son cours transcendant.
D'un autre côté, partout où on rejette cette modernité scientifique, capitaliste et démocratique, alors il faut qu'il y ait un maître, et qu'il soit obligatoire de l'aimer. Cela a été au cœur de la grande entreprise marxiste et communiste. Elle a voulu briser l'organisation capitaliste de la science. Elle a voulu que la vérité scientifique soit immanente, dominée par tous, répartie dans la puissance populaire. Elle a voulu que la vérité soit entièrement terrestre et n'exige pas le sacrifice des choix. Elle a voulu que les hommes choisissent la science et son organisation productive, au lieu que les hommes soient choisis et déterminés par cette organisation. Le communisme était l'idée d'une maîtrise collective des vérités. Mais ce qui s'est alors passé partout est qu'a surgi la figure d'un maître, parce que la vérité n'était plus séparée de la maîtrise. Et que, finalement, aimer et vouloir la vérité était aimer et vouloir ce maître. Et si on ne l'aimait pas, il y avait la terreur pour vous rappeler l'obligation de cet amour.
Nous en sommes toujours là. Nous sommes, si je puis dire, entre Mallarmé et la _mu'allaqa_. D'un côté, la démocratie, qui nous débarrasse de l'amour du maître, mais qui nous assujettit à la transcendance unique des lois de la marchandise, et élimine toute maîtrise sur la destinée collective, toute réalité du choix politique. D'un autre côté, le désir d'une destinée collective immanente et voulue, d'une rupture avec l'automatisme du capital. Mais alors, le despotisme terroriste, et l'obligation de l'amour du maître.
La modernité, c'est de ne pas pouvoir choisir raisonnablement pour ce qui concerne le rapport entre maîtrise et vérité. Est-ce que la vérité est disjointe du maître ? C'est la démocratie. Mais alors, la vérité est entièrement obscure, elle est la machination transcendante de l'organisation technique et capitaliste. Est-ce que la vérité est conjointe au maître ? Mais alors, elle est une sorte de terreur immanente, un transfert amoureux implacable, une fusion immobile de la puissance policière de l'État et du tremblement subjectif. Dans tous les cas, c'est la possibilité du choix qui disparaît, que le maître soit sacrifié pour une puissance anonyme, ou qu'il nous demande de nous sacrifier par amour pour lui.
Il faut, je crois, proposer à la pensée un pas en arrière. Un pas vers ce que Mallarmé et l'ode préislamique ont en commun, à savoir le désert, l'océan, le lieu nu, le vide. Il faut recomposer pour notre temps une pensée de la vérité qui soit articulée sur le vide sans passer par la figure du maître. Ni par le maître sacrifié ni par le maître suscité.
Ou encore : fonder une doctrine du choix et de la décision qui ne soit pas dans la forme initiale d'une maîtrise du choix et de la décision.
Ce point est essentiel. Il n'y a de vérité authentique que sous la condition qu'on puisse choisir la vérité, cela est certain. C'est bien pourquoi la philosophie lie, depuis toujours, vérité et liberté. Heidegger lui-même a proposé de dire que l'essence de la vérité n'était rien d'autre que la liberté. C'est indiscutable.
Mais est-ce que le choix de la vérité est forcément dans la forme d'une maîtrise ?
À la fois Labîd et Mallarmé répondent que oui. Pour soutenir jusqu'au bout l'épreuve du lieu vide et de la dépossession, il faut un maître. Celui de l'ode arabe fait le choix d'une vérité naturelle et distributive. Celui de Mallarmé montre qu'il faut sacrifier le choix lui-même, pratiquer l'équivalence du choix et du non-choix, et qu'alors surgit une vérité impersonnelle. Exactement comme aujourd'hui, dans la démocratie : choisir tel président est strictement équivalent à ne pas le choisir, car la politique sera la même, étant commandée par la transcendance de l'organisation capitaliste de la science et des aléas du marché.
Mais, dans les deux cas, il y a un maître initial, qui décide quant à la nature du choix.
La question majeure de la pensée contemporaine est à mon avis la suivante : trouver une pensée du choix et de la décision qui aille du vide à la vérité sans passer par la figure du maître, sans susciter ni sacrifier cette figure.
Il faut garder de l'ode arabe la conviction que la vérité reste immanente au lieu ; qu'elle n'est pas extérieure, qu'elle n'est pas une force impersonnelle transcendante. Mais sans susciter un maître.
Il faut garder du poème français la conviction que la vérité est anonyme, qu'elle surgit à partir du vide, qu'elle est séparée du maître. Mais sans qu'il faille absenter et sacrifier ce maître.
Toute la question peut se reformuler ainsi : comment penser la vérité comme simultanément anonyme, ou impersonnelle, et cependant immanente et terrestre ? Ou : comment penser qu'on puisse choisir la vérité, dans l'épreuve initiale du vide et du lieu nu, sans avoir à être le maître de ce choix, ni confier ce choix à un maître ?
C'est ce que ma philosophie, acceptant la condition du poème, essaie de faire. Indiquons quelques motifs à mes yeux nécessaires pour résoudre le problème.
a) Il n'y a pas _la_ vérité, mais des vérités ; ce pluriel est capital. On assumera l'irréductible multiplicité des vérités.
b) Chaque vérité est un processus, et non un jugement ou un état de choses. Ce processus est, en droit, infini, ou inachevable.
c) On appelle sujet d'une vérité tout moment fini du processus infini de cette vérité. Le sujet n'a donc aucune maîtrise sur la vérité, et il lui est en même temps immanent.
d) Tout processus de vérité commence par un événement ; un événement est imprévisible, incalculable. C'est un supplément à la situation. Toute vérité et donc tout sujet dépendent d'un surgissement événementiel. Une vérité et un sujet de vérité ne proviennent pas de ce qu'il y a, mais de ce qui arrive, au sens fort.
e) L'événement révèle le vide de la situation. Parce qu'il montre que ce qu'il y a était sans vérité.
C'est à partir de ce vide que le sujet se constitue comme fragment du processus d'une vérité. C'est ce vide qui le sépare de la situation ou du lieu, l'inscrit dans une trajectoire sans précédent. Il est donc vrai que l'épreuve du vide, du lieu comme vide, fonde le sujet d'une vérité ; mais cette épreuve ne constitue aucune maîtrise. Tout au plus peut-on dire, de façon absolument générale, qu'un sujet quelconque est le militant d'une vérité.
f) Le choix qui noue le sujet à la vérité est le choix de continuer à être. Fidélité à l'événement. Fidélité au vide.
Le sujet est ce qui choisit de persévérer dans cette distance à lui-même suscitée par la révélation du vide. Le vide, qui est l'être même du lieu.
Et nous voici reconduits à notre point de départ. Car une vérité commence toujours par nommer le vide, par faire le poème du lieu abandonné. Ce à quoi un sujet est fidèle est bien ce que nous dit Labîd ben Rabi'a :
Sous un arbre isolé, très haut, à la lisière
De dunes que le vent éparpille en poussière,
Le soir se fait nuage aux étoiles cachées.
Et c'est aussi ce que nous dit Mallarmé :
L'Abîme blanchi, étale, furieux, sous une inclinaison plane désespérément d'aile, la sienne par avance retombée d'un mal à dresser le vol.
Une vérité commence par un poème du vide, continue par le choix de continuer et ne s'achève qu'à l'épuisement de sa propre infinité. Nul n'en est le maître, mais chacun peut s'y inscrire. Chacun peut dire : non, il n'y a pas que ce qu'il y a. Il y a aussi ce qui est arrivé, et dont je porte, ici et maintenant, la persistance.
La persistance ? Le poème, inscrit pour toujours, stellaire sur la page, en est le gardien exemplaire. Mais n'y a-t-il pas d'autres arts, qui se dévouent à la fugacité de l'événement, à sa disparition allusive, à ce qu'il y a d' _infixé_ dans le devenir du vrai ? Des arts soustraits à l'impasse du maître ? Des arts de la mobilité et du « une seule fois » ? Que dire de la danse, de ces corps mobiles qui nous transportent dans l'oubli de leur poids ? Que dire du cinéma, défilement deleuzien de l'image-temps ? Que dire du théâtre, où chaque soir se joue une œuvre, toujours différente même si elle est la même, et dont un jour, acteurs disparus, décors brûlés, metteur en scène omis, il ne restera rien ? Ce sont, il faut le dire, d'autres types de configurations artistiques, plus familières, plus ductiles, et qui de surcroît, à la différence de l'impérial poème, _rassemblent_. La philosophie est-elle aussi à l'aise avec ces arts du passage public que dans son lien, conflit mortel ou allégeance, avec le poème ?
6
La danse
comme métaphore de la pensée
Pourquoi la danse vient-elle à Nietzsche comme la métaphore obligée de la pensée ? C'est que la danse est ce qui s'oppose au grand ennemi de Zarathoustra-Nietzsche, ennemi qu'il désigne comme « l'esprit de pesanteur ». La danse, c'est avant tout l'image d'une pensée soustraite à tout esprit de pesanteur. Il est important de repérer les _autres_ images de cette soustraction, car elles inscrivent la danse dans un réseau métaphorique compact. Il y a par exemple l'oiseau. Zarathoustra déclare : « C'est parce que je hais l'esprit de pesanteur que je tiens de l'oiseau. » C'est une première connexion métaphorique, entre danse et oiseau. Disons qu'il y a une germination, une naissance dansante, de ce que l'on pourrait appeler l'oiseau intérieur au corps. Il y a plus généralement l'image de l'envol. Zarathoustra dit aussi : « Celui qui apprendra à voler donnera à la terre un nom nouveau. Il l'appellera _la_ légère. » Et ce serait en effet une très belle et judicieuse définition de la danse, que de dire qu'elle est un nom nouveau donné à la terre. Il y a encore l'enfant. L'enfant, « innocence et oubli, commencement nouveau, jeu, roue qui se meut d'elle-même, premier mobile, affirmation simple ». Il s'agit de la troisième métamorphose, au début du _Zarathoustra_, après le chameau, qui est le contraire de la danse, et le lion, qui est trop violent pour pouvoir nommer légère la terre recommencée. Et il faudrait dire en effet que la danse, qui est oiseau et envol, est aussi tout ce que désigne l'enfant. La danse est innocence, parce qu'elle est un corps d'avant le corps. Elle est oubli, parce qu'elle est un corps qui oublie son astreinte, son poids. Elle est commencement nouveau, parce que le geste dansant doit toujours être comme s'il inventait son propre commencement. Jeu, bien sûr, puisque la danse libère le corps de toute mimique sociale, de tout sérieux, de toute convenance. Roue qui se meut d'elle-même : très belle définition possible de la danse. Car elle est comme un cercle dans l'espace, mais un cercle qui est à lui-même son propre principe, un cercle qui n'est pas dessiné de l'extérieur, un cercle qui se dessine. Premier mobile : chaque geste, chaque tracé de la danse doit se présenter, non comme une conséquence, mais comme ce qui est la source même de la mobilité. Affirmation simple, parce que la danse absente radieusement le corps négatif, le corps honteux.
Et puis Nietzsche parlera aussi des fontaines, toujours dans la ligne d'images qui dissolvent l'esprit de pesanteur. « Mon âme est une fontaine jaillissante », et, certes, le corps dansant est proprement en état de jaillir, hors du sol, hors de lui-même.
Finalement, il y a l'air, l'élément aérien, qui récapitule tout. La danse est ce qui autorise qu'on nomme « aérienne » la terre elle-même. Dans la danse, la terre est pensée comme dotée d'une constante aération, la danse suppose le souffle, la respiration de la terre. C'est que la question centrale de la danse est le rapport entre verticalité et attraction, verticalité et attraction qui transitent dans le corps dansant et l'autorisent à manifester un possible paradoxal : que terre et air échangent leurs positions, passent l'un dans l'autre. C'est pour toutes ces raisons que la pensée trouve sa métaphore dans la danse, laquelle récapitule la série de l'oiseau, de la fontaine, de l'enfant, de l'air impalpable. Certes, cette série peut paraître bien innocente, presque mièvre, elle est comme un conte enfantin où plus rien ne pose ou ne pèse. Mais il faut comprendre qu'elle est traversée par Nietzsche – par la danse – dans son lien à une puissance et à une rage. La danse est à la fois un des termes de la série et la traversée violente de la série. Zarathoustra dira de lui-même qu'il a « des pieds de danseur enragé ».
La danse figure la traversée en puissance de l'innocence. Elle manifeste la virulence secrète de ce qui apparaît comme fontaine, oiseau, enfance. En réalité, ce qui fonde que la danse métaphorise la pensée est la conviction de Nietzsche que la pensée est une _intensification_. Cette conviction s'oppose principalement à la thèse qui voit dans la pensée un principe dont le mode de réalisation est extérieur. Pour Nietzsche, la pensée ne s'effectue pas ailleurs que là où elle se donne, la pensée est effective « sur place », elle est ce qui s'intensifie si l'on peut dire sur soi-même, ou encore le mouvement de sa propre intensité.
Mais alors, l'image de la danse est naturelle. Elle transmet visiblement l'Idée de la pensée comme intensification immanente. Disons plutôt, du reste, une _certaine vision_ de la danse. La métaphore ne vaut en effet que si l'on écarte toute représentation de la danse comme contrainte extérieure imposée à un corps souple, comme gymnastique du corps dansant réglée du dehors. Nietzsche oppose absolument ce qu'il appelle la danse à une telle gymnastique. Après tout, on pourrait imaginer que la danse nous expose un corps obéissant et musclé, un corps à la fois capable et soumis. Disons, un régime du corps exercé à se soumettre à la chorégraphie. Mais, pour Nietzsche, un tel corps est le contraire du corps dansant, du corps qui échange _intérieurement_ l'air et la terre.
Quel est aux yeux de Nietzsche le contraire de la danse ? C'est l'Allemand, le mauvais Allemand, dont il donne la définition que voici : « De l'obéissance et de bonnes jambes. » L'essence de cette mauvaise Allemagne est le _défilé militaire_ , qui est le corps aligné et martelant, le corps asservi et sonore. Le corps de la cadence frappée. Alors que la danse est le corps aérien et rompu, le corps vertical. Pas du tout le corps martelant, mais le corps « sur pointes », le corps qui pique le sol comme si c'était un nuage. Et, par-dessus tout, c'est le corps silencieux, contre ce corps que prescrit après coup le tonnerre de sa propre et lourde frappe, et qui est le corps du défilé militaire. Finalement, la danse indique pour Nietzsche la pensée verticale, la pensée tendue vers sa propre hauteur. Ce qui, évidemment, est lié au thème de l'affirmation, laquelle pour Nietzsche est prise dans l'image du « grand Midi », quand le soleil est au zénith. La danse est le corps dédié à son zénith. Mais peut-être encore plus profondément, ce que Nietzsche voit dans la danse, à la fois comme image de la pensée et comme réel du corps, c'est le thème d'une mobilité fermement rattachée à elle-même, une mobilité qui ne s'inscrit pas dans une détermination extérieure, mais qui se meut sans se détacher de son propre centre. Une mobilité non imposée, qui se déplie elle-même comme si elle était l'expansion de son centre.
Bien entendu, la danse correspond à l'idée nietzschéenne de la pensée comme devenir, comme puissance active. Mais ce devenir est tel que s'y délivre une intériorité affirmative _unique_. Le mouvement n'est pas un déplacement, ou une transformation, il est un tracé que traverse et soutient l'unicité éternelle d'une affirmation. Si bien que la danse désigne la capacité de l'impulsion corporelle, non pas principalement à être projetée dans l'espace en dehors de soi, mais plutôt à être prise dans une attraction affirmative _qui la retient_. C'est peut-être ce qu'il y a de plus important : la danse est ce qui, au-delà de la monstration des mouvements ou de la promptitude dans leurs dessins extérieurs, avère la force de leur retenue. Certes, on ne montrera la force de la retenue que dans le mouvement lui-même, mais ce qui compte est la puissante lisibilité de cette retenue.
Dans la danse ainsi conçue, le mouvement a son essence _dans ce qui n'a pas eu lieu_ , dans ce qui est resté ineffectif ou retenu à l'intérieur du mouvement lui-même.
Ce serait du reste une autre manière d'aborder négativement l'idée de la danse. Car l'impulsion qui n'est pas retenue, la sollicitation corporelle aussitôt obéie et manifeste, Nietzsche l'appelle la _vulgarité_. Il écrit que toute vulgarité vient de l'incapacité de résister à une sollicitation. Ou encore que la vulgarité est que l'on est contraint de réagir, « qu'on obéit à chaque impulsion ». On définira par conséquent la danse comme mouvement du corps soustrait à toute vulgarité.
La danse n'est nullement l'impulsion corporelle libérée, l'énergie sauvage du corps. C'est au contraire la monstration corporelle de la _désobéissance_ à une impulsion. La danse montre comment l'impulsion peut être rendue ineffective dans le mouvement, de telle sorte qu'il ne s'agisse pas d'une obéissance, mais d'une retenue. La danse est la pensée comme raffinement. Nous sommes à l'opposé de toute doctrine de la danse comme extase primitive ou ressassement oublieux du corps. La danse métaphorise la pensée légère et subtile, précisément parce qu'elle montre la retenue immanente au mouvement, et s'oppose ainsi à la vulgarité spontanée du corps.
Nous pouvons alors penser adéquatement ce qui se dit dans le thème de la danse comme légèreté. Oui, la danse s'oppose à l'esprit de pesanteur, oui, elle est ce qui donne à la terre son nouveau nom, « la légère », mais, en définitive, qu'est-ce que la légèreté ? Dire que c'est l'absence de poids ne mène pas loin. Il faut entendre par légèreté la capacité du corps à se manifester comme corps _non contraint_ , y compris non contraint par lui-même, c'est-à-dire en état de désobéissance par rapport à ses propres impulsions. Cette impulsion désobéie s'oppose à l'Allemagne (« De l'obéissance et de bonnes jambes »), mais surtout elle exige _un principe de lenteur_. La légèreté a son essence, et c'est en quoi la danse en est la meilleure image, dans la capacité à manifester la lenteur secrète de ce qui est rapide. Le mouvement de la danse est certes d'une extrême promptitude, il est même virtuose dans la rapidité, mais il ne l'est qu'habité par sa lenteur latente, qui est la puissance affirmative de sa retenue. Nietzsche proclame que « ce que la volonté doit apprendre, c'est à être lente et méfiante ». Disons que la danse peut se définir comme l'expansion de la lenteur et de la méfiance du corps-pensée. En ce sens, le danseur nous indique ce que la volonté peut apprendre.
Il en résulte évidemment que l'essence de la danse est le mouvement virtuel, plus que le mouvement actuel. Disons : le mouvement virtuel comme lenteur secrète du mouvement actuel. Ou, plus précisément : la danse, dans la plus extrême promptitude virtuose, exhibe cette lenteur cachée où ce qui a lieu est indiscernable de sa propre retenue. Au comble de l'art, la danse montrerait l'équivalence étrange, non seulement entre la promptitude et la lenteur, mais entre le geste et le non-geste. Elle indiquerait que, bien que le mouvement ait eu lieu, cet avoir-lieu est indistinguable d'un non-lieu virtuel. La danse se compose de gestes qui, hantés par leur retenue, restent en quelque sorte indécidés.
Au regard de ma propre pensée, ou doctrine, cette exégèse nietzschéenne suggère ceci : la danse serait la métaphore de ce que toute pensée véritable est suspendue à un événement. Car un événement est précisément ce qui reste indécidé entre l'avoir-lieu et le non-lieu, un surgir qui est indiscernable de son disparaître. Il se surajoute à ce qu'il y a, mais à peine ce supplément est-il indiqué que le « il y a » reprend ses droits et dispose de tout. Évidemment, la seule manière de fixer un événement est de lui donner un nom, de l'inscrire dans le « il y a » en tant que nom surnuméraire. « Lui-même » n'est jamais que sa propre disparition, mais une inscription peut le détenir comme à la lisière dorée de sa perte. Le nom est ce qui décide l'avoir-eu-lieu. La danse indiquerait alors la pensée comme événement, mais _avant qu'elle ait son nom_ , au bord extrême de sa disparition véritable, dans l'évanouissement de lui-même, sans l'abri du nom. La danse mimerait la pensée encore indécidée. Ce serait la pensée native, ou infixée. Oui, il y aurait dans la danse la métaphore de l'infixé.
Ainsi s'éclairerait que la danse ait à jouer le temps dans l'espace. Car un événement fonde un temps singulier à partir de sa fixation nominale. Tracé, nommé, inscrit, l'événement dessine en situation, dans le « il y a », un avant et un après. Un temps se met à exister. Mais si la danse est métaphore de l'événement « avant » le nom, elle ne peut participer de ce temps que seul le nom, par sa coupure, institue. Elle est soustraite à la décision temporelle. Il y a donc, dans la danse, quelque chose d'avant le temps, de prétemporel. Et cet élément prétemporel va être _joué_ dans l'espace. La danse est ce qui suspend le temps dans l'espace.
Dans _L'Âme et la Danse_ , Valéry, s'adressant à la danseuse, lui dit : « Comme tu es extraordinaire dans l'imminence ! » Nous pourrions dire en effet que la danse est le corps en proie à l'imminence. Mais ce qui est imminent est bien le temps d'avant le temps qu'il va y avoir. La danse, comme mise en espace de l'imminence, ferait métaphore de ce que toute pensée fonde et organise. On pourrait aussi dire : la danse joue l'événement avant la nomination, et par conséquent, à la place du nom, il y a le silence. La danse manifeste le silence d'avant le nom, exactement comme elle est l'espace d'avant le temps.
L'objection qui vient aussitôt est évidemment le rôle de la musique. Comment pouvons-nous parler de silence, quand toute danse semble si fortement sous la juridiction de la musique ? Il y a certes une conception de la danse qui la décrit comme le corps en proie à la musique et, plus précisément, en proie au rythme. Mais cette conception, c'est encore et toujours « de l'obéissance et de bonnes jambes », notre Allemagne pesante, même si l'obéissance reconnaît la musique comme son maître. Disons sans hésiter que toute danse qui obéit à la musique fait de la musique une musique militaire, s'agirait-il de Chopin ou de Boulez, en même temps qu'elle se métamorphose en mauvaise Allemagne.
Ce qu'il faut soutenir, quel qu'en soit le paradoxe, est ceci : au regard de la danse, la musique n'a pas d'autre office que de marquer le silence. Elle est donc indispensable, car le silence doit être marqué pour se manifester comme silence. Silence de quoi ? Silence du nom. S'il est vrai que la danse joue la nomination de l'événement dans le silence du nom, la place de ce silence est indiquée par la musique. C'est bien naturel : vous ne pouvez indiquer le silence fondateur de la danse que par la plus extrême concentration du son. Et la plus extrême concentration du son, c'est la musique. Il faut donc voir qu'en dépit de toutes les apparences, apparences qui veulent que les « bonnes jambes » de la danse obéissent à la prescription de la musique, c'est en réalité la danse qui commande la musique, en tant que la musique marque le silence fondateur où la danse présente la pensée native, dans l'économie aléatoire et disparaissante du nom. Saisie comme métaphore de la dimension événementielle de toute pensée, la danse est antérieure à la musique dont elle se soutient.
De ces préliminaires se tirent, comme autant de conséquences, ce que j'appellerai les principes de la danse. Non pas de la danse pensée à partir d'elle-même, de sa technique et de son histoire, mais de la danse telle que la philosophie lui donne abri et accueil.
Ces principes sont parfaitement clairs dans les deux textes que Mallarmé a consacrés à la danse, textes aussi profonds que brefs, textes, à mon sens, définitifs.
J'en distingue six, tous relatifs au rapport de la danse et de la pensée, et tous gouvernés par une comparaison inexplicite entre la danse et le théâtre.
Voici la liste des six principes :
1. l'obligation de l'espace ;
2. l'anonymat du corps ;
3. l'omniprésence effacée des sexes ;
4. la soustraction à soi-même ;
5. la nudité ;
6. le regard absolu.
Commentons-les l'un après l'autre.
S'il est vrai que la danse joue le temps dans l'espace, qu'elle suppose l'espace de l'imminence, alors il y a pour la danse une _obligation_ de l'espace. Mallarmé l'indique ainsi : « La danse seule me parait nécessiter un espace réel. » La danse seule, notons bien. La danse est le seul des arts qui soit contraint à l'espace. En particulier, ce n'est pas le cas du théâtre. La danse est, je l'ai dit, l'événement avant la nomination. Le théâtre, au contraire, n'est que conséquence d'une nomination jouée. Dès qu'il y a texte, dès que le nom a été donné, l'exigence est celle du temps, et non celle de l'espace. Quelqu'un qui lit derrière une table peut faire du théâtre. Certes, on peut lui donner en outre une scène, un décor, mais tout cela, pour Mallarmé, demeure inessentiel. L'espace n'est pas une obligation intrinsèque du théâtre. La danse en revanche intègre l'espace dans son essence. Elle est la seule figure de la pensée qui le fait, en sorte qu'on pourrait soutenir que la danse symbolise l'espacement de la pensée.
Que faut-il entendre par là ? Il faut encore une fois revenir sur l'origine événementielle de toute pensée. Un événement est toujours localisé dans la situation, il ne l'affecte jamais « toute » : il y a ce que j'ai appelé un site événementiel. Avant que la nomination fonde le temps où l'événement « travaille » la situation comme sa vérité, il y a le site. Et comme la danse est monstration de l'avant-nom, il faut qu'elle se déploie comme parcours d'un site. D'un site pur. Il y a dans la danse, c'est l'expression de Mallarmé, « une virginité de site ». Et il ajoute : « une virginité de site pas songé ». Que veut dire « pas songé » ? Que le site événementiel n'a que faire des imaginations d'un décor. Le décor est de théâtre, non de danse. La danse est le site tel quel, sans ornement figuratif. Elle exige l'espace, l'espacement, rien d'autre. Voilà pour le premier principe.
Quant au deuxième – l'anonymat du corps –, nous y retrouvons l'absence de tout vocable, l'avant-nom. Le corps dansant, tel qu'il advient au site, tel qu'il s'espace dans l'imminence, est un corps-pensée, il n'est jamais _quelqu'un_. De ces corps, Mallarmé déclare : « Ils ne sont jamais qu'emblème, point quelqu'un. » Emblème s'oppose d'abord à imitation. Le corps dansant n'imite pas un personnage, ou une singularité. Il ne _figure_ rien. Le corps de théâtre, lui, est toujours pris dans une imitation, il est saisi par le rôle. Le corps dansant, nul rôle ne l'enrôle, il est emblème du pur surgissement. Mais « emblème » s'oppose aussi à toute forme d'expression. Le corps dansant n'exprime aucune intériorité, c'est lui, tout en surface, intensité visiblement retenue, qui est l'intériorité. Ni imitation ni expression, le corps dansant est un emblème de visitation dans la virginité du site. Il vient précisément y manifester que la pensée, la vraie pensée, suspendue à la disparition événementielle, est l'induction d'un sujet _impersonnel_. L'impersonnalité du sujet d'une pensée (ou d'une vérité) résulte de ce qu'un tel sujet ne préexiste pas à l'événement qui l'autorise. Il n'y a donc pas lieu de le saisir comme étant « quelqu'un ». C'est ce que le corps dansant va signifier, par ceci qu'il est inaugural, qu'il est comme un premier corps. Le corps dansant est anonyme de ce qu'il naît sous nos yeux comme corps. De même, le sujet d'une vérité n'est jamais d'avance, et quelle que soit son avancée, le « quelqu'un » qu'il est.
S'agissant du troisième principe – l'omniprésence effacée des sexes –, nous pouvons l'extraire de déclarations apparemment contradictoires de Mallarmé. C'est cette contradiction qui se donne dans l'opposition que j'institue entre « omniprésence » et « effacée ». Disons que la danse manifeste universellement qu'il y a deux positions sexuelles (dont « homme » et « femme » sont les noms), et qu'en même temps elle abstrait, ou rature, cette dualité. D'une part, Mallarmé énonce que « toute la danse n'est que la mystérieuse interprétation sacrée du baiser ». Au centre de la danse, il y a ainsi la conjonction des sexes, et c'est ce qu'il faut appeler leur omniprésence. La danse est entièrement composée de la conjonction et de la disjonction des positions sexuées. Tous les mouvements retiennent leur intensité dans des parcours dont la gravitation capitale unit, puis sépare, les positions « homme » et « femme ». Mais, d'autre part, Mallarmé note aussi que « la danseuse n'est pas une femme ». Comment est-il possible que toute la danse soit l'interprétation du baiser – de la conjonction des sexes et, pour tout dire, de l'acte sexuel – et que pourtant la danseuse comme telle ne soit pas nommable comme « femme », pas plus que du coup ne peut l'être par « homme » le danseur ? C'est que la danse ne retient de la sexuation, du désir, de l'amour qu'une pure forme : celle qui organise la triplicité de la rencontre, de l'enlacement et de la séparation. Ces trois termes, la danse les code techniquement (les codes varient considérablement, mais ils sont toujours à l'œuvre). Une chorégraphie en organise le nouage spatial. Mais, finalement, le triple de la rencontre, de l'enlacement et de la séparation accède à la pureté d'une retenue intense qui se sépare de sa destination.
En réalité, l'omniprésence de la différence du danseur et de la danseuse, et à travers elle l'omniprésence « idéale » de la différence des sexes, n'est maniée que comme _organon_ du rapport entre rapprochement et séparation, en sorte que le couple danseur/danseuse n'est pas nominalement superposable au couple homme/femme. Ce qui est mis en jeu dans l'allusion omniprésente aux sexes est au bout du compte la corrélation entre l'être et le disparaître, entre l'avoir-lieu et l'abolition, dont rencontre, enlacement et séparation fournissent un codage corporel reconnaissable.
L'énergie disjonctive dont la sexuation est le code est mise au service d'une métaphore de l'événement comme tel, soit ce dont tout l'être tient dans le disparaître. C'est pourquoi l'omniprésence de la différence des sexes s'efface, ou s'abolit, n'étant pas la fin représentative de la danse, mais une abstraction formelle d'énergie dont le tracé convoque dans l'espace la force créatrice de la disparition.
Pour le principe numéro quatre – soustraction à soi –, il convient de s'appuyer sur un énoncé tout à fait étrange de Mallarmé : « La danseuse ne danse pas. » Nous venons de voir qu'elle n'est pas une femme, mais en outre elle n'est pas même une « danseuse », si on entend par là quelqu'un qui exécute une danse. Rapprochons cet énoncé d'un autre : la danse, nous dit Mallarmé, c'est « le poème dégagé de tout appareil de scribe ». Ce deuxième énoncé est tout aussi paradoxal que le premier (« La danseuse ne danse pas »). Car le poème est par définition une trace, une inscription, singulièrement dans la conception mallarméenne. Et par conséquent, le poème « dégagé de tout appareil du scribe », c'est proprement le poème dégagé du poème, le poème soustrait à lui-même, tout comme la danseuse, qui ne danse pas, est la danse soustraite à la danse.
La danse est comme un poème ininscrit, ou détracé. Et la danse est aussi comme une danse sans danse, une danse dédansée. Ce qui se prononce ici est la dimension soustractive de la pensée. Toute pensée véritable est soustraite au savoir où elle se constitue. La danse est métaphore de la pensée précisément en ceci qu'elle indique par les moyens du corps qu'une pensée dans la forme de son surgissement événementiel est soustraite à toute préexistence du savoir.
Comment la danse indique-t-elle cette soustraction ? Précisément parce que la « vraie » danseuse ne doit jamais apparaître comme celle qui _sait_ la danse qu'elle danse. Son savoir (qui est technique, immense, conquis douloureusement) est traversé, comme nul, par le surgir pur de son geste. « La danseuse ne danse pas » veut dire que ce qu'on voit n'est à aucun moment la réalisation d'un savoir, bien que de part en part ce savoir en soit la matière, ou l'appui. La danseuse est oubli miraculeux de tout son savoir de danseuse, elle n'exécute aucune danse, elle est cette intensité retenue qui manifeste l'indécidé du geste. En vérité, la danseuse abolit toute danse sue parce qu'elle dispose son corps comme s'il était _inventé_. En sorte que le spectacle de la danse est le corps soustrait à tout savoir d'un corps, le corps comme _éclosion._
D'un tel corps, on dira nécessairement – c'est le cinquième principe – qu'il est nu. Il importe évidemment peu qu'il le soit empiriquement, il l'est essentiellement. De même que la danse visite le site pur, et n'a donc que faire d'un décor (qu'il y en ait un ou pas), de même le corps dansant, qui est corps-pensée dans la guise de l'événement, n'a que faire d'un costume (qu'il y ait ou non tutu). Cette nudité est cruciale. Que dit Mallarmé ? Il dit que la danse « te livre la nudité de tes concepts ». Et il ajoute « et silencieusement écrira ta vie ». « Nudité » se comprend alors ainsi : la danse, comme métaphore de la pensée, nous la présente _sans rapport à autre chose qu'elle-même_ , dans le nu de son surgissement. La danse, c'est la pensée sans rapport, la pensée qui ne rapporte rien, ni ne met rien en rapport. On dira aussi que la danse est pure consumation de la pensée, parce qu'elle en répudie tous les ornements possibles. De là qu'elle est, tendanciellement, la monstration de la nudité _chaste_ , la nudité d'avant tout ornement, la nudité qui ne résulte pas de ce qu'on se dépouille de ses ornements, mais, au contraire, la nudité telle qu'elle se donne avant tout ornement – comme l'événement se donne « avant » le nom.
Le sixième et dernier principe ne concerne plus la danseuse, ni même la danse, mais le spectateur. Qu'est-ce qu'un spectateur de danse ? Mallarmé répond à cette question de manière particulièrement exigeante. Car de même que le danseur, qui est emblème, n'est jamais quelqu'un, de même le spectateur de danse doit être rigoureusement impersonnel. Le spectateur de danse ne peut d'aucune façon être la singularité de celui qui regarde.
En effet, si quelqu'un regarde la danse, il en est inévitablement le voyeur. Ce point résulte des principes de la danse, de son essence (omniprésence effacée des sexes, nudité, anonymat des corps, etc.). Ces principes ne peuvent devenir effectifs que si le spectateur renonce à tout ce que son regard peut comporter de singulier ou de désirant. Tout autre spectacle (et d'abord le théâtre) exige que le spectateur investisse la scène de son propre désir. La danse, à cet égard, n'est pas un spectacle. Elle ne l'est pas, car elle ne tolère pas le regard désirant, lequel, dès qu'il y a danse, ne peut être qu'un regard voyeur où les soustractions dansantes se suppriment elles-mêmes. Il faut donc ce que Mallarmé appelle « un impersonnel ou fulgurant regard absolu ». Dure astreinte, n'est-ce pas ?, qu'impose cependant la nudité essentielle des danseurs et des danseuses.
« Impersonnel », nous venons d'en parler. Si la danse figure la pensée native, elle ne peut la figurer que selon une adresse universelle. Elle ne s'adresse pas à la singularité d'un désir dont, du reste, elle n'a pas même encore constitué le temps. Elle est ce qui expose la nudité des concepts. Ainsi le regard du spectateur doit-il cesser de chercher sur le corps des danseurs les objets de son désir, lesquels renvoient à la nudité ornementale, ou fétichiste. Parvenir à la nudité des concepts exige un regard qui, délesté de toute enquête désirante sur les objets dont le corps « vulgaire » (dirait Nietzsche) est le support, parvient au corps-pensée innocent et primordial, au corps inventé ou éclos. Mais un tel regard n'est celui de personne.
« Fulgurant » : le regard du spectateur de danse doit appréhender le rapport de l'être au disparaître, il ne saurait se satisfaire d'un spectacle. La danse, du reste, est toujours une fausse totalité. Il n'y a pas la durée close d'un spectacle, il y a la monstration permanente de l'événementialité dans sa fuite, dans l'équivalence indécidée de son être et de son néant. À quoi ne convient que l'éclair du regard, et non son attention comblée.
« Absolu » : la pensée figurée dans la danse doit être tenue pour une acquisition éternelle. La danse, précisément parce qu'elle est un art absolument éphémère, puisqu'elle disparaît à peine a-t-elle eu lieu, détient la plus forte charge d'éternité. L'éternité ne consiste pas dans le « rester tel quel », ou dans la durée. L'éternité est précisément ce qui garde la disparition. Lorsqu'un regard « fulgurant » s'empare d'un évanouissement, il ne peut que le garder pur, en dehors de toute mémoire empirique. Il n'y a pas d'autre moyen de garder ce qui disparaît que de le garder éternellement. Ce qui ne disparaît pas, vous pouvez le garder en l'exposant à l'usure de cette garde. Mais la danse, saisie par le spectateur véritable, ne peut s'user, précisément parce qu'elle n'est rien d'autre que l'éphémère absolu de sa rencontre. C'est en ce sens qu'il y a absoluité du regard sur la danse.
Maintenant, si l'on examine les six principes de la danse, on peut établir que le vrai contraire de la danse est le théâtre. Certes, il y a aussi le défilé militaire, mais ce contraire-là est négatif. Le théâtre est le contraire _positif_ de la danse.
Que le théâtre contrevienne aux six principes, nous l'avons déjà suggéré pour quelques-uns. Nous avons au passage indiqué qu'il n'y a pas au théâtre, puisque le texte y fait nomination, contrainte du site pur, et que l'acteur est tout sauf un corps anonyme. On montrerait sans peine qu'il n'y a pas non plus au théâtre omniprésence effacée des sexes, mais, tout au contraire, jeu de rôle hyperbolique de la sexuation. Que le jeu théâtral, au plus loin d'être soustraction à soi, est excès sur soi : si la danseuse ne danse pas, l'acteur est tenu d'acter, de jouer l'acte, et les cinq actes. Il n'y a non plus jamais nudité au théâtre, mais costume obligé, la nudité étant elle-même un costume, et des plus voyants. Quant au spectateur de théâtre, on ne requiert nullement de lui l'impersonnel regard absolu et fulgurant, car ce qui convient est l'excitation d'une intelligence emmêlée dans la durée d'un désir.
Il y a une contrariété essentielle entre la danse et le théâtre.
Nietzsche l'aborde de la façon la plus simple qui soit : par une esthétique antithéâtrale. Tout spécialement dans le dernier Nietzsche, et dans le cadre de sa rupture totale avec Wagner, le véritable mot d'ordre de l'art moderne est de se soustraire (au profit de la métaphore de la danse, comme nouveau nom donné à la terre) à la détestable emprise décadente de la théâtralité.
La soumission des arts à l'effet théâtral, Nietzsche la nomme « histrionisme ». Où nous retrouvons ce à quoi toute la danse s'oppose, et qui est la vulgarité. En finir avec l'histrionisme wagnérien, c'est opposer la légèreté de la danse à la vulgarité mensongère du théâtre. Bizet sert à nommer l'idéal d'une musique « dansante », contre la musique théâtralisée de Wagner, musique avilie de ce qu'au lieu d'être le marquage du silence de la danse elle est le soulignement des lourdeurs du jeu.
Cette idée selon quoi la théâtralité est le principe même de la corruption de tous les arts n'est pas la mienne. On le verra assez dans la suite de ce livre. Elle n'est pas non plus celle de Mallarmé. Mallarmé énonce tout le contraire quand il écrit que le théâtre « est un art supérieur ». Mallarmé voit tout à fait qu'il y a une contradiction entre les principes de la danse et ceux du théâtre. Mais, bien loin d'en conclure à l'indignité histrione du théâtre, il en souligne la suprématie _artistique_ , sans pour autant faire déchoir la danse de sa pureté conceptuelle.
Comment est-ce possible ? Pour le comprendre, il faut mettre en avant un énoncé provoquant, mais nécessaire : la danse n'est pas un art. L'erreur de Nietzsche, c'est de croire qu'il existe une mesure commune entre la danse et le théâtre, mesure qui serait leur intensité artistique. Nietzsche, à sa manière, continue à disposer le théâtre et la danse dans une classification des arts. Mallarmé en revanche, quand il déclare que le théâtre est un art supérieur, n'entend nullement affirmer par là sa supériorité sur la danse. Certes, il ne dit pas que la danse n'est pas un art, mais on peut le dire à sa place, si l'on pénètre le sens véritable des six principes de la danse.
La danse n'est pas un art parce qu'elle est le signe de la possibilité de l'art, telle qu'inscrite au corps.
Expliquons un peu cette maxime. Spinoza disait que nous cherchons à savoir ce qu'est la pensée, alors que nous ne savons même pas de quoi un corps est capable. Je dirai que la danse est précisément ce qui montre que le corps est capable d'art, et la mesure exacte dans laquelle, à un moment donné, il en est capable. Mais dire que le corps est capable d'art ne veut pas dire faire un « art du corps ». La danse fait signe vers cette capacité artistique du corps, sans pour autant définir un art singulier. Dire que le corps, en tant que corps, est capable d'art, c'est le montrer comme corps-pensée. Non pas comme pensée prise dans un corps, mais comme corps qui est pensée. Tel est l'office de la danse : le corps-pensée se montrant sous le signe évanouissant d'une capacité d'art. La sensibilité à la danse de tout un chacun vient de ce que la danse répond, à sa manière, à la question de Spinoza. De quoi un corps est-il capable comme tel ? Il est capable d'art, c'est-à-dire qu'il est montrable comme pensée native. Comment nommer l'émotion qui alors nous saisit, pour peu que nous soyons, nous, capables d'un fulgurant regard impersonnel et absolu ? Je la nommerai _un vertige exact._
C'est un vertige, parce que l'infini y apparaît comme latent dans la finitude du corps visible. Si la capacité du corps, dans la guise de la capacité d'art, est de montrer la pensée native, cette capacité d'art est infinie, et le corps dansant est lui-même infini. Infini dans l'instant de sa grâce aérienne. Ce dont il s'agit là, et qui est vertigineux, n'est pas la capacité limitée d'un exercice du corps, mais la capacité infinie de l'art, de tout art, tel qu'enraciné dans l'événement qui lui prescrit sa chance.
Et cependant, ce vertige est exact. Car, finalement, c'est la précision retenue qui compte, qui avère l'infini, c'est la lenteur secrète, et non pas la virtuosité manifeste. C'est une précision extrême, millimétrée, du rapport entre le geste et le non-geste.
Et ainsi il y a le vertige de l'infini donné dans la plus constante exactitude. L'histoire de la danse me semble régie par le perpétuel renouvellement du rapport entre vertige et exactitude. Qu'est-ce qui va rester virtuel, qu'est-ce qui va s'actualiser, et comment la retenue va-t-elle justement libérer l'infini ? Tels sont les problèmes historiques de la danse. Ces inventions sont des inventions de pensée. Mais comme la danse n'est pas un art, seulement un signe de la capacité du corps à l'art, elles suivent de très près toute l'histoire des vérités, y compris les vérités instruites par les arts proprement dits.
Pourquoi y a-t-il une histoire de la danse, une histoire de l'exactitude du vertige ? Parce qu'il n'y a pas _la_ vérité. S'il y avait la vérité, il y aurait une danse extatique définitive, une incantation événementielle mystique. Ce dont sans doute est persuadé le derviche tourneur. Mais ce qu'il y a, ce sont des vérités disparates, un multiple aléatoire d'événements de pensée. La danse s'approprie dans l'histoire cette multiplicité. Ce qui suppose une constante redistribution du rapport entre le vertige et l'exactitude. Il faut sans cesse reprouver que le corps _d'aujourd'hui_ est capable de se montrer comme corps-pensée. Cependant, aujourd'hui, ce n'est jamais autre chose que les vérités nouvelles. La danse va danser le thème événementiel natif de ces vérités. Nouveau vertige, nouvelle exactitude.
Ainsi faut-il en revenir à notre début. Oui, la danse est bien chaque fois un nouveau nom que le corps donne à la terre. Mais nul nouveau nom n'est le dernier. C'est incessamment que la danse, présentation corporelle du prénom des vérités, renomme la terre.
En quoi elle est en effet l'envers du théâtre, lequel n'a rien à voir avec la terre, ni avec son nom, ni même avec ce dont un corps est capable. Car le théâtre est, lui, un enfant, pour part de l'État et de la politique, pour part de la circulation du désir entre les sexes. Fils bâtard de Polis et d'Éros. Comme nous allons, axiomatiquement, l'énoncer.
7
Thèses sur le théâtre
1. Établir, comme il convient pour tout art, que le théâtre pense. Que faut-il entendre ici par « théâtre » ? Contrairement à la danse, qui est sous la règle unique d'un corps capable d'échanger l'air et la terre (et même la musique ne lui est pas essentielle), le théâtre est un agencement. L'agencement de composantes matérielles et idéelles extrêmement disparates, dont l'unique existence est la représentation. Ces composantes (un texte, un lieu, des corps, des voix, des costumes, des lumières, un public...) sont rassemblées dans un événement, la représentation, dont la répétition soir après soir n'empêche nullement qu'il soit chaque fois événementiel, c'est-à-dire singulier. Nous poserons alors que cet événement – quand il est réellement théâtre, art du théâtre – est un événement de pensée. Ce qui veut dire que l'agencement des composantes produit directement des idées (alors que la danse produit plutôt l'idée que le corps est porteur d'idées). Ces idées – c'est un point capital – sont des _idées-théâtre_. Ce qui veut dire qu'elles ne peuvent être produites en aucun autre lieu, par nul autre moyen. Et aussi qu'aucune des composantes prises isolément n'est apte à produire les idées-théâtre, pas même le texte. L'idée advient dans et par la représentation. Elle est irréductiblement théâtrale, et ne préexiste pas à sa venue « sur scène ».
2. Une idée-théâtre est d'abord une éclaircie. Vitez avait coutume de dire que le théâtre se donnait pour but de nous éclairer sur notre situation, de nous orienter dans l'histoire et dans la vie. Il écrivait que le théâtre devait rendre lisible l'inextricable vie. Le théâtre est un art de la simplicité idéale, obtenue par une frappe _typique_. Cette simplicité est elle-même prise dans l'éclaircie de l'enchevêtrement vital. Le théâtre est une expérience, matérielle et textuelle, de la simplification. Il sépare ce qui est mêlé et confus, et cette séparation guide les vérités dont il est capable. N'allons cependant pas croire que l'obtention de la simplicité soit elle-même simple. En mathématiques, simplifier un problème ou une démonstration relève très souvent de l'art intellectuel le plus dense. Et de même, au théâtre, séparer et simplifier l'inextricable vie exige les moyens d'art les plus variés et les plus difficiles. L'idée-théâtre, comme éclaircie publique de l'histoire ou de la vie, n'advient qu'au comble de l'art.
3. L'inextricable vie, c'est essentiellement deux choses : le désir qui circule entre les sexes, et les figures, exaltées ou mortifères, du pouvoir politique et social. C'est à partir de là qu'il y a eu, qu'il y a toujours, la tragédie et la comédie. La tragédie est le jeu du Grand Pouvoir et des impasses du désir. La comédie est le jeu des petits pouvoirs, des rôles de pouvoir, et de la circulation phallique du désir. Ce que pense la tragédie est en somme l'épreuve étatique du désir. Ce que pense la comédie en est l'épreuve familiale. Tout genre qui se prétend intermédiaire traite la famille comme si elle était un État (Strindberg, Ibsen, Pirandello...), ou l'État comme s'il était une famille ou un couple (Claudel...). Le théâtre pense, en fin de compte, dans l'espace ouvert entre la vie et la mort, le nœud du désir et de la politique. Il le pense sous forme d'événement, c'est-à-dire d'intrigue ou de catastrophe.
4. L'idée-théâtre est, dans le texte ou le poème, _incomplète_. Car elle y est retenue dans une sorte d'éternité. Mais, justement, l'idée-théâtre, tant qu'elle n'est que dans sa forme éternelle, n'est _pas encore_ elle-même. L'idée-théâtre ne _vient_ que dans le temps (bref) de la représentation. L'art du théâtre est sans doute le seul qui ait à compléter une éternité par ce qui lui manque d'instantané. Le théâtre va de l'éternité vers le temps, et non l'inverse. Il faut alors comprendre que la mise en scène, qui gouverne – comme elle le peut, tant elles sont hétérogènes – les composantes du théâtre, n'est pas une interprétation, comme on le croit communément. L'acte théâtral est une _complémentation_ singulière de l'idée-théâtre. Toute représentation est un achèvement possible de cette idée. Du corps, de la voix, de la lumière, etc., viennent achever l'idée (ou, si le théâtre manque à lui-même, l'inachever plus encore qu'elle ne l'est dans le texte). L'éphémère du théâtre, ce n'est pas directement qu'une représentation commence, s'achève, et ne laisse à la fin que des traces obscures. C'est avant tout qu'il est ceci : une idée éternelle incomplète dans l'épreuve instantanée de son achèvement.
5. L'épreuve temporelle contient une forte part de hasard. Le théâtre est toujours la complémentation de l'idée éternelle par un hasard un peu gouverné. La mise en scène est souvent un tri pensé des hasards. Soit que ces hasards complètent en effet l'idée, soit qu'ils la dissimulent. L'art du théâtre réside dans un choix, simultanément très instruit et aveugle (voyez comment travaillent les grands metteurs en scène) entre des configurations scéniques hasardeuses qui complètent l'idée (éternelle) par l'instant qui lui manque et d'autres configurations, parfois très séduisantes, mais qui demeurent extérieures et aggravent l'incomplétude de l'idée. Il faut donc donner vérité à l'axiome : jamais une représentation de théâtre n'abolira le hasard.
6. Dans le hasard, il faut compter le public. Car le public fait partie de ce qui complète l'idée. Qui ne sait que, selon que le public est tel ou tel, l'acte théâtral délivre ou non l'idée-théâtre, en la complémentant ? Mais si le public fait partie du hasard, il doit lui-même être aussi hasardeux que possible. Il faut s'élever contre toute conception du public qui y verrait une communauté, une substance publique, un ensemble consistant. Le public représente l'humanité dans son inconsistance même, dans sa variété infinie. Plus il est unifié (socialement, nationalement, civilement...), moins il est utile à la complémentation de l'idée, moins il soutient, dans le temps, son éternité et son universalité. Ne vaut qu'un public _générique_ , un public de hasard.
7. La critique est chargée de veiller au caractère hasardeux du public. Son office est de porter l'idée-théâtre, telle qu'elle la reçoit, bien ou mal, vers l'absent et l'anonyme. Elle convoque les gens à venir à leur tour compléter l'idée. Ou elle pense que cette idée, venue tel jour dans l'expérience hasardeuse qui la complète, ne mérite pas d'être honorée par le hasard élargi d'un public. La critique travaille donc elle aussi à la multiforme venue des idées-théâtre. Elle fait passer (ou ne pas passer) de la « première » à ces autres premières que sont les suivantes. Évidemment, si son adresse est trop restreinte, trop communautaire, trop marquée socialement (parce que le journal est de droite, ou de gauche, ou ne touche qu'un groupe « culturel », etc.), elle travaille parfois contre la généricité du public. On comptera donc sur la multiplicité, elle-même hasardeuse, des journaux et des critiques. Ce que le critique doit surveiller, ce n'est pas sa partialité, qui est requise, c'est le suivi des modes, la copie, le papotage sériel, l'esprit « voler au secours de la victoire », ou le service d'une audience par trop communautaire. Il faut reconnaître à cet égard qu'un bon critique – au service du public comme figure du hasard – est un critique capricieux, imprévisible. Quelles que puissent être les vives souffrances qu'il inflige. On ne demandera pas au critique d'être juste, on lui demandera d'être un représentant instruit du hasard public. Si, par-dessus le marché, il ne se trompe guère sur la venue des idées-théâtre, il sera un grand critique. Mais il ne sert à rien de demander à une corporation, pas plus à celle-là qu'à une autre, d'inscrire dans ses statuts l'obligation de la grandeur.
8. Je ne crois pas que la principale question de notre temps soit l'horreur, la souffrance, le destin ou la déréliction. Nous en somme saturés et, en outre, la fragmentation de tout cela en idées-théâtre est incessante. Nous ne voyons que du théâtre choral et compassionnel. Notre question est celle du courage affirmatif, de l'énergie locale. Se saisir d'un point, et le tenir. Notre question est donc moins celle des conditions d'une tragédie moderne que celle des conditions d'une comédie moderne. Beckett le savait, dont le théâtre, correctement complété, est hilarant. Il est plus inquiétant que nous ne sachions pas visiter Aristophane ou Plaute qu'il n'est réjouissant de vérifier une fois de plus que nous savons donner force à Eschyle. Notre temps exige une invention, celle qui noue sur scène la violence du désir et les rôles du petit pouvoir local. Celle qui transmet en idées-théâtre tout ce dont la science populaire est _capable_. Nous voulons un théâtre de la capacité, non de l'incapacité.
9. L'obstacle sur la voie d'une énergie comique contemporaine est le refus consensuel de la typification. La « démocratie » consensuelle a horreur de toute typification des catégories subjectives qui la composent. Essayez de faire gigoter sur scène et d'ensevelir sous le ridicule un pape, un grand médecin médiatique, un ponte d'institution humanitaire ou une dirigeante du syndicat des infirmières ! Nous avons infiniment plus de tabous que les Grecs. Il faut, peu à peu, les briser. Le théâtre a pour devoir de recomposer sur scène des situations vives, articulées à partir de quelques types essentiels. Et de proposer pour notre temps l'équivalent des esclaves et domestiques de la comédie, gens exclus et invisibles qui soudain, par l'effet de l'idée-théâtre, sont sur scène l'intelligence et la force, le désir et la maîtrise.
10. La difficulté générale du théâtre, à toutes les époques, est son rapport à l'État. Car il y est toujours adossé. Quelle est la forme moderne de cette dépendance ? Elle est délicate à régler. Il faut se soustraire à une vision de type revendicatif, qui ferait du théâtre une profession salariée comme les autres, un secteur gémissant de l'opinion publique, un fonctionnariat culturel. Mais il faut aussi se soustraire au seul fait du prince, qui installe au théâtre des lobbies courtisans, serviles au regard des fluctuations de la politique. Pour ce faire, il faut une idée générale qui, le plus souvent, utilise les équivoques et les divisions de l'État (ainsi, le comédien-courtisan, comme Molière, peut jouer le parterre contre le public noble, ou snob, ou dévot, avec la complicité du roi, qui a ses propres comptes à régler avec son entourage féodal et clérical ; et Vitez le communiste peut être nommé à Chaillot par Michel Guy, parce que l'envergure ministérielle de l'homme de goût flatte la « modernité » de Giscard d'Estaing, etc.). Il est vrai qu'il faut, pour maintenir auprès de l'État la nécessité de la venue des idées-théâtre, une idée (la décentralisation, le théâtre populaire, « élitaire pour tous », et ainsi de suite). Cette idée est pour l'instant trop imprécise, d'où notre morosité. Le théâtre doit penser sa propre idée. Ne peut nous guider que la conviction qu'aujourd'hui plus que jamais le théâtre, pour autant qu'il pense, n'est pas une donnée de la culture, mais de l'art. Le public ne va pas au théâtre pour s'y faire cultiver. Il n'est pas un chou, ou un chouchou. Le théâtre relève de l'action restreinte, et toute confrontation avec l'Audimat lui sera fatale. Le public vient au théâtre pour être _frappé_. Frappé par les idées-théâtre. Il n'en sort pas cultivé, mais étourdi, fatigué (penser fatigue), songeur. Il n'a pas rencontré, même dans le plus énorme rire, de quoi le satisfaire. Il a rencontré des idées dont il ne soupçonnait pas l'existence.
11. Peut-être est-ce ce qui distingue le théâtre du cinéma, dont il est l'apparent rival malheureux (et d'autant qu'ils se partagent bien des choses : intrigues, scénarios, costumes, séances..., mais, par-dessus tout, les acteurs, ces brigands bien-aimés) : qu'au théâtre il s'agisse explicitement, presque physiquement, de la rencontre d'une idée, alors qu'au cinéma – c'est du moins ce que je m'apprête à soutenir –, il s'agit de son passage, et presque de son fantôme.
8
Les faux mouvements du cinéma
Un film opère par ce qu'il retire au visible, l'image y est d'abord coupée. Le mouvement y est entravé, suspendu, retourné, arrêté. Plus essentielle que la présence est la découpe, non seulement par l'effet du montage, mais déjà et d'emblée par celui du cadrage, et de l'épuration dominée du visible. Il importe absolument au cinéma que ces fleurs montrées, comme dans telle séquence de Visconti, soient des fleurs mallarméennes, qu'elles soient les absentes de tout bouquet. Je les ai vues, ces fleurs, mais le mode propre selon lequel elles sont captives d'une découpe fait qu'il y a, indivisiblement, leur singularité et leur idéalité.
Toute la différence avec la peinture étant que ce n'est pas de les voir qui fonde en pensée l'Idée, mais de les avoir vues. Le cinéma est un art du passé perpétuel, au sens où le passé est institué de la passe. Le cinéma est visitation : de ce que j'aurais vu ou entendu, l'idée demeure en tant qu'elle passe. Organiser l'effleurement interne au visible du passage de l'idée, voilà l'opération du cinéma, dont les opérations propres d'un artiste inventent la possibilité.
Ainsi le mouvement, au cinéma, doit-il être pensé de trois façons différentes. D'une part, il rapporte l'idée à l'éternité paradoxale d'un passage, d'une visitation. Il y a une rue, dans Paris, qui s'appelle le passage de la Visitation, elle pourrait s'appeler la rue du Cinéma. Il s'agit là du cinéma comme mouvement global. D'autre part, le mouvement, par des opérations complexes, est ce qui soustrait l'image à elle-même, ce qui fait qu'elle est imprésentée, quoique inscrite. Car c'est dans le mouvement que s'incarnent les effets de coupe. Même et surtout, comme on le voit chez Straub, quand c'est l'arrêt apparent du mouvement local qui fait voir l'évidement du visible. Ou, comme chez Murnau, quand c'est l'avancée d'un tramway qui organise la topologie segmentaire d'un faubourg ombragé. Disons que nous avons là les actes du mouvement local. Et enfin, le mouvement est circulation impure dans le total des autres activités artistiques, il loge l'idée dans l'allusion contrastante, elle-même soustractive, à des arts arrachés à leur destination.
Il est en effet impossible de penser le cinéma en dehors d'une sorte d'espace général où appréhender sa connexion aux autres arts. Il est le septième art en un sens tout particulier. Il ne s'ajoute pas aux sept autres sur le même plan qu'eux, il les implique, il est le plus-un des six autres. Il opère sur eux, à partir d'eux, par un mouvement qui les soustrait à eux-mêmes.
Demandons-nous par exemple ce que _Faux Mouvement_ de Wim Wenders doit au _Wilhelm Meister_ de Goethe. Il s'agit là de cinéma et de roman. Il faut bien admettre que le film n'existerait pas, ou plutôt n'aurait pas existé, sans le roman. Mais quel est le sens de cette condition ? Ou, plus précisément : à quelles conditions propres au cinéma cette condition romanesque d'un film est-elle possible ? Question tortueuse, difficile. On voit bien que deux opérateurs sont convoqués : qu'il y ait récit, ou ombre de récit ; qu'il y ait personnages, ou allusions de personnages. Quelque chose dans le film opère filmiquement en écho, par exemple, du personnage de Mignon. Cependant, la liberté de la prose romanesque est de ne pas donner à voir les corps, dont l'infinité visible échappe à la plus fine description. Ici, le corps est donné par l'actrice, mais « actrice » est un mot du théâtre, un mot de la représentation. Et voici que déjà le film arrache le romanesque à lui-même par un prélèvement théâtral. Or on voit bien que l'idée filmique de Mignon est précisément logée, pour une part, dans cet arrachement. Elle est mise entre théâtre et roman, mais aussi bien dans un « ni l'un ni l'autre », dont tout l'art de Wenders est de tenir le passage.
Si maintenant je demande ce que _Mort à Venise_ de Visconti doit à _Mort à Venise_ de Thomas Mann, me voici aussitôt déporté dans la direction de la musique. Car la temporalité du passage est dictée, songeons à la séquence d'ouverture, beaucoup moins par le rythme prosodique de Thomas Mann que par l'adagio de la _Cinquième Symphonie_ de Mahler. Supposons que l'idée soit ici la liaison entre la mélancolie amoureuse, le génie du lieu et la mort. Visconti monte la visitation de cette idée dans la brèche qu'une musique ouvre dans le visible, au défaut de la prose, puisque là rien ne sera dit, rien ne sera textuel. Le mouvement soustrait le romanesque à la langue, et le retient dans une lisière mouvante entre musique et lieu. Mais, à leur tour, musique et lieu échangent leurs valeurs propres, en sorte que la musique est annulée par des allusions picturales, cependant que toute stabilité picturale est dissoute dans la musique. Ces transferts et dissolutions sont cela même qui, à la fin, aura fait tout le réel du passage de l'idée.
On pourrait appeler « poétique du cinéma » le nouage des trois acceptions du mot « mouvement », dont tout l'effet est que l'Idée visite le sensible. J'insiste sur le fait qu'elle ne s'y incarne pas. Le cinéma dément la thèse classique selon laquelle l'art est la forme sensible de l'Idée. Car la visitation du sensible par l'Idée ne lui donne aucun corps. L'Idée n'est pas séparable, elle n'existe au cinéma que dans son passage. L'Idée elle-même est visitation.
Donnons un exemple. Que se passe-t-il dans _Faux Mouvement_ quand un gros personnage lit enfin son poème, dont il a maintes fois annoncé l'existence ?
Si l'on se réfère au mouvement global, on dira que cette lecture est comme une découpe sur les courses anarchiques, l'errance de tout le groupe. Le poème est installé comme idée du poème par un effet de marge, d'interruption. Ainsi passe l'idée que tout poème est une interruption de la langue, conçue comme simple outil de communication. Le poème est une mise en arrêt de la langue sur elle-même. Sauf que, bien entendu, la langue n'est ici, filmiquement, que la course, la poursuite, une sorte d'essoufflement hagard.
Si l'on se réfère au mouvement local, on dira que la visibilité du lecteur, son propre effarement le montrent en proie à l'annulation de soi dans le texte, dans l'anonymat qu'il devient. Poème et poète se suppriment réciproquement. Le résidu est une sorte d'étonnement d'exister, étonnement d'exister qui est peut-être le vrai sujet de ce film.
Si enfin on considère le mouvement impur des arts, on voit qu'en réalité le poétique dans le film est arrachement à soi du poétique supposé au poème. Car ce qui compte est justement qu'un acteur, lui-même impurification du romanesque, lise un poème, qui n'est pas un poème, pour que soit monté le passage d'une tout autre idée, à savoir que ce personnage ne pourra pas, ne pourra jamais, en dépit de son désir éperdu, s'arrimer aux autres, constituer à partir d'eux une stabilité de son être. L'étonnement d'exister, comme souvent chez le premier Wenders, avant les anges, si je puis dire, est l'élément solipsiste, celui qui, fût-ce de très loin, énonce qu'un Allemand ne peut, en toute tranquillité, s'accorder et se lier à d'autres Allemands, faute que soit aujourd'hui prononçable, en toute clarté politique, l'être allemand comme tel. La poétique du film est ainsi, dans le nouage des trois mouvements, le passage d'une idée qui n'est pas simple. Au cinéma, comme chez Platon, les véritables idées sont des mixtes, et toute tentative d'univocité défait le poétique. Dans notre exemple, cette lecture du poème fait apparaître, ou passer, l'idée d'un lien d'idées : il y a un lien, proprement allemand, entre ce qu'est le poème, l'étonnement d'exister et l'incertitude nationale. C'est cette idée qui visite la séquence. Et pour que sa complexité, sa mixité soient ce qui nous aura convoqués à penser, il faut le nouage des trois mouvements : le mouvement global, par quoi l'idée n'est jamais que son passage, le mouvement local, par quoi elle est aussi autre que ce qu'elle est, autre que son image, et le mouvement impur, par quoi elle se loge dans des frontières mouvantes entre suppositions artistiques désertées.
Et de même que la poésie est arrêt sur la langue par l'effet d'un artifice codé de son maniement, de même les mouvements que noue la poétique du cinéma sont bien des faux mouvements.
Le mouvement global est faux, de ce que nulle mesure ne lui convient. La substructure technique règle un défilement discret et uniforme dont tout l'art est de ne tenir aucun compte. Les unités de découpe, comme les plans ou les séquences, sont finalement composées, non dans la mesure d'un temps, mais dans un principe de voisinage, de rappel, d'insistance ou de rupture, dont la pensée véritable est une topologie bien plutôt qu'un mouvement. C'est comme filtré par cet espace de composition, présent dès le tournage, que s'impose le faux mouvement par quoi l'idée n'est donnée que comme passage. Disons qu'il y a idée parce qu'il y a un espace de composition, et qu'il y a passage parce que cet espace se délivre, ou s'expose, comme temps global. Ainsi, dans _Faux Mouvement_ , la séquence des trains qui se frôlent et s'éloignent est une métonymie de tout l'espace de composition. Son mouvement est pure exposition d'un site où proximité subjective et éloignement sont indiscernables, ce qui est en fait l'idée de l'amour chez Wenders. Le mouvement global n'est que l'étirement pseudo-narratif de ce site.
Le mouvement local est faux, car il n'est que l'effet d'une soustraction de l'image, ou aussi bien du dire, à eux-mêmes. Il n'y a pas non plus ici de mouvement originel, de mouvement en soi. Ce qu'il y a, c'est une visibilité contrainte qui, n'étant pas reproduction de quoi que ce soit – disons en passant que le cinéma est le moins mimétique des arts –, crée un effet temporel de parcours, pour que ce visible même soit attesté en quelque sorte « hors image », attesté par la pensée. Je pense par exemple à la séquence de _La Soif du mal_ , d'Orson Welles, où le gros policier crépusculaire rend visite à Marlène Dietrich. Le temps local n'est ici induit que parce que c'est bien à Marlène Dietrich que Welles rend visite, et que l'idée n'a nulle coïncidence avec l'image, qui devrait être celle d'un policier chez une putain vieillissante. En sorte que la lenteur presque cérémonieuse de l'entretien résulte de ce que cette image apparente doit être parcourue par la pensée jusqu'au point où, par une inversion des valeurs fictives, ce soit de Marlène Dietrich et d'Orson Welles qu'il soit ici question, non d'un policier et d'une putain. Par quoi l'image est arrachée à elle-même pour être restituée au réel du cinéma. Ici, du reste, le mouvement local s'oriente vers le mouvement impur, car l'idée, qui est celle d'une génération finissante d'artistes, s'installe à la lisière du cinéma comme film et du cinéma comme configuration, ou, comme art, à la lisière du cinéma et de lui-même, ou encore du cinéma comme effectivité et du cinéma comme chose du passé.
Et enfin, le mouvement impur est le plus faux de tous, car il n'existe en réalité aucun moyen de faire mouvement d'un art à un autre. Les arts sont fermés. Nulle peinture ne se changera jamais en musique, nulle danse en poème. Toutes les tentatives directes dans ce sens sont vaines. Et pourtant, le cinéma est bien l'organisation de ces mouvements impossibles. Cependant, ce n'est encore qu'une soustraction. La citation allusive des autres arts, constitutive du cinéma, les arrache à eux-mêmes, et ce qui reste est justement la lisière ébréchée où aura passé l'idée, telle que le cinéma, et lui seul, en autorise la visitation.
Ainsi le cinéma, tel qu'aux films il existe, fait nœud de trois faux mouvements. Cette triplicité est ce par quoi il délivre comme pur passage la mixité, l'impureté idéale qui nous saisissent.
Le cinéma est un art impur. Il est bien le plus-un des arts, parasitaire et inconsistant. Mais sa force d'art contemporain est justement de faire idée, le temps d'une passe, de l'impureté de toute idée.
Mais cette impureté, comme celle de l'Idée, n'oblige-t-elle pas, pour seulement parler d'un film, à d'étranges détours, à ces « longs détours » dont Platon établit la nécessité philosophique ? On voit bien que la critique de cinéma est toujours suspendue entre le bavardage de l'empathie et la technicité historienne. À moins qu'il ne s'agisse que de raconter l'histoire (impureté romanesque fatale), ou de vanter les acteurs (impureté théâtrale). Peut-on si aisément parler d'un film ?
Il y a une première manière d'en parler qui est de dire « Ça m'a plu », ou « Ça ne m'a pas enthousiasmé ». Ce propos est indistinct, car la règle du « plaire » laisse sa norme cachée. Au regard de quelle attente tombe le jugement ? Un roman policier peut aussi plaire ou ne pas plaire, être bon ou mauvais. Ces distinctions ne font pas du roman policier en question un chef-d'œuvre de l'art littéraire. Elles désignent plutôt la qualité, la couleur du bref temps passé en sa compagnie. Après quoi vient une indifférente perte de la mémoire. Appelons ce premier temps de la parole le jugement indistinct. Il regarde l'indispensable échange des opinions, lequel porte souvent, dès la considération du temps qu'il fait, sur ce que la vie promet ou soustrait de moments agréables et précaires.
Il y a une deuxième manière de parler d'un film, qui est précisément de le défendre contre le jugement indistinct. De montrer, ce qui suppose déjà quelques arguments, que ce film n'est pas seulement situable dans la béance entre plaisir et oubli. Ce n'est pas seulement qu'il soit bien, bien dans son genre, mais qu'à son propos quelque Idée se laisse prévoir, ou fixer. Un des signes superficiels de ce changement de registre est que l'auteur du film est mentionné, mentionné comme auteur. Alors que le jugement indistinct mentionne prioritairement les acteurs, ou les effets, ou une scène frappante, ou l'histoire racontée. Cette deuxième espèce du jugement cherche à désigner une singularité dont l'auteur est l'emblème. Cette singularité est ce qui résiste au jugement indistinct. Elle tente de séparer ce qui est dit du film du mouvement général de l'opinion. Cette séparation est aussi celle qui isole un spectateur, qui a perçu et nomme la singularité, de la masse d'un public. Appelons ce jugement le jugement diacritique. Il argumente pour la considération du film comme style. Le style est ce qui est opposé à l'indistinct. Liant le style à l'auteur, le jugement diacritique propose qu'on sauve quelque chose du cinéma, qu'il ne soit pas voué à l'oubli des plaisirs. Que du cinéma quelques noms, quelques figures soient remarqués dans le temps.
Le jugement diacritique n'est en réalité que la négation fragile du jugement indistinct. L'expérience montre qu'il sauve moins les films que les noms propres d'auteurs, moins l'art du cinéma que quelques éléments dispersés des stylistiques. Je serais assez tenté de dire que le jugement diacritique est aux auteurs ce que le jugement indistinct est aux acteurs : l'index d'une remémoration provisoire. Au bout du compte, le jugement diacritique définit une forme sophistiquée, ou différentielle, de l'opinion. Il désigne, il constitue le cinéma « de qualité ». Mais l'histoire du cinéma de qualité ne dessine à la longue aucune configuration artistique. Elle dessine bien plutôt l'histoire, toujours surprenante, de la critique de cinéma. Car c'est, à toutes les époques, la critique qui fournit ses repères au jugement diacritique. La critique nomme la qualité. Mais, ce faisant, elle est encore elle-même beaucoup trop indistincte. L'art est infiniment plus rare que la meilleure critique ne peut le supposer. On le savait déjà en lisant aujourd'hui les critiques littéraires lointains, mettons Sainte-Beuve. La vision que leur sens indéniable de la qualité, leur vigueur diacritique, donne de leur siècle est artistiquement absurde.
En réalité, un oubli second enveloppe les effets du jugement diacritique, dans une durée certes différente de l'oubli que provoque le jugement indistinct, mais finalement aussi péremptoire. Cimetière d'auteurs, la qualité désigne moins l'art d'une époque que son idéologie artistique. Idéologie dans quoi, toujours, l'art véritable est une trouée.
Il faut donc imaginer une troisième manière de parler d'un film, ni indistincte ni diacritique. Je lui vois deux traits extérieurs.
Tout d'abord, le jugement l'indiffère. Car toute position défensive est abandonnée. Que le film soit bien, qu'il ait plu, qu'il ne soit pas commensurable aux objets du jugement indistinct, qu'il faille le distinguer, tout cela est silencieusement supposé dans le simple fait qu'on en parle et n'est nullement le but à atteindre. N'est-ce pas la règle qu'on applique aux œuvres artistiques établies du passé ? S'avise-t-on de trouver significatif que l' _Orestie_ d'Eschyle ou _La Comédie humaine_ de Balzac vous aient « bien plu » ? Qu'elles soient « franchement pas mal » ? Le jugement indistinct est alors ridicule. Mais tout autant le jugement diacritique. Il n'est pas non plus requis de s'échiner à prouver que le style de Mallarmé est supérieur à celui de Sully Prudhomme, lequel, entre parenthèses, passait en son temps pour être de la plus excellente qualité. On parlera donc du film dans l'engagement inconditionné d'une conviction d'art, non afin de l'établir, mais afin d'en tirer les conséquences. Disons que l'on passe du jugement normatif, indistinct (« c'est bien ») ou diacritique (« c'est supérieur ») à une attitude axiomatique, qui demande quels sont pour la pensée les effets de tel ou tel film.
Parlons donc de jugement axiomatique.
Et s'il est vrai que le cinéma traite l'Idée dans la guise d'une visitation, ou d'un passage, et qu'il le fait dans un élément d'impureté sans remède, parler axiomatiquement d'un film reviendra à examiner les conséquences du mode propre sur lequel une Idée est ainsi traitée par _ce_ film. Les considérations formelles, de coupe, de plan, de mouvement global ou local, de couleur, d'actants corporels, de son, etc., ne doivent être citées qu'autant qu'elles contribuent à la « touche » de l'Idée et à la capture de son impureté native.
Un exemple : la succession des plans qui, dans le _Nosferatu_ de Murnau, marquent l'approche du site du prince des morts. Surexposition des prairies, chevaux effarés, coupes orageuses, tout cela déplie l'Idée d'un toucher de l'imminence, d'une visitation anticipée du jour par la nuit, d'un _no man's land_ entre la vie et la mort. Mais, aussi bien, il y a une mixité impure de cette visitation, quelque chose de trop manifestement poétique, un suspens qui déporte la vision vers l'attente et l'inquiétude, au lieu de nous la donner à voir dans son contour établi. Notre pensée n'est pas ici contemplative, elle est elle-même emportée, elle voyage en compagnie de l'Idée plutôt qu'elle ne s'en empare. La conséquence que nous en tirons est que, justement, la pensée est possible d'une pensée-poème qui traverse l'Idée, qui est moins une découpe qu'une appréhension par la perte.
Parler d'un film sera souvent montrer comment il nous convoque à telle Idée dans la force de sa perte ; au rebours de la peinture, par exemple, qui est par excellence l'art de l'Idée minutieusement et intégralement donnée.
Ce contraste m'engage dans ce que je tiens pour la difficulté principale qu'il y a à parler axiomatiquement d'un film. C'est d'en parler _en tant que film_. Car quand le film organise réellement la visitation d'une Idée – et c'est ce que nous supposons puisque nous en parlons –, il est toujours dans un rapport soustractif, ou défectif, à un ou plusieurs autres arts. Tenir le mouvement de la défection, et non la plénitude de son support, est le plus délicat. Surtout que la voie formaliste, qui amène à de prétendues opérations filmiques « pures », est une impasse. Redisons-le : rien n'est pur, au cinéma, c'est intérieurement, et intégralement, qu'il est contaminé par sa situation de plus-un des arts.
Soit par exemple, derechef, la longue traversée des canaux au début de _Mort à Venise_ de Visconti. L'idée qui passe – et que tout le reste du film à la fois suture et résilie – est celle d'un homme qui a fait ce qu'il avait à faire dans l'existence, et qui est donc au suspens, soit d'une fin, soit d'une autre vie. Or, cette idée s'organise par la convergence disparate de quantité d'ingrédients ; il y a le visage de l'acteur Dirk Bogarde, la qualité particulière d'opacité et de question que ce visage charrie, et qui relève bien, qu'on le veuille ou non, de l'art de l'acteur ; il y a les innombrables échos artistiques du style vénitien, tous en fait rattachés au thème de ce qui est achevé, soldé, retiré de l'histoire, thèmes picturaux déjà présents dans Guardi ou Canaletto, thèmes littéraires de Rousseau à Proust ; il y a, pour nous, dans ce type de voyageur des grands palaces européens, l'écho de l'incertitude subtile que trament, par exemple, les héros de Henry James ; il y a la musique de Mahler, qui est aussi bien l'achèvement distendu, exaspéré, d'une totale mélancolie, de la symphonie tonale et de son appareillage de timbres (ici, les cordes seules). Et l'on peut bien montrer comment ces ingrédients à la fois s'amplifient et se corrodent les uns les autres, dans une sorte de décomposition par excès, qui justement donne l'idée, et comme passage, et comme impureté. Mais qu'est-ce qui est ici proprement le film ?
Après tout, le cinéma n'est que prise et montage. Il n'y a rien d'autre. Je veux dire : rien d'autre qui soit « le film ». Il faut donc bien soutenir qu'envisagé selon le jugement axiomatique un film est ce qui expose le passage de l'idée selon la prise et le montage. Comment l'idée vient-elle à sa prise, voire à sa sur-prise ? Et comment est-elle montée ? Mais surtout : qu'est-ce que le fait d'être prise et montée dans le plus-un hétéroclite des arts nous révèle de singulier, et que nous ne pouvions antérieurement savoir, ou penser, de cette idée ?
Dans l'exemple du film de Visconti, il est clair que prise et montage conspirent à établir une durée. Durée excessive, homogène à la perpétuation vide de Venise, comme à la stagnation de l'adagio de Mahler, ainsi qu'à la performance d'un acteur immobile, inactif, dont on ne requiert, interminablement, que le visage. Par conséquent, ce qui de l'idée d'un homme au suspens de son être, ou de son désir, est ici capturé, c'est en fait qu'un tel homme est par lui-même immobile. Les ressources anciennes sont taries, les nouvelles possibilités sont absentes. La durée filmique, composée dans l'assortiment de plusieurs arts livrés à leurs défauts, est la visitation d'une immobilité subjective. Voici ce qu'est un homme désormais livré au caprice d'une rencontre. Un homme, comme dirait Samuel Beckett, « immobile dans le noir », jusqu'à ce que lui vienne le délice incalculable de son bourreau, c'est-à-dire de son nouveau désir, s'il vient.
Or, que ce soit le versant immobile de cette idée qui soit livré est proprement ce qui ici fait passage. On pourrait montrer que les autres arts, soit livrent l'Idée comme donation – au comble de ces arts, la peinture –, soit inventent un temps pur de l'Idée, explorent les configurations de la mouvance du pensable – au comble de ces arts, la musique. Le cinéma, par la possibilité qui lui est propre, en saisie et montage, d'amalgamer les autres arts sans les présenter, peut, et doit, organiser le passage de l'immobile.
Mais aussi bien l'immobilité du passage, comme on le montrerait aisément dans le rapport que certains plans de Straub entretiennent avec le texte littéraire, sa scansion, sa progression. Ou aussi bien avec ce que le début de _Playtime_ de Tati institue de dialectique entre le mouvement d'une foule et la vacuité de ce qu'on pourrait appeler sa composition atomique. Par quoi Tati traite de l'espace comme condition pour un passage immobile. Parler axiomatiquement d'un film sera toujours décevant, car toujours exposé à n'en faire qu'un rival chaotique des arts primordiaux. Mais nous pouvons tenir ce fil : montrer comment ce film nous fait voyager avec cette idée, de telle sorte que nous découvrons ce que rien d'autre ne pouvait nous faire découvrir : que, comme le pensait déjà Platon, l'impur de l'Idée est toujours qu'une immobilité passe, ou qu'un passage est immobile. Et que c'est pour cela que nous oublions les idées.
Contre l'oubli, Platon convoque le mythe d'une vision première et d'une réminiscence. Parler d'un film est toujours parler d'une réminiscence : de quelle survenue, de quelle réminiscence, telle ou telle idée est-elle capable, capable pour nous ? C'est de ce point que traite tout vrai film, idée par idée. Des liens de l'impur, du mouvement et du repos, de l'oubli et de la réminiscence. Non point tant ce que nous savons que ce que nous pouvons savoir. Parler d'un film est parler moins des ressources de la pensée que de ses possibles, une fois assurées, dans la guise des autres arts, ses ressources. Indiquer ce qu'il pourrait y avoir, outre ce qu'il y a. Ou encore : comment l'impurification du pur ouvre la voie à d'autres puretés.
Par quoi le cinéma inverse l'impératif littéraire, qui se dit : faire en sorte que la purification de la langue impure ouvre la voie à des impuretés inédites. Les risques sont du reste contraires. Le cinéma, ce grand impurificateur, risque toujours de trop plaire, d'être une figure de l'abaissement. La vraie littérature, qui est purification rigoureuse, risque de s'égarer dans une proximité au concept où l'effet d'art s'exténue et où la prose (ou le poème) se suture à la philosophie.
Samuel Beckett, qui aimait fort le cinéma, et a du reste tourné-écrit un film, dont le titre fort platonicien est _Film_ , _le_ Film, en somme, aimait rôder aux abords du péril à quoi s'expose toute haute littérature : ne plus produire des impuretés inédites, mais stagner dans la pureté apparente du concept. Philosopher, en somme. Et donc : repérer les vérités, plutôt que de les produire. De cette errance aux lisières, _Worstward Ho_ reste le témoin le plus accompli.
9
Être, existence, pensée :
prose et concept
a) L'entre-langues et la sténographie de l'être
Samuel Beckett écrit _Worstward Ho_ en 1982 et le publie en 1983. C'est, avec _Soubresauts_ , un texte testamentaire. Beckett ne l'a pas traduit en français, en sorte que _Worstward Ho_ exprime le réel de l'anglais comme langue maternelle de Samuel Beckett. À ma connaissance les textes écrits en français par Samuel Beckett ont tous été traduits par lui-même en anglais. Par contre, il subsiste quelques textes écrits en anglais qu'il n'a pas traduits en français, et qui sont comme les restes de quelque chose de plus originaire dans la langue anglaise pour cet artiste exceptionnel du français. Au demeurant, « on » dit que Samuel Beckett considérait la traduction de ce texte en français comme trop difficile. _Worstward Ho_ est noué à la langue anglaise de façon si singulière que sa transmigration langagière est particulièrement ardue.
Comme nous allons étudier la version française, nous ne pourrons pas la prendre dans sa poétique littérale. Le texte français auquel nous avons affaire, qui est tout à fait remarquable, n'est pas exactement de Samuel Beckett. Il appartient pour part à Édith Fournier, la traductrice. Nous ne pouvons pas aborder immédiatement la signification de ce texte du biais de sa lettre, car il s'agit réellement d'une _traduction_.
Dans le cas de Beckett, le problème de la traduction est complexe, puisqu'il s'est lui-même installé dans l'intervalle des deux langues. La question de savoir quel texte est la traduction duquel est une question quasiment indécidable. Cependant, Beckett a toujours appelé le passage d'une langue dans une autre une « traduction », bien que, à y regarder de près, il y ait des différences significatives entre les « variantes » françaises et anglaises, différences qui touchent non seulement à la poétique de la langue, mais aussi à la tonalité philosophique. Il y a une sorte de pragmatisme humoristique dans le texte anglais qui n'est pas exactement présent dans le texte français, et il y a une franchise conceptuelle dans le texte français qui est assouplie et parfois, à mes yeux, un tout petit peu détrempée dans le texte anglais. S'agissant de _Worstward Ho_ , nous avons un texte absolument anglais, non varié en français, et puis une traduction au sens usuel. D'où l'obligation de prendre appui sur le sens plutôt que sur la lettre.
Une seconde difficulté tient au fait que ce texte est, de façon absolument consciente, un texte récapitulatif, c'est-à-dire un texte qui fait bilan de l'ensemble de l'entreprise de pensée de Samuel Beckett. Pour l'étudier entièrement, il faudrait montrer qu'il est tramé d'un réseau serré d'allusions à des textes antérieurs, de reprises d'hypothèses théoriques de ces textes, qui seront réexaminées, éventuellement contredites ou modifiées, ou affinées, et que c'est comme une sorte de filtre à travers quoi passe la multiplicité des écrits beckettiens, réduite à son système hypothétique fondamental.
Cela étant, si on conjoint les deux difficultés, il est tout à fait possible de prendre _Worstward Ho_ comme un court traité philosophique, comme une sténographie de la question de l'être. C'est un texte qui n'est pas gouverné par une sorte de poème latent, comme les textes antérieurs. Ce n'est pas un texte qui s'enfonce dans la singularité et la puissance comparative de la langue comme l'est, par exemple, _Mal vu mal dit_. C'est un texte qui garde une certaine sécheresse abstraite tout à fait délibérée, compensée, spécialement en anglais, par un soin rythmique extrême. Disons que c'est un texte qui tend à délivrer le rythme de la pensée plutôt que sa configuration, alors que, pour _Mal vu mal dit_ , ce serait le contraire. Nous pouvons donc l'aborder de façon conceptuelle sans le trahir. Traiter ce texte comme étant principalement un réseau de pensée ou une sténographie de la question de l'être lui est adéquat, car il compose une table des matières du total de l'œuvre. Ce que nous perdrons, que j'appelais le rythme, c'est la figure de scansion – les segments langagiers sont généralement extrêmement brefs : quelques mots –, donc la figure sténographique qui lui est propre et qui, en anglais, est assortie à une espèce de frappe de la langue tout à fait particulière.
b) Le dire, l'être, la pensée
_Cap au pire_ (admirable traduction pour _Worstward Ho_ ) propose une trame extrêmement dense, organisée, comme dans tout le Beckett tardif, en paragraphes, et une première lecture montre, à l'évidence, que cette trame va déployer en questions (je dirai tout à l'heure ce qu'il faut entendre par « question ») quatre thèmes conceptuels centraux.
Le premier thème est l'impératif du dire. C'est un très ancien thème beckettien, c'est celui qui est le plus connu, mais c'est aussi à certains égards le plus méconnu. L'impératif du dire est la prescription du « encore », comme _incipit_ de l'écrit, déterminant l'écrit comme continuation. Le commencement chez Beckett est toujours un « continuer ». Rien ne commence qui ne soit dans la prescription du encore ou du _re_ -commencer, dans la supposition d'un commencement qui lui-même n'a jamais commencé. On peut dire que le texte est encerclé par l'impératif du dire. Il commence par :
Encore. Dire encore. Soit dit encore. Tant mal que pis encore.
Et il se termine par :
Soit dit plus mèche encore.
Si bien qu'on peut aussi résumer _Cap au pire_ par le passage de « Soit dit encore » à « Soit dit plus mèche encore ». Le texte fait advenir la possibilité du « plus mèche encore » comme altération fondamentale du « encore ». La négation (plus mèche) atteste qu'il n'y a plus l'encore. Mais en réalité comme c'est « soit dit », le « plus mèche encore » est une variante de l'encore, il demeure contraint par l'impératif du dire.
Le deuxième thème, corrélat immédiat et obligé du premier dans toute l'œuvre de Beckett, est l'être pur, le « il y a » en tant que tel. L'impératif du dire est immédiatement corrélé à ce au regard de quoi il y a _à_ dire, à savoir justement le « il y a ». Outre le fait qu'il y a l'impératif du dire, il y a le « il y a ».
Le « il y a », ou l'être pur, a deux noms et non pas un seul – c'est un grand problème –, qui sont, dans la traduction française, le vide et la pénombre. Notons tout de suite qu'au regard de ces deux noms, vide et pénombre, on discerne, au moins en apparence, une subordination : le vide est subordonné à la pénombre _dans l'exercice de la disparition_ , qui est le plan d'épreuve essentiel. La maxime est la suivante :
Disparition du vide ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la pénombre. Alors disparition de tout.
Donc, soumis à l'épreuve cruciale du disparaître, le vide n'a pas d'autonomie. Il est sous la dépendance de la disparition de tout, qui, comme telle, est la disparition de la pénombre. Si la « disparition de tout », c'est-à-dire le « il y a » pensé comme néant, est nommée par la pénombre, le vide est nécessairement une nomination subordonnée. Si on admet que le « il y a » est ce qu'il y a dans l'épreuve de son néant, le fait que le disparaître soit subordonné au disparaître de la pénombre fait de « pénombre » le nom suréminent de l'être.
Le troisième thème est ce qu'on pourrait appeler « l'inscrit _dans_ l'être ». Il s'agit de ce qui se propose du point de l'être, ou encore de ce qui est apparent dans la pénombre. L'inscrit est ce que la pénombre comme pénombre dispose dans l'ordre de l'apparaître.
Pour autant que « pénombre » est le nom suréminent de l'être, l'inscrit est ce qui apparaît dans la pénombre. Mais on peut aussi bien dire qu'il s'agit de ce qui se donne dans un intervalle du vide. Car les choses vont être prononcées selon les deux noms possibles du « il y a ». Il y a ce qui apparaît dans la pénombre, ce que la pénombre fait apparaître comme ombre : l'ombre dans la pénombre. Et il y a ce qui fait apparaître le vide en tant qu'intervalle, dans l'écart de ce qui apparaît, et par conséquent comme corruption du vide, si le vide est assigné à n'être que différence, ou séparation. C'est ainsi que l'univers, donc l'ensemble de ce qui apparaît, pourra être nommé par Beckett : un vide infesté d'ombres. Cette manière qu'a le vide d'être infesté par les ombres veut dire qu'il est réduit à la figure d'un intervalle entre les ombres. Mais n'oublions jamais que cet intervalle entre les ombres n'est finalement que pénombre, ce qui renvoie à la pénombre comme exposition archi-originelle de l'être.
On peut dire aussi que l'inscrit dans l'être – les ombres – est ce qui se laisse compter. La science du nombre, du nombre des ombres, est un thème fondamental de Beckett. Ce qui n'est pas l'être comme tel, mais qui est proposé ou inscrit dans l'être, c'est ce qui se laisse compter, ce qui est dans la pluralité, ce qui relève du nombre. Le nombre n'est évidemment pas un attribut du vide ou de la pénombre : vide et pénombre ne se laissent pas compter. Tandis que l'inscrit dans l'être se laisse compter. Il se laisse primordialement compter : 1, 2, 3.
Dernière variante : l'inscrit dans l'être est ce qui peut empirer. « Empirer » – terme essentiel de _Cap au pire_ , l'empirer est une opération radicale du texte – veut dire entre autres choses, et principalement, être plus mal dit que déjà dit.
Sous cette multiplicité d'attributs – ce qui est apparent dans la pénombre, ce qui est intervallaire quant au vide, ce qui se laisse compter, ce qui est susceptible d'empirer ou d'être plus mal dit que dit – il y a le nom générique, « les ombres ». On peut dire que les ombres sont ce qui est exposé dans la pénombre. C'est le pluriel exposé du « il y a » sous le nom de pénombre.
Dans _Cap au pire_ , la présentation des ombres va être minimale : le compte va aller jusqu'à trois, et nous verrons pourquoi il ne peut pas y avoir moins que cela. Catégoriellement, dès que vous comptez ce qui se laisse compter, il faut que vous comptiez au moins jusqu'à trois.
La première ombre est l'ombre debout, qui compte pour un. À vrai dire c'est _le_ un. L'ombre debout sera aussi « l'agenouillé » – ne nous étonnons pas de ces métamorphoses –, ou elle sera aussi « le dos courbé ». Ce sont ses différents noms. Ce ne sont pas tant des états que des noms. De cette ombre qui compte pour un, il est énoncé, à partir de la page 45, que c'est une vieille femme :
Rien qui prouve que celui d'une femme et pourtant d'une femme.
Et Beckett ajoute, ce qui s'éclairera plus loin :
Ont suinté de la substance molle qui s'amollit les mots d'une femme.
Tels sont les attributs fondamentaux de l'un : l'un, c'est l'ombre agenouillée et c'est _une_ femme.
Ensuite il y a la paire, qui compte pour deux. La paire est l'unique ombre qui compte pour deux. Beckett dira : « Deux libres et deux qui ne font qu'une », une ombre. Et il est établi, dès la nomination de la paire, que les ombres constitutives de cette paire sont un vieil homme et un enfant.
Notons que l'un n'est nommé femme que beaucoup plus tard, tandis que le deux est nommé « vieil homme et enfant » tout de suite. Ce qui sera dit plus tard, en revanche, c'est que rien n'a non plus prouvé qu'il s'agissait d'un homme et d'un enfant. Dans tous les cas, s'agissant de la détermination homme, femme, enfant, rien ne prouve, et cependant c'est ainsi. Simplement, la modalité du dire n'est pas la même pour l'un-femme, et pour le deux-homme-enfant. De l'un il n'est dit que c'est une vieille femme que beaucoup plus tard, alors que pour la paire on déclare immédiatement sa composition (vieillard-enfant) ; et se trouve retardé l'énoncé crucial : rien ne prouve que, et pourtant. Cela indique que la position sexuée masculine est évidente, et que l'impossibilité d'en donner une preuve est difficile à comprendre. Cependant que la position sexuée féminine n'étant pas évidente, l'impossibilité de la prouver est également évidente.
Dans la paire, il s'agit évidemment de l'autre, de « l'un-et-l'autre ».
L'autre est ici signifié par sa duplicité interne, par le fait qu'il est deux. Il est le deux qui est le même. Il est, redisons-le : « Deux libres [ombres] et deux qui ne font qu'une. » Mais, _a contrario_ , il est l'un qui fait deux : le vieillard et l'enfant. Il faut supposer que vieillard et enfant sont le même homme en tant qu'ombre, c'est-à-dire la vie humaine en tant qu'ombre dans son extrémité d'enfance et dans son extrémité de vieillesse, vie donnée dans ce qui la scinde, dans l'unité de la paire qu'elle est en tant qu'altérité à soi-même.
On peut dire finalement que l'inscrit dans l'être est l'humanité visible : femme en tant qu'un et inclinaison, homme en tant que double dans l'unité du nombre. Les âges pertinents sont les extrêmes, comme toujours chez Beckett : enfant et vieillard. L'adulte est une catégorie à peu près ignorée, une catégorie insignifiante.
Enfin, le quatrième thème est la pensée, comme on pouvait s'y attendre. La pensée est ce pour quoi et en quoi il y a simultanément les configurations de l'humanité visible, et l'impératif du dire.
La pensée est récollection du premier et du troisième thème : il y a l'impératif du dire, il y a l'inscrit dans l'être, et cela est « pour » et « dans » la pensée. Indiquons tout de suite que la question de Beckett est la suivante : sachant que la pensée (quatrième thème) est point focal ou récollection de l'impératif du dire (premier thème) et de la disposition de l'humanité visible, c'est-à-dire les ombres (troisième thème), que peut-elle prononcer sur le deuxième thème, à savoir sur la question de l'être ? Telle est l'organisation la plus ample du texte tout entier. La construction philosophique de la question se dira ainsi : qu'est-ce qui se laisse prononcer sur le « il y a » en tant que « il y a » du point de la pensée, où se donnent simultanément l'impératif du dire et la modification des ombres, qui est circulation de l'humanité visible ?
Dans la figuration de _Cap au pire_ , la pensée est représentée par une tête. On dira aussi « _la_ tête » ou « _le_ crâne ». Et elle est appelée de façon répétée « siège de tout, germe de tout ». Si elle est appelée ainsi, c'est parce qu'elle est ce pour quoi il y a l'impératif du dire et les ombres, et ce en quoi il y a la question de l'être.
Quelle est la composition de la pensée ? Si on la réduit à ses constituants absolument primordiaux selon la méthode de simplification qui est la méthode organique de Beckett, il y a le visible et il y a l'impératif du dire. Il y a « mal vu mal dit ». La pensée c'est cela : « mal vu mal dit ». Il en résulte que la présentation de la tête sera essentiellement réduite à ses yeux, d'une part, et d'autre part, à sa cervelle, d'où suintent les mots : deux trous sur une cervelle, voilà la pensée.
D'où deux thèmes récurrents : celui des yeux, et celui du suintement des mots, dont la provenance est la matière molle de la cervelle. Telle est la figure matérielle de l'esprit.
Précisons ces thèmes.
Les yeux seront dits « écarquillés clos ». Le « mouvement » de l'écarquiller est fondamental dans _Cap au pire_. Il désigne le voir comme tel. Cet « écarquillés clos », qui est évidemment une juxtaposition heurtée, désigne exactement l'emblème du mal vu. Le voir est toujours un mal voir, et, par conséquent, l'œil du voir est « écarquillé clos ».
Quant aux mots, second attribut de la pensée après le voir, on dira que « tant mal que pis hors de quelque substance molle de l'esprit ils suintent ». Ces deux maximes, l'existence des yeux « écarquillés clos », et le fait que les mots « tant mal que pis hors de quelque substance molle de l'esprit [...] suintent », déterminent le quatrième thème, soit la pensée dans la modalité de l'existence du crâne.
Il est capital de constater que le crâne est une ombre supplémentaire. Le crâne fait trois, _outre_ l'un de l'inclinaison féminine, et l'autre, en forme de paire, du vieillard et de l'enfant. La pensée vient toujours en troisième lieu. Page 24, on trouve une récapitulation essentielle :
Désormais un pour l'agenouillé. Comme désormais deux pour la paire. La paire comme un seul s'en allant tant mal que mal. Comme désormais trois pour la tête.
Quand Beckett compte la paire, il indique bien qu'elle tombe sous le deux, mais qu'elle n'est pas deux, elle est _le_ deux. La paire est le deux mais, ajoutée à l'un, elle ne fait pas trois. En ajoutant la paire à l'un, vous avez toujours deux, le deux de l'autre après l'un. Seule la tête fait trois. Le trois c'est la pensée.
c) L'indispensable pensée-trois
Il faut signaler que le texte de Beckett fonctionne souvent par tentatives radicales auxquelles Beckett renonce de l'intérieur du texte lui-même. C'est ainsi que la tête est adjointe, c'est-à-dire vient en troisième lieu, après une tentative matérialiste de s'en passer, une tentative où il n'y aurait que le lieu et le corps.
Au tout début, Beckett dit : un lieu, un corps. « Nul esprit. Ça au moins. » À comprendre comme : « c'est toujours cela de gagné ». On va faire comme si on se tenait dans un espace de matérialité intégrale. Mais cette tentative va échouer. On est finalement contraint d'adjoindre la tête, ce qui veut dire, dans le vocabulaire de Beckett, qu'il y a toujours des restes d'esprit, lesquels sont justement les yeux écarquillés clos d'une part, et d'autre part l' _encore_ du suintement des mots à partir de la matière molle.
Ce reste d'esprit figuré par la tête va être un supplément requis au Un et au Deux des ombres. Beckett déduit l'inéluctable Trois. Mais si la tête compte trois, il faut qu'elle soit elle-même dans la pénombre. Elle n'est pas hors pénombre. Une des chicanes du texte est que la tentative matérialiste pure – il n'y a que le lieu et le corps – va devoir être supplémentée par la tête, si bien qu'il va falloir compter trois et non pas deux. Le matérialisme, alors, change d'enjeu. Ce qu'il exige, c'est de tenir la tête dans l'unicité du lieu, de ne pas faire de la tête un _autre_ lieu, de ne jamais inscrire un dualisme originaire, bien qu'il soit nécessaire d'aller jusqu'à trois, et que la grande tentation du trois (la pensée), c'est de compter le deux _ailleurs_. Telle est la tension métaphysique cruciale du texte.
Ces données sont énumérées à diverses reprises par Beckett dans le texte même, texte jalonné par des récapitulations. Par exemple page 38 :
Ce que c'est que les mots qu'il sécrète disent. Quoi l'ainsi dit vide. L'ainsi dite pénombre. Les ainsi dites ombres. L'ainsi dit siège et germe de tout.
Nous avons ici l'ensemble de la thématique constitutive. « Il y a » : ce qu'il y a, c'est « ce que les mots qu'il sécrète disent », sous l'impératif du dire ; question de l'être : « l'ainsi dit vide » et « l'ainsi dite pénombre » ; question du « il y a » dans le « il y a » ou question de l'apparence : « Les ainsi dites ombres. » Enfin, « l'ainsi dit siège et germe de tout », question de la tête et du crâne, question de la pensée.
Tout cela constitue ce que Beckett considère comme le dispositif minimal qui fixe un cap pour le « encore » du dire. Le dispositif minimal, le dispositif le moindre, c'est-à-dire le pire (nous verrons que le moindre et le pire, c'est la même chose) pour qu'il y ait question. Pour qu'il y ait sens infime ou minimal d'une question quelconque.
d) Question, et conditions d'une question
Qu'est-ce qu'une question ? Une question est ce qui fixe son cap au « encore » du dire. On appellera question le fait que la navigation du « encore » a un cap. Et ce cap sera le cap au pire, la direction du pire.
Pour qu'il y ait question, c'est à dire cap au pire, il faut qu'il y ait un dispositif minimal, qui est précisément constitué par les éléments que nous venons d'énumérer. De ce point de vue, _Cap au pire_ est lui-même un texte minimal, c'est-à-dire un texte qui institue les matériaux élémentaires pour toute question possible selon une méthode de réduction drastique. Un texte qui essaie de n'introduire aucun élément inutile ou surnuméraire au regard de la possibilité d'une question.
La première condition d'un dispositif minimal pour qu'il y ait une question est sans doute qu'il y ait l'être pur, lequel a pour nom singulier le vide. Mais il faut qu'il y ait aussi l'exposition de l'être, c'est-à-dire non pas seulement l'être en tant qu'être, mais l'être exposé selon son propre être, ou la phénoménalité du phénomène, c'est-à-dire la possibilité que quelque chose apparaisse dans son être. Et la possibilité que quelque chose apparaisse dans son être, ce n'est pas le vide, qui, lui, est le nom de l'être en tant qu'être. Le nom de l'être en tant que possibilité de l'apparaître est : pénombre.
La pénombre est l'être pour autant qu'il peut y avoir une question de son être, c'est-à-dire pour autant qu'il est exposé à la question en tant que ressource d'être de l'apparaître.
Voilà pourquoi il faut qu'il y ait deux noms (vide et pénombre) et non pas un seul. Pour qu'il y ait question, l'être doit avoir deux noms. Heidegger a vu cela, aussi, avec l'être et l'étant.
La deuxième condition pour une question, c'est qu'il y ait pensée. Une pensée-crâne, appelons-la ainsi. Pensée-crâne qui est un mal voir et un mal dire, ou un œil écarquillé clos et un suintement nominal. Mais, point essentiel, la pensée-crâne est _elle-même_ exposée. Elle n'est pas soustraite à l'exposition de l'être. Elle n'est pas définissable simplement comme ce pour quoi il y a de l'être, elle participe de l'être même, elle est prise dans l'exposition. Dans le lexique de Beckett, on dira que la tête, siège et terme de tout, ou le crâne, sont _dans_ la pénombre. Ou que la pensée-crâne est la troisième ombre. Ou encore qu'elle se laisse compter dans l'incomptable pénombre.
On se demande alors si on n'est pas exposé à une régression à l'infini. Si la pensée comme telle coappartient à l'être, où est la pensée de cette coappartenance ? D'où se dit que la tête est dans la pénombre ? Il semble qu'on soit au bord de la nécessité – si l'on peut risquer cette expression – d'une méta-tête. Il faut compter quatre, et puis cinq, et puis à l'infini.
Le protocole de bouclage est donné par un _cogito_ ; il faut admettre que la tête est comptée par la tête, ou que la tête se voit comme tête. Ou que c'est pour l'œil écarquillé clos qu'il y a un œil écarquillé clos. C'est le fil cartésien de la pensée de Beckett, qui ne s'est jamais démenti, qui est présent en réalité depuis le début de son œuvre, mais qui, dans _Cap au pire_ , est pointé comme règle d'arrêt permettant seule que ce pour quoi il y a pénombre soit aussi dans la pénombre.
Et enfin, toujours dans l'ordre des conditions minimales d'une question, outre le « il y a » et la pensée-crâne, il faut des inscriptions d'ombre dans la pénombre.
Les ombres sont réglées par trois rapports. Premièrement, celui de l'un ou du deux, ou du même et de l'autre. C'est l'un agenouillé et la paire qui marche, pris en catégories platoniciennes comme figures du même et de l'autre. Deuxièmement, celui des extrêmes de l'âge, enfance et vieillesse, extrêmes qui font aussi que la paire est une. Troisièmement, celui des sexes, femme et homme.
Tels sont les rapports constitutifs des ombres qui peuplent la pénombre et infestent le vide.
Une parenthèse : il y a un point tout à fait important, bien qu'il ne soit qu'allusif dans _Cap au pire_ , c'est que les sexes, nous l'avons vu, sont sans preuve. C'est même spécifiquement la seule chose qui soit sans preuve. Le fait que cette ombre s'avère vieille femme ou vieil homme, cela est toujours sans preuve, quoique certain. Et cela signifie que, pour Beckett, la différenciation des sexes est à la fois absolument certaine et absolument improuvable. C'est pourquoi j'ai pu la nommer une disjonction pure.
Pourquoi une disjonction pure ? Il est certain qu'il y a femme et homme, en l'occurrence vieille femme et vieil homme, mais cette certitude ne se laisse déduire ou inférer d'aucun trait prédicatif particulier. Elle est donc prélangagière, au sens où elle peut être dite, mais où ce dire ne provient d'aucun autre dire. C'est un dire premier. On peut dire qu'il y a femme et homme, mais on ne peut à aucun moment l'inférer d'un autre dire, en particulier pas d'un dire descriptif, ou empirique.
e) Être et existence
Sous ces rapports, celui de l'un et du deux, celui des extrêmes de l'âge et celui des sexes, les ombres attestent, non pas l'être, mais l'existence. Qu'est-ce que l'existence, et qu'est-ce qui la distingue de l'être ?
L'existence est l'attribut générique de ce qui est en capacité d'empirer. Ce qui peut empirer existe. « Empirer » est la modalité active de toute exposition au voir de l'œil écarquillé clos et au suintement des mots. Cette exposition est existence. Ou peut-être plus fondamentalement, existe ce qui se laisse rencontrer. L'être existe quand il est dans la guise de la rencontre.
Ni vide ni pénombre ne désignent rien qui se laisse rencontrer, puisque toute rencontre est sous condition qu'il y ait un intervalle possible du vide, qui découpe ce qui est rencontré, et qu'il y ait la pénombre, qui est l'exposition de tout ce qui s'expose. Ce qui se laisse rencontrer, ce sont les ombres. Se laisser rencontrer ou empirer, c'est une seule et même chose, et cela désigne l'existence des ombres. Vide et pénombre, qui sont les noms de l'être, n'existent pas.
Le dispositif minimal se dira donc aussi bien : l'être, la pensée et l'existence. Quand on a les figures de l'être, de la pensée et de l'existence, ou les mots pour cela, ou, dirait Beckett, les mots pour mal dire cela, quand on a ce dispositif expérimental et minimal du dire, on peut agencer des questions, on peut fixer le cap.
f) Axiome du dire
Le texte va alors s'organiser selon des hypothèses quant au cap, quant à la direction de la pensée. Hypothèses quant à ce qui lie, délie ou affecte la triade de l'être-pénombre, de l'ombre-existence, du crâne-pensée. _Cap au pire_ va traiter de la triade être/existence/pensée, sous les catégories du vide, du même et de l'autre, du trois et du complexe voir/dire.
Avant de formuler des hypothèses, il faut se soutenir d'un certain nombre d'axiomes, qui instituent les premières liaisons ou déliaisons. L'axiome quasi unique de _Cap au pire_ , qui d'ailleurs génère son titre, est un ancien axiome de Beckett – il n'est pas du tout inventé là –, un des plus anciens même. Cet axiome s'énonce : dire, c'est mal dire.
Il faut bien comprendre que « dire, c'est mal dire » est une identité essentielle. L'essence du dire est le mal dire. Mal dire n'est pas un échec du dire, c'est exactement le contraire : tout dire est, dans son existence même en tant que dire, un mal dire.
Le « mal dire » s'oppose implicitement au « bien dire ». Qu'est-ce que le « bien dire » ? « Bien dire » est une hypothèse d'adéquation : le dire est adéquat au dit. Mais la thèse fondamentale de Beckett est que le dire adéquat au dit supprime le dire. Le dire n'est un dire libre, et tout spécialement un dire artistique, que pour autant qu'il n'est pas coalescent au dit, qu'il n'est pas sous l'autorité du dit. Le dire est sous l'impératif du dire, il est sous l'impératif du « encore », il n'est pas contraint par le dit.
S'il n'y a pas d'adéquation, si le dire n'est pas sous la prescription du « ce qui est dit », mais seulement sous la règle du dire, alors le mal dire est l'essence libre du dire, ou encore l'affirmation de l'autonomie prescriptive du dire. On dit pour mal dire. Et le comble du dire, qui est le dire poétique ou artistique, c'est précisément la régulation contrôlée du mal dire, ce qui porte à son comble l'autonomie prescriptive du dire.
Quand on lit dans Beckett : mal dire, rater, etc., il faut bien entendre tout cela. S'il s'agissait d'une doctrine empiriste de la langue, selon laquelle elle colle aux choses plus ou moins bien, ça n'aurait aucun intérêt, et d'ailleurs le texte serait lui-même impossible. Il ne fonctionne que dès lors qu'on entend dans les expressions « rater » ou « mal dire » l'autoaffirmation de la prescription du dire sous sa propre règle. Beckett l'indique clairement dès le début :
Dire pour soit dit. Mal dit. Dire désormais pour soit mal dit (p. 7).
g) La tentation
La conséquence rigoureuse de tout cela est que la norme du dire se prononce : ratage. Bien entendu, le fait que la norme du dire soit le ratage suscite subjectivement un espoir fallacieux, parfaitement identifié par Beckett : l'espoir qu'il y ait un ratage maximal, un ratage absolu, qui aurait le mérite de vous dégoûter une bonne fois pour toutes de la langue et du dire. C'est la tentation honteuse, la tentation de se soustraire à l'impératif du dire. La tentation qu'il n'y ait plus le « encore », qu'on ne soit plus sous la prescription intolérable du mal dire.
Comme le bien dire est impossible, le seul espoir est dans la trahison : parvenir à un ratage si avéré qu'il induise un délaissement total de la prescription elle-même, un abandon du dire et de la langue. Ce qui signifierait qu'on rejoigne le vide, qu'on soit vide, évidé, évidé de toute prescription. Finalement, la tentation est de cesser d'exister pour être. On a rejoint le vide, donc l'être pur, et c'est ce qu'on pourrait appeler la tentation mystique au sens de Wittgenstein dans la dernière proposition du _Tractatus_. Parvenir au point où, comme c'est impossible à dire, il n'y a plus qu'à le taire. Parvenir au point où la conscience que c'est impossible à dire, c'est-à-dire la conscience que c'est raté absolument, vous établit dans un impératif qui n'est plus l'impératif du dire, mais l'impératif du taire.
Dans le vocabulaire de Beckett cela se dit : partir. Partir de quoi ? Eh bien, partir de l'humanité. En réalité, Beckett pense, comme Rimbaud, qu'on ne part pas. Il reconnaît absolument la tentation du partir de l'humanité, qui est de rater au point qu'on est dégoûté de la langue et du dire. Partir de l'existence une bonne fois pour toutes, rejoindre l'être. Mais il rectifie et récuse cette possibilité.
Voici un texte où est évoquée l'hypothèse d'un accès au partir et au vide par excès de ratage, excès de ratage qui se confondrait avec la réussite absolue du dire :
Essayer encore. Rater encore. Rater mieux encore. Ou mieux plus mal. Rater plus mal encore. Encore plus mal encore. Jusqu'à être dégoûté pour de bon. Vomir pour de bon. Partir pour de bon. Là où ni l'un ni l'autre pour de bon. Une bonne fois pour toutes pour de bon (p. 8-9).
Cela, c'est la tentation : partir là où il n'y a plus d'ombre, où plus rien n'est exposé à l'impératif du dire.
Mais dans de nombreux passages, plus loin, cette tentation va être récusée, révoquée, interdite. Par exemple page 49, où l'idée du « plus mal plus... » est déclarée inconcevable :
Retour dédire mieux plus mal plus pas concevable. Si plus obscur moins lumineux alors mieux plus mal plus obscur. Dédit donc mieux plus mal plus pas concevable. Pas moins que moins mieux plus mal peut être plus. Mieux plus mal quoi ? Le dire ? Le dit ? Même chose. Même rien. Même peu s'en faut rien.
Le point fondamental est que le « vomir pour de bon, une bonne fois pour toutes pour de bon » n'existe pas, parce que tout « même rien » est en réalité un « même peu s'en faut rien ». L'hypothèse d'un partir radical, qui nous soustrairait à l'humanité de l'impératif, la tentation essentielle d'une prescription du silence, ne peut aboutir pour des raisons ontologiques. Le « même rien » est toujours en réalité un « même il s'en faut peu rien », ou un « même presque rien », mais jamais un « même rien » comme tel. On n'est donc jamais fondé à se soustraire à l'impératif du dire, au nom de l'advenue du « rien » pur, ou du ratage absolu.
h) Les lois de l'empirer
À partir de là, la loi fondamentale qui gouverne le texte est que le pire dont la langue est capable, l'empirer, ne se laisse pas capturer par le néant. On est toujours dans le « même peu s'en faut rien », mais jamais dans ce point qui serait celui du « partir pour de bon », où il y aurait capture par le néant. Néant qui ne serait ni la pénombre ni le vide, mais l'abolition de la prescription du dire.
Il faut donc soutenir ceci : la langue est exclusivement en capacité du moindre. Elle n'est pas en capacité du néant. Elle a, dira Beckett, « des mots qui réduisent ». On a des mots qui réduisent, et ces mots qui réduisent sont ceux grâce auxquels on peut tenir le cap du pire, soit le cap d'une centration du ratage.
Entre « les mots allusifs jamais directs » de Mallarmé et « les mots qui réduisent » de Beckett, il y a une filiation évidente. S'approcher de la chose à dire dans la conscience qu'elle ne peut être dite sous la justification du dit, ou de la chose, amène à une autonomisation radicale de la prescription du dire. Ce dire libre ne peut jamais être direct, ou, selon le vocabulaire de Beckett, il est ce qui réduit, ce qui empire.
Autrement dit : la langue peut espérer le minimum du meilleur pire, mais non pas l'abolition. Voici le texte essentiel, où figure d'ailleurs l'expression « les mots qui réduisent » :
Pire moindre. Plus pas concevable. Pire à défaut d'un meilleur moindre. Le meilleur moindre. Non. Néant le meilleur. Le meilleur pire. Non. Pas le meilleur pire. Néant pas le meilleur pire. Moins meilleur pire. Non. Le moins. Le moins meilleur pire. Le moindre jamais ne peut être néant. Jamais au néant ne peut être ramené. Jamais par le néant annulé. Inannulable moindre. Dire ce meilleur pire. Avec des mots qui réduisent dire le moindre meilleur pire. À défaut du bien pis que pire. L'imminimisable moindre meilleur pire (p. 41).
« Le moindre jamais ne peut être néant » est la loi de l'empirer. « Dire le meilleur pire », c'est l'« inannulable moindre ». « L'imminimisable moindre meilleur pire » ne se laisse jamais confondre avec l'abolition pure et simple ou avec le néant. Ce qui veut dire que le « il faut le taire » au sens de Wittgenstein est impraticable. Nous devons rester cap au pire. _Cap au pire_ : le titre est un impératif, et pas simplement une description.
L'impératif du dire est alors dans la figure d'une constante reprise, il est de l'ordre de l'essai, de l'effort, du labeur. Le livre lui-même va essayer d'empirer tout ce qui se propose au suintement nominal. Une bonne partie du texte est consacrée à ce qu'on pourrait appeler des expériences d'« empirage ». _Cap au pire_ est un protocole de l'empirer comme figure d'autoaffirmation de la prescription du dire. Empirer, c'est nommer souverainement dans l'excès du ratage, ce qui est la même chose que susciter par « des mots allusifs jamais directs », et qui entraîne la même proximité infranchissable au néant que dans le poème de Mallarmé.
L'empirer, qui est l'exercice de la langue dans sa tension artistique, se fait par deux opérations contradictoires. Qu'est-ce en effet qu'empirer ? C'est exercer la souveraineté du dire au regard des ombres. C'est donc à la fois en dire plus et restreindre ce qui est dit. C'est pour cela que les opérations sont contradictoires. Empirer, c'est dire plus sur moins. Plus de mots pour mieux réduire.
D'où l'aspect paradoxal de l'empirer, qui constitue véritablement la substance du texte. Pour pouvoir réduire le « ce qui est dit » de telle sorte qu'au regard de cette épuration le ratage soit plus manifeste, il va falloir introduire de nouveaux mots. Ces mots ne sont pas des additions – on n'ajoute pas, on ne fait pas des sommes –, mais il faut dire plus pour réduire, donc il faut dire plus pour soustraire. Telle est l'opération constitutive de la langue. Empirer, c'est faire cheminer le plus dire pour réduire.
i) Exercices d'empirage
Le texte prodigue des exercices d'empirage sur toute la donnée phénoménale des ombres, sur la configuration de l'humanité générique, à savoir :
– empirer l'un, c'est-à-dire empirer l'agenouillé femme ;
– empirer le deux, c'est-à-dire empirer la paire du vieillard et de l'enfant ;
– empirer la tête, c'est-à-dire empirer les yeux, la cervelle suintante, empirer le crâne.
Car telles sont les trois ombres qui constituent les déterminations phénoménales de l'ombre.
Empirer l'un. Cet exercice occupe les pages 26 et 27 :
D'abord un. D'abord essayer de mieux rater un. Quelque chose là qui ne cloche pas assez mal. Non pas que tel quel ce ne soit pas raté. Raté le nul visage. Ratées les nulles mains. Le nul –. Assez. Peste soit du raté. Minimement raté. Place au plus mal. En attendant pis encore. D'abord plus mal. Minimement plus mal. En attendant pis encore. Ajouter un –. Ajouter ? Jamais. Le courber plus bas, qu'il soit courbé plus bas. Au plus bas. Tête chapeautée disparue. Long pardessus coupé plus haut. Rien du bassin jusqu'en bas. Rien que le dos courbé. Tronc vu de dos sans haut sans base. Noir obscur. Sur genoux invisibles. Dans la pénombre vide. Mieux plus mal ainsi. En attendant pis encore.
Le déploiement nominal qui cerne cette première ombre dans des attributs soustractifs plus nombreux est en même temps son amenuisement ou sa réduction. Sa réduction à quoi ? Eh bien, à ce qu'il faudrait appeler _un trait d'un_ , un trait qui donnerait l'ombre sans rien d'autre. Les mots requis sont « dos courbé », une simple courbure. Rien qu'une courbure, telle serait l'idéalité du « pis encore », étant entendu que, pour faire surgir la courbure, il faut plus de mots, parce que les mots seuls opèrent l'amenuisement. Ainsi, une opération de surabondance nominale – surabondance, chez Beckett, est toujours relatif – vise un amenuisement essentiel.
Telle est la loi de l'empirer : on coupe les jambes, la tête, le manteau, on coupe tout ce qu'on peut, mais chaque coupe est en réalité centrée sur l'advenue, par des détails soustractifs supplémentaires, d'un pur trait. Il faut supplémenter pour épurer le trait ultime du ratage.
Maintenant, l'exercice d'empirage du deux :
Puis deux. De raté à empirer. Essayer d'empirer. À partir du minimement raté. Ajouter –. Ajouter ? Jamais. Les bottines. Mieux plus mal sans bottines. Talons nus. Tantôt les deux droits. Tantôt les deux gauches. Gauche droite gauche droite encore. Pieds nus s'en vont et jamais ne s'éloignent. Mieux plus mal ainsi. Un petit peu mieux plus mal que rien ainsi (p. 28-29).
Les bottines, des noms comme « bottines », il n'y en a pas beaucoup dans cette prose, dont la texture est extraordinairement abstraite. Quand il y en a, c'est vraiment que l'opération est risquée. Nous le verrons tout à l'heure pour un mot concret essentiel, le surgissement du « cimetière ». Cependant, la bottine, qui tout d'un coup vient là, n'est que pour être biffée, raturée : « Les bottines. Mieux plus mal sans bottines. »
Une partie des choses – et c'est la nature contradictoire de l'opération – n'est donnée que pour sa rature, n'advient à la surface du texte que pour être soustraite. La logique de l'empirer, qui est la logique de la souveraineté de la langue, identifie adjonction et soustraction. Mallarmé ne procède pas autrement, pour qui faire surgir un objet (cygne, étoile, rose...) dont la venue impose la résiliation est l'acte même du poème. La « bottine » de Beckett est le terme-support d'un tel acte.
Enfin, empirer la tête. Le passage cité porte sur les yeux (je rappelle que le crâne se compose d'yeux sur une cervelle) :
Les yeux. Temps d'essayer d'empirer. Tant mal que pis essayer d'empirer. Plus clos. Dire écarquillés ouverts. Tout blanc et pupille. Blanc obscur. Blanc ? Non. Tout pupille. Trous noir obscur. Béance qui ne vacille. Soient ainsi dits. Avec les mots qui empirent. Désormais ainsi. Mieux que rien à ce point améliorés au pire (p. 34-35).
La logique de l'écriture est, dans ce passage, tout à fait typique. Partant du syntagme « écarquillés clos », dont j'ai dit le sens, on a une tentative d'ouverture. On va passer d'« écarquillés clos » à « écarquillés ouverts », qui est une donnée sémantiquement homogène. « Ouvert » à son tour va donner blanc, et blanc va être résilié, donnant le noir. Telle est la chaîne immédiate. De clos on passe à ouvert, d'ouvert on passe à blanc, puis blanc est raturé au profit de noir. Le solde de l'opération, qui est l'opération de l'empirer, c'est qu'au lieu d'« écarquillés clos » nous allons avoir « trous noirs », et que désormais, lorsqu'il sera question des yeux, ce ne sera même plus sous le mot « yeux », ce sera dans la simple mention de deux trous noirs.
Nous constatons que l'ouvert et le blanc ne surgissent, dans la trame de l'opération, que pour faire passer des yeux aux trous noirs, et que cette opération de l'empirer vise à nous débarrasser du mot « yeux », trop descriptif, trop empirique, trop singulier, pour ramener, par empirement diagonal et rature, à la simple acception des trous noirs comme foyers aveugles de la visibilité. L'œil comme tel est aboli. On a désormais un pur voir raccordé à un trou, et ce pur voir raccordé à un trou se construit de l'abolition de l'œil par la médiation, supplémentaire et résiliée, de l'ouvert et du blanc.
j) Tenir le cap
L'empirer est un labeur, une effectuation inventive et pénible de l'impératif du dire. Tenir le cap au pire, étant un effort, exige du courage.
D'où vient le courage de l'effort ? C'est à mes yeux une question tout à fait importante, parce que, de manière générale, c'est la question de savoir d'où vient le courage de tenir une procédure de vérité quelle qu'elle soit. La question est, finalement : d'où vient le courage de la vérité ?
Pour Beckett, le courage de la vérité ne saurait venir de l'idée que nous allons être récompensés par le silence, ou que nous allons être récompensés par une coïncidence accomplie avec l'être lui-même. Nous l'avons vu : il n'y aura pas résiliation du dire, ou advenue du vide comme tel. Le _encore_ est ineffaçable.
Alors, d'où vient le courage ? Le courage vient, pour Beckett, de ceci que les mots ont tendance à sonner vrai. Une extrême tension, qui est peut-être la vocation de Beckett écrivain, résulte de ce que le courage tient à une qualité des mots qui est contraire à leur emploi dans l'empirer. Il y a comme une _aura_ d'adéquation dans les mots qui, paradoxalement, est ce en quoi nous prenons courage pour briser avec l'adéquation elle-même, c'est-à-dire pour tenir le cap au pire.
Le courage de l'effort est toujours puisé au rebours de sa destination. On appellera cela la torsion du dire : le courage de la continuation de l'effort est puisé dans les mots eux-mêmes, mais dans les mots au rebours de leur destination véritable, qui est d'empirer.
L'effort – en l'occurrence, l'effort artistique ou poétique – est un travail aride sur la langue pour l'ordonner aux exercices de l'empirer. Mais cet effort aride puise son énergie dans une disposition heureuse de la langue : une sorte de fantôme d'adéquation qui la hante, et auquel on revient comme si là était le lieu possible où puiser dans la langue même, mais entièrement à contre-pente de sa destination, le courage de son traitement. Cette tension donne lieu, dans _Cap au pire_ , à de très beaux passages. Voici le premier :
Les mots aussi de qui qu'ils soient. Que de place laissée au plus mal ! Comme parfois ils presque sonnent presque vrai ! Comme l'ineptie leur fait défaut ! Dire la nuit est jeune hélas et prendre courage. Ou mieux plus mal dire une nuit de veille encore hélas à venir. Un reste de dernière veille à venir. Et prendre courage (p. 26).
C'est dans la mesure où on peut dire quelque chose qui sonne presque vrai, où on peut dire ce qui du poème est « comme » le vrai, et y prendre courage, que le cap au pire est tenu. « Dire la nuit est jeune hélas et prendre courage. » C'est vraiment magnifique ! Et voici une variation sur ce thème :
Quels mots pour quoi alors ? Comme ils presque sonnent encore. Tandis que tant mal que pis hors de quelque substance molle de l'esprit ils suintent. Hors ça en ça suintent. Comme c'est peu s'en faut non inepte. Jusqu'au dernier imminimisable moindre comme on rechigne à réduire. Car alors dans l'ultime pénombre finir par dé-proférer le moindrissime tout (p. 43).
Tout montre à quel point « on rechigne à réduire », à quel point cet effort est aride. On rechigne à réduire parce que les mots sont « peu s'en faut non ineptes », que le mot sonne vrai, qu'il sonne clair et que c'est là qu'on prend courage. Mais prendre courage pour quoi ? Eh bien, précisément pour mal dire, c'est-à-dire pour récuser l'illusion que ça sonne vrai, illusion qui nous convoque au courage. La torsion du dire est donc à la fois ce qui éclaire l'aridité de l'effort (il faut surmonter, vers le pire, la clarté des mots) et le courage avec lequel nous traitons cette aridité.
Cependant, tenir le cap au pire est difficile pour une seconde raison : l'être comme tel lui résiste, l'être est rebelle à la logique du pire. Au fur et à mesure que l'empirer s'exerce sur les ombres, on arrive au bord de la pénombre, au bord du vide, et là, continuer d'empirer est de plus en plus difficile. Comme si l'expérience de l'être était l'avérer, non pas d'une impasse de l'empirer, mais d'une difficulté, ou d'un effort grandissant, de plus en plus harassant, de cet empirer.
Lorsqu'on est conduit au bord de l'être par un exercice aride et attentif de l'empirer des apparences, une sorte d'invariance déconcerte le dire et l'expose à une expérience souffrante, comme si son impératif rencontrait là ce qui lui était le plus éloigné, ou le plus indifférent. Cela va se dire de deux façons, selon la pénombre, ou selon le vide. Et ce rapport de la pénombre, du vide et de l'impératif du dire nous mène au cœur des questions ontologiques.
La pénombre, rappelons-le, est le nom de ce qui expose l'être. Il en résulte que la pénombre ne peut jamais être l'obscurité totale, obscurité que désire, comme son impossible propre, l'impératif du dire. L'impératif du dire, qui désire le moindrissime, est polarisé par cette idée que la pénombre deviendrait l'obscur, l'absolument noir. Le texte fait plusieurs hypothèses selon lesquelles ce désir pourrait être satisfait. Mais ces hypothèses sont finalement rejetées, car il y a toujours une exposition minimale de l'être. L'être de l'être vide est de s'exposer comme pénombre, ou encore l'être de l'être est de s'exposer, et l'exposition exclut l'absoluité de l'obscur. Si même on peut amoindrir l'exposition, on ne peut parvenir à l'obscur comme tel. On dira de la pénombre qu'elle est « un pire inempirable » :
Ainsi cap au moindre encore. Tant que la pénombre perdure encore. Pénombre inobscurcie. Ou obscurcie à plus obscur encore. À l'obscurissime pénombre. Le moindrissime dans l'obscurissime pénombre. L'ultime pénombre. Le moindrissime dans l'ultime pénombre. Pire inempirable (p. 42-43).
La pensée peut se mouvoir dans le moindrissime, dans l'ultime pénombre, mais il n'y a nul accès à l'obscur comme tel. Il y a toujours quelque chose qui est encore moindre, et redisons que l'axiome fondamental est : « moindre jamais n'est néant ». L'argument est simple : puisque la pénombre, qui est l'exposition de l'être, est condition du cap au pire, étant ce qui expose au dire, elle ne peut elle-même y être intégralement ordonnée. Nous ne pouvons mettre cap sur le néant, seulement sur le pire. Il n'y a pas de cap sur le néant précisément parce que la pénombre est condition du cap. Et donc on peut soutenir le quasi-obscur, le presque obscur, mais la pénombre dans son être demeure pénombre. Ultimement, elle résiste à l'empirer.
k) L'inempirable vide
Le vide, lui, est donné dans l'expérience. Il est donné dans l'intervalle des ombres de la pénombre. Il est ce qui sépare. En fait, il est le fond de l'être, mais en tant qu'exposé il est pur écart. À propos des ombres ou de la paire, Beckett dira : « vastitude de vide entre eux ». Telle est la figure de donation du vide.
L'empirer vise à se rapprocher du vide comme tel, à ne plus avoir le vide dans la seule dimension intervallaire, mais le vide comme vide, qui serait l'être retiré de son exposition. Mais si le vide est soustrait à sa propre exposition, alors il ne peut plus être corrélatif du processus de l'empirer, car le processus de l'empirer ne travaille que les ombres, et leurs intervalles vides. Si bien que le vide « en soi » ne se laisse pas travailler selon les lois de l'empirer. Vous pouvez varier les intervalles, mais le vide comme vide reste radicalement inempirable. Or, s'il est radicalement inempirable, cela veut dire qu'il ne peut même pas être mal dit. Ce point est très subtil. Le vide « en soi » est ce qui ne peut pas être mal dit. C'est sa définition. Le vide _ne peut être que dit._ En lui, le dire et le dit coïncident, ce qui interdit le mal dire. Une telle coïncidence revient à ceci que le vide n'est lui-même qu'un nom. Du vide « en soi » vous n'avez rien d'autre que son nom. C'est expressément formulé dans le texte de Beckett sous la forme suivante :
Le vide. Comment essayer dire ? Comment essayer rater ? Nul essai rien de raté. Dire seulement – (p. 20).
Que le vide soit soustrait au mal dire signifie qu'il n'y a pas d'art du vide. Le vide est soustrait à ce qui de la langue fait proposition d'art : la logique de l'empirer. Quand vous dites « le vide », vous avez dit tout ce qui peut être dit, et vous n'avez pas de processus de métamorphose de ce dire. On dira aussi qu'il n'y en a pas de métaphore.
En subjectivité, le vide, n'étant qu'un nom, ne suscite que le désir de sa disparition. Le vide induit dans le crâne, non le processus de l'empirer, qui est impossible à son égard, mais l'impatience absolue de ce pur nom, ou encore le désir que le vide soit exposé comme tel, ou néantisé, ce qui cependant est impossible.
Dès qu'on touche au vide non intervallaire, au vide « en soi », on est dans ce qui est chez Beckett la figure d'un désir ontologique soustrait à l'impératif du dire : la fusion dans le néant du vide et de la pénombre. On dira aussi que, de façon quasi pulsionnelle, le nom du vide enchaîne un désir de disparition, mais que ce désir de disparition est sans objet, puisqu'il n'y a là qu'un nom. Et le vide va toujours opposer à tout procès de disparition le fait, justement, qu'il est soustrait à l'empirer, ce qui se donne par le fait que, s'agissant du vide, le « maximum » et le « presque » sont la même chose. Ce qui, notons-le, n'est pas le cas de la pénombre, en quoi les deux noms de l'être ne fonctionnent pas de la même manière. La pénombre peut être obscurissime, moindrissime obscurissime ; le vide, non. Le vide, lui, ne peut être que dit, saisi comme pur nom, et soustrait à tout principe de variabilité, donc de métaphore ou de métaphorphose, parce que, en lui, le « maximum » et le « presque » coïncident absolument. Voici le grand passage sur le vide (p. 55-56) :
Tout sauf le vide. Non. Le vide aussi. Inempirable vide. Jamais moindre. Jamais augmenté. Jamais depuis que d'abord dit jamais dédit jamais plus mal dit jamais sans que ne dévore l'envie qu'il ait disparu.
Dire l'enfant disparu. [...]
«Dire l'enfant disparu » : Beckett essaie d'aborder la question par un biais. Le vide inempirable ne peut pas disparaître, mais si, par exemple, on fait disparaître une ombre, puisqu'on a affaire à un vide infesté d'ombres, peut-être qu'on a un plus grand vide. Cet accroissement livrerait le vide au processus de la langue. C'est cette expérience que la suite décrit :
Dire l'enfant disparu. Tout comme. Hors vide. Hors écarquillés. Le vide alors n'en est-il pas d'autant plus grand ? Dire le vieil homme disparu. La vieille femme disparue. Tout comme. Le vide n'en est-il pas d'autant plus grand encore ? Non. Vide au maximum lorsque presque. Au pire lorsque presque. Moindre alors ? Toutes ombres tout comme disparues. Si donc pas tellement plus que ça tellement moins alors ? Moins pire alors ? Assez. Peste soit du vide. Inaugmentable imminimisable inempirable sempiternel presque vide.
L'expérience, on le voit, échoue. Le vide reste radicalement inempirable, donc indicible, en tant que pure nomination.
l) Apparaître et disparaître. Le mouvement
L'argumentaire lié au vide convoque, avec les mouvements supposés de disparition et d'apparition, le total des idées suprêmes platoniciennes. Nous avons l'être, qui est vide et pénombre ; le même, qui est l'un-femme ; l'autre, qui est le deux-vieillard/enfant. La question est de savoir ce qu'il en est du mouvement et du repos, ultimes catégories dans les cinq genres primordiaux du _Sophiste_.
La question du mouvement et du repos se présente sous la forme de deux interrogations : qu'est-ce qui peut disparaître ? Et : qu'est-ce qui peut changer ?
Il y a une thèse absolument essentielle, c'est que le disparaître absolu serait la disparition de la pénombre. Si on se demande : qu'est-ce qui peut disparaître _absolument_ ? On répondra : la pénombre. Par exemple page 22 :
Encore retour pour dédire disparition du vide. [J'ai déjà dit que la disparition du vide est subordonnée à la disparition de la pénombre.] Disparition du vide ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la pénombre. Alors disparition de tout. Tout pas déjà disparu. Jusqu'à pénombre réapparue. Alors tout réapparu. Tout pas à jamais disparu. Disparition de l'une se peut. Disparition des deux se peut. Disparition du vide ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la pénombre. Alors disparition de tout.
Il y a toujours l'hypothèse possible d'un disparaître absolu qui se donnerait comme disparition de l'exposition elle-même, donc disparition de la pénombre. Mais ce qu'il faut bien noter, c'est que cette hypothèse est hors dire, que l'impératif du dire n'a rien à voir avec la possibilité de la disparition de la pénombre. Ainsi, la disparition de la pénombre est une hypothèse abstraite, comme sa réapparition, qui est formulable, mais ne donne lieu à aucune expérience, à aucun protocole dans l'injonction du dire. Il y a un horizon de disparition absolue, pensable dans l'énoncé « disparition de la pénombre ». Cependant, cet énoncé reste indifférent à tout le protocole du texte.
Le problème va donc se concentrer sur la disparition et l'apparition des ombres. C'est un problème d'un tout autre ordre, conjoint à la question de la pensée, alors que l'hypothèse de la disparition de la pénombre est hors dire et hors pensée. Plus généralement, il s'agit du problème du mouvement des ombres.
L'investigation de ce point est très complexe, et je ne donne ici que les conclusions.
Premièrement, l'un n'est pas en capacité de mouvement. Certes, la figure de la vieille femme, qui est le trait d'Un, sera dite « inclinée », puis « agenouillée », ce qui semble relever du changement. Mais avec la précision capitale qu'il ne s'agit là que de prescriptions du dire, de règles du pire, et jamais d'un mouvement propre. Il n'est pas vrai que l'un s'agenouille ou s'incline. Le texte énonce toujours que l' _on_ va dire agenouillé, incliné, etc. Tout cela est sous la prescription de la logique de l'amoindrissement dans l'empirer, mais n'indique aucune capacité propre de l'un à un mouvement quelconque.
La première thèse est donc parménidienne : ce qui est compté un, en tant qu'il est seulement compté un, reste indifférent au mouvement.
Deuxième énoncé : la pensée (la tête, le crâne) est hors d'état de disparaître. Sur ce point il y a plusieurs textes. En voici un :
La tête. Ne pas demander si disparition se peut. Dire non. Sans demander non. D'elle disparition ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la pénombre. Alors disparition de tout. Disparais pénombre ! Disparais pour de bon. Tout pour de bon. Une bonne fois pour toutes pour de bon (p. 26).
Ce « Disparais pénombre ! » reste sans effet. Comme nous l'avons vu, vous pouvez toujours dire « Disparais pénombre ! », la pénombre ne s'en soucie nullement.
Ce qu'il y a d'important pour nous, c'est que la tête est hors d'état de disparaître, sauf naturellement disparition de la pénombre, mais alors disparition de tout.
Il faut remarquer que, du coup, la tête a, sur la question du disparaître, le même statut que le vide. Ce qui est exactement la maxime de Parménide : « Le même, lui, est à la fois penser et être. » Parménide désigne un appariement ontologique essentiel de la pensée et de l'être. Et _Cap au pire_ déclare que, quant à la question du disparaître, qui est l'épreuve même de l'être, le crâne et le vide sont logés à la même enseigne.
Si bien que finalement – et c'est la troisième thèse – seul l'autre, ou le deux, soutient le mouvement.
Thèse classique, thèse grecque. Il n'y a mouvement que de la paire, c'est-à-dire du vieil homme et de l'enfant. Eux, ils s'en vont, ils marchent. C'est l'idée que le mouvement est consubstantiellement lié à l'autre en tant qu'altération. Mais ce qui est significatif est que ce mouvement est en quelque sorte immobile. À propos du vieil homme et de l'enfant – c'est un véritable leitmotiv du texte –, il sera constamment dit :
Tant mal que mal s'en vont et jamais ne s'éloignent (p. 15).
Il y a mouvement, mais il y a une immobilité interne à ce mouvement. Ils s'en vont et jamais ils ne s'éloignent. Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire ? Ça veut dire qu'il y a mouvement, certes – ils s'en vont –, mais qu'il n'y a qu'une seule situation de l'être, il n'y a qu'une situation ontologique. On dira aussi : il n'y a qu'un seul lieu. Ce qui est déclaré très tôt dans la maxime :
Nul lieu que l'unique (p. 13).
Il n'y a qu'un lieu, ou il n'y a qu'un univers, il n'y a qu'une figure de l'être, il n'y en a pas deux. Pour que la paire s'éloigne effectivement, pour que, s'en allant, elle s'éloigne, il faudrait un autre lieu, il faudrait qu'elle puisse _passer_ en un autre lieu. Or, il n'y a pas d'autre lieu : « Nul lieu que l'unique. » Soit : il n'y a pas de dualité dans l'être. L'être est Un quant à sa localisation. Voilà pourquoi le mouvement doit être toujours reconnu, mais en même temps appréhendé comme relatif, puisqu'il ne permet pas de sortir de l'unicité du lieu, et c'est ce qui se confirme à propos de la paire.
m) L'amour
Cette migration immobile, qui est celle du deux, est très lointainement marquée par la conception beckettienne de l'amour. Là, c'est le vieillard et l'enfant, mais peu importe. Car nous avons la maxime du deux, et, dans ce prodigieux texte sur l'amour qui s'appelle _Assez_ , Beckett nous présente le deux de l'amour comme une sorte de migration qui est en même temps une migration sur soi-même. Telle est l'essence de l'amour. La migration ne fait pas passer d'un lieu à un autre, elle est une délocalisation interne au lieu, et cette délocalisation immanente a son paradigme dans le deux de l'amour. Cela explique que les passages sur le vieil homme et l'enfant soient marqués d'une sourde émotion, toute particulière dans _Cap au pire_ : la migration immobile désigne ce qu'on pourrait appeler la spatialité de l'amour.
Voici l'un de ces textes, où s'entend une puissante tendresse abstraite, qui fait écho à _Assez_ :
Main dans la main ils vont tant mal que mal d'un pas égal. Dans les mains libres – non. Vides les mains libres. Tous deux dos courbé vus de dos ils vont tant mal que mal d'un pas égal. Levée la main de l'enfant pour atteindre la main qui étreint. Étreindre la vieille main qui étreint. Étreindre et être étreinte. Tant mal que mal s'en vont et jamais ne s'éloignent. Lentement sans pause tant mal que mal s'en vont et jamais ne s'éloignent. Vus de dos. Tous deux courbés. Unis par les mains étreintes étreignant. Tant mal que mal s'en vont comme un seul. Une seule ombre. Une autre ombre (p. 14-15).
n) Apparaître et disparaître. Le changement. Le crâne
Une hypothèse accessible au crâne serait que les ombres, entre une disparition et une réapparition, se soient modifiées. Cette hypothèse est évoquée et travaillée page 16, mais elle est expressément présentée comme une hypothèse du dire :
Lentement ils disparaissent. Tantôt l'un. Tantôt la paire. Tantôt les deux. Lentement réapparaissent. Tantôt l'un. Tantôt la paire. Tantôt les deux. Lentement ? Non. Disparition soudaine. Réapparition soudaine. Tantôt l'un. Tantôt la paire. Tantôt les deux.
Inchangés ? Soudain réapparus inchangés ? Oui. Dire oui. Chaque fois inchangés. Tant mal que pis inchangés. Jusqu'à non. Jusqu'à dire non. Soudain réapparus changés. Tant mal que pis changés. Chaque fois tant mal que pis changés.
Qu'il puisse y avoir des changements réels, c'est-à-dire des changements pris entre apparition et disparition, n'est pas une hypothèse susceptible d'affecter l'être de l'ombre, mais une hypothèse que la prescription du dire peut éventuellement formuler. C'est un peu comme tout à l'heure : « Disparais pénombre ! », ou lorsqu'on dit « l'agenouillée », « l'inclinée », etc. Il faut distinguer ce qui est un attribut de l'ombre même et la variation hypothétique à laquelle peut la soumettre la prescription du dire.
Au bout du compte, s'agissant des ombres de type un (la femme) et de type deux (le vieillard et l'enfant), seule la migration immobile de la paire atteste un mouvement.
Si bien que nous sommes finalement renvoyés à la question des changements de l'ombre de type trois, le crâne, crâne d'où suintent les mots, d'où suinte la prescription du dire. Là intervient évidemment le point d'arrêt dont nous parlions, qui est la structure du _cogito_. Toute modification, disparition, réapparition ou altération du crâne est bloquée par le fait que le crâne doit être représenté comme étant ce qui se saisit soi-même dans la pénombre.
On ne peut donc pas supposer que tout a disparu dans le crâne. L'hypothèse d'un doute radical, qui affecterait les ombres de disparition intégrale, dans la prescription que le crâne en ferait, ne peut pas être tenue, pour les mêmes raisons qui autolimitent le doute radical cartésien. Voici le passage :
Dans le crâne tout disparu. Tout ? Disparition de tout ne se peut. Jusqu'à disparition de la pénombre. Dire alors seuls disparus les deux. Dans le crâne un et deux disparus. Hors du vide. Hors des yeux. Dans le crâne tout disparu sauf le crâne. Les écarquillés. Seuls dans la pénombre vide. Seuls à être vus. Obscurément vus. Dans le crâne le crâne seul à être vu. Les yeux écarquillés. Obscurément vus. Par les yeux écarquillés (p. 32).
L'hypothèse de la disparition des ombres, renvoyée au fait qu'elles auraient disparu dans le crâne, donc qu'elles ne seraient plus de l'ordre du voir ou du mal voir, n'entraîne pas disparition de tout, en particulier n'entraîne pas disparition de toutes les ombres, parce que le crâne, qui est lui-même une ombre, ne peut pas disparaître pour lui-même.
La matrice cartésienne s'énonce nécessairement : « Dans le crâne tout disparu sauf le crâne. » Je pense, donc je suis une ombre dans la pénombre. Le crâne est ombre-sujet, et ne peut disparaître.
o) Du sujet comme crâne. Volonté, douleur, joie
Le sujet comme crâne est réductible, fondamentalement, au dire et au voir, le crâne combine des yeux écarquillés et une cervelle. Mais il y a, comme chez Descartes, d'autres affections. En particulier, il y a le vouloir, il y a la douleur et il y a la joie, tous pointés dans le texte à leur place. Chacune de ces affections va être étudiée selon la méthode de l'empirer, c'est-à-dire dans son essentiel « imminimisable moindre ».
Qu'est-ce que l'essentiel imminimisable moindre du vouloir ? C'est le vouloir lorsqu'il est donné dans sa forme ultime, qui est de vouloir le non-vouloir, ou de vouloir qu'il n'y ait plus de vouloir, c'est-à-dire de se vouloir soi-même comme non-vouloir, ou, dira Beckett, le vouloir de la disparition du vain vouloir :
Il voudrait l'ainsi dit esprit qui depuis si longtemps a perdu tout vouloir. L'ainsi mal dit. Pour l'instant ainsi mal dit. À force de long vouloir tout vouloir envolé. Long vouloir en vain. Et voudrait encore. Vaguement voudrait encore. Vaguement vainement voudrait encore. Que plus vague encore. Que plus vague. Vaguement vainement voudrait que le vouloir soit le moindre. Imminimisable minimum de vouloir. Inapaisable vain minimum de vouloir encore.
Voudrait que tout disparaisse. Disparaisse la pénombre. Disparaisse le vide. Disparaisse le vouloir. Disparaisse le vain vouloir que le vain vouloir disparaisse (p. 47-48).
Il y aurait beaucoup de commentaires à faire sur la corrélation entre ce passage et les doctrines canoniques de la volonté. On peut dire que le vouloir est calqué sur l'impératif du dire et que le « que tout disparaisse », la volonté que disparaisse finalement « le vain vouloir que le vouloir disparaisse », est trace irréductible du vouloir, ou que le vouloir, comme l'impératif du dire, ne peut que continuer.
La douleur est du corps (alors que la joie vient des mots). La douleur est ce qui du corps provoque le mouvement et c'est en quoi elle est le premier témoignage des restes d'esprit. La douleur est la preuve corporelle qu'il y a des restes d'esprit, en tant qu'elle est ce qui incite les ombres au mouvement :
Il est debout. Quoi ? Oui. Le dire debout. Forcé à la fin à se mettre et tenir debout. Dire des os. Nul os mais dire des os. Dire un sol. Nul sol mais dire un sol. Pour pouvoir dire douleur. Nul esprit et douleur ? Dire oui pour que les os puissent tant lui douloir que plus qu'à se mettre debout. Tant mal que pis se mettre et tenir debout. Ou mieux plus mal des restes. Dire des restes d'esprit où nul aux fins de la douleur. Douleur des os telle que plus qu'à se mettre debout. Tant mal que pis s'y mettre. Tant mal que pis y tenir. Restes d'esprit où nul aux fins de la douleur. Ici des os. D'autres exemples au besoin. De douleur. De comment soulagée. De comment variée (p. 9-10).
La joie, enfin, est du côté des mots. Se réjouir, c'est se réjouir de ce qu'il y ait si peu de mots pour dire ce qu'il y a à dire. La joie est toujours joie de la pauvreté des mots. Le stigmate de l'état de joie ou du réjouir, de ce qui réjouit, c'est qu'il y a extrêmement peu de mots pour le dire. Or c'est tout à fait vrai, si on y réfléchit. L'extrême joie est précisément ce qui dispose de peu ou de pas de mots pour se dire. De là que, dans la figure de la déclaration d'amour, il n'y a rien d'autre à dire que « je t'aime », ce qui est extrêmement pauvre, parce que c'est dans l'élément de la joie.
Je pense, dans l' _Elektra_ de Richard Strauss, à la scène de la reconnaissance d'Oreste par Électre, où Électre chante un « Oreste ! » très violent, et où la musique se paralyse. On a un paquet musical _fortissimo_ , mais absolument informe et assez durable. J'ai toujours trouvé cela plutôt bien. C'est comme si l'extrême joie indicible était donnée musicalement par l'autoparalysie de la musique, comme si sa configuration interne mélodique (qui ensuite va se donner tant et plus dans des valses sirupeuses) était frappée d'impuissance : nous avons là un moment du « se réjouir » en tant que disposition pauvre de la nomination.
Beckett le dit de façon très claire. C'est évidemment lié au fait qu'il y a de pauvres restes d'esprit, et de pauvres mots pour ces pauvres restes d'esprit :
Restes d'esprit donc encore. Assez encore. Tant mal à qui tant mal où tant mal que pis assez encore. Pas d'esprit et des mots ? Même de tels mots. Donc assez encore. Juste assez pour se réjouir. Réjouir ! Juste assez encore pour se réjouir que seulement eux. Seulement ! (p. 37-38).
Voilà pour les facultés subjectives autres que le voir et le dire, et d'abord les trois principales (volonté, douleur, joie). Ce qui nous donne, somme toute, une doctrine classique des passions.
p) Comment penser un sujet ?
Cela étant, si on veut aller plus loin dans l'étude du sujet, il faut procéder soustractivement. Au fond, la méthode de Beckett est comme l' _épochè_ de Husserl mise à l'envers. L' _épochè_ de Husserl consiste à soustraire la thèse du monde, à soustraire le « il y a » pour se retourner vers le mouvement ou le flux pur de l'intériorité qui vise ce « il y a ». Husserl est dans la filiation du doute cartésien. On retire le caractère thétique de l'univers des opérations intentionnelles de la conscience, pour essayer d'appréhender la structure consciente qui gouverne ces opérations, indépendamment de toute thèse du monde.
La méthode de Beckett est exactement le contraire : il s'agit de soustraire le sujet, de le suspendre, pour voir ce qui alors advient à l'être. On fera par exemple l'hypothèse d'un voir sans mots. On fera aussi l'hypothèse de mots sans voir. On fera l'hypothèse d'une disparition des mots. Et alors on constatera qu'à ce moment-là il y a du mieux vu. Voici un des protocoles de cette expérience :
Hiatus pour lorsque les mots disparus. Lorsque plus mèche. Alors tout vu comme alors seulement. Désobscurci. Désobscurci tout ce que les mots obscurcissent. Tout ainsi vu non dit. Pas de suintement alors. Pas trace sur la substance molle lorsque d'elle suinte encore. En elle suinte encore. Suintement seulement pour vu tel que vu avec suintement. Obscurci. Pas de suintement pour vu désobscurci. Pour lorsque plus mèche. Pas de suintement pour lorsque suintement disparu (p. 53).
Il faudrait expliquer le texte en détail. Il s'agit du protocole du voir tel qu'il est désobscurci lorsqu'on fait l'hypothèse de la disparition des mots, de la fin réelle de l'impératif du dire – une pure hypothèse abstraite comme l' _épochè_ de Husserl, et une hypothèse intenable, qui ne peut pas être pratiquée. Sous cette hypothèse, quelque chose de l'être s'éclaircit. Et on peut faire l'expérience inverse : soustraire le voir et se demander quel est le destin d'un mal dire déconnecté du voir, du mal vu.
Je ne développe pas ces expériences, mais, finalement, si on récapitule sur la question du disparaître, on obtient trois propositions.
D'abord le vide est inempirable dès que pris dans l'exposition de la pénombre. Ce qui veut dire qu'il n'y a pas d'expérience de l'être, il n'y en a qu'un nom. Un nom commande un dire, mais une expérience est un mal dire et non un dire.
Deuxièmement, le crâne ou sujet ne peut être soustrait au voir et au dire _réellement_ , il ne peut l'être que dans des expériences formelles, en particulier parce qu'il est toujours non disparu pour lui-même.
Enfin, les ombres, elles, soit le même et l'autre, sont empirables (du point du crâne), donc sont objets d'expérience, d'exposition artistique.
Voilà ce qui est exposé, dit, et tramé avec beaucoup d'autres choses. Il y a toute une doctrine du temps, de l'espace, des variations..., on n'en finit pas.
Du moins jusqu'à la page 60. Car à partir de là, il se passe quelque chose d'autre, dont la complexité est telle qu'il faudrait encore de longs développements pour en venir à bout. Je vais en pointer l'essentiel.
q) L'événement
Jusqu'à cette page 60, on reste dans les données du dispositif minimal, qui noue l'être, l'existence et la pensée. Et voici que se produit un événement au sens strict, une discontinuité, événement préparé par ce que Beckett appelle un _état dernier_. L'état dernier est en gros ce que nous venons de dire : c'est l'état dernier en tant que dernier état de l'état, dernier état du dire de l'état des choses. Cet état est pris dans l'impossibilité de l'anéantissement, sauf disparition de la pénombre, qui reste une hypothèse hors dire.
L'événement, dont il faut dire le tracé, va disposer, ou laisser à nu, un impératif du dire réduit à l'énoncé de sa cessation. Les conditions vont être modifiées événementiellement de telle sorte que le contenu du « encore » va être strictement limité à « plus mèche encore ». Ce qui va rester à dire sera seulement qu'il n'y a plus à dire. Et ainsi nous aurons un dire parvenu à son degré de purification absolument maximal.
Tout commence par la récapitulation de l'état dernier :
Même inclinaison pour tous. Mêmes vastitudes de distance. Même état dernier. Dernier en date. Jusqu'à tant mal que pis moindre en vain. Pire en vain. Dévore tout l'envie d'être néant. Néant jamais ne se peut être (p. 61).
L'« état dernier » solde le processus de l'empirer comme interminable. Il a pour maxime : « Pire en vain. » Mais, dès que la récapitulation s'achève, introduit par « soudain », se produit brusquement une sorte d'éloignement de cet état à une position limite, qui est comme son recul absolu à l'intérieur de la langue. Comme si tout ce qui avait été dit, de pouvoir être dit dans son état dernier, se trouvait aussitôt à une distance infinitésimale de l'impératif de la langue.
Ce mouvement, il faut le dire, est absolument parallèle au surgissement de la Constellation à la fin du _Coup de dés_ de Mallarmé. L'analogie est, à mon avis, consciente, et nous verrons pourquoi. C'est comme si, au moment où il n'y a plus rien à dire que : « voici l'état des choses, des choses de l'être » – ce que Mallarmé, lui, dit sous la forme : « rien n'a eu lieu que le lieu » –, quand on pense que le texte va s'arrêter là, qu'on a tramé cette maxime comme dernier mot sur ce dont l'impératif du dire est capable ; comme si à ce moment se produisait une espèce d'adjonction, sur une scène située à distance de la scène traitée, adjonction soudaine, en rupture, brusquée, et dans laquelle se donne une métamorphose de l'exposition, métamorphose sidérale, ou sidération. Il ne s'agit pas de la disparition de la pénombre, mais d'un recul de l'être à la limite de soi. Et, de même que chez Mallarmé la question du coup de dés se solde par l'apparition des étoiles de la Grande Ourse, de même ici ce qui était compté dans la pénombre va être fixé comme des trous d'épingle, dans une métaphore très voisine. Voici le passage qui est introduit par la clause de rupture « Assez » :
Assez. Soudain assez. Soudain tout loin. Nul mouvement et soudain tout loin. Tout moindre. Trois épingles. Un trou d'épingle. Dans l'obscurissime pénombre. À des vastitudes de distance. Aux limites du vide illimité. D'où pas plus loin. Mieux plus mal pas plus loin. Plus mèche moins. Plus mèche pire. Plus mèche néant. Plus mèche encore.
Soit dit plus mèche encore (p. 62).
Je veux simplement insister sur quelques points.
Le caractère événementiel intratextuel de cette disposition aux limites est marqué par le fait que le « soudain » est sans mouvement : « Soudain tout loin. Nul mouvement et soudain tout loin. » Donc ce n'est pas un changement, c'est une séparation ; c'est une autre scène, qui double la scène primordialement établie.
Deuxièmement – ce qui me fait penser véritablement que la configuration mallarméenne de la chose est consciente –, c'est le passage : « A des vastitudes de distance. Aux limites du vide illimité », qui est, à l'oreille, absolument voisin de : « à l'altitude peut-être aussi loin qu'un endroit fusionne avec au-delà [...] une constellation ». Je suis absolument convaincu que les trois épingles et les sept étoiles, c'est la même chose.
En pensée, c'est en effet la même chose : au moment où il n'y a plus à dire que la figure stable de l'être, alors surgit dans une soudaineté qui est une grâce sans concept, une configuration d'ensemble dans laquelle on va pouvoir dire « plus mèche encore ». C'est-à-dire non pas un « encore » ordonné ou prescrit aux ombres, mais simplement « plus mèche encore », soit le « encore » du dire réduit à la pureté de sa cessation possible.
Cependant, la configuration de ce pouvoir-dire n'est plus un état de l'être, un exercice de l'empirer. C'est un événement, qui crée un _lointain_. Une mise à distance incalculable. Du point de vue de la poétique, il faudrait montrer que cette configuration événementielle, ce « soudain », est esthétiquement ou poétiquement préparée par une figure. Chez Mallarmé, la Constellation est préparée par la figure du maître qui est en train de se noyer à la surface de la mer. Chez Beckett, cette préparation figurale, absolument admirable, consiste en la métamorphose tout à fait imprévisible de l'un-femme en pierre tombale, dans un passage qui devrait alerter par, si je puis dire, sa discontinuité en image. Juste avant, une page avant l'événement aux limites, il y a ceci :
Rien et pourtant une femme. Vieille et pourtant vieille. Sur genoux invisibles. Inclinée comme de vieilles pierres tombales tendre mémoire s'inclinent. Dans ce vieux cimetière. Noms effacés et de quand à quand. Inclinées muettes sur les tombes de nuls êtres (p. 61).
Ce passage est absolument singulier et paradoxal par rapport à tout ce que nous avons dit. D'abord parce qu'il fait advenir une métaphore au point des ombres. L'un-femme, l'inclinaison de l'un-femme, devient littéralement une pierre tombale. Et sur l'inclinaison de cette pierre tombale, le sujet n'est plus donné que dans l'effacement de son nom, dans la rature de son nom et de sa date d'existence.
On peut dire que c'est sur le fond de ces « tombes de nuls êtres », sur cette neuve inclinaison, que le « assez » indique la possibilité de l'événement. L'inclinaison ouvre à la déclinaison, la tombe anonyme à l'épingle astrale.
Dans le _Coup de dés_ , c'est parce que l'élément du lieu a su se métamorphoser en autre chose que lui-même, que la rupture événementielle de la constellation est possible.
Dans _Cap au pire_ , nous avons une tombe, qui est la vieille femme elle-même devenue tombe, l'un-tombe, comme dans le poème de Mallarmé nous avons l'écume qui devient navire et qui, devenant navire, suscite le capitaine du navire, etc. Nous avons une transmigration de l'identité de l'ombre dans la figure de la tombe, et quand vous avez la tombe, vous avez aussi transmigration du lieu : ce qui était pénombre, vide, ou lieu innommable, devient un cimetière. J'appellerais cela une préparation figurale.
En effet, on peut dire que tout événement admet une préparation figurale, qu'il y a toujours une _figure_ préévénementielle. Dans notre texte, la figure est donnée à partir du moment où les ombres arrivent à être le symbole d'être d'une existence. Quel est le symbole d'être d'une existence, sinon la pierre tombale, sur laquelle il y a le nom effacé et les dates de naissance et de mort, également effacées ? Moment où l'existence est apte à se présenter comme le symbole d'être d'elle-même et où à l'être advient son troisième nom : ni vide ni pénombre, mais cimetière.
La tombe est le moment où, par une transmutation interne au dire, l'existence accède à une symbolique de l'être telle que ce qui va pouvoir être prononcé sur l'être change de nature. Une scène ontologique altérée double l'état dernier, état dernier qui n'était donc pas l'état dernier. Il y a un état surnuméraire à l'état dernier, qui est précisément celui qui est constitué soudainement. Un événement est ce qui, figuralement préparé, fait advenir qu'un état dernier de l'être ne soit pas le dernier.
Et qu'est-ce qui va rester à la fin ? Eh bien, il va rester un dire sur fond de rien, ou de nuit : le dire du « encore », du « plus mèche encore », l'impératif du dire tel quel. Au fond, c'est le terme d'une sorte de langue astrale, qui flotterait sur sa propre ruine et d'où tout peut recommencer, d'où tout peut et doit recommencer. Ce recommencement inéluctable peut se dire : l'innommable du dire, c'est son « encore ». Et le bien, c'est-à-dire le mode propre du bien dans le dire, c'est de soutenir le « encore ». C'est tout. De le soutenir sans le nommer. De soutenir le « encore » et de le soutenir au point d'incandescence extrême où son seul contenu apparent est : « plus mèche encore ».
Mais pour cela, il faut qu'un événement outrepasse l'état dernier de l'être. Alors, je peux, et je dois, continuer. À moins que, pour recréer les conditions d'obéissance à cet impératif, il faille s'endormir un peu, le temps de conjoindre, dans un simulacre du vide, la pénombre de l'être et l'ivresse de l'événement. Peut-être est-ce toute la différence entre Beckett et Mallarmé : le premier interdit le sommeil, comme il interdit la mort. Il faut veiller. Pour le second, on peut aussi rejoindre l'ombre, après le travail poétique, par le suspens de la question, l'interruption salvatrice. C'est que Mallarmé, ayant une fois pour toutes posé qu'un Livre est possible, peut se contenter « d'essais en vue du mieux », et dormir entre deux tentatives. Je l'approuve, sur ce point, d'être un faune français, plutôt qu'un insomniaque irlandais.
10
Philosophie du faune
Repères
En 1865, Mallarmé travaille à écrire un morceau destiné au théâtre, sous le titre _Monologue d'un faune_. Ce texte est réellement pensé pour des représentations, comme l'atteste le fait qu'il comporte de nombreuses didascalies, précisant mouvements et postures. Les esquisses organisent trois parties : l'après-midi d'un faune ; le dialogue des nymphes ; le réveil du faune. La construction dramatique est au fond d'une grande simplicité : à l'évocation de ce qui a eu lieu succède la présentation des personnages, puis, au réveil, la distribution de tout cela dans la dimension du rêve.
Les premiers vers de cette première version sont :
J'avais des nymphes. Est-ce un songe ? Non : le clair
Rubis des seins levés embrase encore l'air
Immobile.
Le « monologue » n'ayant pas trouvé preneur au théâtre, dix ans plus tard, en 1875, sous le titre _Improvisation d'unfaune_, Mallarmé écrit une version intermédiaire, qui commence par :
Ces nymphes, je les veux émerveiller.
Enfin, en 1876, paraît le texte que nous connaissons, sous la forme d'une plaquette luxueuse avec un dessin de Manet. L'attaque définitive est :
Ces nymphes, je les veux perpétuer.
Trajectoire exemplaire. La première version vise un débat sur la réalité de l'objet du désir (« j'avais »), et ce débat est finalement tranché (ce n'était qu'un rêve). La deuxième version fixe un impératif qu'on peut dire de sublimation artistique, quel que soit le statut de l'objet (« émerveiller »). La troisième version assigne une tâche à la pensée : si même il y a eu évanouissement de ce qui a une fois surgi, le poème doit en garantir la perpétuelle vérité.
Architecture : les hypothèses et le nom
Le poème se tient tout entier dans l'écart entre le démonstratif _ces_ et le _je_ qui supporte l'impératif de la perpétuation. Quel rapport y a-t-il entre la genèse de ce _je_ et l'apparente objectivité de _ces nymphes_ ? Comment un sujet peut-il se soutenir d'un objet, dès lors que celui-ci a disparu, et que le _je_ lui-même en est la seule attestation ? Le poème est ce par quoi une disparition vient donner tout son être à un sujet qui prend abri dans une pure nomination : « ces nymphes ».
Que ce dont il est question tombe sous ce nom, _nymphes_ , ne sera jamais mis en doute. La nomination est le point fixe du poème, et le faune en est à la fois le produit et le garant. Le poème est une longue fidélité à ce nom.
Ce qui a disparu sous le nom ne peut qu'être supposé. Et ce sont ces suppositions qui construisent peu à peu le faune, dans l'écart entre le nom, _ces nymphes_ et le _je_.
L'occupation de cet écart se fait par des hypothèses successives, travaillées et liées par le doute, sous la fixité du nom.
Quelles sont ces hypothèses ? Il y en a quatre principales, avec des ramifications internes.
1. Les nymphes auraient pu n'être qu'imaginairement suscitées par la force du désir du faune (elles seraient « un souhait de ses sens fabuleux »).
2. Elles auraient pu n'être que des fictions, cette fois induites par l'art du faune (qui est musicien).
3. Elles seraient bien réelles, il y aurait eu l'événement de leur venue, mais la hâte du faune, une sorte de prématuration de la saisie sexuelle, les auraient divisées, et supprimées. Tel serait le « crime » du faune.
4. Peut-être les nymphes ne sont-elles que les incarnations fugitives d'un nom unique : « nymphes » nomme des hypostases de Vénus. L'événement qu'elles attestent est immémorial, et le nom véritable qui doit venir est sacré, c'est celui d'une déesse.
Construites par le nouage des hypothèses, deux certitudes éclairent le poème, et construisent le « je » du faune :
– De toute façon, les nymphes ne sont plus là. Ce sont désormais « ces nymphes » et il est sans importance, et même dangereux, de vouloir se souvenir de ce qu'elles furent. L'événement aboli, nulle mémoire n'en peut être la gardienne. La mémoire est une désévénementialisation, car elle tente de raccorder la nomination à une signification.
– Désormais, il s'agit de savoir, quittant toute mémoire comme toute réalité, ce que va devenir le nom :
Couple, adieu ; je vais voir l'ombre que tu devins.
Les hypothèses proposent au poème de fixer une règle de fidélité. Fidélité au nom d'un événement.
Doutes et traces
On passe d'une hypothèse à une autre par des doutes méthodiques. Chaque doute relève la précédente hypothèse, et à chaque relève apparaît la question des traces que le référent supposé du nom aurait laissées dans la situation présente. Ces traces elles-mêmes doivent être redécidées comme traces, car aucune ne vaut preuve « objective » que l'événement a eu lieu (que les nymphes ont hanté empiriquement le lieu) :
Mon sein, vierge de preuve, atteste une morsure
Mystérieuse, due à quelque auguste dent.
Le vers dit : il y a des traces, mais, ces traces ne faisant pas preuve, elles doivent être redécidées. Si on est dans la fidélité, on trouvera des connexions sensibles au nom de l'événement, mais aucune ne vaudra jamais preuve que ce qui a eu lieu a eu lieu.
Ce que le doute, au suspens du nom, véhicule de façon latente est que ce qui aura eu lieu est, au terme du poème, la vérité du désir, telle que l'Art, le poème lui-même, la capte et la fixe. Étant entendu qu'il ne l'épingle, cette vérité, que sous l'effet de nomination d'un événement dont les hypothèses successives et les doutes qui les affectent montrent qu'il est indécidable. Ce sera aussi la vérité du « je » inaugural, celui qui veut perpétuer « ces nymphes » : il est sujet de l'indécidable comme tel.
De la prose interne au poème
Il y a dans le poème de longs passages en italique et entre guillemets, introduits par des mots en majuscules, CONTEZ, SOUVENIRS. Tout cela compose une ponctuation emphatique, qui intrigue. Ouvert par les impératifs en majuscules, on trouve un style narratif assez simple. Dans quelles conditions interviennent ces récits, fortement soulignés par l'italique et les guillemets ? Le poème nous le dit clairement : aucun de ces récits (il y en a trois), qui invoquent la présence charnelle des nymphes, n'a la moindre chance de sauver l'événement, quel qu'il soit. Un événement se nomme, mais ne peut se réciter, ou se raconter.
Dès lors, les récits n'ont nulle autre fonction que de proposer des matériaux au doute. Ils sont des fragments de mémoire à dissoudre. Et peut-être est-ce en effet la fonction de tout récit. Définissons le récit comme ce à propos de quoi il y a doute. Le récit est essentiellement douteux, non parce qu'il n'est pas vrai, mais parce qu'il propose des matériaux au doute (poétique). C'est alors de la prose qu'il s'agit. Appelons « prose » toute articulation du récit et du doute. L'art de la prose n'est pas l'art du récit, ni l'art du doute, il est l'art de la proposition de l'un à l'autre. Bien qu'on puisse classer les proses, selon qu'y prédomine la délectation du récit, ou son austère présentation au doute. Le premier type de prose est le plus éloigné du poème, le second s'y expose au plus près, au risque de s'y défaire.
Les passages entre guillemets et en italique de _L'Après-midi d'un faune_ sont les moments de prose de ce poème.
Le problème est de savoir si la poésie doit toujours exposer prosaïquement le récit au doute du poème. Le style épique de Hugo répond majestueusement : « Oui ! » La réponse de Baudelaire est plus nuancée, mais on a souvent remarqué qu'il y a dans _Les Fleurs du mal_ un fort prosaïsme local, une indubitable fonction du récit. L'évolution de Mallarmé entre 1865 et sa mort est un éloignement continu de Hugo, mais aussi de Baudelaire. Car il s'agit d'éliminer tous les moments de prose. Dès lors, le poème est centralement une énigme, celle d'un doute qui doit se résoudre en affirmation sans avoir le récit comme matériau de son exercice. Nulle autre cause à ce qu'on appelle, à tort, l'hermétisme de Mallarmé.
Le _Faune_ n'est pas encore « hermétique », la prose y figure, quoique cernée, et presque moquée, par la surcharge des italiques et des guillemets.
Il y a dix moments dans le poème, comme on dit dix sections en musique.
La section zéro, celle qu'on laisse en deçà du compte, est le premier tronçon du premier vers : « Ces nymphes, je les veux perpétuer. » Nous avons dit qu'elle était le programme général du poème : soutenir un sujet par la fidélité au nom d'un événement disparu, et indécidable.
Examinons les dix sections proprement dites.
1) Dissolution de l'événement dans son lieu supposé
Si clair,
Leur incarnat léger, qu'il voltige dans l'air
Assoupi de sommeils touffus.
Transparence de l'air et latence du sommeil. Tout comme dans le _Coup de dés_ , la plume est sur le gouffre « sans le joncher ni fuir », les nymphes disparues, réduites au semblant d'une couleur, parsèment (peut-être) le lieu où le faune ne sait lui-même s'il s'éveille ou s'endort.
2) Mise en place du doute
Aimai-je un rêve ?
Mon doute, amas de nuit ancienne, s'achève
En maint rameau subtil, qui, demeuré les vrais
Bois mêmes, prouve, hélas ! que bien seul je m'offrais
Pour triomphe la faute idéale de roses –
Réfléchissons...
Le doute n'est aucunement de type sceptique. L'impératif est : « Réfléchissons. » Toute l'opération du poème est une opération de pensée, non pas de remémoration ou d'anamnèse, et le doute est une opération positive du poème, ce qui autorise l'inspection du lieu sous la règle des traces de l'événement-nymphes. Même si sa première inférence est purement négative (j'étais seul, « rien n'a eu lieu que le lieu »).
3) Du désir à la musique
ou si les femmes dont tu gloses
Figurent un souhait de tes sens fabuleux !
Faune, l'illusion s'échappe des yeux bleus
Et froids, comme une source en pleurs, de la plus chaste :
Mais, l'autre tout soupirs, dis-tu qu'elle contraste
Comme brise du jour chaude dans ta toison ?
Que non ! par l'immobile et lasse pâmoison
Suffoquant de chaleurs le matin frais s'il lutte,
Ne murmure point d'eau que ne verse ma flûte
Au bosquet arrosé d'accords ; et le seul vent
Hors des deux tuyaux prompt à s'exhaler avant
Qu'il disperse le son dans une pluie aride,
C'est, à l'horizon pas remué d'une ride,
Le visible et serein souffle artificiel
De l'inspiration, qui regagne le ciel.
Ce qui permet de passer de l'hypothèse d'une invention du désir à celle d'une suscitation par l'art est la métamorphose « élémentaire » des deux nymphes. Elles peuvent en effet équivaloir, dans l'indécidabilité de leur surgissement, à la source et à la brise, à l'eau et à l'air. Or, de ces antiques équivalences, l'art est depuis toujours capable.
Cette section croise deux choses qui ne se sépareront plus, une procédure située du côté du désir et de l'amour, et la procédure artistique, qui elle-même a un double statut : figurée _dans_ le poème par l'art musical du faune, elle est aussi bien le devenir du poème lui-même. Il y a en définitive trois registres enchevêtrés : le désir, lié à la supposée rencontre de la nudité des nymphes ; l'art du faune (musicien), créateur de fictions élémentaires ; l'art du poète. La convocation érotique soutient une métaphore intrapoétique du poème, surimposée par métamorphoses et chaînes d'équivalence au jeu supposé du désir : nymphes → yeux bleus et froids → pleurs → source → murmure de la flûte → capacité du poème.
4) Extorquer au lieu le nom de l'événement
Ô bords siciliens d'un calme marécage
Qu'à l'envi de soleils ma vanité saccage,
Tacite sous les fleurs d'étincelles, CONTEZ
_« Que je coupais ici les creux roseaux domptés_
_Par le talent ; quand, sur l'or glauque de lointaines_
_Verdures dédiant leur vigne à des fontaines,_
_Ondoie une blancheur animale au repos :_
_Et qu'au prélude lent où naissent les pipeaux_
_Ce vol de cygnes, non ! de naïades se sauve_
_Ou plonge... »_
Nous avons ici un exemple, encore très simple, de ce qui est sans doute le mouvement le plus général des poèmes de Mallarmé : la présentation du lieu, puis la tentative d'y discerner la preuve de quelque événement évanoui.
Ce passage inclut une première séquence du récit entre guillemets et en italique. Ce récit attribué au lieu même, comme s'il allait confesser l'événement qui le hante, est un pur temps de prose, ce qui à soi seul nous persuade qu'il n'aboutira qu'au doute. Cet aboutissement est du reste inscrit dans le battement interrogatif entre « cygnes » et « naïades », qui laisse ouverte la possibilité d'une subversion de la réalité (les oiseaux de l'étang) par l'imaginaire (la nudité des femmes). Finalement, le récit peut tout à fait reconduire à la solitude du lieu, ce qui expose le faune à la première tentation.
5) Première tentation : s'abolir extatiquement dans le lieu
Inerte, tout brûle dans l'heure fauve
Sans marquer par quel art ensemble détala
Trop d'hymen souhaité de qui cherche le _la_ :
Alors m'éveillerais-je à la ferveur première,
Droit et seul, sous un flot antique de lumière,
Lys ! et l'un de vous tous pour l'ingénuité.
Puisque le récit du lieu ne saurait convaincre, ne nous proposant qu'une vaine mémoire, pourquoi ne pas renoncer à la recherche des traces ? Pourquoi ne pas simplement se consumer dans la lumière du paysage ? C'est la tentation de l'infidélité, celle d'abdiquer sur la question de l'événement et de la fidélité au nom, aux « nymphes ». Comme une vérité s'induit toujours de quelque événement (sinon, d'où viendrait sa puissance de nouveauté ?), toute tentation contre la vérité se présente comme tentation de renoncer à l'événement et à sa nomination, et de se contenter du pur « il y a », de la force définitive du seul lieu. Consumé par midi, le faune serait délivré de son problème, il serait « l'un de nous tous », et non plus cette singularité subjective livrée à l'indécidable. Toute extase du lieu est l'abandon d'une vérité fatigante. Mais ce n'est qu'une tentation. Le désir du faune, sa musique, et finalement le poème, persistent dans la recherche des signes.
6) Signes du corps et puissance de l'art
Autre que ce doux rien par leur lèvre ébruité
Le baiser, qui tout bas des perfides assure,
Mon sein, vierge de preuve, atteste une morsure
Mystérieuse, due à quelque auguste dent ;
Mais, bast ! arcane tel élut pour confident
Le jonc vaste et jumeau dont sous l'azur on joue :
Qui, détournant à soi le trouble de la joue,
Rêve, dans un solo long, que nous amusions
La beauté d'alentour par des confusions
Fausses entre elle-même et notre chant crédule ;
Et de faire aussi haut que l'amour se module
Évanouir du songe ordinaire de dos
Ou de flanc pur suivis avec mes regards clos,
Une sonore, vaine et monotone ligne.
Dans les deux premiers vers de cette section, le faune énonce qu'il y a une autre trace que le baiser, ou que le souvenir d'un baiser. Le baiser « en soi » est pure annulation, c'est un « doux rien ». Mais il y a la trace, une morsure mystérieuse. On note évidemment l'apparente contradiction entre « vierge de preuve » et « atteste une morsure », dans le même vers. Cette contradiction est une thèse : aucune trace attestée d'un événement ne vaut preuve pour son avoir-eu-lieu. L'événement est soustrait à la preuve, car sinon il perdrait sa dimension d'évanouissement indécidable. Mais il n'est pas exclu qu'il y ait une trace, un signe, à ceci près que, puisqu'un tel signe n'est pas une preuve, il ne contraint pas son interprétation. Un événement peut bien laisser des traces, mais ces traces n'ont jamais, par elles-mêmes, de valeur univoque. En réalité, il est impossible d'interroger les traces d'un événement autrement que sous l'hypothèse d'une nomination. Elles ne signifient l'événement que si celui-ci a été décidé. Sous le nom fixe « nymphes », de toujours décidé, vous pouvez, sans faire preuve, attester une morsure « mystérieuse ».
C'est l'essence même de la notion mallarméenne de mystère : une trace qui ne fait pas preuve, un signe dont le référent n'est pas contraint. Il y a mystère chaque fois que quelque chose fait signe sans qu'on soit contraint à une interprétation. Car le signe est signe de l'indécidable lui-même, sous la fixité du nom.
À partir du « mais » du vers 42 (« Mais, bast ! »), Mallarmé développe l'hypothèse que cette trace mystérieuse est en réalité elle-même une production de l'art. Si l'on compare à la première version, on a une disposition très différente. Dans cette première version, la morsure mystérieuse était dite « féminine », en sorte que l'interprétation était fixée. Pas de mystère dans les lettres. Entre 1865 et 1876, Mallarmé passe de l'idée d'une preuve univoque à celle d'une trace mystérieuse, dont l'interprétation est ouverte. C'est que la première version est dans le registre du savoir. La question qui anime le poème, jusque dans sa destination théâtrale, est : que savons-nous de ce qui a eu lieu ? Preuve (la morsure féminine) et savoir sont liés. Dans la dernière version, le témoignage devient un signe dont le référent est suspendu. La question n'est plus de savoir ce qui a eu lieu, elle est de faire vérité d'un événement indécidable. À la vieille question romantique du rêve et de la réalité, Mallarmé substitue celle de l'origine événementielle du vrai et de son rapport à la donation d'un lieu. Telles sont les composantes du mystère.
Le poème dit : ma flûte d'artiste a choisi comme confident propre, comme ce à quoi elle se confie, un tel mystère. « Mystère » fonctionne dès lors comme le répondant du « je » musicien de la flûte et ouvre à un renouveau de l'hypothèse selon quoi le référent du mystère est artistique plutôt qu'amoureux.
Très intriqués, les vers 45 à 48 (à partir de « Qui, détournant à soi... ») énoncent que la flûte, ramenant à soi ce qui pourrait attester le désir ou le trouble, établit pour le seul compte de l'art un rêve musical. L'artiste et son art amusaient le décor en établissant des équivoques entre la beauté du lieu et leur chant crédule. La flûte dont joue l'artiste sous le ciel a pu prendre comme confident un tel mystère en ramenant à soi toutes les virtualités du désir. Elle distrait toute la beauté du lieu en établissant une constante équivoque avec son chant. Elle rêve de faire, avec la même intensité que celle dont l'amour est capable, évanouir, se dissiper, le songe fantomatique que l'on peut avoir de tel ou tel corps. Elle a puissance de tirer de ce matériau du songe « une sonore, vaine et monotone ligne ».
L'évidente affectation de ce passage, sa préciosité complaisante soulignent que le mystère du songe évanoui des corps désirés peut tout simplement être un effet de l'art, et ne contraint pas à une supposition événementielle. Un désir sans rencontre, sans objet réel, s'il est capté par l'art (capable d'établir des « confusions »), peut susciter dans la situation une trace mystérieuse.
La trace artistique est mystérieuse car elle n'est trace que d'elle-même.
L'idée de Mallarmé, c'est que l'art est capable de produire dans le monde une trace qui, ne se rapportant qu'à son propre tracé, reste fermée sur son énigme. L'art peut créer la trace d'un désir sans objet rencontré (au sens du réel). Là est son mystère. Mystère de son équivalence au désir, économie faite de tout objet.
Ce qui expose à la deuxième tentation.
7) Deuxième tentation : se contenter du simulacre artistique
Tâche donc, instrument des fuites, ô maligne
Syrinx, de refleurir aux lacs où tu m'attends !
Moi, de ma rumeur fier, je vais parler longtemps
Des déesses ; et par d'idolâtres peintures,
À leur ombre enlever encore des ceintures :
Ainsi, quand des raisins j'ai sucé la clarté,
Pour bannir un regret par ma feinte écarté,
Rieur, j'élève au ciel d'été la grappe vide,
Et, soufflant dans ses peaux lumineuses, avide
D'ivresse, jusqu'au soir je regarde au travers.
La transition s'adresse à sa flûte, puisque l'hypothèse précédente est que tout procède de l'art. Le poème dit : toi, instrument de l'art, va recommencer ta tâche. Moi, je voudrais revenir à mon désir, auquel tu prétends équivaloir.
Le faune désirant est ici distingué du faune artiste. Mais, en même temps, la scène érotique est présentée comme pure rêverie, et par conséquent l'événement (la venue réelle des nymphes) est annulé. Nous sommes ici dans la deuxième tentation qui est de se contenter, subjectivement, du simulacre, du désir sans objet. C'est ce qu'on pourrait nommer une interprétation perverse de l'hypothèse antérieure. Elle consiste à dire : peut-être est-ce mon art qui a créé ce mystère, mais moi, je vais le remplir d'un simulacre désirant. Telle sera ma jouissance. Il est alors essentiel que le simulacre ainsi conçu soit une ivresse, ivresse qui détourne de toute vérité. Si le simulacre est possible, alors je n'ai plus besoin de la fidélité, puisque ce qui s'est absenté, je peux l'imiter, l'artificialiser, en tant qu'un vide, qui est aussi un vide sensible (les raisins gonflés d'air). Un simulacre est toujours le remplacement d'une fidélité à l'événement par la mise en scène d'un vide.
Dans la question de l'événement, la fonction du vide est centrale, car ce que l'événement convoque, fait advenir, c'est le vide de la situation. L'événement atteste, en faisant basculer le réel du côté de « ce qui n'était pas là », que l'être du « il y a » est le vide. Il défait l'apparence du plein. Un événement, c'est la mise en défaut d'une plénitude.
Mais, comme l'événement s'évanouit et que n'en subsiste que le nom, il n'y a pas d'autre manière véridique de traiter ce vide, dans la situation reconstituée, que d'être fidèle à ce nom en plus (être fidèle aux nymphes). Cependant, demeure une nostalgie du vide lui-même tel qu'il fut convoqué dans l'éclair de l'événement. C'est la nostalgie tentatrice d'un vide qui serait plein, d'un vide habitable, d'une extase perpétuelle. Il y faut, bien entendu, l'aveuglement de l'ivresse.
C'est à quoi le faune s'abandonne, et contre quoi il ne trouve de recours que dans la brutale reprise de la mémoire narrative.
8) La scène du crime
Ô nymphes, regonflons des SOUVENIRS divers.
_« Mon œil, trouant les joncs, dardait chaque encolure_
_Immortelle, qui noie en l'onde sa brûlure_
_Avec un cri de rage au ciel de la forêt ;_
_Et le splendide bain de cheveux disparaît_
_Dans les clartés et les frissons, ô pierreries !_
_J'accours ; quand, à mes pieds, s'entrejoignent (meurtries_
_De la langueur goûtée à ce mal d'être deux)_
_Des dormeuses parmi leurs seuls bras hasardeux ;_
_Je les ravis, sans les désenlacer, et vole_
_À ce massif, haï par l'ombrage frivole,_
_De roses tarissant tout parfum au soleil,_
_Où notre ébat au jour consumé soit pareil. »_
Je t'adore, courroux des vierges, ô délice
Farouche du sacré fardeau nu qui se glisse
Pour fuir ma lèvre en feu buvant, comme un éclair
Tressaille ! la frayeur secrète de la chair :
Des pieds de l'inhumaine au cœur de la timide
Que délaisse à la fois une innocence, humide
De larmes folles ou de moins tristes vapeurs.
_« Mon crime, c'est d'avoir, gai de vaincre ces peurs_
_Traîtresses, divisé la touffe échevelée_
_De baisers que les dieux gardaient si bien mêlée :_
_Car, à peine j'allais cacher un rire ardent_
_Sous les replis heureux d'une seule (gardant_
_Par un doigt simple, afin que sa candeur de plume_
_Se teignît à l'émoi de sa sœur qui s'allume,_
_La petite, naïve et ne rougissant pas :)_
_Que de mes bras, défaits par de vagues trépas,_
_Cette proie, à jamais ingrate se délivre_
_Sans pitié du sanglot dont j'étais encore ivre. »_
Cette longue séquence prend vigoureusement appui sur la prose intérieure, sur les italiques du récit, sur la vaine prétention du souvenir. Elle raconte sans détour, d'abord comment le faune a ravi le couple des nymphes, puis comment il l'a perdu, les deux beautés s'évanouissant entre ses bras. L'érotisme y est appuyé, presque vulgaire (« humide de moins tristes vapeurs », « sa sœur qui s'allume », etc.). Ce n'est pas la « vague littérature » de Verlaine (par ailleurs poète obscène, comme on sait), ni les mots « allusifs, jamais directs » de Mallarmé lui-même (par ailleurs poète obscène également, lire « Une négresse par le démon secouée »).
Le premier récit, dans la section 4, était au régime de la convocation du lieu. Les « bords siciliens d'un calme marécage » devaient confesser l'événement-nymphes qui les avait affectés. Les deux récits de cette section 8 sont confiés directement à la mémoire (« regonflons des SOUVENIRS divers »). Y a-t-il coïncidence narrative ? Pas tout à fait. La première occurrence prosaïque raconte seulement la disparition des nymphes. Elle est centrée sur la dimension évanouissante de l'événement. Cette fois, nous avons une description positive, une scène érotique en forme, qui identifie le nom (« ces nymphes ») et en ratifie le pluriel (les deux femmes sont clairement distinguées, en même temps qu'est affirmée leur indistinction relative, puisque les dieux les gardaient « mêlées »).
Cependant, que vaut, pour le devenir-vrai du poème, la précision érotique des souvenirs ?
La mémoire a cette équivoque essentielle qu'elle est sous le signe du nom. Le lieu peut bien être innocent de l'événement, la mémoire ne l'est jamais, car elle est préstructurée par la nomination. Elle prétend nous livrer l'événement comme tel, mais c'est une imposture, car tout son récit est commandé par l'impératif du nom, et il se pourrait qu'elle ne soit qu'un exercice, logique et rétroactif, induit par l'indéracinable assertion « ces nymphes ».
Il n'y a jamais de mémoire de l'événement pur. Sa face d'abolition n'est pas mémorielle. Ce sont l'innocence du lieu, l'équivoque des traces qui ont raison sur ce point. Il n'y a mémoire que de ce que peut susciter la fixité du nom. C'est pourquoi, si précise soit-elle, la séquence propose seulement de nouveaux matériaux au doute.
Le premier des deux récits de la séquence évoque l'enlacement endormi des deux nymphes, et leur saisie par le désir du faune. Le second la disparition, par division contrainte, de ce nu bicéphale.
Le noyau fantasmatique lesbien est patent. Inauguré poétiquement par Baudelaire, il court dans tout le siècle, peinture comprise (pensons aux dormeuses de Courbet). De ce motif convenu, on peut attendre sans doute quelque méditation sous-jacente sur l'Un et le Deux (le « mal d'être deux »). Car tout se joue dans la maintenance de l'enlacement du même au même.
Il y a deux temps essentiels, le vers 71 (« Je les ravis, sans les désenlacer ») et les vers 82 et 83 (« Mon crime, c'est d'avoir, gai de vaincre ces peurs, divisé la touffe »). Enlacement et délacement. Un du Deux, et Deux fatal de l'Un.
Les deux femmes enlacées constituent une totalité autosuffisante, le fantasme d'un désir fermé sur soi, voué au même, un désir sans autre, faudrait-il dire incastré ? En tout cas, du Deux _comme Un_. C'est ce désir en boucle qui suscite le désir extérieur du faune, et c'est ce qui aussi entraînera sa perte. Car ce que le faune ne comprend pas, c'est que la rencontre des nymphes n'est pas une rencontre _pour_ son désir, mais rencontre _du_ désir. Le faune traite comme objet (et donc cherche à diviser, à traiter « partiellement ») ce qui, justement, n'était une totalité qu'à se passer de tout objet, à figurer le désir pur.
La leçon douloureuse que reçoit le faune est celle-ci : dans un événement véritable, ce n'est jamais d'un objet du désir qu'il est question, mais du désir comme tel, du désir pur. L'allégorie lesbienne est présentation close de cette pureté.
On fera un sort particulier au passage (vers 75 à 81, interruption des italiques) qui sépare les deux récits de cette section. Car il s'agit du seul moment proprement subjectivé (« Je t'adore, courroux des vierges »), du moment où le désir est _déclaré_.
Il importe de distinguer la déclaration de la nomination. Appelons « déclaration » – la nomination (« ces nymphes ») ayant eu lieu – le fait d'énoncer son propre rapport à cette nomination. C'est le temps crucial d'induction du sujet sous le nom de l'événement. Tout sujet se déclare (« je t'adore ») comme rapport à la nomination, et donc en fidélité désirante à l'événement.
La déclaration du faune s'intercale entre deux temps du récit, dont le premier est sous le signe de l'Un, et l'autre sous le signe de la division. Il fait cette déclaration au moment d'avouer qu'il n'a pas su être fidèle à l'Un du désir pur.
C'est qu'il y a infidélité chaque fois que la déclaration s'avère hétérogène à la nomination, ou s'inscrit dans une autre série subjective que celle qu'impose la nomination. Tel est bien le « crime » du faune.
Il est d'avoir tenté, sous le signe d'une déclaration désirante hétérogène (vouloir s'unir érotiquement aux deux nymphes séparément), la disjonction de ce dont l'Un, comme désir pur absorbant le Deux, était gardé par les dieux, comme puissance insécable du surgissement événementiel. Le crime est de faire objet de ce qui survient tout autrement qu'un objet. La force subjectivante d'un événement n'est pas le désir d'un objet, mais le désir d'un désir.
Mallarmé nous dit : quiconque restaure la catégorie de l'objet, que l'événement destitue toujours, est renvoyé à l'abolition pure et simple. Les nymphes se dissolvent dans les bras de qui prétendait en faire l'objet de son désir, au lieu d'être conséquent avec la rencontre d'un désir neuf. Il n'y aura plus pour lui d'autre trace de l'événement que le sentiment d'une perte.
Quand il y a événement, l'objectivation (le « crime ») convoque la perte. C'est le grand problème de la fidélité à un événement, de l'éthique de la fidélité : comment ne pas restituer l'objet et l'objectivité ?
L'objectivation, c'est l'analyse, et c'est aussi le vice narratif de la mémoire. Le faune analyse un souvenir et se perd dans l'objectivité.
Le faune, ou du moins le faune de la mémoire, le faune prosaïque, n'a pas su être ce qu'exige de nous l'événement : un sujet sans objet.
9) Troisième tentation : le nom unique et sacré
Tant pis ! vers le bonheur d'autres m'entraîneront
Par leur tresse nouée aux cornes de mon front :
Tu sais, ma passion, que, pourpre et déjà mûre,
Chaque grenade éclate et d'abeilles murmure ;
Et notre sang, épris de qui le va saisir,
Coule pour tout l'essaim éternel du désir.
À l'heure où ce bois d'or et de cendres se teinte
Une fête s'exalte en la feuillée éteinte :
Etna ! c'est parmi toi visité de Vénus
Sur ta lave posant ses talons ingénus,
Quand tonne un somme triste ou s'épuise la flamme.
Je tiens la reine !
Ô sûr châtiment...
Non,
Toujours infidèle, le faune adopte d'abord la position classique de qui renonce à être sujet d'un événement : il ne s'est rien passé d'unique, une de perdue dix de retrouvées, etc. Dissolution de la singularité dans la répétition. C'est, bien sûr, se soustraire à la nomination, comme l'indique que « d'autres » puissent venir à la place de « ces nymphes ». Cette altérité répétitive, où ne se tient plus que la monotonie du désir abstrait, est le voile traditionnel de l'abandon de toute vérité. Au demeurant, une vérité ne saurait s'indiquer sous le « tant pis » de l'esprit fort, non plus du reste que sous le « tant mieux » de l'esprit inquiet.
Mais sous cette déception camouflée, commandée par le sentiment de la perte, mûrit une autre posture, une posture prophétique, l'annonce du retour de ce qui a été perdu. C'est une figure plus intéressante. Au regard d'un événement dont n'est plus subjectivée que la disparition, on peut prophétiser le retour, et même le Retour (éternel), car la force du désir, indexée à la perte, est toujours là. La disponibilité du désir sans nom, du désir anonyme, nourrit l'annonce du retour. Car c'est pour « tout l'essaim éternel du désir » que n'a pas eu lieu la rencontre singulière, et que peut donc en revenir le principe.
La difficulté, qui perpétue le crime, est que ce retour est forcément celui de l'objet. Et même, comme on va le voir, de l'hypostase de l'objet en Objet : la Chose, ou le Dieu.
Cette section entérine le peu de foi qu'il faut accorder à la mémoire, en ce qu'elle ne fait que déplier le crime, jusqu'à ses conséquences transcendantes. Sous le signe faussement gai du « tant pis », la disposition analytique et objective subsiste. Du coup, ce qui va revenir est la perte, qui est dans son essence la perte de « ces nymphes ».
_A contrario_ , ce à quoi on peut être fidèle a pour caractéristique de ne pas se répéter. Une vérité est dans l'élément de l'irrépétable. La répétition de l'objet ou de la perte (c'est la même chose) n'est que décevante infidélité à la singularité irrépétable du vrai.
Le faune va tenter de combler d'avance cette déception en évoquant un objet absolu. Non plus les femmes, mais la Femme, non plus les amours, mais la déesse de l'amour, non plus des sujettes, mais la reine. Tramée dans l'image de l'essaim, qui s'articule au désir abstrait, Vénus descend sur le lieu comme la reine inexistante des abeilles du réel.
C'est l'entrée en scène de la troisième tentation, celle de la nomination par un nom unique et sacré, par quoi on abandonne l'idée de la singularité de la rencontre au profit d'un nom définitif et immémorial.
Cette venue du nom sacré est soigneusement, théâtralement mise en scène. On assiste à un changement des lumières et du décor. On entre dans le crépuscule du poème. L'étang solaire est remplacé par le motif du volcan et de la lave (« bois d'or et de cendres »). La logique du « tant pis » prépare à l'atmosphère prénocturne de la déception (« Quand tonne un somme triste ou s'épuise la flamme »). Bonne image des conditions de surgissement d'une transcendance factice : il est de l'essence du dieu de venir toujours trop tard. Le dieu n'est jamais que la dernière tentation.
Le brusque « sûr châtiment » indique, immotivé, un sursaut lucide du faune (et du poète) : la tentation du sacré, du nom unique auquel sacrifier la nomination de l'événement, de la Vénus qui vient à la place de toute nymphe singulière, de l'Objet qui annule tout réel, entraînerait des conséquences très graves (en fait, le basculement du poème dans on ne sait quel prophétisme romantique). La tentation est révoquée.
10) Signification conclusive du sommeil et de l'ombre
mais l'âme
De paroles vacante et ce corps alourdi
Tard succombent au fier silence de midi :
Sans plus il faut dormir en l'oubli du blasphème
Sur le sable altéré gisant et comme j'aime
Ouvrir ma bouche à l'astre efficace des vins !
Couple, adieu ; je vais voir l'ombre que tu devins.
Révoquant en doute la figure crépusculaire et cendreuse de la déesse, le faune est restitué au midi de sa vérité. C'est elle, cette vérité suspendue, qu'il va rejoindre dans le sommeil.
Il importe de connecter ce sommeil, cette ivresse seconde, très éloignée de celle qui accompagnait le simulacre musicien, au motif terminal de l'ombre, et de l'inspection de ce qu'elle sera devenue. L'ombre du couple, c'est ce que le nom « ces nymphes » aura pour toujours induit dans le poème. Le faune nous dit : je vais aller voir dans l'abri du nom ce que « ces nymphes », le nom invariable, aura été. L'ombre est l'Idée, au futur antérieur de sa procession poétique.
L'ombre est la vérité de la rencontre des nymphes telle que le faune se destine à la perpétuer. Le doute est ce à travers quoi le faune a su résister aux tentations successives. Le sommeil est cette immobilité tenace où le faune peut demeurer, étant passé du nom à la vérité du nom, qui est le poème en son entier, et du « faune » au « je » anonyme dont tout l'être est d'avoir perpétué les nymphes.
Le sommeil est fidélité compacte, ténacité, continuité. Cette fidélité dernière est l'acte même du sujet devenu, elle est « de paroles vacantes », car elle n'a plus besoin d'expérimenter des hypothèses. Et elle est « corps alourdi », car elle n'a plus besoin de l'agitation du désir.
À la différence du sujet de Lacan, qui est désir machiné par les mots, le sujet mallarméen de la vérité poétique n'est ni âme ni corps, ni langage ni désir. Il est acte et lieu, obstination anonyme qui trouve sa métaphore dans le sommeil.
« Je vais voir », tout simplement, le lieu d'où le poème en son entier a été possible. « Je » vais écrire ce poème. Ce voir du sommeil va commencer par : « Ces nymphes, je les veux perpétuer. »
Entre « ces nymphes » et le « je » de leur perpétuation, entre la disparition événementielle des beautés nues et l'anonymat du faune livré au sommeil, il y aura eu la fidélité du poème. Elle seule subsiste pour toujours.
Récapitulation
1) L'événement
Le poème rappelle son indécidabilité. C'est l'un des plus grands thèmes mallarméens. Rien, à l'intérieur d'une situation, salon, tombeau, étang ou surface de la mer, ne peut forcer la reconnaissance de l'événement comme événement. La question du hasard de l'événement, de son indécidabilité d'appartenance, est telle que, si nombreuses qu'en soient les traces, l'événement reste au suspens de sa déclaration.
L'événement a deux faces. Pensé dans son être, il est supplément anonyme, incertitude, flottement du désir. Nous ne pouvons pas réellement décrire la venue des nymphes. Pensé selon son nom, l'événement est un impératif de fidélité. Il y aura eu ces nymphes, mais ce n'est que tramer l'obéissance du poème à cette injonction qui fait vérité de cet avoir-eu-lieu.
2) Le nom
Il est fixe. « Ces nymphes », cela ne changera pas, malgré le doute et les tentations. Cette invariabilité appartient à la nouvelle situation, celle du faune qui s'éveille. Le nom est le présent, le seul présent, de l'événement. La question de la vérité peut se dire : que faire d'un présent nominal ? Le poème épuise les options, et conclut qu'autour du nom une vérité se crée, qui aura été la traversée de ces options, y compris les pires, les tentations de ne rien faire du don du présent.
3) La fidélité
a) Négativement, le poème esquisse une théorie complète de l'infidélité. Sa forme la plus immédiate est la mémoire, l'infidélité narrative, ou historienne. Être fidèle à un événement ne veut jamais dire qu'on s'en souvient, et signifie toujours, en revanche, les usages que l'on fait de son nom. Mais, outre le péril de la mémoire, le poème expose trois figures tentatrices, trois façons d'abdiquer :
– L'identification au lieu, ou figure de l'extase. Abandonnant le nom surnuméraire, cette figure abolit le sujet dans la permanence du lieu.
– Le choix du simulacre. Acceptant que le nom soit fictif, cette figure remplit son vide d'une plénitude désirante. Le sujet dès lors n'est que la toute-puissance ivre, où le plein et le vide sont confondus.
– Le choix d'un nom immémorial et unique, qui surplombe et écrase la singularité de l'événement.
Disons que l'extase, la plénitude et le sacré sont les trois tentations qui, de l'intérieur d'un surgissement événementiel, en organisent la corruption et le déni.
b) Positivement, le poème établit l'existence d'un opérateur de fidélité, qui ici est le couple des hypothèses et du doute qui les frappe. À partir de quoi se compose un trajet aléatoire, qui explore sous le nom fixe toute la situation, expérimente, surmonte les tentations et conclut au futur antérieur du sujet que ce trajet est devenu. Les types de trajets ici pris en compte relèvent, quant à la détermination du « je » en proie au nom « ces nymphes », du désir amoureux et de la production poétique.
Du désir qui s'attache au nom de ce qui a disparu dépend que, révoqué ce désir, un sujet soit tissé de cette vérité singulière qu'il fit devenir à son insu.
Annexe
Textes publiés utilisés comme matériau
dans la composition de ce livre
« Art et philosophie », _in_ Christian Descamps, éd., _Artistes et Philosophes : éducateurs ?_ , Paris, centre Georges-Pompidou, 1994.
« Philosophie et poésie au point de l'innommable », in _Po &sie_, n° 64, Paris, 1993.
« La danse comme métaphore de la pensée », _in_ Ciro Bruni, éd., _Danse et Pensée_ , Paris, GERMS, 1993.
« Dix thèses sur le théâtre », in _Les Cahiers de la Comédie-Française_ , Paris, 1995.
« Le cinéma comme faux mouvement », in _L'Art du cinéma_ , n° 4, Paris, 1994.
« Peut-on parler d'un film ? », in _L'Art du cinéma_ , n° 6, Paris, 1994.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Books3 |
## Pattern Services and Revisions
If you are an Annie's customer and have a question about the instructions on a pattern you have purchased, please visit:
AnniesCatalog.com/pages/customer_care/pattern_services.html
## Templates
To download templates for easy printing, view the download instructions at the end of this book or click the "Templates" chapter in the Table of Contents.
## Introduction
One of the side effects of quilting is the ever-growing stash and scraps that seem to appear like magic. It seems, as quilters, we tend to buy a bit extra "just in case," or we cut something wrong but the fabric is just too gorgeous to toss. So, we start a scrap basket or a drawer for the extras. Sometimes we simply buy a beautiful piece of fabric with no project in mind, and so it joins the stash. After a few months or years we notice that what was once a small basket or drawer has turned into an entire sewing room full of beautiful fabrics waiting for a project.
Well _Stash-Busting Quilts_ will become your go-to book for inspiration when cleaning out your stash. With nine creative patterns designed with stash and scraps in mind, you can't go wrong. Some of our most talented designers have put forth their best efforts and this collection was born. This is the book you'll want to keep handy when you feel the urge to clean, organize and use your stashed treasures.
This book has something for everyone—quilts in all sizes and table runners in all styles. All you need is stash and the desire to use it.
## Table of Contents
Pattern Services and Revisions
Templates
Introduction
Village by the Sea
The Whole Box of Crayons
Color Perfect
Scrap Basket Table Runner
Cakes
Checks & Balances
Nose-Diving Quilt
Simply Sophisticated Table Runner
Welcome to the Neighborhood
**General Information**
Quilting Basics
Special Thanks
Supplies
## Village by the Sea
Slice your way through the scraps in your stash to stitch up these easy blocks and create a fun beach community.
Design by Lyn Brown
Quilted by Cathy O'Brien
### **Skill Level**
Confident Beginner
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 70" × 86"
Block Sizes: 6" × 16" finished and 4" × 16" finished
Number of Blocks: 24 and 12
* * *
### **Materials**
• Assorted batik scraps for houses in blue, green, purple, pink, gold, teal, yellow and orange
• Assorted red batik scraps
• 3⅛ yards white batik
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From assorted batik scraps for houses:**
• Cut 12 (5½" × 6½") G rectangles.
• Cut 12 matching sets of 1 each 5½" × 6½" E rectangle and 3⅞" F square.
• Cut 12 (3½" × 6½") J rectangles.
• Cut 12 matching sets of 1 each 3½" × 6½" H rectangle and 3⅞" I square.
• Cut 12 (4½") N squares.
• Cut 12 matching sets of 1 each 4½" × 5½" L rectangle and 2⅞" M square.
### **From assorted red batik scraps:**
• Cut 20 (3½" × 7½") R strips, 18 (3½" × 6½") S strips and 4 (3½") T squares.
• Cut 9 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
• Cut 12 (7¼") squares.
Cut each square on both diagonals to make 48 B triangles.
• Cut 6 (5¼") squares.
Cut each square on both diagonals to make 24 D triangles.
### **From white batik:**
• Cut 1 (76½" by fabric width) strip.
Subcut strip into 2 each 5½" × 76½" U, 5½" × 70½" V, 3½" × 64½" P and 3½" × 54½" Q strips.
• Cut 3 (3⅞" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 24 (3⅞") squares. Cut each square in half on 1 diagonal to make 48 A triangles.
• Cut 1 (2⅞" by fabric width) strip.
Subcut strip into 12 (2⅞") squares. Cut each square in half on 1 diagonal to make 24 C triangles.
• Cut 3 (4½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 12 each (4½" × 6½") K and (2½" × 4½") O rectangles.
### **Completing the Blocks**
**1**. Sew an A triangle on one short side of a B triangle as shown in Figure 1a; press. Sew an A triangle on the remaining short side of B (Figure 1b) to make an A-B unit; press. Repeat to make a total of 24 A-B units.
**2**. Sew a C triangle on one short side of a D triangle as shown in Figure 2a; press. Sew a C triangle on the remaining short side of D (Figure 2b) to make a C-D unit; press. Repeat to make a total of 12 C-D units.
### **Tall House Blocks**
**1**. Select one each A-B unit, B triangle and G rectangle, and one matching set of one each E rectangle and F square for one block.
**2**. Cut the F square in half on one diagonal to make two F triangles. Sew the F triangles to the two short sides of the B triangle to make the B-F unit as shown in Figure 3; press.
**3**. Arrange and join the units and the E and G rectangles in a vertical row referring to the block drawing to complete one Tall House block; press toward the rectangles.
**4**. Repeat steps 1–3 to make a total of 12 Tall House blocks.
### **Short House Blocks**
**1**. Select one each A-B unit, B triangle and J and K rectangle, and one matching set of one each H rectangle and I square for one block.
**2**. Cut the I square in half on one diagonal to make two I triangles. Sew the I triangles to the two short sides of the B triangle to make the B-I unit as shown in Figure 4; press.
**3**. Arrange and join the units and the H, J and K rectangles in a vertical row referring to the block drawing to make one Short House block; press toward the rectangles.
**4**. Repeat steps 1–3 to make a total of 12 Short House blocks.
### **Narrow House Blocks**
**1**. Select one each C-D unit, D triangle, N square and O rectangle, and one matching set of one each L rectangle and M square.
**2**. Cut the M square in half on one diagonal to make two M triangles. Sew the M triangles to the two short sides of the D triangle to make the D-M unit as shown in Figure 5; press.
**3**. Arrange and join the units, N square, and L and O rectangles in a vertical row referring to the block drawing to make one Narrow House block; press away from the C-D and D-M units.
**4**. Repeat steps 1–3 to make a total of 12 Narrow House blocks.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram for positioning of blocks and borders.
**1**. Arrange and sew three each Tall House, Short House and Narrow House blocks to make a row; press. Repeat to make a total of four rows.
**2**. Join the rows to complete the quilt center; press.
**3**. Sew P strips to opposite sides and Q strips to top and bottom of quilt center; press.
**4**. Sew 10 R strips together on short ends to make one side border strip; press. Repeat to make a second side border strip. Sew the strips to opposite sides of the quilt center; press.
**5**. Sew nine S strips together on short ends to make a long strip; press. Sew a T square to each end to make the top border strip; press. Repeat to make the bottom border strip. Sew the strips to the top and bottom of the quilt center; press.
**6**. Sew U strips to opposite sides of quilt center and V strips top and bottom to complete the quilt top; press.
**7**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## The Whole Box of Crayons
Scrappy doesn't mean messy—it means playing with unlimited colors.
Design by Chris Malone
Quilted by Jean McDaniel
### **Skill Level**
Beginner
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 63" × 63"
Block Size: 9" × 9" finished
Number of Blocks: 49
* * *
### **Materials**
• ⅝ yard black print
• ⅝ yard white tonal
• 4¼ yards total assorted-color scraps
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
* * *
**Here's a Tip**
_"Often we worry about what colors 'go together,' but if you open up a big new box of crayons, all you see are bright, happy colors, each with its own personality. So use the whole box for the fullest experience!"_
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From black print:**
• Cut 7 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
#### **From white tonal:**
• Cut 5 (3½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 49 (3½") A squares.
#### **From assorted-color scraps:**
• Cut 49 sets of 2 each matching-color 2" × 3½" B rectangles and 2" × 6½" C rectangles.
• Cut 49 sets of 4 each matching-color 2" × 3½" D rectangles and 2" × 5" E rectangles.
### **Completing the Blocks**
**1**. For one block, select one matching-color set of B and C rectangles and a different-color set of D and E rectangles.
**2**. Sew B rectangles to opposite sides of an A square as shown in Figure 1 to make an A-B unit; press.
**3**. Referring to Figure 2, sew C rectangles to opposite sides of A-B unit to complete block center; press.
**4**. Sew two D rectangles together on short ends to make a D-D strip as shown in Figure 3; press. Repeat to make a second D-D strip. Repeat to make two E-E strips.
**5**. Sew D-D strips to opposite sides of block center; press. Sew E-E strips to top and bottom to complete one Crayons block; press.
**6**. Repeat steps 1–5 to make a total of 49 Crayons blocks.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram for positioning of blocks.
**1**. Arrange and sew Crayons blocks into seven rows of seven blocks each turning every other block in each row; press.
**2**. Sew rows together to complete the quilt top; press.
**3**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## Color Perfect
If the scrappy look isn't your style, try coordinating the colors and use a solid background to bring it all together.
Designed & Quilted by Holly Daniels
### **Skill Level**
Confident Beginner
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 60" × 60"
Block Size: 15" × 15" finished
Number of Blocks: 16
* * *
### **Materials**
• 2½ yards total green scraps
• ⅓ yard dark green tonal
• 3¼ yards white solid
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From green scraps:**
• Cut 2½" by various length strips to total 260" when joined for binding.
• Cut 128 (3⅞") B squares.
#### **From dark green tonal:**
• Cut 4 (2" by fabric width) E strips.
#### **From white solid:**
• Cut 13 (3⅞" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 128 (3⅞") A squares.
• Cut 8 (6½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut 4 strips into 64 (2" × 6½") C strips.
Label 4 remaining strips as D.
### **Completing the Block**
**1**. Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each A square. Referring to Figure 1, pair A and B squares with right sides together and stitch ¼" from each side of drawn line. Cut on line to make two A-B units; press. Repeat to make a total of 256 A-B units.
**2**. Arrange and stitch four A-B units into two rows as shown in Figure 2a; press. Referring to Figure 2b, sew rows together to make a corner unit; press. Repeat to make a total of 64 corner units.
**3**. Sew one each E and D strip on long sides to make a strip set as shown in Figure 3; press seam toward E. Repeat to make a total of four strip sets. Subcut strip sets into 64 (2" × 8") D-E units.
**4**. Referring to Figure 4, stitch a C strip to one side of each corner unit; press.
**5**. Stitch a D-E unit onto the adjacent side of each corner unit as shown in Figure 5 to make 64 quarter blocks; press.
**6**. Arrange four quarter blocks as shown in the block drawing. Stitch quarter blocks into rows, then join rows to complete one Color Perfect block; press seams toward white sides to reduce bulk. Repeat to make a total of 16 blocks.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram for positioning of blocks.
**1**. Arrange and sew blocks into four rows of four blocks each; press.
**2**. Sew rows together to complete the quilt top; press.
**3**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## Scrap Basket Table Runner
Turn your scraps and stash into something beautiful. Sort your favorite dark neutrals for the baskets and add touches of color to fill those baskets.
Designed & Quilted by Chris Malone
### **Skill Level**
Confident Beginner
### **Specifications**
Runner Size: 48" × 16"
Block Size: 8" × 8" finished
Number of Blocks: 12
* * *
### **Materials**
• Scrap black solid
• Scraps 12 bright florals
• ⅜ yard multicolored print
• ½ yard total assorted gray and black scraps
• ¾ yard white-with-black dots
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• 2 (1"-diameter) black buttons
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From black solid scrap:**
• Cut 12 (1½") F squares.
#### **From each bright floral scrap:**
• Cut 2 (2⅞") E squares.
#### **From multicolored print:**
• Cut 4 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
#### **From assorted gray & black scraps:**
• Cut 12 matching sets of 1 (2⅞") C square and 4 (2½") D squares.
#### **From white-with-black dots:**
• Cut 3 (2⅞" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 36 (2⅞") A squares.
• Cut 5 (2½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 72 (2½") B squares.
### **Completing the Block**
**1**. Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each A and F square.
**2**. Select three A squares, six B squares, one set of C and D squares, two same-floral E squares and one F square for one Basket block.
**3**. Referring to Figure 1, pair A and C squares with right sides together and stitch ¼" from each side of drawn line. Cut on line to make two A-C units; press.
**4**. Pair A and E squares with right sides together and stitch ¼" from each side of drawn line as shown in Figure 2. Cut on line to make two A-E units; press. Repeat to make a total of four A-E units.
**5**. Referring to Figure 3, place an F square right sides together on one corner of a B square and stitch on the drawn line. Trim the seam to ¼" and press open to make a B-F unit.
**6**. Arrange and stitch A-C, A-E and B-F units and B and D squares into rows referring to Figure 4; press. Sew rows together to complete one Basket block; press.
**7**. Repeat steps 2–6 to make a total of 12 Basket blocks.
### **Completing the Quilt**
**1**. Arrange four Basket blocks with black F triangles meeting in the center as shown in Figure 5. Sew blocks into two rows and stitch rows together to make a four-basket section. Repeat to make a total of three four-basket sections.
**2**. Sew the three sections together to complete the runner top referring to the Assembly Diagram; press.
**3**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
**4**. Hand-sew a black button to the center of the background space between each four-basket section to finish.
## Cakes
Celebrate your stash and scraps with some Cake blocks. What better way to use luscious fabrics than in a super-sweet treat!
Designed & Quilted by Tricia Lynn Maloney
### **Skill Level**
Confident Beginner
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 50" × 50"
Block Size: 10" × 10" finished
Number of Blocks: 16
* * *
### **Materials**
• 16 precut 2½"-wide assorted scrap strips
• ⅝ yard red solid
• 1⅞ yards white solid
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From precut scrap strips:**
• Cut 16 each 2½" A squares, 2½" × 4½" B strips, 2½" × 6½" C strips, 2½" × 8½" D strips and 2½" × 10½" E strips.
#### **From red solid:**
• Cut 1 (2½" by fabric width) strip.
Subcut strip into 13 (2½") K squares.
• Cut 6 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
#### **From white solid:**
• Cut 17 (2½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 24 (2½" × 10½") J strips, and 32 each 2½" H squares, 2½" × 1½" I rectangles, 2½" × 3½" G rectangles and 2½" × 4½" F rectangles.
• Cut 5 (2½" by fabric width) L strips.
### **Completing the Blocks**
**1**. Sew F rectangles on each end of an A square as shown in Figure 1 to make an A-F unit; press. Repeat to make 16 A-F units.
**2**. Referring to Figure 2, sew G rectangles to each end of a B strip to make a B-G unit; press. Repeat to make 16 B-G units.
**3**. Sew H squares on each end of a C strip as shown in Figure 3 to make a C-H unit; press. Repeat to make 16 C-H units.
**4**. Referring to Figure 4, sew I rectangles to each end of a D strip to make a D-I unit; press. Repeat to make 16 D-I units.
**5**. Arrange and stitch together one each A-F, B-G, C-H and D-I unit with an E rectangle as shown in Figure 5 to complete one Cake block; press.
**6**. Repeat step 5 to make a total of 16 Cake blocks.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram for positioning of block and sashing rows.
**1**. Arrange and sew four blocks and three J strips into a block row as shown in Figure 6; press. Repeat to make a total of four block rows.
**2**. Referring to Figure 7, arrange and sew four J strips and three K squares into a sashing row; press. Repeat to make a total of three sashing rows.
**3**. Alternately sew block and sashing rows together to complete the quilt center; press.
**4**. Sew L strips together on the short ends to make one long strip; press. Subcut strip into four 2½" × 46½" L strips.
**5**. Sew L strips to opposite sides of quilt center, press.
**6**. Sew K squares on opposite ends of remaining L strips to make two K-L border units; press.
**7**. Sew K-L border units to top and bottom of quilt center to complete the quilt top; press.
**8**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## Checks & Balances
This timeless pattern will eat up those small pieces of favorite fabrics and showcase them at the same time.
Design by Bev Getschel
Quilted by Cindy Meservey
### **Skill Level**
Intermediate
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 78" × 92"
Block Size: 12" × 12" finished
Number of Blocks: 24
* * *
### **Materials**
• 120 pastel batik scraps at least 1½" × 20"
• 1½ yards navy blue 2 batik
• 2¼ yards navy blue 1 batik
• 4½ yards light blue batik
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From pastel batik scraps:**
• Cut 120 (1½" × 20") A strips.
#### **From navy blue 2 batik:**
• Cut 3 (3¼" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 28 (3¼") squares. Cut each square in half on 1 diagonal to make 56 B2 triangles.
• Cut 2 (8½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 28 (2½" × 8½") C2 strips.
• Cut 2 (9½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 28 (2½" × 9½") D2 strips.
### **From navy blue 1 batik:**
• Cut 2 (3¼" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 20 (3¼") squares. Cut each square in half on 1 diagonal to make 40 B1 triangles.
• Cut 2 (8½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 20 (2½" × 8½") C1 strips.
• Cut 2 (9½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 20 (2½" × 9½") D1 strips.
• Cut 9 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
#### **From light blue batik:**
• Cut 6 (4⅜" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 48 (4⅜") squares. Cut each square in half on 1 diagonal to make 96 E triangles.
• Cut 4 (12½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 19 (2½" × 12½") F strips, 4 (12½" × 14½") G rectangles and 4 (7½" × 12½") H rectangles.
• Cut 9 (2½" by fabric width) I strips.
• Cut 9 (5½" by fabric width) J/K strips.
### **Completing the Blocks**
**1**. Sew eight A strips together lengthwise to make a strip set as shown in Figure 1; press. Repeat to make a total of 15 strip sets. Subcut strip sets into 192 (1½" × 8½") A segments.
**2**. Referring to Figure 2, arrange and stitch eight A segments together to make an A unit; press. Repeat to make 24 A units.
**3**. To make an Octagon 1 block, select one A unit, four B1 triangles and two each C1 and D1 strips.
**4**. Center and stitch B1 triangles to opposite sides of an A unit as shown in Figure 3a; press. Sew B1 triangles to remaining sides referring to Figure 3b; press. Rotate unit so A unit is on-point and trim to 8½" square to make checkerboard unit as shown in Figures 3c and 3d.
**5**. Referring to Figure 4, sew C strips to top and bottom of checkerboard unit; press. Center and sew D strips to opposite sides of checkerboard unit; press.
**6**. Using a ruler and rotary cutter, trim corners 2¼" from A-B seam as shown in Figure 5. Trim remaining corners to make an octagon.
**7**. Referring to Figure 6, sew E triangles to each corner to complete one Octagon 1 block; press. Trim block to 12½" square, if necessary.
**8**. Repeat steps 3–7 to make a total of 10 Octagon 1 blocks.
**9**. Repeat steps 4–7 to make 14 Octagon 2 blocks using one A unit, four B2 triangles, and two each C2 and D2 strips for each block.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram for positioning of rows, strips and borders.
**1**. Arrange and join four Octagon 2 blocks, two G rectangles and three F strips as shown in Figure 7 to make Row A; press. Repeat to make a second Row A.
**2**. Arrange and stitch five Octagon 1 blocks, two H rectangles and four F strips as shown in Figure 8 to make Row B; press. Repeat to make a second Row B.
**3**. Arrange and alternately sew six Octagon 2 blocks and five F strips as shown in Figure 9 to make Row C; press.
**4**. Sew I strips together on short ends to make one long strip. Subcut strip into four 2½" × 82½" I strips.
**5**. Sew Rows A–C and I strips together to complete the quilt center; press.
**6**. Sew J/K strips together on short ends to make one long strip. Subcut strip into two each 5½" × 82½" J and 5½" × 78½" K strips.
**7**. Sew J strips to opposite sides of quilt center and K strips to the top and bottom to complete the quilt top; press.
**8**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## Nose-Diving Quilt
This is the perfect quilt to use all those leftover 2½" strips or, if need be, cut the colors from your stash.
Design by Nancy Scott Quilted by Masterpiece Quilting
### **Skill Level**
Confident Beginner
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 60" × 72"
Block Size: 12" × 6" finished
Number of Blocks: 60
* * *
### **Materials**
• 55–60 precut 2½" assorted scrap strips
• 2⅔ yards neutral solid
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Ruler with 45-degree line
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From precut scrap strips:**
• Cut 16 (2½" × 20") binding strips.
• Cut 60 each 2½" × 5½" A strips, 2½" × 9½" B strips and 2½" × 13½" C strips.
#### **From neutral solid:**
• Cut 12 (6⅞" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 60 (6⅞") squares. Cut each square in half on 1 diagonal to make 120 D triangles.
### **Completing the Blocks**
**1**. Center and sew one each A, B and C strip together on the long sides as shown in Figure 1 to make a strip set; press. Fold in half top to bottom and press lightly to mark centerline.
**2**. Referring to Figure 2, align the 45-degree line of ruler 6⅝" from bottom centerline and ⅛" from top center of strip set and, using a rotary cutter, trim excess fabric from one end. Repeat on opposite end to make a triangle.
**3**. Sew D triangles to the angled sides of A-B-C triangle referring to the block drawing to complete one Flying Geese block; press.
**4**. Repeat steps 1–3 to make a total of 60 Flying Geese blocks.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram for positioning of blocks.
**1**. Arrange and sew Flying Geese blocks into 12 rows; press.
**2**. Sew rows together to complete the quilt top; press.
**3**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## Simply Sophisticated Table Runner
Think about the kinds of fabrics in your scraps and stash; even scraps can be themed. Fabrics come in every theme from patriotic to holiday.
Design by Nancy Scott
Quilted by Masterpiece Quilting
### **Skill Level**
Confident Beginner
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 75" × 19"
Block Size: 15" × 15" finished
Number of Blocks: 4
* * *
### **Materials**
• Scraps of 4 different blue tonals
• Scraps of 4 different red tonals
• ⅔ yard cream tonal
• 1¼ yards dark blue dot
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
#### **From each blue tonal scrap:**
• Cut 4 (3½") D squares.
#### **From each red tonal scrap:**
• Cut 4 each 3½" E squares and 3⅞" F squares.
#### **From cream tonal:**
• Cut 1 (7¼" by fabric width) strip.
Subcut strip into 1 (7¼") square. Cut in half on 1 diagonal to make 2 I triangles.
• Cut remainder of 7¼" strip into 2 (3½" by remaining fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 16 (3½") H squares.
• Cut 3 (3⅞" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 8 (3⅞") C squares and 16 (3⅞") G squares.
### **From dark blue dot:**
• Cut 5 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
• Cut 1 (3½" by fabric width) strip.
Subcut strip into 4 (3½") A squares.
• Cut 1 (3⅞" by fabric width) strip.
Subcut strip into 8 (3⅞") B squares.
• Cut 2 (2⅝" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 2 each 2⅝" × 10" J strips and 2⅝" × 12" K strips.
• Cut 4 (2½" by fabric width) L strips.
### **Completing the Blocks**
**1**. Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each C and G square.
**2**. Referring to Figure 1, pair C and B squares with right sides together and stitch ¼" from each side of drawn line. Cut on line to make two B-C units; press. Repeat to make a total of 16 B-C units.
**3**. Pair G and F squares with right sides together and stitch ¼" from each side of drawn line as shown in Figure 2. Cut on line to make two F-G units; press. Repeat to make a total of 32 F-G units.
**4**. To make one block, select eight same-fabric F-G units and four matching E squares, four same-fabric D squares, four B-C units, one A square and four H squares.
**5**. Arrange and stitch units and squares into rows referring to Figure 3; press. Sew rows together to complete one Four X Star block; press.
**6**. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to make a total of four blocks.
### **Completing the End Triangles**
**1**. Sew a J strip to one short side of an I triangle as shown in Figure 4; press.
**2**. Referring to Figure 5a, sew a K strip to the adjacent short side of I; press. Trim ends of J and K strips even with the long edge of I to make one end triangle 5b.
**3**. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to make a second end triangle.
### **Completing the Table Runner**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram and project photo throughout for positioning of blocks, end triangles and border.
**1**. Sew blocks together to form a row; press.
**2**. Sew end triangles on opposite ends of row; press.
**3**. Sew L strips together on short ends to make one long strip. Subcut strip into two 2½" × 62" L strips.
**4**. Center and sew L strips to opposite long sides of pieced center. Trim ends of L strips even with angled edges of end triangles to complete the table runner top; press.
**5**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
* * *
**Here's a Tip**
_To custom-fit the length of the table runner to your table, simply change the number of blocks_.
* * *
## Welcome to the Neighborhood
Create your own neighborhood and personalize it with your chosen colors with this great scrap buster!
Designed & Quilted by Lolita Newman
### **Skill Level**
Intermediate
### **Specifications**
Quilt Size: 80" × 80"
Block Size: 8" × 8" finished
Number of Blocks: 96
* * *
**Here's a Tip**
_For a super-scrappy look, incorporate lots of different fabrics into the quilt. For a more uniform look, use fabrics that are very similar in color and print_.
* * *
* * *
### **Materials**
• 33 light and dark 9" × 10" scraps for houses
• ⅝ yard white tonal
• ⅞ yard brick print
• 1⅛ yards green tonal
• 1¼ yards total assorted yellow scraps
• 1½ yards total assorted light scraps
• 1⅔ yards total assorted dark scraps
• 1¾ yards taupe tonal
• Backing to size
• Batting to size
• Thread
• Template material
• Basic sewing tools and supplies
* * *
### **Project Notes**
Read all instructions before beginning this project.
Stitch right sides together using a ¼" seam allowance unless otherwise specified.
Materials and cutting lists assume 40" of usable fabric width for yardage.
### **Cutting**
Prepare templates using full-size patterns given.
#### **From 1 dark house scrap:**
• Cut 1 each 1⅞" × 8½" O, 3⅛" × 3⅞" P, 1½" × 1⅞" R, 1½" × 1⅞" T and 1¾" × 3⅞" U rectangle.
• Cut 4 each 1⅛" × 1⅞" Z and 1½" × 3⅛" AA rectangles.
• Cut 1 (2" × 2⅞") BB rectangle.
#### **From 1 light house scrap:**
• Cut 2 (1⅛" × 2⅞") CC and 1 (1½" × 3¼") DD rectangles.
#### **From each of 31 remaining house scraps:**
• Cut 2 each 1⅞" × 8½" O, 3⅛" × 3⅞" P, 1½" × 1⅞" R, 1½" × 1⅞" T and 1¾" × 3⅞" U rectangles.
#### **From white tonal:**
• Cut 1 (1¾" × 8½") W rectangle and 1 (2⅞") square.
Cut square in half on 1 diagonal to make 2 X triangles.
• Using templates, cut 63 each right (RS) and left (LS) sky triangles.
#### **From brick print:**
• Cut 9 (2¼" by fabric width) binding strips.
#### **From green tonal:**
• Cut 4 (8½" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 64 (1⅞" × 8½") V rectangles.
#### **From assorted yellow scraps:**
• Cut 32 (2½") A squares, 4 (8½") EE squares, 63 (1⅞") S squares, 63 (1¾" × 3⅛") Q rectangles and 2 (1⅞") Y squares.
#### **From assorted light scraps:**
• Cut 32 pairs of matching 1½" × 7½" K and 1½" × 6½" J rectangles.
• Cut 32 pairs of matching 1½" × 5½" G and 1½" × 4½" F rectangles.
• Cut 32 pairs of matching 1½" × 3½" C and 1½" × 2½" B rectangles.
#### **From assorted dark scraps:**
• Cut 32 pairs of matching 1½" × 8½" M and 1½" × 7½" L rectangles.
• Cut 32 pairs of matching 1½" × 6½" I and 1½" × 5½" H rectangles.
• Cut 32 pairs of matching 1½" × 4½" E and 1½" × 3½" D rectangles.
#### **From taupe tonal:**
• Cut 6 (5⅞" by fabric width) strips.
Subcut strips into 63 (3⅛" × 5⅞") N rectangles.
• Using right and left roof edge templates, cut 63 each RR right roof triangles and LR left roof triangles.
• Using roof template, cut 1 roof piece.
### **Completing the Blocks**
#### **Log Cabin Blocks**
**1**. Select matching B and C rectangles. Stitch B rectangle to one side of an A square as shown in Figure 1a; press. Stitch a C rectangle to the adjacent side of the A-B unit referring to Figure 1b; press.
**2**. Select matching D and E rectangles. Referring to Figure 2a, stitch D to the adjacent side of the pieced unit; press. Stitch E to the next side of the pieced unit; press.
**3**. Select matching F and G, and matching H and I rectangles. Continue stitching rectangles in a clockwise order onto the pieced unit as shown in Figure 3, pressing after each seam.
**4**. Select matching J and K and matching L and M rectangles. Referring to Figure 4, continue stitching rectangles in a clockwise order onto the pieced unit to complete one Log Cabin block, pressing after each seam.
**5**. Repeat steps 1–4 to complete a total of 32 Log Cabin blocks.
### **House 1 Blocks**
**1**. Select one each LS, RS, LR and RR triangles. Stitch LS to LR on long sides to make the left roof unit as shown in Figure 5; press. Repeat with RS and RR to make the right roof unit.
**2**. Referring to Figure 6, arrange and stitch roof units on opposite ends of an N rectangle to make the roof unit; press.
**3**. Select matching O, P, R, T and U pieces. Sew R and T rectangles to opposite sides of an S square as shown in Figure 7, press.
**4**. Referring to Figure 8, sew a U rectangle to the bottom of the R-S-T unit to make the window unit; press.
**5**. Sew P and Q rectangles to the window unit as shown in Figure 9 to make the house center unit; press.
**6**. Referring to Figure 10, arrange and join the roof unit, O rectangle, house center unit and V rectangle to complete one House 1 block; press.
**7**. Repeat steps 1–6 to make a total of 63 House 1 blocks.
### **House 2 Block**
**1**. Sew X triangles to opposite ends of the roof piece as shown in Figure 11 to make the roof unit; press.
**2**. Referring to Figure 12a, stitch Z rectangles to opposite sides of Y square; press. Stitch AA strips to top and bottom of Y-Z unit to make a window unit as shown in Figure 12b; press. Repeat to make a second window unit.
**3**. Referring to Figure 13a, stitch CC rectangles to opposite sides of BB; press. Stitch DD strip to top of BB-CC unit to make the door unit as shown in Figure 13b; press.
**4**. Arrange and stitch window units on opposite sides of door unit to make the house center unit; press.
**5**. Referring to Figure 14, arrange and join the W rectangle, roof unit, house center unit and V rectangle to complete the House 2 block; press.
### **Completing the Quilt**
Refer to the Assembly Diagram and project photo throughout for positioning of blocks.
**1**. Arrange and stitch EE squares and Log Cabin, House 1 and House 2 blocks together to form 10 rows; press.
**2**. Sew rows together to complete the quilt top; press.
**3**. Layer, quilt and bind referring to Quilting Basics.
## Templates
To download templates for easy printing, go to:
AnniesCatalog.com/customers/check_code.html
and enter 14141047F
## Quilting Basics
The following is a reference guide. For more information, consult a comprehensive quilting book.
* * *
### **Always:**
• Read through the entire pattern before you begin your project.
• Purchase quality, 100 percent cotton fabrics.
• When considering prewashing, do so with ALL of the fabrics being used. Generally, prewashing is not required in quilting.
• Use ¼" seam allowance for all stitching unless otherwise instructed.
• Use a short-to-medium stitch length.
• Make sure your seams are accurate.
* * *
* * *
### **Quilting Tools & Supplies**
• Rotary cutter and mat
• Scissors for paper and fabric
• Non-slip quilting rulers
• Marking tools
• Sewing machine
• Sewing machine feet:
¼" seaming foot (for piecing)
Walking or even-feed foot (for piecing or quilting)
Darning or free-motion foot (for free-motion quilting)
• Quilting hand-sewing needles
• Straight pins
• Curved safety pins for basting
• Seam ripper
• Iron and ironing surface
* * *
### **Basic Techniques**
#### **Appliqué**
##### **Fusible Appliqué**
All templates are reversed for use with this technique.
**1**. Trace the instructed number of templates ¼" apart onto the paper side of paper-backed fusible web. Cut apart the templates, leaving a margin around each, and fuse to the wrong side of the fabric following fusible web manufacturer's instructions.
**2**. Cut the appliqué pieces out on the traced lines, remove paper backing and fuse to the background referring to the appliqué motif given.
**3**. Finish appliqué raw edges with a straight, satin, blanket, zigzag or blind-hem machine stitch with matching or invisible thread.
##### **Turned-Edge Appliqué**
**1**. Trace the printed reversed templates onto template plastic. Flip the template over and mark as the right side.
**2**. Position the template, right side up, on the right side of fabric and lightly trace, spacing images ½" apart. Cut apart, leaving a ¼" margin around the traced lines.
**3**. Clip curves and press edges ¼" to the wrong side around the appliqué shape.
**4**. Referring to the appliqué motif, pin or baste appliqué shapes to the background.
**5**. Hand-stitch shapes in place using a blind stitch and thread to match or machine-stitch using a short blind hemstitch and either matching or invisible thread.
### **Borders**
Most patterns give an exact size to cut borders. You may check those sizes by comparing them to the horizontal and vertical center measurements of your quilt top.
##### **Straight Borders**
**1**. Mark the centers of the side borders and quilt top sides.
**2**. Stitch borders to quilt top sides with right sides together and matching raw edges and center marks using a ¼" seam. Press seams toward borders.
**3**. Repeat with top and bottom border lengths.
##### **Mitered Borders**
**1**. Add at least twice the border width to the border lengths instructed to cut.
**2**. Center and sew the side borders to the quilt, beginning and ending stitching ¼" from the quilt corner and backstitching (Figure 1). Repeat with the top and bottom borders.
**3**. Fold and pin quilt right sides together at a 45-degree angle on one corner (Figure 2). Place a straightedge along the fold and lightly mark a line across the border ends.
**4**. Stitch along the line, backstitching to secure. Trim seam to ¼" and press open (Figure 3).
### **Quilt Backing & Batting**
We suggest that you cut your backing and batting 8" larger than the finished quilt-top size. If preparing the backing from standard-width fabrics, remove the selvages and sew two or three lengths together; press seams open. If using 108"-wide fabric, trim to size on the straight grain of the fabric.
Prepare batting the same size as your backing. You can purchase prepackaged sizes or battings by the yard and trim to size.
### **Quilting**
**1**. Press quilt top on both sides and trim all loose threads.
**2**. Make a quilt sandwich by layering the backing right side down, batting and quilt top centered right side up on flat surface and smooth out. Pin or baste layers together to hold.
**3**. Mark quilting design on quilt top and quilt as desired by hand or machine. _**Note:** If you are sending your quilt to a professional quilter, contact them for specifics about preparing your quilt for quilting_.
**4**. When quilting is complete, remove pins or basting. Trim batting and backing edges even with raw edges of quilt top.
##### **Binding the Quilt**
**1**. Join binding strips on short ends with diagonal seams to make one long strip; trim seams to ¼" and press seams open (Figure 4).
**2**. Fold 1" of one short end to wrong side and press. Fold the binding strip in half with wrong sides together along length, again referring to Figure 4; press.
**3**. Starting about 3" from the folded short end, sew binding to quilt top edges, matching raw edges and using a ¼" seam. Stop stitching ¼" from corner and backstitch (Figure 5).
**4**. Fold binding up at a 45-degree angle to seam and then down even with quilt edges, forming a pleat at corner, referring to Figure 6.
**5**. Resume stitching from corner edge as shown in Figure 6, down quilt side, backstitching ¼" from next corner. Repeat, mitering all corners, stitching to within 3" of starting point.
**6**. Trim binding end long enough to tuck inside starting end and complete stitching (Figure 7).
**7**. Fold binding to quilt back and stitch in place by hand or machine to complete your quilt.
### **Quilting Terms**
• **Appliqué:** Adding fabric motifs to a foundation fabric by hand or machine (see Appliqué section of Basic Techniques).
• **Basting:** This temporarily secures layers of quilting materials together with safety pins, thread or a spray adhesive in preparation for quilting the layers.
Use a long, straight stitch to hand-or machine-stitch one element to another holding the elements in place during construction and usually removed after construction.
• **Batting:** An insulating material made in a variety of fiber contents that is used between the quilt top and back to provide extra warmth and loft.
• **Binding:** A finishing strip of fabric sewn to the outer raw edges of a quilt to cover them.
Straight-grain binding strips, cut on the crosswise straight grain of the fabric (see Straight & Bias Grain Lines illustration), are commonly used.
Bias binding strips are cut at a 45-degree angle to the straight grain of the fabric. They are used when binding is being added to curved edges.
• **Block:** The basic quilting unit that is repeated to complete the quilt's design composition. Blocks can be pieced, appliquéd or solid and are usually square or rectangular in shape.
• **Border:** The frame of a quilt's central design used to visually complete the design and give the eye a place to rest.
• **Fabric Grain:** The fibers that run either parallel (lengthwise grain) or perpendicular (crosswise grain) to the fabric selvage are straight grain.
Bias is any diagonal line between the lengthwise or crosswise grain. At these angles the fabric is less stable and stretches easily. The true bias of a woven fabric is a 45-degree angle between the lengthwise and crosswise grain lines.
• **Mitered Corners:** Matching borders or turning bindings at a 45-degree angle at corners.
• **Patchwork:** A general term for the completed blocks or quilts that are made from smaller shapes sewn together.
• **Pattern:** This may refer to the design of a fabric or to the written instructions for a particular quilt design.
• **Piecing:** The act of sewing smaller pieces and/or units of a block or quilt together.
Paper or foundation piecing is sewing fabric to a paper or cloth foundation in a certain order.
String or chain piecing is sewing pieces together in a continuous string without clipping threads between sections.
• **Pressing:** Pressing is the process of placing the iron on the fabric, lifting it off the fabric and placing it down in another location to flatten seams or crease fabric without sliding the iron across the fabric.
Quilters do not usually use steam when pressing, since it can easily distort fabric shapes.
Generally, seam allowances are pressed toward the darker fabric in quilting so that they do not show through the lighter fabric.
Seams are pressed in opposite directions where seams are being joined to allow seams to butt against each other and to distribute bulk.
Seams are pressed open when multiple seams come together in one place.
If you have a question about pressing direction, consult a comprehensive quilting guide for guidance.
• **Quilt (noun):** A sandwich of two layers of fabric with a third insulating material between them that is then stitched together with the edges covered or bound.
• **Quilt (verb):** Stitching several layers of fabric materials together with a decorative design. Stippling, cross-hatch, channel, in-the-ditch, free-motion, allover and meandering are all terms for quilting designs.
• **Quilt Sandwich:** A layer of insulating material between a quilt's top and back fabric.
• **Rotary Cutting:** Using a rotary cutting blade and straightedge to cut fabric.
• **Sashing:** Strips of fabric sewn between blocks to separate or set off the designs.
• **Subcut:** A second cutting of rotarycut strips that makes the basic shapes used in block and quilt construction.
• **Template:** A pattern made from a sturdy material which is then used to cut shapes for patchwork and appliqué quilting.
## Special Thanks
Please join us in thanking the talented designers whose work is featured in this collection.
**Lyn Brown**
Village by the Sea
**Holly Daniels**
Color Perfect
**Bev Getschel**
Checks & Balances
**Chris Malone**
Scrap Basket Table Runner
The Whole Box of Crayons
**Tricia Lynn Maloney**
Cakes
**Lolita Newman**
Welcome to the Neighborhood
**Nancy Scott**
Nose-Diving Quilt
Simply Sophisticated Table Runner
## Supplies
We would like to thank the following manufacturers who provided materials to our designers to make sample projects for this book.
**Village by the Sea:** Batiks from Hoffman California-International Fabrics.
**Color Perfect:** Soft & Bright® batting from The Warm Company.
**Cakes:** Colorfully Creative and Confetti Cottons fabrics from Riley Blake Designs.
**Checks & Balances:** Batiks from Hoffman California-International Fabrics; Nature-Fil™ bamboo blend batting from Fairfield.
_Stash-Busting Quilts_ is published by Annie's, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, IN 46711. Printed in USA. Copyright © 2017 Annie's. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced in part or in whole without written permission from the publisher.
**RETAIL STORES:** If you would like to carry this publication or any other Annie's publications, visit AnniesWSL.com.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the instructions in this publication are complete and accurate. We cannot, however, take responsibility for human error, typographical mistakes or variations in individual work. Please visit AnniesCustomerService.com to check for pattern updates.
ISBN: 978-1-59012-812-1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
## Table of Contents
1. Pattern Services and Revisions
2. Introduction
3. Village by the Sea
4. The Whole Box of Crayons
5. Color Perfect
6. Scrap Basket Table Runner
7. Cakes
8. Checks & Balances
9. Nose-Diving Quilt
10. Simply Sophisticated Table Runner
11. Welcome to the Neighborhood
12. Templates
13. **General Information**
1. Quilting Basics
2. Special Thanks
3. Supplies
14. Copyright
## Guide
1. Cover
2. Table of Contents
3. Introduction
## Pages
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Books3 |
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed MNC banks to charge hefty interest up to 49% on defaulted credit card payments, ending the respite that lakhs of card holders have had since September last year when the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission capped the penalty at 30%.
The SC stayed the apex consumer forum’s directive to banks not to charge more than 30% interest on defaulted payments on credit card purchases. The SC had last year refused to heed the appeal of banks against the NCDRC’s order. A Bench comprising Justices B N Agrawal, G S Singhvi and Aftab Alam on Tuesday suspended the relief to card holders on a plea by a coalition of foreign banks — Citibank, HSBC, American Express and Standard Chartered — that their business was suffering immensely because of the “unwarranted’’ cap on the quantum of penal interest.
Ironically, the plea of banks may have been allowed because of a lapse by the very same NGO ‘Awaz’ that was instrumental in getting the NCDRC order pegging the penal interest at 30% last year.
Though the bench had issued notice to the NGO four months ago, it has yet not put in its response, possibly helping the court to see merit in the argument of the banks that no penal interest rate, they were only following the guidelines issued by the RBI.
The banks teamed up to apprise the apex court of their compulsions to charge between 36% to 49% interest on defaulted payments on credit cards. “No bank as a credit card issuer would charge undue interest rate as, apart from the regulatory framework that applies, the market would not sustain the same by reason of competitive force,’’ Citibank said. In its application, filed through counsel Rupinder Suri, it said facility of credit cards could be availed of without any interest for a certain stipulated period and it was only after the expiry of that period that penal interest was levied on default of payments.
“The credit card holder is aware of the same at the time of applying for it. It is also relevant to note that credit card transactions de facto constitute unsecured credit availed of,’’ the bank said justifying the high interest rate permitted by RBI on defaulted payments.
The July 7, 2007 order of NCDRC had ruled that “charging of interest rates in excess of 30% per annum from credit card holders by banks for the former’s failure to make full payment on the due date or paying the minimum amount due, is unfair trade practices.’’
It had also said that penal interest could be levied only once for the period of default and should not be capitalised while terming the practice of computing interest on monthly basis as “unfair trade practice’’.
The banks justified the high interest rate on default payments by credit card holders by listing as many as 27 factors that included even the SMS alerts it sends to the card holders. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Q:
Finding right transversals using GAP
I am new to the GAP software and I am following the GAP manual. I have found one right transversal to a subgroup of a group. Now i want to know if we can find all the right transversals of a subgroup in a group. If yes, how can we do so?
A:
Different transversals just differ by changing representatives by different elements of the subgroup. It thus is sufficient to take one transversal, and multiply in all possible ways with elements of the subgroup. E.g.
gap> G:=Group((1,2,3),(1,4)(2,5));
Group([ (1,2,3), (1,4)(2,5) ])
gap> S:=Stabilizer(G,5);
Group([ (1,2,3), (1,4,2) ])
gap> t:=RightTransversal(G,S);
RightTransversal(Group([ (1,2,3), (1,4)(2,5) ]),Group([ (1,2,3),(1,4,2) ]))
gap> tups:=Tuples(AsSet(S),Length(t));;
gap> Length(tups);
248832
gap> alltrans:=List(tups,tup->List([1..Length(t)],x->tup[x]*t[x]));;
Note that storing all the elements in different transversals can quickly become quite memory intensive.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Magazine | Radar | london
Broaching the topic of young voters over breakfast, my nostalgic mum declared that she feels sorry for my generation. “We were whipped into a frenzy by bands like The Clash and The Sex Pistols,” – cue the dreamy-eyes – “We felt that we had a voice, and that what we had to say mattered. These days, you’ve got Ed Sheeran, Adele or Sam Smith droning on about lost love. Very few mainstream musicians get angry about real issues anymore.”
She has a point. And it set me wondering whether perhaps this is what’s needed for us ‘young’ folk to start appreciating our right to vote like we used to – drivers who don’t belong to a party. We’re generally quite cynical of the government and have an interest in political change, but don’t necessarily see voting as the catalyst to this. We’ve not got the roaring and rebellious bands paving the way for reform, spurring the power of the people and encouraging them to speak their mind, vote, and make a difference. We’ve got muppets like Russell Brand harping on about deceit and discouraging all those who look up to him from using the system to let our political preferences be known. Music has a resounding effect on popular trends, fashions and opinions among young people more than any other demographic. Bands like Coldplay and Radiohead are all very middle class and comfortable. Where are all the angry young men and women? A new, passionate, politically driven music movement wouldn’t be great news for the Tories, as the nature of the angry, tormented musical beast is always going to be left of centre.
There were the protest songs of the sixties, the angry punks of the seventies and…then what? Music was a form of resistance against established power, often showing its effectiveness as a force for social change. The U.S. in particular has bred plenty of revolutionary musicians and songwriters penning political messages through story-songs that have enthused interests and changed minds.
Billie Holiday turned executions in the South in to ‘Strange Fruit’ hanging from trees. Aretha Franklin inspired Civil Rights Movements in the 60s by bringing her gospel sounds to protestors in the streets, encouraging everyone to stand up and demand ‘Respect’. More recently, Bruce Springsteen has continually touched on an ever-growing regulated and corporate world, referencing identity struggles and inhibitions for those living within it. Victor Jara created songs about Chile’s struggle with military dictatorships, sparking the Nueva Cancion (New Songs) movement that inspired South Americans to rise up and replace them with democracies.
Pre-millennium Britain had a roster of talent to add to this list. The Clash released ‘White Riot’ aiming to encourage disaffected young white people to riot like their black peers at the time. Their album ‘Sandinista!’ featured an extensive list of songs inspired by political issues outside of Britain; notably, ‘The Call-up’ was a prolific rumination on 1980 US draft policies.
Rock historian Mikal Gilmore recalls a 1977 music festival in Belgium where 20,000 people were separated from their idols by a ten foot-high barbed wire fence. Joe Strummer leapt from the stage in efforts to knock it down. They’d rather run the risk of the audience getting on stage than condone holding them back like caged animals. They were the only artists at the festival who made any noise about the set-up. According to Gilmore, this was their political and social gumption in a nutshell; ‘fighting the good fight that few others would’.
Who will be the next Springsteen, Franklin, or Clash? And why aren’t we hearing their young voices on the radio today? Ultimately, I don’t believe it’s the means by which we vote or the failing campaigns that are the problem. I think it’s that we aren’t enthused by the concept of voting in general, that we don’t necessarily see how it makes any difference if we do or if we don’t.
So, as the election looms and we all try to encourage younger generations to appreciate their right to vote, perhaps we should ask the question: What would Joe Strummer do?
Don't Panic attempt to credit photographers and content owners wherever possible, however due to the sheer size and nature of the internet this is sometimes impractical or impossible. If you see any images on our site which you believe belong to yourself or another and we have incorrectly used it please let us know at [email protected] and we will respond asap.
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By using our site you give dontpaniconline.com consent to place cookies onto your computer/portable device. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
extract data using jq (keys with specific values)
I have output of repositories in below json format.
"test/repo1": {
"id": "Repo1",
"description": "Repo1 Repository",
"state": "ACTIVE",
"web_links": [
{
"name": "gitweb",
"url": "/web/repo1/summary"
},
{
"name": "gitiles",
"url": "/plugins/repo1",
"target": "_blank"
}
]
},
"test/repo2": {
"id": "Repo1",
"description": "Repo2 Repository",
"state": "READ_ONLY",
"web_links": [
{
"name": "gitweb",
"url": "/web/repo2/summary"
},
{
"name": "gitiles",
"url": "/plugins/repo2",
"target": "_blank"
}
]
},
"test/repo3": {
"id": "Repo1",
"description": "Repo3 Repository",
"state": "ACTIVE",
"web_links": [
{
"name": "gitweb",
"url": "/web/repo2/summary"
},
{
"name": "gitiles",
"url": "/plugins/repo3",
"target": "_blank"
}
]
}
Now I want parse and extract keys which have state as "ACTIVE" so that my final output looks like below. That output should not include repos with "READ_ONLY" state. How to achieve this?
test/repo1
test/repo3
A:
You can use the following :
jq --raw-output 'map_values(select(.state == "ACTIVE")) | keys[]'
Try it here!
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Sally Binford
Sally Binford (née Rosen; 1924–1994) was an archaeologist and feminist. A prehistorian, she contributed alongside her husband (Lewis Binford) to the formation of processual archaeology.
Early life
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents. A collection of interviews with Binford were published by Janet Clinger in a collection of interviews called "Our Elders, Six Bay Area Life Stories." In the interviews, Binford is reported as saying that her parents were racists, and one of her first realizations of this was when she had a crush on a Chinese boy at school in the second grade.
With her parents' urging, Binford started at Vassar College in 1942. In 1943, Binford quit against her parents' wishes. After working for two years, she decided to attend the University of Chicago undergraduate program. She was briefly married and had one child, Susan, before divorcing in 1950.
Early career in archaeology
In 1962 she completed her PhD at the University of Chicago in the department of anthropology, publishing on a survey of early prehistory in the Sahara. The faculty was all male and Binford felt that she was not taken seriously and experienced gender discrimination as a female student and single mother.
Sally taught at UCLA alongside Lewis, where students included Michael Schiffer. She excavated at Mousterian sites in Israel with F. Clark Howell at Combe Grenal, France with Lewis in 1966 and 1968. She studied lithics from Israel with François Bordes.
Binford co-founded the processual archaeology movement, which aimed to make archaeology more scientific with explicit evidence and quantitative techniques. It also employed new technologies in a set of approaches towards archeological study. For example, Don S. Rice argues that this approach wanted to explain why historical events happened, rather than simply prove that they happened. Binford and her then-husband, Lewis Binford, co-founded the movement, however Binford was often denied credit for her involvement. Sally and Lewis co-edited New Perspectives in Archaeology (1968), deriving from a symposium held in 1965 in Denver at the annual American Anthropological Association Conference. Its success has been attributed to Sally's editing skills. A 1966 article on Mousterian Levallois lithics was an early application of multivariate statistics in archaeology.
Her challenge of François Bordes in the 1960s over his taxonomic description of ancient French stone tool assemblages from the Mousterian period lead to the Bordes-Binford Debate, which revealed the discrepancies in training and theory that are practiced by European and American archaeologists. The results of the debate drastically changed the practice of Paleolithic archaeology as it is practiced by both sides of the debate. She left both anthropology and Binford in 1969.
Later career
She became an important sexual liberation and feminist pioneer in the 1970s and 1980s. She was in a relationship with a woman, Jan, for several years, and published on feminist articles about both anthropology and modern politics. Sally co-organised the first Old Lesbian Conference in San Francisco in 1989.
At age 69, Binford arranged her own death to avoid becoming physically weak and dependent on others, an act she had planned at the age of 50.
Legacy
The artist Gabriella Ripley-Phipps curated the participatory event and mixed media video installation The Archival Dinner Party in 2009.
Selected publications
Binford, S.R. 1982. Myths and matriarchies. In C. Spretnak (1982). The Politics of Women's Spirituality.
Binford, S.R. 1982. "Counter-response". In C. Spretnak (1982). The Politics of Women's Spirituality. 558–59.
Binford, S.R. and Binford, L. 1969. Stone Tools and Human Behavior. Scientific American 220(4): 70–87.
Binford, S.R. and Binford, L. 1968. New Perspectives in Archaeology. Chicago: Aldine Publishing.
Binford, S.R. 1968. Early Upper Pleistocene Adaptations in the Levant. American Anthropologist 70(4): 707–717.
Binford, S.R. 1968. Ethnographic Data and Understanding the Pleistocene. In R. B. Lee and I. DeVore (Eds.), Man the Hunter, Chicago (Aldine Publishing Company) 1968, pp. 274–275.
Binford, S.R. 1968. Variability and change in the Near Eastern Mousterian of Levallois facies. In New Perspectives in Archaeology.
Binford, L. and Binford, S.R. 1966. The predatory revolution: a consideration of the evidence for a new subsistence level. American Anthropologist 68(2): 508–512.
Binford, L. and Binford, S. 1966. A Preliminary Analysis of Functional Variability in the Mousterian of Levallois Facies. American Anthropologist 68(2): 238–295.
Binford, S.R. 1966. Me'arat Shovakh (Mugharet esh-Shubbabiq). Israel Exploration Journal 16(1): 18–32.
References
Further reading
Susie Bright (1996), "Checking Out: Sally Binford and the Planned Suicide". Originally published at Salon; collected in Bright (2003), Mommy's Little Girl ; this link from Bright's online journal (2006), archived copy at archive.org.
Interview, published in Janet Clinger (2005), Our Elders: Six Bay Area Life Stories ; this link from a reprinting in Susie Bright's online journal (2008).
Category:Vassar College alumni
Category:American archaeologists
Category:University of Chicago alumni
Category:Women archaeologists
Category:1924 births
Category:1994 deaths
Category:American feminists | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Neurologic signs in relation to cognitive function in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia: a CREDOS (Clinical Research Center for Dementia of South Korea) study.
The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between neurologic signs and cognitive dysfunction in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD). 121 patients with SIVD were recruited from multiple nationwide hospitals. The patients' neurologic signs were evaluated using the Focal Neurologic Sign Score (FNSS). The FNSS scores did not correlate with the composite neuropsychology scores and Korean Mini-Mental State Examination scores. The FNSS scores correlated with the letter fluency and Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF) copy scores. Using a multivariate regression analysis controlled for age, sex, and educational level, the FNSS scores had a significant relationship with the letter fluency test scores (R (2) = 0.08, β = -2.28, p = 0.02) and ROCF copy scores (R (2) = 0.08, β = -0.42, p = 0.03). These findings suggest that the neurologic signs in patients with SIVD do not correlate with global cognitive functions; however, these signs do correlate with executive dysfunction in these patients. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Love is not necessarily all you need in The Heart, a modern-day Swedish romance about a couple that has a hard time staying together despite their mutual affection. Written and directed by and starring Fanni Metelius (Force Majeure), who plays an art student trying to make it with her musician beau (newcomer Ahmed Berhan), this well-acted two-hander doesn’t feel like anything new under the sun, although it has a nice level of emotional honesty and never shies away from the touchier sides of relationships. After premiering in Rotterdam’s Bright Future section, it could find theatrical distribution in Scandinavian territories and VOD action in Europe and elsewhere.
Mika (Metelius) is a fun-loving photographer and party girl who seems to own Sweden’s largest collection of crop tops. Tesfay (Berhan) is a more stoic, serious-minded composer who spends way too much time on his Xbox. They’re clearly opposites and thus naturally attracted to each other. Also, she’s white and he’s black, although the subject of race never comes up in the movie.
Like most couples, they have their ups and downs but seem to be genuinely in love. Yet when Mika decides to move in with Tesfay in Stockholm, things begin to slowly unravel: Tesfay turns into a bona fide couch potato, while Mika seems to miss the more freewheeling life she lead as a single woman. They also don’t have much sex, which becomes a major issue that will eventually drive a wedge between them.
Again, there’s nothing here that we haven’t seen before, even if Metelius offers up a few surprises in the third act and avoids a predictably happy ending. But what makes The Heart slightly better than your average love story is the way it realistically depicts how a couple can come apart despite good intentions on both sides.
Mika and Tesfay seem to want the best for each other, and they definitely have plenty of fun at times. Yet it’s not enough to make things work: the two have incompatible lifestyles and goals — throughout the course of the film, Mika matures and winds up taking her life into her own hands — and may ultimately be better off going their separate ways.
Metelius does a good job with her cast, coaxing strong performances out of Berhan and the raucous band of ladies that Mika parties with when things get rough. Indeed, The Heart has a fair amount — if not too many — club scenes, with photography director Maja Dennhag capturing them in candy-colored compositions backed by an array of hip-hop beats. It feels a bit overindulgent, and just because characters are having fun onscreen it doesn’t mean it’s always fun to sit through. At the same time, the film clearly shows that all the partying in the world can never compensate for a meaningful, long-lasting relationship, however difficult that is to maintain. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
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Q:
will running Google Latitude (or any similar app) in the background significantly affect battery life?
I have installed Google Latitude and am wondering how much quicker my battery will run flat? I know the way Apple implemented its "mutitasking" framework minimises the impact?
A:
Specifically, the Latitude app (and other background location-updating apps) register themselves for location updates "on significant location change".
How the phone knows the location has changed significantly is when the phone does a cell tower handoff. It's moved enough that it's out of range of the tower it was talking to and its service is handed to the next tower. At that time, if any apps are registered for location updates, the phone fires up its GPS, gets its coordinates, and feeds them to those apps. Those apps then get to do a LITTLE work with what they were told.
When iOS 4 came out, I wrote a little app to play with this API. Basically it just sat in the background and recorded lat/lng for every update it got. Between my office and my house (like 10 miles) it got eight or nine sets of coordinates.
That means eight or nine times (call it once a mile or so) that the phone has to fire up the GPS chip, listen for signals from outer space, and do something with them. That obviously takes up more electricity than if it didn't have to do that.
Is it MUCH more? You know what? Not really. I charge my phone when it needs it (rather than, say, nightly), and I didn't notice it needing it more than usual when my little app was running. So my guess is that Latitude won't be a major battery suck. But it'll definitely suck some.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
ADSSL1 (gene)
Adenylosuccinate synthase like 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ADSSL1 gene.
Function
This gene encodes a member of the adenylosuccinate synthase family of proteins. The encoded muscle-specific enzyme plays a role in the purine nucleotide cycle by catalyzing the first step in the conversion of inosine monophosphate (IMP) to adenosine monophosphate (AMP). Mutations in this gene may cause adolescent onset distal myopathy. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants. [provided by RefSeq, Feb 2016].
References
Further reading | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Estrogen and progesterone inhibit vascular smooth muscle proliferation.
Estrogen (E) has been identified in epidemiologic and prospective studies to protect against the development of cardiovascular disease in women. It is unclear whether progesterone (P) is similarly beneficial. The mechanisms by which E or P might act are incompletely defined. One possibility is that sex steroids inhibit the proliferation of vascular smooth muscle, an early/important event in vascular pathology. We examined the ability of E and P to inhibit the growth of human umbilical vein smooth muscle cells (hUVSMC) in culture, when stimulated by serum or the mitogen, endothelin-1 (ET-1). Serum and ET-1 stimulated hVSMC cell numbers by approximately 110% and 43% respectively, compared with control, after 3 days in culture. This stimulation was maximally reversed 75% by E and 64% by P. No synergistic or additive effects of the two steroids were found. ET-1 and serum stimulated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP-K) and MAP-kinase kinase activities, and these were critical for mitogenesis. Mitogen-stimulated MAP-kinase kinase and MAP-K activities were significantly inhibited by either E or P. The steroids also inhibited mitogen-stimulated c-fos and c-myc, downstream targets for MAP-K action. Critical signaling and molecular events through which mitogens stimulate VSMC proliferation can be significantly inhibited by E or P, providing a potential cellular mechanism for their vascular protective actions. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a copy holder and/or adjustable support means particularly although not solely designed for use in providing the support for a copy holder.
2. Present State of the Art
Copy holders presently available are normally either presented at a fixed angle for the user or where adjustment is possible the adjustment is not easily made by the operator and most available adjustment mechanisms allow only a step or predetermined position adjustment. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
Isio De-laVega Wanogho
Isio Wanogho (born November 17, 1983) is a Nigerian supermodel, columnist, painter, and Interior architect. She has received an African Youth Society award, two Future Awards nominations, FAB award, a Nigerian Model Achievers Award and was named a youth ambassador by the Global Foundation for Peace, Unity, and Development. She has pursued several endeavors including: making graphic art consisting of hand-made cards in year 2000, modelling in 2002, television presenter in 2007, fashion design in 2009 (after which she debuted 5000 outfits as one of three official designers for the Lagos Carnival in 2010).
Biography
Nigerian born Isio lived and schooled in Florence, Italy where she earned an M.Sc in Interior Design. When she moved back to Nigeria in 2012, she set up her design studio and continued her work as a TV presenter. She is conversant in six languages, but speaks only English, Yoruba, Italian and the indigenous “Broken English” proficiently.
Wanogho was sent to the Mayflower School in Ikenne when she was five years old. She completed her primary and secondary education there and was an active member of its sports, literary and dance societies - Participating in debates and competitions within the school and for the school against other schools in Ogun State. After graduating high school, Wanogho spent two years at home studying to gain admission into College. She spent her spare time drawing, painting and writing poetry before finding the courage to share with her family that she had always wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a fashion-model.
Modelling
But after being scouted on her way home from private lessons by model-scout Otu Winpana, she told her family who were initially not enthusiastic about the idea but eventually turned around. Later that year, Wanogho contested in the 2002 QueenAfrik beauty pageant with the support of her mother. Winpana chaperoned her but Wanogho neither won nor came out as a finalist. Wanogho's big break came when she was chosen to model for designer DAVIDA at the 2002 St. Moritz Style Selection - the biggest fashion show in Nigeria at the time. Over the next few years as a run-way model she modelled for the biggest Nigerian designers and became the muse for Davida, Remi Lagos and HALLERO. In 2015, Wanogho was unveiled as The Campaign Ambassador for DIESEL in Nigeria and the face of DIESEL@Centro in Nigeria.
Television presenting
Isio ventured into the world of broadcasting and communications in 2006 when she was featured as a guest presenter on The Nigerian International show which aired across Nigeria and the UK. In 2007, she worked alongside Uche Agbai and IK Ikponwosa as the media face for Close Up in the Close Up Salsa Fresh Challenge where she featured as a TV presenter and spokesmodel, hosting media and press conferences on behalf of the brand to the press, as well as touring several states of the country, to sensitise Nigerians to the objectives of the brand and the project.
In 2009, Isio ventured full-time into TV presenting as the head presenter for Soundcity's affiliate Fashion Station: Spice TV and rebranded, taking the De-laVega pseudonym . As head of her department, Isio hosted 6 shows ranging from lifestyle to fashion, to round-table discussions and live interviews. This gained her a wider fan base and launched her into Globacom's music and lifestyle TV show as the female presenter alongside IllRymz.
Three years later, IDDS was born (Isio De-laVega Design Studios). Merging functionality, aesthetics and style, the design firm services commercial and residential spaces In this she has been recognized and honored with multiple awards and nominations, amongst which are the 2010 FAB Award as Best Presenter, 2010 African Youth Society Role Model Award, 2010 NMAA best Model-Presenter.
In 2014, she made her debut appearance on the silver screen as an actress on NdaniTv's Gidi Up as Bibi. Few months later, she featured as the leading lady in Ikechukwu ‘Killz’ Onanaku's short film; Badt Guy.
Television shows
2006 - Guest Presenter | Nigerian International
2007- CloseUp Fresh Challenge Latin Dance Reality Show
2008-2010 - SpiceTV Head Presenter/CoProducer | SoundCity All Access – RedCarpet Show Urban Spice – Travel and Tourism Show Bargain Hunters- Daily deals I got a date – Matchmaking Show Women's Table – A discussion about women and sensitive topics
2010-2011 - G-bam Globacom TV Show Music, lifestyle entertainment show with live audience
2011- Fashion TV Fashion Party and first FTV event in Nigeria 2012 - Fabulous TV Guest Presenter Entertainment Magazine Show
2013 - Glamsquad Guest Presenter Fashion Police, Comedy, Celebrity Critique
Isio De-laVega Design Studios
After her return from Florence, Italy, Wanogho set up a design studio (Isio De-laVega Design Studios) which offered bespoke design services for both domestic and commercial customers.
Charitable works
Wanogho contributes to the less-privileged and the sick by giving a monthly allowance of her earnings to orphanages and anonymously paying the medical bills of the sick. Her outlook towards suffering, illnesses and hunger is fueled by her parents’ teachings of empathy and appreciation, and by many years spent in Mayflower School, a boarding school far away from the home of her childhood. She saw first-hand there the devastating physical, emotional and psychological effects of neglect, discrimination, suffering and lack.
She mentors young models through Celebrite Modelling School and its annual program The Model Workshop, and has a mentorship page with Mara Mentors online platform.
Painting
In 2008, Wanogho acquired a B.A in Painting and Sculpture from at the University of Lagos. To perfect her craft, she was mentored by Nigerian Impressionist Master- Edosa Ogiugo. As an artist, her Urhobo tribal heritage is a huge influence on her art, being from the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, from the Urhobo tribe.
From a young age Wanogho had always been drawn to creative expression through art, namely drawing, singing and writing plays and short stories. She has exhibited her art/design in Florence, Italy, in Lagos and in Port Harcourt at the Total E&P (TEPNG) 2013 arts exhibition. In 2014, she contributed to the International Art Festival. Art is a gift Wanogho believes she was born with.
Writing
In January, 2014 Isio began publishing her writings through a weekly column in BellaNaija magazine, called Isio Knows Better. In this she combines wit, satire and personal experiences to draw out the audience to confront serious issues, social relationships and conflicts that are often thought about but rarely spoken about or acted upon in the Nigerian society.
In 2015, the Isio Knows Better column became so popular, that Wanogho was severely petitioned via social media by fans to resume writing after she took a six-week break from writing.
Education
MSc Interior Architecture-Design (2011). FLORENCE DESIGN ACADEMY
Awards and nominations
2014 - Model of the year – Lagos fashion awards
2013 - Youth ambassador- Global foundation for peace, unity, development.
2012 - Celebrity ambassador - Lagos anti rape campaign.
2011 - African youth society - Honorary achievement award and African role model
2010 - FAB International magazine - Model of the year.
2010 - Nigerian model achievers award - Best TV presenter.
2009 - Future Awards - model of the year finalist.
2010 - The Future Awards nominee - TV presenter of the year.
2009 - Exquisite magazine finalist - female TV presenter of the year.
See also
Ambrose Olutayo Somide
References
Category:Nigerian female models
Category:Nigerian television personalities
Category:Urhobo people
Category:University of Lagos alumni
Category:Nigerian television presenters
Category:Nigerian interior designers
Category:Mayflower School alumni
Category:1983 births
Category:Living people
Category:Women television presenters | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Providing safe care in the ambulatory setting is vitally important because of the sheer magnitude of care provided there. In any given month almost a quarter of people in the United States visit a physician in the ambulatory setting, compared to less than 1% that spend time as inpatients. Errors that lead to patient harm are well documented to occur in the ambulatory setting with medication errors having he highest risk for harm. We propose to improve the safety culture of the ambulatory care clinics of University of Colorado Hospital using errors in medication management as the learning substrate. Specifically, we will seek to improve: 1) chronic medication monitoring, particularly laboratory monitoring, 2) medication reconciliation and 3) timely review of monitoring results. We will evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of the interventions developed using the Reach, Effectiveness, Economics, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) model. We will create a tool kit for dissemination and a plan for dissemination of our findings. Our main thrust will be to facilitate the process of identifying, developing, testing, and implementing a series of interventions to improve medication management with the ultimate goal that the change process will become our institution's standard method of improving ambulatory patient safety, regardless of the targeted change or problem type. At the completion of this project, we will have refined the intervention processes, the practice level change processes and developed a toolkit that other institutions and ambulatory practices can use to identify, develop, test, and implement safe medication management practices in ambulatory care settings. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The Improving Ambulatory Medication Monitoring project is designed to improve the culture of safety and medication monitoring activities in the University of Colorado Hospital Ambulatory system while introducing a sustainable quality and safety improvement model. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | NIH ExPorter |
Two Houston-area men were arrested for illegal hunting after shots were fired in the Indian Lakes neighborhood.
Early Saturday morning, Brazos County sheriff's deputies responded to reports on shots fired on Seneca Springs in the subdivision south of College Station.
When they arrived, they discovered two men
Cameron Warren, 20, Houston, who had warrants out of Harris County, was arrested
But then deputies noticed an injured deer lying just off the roadway and many empty shell casings around the suspect's vehicle.
Deputies then searched the vehicle and discovered marijuana, drug paraphernalia, a short AR15, and a Glock 41 gun.
The guns' serial numbers came back with no return.
Deputies then arrested the second m an, Justyn Johnson, 22, Cypress.
Warren and Johnson now face charges of possession, unlawful carry of a weapon, hunting at night, hunting from a vehicle, and hunting in a closed season and without a license. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Q:
Applescript: iTerm to split pane from the window the script was called
I have the following script with attempts to split the window vertically, and tail a log file in the new pane.
#!/bin/bash
COMMAND="tail -f log_file"
# Do something important.
sleep 4
# Split the window, and tail logs.
osascript <<-EOF
tell application "iTerm"
tell current session of current window
split vertically with default profile command "$COMMAND"
end tell
end tell
EOF
However, this script splits the window that is currently in focus, and not the window in which the script is running.
Steps to reproduce the issue:
Open an iTerm window (say W1), and run this script.
While the script is executing sleep 4, open another window (say W2) and keep W2 in focus.
After 4 seconds, the newer window (i.e. W2) will be split vertically.
How to open split the window from W1, the window where the script was called from?
A:
Get the ID of the current session at beginning of the script.
Later in the script, get the session corresponding to this identifier
#!/bin/bash
myID=$(osascript -e 'tell application "iTerm" to id of current session of current window')
COMMAND="tail -f log_file"
# Do something important.
sleep 4
# Split the window, and tail logs. myID2 is the id of the new session (the split pane)
myID2=$(osascript <<-EOF
tell application "iTerm"
repeat with w in windows
repeat with t in tabs of w
tell (first session of t whose its id = "$myID")
if exists then return id of (split vertically with default profile command "$COMMAND")
end tell
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
EOF)
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
# Blue Talk and Love© 2015 by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
Smashwords Edition, License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For more information contact:
Riverdale Avenue Books
5676 Riverdale Avenue
Riverdale, NY 10471.
www.riverdaleavebooks.com
Design by www.formatting4U.com
Cover design by Hanifah Walidah
Cover art by Mirlande Jean-Gilles: "Girl With the Big 'Fro"
Digital ISBN 9781626011618
Print ISBN 9781626011625
First Edition March 2015
#
# Stories in Blue Talk and Love first appeared in:
"Wolfpack," Best New Writing 2010, Hopewell Publishing, 2010
"Blue Talk and Love," American Fiction: Best Previously Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, vol.12, New Rivers Press, 2012
"Snow Fight," Baby Remember My Name: New Queer Girl Fiction, ed. Michelle Tea. Carroll & Graf, 2007
"Powder and Smoke," Bloom: Queer Fiction, Art, Poetry and More, Spring 2005
"A Strange People," Crab Orchard Review 14.1, Winter, 2008
"Saturday," Lumina 6, Spring 2006
"Sererie," Callaloo, Spring, 2010
"A Magic of Bags," From Where We Sit: Black Writers Write Black Youth, Tiny Satchel Press, 2011
"Ivy," Baobab: South African Journal of New Writing, Fall 2009
"Adale," X-24: Unlcassified, Lubin & Kleyner, 2007
"Friday, Field Trip Day," Philadelphia Stories online, 2007
"Ruídos ," Minnesota Review, Summer 2010
"The Anvil," Feminist Studies Vol. 40 no. 2, Fall 2014.
"Wall Women," Woman's Work: An Anthology, Girlchild Press, 2010
# Contents
Wolfpack
Blue Talk and Love
Snow Fight
Powder and Smoke
A Strange People
Saturday
Sererie
A Magic of Bags
Ivy
Adale
Friday, Field Trip Day
Ruídos
The Anvil
Wall Women
Acknowledgements
# Wolfpack
For the New Jersey Four
This story is for Patreese Johnson, Terrain Dandridge, Venice Brown, and Renata Hill, who, in 2007, received prison sentences ranging from three and a half to eleven years for the alleged felony gang assault of a man who threatened to rape them in New York City's West Village. The story is also for Chenese Loyal, Lania Daniels, and Khamysha Coates, who were offered plea bargains in the same case. The women have been known collectively as the New Jersey Seven.
Verniece
This is a story that matters, so listen. I'ma tell it. The summer my words were snatched away, the weatherman on Channel Nine kept promising a heat wave. Had me dreaming of days curled up under the dust and rattle of the AC with my son, Anthony Jesús, and nights out in the Village with my lady and our squad. It was the summer after high school graduation, and a heat wave woulda left my mother too drained to hassle me about my life, my weight, and my plans. None of her muttering: "What you fi do, Verniece, sit at home with that girl, getting big as this house while your baby starve? Yu na have plan?" My plan was I was gonna go to college to major in Astronomy, back when I bothered with a future tense. When I told my mother this, she usually grunted. "No, yu nah gwan waste my money or yours, studying some devilment 'bout birthdays and signs." She would sigh her anger, sucking my dreams from me like the gristle from a chicken bone.
I looked forward to sweating it out that summer, gathering words for that fight. But the damn heat wave never came. Days, weekends, weeks, months passed, and nothing. I started to imagine myself leaping into the television with the weatherman and snatching the gray-speckled rug off his head, just to show him how it felt to have small hopes taken away. But that was not my spirit back then, before my words left me. I was patient, quiet. I waited.
I don't remember everything that happened that night, but the things that came before—I know those like my skin. Those stories—the ones that make what happened to us matter—are not about a man who tore into our summer and broke us. Those stories are about us—about me and my lady, our homegirls, and our son. Who we are and who we were, who we might never be again.
Before they took my words away, it was me and Luna and Anthony Jesús, plus my mother, when she wanted to act right. Even when she didn't, our family was the proudest thing I had. We were not like the teen pregnancy stories you see on television. I wanted Anthony Jesús as much as anyone ever wanted anything—a million times more than I ever wanted some man. Truth be told, my mother was happy to learn a baby was coming, too. Seeing Luna and me together and so strong for two years made her panic, started her in early on those things that middle-aged mothers go through—hassling me about when I'd find a husband, worrying endlessly about growing old on God's Green Earth with no grandbabies to care for. Sometimes, when the bookshelf buckled or a doorknob came loose, she would take an Olympic breath and sigh out: "Yu know we need a man in the family, with yuah papa gone now."
I would get up quickly from wherever I was and fix whatever was broken. Then I would remind her—silently, in my mind—that my father had died a decade ago, and had never been the handyman type in life. _Be careful what you wish for_ , my fantasy self would say. I knew it wasn't a son-in-law, or even grandchildren, that she wanted. What she wanted was a different kind of daughter. If I had come to her at any point in high school to tell her I'd sworn off pussy and decided to go celibate, become a nun, she woulda flown to the church, tithed her whole pension, and sung the choir off the altar with the force of her gratitude. Her problem with me had nothing to do with motherhood. It was about womanhood, and which kind of woman I would be. In my mind, I told her all about herself _._ But in real life, I said nothing. Just counted the weeks till Luna and I had saved enough money to pay her cousin for his Y chromosomes.
Luna went to school and worked two jobs that summer, while Anthony Jesús and I kept each other company, held each other down in my mother's house. Luna would come home from her afternoon gig at the Pretty Look nail salon on Bloomfield Ave with soul food dinners for all of us, my mother included. Every time, my mother refused. She would look at the bag in Luna's hand, all grease-heavy and smelling good. She'd breathe in the smell and you could see the want on her face. But she'd purse her lips, pat her stomach, and say "M-mm, no. Me nah feel settle," and turn back to her room. Then I'd hear her, late at night, muttering to herself as she crept to the kitchen, rifling through the leftovers, "Just fi likkle pick."
Luna didn't let my mother get to her. She just hid her hurt and kept trying. She sang to me and the baby whenever we needed it, brought home bootleg telenovela DVDs whenever I asked, and told me my body was her favorite place on earth. Her lips were like sponges just wrung free of cool water, perfect on Anthony Jesús's cheeks, perfect anywhere on me.
We weren't sweating what my mother—or anyone else—had to say back then. I still had the words I thought would protect me from everyone's opinions, keep me doing alright in the world. I found those words the same day I found our son's name, and I thought both would hold me down forever. That was a year before that night in the Village, four weeks after I pissed pink on the EPT strip. My mother dragged me to Saint Anthony's, eager to have me "put likkle face" in, let the old church ladies see me again before my belly started to show. Her face was a bright mix of shame and glee—happy about the baby, sad about me, and so I was sure the day would be miserable. I hated church usually—the slowness of it, the meanness of the women, the sour-breathed gossip and the eyes raking you down when you went for communion, looking to see if you'd put on weight. My father never went to church, and when I asked him why once, sometime in the third grade, he told me that being black and awake in America was enough of a double-bind for him; he had no interest in an afterlife that promised more of the same. I didn't know exactly what he meant, but it sounded right to me. I hustled my way out of going to church as often as I could, and when I did go I did my best to send my mind away.
But the day my words came to me, I couldn't get out of going. And so I sat in the pew with my mother, letting the music pass the time as always, thinking about eating fried wantons with Luna when I got home. But at the end of the service, something happened. The closing hymn that day did something—took me from the shaggy pew where I was sitting, made me forget the press of my too-tight pantyhose, my mother's hips against mine. I can't remember what the song was called, but I remember how the lyrics surprised me. They were not the usual tired mess about a man in the sky who said _Do This_ and _Don't Do That_ in a language nobody understood, or a ghost who played truth or dare games with your soul. There was no double bind, no damned-if-you-do, no one saying what to do or be. The lyrics were just a name. And just like any word changes shape when you say it long enough, this word changed, too. Eventually I stopped hearing everything around it, and the name meant something simple: _You are a person_. _God loves you. That's it._ So I got up and I left the pew, but I took those words and the feeling with me. I put all that into our baby's name—Anthony Jesús—and let the past sag to the ground like a churchlady's scowl.
For the next few months, I made those words a gate behind my ears: _We are people. God loves us. That's it._ I repeated the words in my mind wherever I went. Whatever was going to get to me had to fit through those words first. Those words kept me going with my head up when I walked around the city with my homegirl LaShanya—a slim, pretty, light-skinned type girl with a long auburn weave. But after I found those words, I almost didn't care. I could walk with my homegirl and just be with her and laugh. When I went around Newark holding Luna's hand or pushing the baby, those words kept the frowns and pointing fingers at a distance, and made it so I almost didn't see the looks people gave us. By August, I thought I had gotten good at a new kind of hearing, a new kind of seeing—the kind that made no room for people's chuckles and the stares. I thought I had learned how to walk in the world just feeling like a person, no matter who else was around. But the night my words fell away, I learned I was wrong.
It was a Saturday night, and I remember the moon looking bright, like the white tip of a freshly-manicured nail. It was hot, finally, and Luna had gotten off from the Pretty Look early, so we went with our girls to the Village to relax, do us, enjoy the summer. We were rolling deeper than usual that night—there were seven of us altogether: me, Luna, LaShanya (who we all call Sha), and our girl TaRonne and her woman, plus two of Sha's friends—a rich, Jersey City girl named Margina and a brownskinned femme named Angelique, with dreadlocks and an eyebrow ring. Sha collected friends like jewelry, picking them up whenever they caught her eye, valuing them enough, but never crying too hard over the occasional loss. The people she brought around usually fell right in with most of us. They were Sha's people, and so they were cool with me.
TaRonne's teacher girlfriend, Arya, must have been upset about something, because she snorted like a sick dog every time TaRonne talked on the ride to the Village. TaRonne treated Arya's attitude like how a little kid treats a video game, pushing random buttons and giggling at the response. "Arya's in a bad mood," she announced to all of us from the back seat. "She don't understand why we always walk around in the Vil when we could be sipping sherry with other _young professionals_ like her." Arya huffed and looked out the window. "Nah, I know what it is," TaRonne said after a few seconds. "She's just worn out from being so intelligent, and accomplished, and fine. It ain't easy being a dream come true." She squeezed Arya's waist and let her head fall onto her chest. Arya sighed and ran her hand over TaRonne's fade, pushing her own cheeks toward the window to hide her smile.
We parked on West Street and walked up to the pier on Christopher to drink Coronas and watch the rich people's lights flicker on the other side of the Hudson. When we got to our regular bench, Sha turned to Margina and asked if she knew anyone who lived in one of those apartments. "I just want to know who my neighbors will be when I blow up," Sha explained, crossing her legs and fanning her dress out behind her on the bench. Margina leaned her back against the railing and said, "Um, I don't think I know anyone there," her voice all nervous and small. I decided then that I liked Margina—she was quiet like me. But TaRonne liked to make waves.
"Right, right," she said. "I guess you not in the habit of mingling with Daddy's tenants. I know how it is." Margina turned the color of Pepto Bismol and tried to sound hood. "Nah, it's not even like that, yo" she said. Then she gave an awkward smile, crossed her legs, and looked down at her shirt.
We could all tell the little girl was feeling TaRonne, but Arya wasn't bothered at all—she was out for fun. She uncapped a bottle of beer for Margina and raised her own. "To new experiences!" she said. Then she tongued TaRonne down right there, hands palming TaRonne's skull like a basketball, her eyes wide open and staring dead at Margina. The couple's love tiff must have dissolved by then, because they didn't stop kissing till Luna busted out in her jingle-bell chuckle. Then the rich girl went from pink to purple, and turned her face back toward Jersey. Luna put her arms around my waist and we threw our heads back, drinking our laughter like raindrops.
That was the last thing I remember before the man showed up—all of us laughing, kissing, feeling at home in the night. I keep that moment high up on a shelf in my mind now, in a row of important times I do not want to forget: the first time I saw my baby smile, the day my father gave me a toy telescope for no reason other than it made him think of me. The day I found my words-- the words that left me, in a second, for a lifetime, that night on the pavement.
Now that my words are gone and I have nothing but time to think back, I remember another moment that belongs on that list, too. It's another story that matters, even if it only matters to me. It was months before that night in August, but I see it clear as yesterday. Anthony Jesús hadn't been born yet, but he was one of our plans, along with my astronomy and Luna's zoology and a tall house in the suburbs with mango smoothies always in the freezer. Luna was reading on the sofa while I sat at my father's old desk, making flashcards for a Spanish test. The day was so still it almost seemed fake. For hours, it seemed like the only things moving were the little bits of dust that floated in the strip of light between my mother's curtains, tumbling slowly over themselves like cells under a microscope. Suddenly, Luna slammed her book shut, the smack of the pages cutting into the silence.
"People talk," she said. She was looking at me but past me, like how my father used to do. Then she paused and focused. "The only real difference between people and animals is that people talk. That's it."
It was the kind of moment that flags itself for you, announces its importance right away but waits till later to be explained. I thought of plenty of reasons to remember the moment right then—how beautiful Luna looked with her face pinched up in thought, how nice it was to know that no matter what anyone said about me and my girlfriend, they couldn't say we weren't smart. But as time passed, what Luna said stayed with me, and soon the question came up: if that's true—if talking makes a person—then what's wrong with me? Why don't I speak?
That's when I started looking for words, I realize now, now that I am still and boxed in quiet, with no one to listen and everything to say. Those words meant the chance to be a person, in my own language, for real.
That moment is as big as a planet for me now. Every day I think about it and find new stars, new rings. I remember it together with our laughter at the pier, just before my world fell from its socket. Now, in the quiet, I remember the seven of us, Luna, LaShanya, TaRonne, Arya, Angelique, Margina, and me—chilling, glowing, taking gulps of the night and sprinkling it out in laughter. I remember our loudness, how huge we felt, in the best way, and how free. I can't say exactly what happened after that, how it started, what the man said, what he did, how we responded. But I remember opening my mouth saying, " _We are people,_ " and feeling, believing, that words could help us.
TaRonne
We left the pier with our faces tied tight into smiles, me and my lady in the front. Arya was laughing, her hand all warm and wet in mine. Vernice and Luna were behind us, quiet as usual, cuddled up in each other like West Fourth was their living room. Sha's little friends were holding down the rear, and Sha was on the near side of the curb, brows sharp as switchblades, face in full glow like she was a drag queen walking for femme realness. Before shit went down, the night was nice, cool, everything peace. Then I saw it happen in sepia tone, time winding down to slow motion. I knew shit was wrong before the dude threw his cigarette at us, before he touched Arya's neck, before he slung his threats at Sha. As soon as he called Vernice what he did, I knew there would be a fight.
Me and Arya had had some problems in the car, but she had brought it down to a simmer by the time we got to Sixth Ave. She was finishing up the summer session at Morton Street Middle School, and someone had asked her to make a list of the students that should be kept apart in the future, just so that a gun or a baby didn't show up in class one day. I told her I didn't think that was her place, that by the time they're twelve, kids should be allowed to conduct their little romances and tragedies as they please. She shot me an icicle stare and told me I was naïve. "You can't pretend the teacher's role is strictly intellectual in 2006. Things are not that simple for us, TaRonne." Full first name. I knew she was tight. I told her I knew she wasn't simple, that I liked how complicated she was. She told me "Complex!" and started popping some shit about transitive verbs. I put my arm around her, said I didn't know the difference but was ready to learn. She liked that. By the time we walked past the movie theatre on West 3rd, we were back to our black-dyke-hood-love like in _Set It Off_ , all Cleo and Ursula again.
We walked past the newsstand where some skaters and rich kids and a handful of gay boys were scattered around, all talking kiki and enjoying the night. Merengue horns and hip-hop beats hovered over the pavement, and the smells of beer, smoke, and McDonalds's French fries mixed thick on the street. In front of the sex shop on West Third, a homeless woman was sitting on the ground, talking to her scarf, and when we passed the woman, Sha's little richgirl friend stared like she saw an alien, then stepped over the woman like if she wasn't there at all. I whispered in my lady's ear: "Arya, what you think would happen if we brought her back to Newark with us, or took her up to Harlem?"
Arya laughed. "She'd probably front like she wasn't scared, just like she's been fronting all night, trying to be smooth."
I laughed. "I don't know. Maybe it's not a front. Maybe there is some smoothness to her, after all, deep, deep down."
Arya slapped my finger and shot me a look that made me wish we'd stayed in bed that night.
Then I saw him, half a second before he saw us. He looked about thirty-five, although I found out later that he was in his twenties. And from the table he had set up on the pavement, covered with DVDs, I would have sworn he was a bootlegger, although the papers, the prosecutor, and everyone else who mattered called him a "filmmaker" from the next day on. When he opened his mouth at Sha, I didn't care what he called himself.
"Hey, princess!" he said. Sha didn't respond. He didn't give up.
"Sweetheart, I'm talking to you."
"She's not interested," I told him from the far side of the pavement.
"Why don't you let her speak for herself?" He moved from behind the table and took a pull from his cigarette, stretching his neck to see where my voice came from.
"She doesn't have anything to say to you," I said, loud now, getting hot. "She's gay."
Then he looked dead at Verniece, thinking she was the one talking, instead of me.
"Who asked what you think, you goddamn elephant!"
Verniece was shocked frozen, like if someone had snuck up on her and flashed a camera in her face.
"Fuck you, nigga!" I shouted.
"Oh, that was you?" he said, taking another pull and finally turning my way. "You look like a fucking man. What, you sticking up for your woman? Don't go that way, sweetheart." He looked at Sha and grabbed his fly. "I'll fuck you straight!"
I shouted something—I can't remember what, the words and the spit and my teeth all mixed up in my mouth. He flicked his cigarette at us, the cherry arching across space toward Angelique and Margina, who looked like they would piss on theyselves soon, if they hadn't already. We were in motion before the fire landed. I can't really call what happened after that. Wild how time and space make perfect sense up to a point, but then unravel like shoelace threads in the tick of a second. I saw his hand on Sha's neck, in her hair. I felt my fists pushing hard into his shoulder, the blows never landing heavy enough. I saw Angelique and Margina get some hits in too, felt my surprise. I heard some words come from behind me, from Verniece maybe, but I have no idea what they were. I never saw a knife, and I never heard the muthafucka cry. I wish I had.
Arya is the only one who hears me when I say I saw it coming from that one word—elephant—before the spit and the fire and the bodies flew. Everything after that was like dominoes falling into place on a track. Tell my femme friend you want her pussy. Fine. Call me a man. Whatever. None of that is new. But what he had for Verniece was something different, like she wasn't even human. He tore the person out of her, like he tore out that clump of Sha's hair, like the judge tore up our lives and everything we know, chunks of us missing like the truth missing from news stories.
The cops, reporters, lawyer, jury, everyone but my woman skips over that part, that word—elephant—like they want to press fast forward and get to the part of the story that really matters. When the first report came out without mentioning what he called Verniece, Arya said it was because the white reporter didn't see why that kind of "dehumanization" would mean a fight to us. I realized then that Arya is the naïve one. I tried to let that word sit in my ears for a long time after she said it: _dehumanization_. By then I knew I wouldn't get to hear her talk like how she does for a long time. That was our good-bye.
I can't speak for the rest of us, but I was glad when he took that step and put his hands on Sha. Hands you can see, touch, prove. Hands you can bite and burn and tear away. But words, I'm learning, ain't shit.
Sha doesn't know if she stabbed the man. They screamed the question into her face for hours and each time she said "I'm not sure." But I know this—I wish I'da had a knife in my hand, wish I'da heard him shriek like a dying cat under my fingers. I can see that night however I want to see it now, and I see it this way all the time: I'm the one with the knife, and I am sure. This woman sticks it in that nigga real fucking good.
LaShanya
The knife was a gift from my mother. She gave it to me to keep in my purse, because she loves me, because she didn't want me to be the first of the two of us to leave this world. They were killing black dykes in Newark—like they always are, here and everywhere. But now there was Sakia Gunn, my cousin's sister-in-law's friend. Sakia with the deep eyes and the sweet, shy smile, Sakia who was fifteen and could've been me, stabbed to death on the same corner where I used to catch the bus to work, right by the twenty-four-hour police booth, and still nobody saw. Wal-Mart doesn't give time off for hate crime danger, and I had to work late nights all the same. My mother called that knife my bodyguard. She gave it to me to keep me safe. To keep me whole and coming home.
When I think of that night, I think in lists of things. The courtroom is a big wooden box, and as I sit here, my heart tries to fly away from me, but the lists bring comfort, something solid, like place. I think of the smell of my hair grease melting under the streetlights. I think of my newest sisters, Angelique and Margina, wailing behind me as the fire flies at my eyes. I think of the man, the stripes on his shirt getting bigger and bigger until they are on me, right on top. I do not see my knife. I try hard, plunge my fingers into memory. I try to see myself pulling the blade from my bag, try to feel what I have never felt before, my knife slipping past skin, sinking quickslow into flesh. But all I can remember is the weight of his hands on my scalp, those stripes falling on top of me, like how this judge sits on top of the room, hovering like Jesus hovers in holographic paintings on project walls.
Judge McBain, sitting on top of me, his face breaking like a cloud, his cackle crashing over me like lightening. "Sticks and stones may break my bones," he says. He tells us that's what we should have thought. That was the command that should have traveled like blood from our brains to our bodies. Not DUCK, not BLOCK, not PROTECT YOURSELF, YOUR GIRL. As though "I'll fuck you straight" was just a pack of words.
The man has a name, but I'd rather not say it. He's sitting up in the wooden box, just like he sat up in some reporter's face, saying he didn't think it was a crime to "say hello to a human being." I've never felt more alone, more confused than in this moment. I feel like this man and Judge Dickbrain—that is what I want to call him, where they've got me to now—I feel like the two of them come from the same place, someplace where a bootlegger without a pot to piss in and a white man with power dusting his shoulders like dandruff can be two sides of the same damn coin. This is not a place I ever thought I'd be. I did not know I lived there.
But Dickbrain is the bootlegger's parrot in his sentencing speech. "Sticks and stones," he says first. And then: "Words don't justify hurting a human being."
I sit and remember stripes and sounds and hands flying into me like arrows, wonder if either of them knows how good "human being" sounds right now, as a thing to be. Sounds like a safe place in the flow of words and things, something as sure as the ticking of the clock at the back of an old, hollow room. I wonder if either of them will ever know how hard it is to think human, to _be_ human, when someone is threatening to knock, force, fuck the _you_ out of you.
I hear our names hit like tennis balls across the courtroom and I think: we are women whose names mean things. Luna is bright and distant like the moon she is named for. Verniece is named for her mother, who's more like her than either of them can admit. Arya is named for a beautiful kind of song. Angelique is named for an angel that welcomed her mother to heaven in a dream. Margina is named for her father's choice to forget the center of things and live well on the sidelines. TaRonne is named for a grandmother who spat in a white man's face for calling her "girl," and an aunt who raised all her sisters' children on the salary of a maid. My name comes from Hopi and Spanish and Newark Ghetto, my mother's imagination and a mix of things. I wonder if Judge Dickbrain would have anything to say about that.
But when the thunder quiets and the cloud seals up, what he has to say becomes clear. He forgets about names and drops numbers on us all. Angelique Ramos, Margina Thompson, Arya Lewis: _Six Months Probation_. Luna Martinez: _Three years in prison_. TaRonne Daniels: _Five Years_. Verniece Smith: _Eight Years_. LaShanya Parish: _Ee-leh-ven_.
I will be nineteen tomorrow. The next time I am able to run through a sprinkler on my mother's street, kiss my girlfriend in a quiet room, make myself a turkey sandwich, dance or sing with no one watching, I will be thirty. I will never remember a bloody knife in my hand. No one will ever have to prove it was there.
When we left Verniece's house that night, her mother was on her way to church. While they got the baby dressed, Mrs. Smith asked Verniece over and over to come with her to the service. Verniece said, "No," sweetly, then strapped on a baby sandal, pulled up a tiny sock. Her mother asked one more time on her way out the door, and Verniece said "No, thank you" again, like she was turning down butter for her toast.
Mrs. Smith held the baby and said to all of us:
"Alright, then. You girls be safe."
We were seven girls to her. Seven women to us. Either way we were people, sure as time.
Verniece
All I do now is remember: I am wrapped up in Luna, my girls, and the warm, licorice sky. The man tears like a bullet through our night.
"Who asked what you think, you goddamn elephant?"
I am afraid for my girls, for Luna, and for myself. I see him reach for Sha, his palms spread wide and ready to grab, and I think of her mother, of my mother, of Anthony Jesús. I don't know what will happen. Then, the thing Luna said wails in my ears: _The only difference between people and animals._ And my own words swirl up into orbit: _You are a person._
So many things are going on in this moment, I feel like my mind is breaking down to mesh, to screen. I cannot tell what is happening inside, what out. I see a man in pink come, I see a woman run away. I see fingers and DVD cases and a nugget of fire fly. I see Luna and my mother holding the baby, smelling good like ackee and saltfish. I see blood curled around stripes, and Sha holding a silver-soaked blade. From one side of my ears or the other I hear him say again: "Goddamn," "God-damned," "God-dammned elephant." I feel my words popping like firecrackers inside my mouth, and I let them blaze the air:
_You are not a man - Your sneakers are cheap your clothes are corny you have no job - You are not a man, hands on your sleepy little dick trying to prove it's there - You are not a man, what you know about God some white man in the sky_ — _If your God doesn't know me blackdykemanwoman god fuck him he's doesn't exist_ — _You are not a man_ — _You are a joke._
All those words, all that time, beat into nothing like bubbles on the wind.
Columns of newspaper ink are burned into my eyes now. I try to make faces out of the lines and curves. I do not want to read what they say about us. I would rather see anything else. In one paper, I see my mother's head turning toward our apartment door, an almost-eclipse of black hair and a crescent of powdered cheek. In another, I see Luna's proud neck, Anthony Jesús's sourdough chin. I say nothing, think less than nothing—just try to pull their faces through the ink.
My first night here, I make a decision: pretend. I play games with myself, pretend to fool myself like my mother used to do when she didn't want to really see me. I tell myself things are not what they are. I pretend that things are me and Luna and the baby, slow-swirling mornings dappled with laughter, endless hours of warmth and clean air. If I want to share my dinner with Anthony Jesús, I decide he's on my lap, his polka-dot bib brushing my wrist. When I miss TaRonne and Sha so much it hurts my chest, I decide they're here on the cot with me, and we laugh.
I wade through the sea of orange suits, eat my food, and do what I'm told. I try not to think in days, how they close me up in darkness, stuff all my holes with funk and pain. I try not to think of how time is crusting over, baking me deeper into stillness each time the moon brings a day to its end. But there is always the ink, running like blood up and down the newsprint paper. Even when I say nothing, the headlines are always there: KILLER LESBIANS' TRIAL BEGINS... SEETHING SAPPHIC SWARM DESCENDS... BLOODTHIRSTY PRIDE ATTACKS.
On the morning after my first night here, someone puts a newspaper in my hands. It's folded open, and before I read the headlines, I find my name in the middle column, a gnarl of ink at the center of the page. "Verniece Smith, 19, was hauled out of the courtroom after an emotional outburst. 'I'm a mother,' Smith wailed." I read up from there, wading back through the spread of letters, grabbing onto the lines and curves I can find sense in. I float up through my girls' names and ages, the number of years each of us will lose starting now. Then I see the headline: LESBIAN WOLFPACK HOWLS ITS END.
This is when I decide to make things whatever I want them to be. If I cannot be a person I decide, then anything can be anything at all. I find Luna's hand in the paper, our baby's eyes in the black of the ink. From the space around me, I carve my mother's smile and a deep, wetwarm sky.
I get up, tighten my grip, and breathe. Then I part my lips, clear my throat, and say—out loud—" _Let's go_."
# Blue Talk and Love
In the halls of Madison Avenue Day School, she was known as tall Xiomara, Xiomara of the wispy bean-sprout hair, of the rubber-band arms and manila folder skin, forever slurping soda through a striped and bending straw. Before she sat on Earnestine's bed, Earnestine watched her as everyone did—through a film of awe and envy—pressing their faces toward her like children fixed to the glass wall of an aquarium, marveling at their majesty of a family of whales, begrudging them the simplicity of the lives they seemed to live.
If Xiomara Padilla was a legume, Earnestine—born Rakisha Earnestine Davis-Sanchez—was the brown, bulbous potato that smart Upper East Side women pushed to the sides of their plates at the start of dinner. Earnestine was big and black and boring. She lived in the Hamilton Heights section of Harlem, in a brownstone the color of plain construction paper. It was the kind of house that looked nice enough from the front, but that would quickly reveal, to anyone who entered, that its walls were peeling in glacial scraps and that its old, tired floors were sinking under their own weight, taking their sweet time in falling apart. Her parents were unable to do much in terms of upkeep—her mother was a minister and her father was a musician, which meant that her mother's life was busy and her father's was a mystery. Earnestine left the house every morning with her already-blockish body tensed and pinched, her shoulders hunched and her arms fanning out from her middle like the limbs of a frightened camper, ever on the ready to intimidate a bear.
On the first day of sixth grade, Earnestine discovered that she was the color and shape of Oobleck, a lifeless science class concoction made of cornstarch, water, and coffee grounds, used to demonstrate the properties of plasma, to prove that some things were hopelessly sturdy, even if they were liquid inside. She understood Oobleck's place in the chain of elements right away. When Mr. Halstring, the science teacher, asked for a volunteer to sit in the empty seat next to the sunlamp he'd affixed to the tropical milkweed plant the class was to grow that term—"Someone with a tough skin who can take the heat," he said with an awkward smirk—Earnestine was not surprised to find the whole class's eyes on her, including Xiomara, whose desk sat beside the empty chair. And because she was interested in seeing things change—and for that reason alone—Earnestine raised her hand.
Despite their differences, Earnestine and Xiomara did have some things in common. Both were brown-girl cheese-bussers who lived fathoms away from school in the tight crevice between Harlem and Washington Heights. Xiomara and her mother lived next to the Sanchez-Davis home, in a mammoth-sized tenement building that towered over the block's row of five proud but portly brownstones, of which Earnestine's family's was the last. Whenever Earnestine's parents fought about the family's bills or Earnestine's grades or her father's joblessness or anything else, she would steal four cigarettes from her father's coat pocket and creep down to the tiny plot of fenced-in pavement behind the brownstone that passed for a backyard. She would stand on a broken yard chair and call Xiomara's name, pelting her window with plastic hairbeads or sunflower seeds. Eventually, if Xiomara was not out with a boy, or busy on the phone, or painting her toenails, she would come over. Earnestine would lead her quickly through her bedroom and into the small backyard, where the two girls would smoke under the emerald-green weed trees and talk about boys.
Out there in the yard, Earnestine felt that she and Xiomara were alone in a secret tropical cave beneath a post-apocalyptic city sometime around the year 2020—an impossible distance away. The brownstone walls on their side of the street were all dilapidated, their dingy paint falling in chunks like stalagmites, their windows either boarded up like drawbridge doors or gaping open like the mouths of intergalactic portals to unthinkable worlds. On the opposite side of the yard was another huge tenement building, which was covered with neon-colored ivy weeds and overlooked a sprawling lot full of wild trees, overgrown grass, and Technicolor trash. The city's sanitation services did not manage to keep up with Northern Harlem's waste production, and so, with nowhere else to put their trash, people appeared at the windows of the tenement at all hours, smoking weed, declaring love to their mothers, waging complaints about the noisy neighbors down the hall. Always, they dropped something—a cigarette butt, a soda can, a dirty diaper—as if to punctuate their joy or ire. Occasionally, Earnestine would hear a large stairwell window slide open, its metals rubbing like a brandished sword, and a great crash would follow as a broken salon-style hair dryer or an overused sofa fell down on the trash heap.
One warm day a week into the school year, Earnestine managed to coax Xiomora down with less fuss than usual, simply by waving a couple of cigarettes in the air. The girls sat on Myrna Davis's warped yard table, their feet dangling down over the broken chairs. Xiomara leaned back on the table, her weight propped on the pads of her palms, the cigarette poking up between her slim fingers. During a lull in conversation, she stooped to pick a loose hunk of concrete from the ground, tracing its grooves with her nails. Then she looked up, her body loose as a thin-stretched cloud.
"Alex Orwell is kinda fly," she said. Her voice sprayed in cool tones over the pavement like a sprinkler in the summertime. Earnestine sat stiffly beside her, her hands a jumble of brown in her lap. "And anyway he can help me do math, which is dope."
Xiomara leaned her head to the side and let her hair lick at Earnestine's bare arms, arching her eyebrows in Earnestine's direction. Earnestine inched away quickly. She scratched her elbows, made magnets of her knees, and pressed her fingers tighter around her cigarette, trying not to notice the smell of Xiomara's hair—smoke and cherry lip gloss.
"Why you acting like that?" Xiomara said. She rolled her eyes and looked into the trash mound while Earnestine sat frozen in a dumb shrug. "You act like we're at school or something, like you trying to be all proper for your boyfriend, Mr. Halstring." She sighed and blew a funnel of smoke into the air. "I hate how Madison Avenue Day people act. Like if their mommies are there all the time, hiding in their pocket, about to jump out and smack them if they do anything too loud or too close. So _immature_."
She closed her eyes, her verdict delivered, and swayed her small, round head to the sound of a song Earnestine could not hear, and Earnestine knew she was gone.
When this happened, which it almost always did, Earnestine felt like the last person left alone in a movie theater, traces of sound and scent the only evidence that she had ever been anything but alone. If Xiomara was not too bored or too busy to stay, they would continue to smoke until the cigarettes were done, then throw the butts over the gaping fence into the trash-filled lot. But if Xiomara left, which she did often, abruptly, and without explanation, Earnestine would put the cigarettes out on the bottom of her sneaker and lodge the stubs under one of the loose concrete slabs, saving them in case of some future emergency, which only she seemed to believe might ever come.
Xiomara was indefatigably bright. All the white people at Madison Avenue Day counted her resilience among her many charms. Her father was a young Dominican immigrant, like Earnestine's, but unlike Ernesto Sanchez, Fernando Padilla had died in a drug-related gunfight on the block back in the eighties, when the girls were six. Xiomara's mother was a thin white woman from New Jersey whose hollow-cheeked face reminded Earnestine of a Halloween ghost mask, and who was always at the City Municipal Services building, where she worked as a clerk. When she did come home, she went straight into the kitchen to drink amaretto sours until she was dancing cheek-to-cheek with the plastic folding table. But somehow, by all indications, Xiomara did more than alright for herself. Her elastic smile and unwavering ease seemed to win her most of what she wanted—the choice spot in science class from Mr. Halstring, homework help from the Madison Avenue Day boys, a solid half of Earnestine's stolen cigarettes.
While Xiomara talked about her many admirers, Earnestine listened, chimed in when she could, and pretended to be more interested than she was. In truth, Earnestine liked boys like she liked anybody else. If they were nice to her or had round, symmetrical features, she liked them. If they were very funny or very sad, she liked them. If they gave her cigarettes or invited her over to drink from their parents' wine cellars, as did James Schaffran, the eighth grade Goth whose every word rode the loose end of a sigh, Earnestine liked them. Yet the real excitement in talking about boys with Xiomara was not in the thought of the boys themselves, but in the way the talking made her feel. In those conversations, Earnestine became different versions of herself, like a paper doll putting on a newly-traced and cut out dress for each fantasy. When she kindled up a crush on Perry Stoltz, a sporty boy with hair the color of burnt toast, she imagined herself as a light-skinned black Barbie, her face the shape of an almond and her body long and sleek like Xiomara's hair. When her attentions turned to Owen McDonough, a loud-mouthed alterna-geek, she saw herself as a punk rocker, with fruit punch-red braids and a waist that curved in like the slope of an electric guitar. Xiomara, of course, did not need to stretch her imagination so far. While Earnestine prattled on about the dreams she'd had about Perry or Owen or So-and-So, Xiomara talked about the homework they'd done for her, the notes they'd passed to her, how their teeth tasted under her tongue. "They're _aight_ , or whatever," she would say between pulls, looking off into the trash heap. "But in the end they're like Pop Tarts. They're OK at first, but pretty soon you see they're kinda wack, actually. They're never what you want—they're just what's around."
But for Earnestine, even such disappointment seemed a luxury. And so she should have hated Xiomara. And if you caught her on a bad day, she would have said she did hate her—deeply and with a full-heartedness not unlike glee. This is what she said to Jacob Morton, a screw-faced boy with the fancy calculator, who accosted her with the question one afternoon in September, three days before Xiomara sat on her bed.
"Why does Xiomara hang out with you?" he shouted at her, swooping down into her face like a bat as she finished her Social Studies homework. "She doesn't even like you. She told Samantha Fitzpatrick that she hates you. She thinks you have B.O."
"Good," Earnestine said plainly, taking care not to look up from her text book. She turned the page as casually as she could. "'Cause I hate her, and I _know_ she has B.O."
"You're just jealous because you look like a guy," he said, opening his backpack and producing a pack of coveted Sour Power candies. He piled the sparkling gummy strings into his mouth and continued talking, his teeth gleaming with green slime. "What you should do," he said, "is stop wearing those stupid dresses and just pretend you're a guy. Then you can be her boyfriend."
Earnestine felt heat at her ears. It was a familiar line of insult, but this had a new sting. She knew what Madison Avenue Day School thought of her, but no one had ever dealt her the blow of comparing her to Xiomara. It felt unfair, below the belt, even for sixth graders. Earnestine opened her mouth in hopes that a brilliant rebuttal would come out, but there was nothing. So she reached up, grabbed the Sour Powers from Jacob, and hustled to her feet as quickly as she could. She poured all of the gummy cords in her mouth at once and hurled the crumpled paper bag hard at his face. Then she turned, doing her best to keep her spine straight, keep her eyes forward, to let him see nothing but her back as she shuffled away.
She tried to erase that encounter from her mind, but Jacob Morton's words stayed with her from that afternoon through the agonizing first weeks of the school year. Jacob had exposed a terrible fact: Earnestine's clothes were stupid, it was true. Her mother had begun to read up on African religious syncretisms just before Earnestine started fifth grade, and had decided to dress the entire family in homemade African-inspired getups from that point on. Earnestine liked the fabrics her mother used—their colors and geometiric patterns reminded her of Easter eggs and outer space at once. But the shapes of the clothes themselves were awful. Skirts as round as basketballs, pants whose legs clung in anguish to her calves, and whose low crotches swung wildly between her thighs like a cow's udders. Earnestine liked the idea of Africa well enough. She listened happily to her parents' stories about Marcus Garvey and Liberian settlement, dreaming of the things she might change when her own life began. Still, things had their times and their places, she felt, and lunchtime in the minty halls of Madison Avenue Day School was neither the time nor the place for a Back-to-Africa movement. Earnestine already felt as big and black as a Dark Continent. Kente crowns and cowrie shells were the last things she needed.
Xiomara did not have this problem—before the bed or ever. She sailed into school every day like a lucky feather waiting to be caught and wished on. After Earnestine stole Jacob's Sour Powers, Xiomara floated up beside him smiling, whispered something in his ear, and drifted away with the remainder of his allowance in her pocket. Her smile was like Alice's pack of magical sweetcakes, growing and shrinking her haphazardly, though always to positive effect. The "eat me" smile Xiomara launched at Jacob was as wide as a bowl of milk, and it made her body seem to stretch so high upward that she could grab a chunk of sun and smear it on her cheeks like blush. But then, to the Madison Avenue Country teachers, she gave a demure smile as tight and quiet as a yellow raisin, reducing herself down to an unfinished hope, a glimmer of pale brown potential. They liked that.
So if you asked Earnestine on a bad day what she really thought of Xiomara, she would have drawn her eyebrows up into her hairline, rolled her neck halfway around its orbit and said "I hate that ho." And she may nearly have convinced you, not because it was true, but because Earnestine's bad days were very bad. On days when she was bleeding, or when she left the house too late to stuff her bag with cookies while her mother wasn't watching, Earnestine had nothing but shrill looks and sour words for anyone. And when her parents' arguments kept her up into the slim hours of the morning, Earnestine spent all of the following day in what her mother would call a "funk," her face set in a pit-bull glare from the first sirens of the morning until the streetlight came on at night.
Her least favorite day was Sunday, when she would usually be forced to go to her mother's church or to spend the day feigning sickness, the only acceptable excuse for missing the service. It was on Sunday mornings that she began to dread the start of the week, which meant facing not only Madison Avenue Country but also ARYSE—short for African Rites for Young Sisters' Empowerment—the rites-of-passage program that she had to attend every Monday in order to have her own big coming-of-age party and not miss out on all her classmates' Bat Mitzvah fun. Earnestine hated ARYSE, not only because she resented having to learn about housekeeping and feminine hygiene along with black history and financial planning, but also because ARYSE was filled with girls like Xiomara and worse. These girls were all prettier than Earnestine could ever hope to be, and yet, unlike Xiomara, they were like her—black girls with black mothers who worked to give them everything they themselves hadn't had coming up—including pride in their roots—and with fathers who were, in some fashion, gone. Her failure to fit in with these girls could not be attributed to her blackness or her mother's taste or anything other than the endless vacuum of space and synapse that was simply Earnestine. At Madison Avenue Day, Earnestine was an anomaly. At ARYSE she was a mistake.
On the day Xiomara sat on her bed, Earnestine woke up into a familiar pit of Sunday dread, pained to see the weekend thin away, horrified at the thought of facing Madison Avenue people _and_ the ARYSE girls the following day. She was greeted into the morning by the sound of her parents fighting upstairs, which added to her distress. She lingered in bed for a few minutes, pulling the covers up to her chin and imagining herself sinking deep into the fibers of the mattress. Then she got up, crept to the kitchen to pour herself a small mixing-bowl full of Cocoa Krispies, and she set herself up in the living room where she could put on _Saved By the Bell_ and listen to the argument from under the blue-and-white flicker of the television.
"I'm all for exposing her to African culture," her father said. "But tell me why I have to be there when all those women swoop in to take their little Nubian princess chickadees home. You never been there as me, Myrna. You don't know how it feels. I'm tired of being the only one. Don't you get that?" The floor sighed. " _Diablo_."
"She's not even thirteen yet, Ernesto," her mother said. "We can't have her walking the city alone at night. This isn't the safe little place you want it to be." Her many bracelets chimed. "I'm sorry."
Spoon in hand, tongue adrift in chocolate mush, Earnestine sympathized with her father. It was true that he was the only father ever to come to ARYSE, and the ARYSE mothers always made a big deal of him. They seemed to Earnestine to morph into overgrown cartoon witches around him, toting pans of bread pudding and candied yams, their faces all grin and batted lash as they explained that they'd just made _too much food_ for their own little families of two. But Myrna Davis had to work, she told Ernesto, and it was selfish for him to complain about picking Earnestine up when she was the one who put food on the table and paid Madison Avenue Day's tuition while he sat around doing God Knew What and playing his music, which, Earnestine knew, everyone in the family loved more than they'd say.
"And you haven't played a gig in months," her mother added. "What do you do up there all day, anyway? Will I ever get to know?" But Ernesto gave no reply.
Earnestine closed her ears to this part of the conversation. She tried not to think about how her father spent his days, fearing small betrayals even more than large ones. A dead body, a secret family, even a sex change would have been easy enough to manage, Earnestine thought. Her parents would divorce, the house would be sold, and she would begin a new life as a new girl elsewhere. But subtler insurgencies made her feel jittery. It was the small, hidden questions of her parents' lives that scared her—whether they picked their noses in secret, how long each sat sighing on his or her side of the bed before pulling on their shoes in the morning. How lonely each really was. Her biggest fear was that her father's secrets were not mean, not cruel, but sad.
When the TV show was over, Earnestine dumped the cereal bowl in the kitchen sink and plodded back to her room where she waited for her father's music to spring up as it always did after a fight. Ernesto was a brilliant musician, though not a particularly talented artist. His gift was not in creating great expressions of feeling, but in recasting familiar songs so that their meanings transformed. He turned Michael Jackson's "Can't Help It" into a blues-filled dirge, while Donnie Hathaway's "A Song for You" became a raucous church hymn in his hands. Earnestine knew that this fight would end as most of her parents' fights did, with slammed doors, unfinished sentences, and her father's steady baritone lacing someone else's words through the brownstone's hallways, tying the loose ends as best it could.
Soon she heard her mother leave, tossing a weary "good-bye" behind her. Then she heard her father's keyboard as always, though this time, the notes sounded closer than usual. He was playing Earth, Wind and Fire's "September," one of her mother's favorite songs. Earnestine sat on her bed and listened. She had heard the song many times before—she even thought she could remember seeing her parents dance to it once or twice in the kitchen while her father cooked dinner, her father whisking her mother into his arms and swirling her around the counter, a greasy spatula glistening in his free hand while he sang to her mother from her favorite line: "only blue talk and love, remember?" Earnestine liked the song well enough, though she did not know if the memory could be trusted. The original version was quick and catchy, and carried with it a breathlessness that did remind Earnestine of the month of September, the smell of freshly-Cloroxed school lockers and crisp erasers, the quiet pain of a blank year sprawling ahead. But her father's "September" today was different. It was a ballad, a relentless tale of loss that brought to mind all of the things she feared most about love, and made her wonder how people managed to grow up at all.
The music paused as Earnestine made her way up to the first floor, eager to grab the cigarettes and go smoke in the sparkle of the weeds and waste. Stopping at the coat rack, she peered around the corners to be sure her father was not around. She fished through his pocket for the smokes, but found nothing but gum wrappers, paper clips, pennies, and dimes. Disappointed, she gathered the change and headed back down to the garden floor, planning to salvage a stub from her concrete stash. But when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found the yard door open and her slab upturned. Her father's keyboard sat on the table, its white keys flickering gray under the shade of the weed trees. Ernesto sat on one of the two unbroken chairs, his back toward her, a large Cerveza Presidente open on the table. A cigarette dangled from his lips like an old-school soothsayer's chew stick.
Earnestine lingered in the doorway, wondering if he had heard her, or if she still had time to disappear. Just as she resolved to make a run for it, he spoke.
"Que tu 'ta buscando, mija?" he said. "You looking for me?"
She stuffed the change into her pocket as quietly as she could and moved closer.
"No," she said. "Just wanted some air."
He turned toward her and pulled out the other working chair, motioning for her to join him. His face was flat and still. Had she not heard him play just seconds before, she would have thought he had been sitting there in quiet contemplation for hours.
"What is it about this sister-passage thing anyway?" he said, his eyes warm and glassy. "Do they really tell you anything your mama and I don't tell you? Anything you need to know?"
She paused. The smell of fresh biscuits whipped into the air from a neighboring building, laying a thin, sweet film over the garbage-thick air.
"Not really," she said. "I hate it. School too."
Ernesto nodded, his eyes tracing the jagged picket fence that circled the yard, the missing planks of which gave it the worn but hopeful look of a six-year-old's smile.
"The girls," he said slowly. "Right? The pretty ones."
Earnestine didn't answer.
" _Amor mío_ ," he said, his voice heavy with smoke and tenderness. "Fine—those girls are _lindas_ , with their long hair and their boyfriends. But you have something they will never have, whatever they do. You have pain. _Duende_. Your mama calls it soul."
Earnestine considered the words, rolling them around in her mouth as she had seen her mother do with red wine at restaurants downtown. Soul seemed simple, something everyone had, though few knew how to work it. But _duende_ was new. The word curved around itself softly, took its own brief but mysterious dips and turns. She reached for the pack of Marlboros on the table, eyeing her father for a response, and held a cigarette to her lips. Ernesto turned his head and looked into the next yard, where a pair of pigeons had begun to peck at each other's necks. Slowly, he slid the matchbook toward her with an ashy elbow.
Earnestine lit the cigarette and held it in the air as casually as she could, her wrist bent like a bird of paradise flower, the way Xiomara did sometimes. When she inhaled too deeply and started to cough, Ernesto whipped his face back toward her, slid the beer across the table. She sipped only enough to clear her throat, then pushed the bottle back.
" _Mira esos pájaros_ ," Ernesto said, turning away again. "They're not _swans_ or _doves_ , or fuckin _nightningales_. They're pigeons. They're gray and they waddle and they all have _tetas grandotas_ , even the male ones. It could be embarrassing, what people might say about them. They go through shit. They get little snot-nosed children running after them, shooting them with their pissy water guns. But _míralos_ ," he said, his back still toward her. "They got their own thing. Let shit go down, let the world end, man, and it's them, and the rats, and the roaches gonna take over. They're not even worried about humans. They do what they feel."
Earnestine took another pull and watched her father's neck sway like a string beneath a helium balloon. Then she watched the pigeons, their bulging grey breasts flashing diamonds of muted purple and turquoise as they necked. She inhaled the smoke, the trash, the beer, the baking bread, the mild coconut smell of her father's hair grease and the smell of urine that had sprung up from a yard nearby. She watched her father watch the pigeons, sure now of how alone he seemed, perhaps always.
Earnestine opened her mouth to say something—she wasn't sure what—but Ernesto turned toward her before she got a sound out. He eased the cigarette from her hand and dropped it in the pit, then slid the loose slab of concrete back into place.
"Take a shower, mija, before your mama comes home," he said. "And brush your teeth," he added. "Twice."
He rubbed his hands on his knees and settled in before his keyboard, pulling its knobby microphone up toward his face and clearing his throat to sing again.
"Only blue talk and love, remember..?"
In the bathroom, Earnestine pulled her T-shirt over her head and turned on the shower faucet. She looked at her parents' toiletries—her father's shaving cream, her mother's Benin musk body oil, her father's razors, her mother's wooden hair pick—each sitting mute and idle on opposite sides of the tub. She imagined Xiomara's bathroom, a carnival of glossy bottles and tubes, Aqua Net and L.A. Looks hair gel nestled among the kinds of thin, fragile combs that always broke in Earnestine's hair. On the commercials and packages for these products, women were always gusting combs through their hair, misting themselves with clouds of hairspray, running and laughing and smiling at men. When the women weren't white, they looked like Xiomara: always light, always thin, with the kind of long, swirling hair Earnestine would never have. Whenever she tried to imagine other women—women like the ARYSE mothers, or her mother, or herself—frozen in scenes of carefree joy like the women on the bottles, she never could. Standing in the bathroom now, she wondered what her father thought of those women, so unlike her and her mother, women who always seemed nothing but free. She thought of those women and wondered once again what her father did up in that room where she and her mother did not go, how he spent all those hours alone, with no one to share his smokes and his thoughts.
The smell of cheap fried chicken seeped thick through the windows as Earnestine shuffled up to the third floor. She pressed on the studio door and the wood-paneled room opened before her like a broken pumpernickel loaf, its grains lit under the shafts of sun that snuck in from beneath the curtains. She eyed the space—the gleaming drum and cymbal set, the broken keyboards, the empty bottles and guitar picks, the petrified rinds of limes. Settling herself into her father's chair, she swiveled around. The thick edge of a VHS tape stuck out of the TV-VCR console, and when she popped it in, a thin blonde woman sprang to the screen. The woman rode a bicycle down an empty street, her hair flapping behind her like a pile of turning leaves. After a few seconds, the scene changed, and Earnestine was looking at a naked man with faded black socks who sat on a sofa, rubbing at the space between his knees. Soon a doorbell rang on the screen, and the bicycle woman reappeared. She smiled, kissed the man, and began to peel her clothes off in layers, flinging them into the air as though she were throwing confetti.
Earnestine felt queasy at first, but she watched anyway, the smell of hot grease hovering over her skin. She watched the couple's kisses grow slower and longer. Soon, the woman was bent over in front of the man, whipping her hair and shouting to him over her shoulder as the camera flashed close-ups of their sweating skin. Earnestine felt a quiet pang of terror, the same feeling she felt when she stole her father's cigarettes, though this feeling was more bewildering and more intense. She fumbled for the remote and pressed mute. As the camera flashed and zoomed on parts and bodies, Earnestine was not always sure exactly what she was looking at, but she didn't turn it off. Soon the scene changed again. Now the woman sat naked on a sofa, fanning herself with a magazine and smoking a cigarette. Earnestine watched the woman's hair flop against her shoulders to the rhythm of the fan. Every few seconds, the woman peered at the camera with a faint smirk, as though she did not really believe anyone would actually be watching. The woman looked bored and smart and somehow lonely, even as she gave the camera a distant wink. And this made Earnestine think of Xiomara.
Her father's song was still playing when Xiomara came over that afternoon. This time, Earnestine did not lead her out to the backyard. Instead, she sat on the bed and asked her to tell her stories from there.
At first, Xiomara frowned and sucked her teeth. "What's wrong with you?" she said. "Don't you wanna go smoke?"
"No, I mean, I guess, not really," Earnestine stammered, pushing herself back on the mattress. "Maybe we could just hang out here for a minute."
"Oh," Xiomara said, rolling her eyes and landing on the bed in a flop. She smelled like bubble gum and sweat. "So what do you want to do?" She looked at her nails, which were painted a shiny blue.
"I don't know," Earnestine said. "Did you talk to any guys today?"
"Of course," Xiomara said. She rolled her eyes again, but more softly this time, almost generously. She looked at her hands for what felt like a long time, then gathered her hair on top of her head, and looked at Earnestine. Perched on the bed with her arms in the air, her hair a bouquet above her face, Xiomara looked younger and softer and somehow rounder than Earnestine had seen her look before. The expression on her face, too, was different from any other Earnestine had seen there. She looked more unsure, more awake, and less bored.
"So you mean you wanna, like, hang out, in here or whatever?" Xiomara said, her hand still gripping her hair.
Earnestine nodded, willing herself not to inch away. "Yeah," she said. Then she added, "I mean, if you want to."
"But you're not gonna, like, freak out and get all jumpy right?" Xiomara said. "I mean if we, like, talk in here instead?"
Earnestine shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't think so."
She moved a little closer and Xiomara let go of her hair, the waves of it falling over both their shoulders. Xiomara dropped her hands between them on the mattress, and Earnestine put a hand on top of hers, the cool of Xiomara's skin a surprise under Earnestine's palm, her painted nails smooth under Earnestine's fingers.
"So, I mean, what guys did you talk to?" Earnestine asked. "What did you say to them?"
Beginning a story about a boy she did not bother to name, Xiomara told a tale Earnestine could not believe, about how the boy had promised to buy her a car and to take her to Santo Domingo, where thirteen-year-olds could drive. Their hands still touching, Xiomara told her how the boy's family had offered to find her mother a good job there, how whenever they visited her mother would drink no rum or amaretto—only water and strawberry milkshakes. They took turns inching closer, first Xiomara, then Earnestine, until their arms and faces were touching, too.
"We're moving there soon," Xiomara said, passing her nose along Earnestine's neck. "I'm going to dance _bachata_ with my cousins in the mountains. It's my favorite dance. You feel like you're in water when you do it. It can be slow or it can be fast, but either way, you always feel free."
Still talking, Xiomara ran her lips along Earnestine's chin. Earnestine felt her chest jump, then pause, then slow, and she wondered if she should say something, too. But the story continued, and, after a while, she was not sure if it was her voice she heard or Xiomara's, her skin, her hands, her tongue or Xiomara's, whose lips, whose eyes. Pressed together, they shared the hair, trash falling through the sky beyond the back window. The length, and the leanness, and the longing were theirs as her father's song poured its sad notes through the halls.
# Snow Fight
This old white nigga starts talking and everybody on the train shuts up real tight for a second. Then they start screaming, " _Eeeeeh! Eeeeeeh!_ " cheering like on the basketball court watching Pito and Slimminy try to murder each other one-on-one, or when Sonjra and Ana-Rosario skipped Mr. Dominic's math class to go snatch clothes from on two-fifth and rocked their new Baby Phat jeans straight through eighth period, still with the plastic lock tags on. They ain't even hear what he said, and I'm not gonna front—I didn't really hear it either, it was so loud. I was just surprised to see him put down his newspaper and open his mouth, and even more surprised to see the snow fall out.
And when he said _"Shit!"_ forget it—it was a wrap. I always wondered what one of those random old white niggas on the train would do if you touched them or winked at them, rubbed your ass up on them one time when it was crowded or something. I thought maybe they would turn pink and start sweating and pull on they necktie like that old video for "Baby Got Back"—Sir Mix-a-Lot, I think—when the white dude sees the black girl with the phatty and it hits him too close, closer than white people like to go.
But your boy didn't do any of that. All he did was clear his throat and say "HEY!" real loud, like Principal Scaprioni does at assemblies when Light-skin Chris and them is actin' up, singing R. Kelley songs to the girls in the back row. At school, Scaprioni screams "HEY!" louder and they sing louder, going from the Chocolate Factory album and "Step in the Name of Love" straight back to some shit—I can't even remember the title—'bout " _your booody's caaallin fooor me_." Scaprioni says " _HEY_ " real loud—not loud as five or ten niggas singin' to cute girls—but who got the microphone? You can feel his voice shaking the walls from out the speakers; if you not talking you can even feel it under your feet.
Me, I sit with my homegirl Patricia and she teaches me words in Spanish. When Chris and them act up she tells me they acting mad " _bobo_ ," and when Scaprioni starts sweating like the white dude in the video, his fat face shining like a ham hock, she says " _Que parece cerdo._ " I laugh, 'cause my homegirl is funny, and 'cause I like how things she say in Spanish be so close to what I think in English. I don't know, shit like that is just funny to me.
Sometimes, if Dominique showed up to school that day and decided to sit with us instead of her flavor-of-the-week nigga, she bite on her braids like how she do and say some Jamaican shit 'bout " _Dat de man a puar wharff daawg!_ " But I'm not good at understanding all that. She make me laugh in the same way, though, for the simple fact that when me and Patricia went to her house, she had oxtails and fried fish with hush puppies, but her whole family called it "oxtail" with no _s_ , and "festival." And when Patricia asked what kind of fish it was, Dominique said it was salt fish _,_ but Patricia said she coulda swore it was _bacalao_. Crazy how shit could be different as night and day, then turn out to be the same damn thing just in a different language or a different sauce. I don't know, I just laugh.
Principal Scaprioni doesn't usually have to shake the ground more than once, even though they say 155 is the worst school in the city. They only say that because them dumb-ass twins Andrew and Alex put on some black T-shirts and brought heat to school last year—their senior year, okay, in _April_ , not even two months before their graduation—and tried to shoot the nose off the sphinx statue in the lobby, talking 'bout "THIS IS POLITICAL!" Now we have to go through metal detectors every time we come in and out. The line be down the street, almost to the train station. And still they expect us to get to class on time. What is that? And now we 'posed to be these bad-ass kids, meanwhile the worst shit that happens on a regular day is some dumb-ass, bobo-ass, wharff daawg-ass niggas singing "Sex Me!" to a bunch of eighth grade girls who can't even be bothered.
Well, I guess that's not true, depending on how you look at it. What shit does go down at 155 is 'cause they send these teachers whose names are probably Mary-Jane and Becky-Sue to come teach us—like thirty-five heads if everybody would show up—offa three or four books and a halfa piece of chalk. Even when niggas do have the book, half of them can't read for shit 'cause they didn't have the book last year, or any year before that. So what are they gonna do? Act up. I feel bad for the Mary-Janes sometimes. September they be really trying, lazy blonde hair all combed up, button down shirts and everything. They come in with all these books they photocopied and name tags they make in crayon to show us they really want to learn our names. By June they be done got attitude from the whole class, cursed the class themselves, then cried, and cried some more. Or if not they just broke out before they had the chance. But then I think harder and don't feel sorry for them at all. They go home to Long Island, the Hamptons or some shit. I go home to 143rd.
The Mary-Janes don't know what to do with us, but Scaprioni knows how to shut niggas up. On the news and in the movies they front like principals are some bitch-ass dudes who just love the kids so much they can't find it in they hearts to control them. Picture that. Scaprioni is not scared of a damn body. He is quick to throw you out of the auditorium, or your classroom, or his office, or wherever, and send you right down to the glass box in the lobby with the security guard. (There's two, and people say they both Five-O. I don't know 'bout all that, but I know they have heat and that's all I really need to know.)
If it's the white security guard, you're lucky. He just makes you sit in the box with your eyes closed so you can't make faces to any of your peoples that might pass by. But if it's the black dude, it's a wrap for you. He'll sit you with your back to the door, shove a book under your face, and tell you you better not touch it for any reason other than to turn the page. He hem niggas up with books like _They Came Before Columbus,_ about black people been in America earlier than the pilgrims, or _Cultura Afrocaribeña,_ about Dominicans and Puerto Ricans really came from Africa and just try to front. One time Dominique got caught messing with some Haitian nigga in the bathroom, and when the teachers found them they got sent straight to the box (nobody even called Scaprioni). Well, it was the black guard, and he sewed them both up tight. She had to read a book about _When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost_ , and the Haitian dude got stuffed up with _The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture._
That nigga does not play for real. You will be stuck up in that box with nuthin' to look at but either some long-ass book or the shot-up sphinx statue, which still has its white people nose on 'cause Alex and Andrew couldn't aim for shit and shot a hole in the left paw instead. Between the book and the sphinx, you might as well look at that book. And the black guard, if he even catches you with your eyes above page level for a few seconds, he will keep you there in that glass box till the building closes. And that's not till seven thirty, after everyone on the playground _been_ took it to the train, so you woulda missed mad shit, like today with the old white nigga.
I'ma be real with you. I actually like staying late at school. If it's warm, we have a really nice time. Niggas play ball, shirts and skins. Females watch and try to look all cute. It's like a fashion show— _America's Next Top Hood Model_ and shit—for the ones that have money like that. And even the ones that don't, we can watch. After school it's everybody together, and there's too many of us for Scaprioni and the Mary-Janes to do a damn thing about us, really—other than try to make us leave.
When it's warm, not like now, niggas be runnin' around the courtyard and dancing crazy. Dominique and Patricia and me maybe start a game of double-dutch, and sometimes even some of the ninth grade girls will jump in. Then we sing all our playground songs from back in the P.S. days, back when we thought cursing was some hot shit: " _1,2, my boyfriend wants to do me, 2,3, he wants to fuck my coochie..._ " We sing loud 'cause we can, and we say whatever we want 'cause it be so loud that nobody can hear us.
The best part of staying late at school is when it's warm and you chill outside you can just listen to people speak their languages. It gets so uncomfortable having to talk to the Mary-Janes and Becky-Sues all day, for those of us who try. Talking like you're reading from a book or some shit, like wearing a turtleneck sweater, how it stuffs up your throat. After school on the courtyard, none'a that. Niggas talk like how they fuckin' talk: "This bitch" this and "yo, son" that. The Haitians talk their African-French that is so pretty, and the Jamaican girls go on and on so fast I have to get Dominique to whisper to me just so I can know what's going on.
But in the wintertime, like now, it's different. Only the straight-up _bobo_ s and _wharff daawgs_ stand around the playground, smoking cigarettes. Everybody else takes it to the train. That's when me and Patricia say bye, 'cause she lives on the A and I take the 1-9. Dominique and me, we do us, though. We sit close as we can get to the middle of the train and listen to the Washington Heights niggas fill up the whole seven cars with loud-ass Spanish: " _Eres preciosa, amor, es un placer..._ " This scraggly-looking Dominican nigga is trying to spit game to a light-skinned girl. _"¿Nena, Eres freshman?"_ She don't seem to know how to respond, I guess she too young.
Down at the other end of the car they are talking so loud I can't hear a damn thing, they laughing and running their mouths 'bout _"¡Diablo, que'esa vaina!_ " I don't know exactly what they're saying, but it's loud as hell, and it sounds like they having a good time. Dominique is too, talking to some dude I have never seen, so I just sit quietly and do me, try to pick more words out the air.
Then I notice this old white nigga, his back all bent over like a pterodactyl or some shit, this _Jurassic Park_ nigga, face all up in a newspaper. He's not making no noise, but his lips are moving fast as the keys on one of those old-ass typewriters from the movies, and I am wondering how long he's gonna ignore all this noise bumping up against him.
When the doors open at 125th, the only outside stop on this side of the city, Light-skin Chris jumps out the door, and I think that's weird 'cause he lives on my block and we both get off at 145th. But then he comes back into the train with a handful of snow and throws it cross the whole car and hits Slimminy right on his neck. Everybody is like " _Ooooh!_ " and niggas start laughing. The train makes that doorbell noise to let you know the doors are about to close, but Slimminy sticks his little foot between them and reaches out. The doors click and bang against his foot like they don't know what to do, till then he comes back in with a whole armful of snow. Now it's on. Everybody's laughing and cheering in no language at all, really. Some girls in the middle of the car reach out there, too, and start flicking snow at each other. The bells keep ringing and niggas keep blocking the doors, reaching out and throwing big-ass handfuls of dirty snow at each other.
Then I catch it. And I'm glad right then that I am the kind of person that watches shit instead of getting caught up in it. Light-skin Chris was aiming for Slimminy, but his right hand slipped down the pole he was leaning on. He lost his balance, and the old white nigga got caught in the face with a clump of nasty, dirty, gray snow. Chris looked like he saw his mama ghost coming for him.
"HEY!" the old white nigga goes, like Principal Scaprioni, and everyone shuts up quick, like if he was gonna send them to the glass box or expel them. Then, I don't know, everybody starts cheering, screaming eight times louder than before, like if the Knicks would win a championship—like that. Like this was the best, funniest shit in the world. This old white nigga, the only one on the train fulla mad rowdy, laughing _us_ , and he gets caught in the face with dirty snow, and what was he gonna do? Niggas cracking up.
Then he says something: "something-something, _SHIT!_ " And it's over. People is dying, laughing so hard. Dominique is biting her braids hard now, looking like she 'bout to piss herself. The door bells ring again and nobody stops them this time, everybody caught up in laughing so hard. Then the snow falls out old boy's mouth and niggas laugh some more. They keep laughing after that and then they go back to doing their thing, just a little more loud and a little more happy.
But you know, I watched. And I'm glad too. 'Cause with everything that went down, the funniest shit to me—the part of this story that nobody else even knows—is the way your boy tried so hard to keep his typewriter lips straight while everybody was laughing. It was me, just me. I'm the only one that caught this old white nigga stretching his face over his teeth and scrunching up his neck and his eyes just to keep from laughing with us. I never woulda guessed that after all that, even this old white nigga himself would have an urge to smile. I don't know, shit like that is just funny to me.
# Powder and Smoke
Eyes closed, Saleema fell through the doorway carelessly, blissfully, and landed on the dormitory bed as though there were no doubt in her mind that it was there and ready to catch her. She raised her hands over her head and _smiled_ _in_ , as she had always called it, relaxing her muscles and reveling in the warmth of her own face until she felt something like a grin peek at her from inside. She smelled that girl's cigarette smoke in her braids, around her eyes, on her skin. This day was going to be good. Most mornings, Saleema woke up angry at the day—at its rush of classes and its papery post-seminar chatter in these strange Berkshire mountains. She often felt like the largest, darkest, most salient of all the things around her—including the mountains themselves—and the strangest in many ways. For most of her time there, all she had wanted to do those mornings was leave. But now, a semester into her freshmen year, there was _that girl_ —the black girl, the city girl, the gum-popping girl from Brooklyn, come as a transfer student to live down the hall. And finally, after weeks of hoping and fretting, of becoming close friends—real friends—Saleema had spent the afternoon with her—and then the evening and the night—smoking Newports and reading Alice Walker while the Biggie Smalls played on the stereo. They hadn't touched and they hadn't needed to; today, the spending time was enough. Now, Saleema felt high and unconquerable like some unnamed constellation. She found herself welcoming the morning. She was thankful for the day and for the fact that she was there. It didn't matter that she still wasn't sure where "there" was, exactly.
Before last night, Saleema had not been a fan of too much quiet or too much sun. So she had left the shade down and the TV on as she usually did lately, set to the talk-show rerun channel she and her homegirls used to watch at home. The TV had played all night while she was gone, and now, as she lay on the bed, the flicker of the small screen lit the space sporadically, revealing in flashes her piles: mail from home, mail from school, bills to pay (these wedged, unopened, behind the garbage can). There were old issues of _The Source_ and _Hip-Hop! Magazine_ , Lane Bryant and 16 Plus shopping bags, diet columns clipped from magazines and sent by her mother, low-fat cracker boxes, ashy with crumbs. But Saleema ignored all this. Instead, she let herself notice only the things that could feed the greedy joy that girl had inspired. Hands in her hair and reaching only with her skin, Saleema felt the home-things: the letters from her homegirls pinned to her corkboard, written in splotchy ink from dollar-store pens; the Jay-Z poster on her closet door; the rusted "Welcome to Harlem" street sign, ripped off the 145th Street bridge and sent up here to the ivy-crusted boonies by her oldest friend back home.
Now the television blared familiar commercials: "Sealy PosturePedic, Serta Perfect Sleeper, and Simmons Beauty Rest... even lower than the leading quality flatbeds."
"Dial one-eight hundred M-A-T-T-R-E-S," she belted without regard for key or tune, "And leave off the last _S_ for Savings!"
She laughed and sang the song again with the soul of Aretha and the deliberate style of Ella. Then she sat up. It was a new feeling, and a delicious one: she wanted to _go_ , as usual, but today it almost didn't matter where.
"We haven't seen you, Saleema!"
"Yeah, girlie, where ya been?"
The chorus of dormitory girls at her doorway chirped their greetings with pink-faced smiles.
"It's like every time I knock on your door you're not here!"
Stepping shoeless into the hallway, Saleema moved through the girls and toward the vending machine. A Diet Coke and a thirty-five-cent bag of Linden's Butter Crunch cookies, like from the bodega at home.
"Hey, Saleema! _Hey girl, hey_!" A freshman offered a too-wide smile and an eager wave as Saleema walked down the steps toward the front door.
"Wazz- _up_ , Saleema? I tried to call you. Is your phone, like, not working?" This one, who lived in the room next door to Saleema, had stolen her last St. Ides Special Brew a week earlier, passed out drunk on the hallway in front of her door, and had said nothing to her since.
Saleema acknowledged the girls' greetings with a vague smile that she hoped communicated disinterest—though if it didn't, she resolved, today she really didn't care. She grabbed her pea coat from the foyer, slid the soda into one pocket and the cookies into the other, looked down at her shoeless feet, and left the building.
Outside, sweeping afternoon shadows made the brick campus look fragile and falsely meticulous, like an architect's cardboard model or a movie set. But when she stepped away from the dorm, the sun filtered through her lashes and hit her cheeks with the soft sting she had always loved to feel at home. She smiled at the air, and when she saw the southbound Blue Line bus across the street, she got on.
The people on the bus watched, as always, while Saleema lumbered through the narrow door and up the three steep steps. Today, she watched them back.
"Free ride," said the driver, a stone-faced Latina woman with soft-looking skin. Saleema imagined that her smile, when coaxed, must be wide.
A little white boy with colored pencils in his hands stared at her as she moved up the aisle, his eyes huge and unblinking, as though she were a new kind of creature in a Saturday cartoon.
A white lady with thick eyebrows and a bolt of silver hair looked at Saleema's feet, then turned toward the window and scowled, her face beautiful and severe.
A dreadlocked woman in the middle of the bus looked at Saleema's stomach, frowned, then clasped her fingers over her own stomach, her many rings tinkling.
A young guy with pink hair in the handicap seat looked at Saleema's shoeless feet and nodded, then he rubbed his face and turned quickly back to his Discman before Saleema had a chance to smile at him.
Saleema was used to feeling like a strange, brown spot in peoples' daily commute. But today it didn't matter. She smiled at each of them. These people did not need to know that this spot could gaze, could read their disquieted faces, and be completely in love anyway.
That was the nice thing about love. She had thought about it a lot the night before as and that girl read excerpts from _Temple of My Familiar_ , smoke tumbling like pixie dust in the air between them. Love, didn't have to make sense to anyone, especially the person doing the loving. All you owed it was to let it be. And sometimes, it didn't even need to be—sometimes, just the possibility was enough.
In her favorite seat in the back corner of the bus, she put her bare feet up and began to sing a medley of Janet Jackson songs quietly to herself, and to anyone who cared to listen. Lost in the rapture and glide of "When I Think of You," she had not noticed the small man a few rows up who had risen from his seat and was now walking toward her. His shoelaces were untied and he wore a dried powder blue carnation on his lapel. His eyes were clear and glazed like glass marbles, and his cheeks and brow shone as though he were about to greet an old friend. As he approached, Saleema noticed that he smelled faintly of rotten oranges. Since she was a child, her mother had liked to leave orange peels on the stove to scent the kitchen, and this smell had always reminded her of home. And so when the man extended his hand, she took it.
"Can't wait, eh?" He thudded into the seat in front of her. She moved her feet and nodded, loving this strange man's appearance.
He rubbed his face, then tapped the silver handrail as he spoke. "It's like I always said—better to just wait and see. Always hard though, y'know?"
Saleema looked at the man and waited for more. He paused and gazed at a cough syrup ad overhead. Then he jerked suddenly and faced Saleema with imploring eyes.
"I'll never leave again. Now, say what they want, these crazies will, but I'd rather stay where I know, now that I know. That last push outta mama's tum-tum, you watch. Every baby—the president and his shit cleaner—they 'cry cause they wanna get back in. I say stay where y'know, or find it where y'go, if y'can." He shook his head slowly as though in pain and closed his eyes.
The lovely, mean white lady was now standing, clasped to the silver pole by the back door. She caught Saleema in an accidental glance that was startling at first, but then made Saleema want to laugh. The woman had known immediately that this big, shoeless black girl was a shame—and now look at the company she was keeping! By the time the last puff of feathers from the woman's unseasonable winter coat had floated down to the bus floor, Saleema's strange companion was asleep.
At school, the dormitory girls wondered where Saleema had gone so abruptly on a Saturday afternoon—and without any shoes on at that. The told each other they hoped Saleema hadn't been nabbed by lunatics, but in truth, they weren't convinced such vulnerability was possible for her, even in their wildest imaginations.
Saleema sang "Escapade" more quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeper.
It wasn't until the driver called Sovereign Street that Saleema noticed no other stop had been announced along the ride. Hearing the driver's voice, the sleeping man rose and flew off the bus in one quick motion, without a glance in Saleema's direction. Saleema was disappointed. He had engaged her in his bizarre conversation, fallen asleep on her, and then left unexpectedly, without even a strange or silent good-bye.
Everyone at home would have rolled their eyes, shaken their heads, and given her a mouthful of reasons to let her moment with the man end there. But the feeling of that girl's smoke—the curiosity, the excitement, the wondering-what-could-be—won out in the end. She fastened her coat, pressed the yellow tape by the back door, and gazed up at the driver's rear view mirror, begging with her eyes for the doors to open again.
Coolness and the setting sun made Sovereign Street a hard, gray place, and the man was nowhere in sight. After walking down the blocks for a few minutes, the soda in her pocket began to chill her thigh and her toes started to feel dead and numb. She tried to find a heated spot to warm her feet, but there were no steaming manholes or subway grates here—only clean, even pavement stretching uninterrupted for blocks. On one corner, she saw a penny winking from the ground. This was probably the best this adventure would offer her, she decided, and perhaps it wasn't all that bad. It was almost definitely unwise to follow eccentric white men down unknown streets, but found pennies could be good. At home, the rhyme was: _Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you got good luck_. In junior high, several other versions of the rhyme cropped up: _Find a penny, pick it up,_ _wish that it had been a buck_ ; _Find a penny, pick it up,_ _tell your moms she really sucks_ , and, Saleema's favorite, _Find a penny, pick it up,_ _lose that shit, who gives a fuck? It's a fucking penny!_ If she didn't find the man, she reasoned, the penny would be a cute moment in her year's best day. And if she did find him, some luck might come in handy. And so she reached down.
Across the street, a little boy wrote curse words on the ground in blue chalk, smiling toothily in Saleema's direction.
Back at the dormitory, Saleema's disappearance was no longer a topic of conversation; mid-terms and Saturday evening affairs were at hand.
Stooping for the penny, she saw a flash out the corner of her eye—a quick glint of something down moving the alley beside her. She pocketed the penny and moved closer. Finally, she saw the man sitting on the front stairs of an abandoned building, his back hunched over and his elbows on his knees like a seasoned stoop-sitter from home.
She stopped at a mailbox and fiddled with the handle, eyeing the man. But as soon as she paused he stood, jerked around, and sailed further down the block with a smooth, important stride. Saleema walked a few yards behind him. It was clear now—if it hadn't been before: infatuation and homesickness were overwhelming her good sense. She observed the fact like a scene unfolding on a TV screen, imagining what folks from home would say, but continuing all the same. When the man entered a huge teal-colored building and held the huge steel doors open behind him, huge Saleema followed right in.
The room did not even smell like oranges. That was the only real surprise.
It did not surprise her that they all looked like him, bore his same height and weight, same attire with slight variations. She was not surprised by the impeccable congruence of their matching carnations—this one lavender, that one paisley, this one polka-dotted and aquamarine. The ceilings were beanstalk high, and the walls seemed to hum with the men's tangled, throaty chatter as they all worked diligently at small blue machines. It was breathtaking and perfect. They were Dorothy's munchkins, Alice's playing cards, and Saleema was not surprised at all.
Standing in the doorway, Saleema saw that the walls were lined with large bails filled almost to the brim with mounds of a white, grainy substance that looked like flour but smelled like the sweet baby powder that girls always wore in the summer at home. The powder poured from the tube at the end of each little blue machine into a series of small cylindrical vats on the floor. Men with black-and-white speckled carnations drove tall carts up and down the aisles collecting the vats, filling the carts with powder, and leaving a thin white fog behind them as they went.
Watching, Saleema remembered home. She remembered the sandwich bags full of white powder that she carried around the streets of Harlem for eight months of the ninth grade, concealed in a hole in her coat. She remembered delighting in the soft, sandy texture of the powder every chance she got, rolling it lightly between her fingertips, clenching it tight and full in her fists, then releasing it slowly through the cracks between her fingers, _smiling-in_ as she did last night with each breath of that girl's smoke.
The playground on Amsterdam Avenue was always dark indigo in Saleema's memory, and it always smelled like plátanos and chocolate thai with slow breeze and fast lights. The dented metal slides that burned bare legs in the summer and the broken tire swings beside them remembered like home, and the Saleema's powder was part of that. She remembered questioning the gravelly cement benches that prickled thighs and the single chess tables that joined them, wondering who thought neighborhood people would sit and play chess in pairs in the playground when there was each other and home to engage.
The coco helado man and the hot dog lady should marry when we are jumping double-dutch my mama your mama sitting on the fence and loving powder because it is so soft and so texture turned into an adjective the texturest superlative and she was the only one who knew what it meant but she was not the only one who knew what it was at home playing house in the jungle gym and wondering why there was room for a jungle down the street from the stoop where every day was a block party in blue mood and little girls would steal your my little pony to bring on your first fight at home in the playground still loving that powder and being the only one when you leave and go to a smart people school a white people school and talk like you do and look like you do and can still teddy bear teddy bear turn around teddy bear teddy bear touch the ground... saleema will remember shug and celie's song and see it in herself and her girls will see the movie and remember saleema and they'll wonder where saleema is now.
saleema is inside of white powder where she lives and where she is from under the lights that who-knew-how they came up early in the winter and late in the summer in the corners by the fence where the red ants were and you betta not step on the cracks cuz if you did all the girls would giggle as you giggled she giggled saleema did when the old man pissed on the basketball court after the church women had gone home to cook for the week and do someone's hair and How you doing baby and Did you want some food and Where is your mother working hard, Lord Jesus, hardheaddedness was enough to urge her into pussy and smoke and love and home like powder and everyone knew her powder and her were deep and close like home and everyone knew where that was but not everyone knew what it meant Throw yo shit yo/ throw yo shit, saleema when five-o comes they wont care bout the difference between powder and snow, blow, yeya yo ass is crazy but they ain't us don't know you love you like home like that girl throw yo shit we smokin weed and you got powder in your pocket girl don't you know you could get us caught like eeney meeney miney mo catch us they will catch us girl... yo powder can get us killed.
Saleema held her braids to her nose and sniffed for the smoke in the rain in front of the building. She pulled them, twisted them, wrung them around themselves and inhaled desperately, but she could not find the smell and there was no powder outside. She wanted to fall on her bed and feel home on her skin but she was in the middle of noplace and her skin was too wet to feel.
When she got back, the dormitory was dank and the girls were preparing for a party.
"Whazz- _up_ , Saleema?"
"Yeah, girlie! Where'd you go?"
"No shoes today, huh, Saleema? Hehe!"
Saleema sat on the front steps and held her head as the girls shuffled past her, in and out of the rain. She stayed that way until the moon was bright platinum against an inky sky, and then she moved inside.
She should have grown used to having big realizations at her most naked times. This one had come years before and sporadically since, over tops of silky heads in subway cars, in unyielding lecture hall chairs, in photographs, and in front of bedroom mirrors. Now she was sitting, clothed and soggy, on the closed toilet in a narrow stall when she presented herself with the fact: she was not a woman. She was too big and too black and too full of something thicker than blood to be a person at all.
She took the soda and the cookies from her coat pocket and placed them on the bathroom floor. At the sink, she watched herself: dark-lined lips that sang home in mattress commercials, bright green nails as strange in New England as they were in New York. Round cheeks that drank the sun when they could and _smiled in_. She washed her hands thoroughly—three times, maybe four—wishing for lather to make powder and water to make smoke so she would feel at home again. She stood there for full minutes with that wish, heart bouncing like a girl yearning to leap in to a twirling clothesline for double-dutch, unsure if it would ever be her turn.
In the foyer, Saleema dialed her campus voice mail and listened to "Big Poppa" play behind her on the outgoing greeting.
"What up, y'all, this is Saleema. Leave a message. Peace." Her voice was thick and steady like syrup, she thought—a lie. Standing amid the chatting girls, the party-planning banter, she entered her pin number and waited for her one new message to play.
"Now, bitch, you know we was just bumpin' Biggie in the room so now you wanna throw some mufuckin' Big Poppa on your voicemail? Aight then. But yo, where you at? I'm just chillin', wondering what's going on with you—haven't seen you since, like, this morning. Anyway, I'm 'bout to smoke me a cigarette. Holla back. Love you, girl. One."
Saleema's skin was warm. She closed her eyes, smiled, and breathed deep.
# A Strange People
We-Chrissie will let the white men see and touch our difference. She will smile for doctors and handlers like Mrs. Susan's old china trinket dolls, tilt her head just so and laugh, her hand grabbing at our hemline. In the next town, we'll see banners and broadsides proclaiming our "charm." We-Millie will not understand why they would write us that way. She will taste the words like coffee grounds in her mouth and wonder how they can print them so small and neat below the headlines: "Double-Headed Darkey," "United Negress Freaks," "Two-Headed African Beast." We-Chrissie will not have these questions. She will know that the nice words are for her. She is the one who has always hated us.
When we were young, decades ago, We-Chrissie wrote her version of our story, and everyone who knew us was surprised. She got most of the facts straight, told about our slave birth and the scandal we caused on our first master's farm, how we were sold from Master John and Mrs. Susan, then slipped like a wet hunk of soap from hand to hand, master to master, growing up and filling out the carnival circuit. She told how we saw things most North Carolina nigger girls wouldn't even think to dream of—the darting English steam cars, the white-choked winter at the Cirque des Champs-Elysées. We-Chrissie spent a few words on We-Millie's favorite part of the life, when we ended up back in Mrs. Susan's arms. She said a couple of things about our life on the midway, the place between the circus gates and the big top, where freak acts wander about and ballyhoo, squeezing awe from the norms' eyes like milk from fat cows' udders.
We-Chrissie is an all-star bally, always has been. She preened and flaunted in her story too, playing our difference up and down to suit her audience. First it was a "malformation," then it was a "joy." Our join was a curse we were proud of, she said, writing on our minds the paradox of our body. She refused to let them think for a second that the slightest drip of difference ran between we-two. "We are indeed a strange people," she began her story, and it continued on like that—"a people," two, but one. She refused to tell anyone that it was she alone who had written the story, without letting We-Millie so much as touch the pen or smell the ink when the manuscript was done. We-Chrissie wrote, then—and will tell anyone who asks now—that there is only one heart in the body. We-Millie sits silent when she says this, and lets her go ahead with her show. We-Millie knows, though, that our hearts are separate. Our wombs, our backs, our hot puddles and buttons come in and out of each other like corset laces; We-Chrissie feels We-Millie's itches and We-Millie rubs on We-Chrissie's aches, but for We-Millie, our hearts are separate things, different as the sun and the moon pinning down the ends of a long day's sky.
It is obvious to everyone that We-Chrissie is the charming one. She is the one the newspapers talk about when they say we are beautiful. We-Millie is the one that scares people, we think. She is quiet and unsure, and if we were not us—if we were norms, or nigger girls at least—We-Millie would never find herself anywhere near a stage. We-Millie speaks German and Spanish better than We-Chrissie, better than Mrs. Susan, who taught us. But she stays quiet, the small, silent half. We-Chrissie is stronger; We-Millie is frail. We-Chrissie is pretty; We-Millie is darker and with a gnarling nose. When We-Chrissie smiles at the doctors and invites them to probe the body, We-Millie plays along and feels her mouth burn with quiet. It is her feebler puddle, her crookeder pit in which they will splash and plunge to their hearts' content.
While We-Chrissie talks to reporters, doctors, and midway norms, We-Millie moves her mouth and smiles along, but sends her mind inside. Both of we-two make up stories. We-Chrissie likes to say hers, shout them out from the stage, write them down in books. We-Millie keeps her stories to herself.
When Mrs. Susan heard about We-Chrissie's story, she smiled, her soft pink cheeks glowing as she chuckled. "You couldn't have convinced me that _that_ one ever learned to read." She pointed her chin at We-Chrissie. "Least not by my hand. Don't know what you-all picked up on the road, I suppose."
We-Chrissie was never bothered by Mrs. Susan's comments. We-Millie couldn't get enough of Mrs. Susan, but We-Chrissie always her in sips, swishing her around in slow judgment whenever she was around, spitting her name out bitterly when it was just we-two alone.
The biggest fight we ever had happened the morning of Master John's funeral. We-Chrissie wanted to wear our star-spangled taffeta costume to the service. She said we'd be the blow-off, the grand finale of Master John's long-lived show. To her, he was a freak on his own, and a gaff—a liar—at that. She said he passed for a kind master, an innocent pushed into managing us by altruism and Christian duty, but that he was really a mastermind who had plotted our course from our birth, calculating our life's revenue by the time we were two months old. We-Millie liked her skepticism, but got hot at the thought of disrespecting Mrs. Susan by wearing the dress. We-Millie has loved Mrs. Susan forever, in the way that norm women, she thinks, love the people who take care of them, make them feel like the secret of life lives between their two limbs.
We-Chrissie loved our midway life, and We-Millie liked it well enough too. Although it was clotted with people and noise, We-Millie enjoyed the camaraderie that came with a traveling pack of freaks. Zip Johnson, "The What-Is-It," adopted us as his niece, and would visit our tent in his furry brown costume after his "missing link" show, spinning us around in pirouettes and sharing some of the bananas he was paid to hurl at his audiences. Bearded and fat ladies of all heights and temperaments mothered us, pressing our hair and teaching us how to send our minds away from the body when norm men came to us with their pointing parts and oily smiles. For We-Millie, Miss Ella Ewing, the Missouri Giantess, was heaven itself, and the nook between her chest and her yardstick arm was a personal paradise. Miss Ella had traveled with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and it had filled her with stories we could listen to for days. We-Chrissie loved to hear about the high, steady pay Miss Ella received, and the handsome Indian men she performed with. We-Millie simply liked the sad, deep moan of the giantess's voice. We-Millie dragged the body to her every chance she got, just to curl into the nook of her chest and hear her thunderstorm breath, her earthquake heartbeat.
We-Chrissie has always insisted that we have no real family, though she didn't write that in her book. We-Millie sees it differently. For her, the circus folks—the midway freaks and the staff, the managers' wives and children, and sometimes men like Barnum himself—make a collage of a family portrait we can hang proudly enough on the wall of our life. We-Chrissie's face sours when We-Millie says these things, and she spits. "You also insist on thinking that the man who sold us to the stage loves you." We-Millie thinks _Yes, I have to think that, and I have to think he loves you too._ But she doesn't need to say it, of course, because We-Chrissie knows.
Mrs. Susan and Master John hold our story together like bookends—we both agree on that. They were there when life set us whirling about like a spinning top, and here they are again—the lady and the ghost—now that things are starting to slow down. Master John was still living when he and Mrs. Susan came to England to get us from Lars Rachman, the most recent man to have crept into a tent and stolen us in the middle of the night. Master John was brusque as usual, but kind enough, returning We-Chrissie's buttermilk smile as he ushered us out of the Liverpool courtroom. Mrs. Susan was slower, warmer, as was her way. She held her arms out and called our names, pulling the body toward her with her scent and her feel and her promise of home.
We were too young to know then that home doesn't exist unless it's far from you, that either it or you must disappear the moment you return. North Carolina was decimated after the Civil War, and by then Master John's house was no more a home than a floor plank was a blacktop. We-Millie is sure it was the shock of our return and the swollen weight of Mrs. Susan's misery that first brought the fever to her side of the body. We-Chrissie has always laughed those claims off, not so much to dismiss her as to keep her focused on the tasks at hand. Master John died of gout before We-Millie had a chance to feel all of her pain, and our status as breadwinners for his family and for ourselves became official.
We-Chrissie became our manager, making contacts with the North Carolina showmen we'd known before we left, dazzling them all with her smile and her laugh, running her bally to keep them interested. Her act was tight and she always got her _ding_ , as circus folks say, the clink of whatever capital against whatever pot she passed around. We needed money, of course, but We-Chrissie was smart. She knew that a few dollars weekly from a traveling sideshow gig was alright for a pair of young nigger-girl freaks without the need or right to do for themselves, but we were grown, almost old, and as free as we would ever be. We needed money, We-Chrissie knew, but it was information that would make us. We needed to know what opportunities we could find—or drum up for ourselves—on the nation's larger stage. We-Chrissie enlisted the help of Ron Samuel, Master John's old stableman, and set the body flitting about the marshlands of Columbus County with her ear to the tracks of the circus world, dropping Master John's good name like maple sugar candies whenever we needed white norm protection.
It was in a saloon near Soule's Swamp that we heard the news We-Chrissie thought would change our life. The barmaid was a woman who had ballyhooed for P.T. Barnum's show years before, when we were being billed as the "Two-Headed Cherub Monstrosity." She was a kind woman with a ruddy face and a mess of wheat-colored hair piled up on her head. She always liked Master John and Mrs. Susan, and We-Millie thought she was nice enough to us, though We-Chrissie insisted she was simply trying to get on Master John's good side, which for her meant the inside of his pants. Still, the woman smiled when we shuffled sideways through the door, and offered us a glass of lemonade, which We-Millie decided we would drink.
"You girls know 'bout the nigger show?" the woman asked, watching We-Chrissie's face for evidence that she felt or tasted the lemonade. We-two shook our heads.
"Man behind Buffalo Bill and the Wild West show—not Cody, but the money man, a Yankee. He's doing a big show about niggers. You-all'd be perfect for it."
We-Millie could feel We-Chrissie's smile spread on the skin. We-Chrissie thanked the woman and yanked the body toward the door so quickly We-Millie had to pinch the spine to slow us down so she could pay. The woman smiled, and We-Millie felt her eyes on the body as we ambled out the door, We-Millie glad to be heading home as always, We-Chrissie dreaming of New York City, plotting the course of our life anew.
The first thing Nate Salsbury saw as he stepped toward his office door, a hot mug of coffee in his hand, was the shadow of what looked like a lightening-struck bonsai tree hovering on his wall. The dark shape startled him, then drew him in. He paused at the doorway and gripped his mug, trying not to drop the mug or spill the coffee, as he'd felt scattered and off-kilter since his morning meeting. But as the shadow began to twirl along the wall, practicing its audition dance, he assumed, he decided to sip for a moment and watch the figure move. A perfect bonsai, he determined: mangled even in its symmetry, purely exotic, fine and lovely and no less than grotesque. As the creature rose and began to twist, he walked toward it, slowly catching its rhythm, hurriedly catching his breath.
"I heard you were a dancer," he said, setting the mug beside his leather blotter. "But I could never have dreamed a figure of such brilliant grace."
It couldn't be called a beautiful creature, exactly, but there was something enthralling, almost fetching about it. It stood five feet tall, with four legs and four arms, but only one forked, double-wide torso, which seemed curve in on itself in a twiglike construction, giving it the look of two young girls pressed back-to-back in a game of peek-a-boo.
The creature smiled with its slightly prettier head and halted, one half dipping into a curtsey, which the other half mirrored perfectly.
"How can we respond to a compliment from a man so discerning and worldly as yourself?" the fairer head said. "We can only invite you to examine us as long and as fully as your least whim would have."
Salsbury smiled, taken aback by the pointedness of the creature's charm. This head was clearly the showman, he concluded, and the businessman as well. The other head was engaged, nodding and smiling throughout, but it seemed to maintain a certain distance, watching the scene carefully but saying almost nothing.
He had heard about this creature, touted as a Negress version of the two-headed Oriental that had made such a splash on the circuit some years ago. The comparison was logical, of course, but seeing this creature before him, he saw that that description missed much. The fairer head in particular had a clawing spunk that even the more animated half of the Oriental could never have aspired to. She had the bite of any Negro woman made tough and mannish by years of work, yet too smart to relinquish the last dregs of her femininity. Other things about the creature, though, he had never seen in a Negro, or an Indian, or talent of any kind before. This being before him seemed to see itself just as a showman would see it, locating the lair of its dark allure and subduing its other parts to keep all eyes on the money spot. The creature bent its two inner legs leisurely and fanned a smile, awaiting his response.
"Well, Miss McKoy, I am obviously honored by your offer," he said, settling in behind his desk. "But of course you'd want to know your talents were fully appreciated before having them committed to the whim, as you say, of a stranger. I hear that among your many gifts is a literary talent. Is that right?"
The creature nodded its heads, and the sullen face seemed to brighten up.
"Oh yes," the fair head said eagerly. "We know the best parts of Spenser and many of the sonnets, as well as the major works of Molinet, and du Mans, along with all of the Lay of Hildebrand, each in the original language, and in translation, of course."
"And," the plain head interrupted dryly, "we compose our own poetry as well."
"Yes," he sighed, leaning back. "I'd be delighted to hear an original composition from the very four lips of the poetess."
The creature opened its mouths, offering for the first time a taste of their vocal harmony. Salsbury had expected some tonal dissonances, as one often heard in the first few seconds of duo or group auditions. But the creature made no false starts. It launched flawlessly into a compelling rhymed bit about its life, its two voices perfectly pitched and ringing clearly as a single bell.
As the creature spoke, Salsbury recalled the morning's meeting. He had had in this same office what initially impressed as an unremarkable group, also auditioning for his Negro show, which would go up at the Third Avenue Theatre at the end of they year. He had put word out weeks before among colleagues and busybodies that he was assembling history's largest Negro performance, to match ticket for ticket and dollar for dollar his success with Buffalo Bill, and to exceed the Wild West show in quality as well as moral heft. This exhibition, he had told them all, would showcase the finer qualities of the Negro. It would bring to the fore the darker race's evolution from African jungle savagery to New York civilization, and would recall all the delights of the Negro's character at each stage. The advertisements would mention the Negro's darker days, but would also herald his resurrection. Audiences the world over would be thrilled by all parts of the spectacle. They would cull joy from the Negro's triumph, and be relieved from their own pains by the utterly black drama unfolding on stage.
Salsbury had to acknowledge that it was a brilliant idea each time he thought about it. It was going perfectly, and after only two months of planning, the first performance was nearly cast. The best minstrel actors had been recruited from all along the eastern seaboard, and New York's highest-grossing stage writers were at work on scripts that would bring the high drama of the Negro's history to the stage. He was now in the more relaxed phase of booking specialty acts. As well as things had gone up to this point, the moment in which he found himself now was a strange one. Here he was, requiring himself to choose between this Negress freak, an embodiment of error, and the ostensibly unremarkable group he had seen this morning. And even as the cloven creature sparkled eerily before him, reading what was turning out to be a shockingly competent poem, he found himself pulled toward this morning's less-than-spectacle, a group called That So Different Four.
He had expected the group to shuffle into his office at least five minutes late, as was the Negro way. His first surprise, then, was to find them dressed to the nines and reading newspapers casually beside his secretary's desk when he walked in to the office, twenty minutes before their appointment time of ten o'clock. The surprise did not end there—rather, it grew into shock as he heard the group speak and watched them perform. The two men and two women moved as a unit, and spoke as clearly and articulately as the creature before him, which, in a way, made the freestanding Negroes even more remarkable. The two-headed creature was made, sent even, to thrill and bewilder. But a pack of well-dressed, well-spoken, unsmiling darkies, mannered and reading, operating together with an almost mechanical precision—this was the kind of spectacle no audience could forget. The two-headed Negro girl would alarm audiences, for sure. But the dandies—no, not dandies, one couldn't really even call them that—the "Different" negroes, with their seriousness and their finery just on the slight side of decadence, would bring the audiences to their edge. Their act was not the childish mockery that proliferated on the minstrel stage, though they certainly had the innate musical talent typical of their race. Still, save for their color, this group had almost all the airs of normal, modern men. An act like that was striking in a powerful, nearly sinister way. The "Different" Negro ensemble would haunt audiences as they haunted him now, their dark eyes flashing from wall placards, campaign posters, family portraits on parlor walls, or worse—and chillingly better—from the looking glass itself. The thought scared and thrilled him, and he found himself eager to see them at a distance, behind the fourth wall of the stage. They were performers, niggers in the theater like so many; and yet unlike the minstrels—and unlike the odd lump of flesh that sat before him now—the So Different Four were not so different at all. They were black, of course, but otherwise, they were nearly...
When the creature's poem concluded, the prettier head gave a confident, expectant smile, pushing her side of its chest toward him.
"Well, you certainly are talented," Salsbury said. He stood and walked toward the creature. "Surely no one could be disappointed by such a treat. Thank you for your time, young lad—" He stammered, unsure whether to the plural was appropriate, or if the singular was right. Instead, he put his hand on the creature's back, making sure to get a grab of the fleshy, wishbone spine as he ushered it out the door.
We stayed on in New York for three weeks after our meeting with Salsbury, in a property of Mrs. Amanda Bunting, a friend of Mrs. Susan's. Mrs. Bunting owned a boarding house on the southeast tip of the city, in the middle of a cluster of settlement houses, slaughterhouses, and Jewish bakeries. The building was empty, as Mrs. Bunting and her husband had just bought the property and had yet to carve it up into single rooms. Mrs. Bunting lived far across the city—a chess knight's move away, she said—and so there was no sense in feeding the coal stove daily just to keep our one body warm. Still, she promised us privacy and discretion at the boarding house, and, for the most part, delivered both. We lived off of money Mrs. Susan loaned us, though We-Chrissie refused to call it a loan—all of Mrs. Susan's money, she said, came from us at the end of the day.
We spent our time in New York gazing out of Mrs. Bunting's garden-parlor window at the feet of norms, watching their heels pass in pairs nimbly over the cobblestones. We-Millie felt a quick tug from We-Chrissie's side of the body when one of the new electrified streetcars passed by; We-Chrissie was excited by the cars' speed and smoothness. She talked about how grand it would be to be perched in one of those seats, darting sleekly from one glamorous place to another as we prepared for our debut in Salsbury's show. We-Millie shuddered under Mrs. Bunting's blankets when We-Chrissie's said these things. We-Millie's chills and fevers had worsened since we'd arrived in New York. Her side of the body seemed to grow frailer and weaker with each new day, but We-Chrissie did not notice, or if she did, she did not seem to care.
When we didn't hear from Salsbury after a week, We-Chrissie asked Mrs. Bunting to load us in her carriage and carry us back to his office, a mile away up on Tin Pan Alley, where we waited with his secretary for two hours before being told he wouldn't be able to see us that day. It was a cool, wet afternoon, the kind we have only experienced in the American North, where the wind feels mean and lazy at once, and the rain seems to pinch at the skin, as though to get its attention. Finally, the chills began to spread to We-Chrissie's side of the body, and, now feeling them too, We-Chrissie promised that we would return to Columbus County as soon as we signed a contract for the Negro show. Once signed, she said, we would stay home with Mrs. Susan until just before the opening performance, but not a day longer.
Leaving Salsbury's building, we stopped near the entranceway to fumble with our umbrellas, trying to make sure sure to cover the join. We-Millie had turned to protect her hair from a big gust of droplets when the finest group of niggers we had ever seen waltzed toward Salsbury's building. At the head of the pack was a tall, slim brown man with eyes like pools of sweetmilk and lashes as long as a foxtail's fur. We-Millie felt a rush of blood through the body, and We-Chrissie lurched so quickly toward the man that We-Millie worried, for a second, that the join might tear.
His name, it turned out, was Carlo. He was the lead performer of a new musical group being courted to join Salsbury's show. We-Chrissie gave Carlo a smile We-Millie had never felt before, one that buzzed over the entire surface of the body and burrowed into the knots of our flesh. Both of we-two watched the young women in the group, though We-Millie eyed them only long enough to see that neither of them looked kind. They were tall—taller even than most norm women—and they both dressed finely, in smart streetcoats with silver buckles and shiny, pointed shoes. To We-Millie, they were long and slick and glassy-looking, like Mrs. Susan's bud vases, their bodies curving in and out with perfect symmetry, their shoulders reaching up into the air as though poised to receive a gift.
We-two felt instantly ashamed, though we were wearing the best costume we had—a black and blue suede number with beadwork and embroidery that cinched our waist. We felt the women's eyes fall on the body, saw the familiar mix of nausea and awe on their faces. We-Millie wanted to leave the scene, to find dryness and warmth somewhere and wrap the body in it, fast. But We-Chrissie wanted to stay, and so we did, We-Chrissie talking and preening while We-Millie shivered in the rain. After a while, We-Chrissie determined that the two women were Carlo's colleagues and nothing more. This meant something important to We-Chrissie, in a way that We-Millie only half-understood.
Carlo said that he had heard about our act as a child, and had thought of us as icons as he dreamed about an entertainment career. This news fell on We-Chrissie like a marriage vow, and she began to gush compliments over him, being sure to work in details of our life that would indicate—in case he was too simple to know, We-Millie thought—that we were single and available. We-Millie gave him Mrs. Bunting's address and suggested that he call on us to chat about our experience in the business, or anything else that might spark his interest. He thanked her with a deep bow and proceeded with his company out of the rain, leaving us to the task of keeping ourselves dry and giving us another call to wait for.
The following morning, We-Millie's fever broke like a cloud into sweat showers, and the coughs from her side of the body began to produce a pinkish phlegm. Still, We-Chrissie added days to our stay in the North, insisting that Salsbury, or Carlo, or somebody, would call on us at any minute.
We-Millie finds it needless to say that neither call ever came. We-Chrissie resents this feeling from the body's other half.
What is remarkable, for We-Millie at least, is the course our story was taking, even as we dallied in New York, holding ourself up for sale like the last rotting piece of fruit at the produce market. What is remarkable, even We-Chrissie won't deny, is the shock, still with us, of returning to Columbus on a Saturday morning—with no contract and no one having called—to be met with Ron Samuel's stricken face and shattered voice, announcing in an auctioneer's bewildered monotone how Mrs. Susan passed, alone, soaked with sweat, late the night before.
We did not know something like this could happen. We-Chrissie did not know how painful it can be to get one's way. We-Millie did not know how one's own will, discarded, can fly back to hurt the people one loves. We-Millie tries not to think how differently things may have gone if we-two had come back earlier—how perhaps the body might not be drowning in fever as it is now, how perhaps we might have gotten Mrs. Susan to a doctor in time to keep her alive.
We-Chrissie will say there was no way of knowing Mrs. Susan was ill, that she didn't know how bad We-Millie's fevers had grown. We-Millie will know these are the kind of lies told only to soothe the liar. What we both knew well was men like Salsbury. We knew him like we have known all the masters and handlers and doctors, all the white norm men, all our lives. We should have been used to wordless rejection. We should not have been surprised by his. We-Chrissie felt his ambivalence as he eyed the body, even while we spun around his office, doing our most difficult dance. We-Millie felt him stare at us as though he expected gold coins to pour from between our legs, smelled his disappointment when they did not. But we needed money as badly as Salsbury wanted it. So We-Millie stayed quiet while We-Chrissie brightened her face and stuck out her bosom, waving the body in the white man's face like a flag before a firing squad.
We-Millie tries to be understanding as she remembers. She tries not to think of Mrs. Susan, just as We-Chrissie tries not to think of Carlo, the nigger show, and all the other things she feels we've lost.
"We were stupid to think they would always want us," We-Chrissie sighs, her head falling onto We-Millie's shoulder. "We were silly to believe we could be just the right blend of bile and sugar always. That tastes and people would not change and leave us here in this torture box, alone. How stupid we were..."
_You were stupid_. The thought slices like a knife through the body.
You were stupid to think they wanted you in the first place. You were dumb to let your fantasies eat you. _You_ are the stupid one. _You_. Alone. I have never been your twin.
The shoulders twist. The heads roll apart. We are sharing a brutal wish.
The back hands reach for each other and stroke themselves. A hot sweat slicks up on the spine, a chill rushes down from the tender crevice of the join. We have never shared this wish before.
We-Chrissie's heart is slowing. We-Millie feels hers quicken.
# Saturday
The truth was, Malaya Clondon had been thinking of French fries since last night, as she ate Chinese food in secret with her father while her mother worked late at the university. The thought of French fries stayed with her through the canned laughter and blonde-headed family tableaus of the Friday night sitcom lineup, and helped her push herself from the bed most Saturday mornings. She thought of the shiny fried strips, nested together, boasting countless shades of yellow and gold, from the time she and her mother left their brownstone in the morning till she felt, at last, the film of hot grease on her face after dance class, so much later in the day.
On the walk to the meeting, other foods drifted to mind. Trailing behind her mother, Malaya would prod herself to gallop quickly past the delicious smells of Harlem, willing herself not to notice them. Malaya and Professor Clondon passed at least eight bodegas on the walk, plus the McDonald's and the Kentucky Fried, and the Woolworth's on Broadway, where the smell of hot popcorn seemed to seep from beneath the glass doors in slow waves. On 145th Street there was Copeland's, where they made crispy smothered chicken with gravy as thick as pudding and potato salad that was perfectly sweet and salty at once. But by the time they pushed through the heavy green doors of A.M.E. Mt. Canaan Church and went down to the basement community center where the meeting was held—by the time Malaya took her turn on the scale and watched red numbers blink and multiply beneath her, feeling her mother's eyes fixed on the number panel from behind—Malaya thought only of the salty-sweet potato-and-ketchup-crusted mush she would have just before art class. She did not think of the hour of dance she would have to get through beforehand, or of what lie she would tell about how her allowance had been spent.
"Well, don't everybody speak up at once now!" Ms. Adelaide, the meeting leader, said, laughing over the collar of her lavender suit.
Malaya watched the woman walk to the front of the room, which was full of fat women on folding chairs. Ms. Adelaide caressed her plastic easel, flipping back a page marked "EMOTIONAL TRIGGERS PIE CHART," and exposing a sheet as clean and white as the face of a new tub of Cool Whip. She stood there, her hip sloped prettily out before her, her arms loose and easy along her waist.
"Come on, ladies. Don't be shy." She shifted into another breathtakingly casual pose, resting her weight on one tall plumb-colored high heel and letting a hand float up to stroke the paper. "I want you to think about your favorite food. You know we all have that one food that always gets us in trouble. Well now, I want you to think about it. Call it out!"
Malaya listened, catching a few coughs, small squeakings of the metal seats. She glanced up at her mother. Professor Clondon always sat a seat away from Malaya at the meeting, balancing her pocketbook and briefcase against her hip on the seat between them and leaving room for Malaya to do the same with her Hello-Kitty Saturday bag. Malaya was never sure who had begun this arrangement—she or her mother—or if it was something they had agreed on, silently, together. Either way, after a year of attending the meetings, Malaya decided she didn't mind the distance, not really. It gave her space to spread her papers and colored pencils out on her lap and pretend she wasn't there.
Ms. Adelaide took a breath, awaiting the women's response, but the room stayed quiet. The rustling of papers somewhere in the back of the room brought saltwater to Malaya's mouth as she thought of removing an order French fries from their wax paper covering. She imagined the brown and orange and yellow strips bending over one another in a red-and-white striped paper dish, a shower of salt crystals hitting them from all sides and sparkling on them like glitter.
"Alright, now. I know it can be embarrassing," Ms. Adelaide said.
She leaned back, posed, then moved slowly toward Malaya and her mother. Malaya thought nothing of the first steps, except how nice it was the way the tapping of her heels against the floor seemed to punctuate the soft rub of the shimmery pantyhose _: gzhhh-TPP, gzhhh-TPP_. But within seconds Malaya could smell the woman's perfume in her face and found herself staring directly at the silver buckle on her purple suede belt.
Fear frothed up in Malaya's chest as the synthetic cherry stink of Ms. Adelaide's uncapped marker prickled the insides of her nostrils. She would lie, she decided. She would disclose a passion for yogurt, welcome and unusual in a girl of eight. Her face puffed with earnestness, she would tell the woman that she was centered, committed, and in control; that she'd take fat-free frozen yogurt over double-chocolate cookie dough ice cream any day. She would make her mother proud and make this lean purple creature go back and check her scale—those red numbers could _not_ be right. This girl could not weigh one hundred and thirty two pounds, committed as she was. Malaya parted her lips and sucked in her stomach, prepared to declare her fidelity to the program.
Ms. Adelaide's mouth was plump and her red lipstick looked soft as jelly as it slid over her lip line into her deep brown skin. She tugged at the empty chair between Malaya and her mother, gently easing it from between the Clondon women's hips.
"I'm sorry, baby. Did you want to say something?"
Malaya paused, wondering if her lies were worth telling, now that it was clear she wasn't being asked to give up more than an empty chair. She shook her head no.
Professor Clondon looked at Malaya over the empty space where the chair had been and gave Ms. Adelaide a stiff half-smile. Malaya knew this smile. It was the smalltalk of her mother's facial lexicon, used to assert her presence and to make vague reference to Malaya, as if to say "Yes, that's my daughter." Ms. Adelaide smiled back.
"Well, everyone is so shy this morning!" She pushed the chair to the center of the room and glided into it like a goose into a familiar pond.
"So I'll tell you all first. My trigger food was corn with butter. Anytime there was corn around, I knew I would not be able to control myself. I used to be a corn _junkie_!" A few ladies along the wall chuckled. "And I don't mean just a little pat. I'm talking about _butter_ , okay?"
At this, Ms. Adelaide changed shape before Malaya's eyes. She uncrossed her legs, hunched over, filled her cheeks with air and made smacking noises as she ran her fingers back and forth in front of her mouth, mimicking a wet and unsightly battle with an ear of corn on the cob. The room roared. Fat ladies shifted massive thighs in their chairs. Thick ladies clapped their hands and crashed against each other like waves.
"And let me tell you something." Ms. Adelaide leaned forward, pointing a finger at the group in a gesture of sistagirl confidence "I _know_ I'm not the only one."
The whole room laughed again, and one rotund woman in the middle of the metal chair sea leaned her head back and opened her mouth so wide that Malaya thought she might freeze in that pose, turn to stone, and begin to spout water like a fish in a fountain. Then the meeting leader returned to herself, just like that—left leg draped over right, shoulders straight, manicured hands with their red-tipped nails resting so coolly on her lap one might never know she had briefly turned into a natural disaster just moments before.
"Well," the rotund woman said from the fourth or fifth row. "I do have a weakness for pasta."
"I heard that!" someone shouted. "What kind?"
And they were off, talking about food. Malaya didn't listen, except when Professor Clondon murmured in testimony when the women named foods Malaya knew she liked, like stewed oxtails and pistachio ice cream. As words began to appear on the easel's blank page, Malaya imagined each food rising from a plate before the woman who'd claimed it as her "trigger." Pieces of lasagna and tall Styrofoam-cupped milkshakes with cartoon eyes and gloved hands cuffed these women to their chairs in Malaya's imagination, dancing and singing devilishly as they leapt onto their plates. The women, helpless victims, dragged themselves sadly to these meetings each week, their only hope.
Quietly, in her mind, Malaya considered what this "trigger" food might be for her. But each food she thought of suddenly lost its appeal in the company of these women who seemed to feel guilty for putting too much gravy on their grits. She did not want to think about the French fries. She planned to eat them and to enjoy them as soon as she could leave her mother's sight. She would not ruin that moment by thinking of it now.
Instead, she reached down, lifted her legs onto her seat by the laces of her She-Ra sneakers, crossed her ankles as best she could, and thought of the fifth-grader Daundre Harris—her only good reason for trying to stay on-program at all. Each week as she waited for the numbers on the digital scale to stop climbing beneath her, she thought of Daundre and how much closer she might be to becoming Amandra Wilson, his pretty, skinny girlfriend, who had skin the color of a glazed doughnut and long hair that curled like Lo-Mein. Malaya had lost two pounds a year ago, when the family had just moved to Harlem. She was in the second grade then, and had beamed all week, sure that it was the beginning of a new life for her. She told her best friends Shanice Guzmán and Rachel Greenstein, then marked it in her Hello Kitty diary, along with the statement that Daundre had noticed her weight loss and asked her to be his girl, which was a lie. She even gave her grandmother the good news in a letter she wrote and mailed to Philadelphia all by herself. She gained four pounds the following week, but the letter had already arrived.
"My daughter and I like pie," Professor Clondon said, dropping her hand into her lap once the phrase was out. Malaya felt a force field of eyes on her.
"I don't keep anything like that in the house, of course," she continued. "And when we go out I try not to order dessert. But sometimes, on weekends, I'll order an apple pie..." Malaya anticipated the fancy syllables she knew would come next: "Á la mode."
"I try not to eat all the filling," Professor Clondon continued. "My favorite part is the crust. My daughter likes the filling, though. So if I do have a craving, rather than deprive myself, you know, I always suggest we share." The room gave a wave of supportive _mmhms_. "But you know children. They want their own. I don't usually let her order anything, but once we've eaten that pie we're out of control. We're off-program for the rest of the weekend, sometimes the whole week."
Ms. Adelaide added "PIE" to the list, which had grown to cover the entire page, leaving only a tiny strip of space between "SALMON CAKES" and "PLANTAIN CHIPS" for the three letters of the Clondon women's apparent trigger. Malaya wished to liquefy and slide from her seat, find herself gone from the basement into that word, PIE, curled into the lower nook of the E as though it were a shaded ground below an apple tree. She wished for spots of sun to heat her sandaled feet as the leaves of her E tree rustled, and for the cool of an afternoon to raise goose bumps along her long, lean legs. In truth, Malaya was not so compelled by pie. She would eat the filling because it was there, and because it would be one of very few chances she'd have all week to indulge herself in plain view, right beside her mother.
What Professor Clondon did not know, what could not be written on Ms. Adelaide's board for lack of space and language, was that Malaya would have preferred an endless plate of potatoes over pie, without question. Mashed, salted, swaddled in gravy or butter or both and served in a bottomless mixing bowl—that was how Malaya wanted to eat. She rarely had the opportunity; even when her mother and father weren't there to watch her, Collette, the babysitter, usually was. Malaya found her ways, though, sneaking bags of cereal from the basement kitchen in the sleeve of her nightgown, gulping down her own light yogurt cups quickly and volunteering to dispose of full-fat lunch leftovers for her friends. And by now, at eight years old, Malaya had noticed in herself a tendency to choose quantity over quality—pools and pools of potatoes over a shared slice of fancy pie. She had not yet learned words like _abundance_ or _profusion_ or _glut_ ; the only word she could find to describe her trigger was MORE. Of all the woman in the room—thirty at least—only two seemed to share her passion: the loud woman who had broken the ice what now seemed like ages ago, and a smaller woman beside her mother, who raised a hand only inches above her shoulder and said quietly, "I have trouble with plain white rice."
After the meeting, the Clondon women took the long route to the Harlem Arts Academy, walking up Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard to climb Sugar Hill at 145th. It had rained while they were inside, and now wet air stuck to Malaya's face as she held her mother's hand, watching different kinds of women pass through the streets. The Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses was just across Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and Malaya watched as three women in trench coats, umbrellas, and gigantic church hats emerged from the building and stepped into the crosswalk. The tallest hat caught Malaya's eye—it was bright purple, and its mesh veil climbed up from behind the woman's ear and swept clear across her forehead as though it wanted to pinch her chin. She studied the color, planning to paint the hat in art class later in the day, after she'd eaten the French fries at last.
"Malaya." Her mother squeezed her hand in the drizzle. "You see those women? Big as houses over there? I hope you don't ever get that big."
Malaya nodded, confused, and looked closer. It was true that each woman was shaped like a house, she supposed, when she looked at them in a certain way. The first woman was tall and thick like the brownstones on the Clondons' block, and, looking closely, Malaya guessed the two shorter women could look like some kind of shed or shack, though she had to squint to see it.
"I won't," she said plainly.
It was sweetly obvious. Malaya would not become a house. She could not imagine how those women had gotten that way, and had not really thought before that moment that that might be a way to _become_ at all. It seemed to her that either a person was born a house or she wasn't; Malaya wasn't.
"I hope you don't," Professor Clondon continued. "People like that are very unhealthy. They lead very unhappy lives, and they die young."
Malaya nodded again, emphatically this time. It angered her that her mother could doubt her on so sure an issue as this. She imagined her ears stuffed with cotton balls, blocking out her mother's voice, leaving room in her head only for thoughts of sweet things and French fries.
When they reached the Harlem Arts Academy, Professor Clondon stooped to give Malaya her $4 allowance and a kiss. Malaya smooched the air around her mother's cheek and promised to hold onto the money in case of an emergency. As Professor Clondon disappeared from sight, Malaya stuck the money in the pocket of her backpack.
Entering the dance hallway, she shuffled past the bread-stick legs of ballet and jazz dance students, toward the African Dance corner. Here, the girls wore black leotards that stretched over their flat torsos like spans of gift wrap over book covers, and red, yellow, and green printed _lapas_ that hung merrily around their waists like garlands. She tried not to look too hard as she neared them. For Malaya, the _lapa_ was the one secret pleasure of dance class. It was a glorious stretch of Kente-print cloth that covered the worst of her middle and, when pulled tight enough, held her stomach in and made a waist for her hips. She hated undressing in the hallway—hated the eyes on all parts of her body—but the thought of the fries and the feeling of the _lapa_ helped to dull the sting.
She reached her corner wordlessly and turned toward the wall, squeezing herself into the fabric. Breathing in deep, she tugged at the straps of the bra she had stolen from her mother's bureau earlier that week, which still smelled like her mother's hair grease. By the time she turned around, the hallway was empty and the drums had begun to play.
Dance Studio One was a huge room with a wall full of mirrors and a floor so smooth that if you ran on it in pantyhose and stopped short, you could slide for miles. Some girls did come to class in pantyhose, and on the first day of class Malaya had been one of them. Unable to find real dance clothes in Malaya's size, Professor Clondon went instead to the Woolworth's after the meeting and brought back a black bathing suit in a women's size 12 and a pair of extra large panty hose in opaque black.
"Can't y'all read!" Mrs. Rhymes, the trunk-legged dance teacher screamed, holding a copy of the class description in he air. "'Footless Dancin Tights!' I don't want to see none of y'all in here in stockin's! This is about respeck!"
Malaya went home that afternoon crying, and by Thursday of the following week, Professor Clondon had brought home two pairs of extra large women's footless dance tights from who-knew-where.
Malaya stood in the back of the room and watched in the mirror while the other students gathered for warm-up period, bending and stretching just enough to avoid calling Mrs. Rhymes's attention while they giggled about which drummer they thought was cute and which one had messed up teeth. All of the girls were smaller that Malaya. The younger girls' tall, straight bodies made Malaya think of how ostriches must have looked before they grew their fluffy behinds. But the older girls had the kinds of bodies Malaya dreamed about, hips that curved and sloped with unreal symmetry, narrow legs that shone like wet licorice in their iridescent black tights. Though she was much wider than the oldest of those girls, the bra and _lapa_ gave Malaya a taste of that body, a hint of what it might feel like to be only a little loose at the top, cinched tight in the middle, and round and full at the bottom. She parted her legs slightly, raised her left arm over her head, bent her torso to the side, and explored this curve in the mirror.
Soon, Mrs. Rhymes demonstrated the first step for the day, her heavy legs moving in a simple side-to-side march, her hips grabbing hold of the rhythm. The girls gathered in the corner of the room and watched, ready to repeat the step in pairs across the wood floor. While the other girls chatted and watched, Malaya listened to the chorus of drums and played games with the sounds in her head. She studied the steady _bum-bum-bap_! of the lowest drum, pulling it apart from the _shhka-shh-shh_ of the _shakerays_ and the _brrrap-dap-dap!_ of the louder bass until she could hear each of them separately. Every few seconds, she glanced over at the dance floor to make sure she wasn't missing too much. The first few steps of the routine were usually manageable—it was only at the midpoint of the class that the steps got complicated. Feeling the curve of her hip with her hand, she watched Mrs. Rhymes's feet tap and fly across the bright wood, trusting that her own feet would do the same when her turn came. Then she returned to thinking about the drums, letting her mind drift into the music. She was standing in the middle of the floor with Mrs. Rhymes crouched down like a gargoyle in her face when she realized that, today, the twist to the step had come too soon.
"You! What's wrong with your body?" the teacher shouted, spreading her arms out wide. The two girls in front of Malaya were reaching into the air and pulling their elbows down in time with their feet in the step. Malaya glanced at the girl beside her, who was doing the same. Only Malaya had forgotten to raise her arms.
No response came to Malaya's mind, other than, _Nothing, what's wrong with your face?_ which, of course, she couldn't say. Her cheeks felt hot and her eyes began to sting.
"The step is _ba-ba- ba-ba da-DA_!" The woman pounded the floor with her heels, reaching at the ceiling with her arms and neck, grabbing what could have been a coconut from the air and tucking it down toward her stomach in time with the beat.
"You got to be in your body, girl! Move your arms! Your feet!"
But Malaya had been moving her body. She had not noticed the addition of arms to the step, that was true. And her footwork may not have been as quick or as pretty as the others', but still, she felt she had moved. The tears came down hot now.
"You got to learn to be in that body of yours!" Mrs. Rhymes said again. She shot her hand out and pinched Malaya hard on her side where her _lapa_ was knotted. Then she looked past Malaya at the rest of the class. "You have to disciplint yo mind, ladies! This is about respeck!"
Malaya felt the pinch still and deep in her side, even as the woman walked away. She imagined "disciplint" as a vise on her head, a metal sheet clamped and soldered over her mouth and eyes. The word made her think of pain worse than too-tight pantyhose and Ms. Adelaide's marker, worse than a life spent longing for French fries, or for a Friday night with her father that would never come. She and her dance partner repeated the step, the other girl moving with fresh vigor, Malaya floating through the movements without the vaguest commitment to the dance or the drums. Even the hope of salt-showered fries slunk silently from her mind. She spent the rest of the class daydreaming about sleep, wishing for a world in which she could close her eyes and wake up long and lean and limber, or a life in which she could actually crawl quiet and alone into the bottom nook of a letter E, curl up, read a book, eat an apple.
Malaya still felt the dance teacher's pinch when she got to the cafeteria after class. She felt it as she ordered her French fries, her voice unsure and trembling. The memory of it soured in her mouth as she ate the fries, making them taste like chalk. The pinch was with her all the way through painting class, through homework help, through dinner back at home. She felt it when she crept into the kitchen in the late hours of the night to grab Friday's leftover Chinese food containers and sneak them up to her room, covered by the folds of her nightgown.
Sitting alone in her room with the leftovers in her lap, Malaya turned off her lamp and spooned heaps of hard rice and cold, congealed gravy into her mouth, waiting for the pinch to leave her. She fed herself to the sounds of the street: the laughter, the sirens, the squeaking of sneakers in late-night games of double-dutch and streetball. She ate until her stomach felt good, and then until it hurt, and then until it felt like it wasn't there at all.
There was a feeling Malaya Clondon imagined, a fantasy that grew in her around that time and stayed with her for years after. She imagined the feeling of sliding from good dreams, glad to be in real life. She thought of waking one day—and the next day, and the next—not sad and slow and praying to crawl back up into sleep, but quickly—with a lightness and a spring. She had tasted this feeling in the pre-dawn hours before trips to the roller coaster park, or during the first short breaths of Christmas day. On those days, she would leap out of her dreams like a splash of water from a boiling pot, ready for what the day might become. But most mornings, like this one, Malaya lay stiffly in bed, wishing for the sun to disappear. Done with reality, she wished to be swallowed into her dreams.
To be nice, she thought, the spoon heavy in her hand, she might consider visiting this life she'd left. She might float out of her dream, back over these steps for a while, might hover above the meetings and watch calmly as the dance teacher pinched hard seconds into her flesh. In a show of grace and generosity, Malaya might reach down from her elsewhere, and listen from an easy distance to her mother's voice on the stairs, crackling its first chords of the day:
"Malaya, get in the shower! You have to wake up!"
She would say "No," politely but clearly. Malaya would not stay.
# Sererie
When disappeared girls are lucky, they go to other places and hook their husbands' names to theirs like snake cords to clothing sacks. Then they send messages back home, telling us who they are now. Before today, when I was a child, I thought this was what happened to my sister, Azmera. I thought she disappeared to New York and became Azmera Mitslal, a man's wife, a woman, with a face and a life as new as a baby's. But Azmera was not lucky. This is what I am learning now.
Before today, my Abeselome would laugh when I talked about my sister's extra name. "There must be Azmeras flitting in the New York air like flies," he would say, cutting his eyes and smiling. "Even more than Addis Ababa. She has to let them know which Azmera she is, so they do not think she is one of the _other_ Azmeras. The singing star Azmera, the woman doctor Azmera. The president." He would throw his head back and let his teeth spread over his face like the pale stone walls of the churches behind our compound. I would smile and tell him his walls were crumbling, that his teeth would fall like the ruins if he continued to make jokes on my sister. Azmera is as pretty as a singer, I would tell him, and as smart as a president. Her face is slick like the inside of a bee's hive and her eyes are quick and sharp. But he would just laugh deeper, his face opening wide like a bathing pool, until I could only jump in and laugh with him.
This was our _qene_ , our back-and-forth talk. We kicked words across the air like rocks in a boys' game, stashed the meanings in each other like playing hide-and-seek. Abeselome's qene has always been good; he is sixteen, has been growing up and learning things two years longer than me. He goes to the school and gathers new words, a new story-full every week. Then he comes home and kicks the words to me. I stop them with my eyes, turn them around in my head, kick them back. My qene is good, he tells me, and I know. My qene is from my family; they put it in my name: Meraffe, chapter. My qene goes for days and days.
Back when we were children, when Azmera was still here, she joined in the qene. So did Genet, who is Azmera's best friend and Abeselome's sister, and now my sister, too. The four of us would play language games, passing words between us from the time the sun spilled white on the ruins till our mothers called us all home to eat. Now that we are grown and Azmera is gone—and my parents gone too—Genet and I keep the qene up when Abeselome is at the school. We sit with Persinna, Genet and Abeselome's mother, pulling dead roots from the ground and saying they look like feet or ghosts or the mark that used to live between my mother's eyes. We spice the sebbi for dinner and say it smells like the dirt did before the drought, when rain seemed always in the air, when we did not have to close our eyes and breathe deep to remember moisture in our mouths. When our talk gets sad, going back to the days of Azmera, Genet touches my face and smiles at me. Genet loves Azmera, feels as dry without her as I do. "They are like us when we were girls," our mothers used to say, their laughter mixing like the string chords of a lyre. "Friendship is more than friendship to them." So when Azmera slips into our talk, I rub my cheek against Genet's palm and we turn our qene quickly back to battle-play, pulling good words from each other's lips and sticking them to the things around us, seeing who can draw the tighter wince, the thicker laugh.
Through our laughter, I try to forget the story of Azmera's disappearance. I try instead to hold on to Genet, to keep her from leaving, too. Genet's body is like Azmera's was when she was here. It is thin and long and moves quick along the ground, like a shadow after dinnertime. She brushes through our compound, behind the griddles, under the mats, cleaning messes in the kitchen, clearing junk from the road, as though if she stood too still in the light, she would be in someone's way. Azmera was the same, though it seemed to me then that Genet was just a breath quicker, her qene tumbling just a half-step ahead.
Before Azmera disappeared, she and Genet were always rushing, rushing to take care of things—of Abeselome, of me, of the cats and cows that died because it refused to rain. When the two of them were not rushing, they were gone—I didn't know to where. I knew only that it felt like a holiday when they came back, when they slowed and stilled and paused for me. They were the grown ones, the tall, pretty ones who talked with their mouths turned down like women. I remember looking at them, wanting always to join them in their secret places, to be like them in a friendship like theirs when I got to be their age. Genet was seventeen then, and Azmera, when we knew her, was seventeen too. But that was a year ago; I do not know what Azmera is now, how much older she has grown.
Now our qene is what keeps me and Genet up, keeps our spirits holding our faces in the right way. Abeselome keeps us smiling, too, helps us not to think about what we have lost. Genet and Abeselome learned the trick a long time ago, they say, when their father died in the usual way, air blowing through his stomach like a sandstorm through the ruins, his body laid out like a mat for the mosquito disease. That's when they started to distract themselves with qene, making words into puzzles so that any spare moment could become a game. My mother was generous and loved Persinna, and there had been food and rain and a pinch of money then, so she asked my father to make a house for Persinna in our compound after their father died. "Your man is a good one," Persinna would say to my mother when we were all together. "He is kind, and he is here." My father would smile and kiss my mother's head, and Persinna would look down at Abeselome to be sure he was watching, which he always was.
Now Abeselome brings me and Genet words from the school and we gobble them quickly into our word games, sticking them to our names and to Azmera's to see what meanings we can make. Abeselome is _resplendent_ , we say, bright and happy like a girl's ashenda dance. Azmera's jokes are _shrewd_ , we say, tight as a head full of freshly-done braids. We like this game; it makes us feel closer to Azmera, and also to my parents and to their father, who put good qene in our names. Our families named us in Amharic—not Tigre, not Tigrinya—because our parents wanted good fortune for us when we became old. Amharic is not the language of power, our mothers would say, but it is a first sound. Persinna reminds me of this when I miss Azmera and our life. "Your parents gave you your futures," she says. "As long as you both are living, they can't be gone."
I did not think so much of names or futures or how the world came to be until Azmera disappeared. Before, when I was a girl, I only listened to church talk and bible stories like they were pretty songs. I already knew my favorite version of how people were made. No magic babies, no big man bringing things in twos, in twos, no room for odd matches. I thought only of Gebre Memfis Qudus, my favorite hero from the saint stories.
When I hear this story, I see Gebre Memfis wrapped in a gabbi as wide as a canyon and as white as a new chick's hair. The cloth is so thick that you cannot tell if Gebre Memfis is a man or a woman or a baby or an ox; you know only that he is kind because you can feel his smile. In my version of the story, Gebre Memfis is walking through the place where our compound is, only it is more years ago than there are hairs on my head. The dirt is always wet, the sky always hangs low with rain. Gebre Memfis is walking and singing his song, and he sees a bird on the ground that is so dry it is going to die. Gebre Memfis is good, and so he cries for the bird. The bird is good too, and smart. It feels Gebre Memfis' sadness, and so it opens its mouth to give Gebre Memfis soft qene. Then the tears splash into the bird's beak and the bird is not dry any more. It drinks from Gebre Memfis and is born, and flies away. It is so happy about what it has learned that it tells its bird family, and they are so happy they chirp and sing and make a world.
I did not think any more of how things came to be until now, now when my parents are dead and my sister is gone and the only things I have are Abeselome here in my bed with me and Genet singing a one-string song to the pots outside. Now, with Abeselome with me, I am thinking of my sister, of the man who dropped on top of her like a dead hawk and pounded her into nothing, made her disappear. I think of this and I try to make sense of what is happening right now.
This is the story Azmera told me: one afternoon, while our parents were out and I was with Abeselome and Genet was patching clothes in her mother's house, Azmera opened the door for Akrham, the big-breasted woman who lives in the compound across the road. Azmera was tired and busy, working in the kitchen, but Akrham said she needed spice for her dinner. Akrham was always nice, with big sad eyes like an old cow's. Azmera and I liked to look at her when she came over to gossip with our mother, liked to watch her eyelashes sweep her cheeks when she laughed. And so, Azmera told me, she let the woman in, gave her the spice, talked about the dry air and the neighbors while she made teheni flour for our mother to store away.
Azmera asked Akrham about her family, about her brother, Biserat, who had just come back from two years in Mekele, where he went to weave cloth. Akrham's father was gone, like Genet's and Abeselome's, and people talked badly about Biserat for leaving his mother and his sister to farm alone. Sometimes Azmera would join in the talk, whispering with Genet as they washed the plates at night: _what kind of person would leave his people broke like that? What kind of man?_ But Azmera was generous like our mother. She did not want Akrham to feel bad. When Akrham came for the spice, she asked about Biserat with a smile, I know, and with only a speck of mischief stuck between her teeth. She offered Akrham some sips of beer and told her she had dreamed Biserat would do great things for his family, which was a lie. When the beer was done and the conversation had foamed away, Azmera went back to cooking and told Akrham she could let herself out.
I was in the shrubs with Abeselome, but I can see it like I was a grain of wheat dust on the floor: Akrham leaves and Azmera holds the bowl, stirs the barley, adds the water. She lights a fire under the uton stove, getting ready to roll the mix into dough. But the rolling does not come, and instead comes the man, Biserat, without a knock, or a word, or the quick click of the door latch undone. "How could she let him in like that?" Azmera says to me later, looking in my direction but talking to the air. "Did she know what he would do?" But there he is, Biserat, talking bad qene to my sister, pinching at her legs like dough, then pushing into her as though he is making a pot in her stomach. He tells her he will marry her, make a family with her. He talks wildly about a dowry, says that marrying her will make him a man. He says he will protect her, will tell no one what she's done. "Have I done something?" She says later, to the air. She says "I swear, I told him no." I don't know what to say, so I touch her hand. I wasn't there, but I see it still: Azmera kneeling in our mother's kitchen, her fingers gripping the stove our mother built, the man making Azmera into his own seething griddle.
When I come home, Azmera is rolled up like an onion on the kitchen floor. She tells me the story and she cries. With her eyebrows stitched tight across her face, she says "Don't tell Genet." I want to ask her why not, but when I open my mouth she stops me with her eyes and I know I am not supposed to understand. Then she tells me not to tell our parents, either, says that if I tell them, they will die.
This is the part of the story I remember when Abeselome and me get in the bed together. Before today I did not understand why a man would drop himself on my sister, or why knowing this would make my parents die. I knew other things, things about how to mold clay and bend metal for a stove, how to listen to the air for rain, how to tell whether a woman is trustworthy by the way she holds her neck. I knew which names were for power and which were for thankless work. But I did not know why a man would do that to my sister, or why it would make my family disappear.
When I think of this, with Abeselome here with me, I am scared. I worry that I will curl into an onion and roll away. I smell his breath and I wonder if it smells like Biserat's, if what happened to Azmera is what is happening to me.
After the man dropped himself on Azmera, her face became flat and empty as a plastic bag. She began to float around the kitchen, sweeping so limply that, between her and the broom handle, I was not sure who was holding who. Every morning, as soon as our parents had left for the day, she would rush out of the compound and open her mouth to vomit, spilling the last day's food into the shrubs. When I asked her what was wrong, she would look past my head and say, "I'm fine." But when Genet or our parents came around, she tried to make herself tall and bright, pretending that everything was better than fine. She would touch Genet's face and smile, her mouth pink and gummy. Then they would walk together, out of the compound, down the road to wherever they went, touching, laughing. But as soon as Genet had gone home, Azmera would seem weaker than before, the light slipping from her face like a puddle into sand.
She faded further and further with each week that passed, each story Abeselome brought home. Six stories after Biserat hurt her, Azmera told me about a girl she once heard Genet mention. The girl lived in a compound near the ruins in Slehleka, an hour's walk away. Genet said the girl got sick after a man dropped on her. She said the girl went first to the Family Guidance clinic in Mekele, where she talked with a woman whose face was white and cracked like a compound's outer wall, and whose hair was yellow and flat. She had only seen women who looked like that on television, and once in a traveller van in Addis Ababa. She didn't have a good feeling about people like that, but her problem was getting too big for her to manage alone, so she talked to the Family Guidance woman anyway. The woman showed her a machine that would suck the problem away, like poison from a snake bite, the girl had said. But the woman was rude and talked to her like a child, she said, and the look of metal machine scared her. And so she went instead to Kassa, the hakym, who tells people what to eat when they are sick and fixes them when their bodies are broken. Azmera felt that she should go to Kassa, too, that he would know what to do. _Do about what?_ I wanted to ask. But her lips were braided tightly together and I knew she did not want to answer questions.
I never liked Kassa, and I hate him now. Before I went with Azmera, I had visited him only once, when our father started coughing so hard I thought a rabbit tail was stuck in his throat. Kassa gave my father a tea to drink every day and said he would be like new in only ten days—ten times faster, he said, than if he had gone to the clinic in Mekele. He gave a jagged smile that looked like the tread of a tractor wheel and leaned back in his chair. I did not like how proud he seemed, how sure of his own power. My father said the tea tasted terrible, like birds' leavings. In the end, the mosquito disease took him anyway. He died with the taste of bird shit in his mouth.
I disliked Kassa from then on, but this was Azmera, my older sister, who only told me no when saying yes would harm me. And so, when she asked me to go with her, I pressed her fingers together in mine to slow her shaking, and we walked down the road, past the children and the dogs, past the brittle fields, to Kassa's house.
When we got there, Azmera broke off parts of the story for him like chips from a block of salt. I did not understand then why she told it that way, only in parts. She said nothing about the falling man or what he had done to her. She said only that she was not feeling well, that she had had a very bad headache for six weeks now—the worst kind of headache a girl could have, she said—and she needed a tea to make it go away. Kassa gave Azmera his bent-up smile and a package of a frilly herb that he called abewela.
"It's not tea you need," he said, lighting a fire under a pot of water. "It's steam." He told her to cut the root of the abewela and heat it over a tall fire until the steam made her teeth draw tight. Then he told her to take her pants down and squat over the fire as though she were peeing in the shrubs. He held his gabbi to his legs and bent over the pot to show her what he meant.
"Ten minutes," he said, "and it will clean the problem away." Then he clapped his hands together as though putting a final letter on a sentence he did not want to hear. Azmera gave him a fistful of birr, enough to buy a tower of books, I thought, and we left. I don't know where she got the money from. Some things I am glad I don't understand, and this is one.
One week later, our mother went to Mekele to sell our weakest cow. I was sad about it, but our mother put her hand on my head and told me not to worry. "She is old and thirsty and tired of working," she said. "Someone can eat her. She won't mind."
Once she had left, Azmera put a pot on the fire and followed Kassa's instructions. When the steam hit between her legs, her breath made a sound like a busted tire and her head rolled back so quickly I worried it would snap. When she brought her head forward again, her cheeks were sliding in water, her face curled around itself like a handful of metal scraps. She stood there for ten minutes, like Kassa told her, her shoulders jerking quickly back and forth. I remember this moment clearly now: soon I am crying too, begging her to move from the fire. But she digs her toes into the floor and closes her eyes to me.
Only now, touching Abeselome, do I recognize the smell that soaked from Azmera into the floor that day. I smell Abeselome, notice how his sweat is different from mine—his sour and sharp like gasoline, mine mild and gritty like meal. As he moves over me I notice our smells mixing, making something new. Now I understand what was in Azmera's blood, why it was thick as red lentils left too long on the fire, why she had me bury the cleaning rags deep in the dirt far outside the compound. Why I can still smell her when I walk by that spot, my favorite spot now that she's gone.
Now I recognize the smell, but I still wonder why this happens, why my body is doing this, why Azmera's body did what it did, how Abeselome's body can do the things it is doing right now. Now I understand that there are too many stories I have not heard, too many things I do not know, more things than there are names for. Or, if there are names, I don't know them either.
Three weeks after we visited Kassa, Azmera came to tell me that the abewela steam was not enough. She said this with her voice slung so low to the ground that I imagined it growing white and heavy with clay dirt. When our mother went to visit Persinna that afternoon, we darted through the house like moths, looking for a solution to Azmera's problem, the problem that had no name.
Eventually I had the idea to look under our mother's mat for the sack where she kept her private things. This sack, for me, held all adulthood's secrets. It was my own private joy, before, to sneak to the mat when no one was watching, pick up the sack and run my fingers through its contents: my mother's money, my grandmother's chain necklace, the little wire dolls Azmera and I used to make, back when we were girls. The sack was the color of an overripe plum, wrapped in a gold braid that had always been old, had always been shedding shimmering strings like a gold cat's tail, promising that there could be worlds of treasure inside of any small thing. I had not looked in the sack in a while, but I was sure that Azmera's answer was bound up beneath that rope.
When we opened the sack and let the loose strings flutter to the floor, we found the dolls, and the birr, and the necklace. There was also a silent, silver-colored watch that Azmera and our mother had once found on the side of the road one day, along with a few strange coins. There were pages of writing I could not read, pieces of broken jewelry I had never seen, and a package of dried sererie leaf.
I recognized the sererie right away; Abeselome and I had had good qene about its shape. The leaves reach out and up at first, then bend over themselves, their tips grazing their roots like a bouquet of closing hands. Our mother used to grow this plant in a small plot at the edge of our part of the farm. I did not know what the plant was for, but I knew that it was important, because she pulled its roots every month; every four stories the hands would disappear. Sometimes, too, I saw her pull the sererie between months and share them with other women who lived nearby. When I asked her what it was, she said, "It helps women keep families small enough to feed." Then she sent me a sharp look and said, "But you're not a woman, so questions like that are not for you. Go and spice the sebbi. Or if you want, go play."
I didn't know what she meant then—I only knew to stop asking. But later, from the scraps of the story fluttering around me, I started to put things together. If this was a problem women had, perhaps we needed help from a woman. We couldn't talk to our mother—that was clear. And Azmera wouldn't even let Genet know, let alone Persinna. We sifted back through all our names and stories and thought of the Family Guidance woman again. Mekele was three hours away, across a patchwork of roads, busses, and footpaths. We would need a day to ourselves to get there and back.
But a whole day seemed an impossible luxury. Looking at the dried sererie, its leaves curled under the frayed gold rope, I thought maybe it could help us. I didn't know yet what it was, but I knew it was important to our mother, and to other women, and I knew it was almost gone. We had heard our mother talk about making the trip to Mekele to buy seeds so she could plant more, but with the pitiful harvests and the cost of the trip, we couldn't know if she would really go, or when. Though there wasn't enough sererie for all the women anymore, there seemed to be just enough for her, for now. And that was too much for us if we needed her to give us a day alone.
So, holding the shriveled plant together, Azmera and I began to bake a plan. We would help the sererie disappear, we said. Sererie was strong—we knew we could not eat it or we'd get sick. We did not know how, and we did not want to know. Instead, we decided, we would grind it up and feed it to Akrham's cows. We would fold the leaves into squares and hide them under our mats, in our shoes. We would stuff it in the pockets of our pants and carry it out to the edge of the compound to bury with the red-soaked rags. Then, when our mother went looking for the plant, two or three weeks later, we would open our eyes as wide as the camels' and say we didn't know, maybe Biserat stole it. We would offer to go to the market to buy the seeds for her, and then we would go to the Family Guidance Clinic, where they fixed problems like ours, whatever that might have been.
We gathered the plant, prepared our plans. But Abeselome's stories came and the weeks passed and our mother did not ask about the sererie. She and my father began to look as dry as the dirt. They began to wilt like the plants and thin like the cows and grew quiet as the stranger's old tickless watch.
My Abeselome had brought twelve new stories home by the time I opened my mouth to Genet. I told her early one morning, while Azmera was still asleep and Abeselome was on his way to the school. Our mothers were out in the field, weeding for the harvest, laughing about the neighbors, wishing for rain, and our father was far away, plowing at the field's horizon. I looked at Genet's pretty cheeks, and I thought of Azmera, how she was draining to nothing, soaking like the blood smell into her mat. And so I opened my mouth.
I told Genet about everything—about the hakym and the steam bath and what Biserat did. Genet's eyes went flat while I talked, then they welled up and I thought she would cry. But when I told her about the sererie, her face drew sharp as a bele pear thorn.
"Stupid," she said. "Sererie is what she needs."
When we woke Azmera up, she knew right away that I had told her secret. While Genet cried and yelled over her, Azmera looked at me, her eyes whittled to a point. But soon, Genet was done yelling. She pulled Azmera from the mat, kissed her face and held her shoulders still. "Get the sererie," she told me. And Genet was wise and I knew nothing, so I picked up the sheet from my mat and went all through the compound and out to the shrubs collecting the sererie we had hid, retracing my steps like hide-and-seek in reverse.
When I came back to the compound, Genet and Azmera were in Persinna's house, sitting on Genet's mat with a big meat knife, an empty water bottle, and the metal stick from an umbrella. A pot of water was boiling on the stove, and Azmera was crumpled like an old shirt, part of her draped on Genet's shoulder, the rest of her trailing into the floor. Genet motioned for me to pass her my folded sheet, but I hesitated.
"What are we going to do now?" I asked. "What if someone comes?"
Genet looked at me, annoyed again, and told me our mothers would be weeding all day, and that if Persinna did come home she would not be angry or tell our parents. "Anyway," she said, "we have to do something. This is the best thing we can do."
With her legs curved and opened wide, Azmera lay down on the mat. She held her breath while Genet gathered the sererie and broke the umbrella stick to a finger length. She pierced the cap of the bottle with the knife and stuck the metal tube in. Then she chopped the leaves until they lay in soft mounds on the floor like piles of sheep's hair, and put them in the water and let them boil. "Hold her hand," she told me, and I did, remembering how it felt when we walked to Kassa's house. Her hand was warm then, and it buzzed inside of mine. But now it was still and soft and hot and cool at once, almost unfamiliar.
Genet poured the water into the bottle, blowing lightly on the rim. "It has to be hot," she said to Azmera. "I'm sorry." When the bottle was full, she ran the tips of her fingers along Azmera's legs as though she were tracing a favorite route on a map. Then she pressed down on Azmera's knee, gudied the umbrella stick past her hips, and squeezed the bottle. She talked sweet qene the whole time, telling Azmera how she was the prettiest girl in the world, how we all loved her as much as we loved days and songs, how soon she would be better and soon there would be rain and soon everything really would be better than fine. When Genet squeezed the bottle again, Azmera drew a deep breath, as though she were trying to suck in all the room's air through the little hole of her mouth. Then Genet climbed gently over her and curled up, like for sleep. She pushed her hands hard three times below Azmera's belly button, then waited, and pushed and pushed again. Each time, Azmera's mouth popped open, and I thought she would scream, but Genet reached up and laid her palm on her lips so that no sound came out.
When it was over, Genet packed Azmera's legs with sheets and old cloth and gave her a wide, dark gabbi to cover the bulk. While I cleaned the floor, Genet touched Azmera's face and kissed her shoulders and laced trails of butter under her braids. Azmera leaked and shook while Genet dressed her, breathing heavily over Genet's arms, never looking at me. When the cleaning was done and it was time for Azmera and me to go back to our compound, Azmera made herself tall and straight again, flattening her face and her eyes, squaring her shoulders, training her breath. Genet touched Azmera's shoulder and Azmera looked at her for two seconds' ticks, her eyes cloudy with words, her mouth quiet as dust. Then she turned out of the room and walked to our compound, not even checking to see if I was behind her.
Two days later, Azmera was gone. First to Mekele, where she lived a life I do not know about, and then to New York, where she is the wife of a man named Mitslal, a two-name woman, with another life I do not know. When I ask Persinna to tell me the chapters of Azmera's disappearance—the parts of the story that nobody has told me—she says she doesn't know either, but I'm not sure if I believe her. Still, I am afraid to ask more questions, afraid of what I don't know, which, I am learning, is so, so much.
Now, with Azmera gone, Genet tells me that she has been afraid, too. She tells me she was afraid on the day of the sererie. She worried that Abeselome would come home early from the school, that my father would stop in for a clean sweat rag, or that one of our mothers would come looking for us, to see how far we had come with dinner. Then she tells me she has lived a long time with fears like those, fears of being discovered doing what she was not supposed to do. She says those fears are old for her now, as old as her name, so old that she has learned not to think about them, just to live. She is used to hiding, she says, and Azmera was too. When she tells me this she looks like Azmera did while she was disappearing—like she is hiding a story in her mouth, something important that she will never say.
Now, with Abeselome touching my face and my chest, talking sweet qene, making me feel good, this is when I start to understand. This is when I see why Azmera did not want Genet to know the story, why she felt it might kill her. This when I see that Azmera could not stay here, that she could not stay Azmera. This is when I know that it was not luck that sent her over the ocean and strapped her down to a man and his name. This is when I know that it was love.
Everyone says that our parents died in the usual way, of the mosquito disease, going narrow as cats, their faces fading to the color of millet. Some tell the story that they missed my sister, and were ashamed to have her run to the city and across the ocean for no reason with a man they never met. Persinna says they did not die at all, that they are still here, swimming inside of me, in my spirit, in my blood. I wonder if they are waiting to come out again.
Genet says she did not tell Persinna about the sererie, but I'm not sure. When I talk to Persinna now, I see her avoiding words, swerving her tongue around them like bad pepper seeds in a stew. I don't know why she will not tell me. She looks at me and I think she knows what happened, that she told my parents about Biserat, and that they could not take it. I worry that, by opening my mouth to Genet, I made my parents die.
I think about all this now with Abeselome here with me, his fingers sliding over my hips like Genet's fingers, his mouth spreading over my chest like Genet did. I smell the smells and feel the push and I am glad that I do not want to swallow everyone's air like Azmera did. That what I am feeling is not pain. I look at Abeselome, see his lips curve up timidly, and I think that he is not like Kassa, not like Biserat. With him, I almost always smile, and my breath is easy and calm. But as he touches me he makes a grunting noise, and I wonder if these are the noises Biserat made. He sees my confusion and asks if we should go outside, do something else, but I do not know what to say. I look past him at the ceiling like Azmera and say, "I'm fine."
He tickles me, runs his fingers along my neck and wrists, blows on my skin as though I were a flute. I ask my skin to sing for him, but it is quiet. I try to think of good things, of Azmera's face and deep, slow voice, the way she looked with Genet lacing butter along the shoreline of her braids. But I can't think of these things. All I can think of is the smell of my sister drunk into the floor, the long, low sound of her last real breath, the lonely walk back from Persinna's home to ours, a walk that did not ever really end.
It has been only a year since she disappeared but it feels to me like so much time—a whole ocean of chapters, a whole skyfull of stories. It is only now that I feel I have learned them—the stories of Azmera, of Genet's friend from Slehleka, of who-knows-how-many-else, whose bodies and choices were taken, so all they could do was find a way to leave. It is only right now, with Abeselome touching me, and me touching back, that I know what their stories are about. And now, understanding, I feel that I am grown.
While Abeselome blows sweet breath on my forehead I try to think of Gebre Memfis. But that is a different kind of story, I know now. A made-up tale like any other, pretty and silly as a holiday song. What happened to Azmera— _that_ is how things are, how people come to be.
Abeselome talks his best qene, words thick and sweet dripping over me, but I am dry. I try to smile, to kick words back, but my lips are pinned together and my mind is blank. I look up at the ceiling, down at the floor, at Abeselome. He kisses my nose, his eyes two heavy clouds sagging with rain, but still I am afraid. I will not open like the dry bird's beak. My fingers, my lips, my limbs are folded over like the sererie, and I am closed.
# A Magic of Bags
When Ilana Randolph left her house that Saturday night, the only people outside were on their way. It was April, and past midnight, and the air was black and wet as a glass of diet cola. The dealers, the addicts, the stoop ladies—everyone who usually populated the block was elsewhere now. The women of the Harlem Grange Homeowners' Council were in their brownstones, packing lunches, rinsing their pantyhose, preparing for the next day's climb. Only a handful of shadows moved under the streetlight as Ilana pushed through the blocks toward Convent Avenue, a garbage bag full of babies in tow.
Everyone knew Ilana was unusual, even before the babies. She couldn't have denied it if she'd wanted to—which she didn't. It wasn't just that she was wide as a refrigerator and always wore purple and orange extensions in her hair, or that she painted her nails wacky colors like black and neon green—though the Grange Women were none too impressed by any of that either. But Ilana's difference went deeper. Most of the Grange's young people spent their free time hopping subway turnstiles on the way home from their private schools, smoking loosies in Riverside Park in feeble defiance of authority, plotting futures with one-another, most of which ended with masters' degrees from MIT and expensive wedding receptions in opulent hotels downtown. Ilana, on the other hand, spent her time alone, meditating on a single idea: verticality. Not in the dull, sentimental, _lift-as-you-climb,_ _movin'-on-up_ kind of sense, though she felt that was important in a historical way. But Ilana was interested in the more meaningful sense of up and down movement: the apparent versus the subterranean, how things arranged themselves on the surface versus what really held them together the core.
She pondered this notion constantly, doodling diagrams of plants' roots and soil strata in her Spanish notebooks, writing songs about nectarine pits, subway tunnels and the penny-studded floors of fountains whenever she got the chance. While everyone around her strived desperately or attractiveness, Ilana was sure the body must have some better use. She was ever on a quest to get under the skin of things—and to mess with them. Not in a bad way. Just in a way that proved she was there.
The Grange Women, Ilana knew, would attribute her strangeness to her father's death from bone cancer, a year before the babies. But Ilana's penchant for troublemaking began much longer ago than that. Once, when she was fourteen, she won $100 for taking first place in a local High School Heroes essay contest, and it was when she went to the check cashing place on Edgecombe with the prize check that she first discovered her magic. When she entered, the man behind the counter greeted her by exclaiming "Hey, big girl—I like those baby-bouncin' hips!" with a gin-soaked but not insincere smile. Deeply insulted but unsure what to say, Ilana stared at the man, focusing hard, until she thought she could feel her gaze buzzing just below the gray hair on his left arm. She wanted to make him itch. It was a good feeling, and so she focused harder, training her eyes on his arm as she handed over her check and ID. Staring imperceptibly for all those minutes wasn't easy, but it was gratifying—many times, she felt the need to blink, but she rallied and instead intensified her gaze. Finally, as the man handed her the cash, just before she began to turn away, he raised his right hand, brought it to the arm, and scratched vigorously. It was glorious—a victory—and Ilana was hooked on her powers.
By the time she walked out with the babies, three years later, Ilana had turned her bodily troublemaking into a practice, an art. When the girl at the weed spot rolled her eyes at her stankly, Ilana smiled and sent herself to buzz at the girl's inner thigh. And when the Grange Women commented on her hair color or her weight gain at her mother's holiday parties, Ilana chose the falsest of the women, Ann Master, and concentrated on the point of her nose, focusing there until the woman burst into a huge sneezing fit, which eventually turned everyone's stomachs and scattered the party for good.
It was not that Ilana did not like people; she liked most of them well enough. What she didn't like was the way they handled each other. It was all or nothing with most people, a symptom, she felt, of strictly horizontal thought. People either rejected you out of pocket, with an eye-roll and a fake smile, or they insisted on sucking you into a system of fidelities and physiologies—marriages and coituses and births and ceaseless extended-family Thanksgivings—that would bind you to them, wholly, impossibly, forever. Most often they did both, shutting you out and stitching you in at once, which was the cruelest thing of all.
Ilana noticed this pattern first in her family, then in the neighborhood. But as she got older, she saw this schema replicating itself in the halls of her high school, which was nowhere near Harlem and was filled with well-to-do white teenagers who looked nothing like her. So eventually, Ilana took her troublemaking practice to the city streets. She began skipping school to make trips to Alphabet City and the Village, further downtown than most of the Grange teenagers would go, to buy her multi-colored hair at the Wigs & Plus on West 4th, and cans of fuchsia and turquoise spray paint at the Pearl Paint on Canal. Afterward, she would take the 1 & 9 subway line back up to Harlem, where she would tag abandoned buildings with the elaborately drawn names of made-up gangs like "Laydeez Mansion" and "Tha Patriarchy," ducking cops and dealers and anyone else who seemed like they might be part of a real crew. Then would sit on the front stoop of her parents' brownstone, eating cereal, writing rhymes, watching couples and families pass, privately wondering if she would ever make a family of her own.
Mrs. Randolph (whose first name nobody ever said—not even Ilana), did not acknowledge these changes in her daughter. Since George's passing, she had learned to fold her face into a pleasant smile whenever Ilana came up in conversation. She would tell anyone who asked that she and Ilana were doing just fine, thank you, and invite them to her next holiday party.
The dialogues was always more or less the same:
"How's Ilana doin', Mrs. Randolph?" one would ask. "I seen her the other day. Getting _big_ , huh? She's got a pretty face, though."
"That girl of yours is _different_ , ain't she, Mrs. Randolph?" another would chime in. "But she's smart, though. Quiet ones usually are."
"Well, that's kind of you," Mrs. Randolph would say, standing perfectly still, a stiff smile plastered to her face. "And will we see you at the Arbor Day Almond and Praline Picnic? We'd love to have you there." Then she would walk away, still smiling as primly as she could, whether they'd answered or not.
It wasn't that Mrs. Randolph didn't like people either, exactly. She simply did not like their mess. Never had. As a child, she was often scolded for failing to play well with others, which had always surprised her. In her mind, it was the other children who had turned their noses up at her. If you wanted contact, it seemed to her, the best way to make it was by clear and deliberate request. The improvised rules of hand clapping games and tag tournaments had always been mysterious to her; she never knew when the game was over, or what to do with herself while she waited for her turn to begin. The rise of the make-believe tea party in the first grade was a revelation for her. Unfortunately, by that time, her reputation as an uppity brown-skinned girl had already solidified, and she often found herself sitting in the playground, surrounded by paper napkin place-settings and imaginary teacups, alone.
But later in life, as a professional, a wife, and a mother, her hosting ability had become her most prized trait. By the time she and George had joined the Grange, with its elaborate social protocols and unspoken rules, Mrs. Randolph was certain: the best way to be in touch with the world was by formal invitation only.
The Grange women wondered—well, some of them did—why the woman who could celebrate the wind blowing through her favorite tree and invite the whole of Hamilton Heights to her garden to enjoy it could not part her lips in favor of her own girl.
For this reason and for others, Mrs. Randolph was a neighborhood mystery. She was a thick, sturdy woman with a billowy mass of salt-and-pepper hair, which she kept un-permed and pulled back into a great bush, as enviable as it was strange. She worked as a nurse practitioner at Presbyterian University Hospital, and was also on teaching faculty at the School of Nursing. This always made the Grange Women chuckle, as no one could imagine her breathing warmly over the incapable, much less training young, frenzied nursing students to do the same.
Mrs. Randolph had always been as cool and sharp as a shard of hail, and ever since George died, she'd become even more distant. Everyone remembered the date of George Randolph's passing; it happened on a Saturday, two days before her annual Labor Day Lamb chop Luncheon. Rumor had it the man had keeled over behind the brownstone while Mrs. Randolph pruned the pumpkin leaf centerpieces in the next room. Since then, Mrs. Randolph had floated further and further from the fold, missing most of the Grange meetings and making herself available only by posted RSVP to one of the affairs she held in her small backyard garden.
Mrs. Randolph's affairs always happened outside, regardless of the season. Even in winter, rather than have folks in the house, she rented heat lamps and had the garden's small deck professionally enclosed with temporary tarps so that her guests could sit in perfect warmth amid the gray, dirt-tinged snow. Upon arriving, the women were always ushered quickly through the garden floor parlor, past the kitchen, and into the yard. Some eventually began to take offense at this, and started to speculate as to why no one was allowed to spend time in the Randolph home. It was a major topic of conversation at Mrs. Randolph's last Flag Day Starfish and Striped Bass Fête, the summer before George's death.
"Ain't like it's that pretty a garden," Celia Wallstone had said, craning her head back so that her meaty chin pressed into her neck. "I don't see why we have to have our hoar-durves out there."
"Pssht," replied Sarah Prince, a petite, angular woman. "You know Mrs. Randolph doesn't like too much of people's funk in her furniture. Gets under her skin, you know? And ain't nuthin' generous up under there but a KEEP OUT sign."
"Well I'll tell you," Celia said, stuffing a piece of fish into her mouth. "I'm starting to think KEEP OUT's exactly what we need to do."
In the months after George's death, Mrs. Randolph grew increasingly withdrawn. Ilana grew quieter and stranger, too, until no one saw much of the girl, with the exception of Ann Master, one of the most active Grange members, whose son, DeShawn, had been close with Ilana, against Ann's best efforts. Ann was a slim and well-raised corporate tax lawyer with speckled eggshell skin, which she had always traced vaguely to her "Creole" ancestry, though she wasn't able to provide much more detail on her lineage than that. Luckily, no one ever asked. Ann had always greeted the thought of Ilana with a raised eyebrow. In her view, the girl was born as strange as her mother was mean, and the two seemed to dive miles deeper into their personality flaws when the man of the house passed on. It bothered Ann, as it had bothered all of the Grange women, to see Ilana grow from different to flat-out weird, marching down the streets of Harlem with strangely-colored hair swinging wildly from her head like loose electric wires, mouthing the words to some rap song without a single care as to who was watching.
For most of the fall, Ann tried to be patient with DeShawn regarding his friendship with Ilana. The girl had just lost her father, she reasoned, and consoling her would give DeShawn useful practice in soothing unhappy women, a skill he would need to use as a husband down the line. But around Christmastime, strange things began to happen. Traces of Ilana started to show up in places where the girl herself could not have been. It started with a few strands of synthetic blue extension hair coiled in the bottom drawer of Ann's filing cabinet at work. Then a handful of green press-on nails appeared in her grocery bag, lodged between the pine nuts and the Stahmann's candied pecans. When a whole turquoise braid turned up on the seat beside her on the subway, its end wrapped around the nozzle of a spray paint can, Ann forbade DeShawn from saying so much as "yo" to the girl. She put her foot down, telling him that he was risking his allowance, his college fund, and his future, for what that was worth. And as far as she was concerned, that had been that.
With the exception of Ann, most of the Grange Women had little-to-no contact with Ilana and her mother in the months before the babies. Still, it didn't take more than two eyes and a scrap of sense to know that something was amiss with those two. That was not the sort of thing you would speak on, of course, at least not to a woman's face. So, after Mrs. Randolph missed her fourth consecutive Grange meeting, with the excuse that she was planning her annual MLK Day Mountaintop Mutton Supper, the Grange Women resolved to discuss the matter over Copeland's Sunday Brunch.
"Poor girl," Mary Pitts said, pointing her lips and sloshing the butter around in her grits. "No wonder she acts so strange. Mother can't speak a good word on her to save her life."
"Since the father passed, seem like the girl don't have nobody." Celia Wallstone shook her head, raking the stiff ends of her wig over her shoulders. "Course George didn't hardly say nothing when he was around. Guess that woman scared him so. Nice man, though." She took a sip of her coffee, her eyebrows raised behind the steam.
"Well, I imagine most of what goes on in that house ain't 'zactly what you'd call normal," said Wilma Fridelle, folding her napkin and placing it on the table. "You know they talk on the phone."
"What's that have to do with anything, Wilma?" Said Joyce Turner, a round brown-skinned woman with dread locks and a face as slick as a gumball.
"I _mean_ ," Wilma retorted, "they call each other on the phone. From one room to the other." She surveyed her audience and sighed. "Rather than go see each other in person. I saw it when I was there for the last Juneteenth Champagne Toast and Jubilee. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever seen all three of them in the same room for more than fifteen minutes, even when George was alive."
"Mmm. It's a shame," Sarah Prince said, leaning into the table. "You know, it means something that he died of bone cancer. Lungs just as airy as springtime, prostate and pancreas you could bet money on, and he ups and dies of poisoned bones. Who ever heard of that? Seems to me living in that house ate him up from the outside in is what happened." She shook her head and dropped her hands in her lap for emphasis.
Ann Master was silent during these sessions, for fear she might be charged with hypocrisy. DeShawn often made news on the whisper mill for small things like graffiti-ing church stairs or stringing his FILA sneakers up on telephone poles for no reason she could think of. But DeShawn was ultimately harmless, and much better than most of these upper-Harlem kids. He had been a member of the Boy's Choir of Harlem, and sometimes she still heard him singing, almost as sweetly, in his bedroom at night. He still liked school well enough, and did almost of all his homework, as far as she could tell. For a teenage boy, he hadn't given Ann much trouble, and, now, watching him grow tall and lean as a walking stick, Ann had started to wish she'd had more children. Frequently, she dreamed of the bland, mealy smell of baby formula and the feel of hot milk splashed for temperature testing against her wrist.
But now, at forty-four, these pleasures of motherhood were lost to her. In recent years, her hips had begun to spread lazily out and down toward her knees, and her small breasts had grown resigned, and had slid down her torso like two little globs of paint on a wall. It seemed the generation to whom motherhood remained—the Talk Show Girls, as she thought of them, with their fake hair and their cheap, gold-plated nose-rings—was completely unequipped to handle the job of procreation. Lately, Ann caught herself sighing audibly at the turned backs of these young mothers as they lifted to their tip-toes to reach high shelves in the grocery store. On bad days, she caught herself looking over her shoulders, eying hungrily their unmanned strollers and basinets.
She had even begun to curse her flighty sister, Lenae, now thirty, for having had five children and made no real efforts to support them. Lenae spent her time pursuing worthless scraps of men and mindless, menial jobs with which she only barely managed to make a living. Had Ann been blessed to have young children at this stage in her life, she often thought, she would make motherhood her art. But now, even though her spirit was willing, her body was not; and moreover, there were no men in sight. DeShawn's father was a useless man who thought sending a pack of subway tokens on Christmas constituted child support, and no other men showed interest. All she could do, Ann decided, was mother the child she had, keep him away from crack, the police, and bad women, and pray he would one day find a decent girl give him the family she longed for.
"That house is strange for sure," Ann said finally, dabbing her napkin at the corners of her mouth. "It's no wonder that girl turned out the way she did."
"What you mean, Ann?" Joyce asked haughtily. She sucked in her round stomach and smoothed her blouse down as if to keep her gut from view.
"Well, now, I'm not _saying_ ," Ann began. "I'm just saying, you know, Ilana Randolph is not quite like these other young people."
"You mean she's not simple?" Marietta Mann ventured, pushing a cube of melon onto her fork.
"No," Said Celia Wallstone. "She means the girl don't talk, right Ann?"
"Well," Ann said, brushing crumbs from her lap. "I don't like to tell tales, but you know she isn't a woman yet."
"How's that?" Wilma Fridelle and Sarah Prince asked in unison.
"I mean," Ann said, her face going hard with impatience. "She's going on seventeen and hasn't had her—her _visitor_ yet. She told DeShawn she didn't plan to either. Said it just like that: 'I don't plan to.'"
"Hmph." Joyce snorted. "If that's true, that's the kinda thing make you think twice before sitting at someone's table. I don't care how good the greens are."
Mary Pitts sucked her teeth and chuckled. "Naw, can't be. Keep talkin,' Ann."
Ann shrugged. "I'm just telling you, is all," she said, folding her napkin and placing it on the table. "Believe it or don't."
It didn't matter that Ilana never heard these conversations herself—she only needed to read the women's stiff smiles when they greeted her. She would think about what the Grange Women must say about her and her mother as she lay in bed at night, gazing up at the dolls that encircled her bedroom, their plastic faces caked with dust.
In her almost-seventeen years of life, Ilana had amassed an impressive crew of teddy bears, My Little Ponies, black Barbie dolls, and others. There were handmade rag dolls with black yarn hair and skin that had thinned to the texture of old paper bags. There were antique brown china dolls with painted swirls of black hair and eyes that closed lazily when jostled, as though silly with delight or begging for sleep. Her favorite had been a brown-skinned, bushy-haired doll with a gleaming white faux-fur jacket that engulfed it like a marshmallow, and with perfectly round bubble-gum colored dots on its cheeks.
Until Ilana was four or so, the dolls had been her peers. She had once enjoyed waking up on Saturday mornings, spreading her blanket on the floor and joining her dolls for mornings of cold cereal and cartoons. But when her classmates began to refer to their dolls as their sons and daughters, Ilana was done. She stopped combing their hair, stopped offering them cereal, stopped taking them to swim in the bathroom sink. She let their eye sockets cake with dirt, let dust settle deep into their fur and hair. She had never bothered to box them, perhaps out of laziness. She simply let them lounge atop her desk and dresser, sit in her chairs, hang from her mantle, and press their paws and fingers against her window sills as they pleased. Still, for years, the dolls kept coming as gifts from her mother, and from cousins and uncles too distant to know that, ever since age four, Ilana had had no interest in dependents.
Now, under the watch of the dolls, she would think of the Grange Women. She would think about what tragedy of life must have made them who they were—what error kept Joyce Turner's lips running and eyes darting in her doughy face as though calamity would come if she let her mind be still? What indiscretion made Marietta Mann so quiet she seemed to be shocked by the sound of her own breath? These women had been defeated, it seemed, by the quest to fall in line with domesticity's parade—find a good man, find a good job, keep both, have good children that would be willing to lather, rinse, repeat. But the cost of this process, the lint in the trap, seemed always to be the women themselves. Their imaginations, their joys, the brightness of their smiles all seemed to vanish in the tumble of family life, and so they found themselves empty, their bodies warn to laundry bags for other peoples' futures.
So Ilana decided to do things differently. She would handle life selfishly, and never give it to anyone. Sometimes, she was sure of it: she would create no family, no children, nothing but herself. She would consider sharing that selfish life with somebody else only if she truly and deeply felt like it. In the meantime, she would make the ornate ballet of Harlem's social life her entertainment. She would live life, make trouble, and enjoy herself.
The most delicious of her plans involved DeShawn Master, whose mother was arguably the primmest and most anxious of the Grange Women, and who himself was smart and, truth be told, pretty cute. Ilana had seen him for the first time in a while at her father's funeral, six months before the babies, and had immediately come down with a terminal crush, though not the typical kind, she was sure. Most of the Hamilton Heights girls admired DeShawn for the regular reasons: he was known for his deep red skin only lightly peppered with pimples, his pretty voice and his elaborate tags on the walls of the abandoned school on 145th Street. But he was also rumored to have single-handedly masterminded the Destino 2000, a phantom gang whose only real criminal activity was spray painting neon-colored peonies over parking signs and turning traffic signals the wrong way. This, more than anything, made Ilana swoon.
She plotted her first major encounter with DeShawn carefully. It was no small feat; DeShawn was a senior at the rough-and-tumble Catholic boys' school in the Bronx, and Ilana was tenth-grader at her small, artsy nerd-nest on the Upper East Side. There was no chance of unplanned encounters outside of Harlem, and given Mrs. Randolph's awkward standing in the Grange, to trade on their neighborly connection wouldn't have been much help either.
After weeks of planning, Ilana decided to meet DeShawn on his own terms. She skipped school for a week and left the house each day with spray cans, stencils, box cutters, and colored chalk stuffed in the bag where her textbooks should have been. Starting at the rock wall on Riverside Drive where DeShawn and his friends smoked weed after school, she began to place ornate, sprawling letters in paint so thickly glossed it shimmered under the streetlamps. She painted these letters beside the Destino 2000 tags, working her way south and east from the Hudson, past her home off of Amsterdam Avenue, past the Grange office, moving north with DeShawn's flowers as her guides until she reached the row of tidy brownstones on 145th and Convent, where Ann Master's home sat proudly on the corner. There, she swapped the spray cans for the chalk, crouched to the pavement, and placed the biggest and most elaborate letter yet—a lemon-yellow _I,_ winking with glints of peach and lime.
It took only two days for news of Ilana's work to wash back on the whisper mill. ShaLondra Prior, a slim tenement girl from Broadway known for her involved and frequently-changing hairstyles, suspected Ilana immediately. ShaLondra had been DeShawn's girlfriend in the sixth grade, and had maintained a de-facto claim over him since then, at least in her own view. She approached Ilana one afternoon, her hair pulled into thick, mile-long box braids and piled on top of her head like Janet Jackson's in _Poetic Justice_. Ilana looked up as ShaLondra neared the stoop, then turned back to her cereal.
"Do you know the bitch who's fucking with Destino?" ShaLondra demanded, patting at her temples.
Ilana shook her head and studied her Craklin' Oat Bran.
"That's some weird shit, yo," ShaLondra said. "It's just a bunch of random letters. What the fuck is an _L_ or an _E_ supposed to mean anyway?" She watched Ilana's face for a beat. When Ilana said nothing, ShaLondra pursed her lips, pivoted on her heel and turned away, the burnt ends of her braids taking flight behind her.
Ilana knew then that she was on the right track.
The next morning, she marched to Ann Master's house, armed with her paints and stencils. She posted herself behind a dumpster on the corner and waited for Ann to leave for work. When Ann was out of view, Ilana pulled her tools from the bag and shook a can of silver paint as vigorously as she could, its metal agitator ball rattling loud just beneath DeShawn's bedroom window on the first floor. The window rose as though on command.
"What the fuck, Ilana?" DeShawn mumbled, his voice still gravelly with sleep. "I knew that shit was you. All them _I_ s and _F_ s and shit. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? And, anyway, how you gonna tag my mother's house, though?"
"Oh, you live here?" Ilana said, still shaking the can. "I didn't know. Plus, rhododendrons and azaleas don't exactly say 'step off.' I halfway thought Destino 2000 was a group of kindergarten girls." She shook the can again.
"But damn, why you gotta be so loud?" He mumbled through a smile. "Hold on." And he came downstairs in flip flops, socks, and basketball shorts to let her in.
He rolled a blunt, and the two spent the day writing rhymes and blowing smoke out of Ann Master's parlor window, taking care not to disturb the masks and statues that decorated the room, or to ash on the Strohmenger & Sons piano, which was polished to an indignant shine. When enough time had passed and DeShawn seemed high enough to have forgotten himself, Ilana turned to him and traced her fingernails between the hairs on his knee. She tilted her head to the side, pushed her chin toward him, and softened her lips for a kiss, but DeShawn jerked away.
"No," he said, his voice unsteady. "I mean, that can't happen. You're cool but, you know. My mother and shit... She wouldn't... you're not..."
He continued to stammer, beginning explanations and stopping mid-sentence, gathering his voice and trying again, but Ilana didn't need to hear the words. The next day, she called DeShawn to tell him that it was okay, that she understood what he'd meant, and that she still wanted to be friends.
In the following months, she established a tight liaison with DeShawn. The two skipped school together, tagging buildings and writing songs, stealing icies from the coco helado man while it was still warm and snatching knishes from the hot dog trucks in Central Park when it got cooler. By January, Ilana had succeeded in becoming his truest homie. They even had their kiss, and a few others here and there, but Ilana assured him each time that she wouldn't mention that to anyone. Even when ShaLondra Prior gusted up to her stoop one day, a fresh weave of auburn curls floating behind her like rings in a ringtoss, and said "yo, what the fuck is up with you and D?" Ilana only stirred her cereal and said "What do you mean? We're just peoples," and watched ShaLondra spangle away. Ilana understood what their touching meant, she told DeShawn: nothing.
In those months, she made herself a fixture in Ann Master's home. Ann would return from work many evenings to find Ilana and DeShawn sitting on her front steps, scrawling in their notebooks and moving their heads back and forth in synch like a pair of twin gulls. Ilana enjoyed watching Ann struggle to be pleasant with her. It was a sweet irony, Ilana felt. The imperious restraint that made Ann hate Ilana also kept her from voicing her disdain. No matter what Ilana did, Ann would greet her with the same arched eyebrows, the same squinting eyes, the same dismal lip-raise that strained to pass for a smile. It was a good exercise for the woman, Ilana decided. She began to imagine herself as Ann Master's personal trainer, forcing her into a calisthenics of the spirit. She pulled strands of synthetic hair from her rainbow-colored packs and stuffed them in the crevices of Ann's bags, tied them around the clasps of her necklaces, stuck them down into the legs of her daysheer pantyhose. She watched Ann's smile grow stiffer and her face more flustered each time she saw her—progress, in Ilana's book. Sometimes, DeShawn would report finding whole braids in the cupboards, where Ilana hadn't planted anything at all. Ilana didn't quite understand it, but she didn't complain.
It was gratifying to watch her efforts work on Ann, but Ilana hadn't anticipated annoying DeShawn as well. He confronted her one afternoon as they smoked blunts sitting on the fence at Edgecombe park. "For real, I wish you'd stop fucking with her. I know it's nothing, but still. She's an unhappy woman," he explained, blowing smoke over the park's stony cliff. "She's lonely. You don't like people, so you wouldn't understand about loneliness."
Ilana stopped going to school shortly after that conversation. It wasn't a decision so much as it was something she observed, as though on the TV screen. She saw herself waking up day after day, the silly morning DJs on the hip-hop station bantering in her ear for only a few minutes before she turned the radio off, rolled over, and continued to sleep. With the exception of a few forays to the Crown Fried Chicken around the corner, she recused herself from the world and retreated to her room.
During those weeks, Ilana spent time with her dolls, and nearly no one else. DeShawn became distant, too, and soon new rumors foamed up on the whisper mill—some saying that he was dating a light-skinned girl from Stuyvesant High School, others saying that ShaLondra Prior was pregnant with his child.
Mrs. Randolph did not notice her daughter's transition into sloth, so busy was she conducting the quiet symphony of her own life, which had become a different thing to manage now that George was gone. Like always, she rose promptly at five every morning in order to press her clothes, smooth her billowy hair into a bun, and take the subway to work at 6:30, not returning until after nine. Sometimes she looked at Ilana and wanted to ask her something, to touch her shoulder or perhaps to give her a hug. But it had always been difficult to talk to Ilana about her day, because the girl was so quiet and because, well, how did one talk to a teenager about anything, really, anyway? And now, it seemed that George's absence had become a film between them, making it impossible for each to see the other clearly, or even to talk to each other, much less to touch.
Then, one Saturday afternoon, while mopping the floors outside of Ilana's bedroom, she decided to peek in. If she could not get to her daughter, she reasoned, just going into her room might be a start. Ilana had left the house hurriedly to go who-knew-where, and though she had no idea when she would be back, Mrs. Randolph took her time surveying the room. But, taking stock, she was horrified. Her good mahogany dresser and vanity were covered in pen marks and paint stains, and smears of electric blue and green chalk clung shamelessly to her elegant salmon-calored walls. Pens and spray cans rolled lackadaisically over her antique rug, surely an injury waiting to happen to anyone who ventured up to the room in the first place.
It had been a beautiful room once, but there was so little to be admired here now. This was the thing with teenagers, she thought. Their vision was so clouded with the dramas of their own lives that they failed to see the very real dangers before them—for Ilana, not just death-by-spray-can, but also the long and lonely life of a woman unconcerned with keeping house. But Ilana had not always been that way—Mrs. Randolph was almost sure of that. Ilana had never been as neat as Mrs. Randolph would've liked, but as a girl she'd always used her creativity around the house to good result, decorating her bedroom room with symmetrical—if tacky—drawings of rainbows and flowers, and bringing beautifully-iced cupcakes to school whenever there was a birthday. And then there were the doll babies, which Ilana had treated with a meticulous love as a child. She had talked to them, bathed them, fixed their hair and clothes with a fastidious and thorough interest that even Mrs. Randolph had struggled to understand. And even though she'd neglected them later, she never threw them away.
Mrs. Randolph looked for the dolls, ready to admire the collection she'd amassed for Ilana, to feel the hope of those decades of floral print dresses, the years and seasons of perfect pinafores, the generations of patchwork in the oldest dolls' blouses, passed down from her mother to her, to Ilana, maybe still. She wanted to see the touch the yarn hair her favorite doll, to run her fingers over its faux fur jacket, which, only by this lineage of maternal commitment had remained a floury white. It was probably only five minutes or so, but it seemed she'd searched at least an hour before it dawned on her that, in fact, the babies were gone.
The babies were lighter than Ilana had thought they'd be. She made a game of tossing the dolls into the bag, some feet or paws first, some flicked head down like boomerangs or flung like Frisbees, their hair spinning circles of plastic around them. As she worked, she imagined Ann Master waking up to the spectacle she had designed for her: stuffed bears smoking cigarettes on her dining room table, Barbies necking nude on the antique sideboard, ponies in plastic-bag bikinis, soaped up and back floating in her kitchen sink. It would scandalize Ann, shake her from her stupor of meanness, and perhaps even amuse DeShawn a little in the process. They both would suspect her, but it wouldn't matter. She would give Ann Master something more interesting to fret about than the skin tone and temperament of her progeny, and DeShawn would arise, the responsible son, to comfort his mother, joining her in condemnation of strange pranks like this. It was an act of benevolence, really, Ilana decided, and a thoughtful one. She had wrangled his spare key weeks ago in preparation, so there would be no broken windows, and no real need to call the cops. Ann might call Mrs. Randolph, but that didn't worry Ilana; she had grown used to her mother's expressions of bewildered disappointment by now. Tomorrow, after the dust settled and the spectacle had sunk in, DeShawn would throw the dolls away, have the locks changed and renew their lapsed security system account. Then he would call Ilana out of obligation to his mother, under the guise of threatening her, but really, the two would probably share a chuckle. Perhaps that chuckle would even lead to more.
At two a.m. that morning, the streets were quiet and everyone outside was moving. As she walked down the block, she saw that this was because the cops were out, sprinkled in pairs under the awnings where the dealers and other corner-dwellers usually stood. The cops' presence cast an even quiet over the pavement, making the neighborhood seem still and almost false, like a replica of a Harlem that had never really existed. This kind of quiet usually meant that something was going on in the neighborhood's busy world of crack addiction, migration, and desperate economic exchange. The night was sharp with a sense of something underground emerging, something hidden, happening or about to happen. She tightened her grip around the bag and pushed forward down the block.
She had just made out the spokes of the Masters' front gate when she heard a series of loud pops behind her, like a run of burst balloons. The noise was gone just as quickly as it came, and soon there was more stillness. Ilana thought it was a scare—a child maybe, playing with firecrackers on his mother's stoop. But as her foot hit the pavement in front of DeShawn's house, the popping struck up again, now so close that she thought she could feel the sound brushing the back of her neck. She turned around to see the feet of several men and a couple of women flailing, running in all directions just paces behind her. The silence of the evening broke into a garble of noise: a man grunted loudly and heaved, a woman shouted " _Get the fuck..."_ then stopped short, choking on air.
Ilana ran like she hadn't run in years. She felt her fingers flex and air smack cool against her empty palms as the bag fell. Tripping over yarn curls and dingy cheeks, she ran, leaving brown plastic fingers grasping upward in vain. She stepped on the gleaming white fur jacket of her favorite doll and kept going. She felt free in the running, like a small part of something large, a streak of sound in a furor. Hands open, she ran away in a jumble of runners, wondering, as they all did, what had happened—what would happen—and then wondering privately, to herself, if a life could feel this way.
Two weeks later, Ilana still had not heard from DeShawn. She wondered if Ann had seen the torn bag and scattered parts in front of her stoop, but there was no way to find out. The whisper mill was totally silent on the issue. She had heard a little about the gunshots that night—that they had to do with a bad crack deal a few days earlier and a dirty cop who had unexpectedly gone straight. But Ilana heard nothing about the babies. There were no tales of plastic limbs trampled by police boots, no reports of fake baby bottles or miniature pacifiers strewn about Sugar Hill. She walked down to Convent Avenue several times, looking for scraps of yarn hair or scrambling plastic eyes, the white fur jacket growing black in the gutter. But there was nothing—nothing beyond the multi-colored crack vials, newspaper pages, and quarter juice containers that normally ornamented the streets.
Ann Master, too, was absent after the babies. Ilana hadn't expected to see her right away, but she thought, for sure, that she would be at her mother's next party, at least. But Mrs. Randolph's Abolition Day Ice Cream Affair came and went, and no one in attendance had seen skin nor scowl of Ann.
The crowd was much thinner than her mother had expected, which meant less for Ilana to do. It was April, but still cool, and so Mrs. Randolph had ordered heat lamps as usual. Ilana spent most of that afternoon standing at the garden doorway, just close enough to feel the rented warmth on her nose and knuckles. She listened for some mention of Ann Master or DeShawn, but none came. The women talked incessantly about their children and their jobs, what they had planted in their window boxes, what new curtains they would hang for the spring. The ones who had husbands bragged and complained about them; the ones who didn't pushed cranberries through their baked brie, gazing out at the heaps of melting snow.
Occasionally, she caught her mother's eye as Mrs. Randolph flitted around the walled garden, arranging seat cushions and plucking unused name cards from the tables, assessing her spare spate of guests. In those moments, she tried to offer her mother a look of reassurance, solidarity. But each time, Mrs. Randolph looked away.
May 1st was George Randolph's birthday, and though she would not say it, Mrs. Randolph had been dreading the day since she closed the door behind the last guest at the Abolition Day affair. Conveniently enough, May 1st was also May Day in the continental states, and Lei Day in Hawaii. She'd never been to Hawaii and didn't particularly care for false flowers or canned pineapple, but those things did remind her of George—queer, comical George who insisted on wearing floral print socks tucked into his Oxfords because, as he put it, one always had to have "a little whoo-ha" on one's person to make the day worthwhile. George was capricious and unpredictable, but he always carried his strangenesses out silently, like Ilana. Mrs. Randolph appreciated this quality of his more than she had been able to articulate when he was alive. His silence allowed her to enjoy the weirdness of him, in a way, the strange thing of him made wonderful, because it was reserved only for her.
And so, in this spirit—George's, and Ilana's—she decided to host her first May Day/Lei Day Luau. She could not be seen dragging a dead pig through the streets of Harlem, so she determined that a beef brisket would have to do. The pineapples would be fresh and the flowers would be real, and there would be May Day baskets full of prettily-iced cakes and cookies for the sweet-eating Grange Women, under the pretense, of course, that they were for any children who happened to come by. The turn-out at the April affair hadn't been the best, but people were surely sick with the long winter and the slow change of seasons. And regardless, she thought, who wouldn't come out for cookies, Hawaiian lays, and slow-braised beef? There was something for everyone in that— _Fun for the Holy Families!_ is what George would say. A May Day/Lei Day Brisket and Basket Luau. She let the idea caramelize in her mind.
On the morning of the Luau, the sky over Hamilton Heights was as clear and blank as an ice cube. No one had RSVP-ed for the event yet, though Mrs. Randolph asked for the appropriate one-week's response on the invitations. She attributed this lapse in etiquette to an unfortunate triumph of Colored People's Time—a condition that sometimes reared its scruffy head even in the best circles—and so she went on about the preparations. She cleaned and covered the tables, pinned the seat cushions in place, and directed the installation of the makeshift luau pit, watching as delivery men spread bags of dirt over her yard's limestone floors. She put out the baskets, filled them with reasonably expensive pastries, and strung fresh carnations into necklaces no one had signed up to wear.
Ilana watched quietly and from a distance, saying nothing as Mrs. Randolph prepared for the event, her spine curved into a question mark over the stove, muttering her dissatisfaction at batch after batch of Hawaiian pasta salad. It didn't matter that the production was a waste of time. The work kept her mother busy and distracted—perhaps happy, even—and it seemed pointless and cruel to take that from her. Still, it had stung to see how poorly attended the April event was, and it was even harder to see her mother at it again. So Ilana stuffed a few spray bottles into her backpack and left the house, offering to bring back a bag of ice when she came home.
When she returned that afternoon, the house was tinkling with sound. The laughter of several voices lunged forward, not from way out in the garden, but from right there, chiming thickly through the first floor. When Ilana pushed through the French foyer doors, she saw Mrs. Randolph sitting in the middle of the dining room, stiff as a scarecrow, a field of little bodies waving around her.
There were children. Children and more children of various ages: prim toddlers in cornrows and overalls, a messy nine-year-old with distressed Afro-puffs and a floral-print skirt. Some clutched juice boxes or stuffed animals, others held hands, their tight, well-greased box braids brushing the hem of Mrs. Randolph's ivory tablecloth. One child, a girl, wore a crisp white faux-fur jacket that looked freshly scrubbed to gleaming, save for what seemed to be a faded foot print on the left arm.
When she stepped into the dining room, Ilana saw that Ann Master was there too, holding a leaky-nosed infant on the table before her, the bulge of its diaper resting squarely on Mrs. Randolph's white lace runner. And there beside her was DeShawn, careening on the two side legs of Mrs. Randolph's mahogany chair to help a child with bright pink cheeks tie her shoe.
"Mrs. Master and her family decided to stop by and surprise us," Mrs. Randolph said to Ilana, her face trick-knotted into a smile. "Isn't that nice?"
Ilana nodded and looked at DeShawn, who tied the shoe and hoisted the child onto his knee. The sideboards were covered with folded cloth napkins and baskets of cookies, and a large pitcher of bright purple juice sat uncovered at the edge of the table. Ilana eyed the juice pitcher, so wide and brazen against the thin white cloth.
"It's so nice to see you, Ilana," Ann said, wiping the infant's mouth with its bib. The baby gave a wet gurgle. "It's been such a long time. We've really missed having you around." The was a casual sweetness in Ann's tone that made Ilana think Ann might have forgotten herself—that she might actually believe she liked Ilana after all.
Ilana nodded and tried to offer some kind of smile. She looked at DeShawn over the mass of children—five, altogether, she now saw, though they felt to her like many more. DeShawn began to bounce the fur-coated child on his lap. The girl gave a flurry of giggles, her black eyes rolling with delight.
"So you were saying, Ann? About your sister?" Mrs. Randolph placed another basket of cookies on the table and walked to the sideboard, trying, Ilana could tell, not to seem too eager for details.
"Well, yes, like I said. They just showed up on the stoop one morning, a few weeks ago now," Ann said, her face firm and bright as a pat of butter. "All of them together, and Lenae nowhere in sight. I do wish she'd sent word in advance, but you know—some people just don't know how to be." She shifted the child onto her knee and sighed. "Of course, I was worried at first, with all the things that go on around here. There was a shooting just the night before they got here, right there on my block." She switched the child to the other knee and patted its behind. "But children need mothers, and women need children, is what I told DeShawn. Men need them, too, whether they know it or not."
Ann looked at DeShawn, who nodded dutifully, smiling awkwardly as though he were posing for a photo. Sitting side by side amid a sea of children, their slim faces cast in twin smiles, DeShawn and Ann looked like two halves of a quotation mark. Ilana had never seen DeShawn look like this before. Her disappointment surprised her.
"Well, we had to fix them up, of course," Ann continued. "They were a bit discombobulated, at first." A child waddled by and Ann stopped it with her free hand. She licked her finger, cleared a smear of cookie frosting from one of the pink cheeks, and released it to its game. "But we're having a good time putting them together, aren't we?" She wiggled the infant's booted toe, and the baby reached up and put its palm on her face. DeShawn bounced the child in the fur coat again and gave his picture-day smile.
"Reminds you of how it was when _they_ were young, doesn't it, Mrs. Randolph," Ann said, gesturing with her eyebrows to DeShawn and Ilana, the child's fingers still on her nose.
"Well, yes," Mrs. Randolph said.
Suddenly, the child in the fur coat leaned forward in DeShawn's lap, slunk down to a standing position, and lunged for a basket of cookies, tripping over a buckle in the rug and sending the basket, the napkins, and the plastic juice pitcher crashing to the floor. Everyone watched as purple juice spread slowly over the rug and began to sink in. The child grabbed onto Mrs. Randolph's skirt and hoisted herself up again, leaving a wide smear of purple liquid and cookie grease on the pale gray cotton.
Ilana hurried to the foyer closet for cleaning supplies, and DeShawn moved beside her mute, almost automated. She handed him a rag and a bottle of cleaner. As the two ducked down to the floor, she checked his face, hoping to share an eye roll or a smirk at the ridiculousness of the situation, but he did not look up, except briefly, to offer a wild, panicked smile she couldn't decipher.
When the spot was cleaned, Mrs. Randolph began moving the remaining baskets and tablecloths to the sideboard. Ilana waited for the moment when Mrs. Randolph would put the visit to an end, ushering the newly-sprawling mess of the Masters out of her house. She couldn't imagine her mother taking much more of this disorder, and for the first time, Ilana was glad.
"Oh, Mrs. Randolph, I'm so sorry about that," Ann said pleadingly. She took the child in her arms and looked sternly into its face. "Tell Mrs. Randolph you're sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry, Miss Mand..." the child stammered, clutching the furry hems of her jacket sleeves. Her face began to tremble, and her eyes grew wet.
"I'm sorry, Miss Man..." she tried again.
Mrs. Randolph scrubbed at her skirt, hunched over at the sideboard, and Ilana imagined the look of trussed-up horror that would show on her face when she turned back around. But when she finally turned toward the group again, her expression was smooth and easy. Ilana even thought she saw a smile beginning to sprout between her mother's cheeks.
"That's alright, sweetheart," Mrs. Randolph said quietly. "Here." She held a bright pink cookie in the air. "Now, remember: next time, just say 'May I have a cookie?'"
"May I have a cookie, Miss Man-off?" The child repeated. Mrs. Randolph nodded. She placed the cookie at the center of a napkin, and gave it over. "Yes, you may. And my name is Joy."
Ann Master beamed, her smile so thick it could have oozed from a tube. DeShawn took this as his chance to jump in, prodding the child: "Say, 'Thank you, Mrs. Joy,'" which the child did between mouthfuls.
"Very good," Mrs. Randolph said in a lilt. "That's right. You're welcome." Ann smiled.
A brightness shone in Ann's and her mother's eyes as they instructed the child gleefully in the social choreography of this house, this neighborhood, this world— _Say, 'Please, Mrs.' Say 'Thank you, Mrs.' Oh yes. Very good. That's right—_ while the child tugged, uncomfortable or oblivious, at the wisps of fur on its jacket. Once, in the sixth grade, Ilana had read a novella about a quirky but likeable girl who complained of always being an outsider in her neighborhood. Throughout the first hundred pages of the book, the girl joked self-deprecatingly about feeling like an alien, only to find out in the final third that she actually _was_ an alien, completely unrelated to anyone she'd ever known, come on special assignment from another planet to observe social life on earth and write a report about it. Watching her mother and Ann transform bizarrely in front of her, Ilana felt how that girl must have felt: nauseated and relieved at once.
DeShawn bent to gather the wet rags and Ilana moved with him, eager to be out of sight.
"Look at them," Ann said to Mrs. Randolph, her voice heavy with conspiratorial warmth. "Won't be long before they're having babies of their own." She darted her eyes first at DeShawn and then at Ilana.
Mrs. Randolph nodded, her smile full-on now.
"Ilana—" Ann and Mrs. Randolph said in unison. Then they laughed. Mrs. Randolph's laugh was timid at first. But Ann's was deep and hearty and from the gut, and Ilana could hear her mother's laugh start to take root, too.
"Why don't you join us?" Ann said, moving the baby bag aside and patting the cushion of the seat next to her.
"Yes." Mrs. Randolph looked up at Ilana, her face simpler and stranger than it had ever looked before. "You should. Feel free."
Ilana paused, wishing she could take a picture of the moment and keep it in her pocket for later—a havoc of babies wreaked on her mother's dining room floor, two Grange Women merrily peeling layers off themselves to put things back in order, and all this the work of several utterly uninvited guests. She felt happy enough for the people that filled the room, but thrilled for her own freedom to leave it. She regretted only that there was no one she could tell the whole story to.
"No, thank you," she said, her voice a polite perfection.
A child whined and a baby gurgled as Ilana walked around the brownstone, gathering her box cutters and her spray cans, placing them carefully in her backpack, one by one. By the time she made it back down to the vestibule, the laughter had struck up again, louder this time, and now DeShawn had joined in. She zipped her jacket, slung her bag over her shoulder, and locked the door behind her, not bothering to say goodbye. The chill of the afternoon sank deep into her skin from all directions, unblocked and unfiltered, against her legs and her empty palms. The chill stayed stayed with her, bone deep, pushing her forward as she walked, and hummed, and reviewed the days.
# Ivy
I am a woman
Which means
I am insufficient
I need—
Something to uphold me
Or perhaps uphold.
I am a woman.
— "Ivy," by Georgia Douglass Johnson
I am a woman
Ivy rubbed her stomach, then gathered it up in her hands. It wasn't a stomach so much as a spreading middle, a generous armful of skin and flesh. There were no words for her body. Thick hoof ankles bolstered trunk-like shins that bundled soft brown calves on their backs. Knees, bulging heavy in the front, skied caves of secret young skin behind them. Hips, hands, arms—they were all there, but more and different. Hands thicker than hands. Arms fuller than arms. Hips wider than hips, and busier with weight to carry.
Mostly it was not her body, but everything else that tired her—the world outside, all the things beyond her skin. But then, when she came home and looked at herself with the world's dust still on her eyes, she was often tired still. All that differentness. All that nameless flesh, that wordless body. And on top of everything, her head seemed so small...
Which means
This little white man is looking at me. He is inspecting me on this bus like a woman inspects a pimple on her chest. This white man in his suit is eating his sandwich under the NO FOOD/DRINK/SPITTING/RADIO PLAYING sign on the M4 bus and his eyes are steady on me. He stares, snarls, turns back to his paper, but he can't help but look up again, again, again, peering at me as though he wishes he could reach out, squeeze me, pop me, get me gone. Of course I have seen this man before. There are so many of him. When I was younger—eleven, seven, even five—I swallowed their wishes for me. I remember yearning to press my body until it popped and seeped away, delighting in the dream of my body punctured and gone.
Now I stare back. It's hard, exhausting, but I do. I watch this man, his sandwich in his hand, unallowed and flagrant, his paper on his lap unread, his eyes, unabashed, on me. I imagine a world in which I bow, devour his sandwich, his hand, his body, his briefcase, the bus, and the street, wipe my mouth and bow grandly again. My imagination amuses me. I swallow my laugh into a smile and turn away.
Harlem is big, gorgeous and moving. Strutting its street lights and corner stores, men playing with balls and children carrying groceries for old ladies, church bells ringing the time. Cops, sitting, watch the dealers standing, slinging double-dutch girls into short tight dresses as heads and eyes and genitals follow. " _Excuse me_ —" My neighborhood is full. Outside the projects people in t-shirts play cards on cement tables and children chalk the ground in front of swingless swing sets, write their names on monkey bars. " _Excuse me_ —" Someone got shot on this corner and there is a mural, a portrait, a cross, candles, flowers, big brown bear with big read heart. My neighborhood is mourning. " _Excuse me_ —" I wonder who he was. " _Excuse me_ —" Two tall men in pink shorts and braids dance across the street....
" _Excuse me_!"
This older woman whose peers would call her "heavy-set" heaves my thighs with her hips. She is trying to push me into my seat, half a seat too small for me.
I pull in for her, move my feet so she can rest her cane. She surveys me, frowns, then continues to rustle and breathe. The woman makes fists out of her hips and arms and pushes me hard, handles me like furniture, banging, shoving. She shifts our weight around in the seats, thrusts into my side, into my thigh. She leans forward, she huffs. I decide to do this dance with her. She is old, black, a woman; she deserves her space. I know that with her violent bending lips and bones she is telling me that I need to try and fit—she has learned this. I press myself into the narrow seat for her and send my mind away.
The street numbers are counting seconds half-time and I am almost home. I grasp the metal handrail and hoist myself out of the seat. Glide, aim my weight, pop in a half-guided fall quickly onto the pavement. Hike up jeans, smooth out shirt, I prepare to climb Sugar Hill.
The men on the block are familiar, and their calls mark home like a series of tattered welcome mats.
"Big Girl!" a middle-aged black man in sweatpants calls from beneath the bodega awning.
" _Que linda, la gorda_!" a short Dominican man with sunglasses and a plate of _chicharrones_ in his hand calls from a crate in front of a car.
"Excuse me, miss." A young dread clearly smoked into his sixth sense walks up behind me. He follows me quietly until I turn around.
"Can I get your name?" he says. His eyelids are thick as prunes.
I am breathing heavily, out of breath from the climb. I pause, steady myself till I am calm and can smile for him. "Why?" I say, hoping my face is not too sweaty, thanking him silently for calling me "Miss."
"You know, you a pretty girl... Maybe I could take you out sometime, nahmean?"
"My name is Ivy." I smile and feel the thick feather boa of woman glory around my shoulders. He extends his hand.
"Ivy. That's a pretty name." His voice drags. "I'm sayin', Ivy... I like big women. You strong, nahmean? Like you not gon' take no shit. I like that." He gestures strength with a Sumo wrestler pose and slides into place with others like him in my memory. I wish I could paint myself on my shoulders to warn these men that I am fragile, that there are valleys here, and if they are looking for only hills they need not waste their time. Maybe I should get my hair straightened—maybe it would help.
The dread is still talking, making a chorus with the other Harlem men as I walk away. Their eyes feel like borrowed diamonds on my neck and I want to give these men what I have if they want it. But when they smile, I always wonder if they are swallowing laughs.
I am insufficient
On the music video channel, white- and yellow-skinned women jump and fly across the television screen like kernels of popcorn from a skillet, and I watch, waiting for the doorbell to ring. Singing and dancing, the women make declarations about men and love and self, the traps of life. They hold forth on the shedding and catching of various weights as they bounce around the glass box and spring into the air: _losing you was like losing two hundred pounds of nuthin. Love me up like good food, fill me with your love._ I check the clock: only five fifteen. I settle into the sofa's arms and sigh, waiting for my food to come. Waiting for food is a special kind of waiting. A wanting and a not wanting at once.
On all the other channels there are small white people. This one with a small black friend, these two embracing one another, this one gaunt and luxurious and alone. I feel my middle with my left hand and hold the remote with my right. I wish these buttons would take me to some world in which I could find myself in a three-segment struggle complete with mild conflict and total conclusion, love at each stage, a role to play. I am pressing buttons, scanning the screen for myself like a spirit in the air looking for a body on the ground... Nothing. I rest my hand on a warm fold of me and press in.
The black talk-show mother is holding a grown white woman, stroking her mousy brown hair, kissing it, stroking again. The woman's tears and snot are leaving stains on the talk-show mother's suit jacket and the mother invites more. "He's not worth it, baby. You know it. This is about you." The audience claps. The camera pans the spectators and freezes on the most empathic faces: a black man nodding in solemn support, a white girl streaming tears down pink cheeks, an older Latina holding her chest, her eyes moist and proud. The woman sobs: "Thank you. I love you." The talk show mother looks up at the sky and back down at her charge: "I love you, too, baby." The audience claps and claps and claps.
No part of me is clapping, but my eyes moisten. So _this_ is the big black woman in the glass box. The closest thing I will ever find to me. She is not bopping and singing and moving like the others. Not discovering life's secrets, falling in or out of love. She instead must _be_ love, the vast, wet ground from which generosity grows. I can never be a small, broken white woman; I can never make it my life to love one. I cannot lay down in my own lap and cry; my lap is buried—my middle—so far away.
As I watch, I remember being young, twelve or so, and dreaming of a spotlighted existence as girls do. I thought I could dance around this screen one day, in the same way that I thought all allegories were about me—Alice, Dorothy, Rapunzel, Snow White—their lessons my lessons, their stories all secretly mine. Now I know better—the bus men, the street men, the women behind the screen all see to that. But still there is a small part of me. I feel it now. Stubbornly, hardheadedly, that part of me still waits for the stares and shoving hands to dissolve into light. For mean eyes to soften and crinkle into smiles, for pointing fingers to lift and part and join together in applause.
I watch the talk show mother's eyes shine onto the white girl's cheeks, a spotlight. Nothing but giving in that gaze. I am reminded that _getting_ is not supposed to be for me. And then there is the doorbell, the food.
I need—
For Ivy, the man in the doorway had become an awkward acquaintance by now. He knew her number, her address, how to press the broken elevator button hard enough to be carried to her floor. He did not know her name and she did not know his, but there was an intimacy in that too. He knew what she ate and how she liked to eat it. She flashed her smile and hoped he would smile back, hand her the bag, and leave quickly.
"Hello," she said. The tenement hallway smelled like _arroz con guandules_. Someone was cooking down the hall.
"Hi—how are you?" He sat the plastic bag on the doormat and shuffled through his pockets for the receipt. Ivy held out a twenty and waited.
"Fifteen-seventy." He looked up with wide eyes, first at the money, then at her. He lingered on her face for a minute, then took the cash. "Thank you," he said. "You having a good day?"
She shifted her weight and stooped for the bag: warm air, crisp heat.
"Thank you," she said again, the best answer she had.
He nodded, counted the change, and handed it to her, still looking at the bag.
"See you later."
On the television, a reporter stood a few blocks away on the corner of 137th and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, in front of colored lights and a police barricade. She was reporting live from Harlem, she said, where yet another drug-related shooting had taken place. The neighborhood was in panic, she explained, holding her hat to her head as a gust of wind blew her calico hair into her face. She shivered—or was it a stutter? "Harlem r-residents are stricken with fear."
Ivy opened the containers: chicken, broccoli, gravy, egg rolls, rice.
The camera tightened on neighborhood faces.
" _Our young people need to learn to stop this mess. We can't keep dying like this."_
Ivy spooned rice into her mouth and chewed over the peas and onions: bursts of sweet grease released in gulps.
" _I hope the mayor watches this and sees that we need to find ways to keep our kids in school instead of out here on the block."_
She steeped the broccoli in its sauce and rested it on her tongue for a second, chewed and went in for another piece.
" _I just can't believe he's gone."_
The food warmed her stomach as she watched. There was sadness, there was heartbreak, there was anger, and more. She closed her eyes and listened to Harlem around her: laughter, hip-hop, sirens and bachata. An old soul song. Children calling mothers at windows, men yelling down the street. Ivy did not hear fear, did not see it, except on the face of the reporter herself. But still, here she was, the one with the microphone, her huge eyes at the center of the camera's frame:
"The people of Harlem are in a state of panic."
Ivy finished what was in front of her, heaped the plate with more.
Something to hold me
I would sell my feet for a bed right now. For real. I would resign myself to lay limp for the rest of my life if it would promise me comfort in this one instant. I am dreaming of floating in cool blocks of Jell-O, a pool of thick pudding, even a pile of leaves.
I am at the beauty parlor, in a too-tight chair, being cut into and it hurts. This is not an old, easy pain. I feel those old pains, too, and I can list them at will: bra cutting paper-cut slits into my shoulders, jean waist burning at my middle, ripping my skin raw. Those pains are always happening, are happening now too, but my body stopped feeling them a while ago. This pain is different. This chair...
Last night I ate myself to sleep to the music of TV and street sounds. People were crying and laughing all around me, and I was quiet inside. Men called my body a hard-sealed woman and I did not speak too loud. I did not scream—I could lay down.
But now I am sitting stuffed into a narrow metal chair, piled, layered, folded like pastry dough into this small space whose stiff arms are denting my sides. The woman behind me is slathering cream on my scalp and it is so cool at first, all snow and mint. But then it starts to burn. And my hips are burning and my behind is numb and I am trying so hard to send my mind away to still and calm last night, to the food warming me from the inside, to my sofa, soft and wide like a lap. But the chair is tearing tracks along my legs and I feel my body gasping.
"It's burning," I say. My voice is as numb as my hips, and I realize I have not spoken in an hour, maybe more. I squeeze myself out of the chair—one side of my body thick and heavy, the other worse. I balance my weight on the counter and stand, looking for the sink. My hips throb with the air, make a rhythm.
"No, baby, wait. You need to keep it in. Let it set for a while."
But my temples are chattering hot, my thighs dead weight beneath me: I can't wait. I lunge in a heavy slow motion toward the shampoo chair. Try to maintain my posture, to not look like a woman in pain. It is an impossible step to manage. I fumble with the knobs, pull the chair away from the plastic sink, try to leave enough room for my back.... I am spilling over the edges, as always....
The woman mutters over me as she rinses the No Lye Relaxer out of my scalp... the water is so good... " _You didn't wait long enough"_... my head is crying "thank you" and my eyes are wet... _"Not straight enough, you know, you got too much hair"_... I move from cool and grateful in the water to raw and hot stuffed under the drier... " _Long though—that's good. Long hair slims the face._ "
In the row of women under the drier, I am like a mother duck lined with her chicks... small them, small them, small them, Big Me. When the timer ticks and the heat stops I am relieved. I push out of the chair slowly, with one foot, but the chair makes a deep wobble... please... I am sending my soul to wake up my legs and tell them to hold me up before this chair collapses... lord, I do not need this chair to collapse... legs, come on and help... where are you... this chair will not hold me....
"Ok, baby, I'm ready for you, come on now. Let's get at that hair. I can't get it straight as I'd like 'cause you wouldn't let it set, but I can blow it out good and work it with the iron, come on."
I am praying for the strength and grace to get up. I imagine a world in which I do not have to scan every room for something to hold me gently without breaking under my weight... my heart....
Or perhaps uphold.
My scalp is numb and my hair flops against my ears outside. I am trying to feel it as a triumph—of beauty, of womanness, but I can't. My scalp is burnt hard and my hips are aching. I imagine other wants: I want to feel myself in a suit eating a sandwich under a no eating sign, shooting glares like lasers wherever I please. I want to feel myself standing on one of these corners, big-jeaned and beepered, tossing thoughts out my mouth like darts at passers-by. I want to feel myself holding a nice hat in fear. I want to feel myself falling apart in someone's lap, I want to believe they will pull me together, prepare me to live in this world...
I walk uptown past vacant lots and abandoned buildings, men behind tables selling black books and oil, women offering to braid my hair. They see that it is flapping, just straightened, but they offer anyway. I turn at 146th and walk toward the water, kicking broken glass through the streets as I go. At the overgrown park on Edgecombe, I choose the splintered green bench that is missing a slat of wood. The missing slat means I lean can back, spread.
I watch the little league boys play baseball on the other side of the torn metal fence. A tour bus parks behind me and a sea of tourists floods from the door. The boys and I notice them. They boys continue their game. I continue to feel my space and watch. Some of the tourists see me and look away quickly. Their sons point and laugh.... Their fingers are dirty. Their daughters stare.... They are skinny and ugly and to me they look sad.
I try to focus on the game while the tourists press against the fence and take pictures and talk.
"They're so cute, poor things."
The batter hits the ball high, past fat clouds and slim branches. The boy in the outfield catches. Everybody cheers.
"Oh, I can't imagine growing up in such a dangerous neighborhood."
The players drop their gloves and run to each other, exchanging daps and hugs in the patchy grass. I see tourist children laugh at me... in my head I laugh back.
"It really makes you appreciate what you have, knowing that these kids are so unfortunate."
Now everybody runs to the mound, cheering. Some pick up broken tree branches and chase each other around in the dirt. Others grab bottle caps and throw them, laughing.... I smile.... the outfielder sees me and smiles back.... I laugh with the boys.... I can feel my legs. I rub them, feel their thickness.... They feel nice.
I am a woman.
Ivy comes home and pushes her hair back, away from her face. Her eyes are clear half-moons trimmed in fur. She is standing in front of her mirror, filling it to its edges. She lifts her arms, sways in the space around her. She has been standing for a while, feeling the roughness and softness of her body... massaging her middle... scratching her shoulders... reaching inside of her caverns and folds. Her feet are tired, but not too tired. When she wants to move, she will roll and sprawl wildly. And when she is ready, she will lay down.
# Adale
The stink of burnt oatmeal seemed to hang from the kitchen's wood beams, perpetually in idle swing like the stray pairs of sneakers that used to hang from the streetlamps outside. Dominique Potter had burnt ten pots of oatmeal among the half-packed boxes in the Harlem brownstone by the second Thursday of 2005. Her mother would have said it was because she was pregnant again—baby brain, she called it—but Dominique knew that wasn't it. Just a few weeks before, she had been known to burn only the outermost oats of a given pot, and those only slightly, so that most of the mush within could be plied with butter or crusted with brown sugar and salvaged after all. Now her five-year-old son, Mandela, had had to wait at the table for an hour each morning while she bent over her belly to turn on the oven, opened its door for heat, poured the first pot of oatmeal, turned to the news, got lost in the tsunami, and let the oats burn. Eventually, she would return to the stove, barely more vigilant but determined to assure the safety of all or most of the second pot of the day. Dominique had spent much of her time in that kitchen since the day after Christmas, packing boxes and cooking meals, preparing for the family's move. She would stand before the stove, her spine curved back and her belly bounding out in front of her, watching homes drift across the television screen like bits of paper on the waves, wondering what kind of place she'd be going to herself, when the family moved with this new baby, in just a few weeks.
Images of ruin lit the television screen those mornings. Pictures of broken bodies, of houses and towns halved and quartered as though bit into by great celestial fangs sat suspended in graphic boxes beside the heads of reporters with perfectly cropped hair and perfectly baffled eyes. During those first few days of the storm, the death toll climbed a little each hour, finally reaching digits she could not quite imagine. _What would one hundred thousand of something look like_? she had thought that Wednesday, just after the storm hit. Silently, she twisted her tongue around the _T_ \- and _S_ -heavy words that splashed from the reporters' mouths like water kicked up from puddles: Sri Lanka. Indonesia. Tsunami. _What would one hundred thousand be_? Stroking her belly, she tried to imagine the one hundred thousand blades of grass the family might find in the Poconos, where they would be moving. She wondered if there could be a hundred thousand stars, crusted in other nights' skies. Her mind crawled and clawed at the numbers on the screen. She planted herself there, among the torn trees and ripped beaches, half-understanding, half-not. Eventually, Mandela would call her back and tell her, sneezing, that their breakfast had begun to burn.
Mandela was very patient those mornings. Each day, he emerged from his bedroom shortly after Dominique woke up. He climbed down the creaking brownstone stairs behind her, and stationed himself at the edge of the long wooden table, his arms stretched across the small corner of wood not yet covered with flat cardboard boxes, his grandmother's trinkets or his grandfather's mail. While Dominique tended to the stove, he sat slumped on his elbows with his short legs stretched beneath the table, watching the television blink and speed in reels off the top of the screen, then return from the bottom, only nanoseconds of action having passed. He did not let his disappointment with the news clips show. They seemed to him to have been exactly the same each morning since Christmas, though they were repeated incessantly for some reason he could not understand, and had even barged in and interrupted his cartoons several times that week. But he said nothing. He was grateful for his cold and his extended Christmas vacation, happy to spend his mornings sneezing here in the air-bitten kitchen, among smell of burnt grains and oven heat, instead of at school.
Mrs. Potter, Dominique's mother, applauded her grandson's patience many times during this vacation. For her, this winter was evidence of a slow crash downward in the life of their family. The loss of her husband's job had combined with the increased cost of living and property tax in the neighborhood, brought in with the new chain stores and the onslaught of developers hungry to hack brownstones into three-family homes. That plus the freeze in her hours at work all came together to break down everything she'd felt was the family's foundation: the heat had to be turned down to a minimum, the house sold, and their Christmas ritual thinned near to nothing.
Most years, since Dominique was a child, Mrs. Potter had seen to it that their tree bulged with gifts, like the white people's family trees in Christmas movies. Every Christmas eve, once the child (Dominique until her 16th birthday, then Mandela the year after) had gone to sleep, Mr. Potter would squat on the living room floor beside the tree, his tools spread around him as he assembled the dream house, the five-part stereo or whatever thing would serve as the center-piece gift that year. Then, returning home from midnight Mass, Mrs. Potter would drag out all of the smaller gifts she had bought over the past year and station herself at the dining room table among rolls of tape and reams of shiny wrapping paper. Most years, it took her hours to wrap all the gifts, cutting little rectangles of paper with which to label each one, signing them "from Mommy and Daddy" at first, then "from Grandma and Pop-Pop." Others were from Santa, marked with notes like "Ho, Ho, Ho, thanks for the cookies!" For the past five years, she had signed the greatest number of gifts from Dominique: "For Mandela, with all my love, Mama."
It became clear early enough on that 2004's Christmas spread would not be so grand. Mr. Potter had lost his management job at the Port Authority earlier that year and was now only days away from seeing his unemployment run out. Dominique's job at the new Pathmark on 145th street paid for her own clothes and groceries for the family, but nothing more. Mrs. Potter's monthly struggle to balance the mortgage, the utilities, and clothing for herself, her husband, and her grandchild on her medical assistant's salary had failed on more than one occasion, so that in November she had had to establish a new family habit of opening the oven door to save on heat. She had tried to stave off the slimming of their Christmas ritual for years, but this year facts had to be faced: in a contest between housing and Christmas cheer, the mortgage won, hands down.
Mrs. Potter felt the sting of the change most deeply on Christmas morning. Mr. Potter had closed himself off in the living room since the anniversary of his unemployment, leaving her to assemble the meager Christmas spread alone, and so she'd gone to bed in the pre-dawn hours, drained as much from disappointment as from Midnight Mass. Mandela awoke around 5 in the morning, roused by the excitement that seemed to run like bugs over children's skin on that one day each year. She heard him creak from his bedroom, his socked feet scampering down the linoleum-covered stairs to find the spread she was sure would disappoint him: a cheap plastic backpack, three paper-back books about rainforest turtles, and two dubbed and hand-marked C.D.s, all wrapped in last year's paper and arrayed sparsely beneath the tree.
Mrs. Potter awoke that morning prepared to fold the child into her breasts and assure him that things would be better next year, once they had moved out of the city. But when she pushed through the family room door, she found him perched cross-legged on the old brown sofa, a book in his lap, his chin waving merrily to the hip-hop radio station's latest compilation album.
"Grandma," he had said, his mouth gaping wide, displaying his missing front tooth. He tilted his sleep-crusted eyes up at her. "Did you know that snapping turtles can't snatch their heads up under their shells like the other kinds?"
Mrs. Potter shook her head and invited the boy to come with her to the kitchen where she could start dinner while he told her all about it. She hoped that this next grandchild would be so patient. Rent at the Sterling Pocono Glenn was cheap—less than half their mortgage now—but still she was not entirely sure that even two or three years of low-cost and tax-free living would repair the family's situation. She hoped her granddaughter would somehow take more after her brother than Dominique, that she would share Mandela's maturity, his measured perspective and his balanced sensibility not unlike Mrs. Potter's own. It had been Mandela, after all, who silenced his disconsolate twenty-one year-old mother when Mrs. Potter informed the family that they would be losing the house.
"Now that things are finally getting nice around here, of course we have to leave," the girl had shrieked, bouncing to her feet and pushing the dining room table away from her as though it had provoked her to fight. "As soon as some good stores show up and the place starts looking better. Now that people are starting to give a shit about us, now we have to go." She had turned to Mrs. Potter then, her eyes sharp as box cutter blades. "And what about Adale? You want her to grow up out in the sticks in an apartment building so cheap it advertises on TV? No black people around, no stores, no music. Not even any real streets! Or did you forget about her?"
Mrs. Potter did not respond to her daughter's tantrum, except by dabbing the meat sauce off of Mandela's cheeks and standing up to clear the table. Mr. Potter, too, stayed silent, filling his glass with water and raising it to his face to crunch on ice. Only Mandela had spoken. He pushed himself to the edge of his chair at the foot of the table, lifted his head, and said quietly:
"Maybe she'll like the country, Mama."
Dominique let her friends believe she had named Mandela for his father, a corner crack slinger named Nelson. It was a convenient explanation—her friends thought it was a smart way to make the boy a junior without giving him such a corny name. They liked the way Mandela sounded, too, although Rashida and Yunnique said it might be too effeminate and worried that he might have to make up for it in wildness or extreme intelligence to avoid being beaten up. But really, Dominique was not concerned with her baby's father, nor was she worried that anyone would threaten her son. She named Mandela for the real Nelson, and for a vague period of time that represented, in her mind, the best qualities a young man could have—strength, wisdom, smart power and patience in struggle. She named him for the time of Public Enemy videos and black fist air bush tees on 125th Street, before the Starbucks descended on the strip and the African Mart shopping center disappeared.
Back when Dominique began to dream of having babies, this moment seemed to her to be a permanent mark history's timeline. At sixteen, she had thought that, with a name like Mandela, her son, like the era of red, black and green in which she grew up, would be respected, formidable, difficult for the world to deny and impossible for it to forget. She did not mention to anyone her profound disappointment when she noticed the colors of that time beginning to fade. When the African vendors on 125th Street were swept from the sidewalk and piled into a dirty green tent on Lenox Avenue, she only sighed with Yunnique and shook her head. And when the H.M.V. music store and the Modell's Sporting Goods cropped up shiny and sleek in the vendors' place and her girls got ready to shop, Dominique went along, folding the rows of tables of bootleg tapes that had once lined the street into her memory.
She may have gone wrong with Mandela's name, but she would be sure with Adale. Adale was not, Dominique knew, the name of a man whose life could evaporate into history's stale air once the drama of his struggle subsided. Nor was it inspired by a time, which, she now understood, could be buried under the new and forgotten. Adale was not a name any of her friends had heard of, though they all agreed it was cute. Dominique had discovered her daughter's name early one morning shortly after Mandela was born. That night, he woke the entire house crying, and once she and her mother had quieted him and put him down again, Dominique was unable to sleep. There was little to watch on television, and so she found herself watching a bushy-haired white man on a charity infomercial, pleading into the camera, his eyes twinkling as thought hey contained fragments of falling stars. He slogged through moats of brown skin and garbage in a place filled impossibly with sun, the camera zooming in now and then on a pair of milk-pool eyes or a row of porcelain teeth. Speaking earnestly, a frail brown child dangling over his shoulder, the man urged the camera to send money to one of these children, the beautiful, starving children of Adale, Somalia.
Dominique hadn't known a lot about Africa, except that it was the smallest unit of place to which her lineage could be traced, and that it was not small enough for that to mean much. The idea of Africa felt especially vague now that its colors and sounds were so scarce on the streets of Harlem. But she remembered Somalia. She remembered hearing about that place everywhere years ago—seeing its name typed on the front covers of newspapers, hearing it come through the mouth of Mr. Collins, the junior high school math teacher, who had talked about the fighting there with more emotion than she had thought white math teachers could to muster for anything. Seeing all these years later that this place was still important, still calling the world's attention even in the dusty late hours of the morning, had struck Dominique. She couldn't send any money, having just had a baby for a useless man, having left school for the baby, and not yet having found a job. But still, she took note. She wrote the name in her round bubble lettering on a piece of marble notebook paper. The paper was lost within a year, but neither the name nor its spelling escaped her.
By the second Sunday of the year, the number had climbed to 158,000. An anchorwoman with golden-brown hair sat stiffly at her desk while, in a box over her shoulder, houses were swept away in white foam. Her elbows flapped awkwardly at her sides as she said the number in a low, unsteady voice, the t-s-word spilling from her lips again.
"Mama, that's how a snapper looks," Mandela said, looking up at Dominique from the table, one of Mrs. Potter's drug company pens in his hand. "Like that lady." He pressed the button on the back of the pen, tapping his feet against a box on the floor along with the clicking sound.
"Ssht, Mandela, I'm trying to listen," she said quickly. Then, looking at the boy, she added: "Go wash your hands. I'ma start breakfast."
Standing among the cardboard boxes in the near-empty pantry, she opened the glass canister where the rice had been kept and tried to imagine 158,000 grains. The ten pound bag of oatmeal she had bought from work for only five dollars (with coupon savings and her employee discount) had lasted almost a month, and would have lasted twice as long, she reminded herself, had the news not so distracted her from feeding her son. But now only powder and scattered oats remained at the bottom of the limp plastic bag. No where near 158,000. Not even enough for one last bowl.
She called up the stairs after Mandela to tell him that she was going to the store, to listen to Pop-Pop and finish packing his room while she was gone. She turned off the television, thought about it, then turned it back on again and left.
A young white couple had just bought the brownstone next door, which was once a crack house. Growing up, Dominique had had a brief friendship with a girl whose mother stayed there off-and-on. One time she had slipped into the building with the girl without her parents noticing, and had spent an afternoon smoking cigarettes in the dusty, wallpapered kitchen, listening to two women addicts tell stories about their lives. Now the building was a swarm of construction workers, cinderblocks, and massive trash bags hurled into a dumpster. The couple had moved into the upper floors just before Christmas, and already they'd laid their huge, desiccated evergreen across the seam of the pavement that bordered the Potters' home. Dominique lifted her leg high to step over the trunk, clearing the sidewalk that still belonged, she reminded herself, to her family.
The movement on the street was sparse and slow. Dominique imagined it was because most people were warm at home watching the news, but she wasn't sure. As she walked toward the Pathmark, a bare-legged blonde woman in a short skirt and knee-high boots walked toward her, holding a pair of expensive-looking black sunglasses limply in her hand. When she was within a few feet of Dominique, the woman turned her head and gave an open-mouthed half-smile, as though she were about to say something but realized at the last minute she had nothing to say. Dominique had seen this expression often on these new faces over the past few years, but she had never figured out how to read it. She parted her lips in response and felt only cool air in the sides of her mouth as the woman's body cut the breeze in swift passing.
Cold air smacking her teeth, Dominique thought of Adale, and of the place she would think have to think of as home. She imagined her baby girl born into a buildingless place of cars and malls and dark trees whose bushy green tops crowded the sky. There would be no music on the streets, no subways or corner stores. What there would be was a thick sun like in the commercial. There would be mud, grass, her and her family out there, somewhere, in a short two-bedroom house, but with heat, the rent paid, more and better food to eat. It could be alright for Adale to grow up someplace like that, Dominique practiced telling herself. She wouldn't know home like Dominique had known it, but she also wouldn't have to watch it swept away. It could be that was the best thing in the end.
Clusters of church women moved down Broadway in low, clinking heels, past the police barricades and heaps of renovation lumber that lined some of the blocks. At the corners, they gathered, piling into town car cabs on their way to Sunday service. Dominique recognized some of the women in one group from her mother's church. She paused and gave a dutiful smile as she approached, just as the women piled into a maroon Lincoln. One woman in a plush fur coat rolled down the back window and stuck her hand out into the air, shaking her fingers in a flutter to halt Dominique in front of the new GNC Nutrition Store.
"Hey, baby!" Her lips were painted a bright, festive red. She gave Dominique a wide smile from the cavern of the cab.
"Hi." Dominique smiled benignly again and rested her hand on her belly. She couldn't remember the woman's name, and she was sure the woman didn't remember hers, but it didn't matter. She was a woman from the church, Dominique was Mrs. Potter's daughter, and that was that. This easy anonymity was comforting. "How you doin' this mornin'?"
"Fine, sugar, don't pay to complain." The car bobbed as someone in the back seat rustled their impatience. The woman smiled and pointed to Dominique's stomach. "When you due?"
"Three-and-a-half weeks." Now a real smile spread on Dominique's face, her skin warming in the cold. "Hopefully she'll be a Valentine's baby."
"Well, God bless you!" The cab began to roll forward. "Tell your mother I said happy New Year! Tell her make sure she call me fore y'all go upstate. My sister's up there—Ella, you remember, used to work at the World Trade. She been up there a year now. Say the quiet gets to her, but leas' she can pay the rent easy. Told me she taken to gardening. Turnips, of all the things." She sighed. "Anyway, tell your mama we'll miss her. This place is changing faster than I-don't-know what. But I wish y'all the best. Specially that little one!" She pointed to Dominique's belly again. Then she gave a final smile and the window screeched up into its groove as the car sped ahead.
For several months, there had been a huge mass of scaffolding and a wall of cinderblock piles on the corner of 145th Street, where the Rodriguez 99-Cent Store had once been. Some said a new Radio Shack would open there soon; others insisted it would be a CVS or a Walgreen's—the kind of pricier drugstore chain you used to only find downtown. A small crowd was gathering under the scaffolding now, slim figures in matching blue baseball caps and vests unfolding tables and hauling cardboard boxes out of an open van parked on the corner. The neighborhood people passing slowed down to watch. Dominique passed the scene with numb disinterest. She wasn't sure what the vests and tables were about, but the scaffolding meant what it always did—a change that would come too late for her to see it. She felt the baby kick.
At the Pathmark, Dominique said hello to the bag check man and a few of the stockers. The Pathmark had opened two years ago, replacing the tiny, run-down C-Town, which sagged with dull produce and dented cans. For Dominique, the Pathmark was a pleasure, even on her day off. It was like its own small world of nourishment and exchange—there was the cheese section, full of gloved professionals and pea-coated students nibbling free samples, and the bakery corner, with church women squeezing loaves of bread and fathers ordering birthday cakes for their sons. She made a lap around the market's crowded periphery, surveying all the things she had never tasted—the different types of yogurt and milk, the brightly-colored dips and sauces chilling coolly on their shelves. Fruits whose bright reds and purples seemed to wink from their bins, surprising her every time.
Her back began to ache a little as she waived to the young Dominican boy who worked the butcher section and rounded the corner of the cereal aisle. The ten-pound oatmeal was no longer on sale, she discovered, stooping to the family-size packages on the bottom shelf. She counted the days until the family would leave New York, multiplied by two to accommodate the burnt pots, and slid a four pound cardboard canister off of the middle shelf instead.
The only male cashier at the store was a young Kenyan man named Reginald, with skin the color of a ripe cherry. He was working her register today, and he smiled as she approached.
"Beautiful," he said. "What are you doing here on Sunday?"
Dominique shrugged and smiled limply. "I gotta make breakfast," she said, and put the canister on the shiny black conveyer belt. "Plus I had to check up on my register." She smiled again. She liked talking to him. His accent reminded her of the way 125th Street used to sound, its vowels stuffed with cotton and its consonants both sharp and blunt like old nails. She waited for him to talk some more.
"When will it be time for baby number two?" He smiled back and passed the oatmeal over the scanner. "That one is gonna be another boy. Only boys sit low like that."
"No," Dominique shook her head and ran a hand over the tabloid display. "It's a girl. She's due February. Valentine's."
"Oh, you know already, heh?" He tilted his head and looked at her stomach. "So what are you gonna name her?"
"Adale." Dominique felt warmth on her face again as she handed him her employee ID.
A smile lit his cheeks and he chuckled. "Oh, like in Africa, heh? What do you know about Adale? Have you ever been to Somalia?"
Dominique shook her head no. "I seen it on TV," she said. "And in the papers a long time ago. You been there? Is it pretty?"
He scanned her card and his smile faded. "You know, it's very bad over there right now. No water for so long, and then this."
Of all the words she'd heard the newscasters say in all her hours of tsunami news-watching, no one had mentioned Somalia, and she couldn't remember hearing anything about Africa at all. It was not excitement, of course, Dominique would say she felt when she heard that Somalia had been affected. What welled in her stomach as he told her about the devastation there was an ache, for sure. But whipped into the ache was a tiny reassurance—a grain of something like pride that made her want to smile and hide her face at once. Listening to him, she grew surer and surer that Adale's name was right. It was a name that would not be forgotten; it would be part of the tickertape of numbers that had escalated all these days on the television screen.
She tried to imagine the piles of wrecked fishing boats he described laying along the beaches of Adale. She pictured the roads and wells he said had vanished into water after four years of sand-scratching draught. She felt her belly stir, felt it move in the direction of this man's story. The name would appear, she was sure, on the screen beside the pug-necked reporters. It would be written in whatever book as part of this undeniable time in history—the catastrophe and the compassion and the overcoming and the relief, all documented alongside her daughter's name, right there. This was a moment that mattered, Adale was a place that mattered, and so her daughter would matter too.
By the time she left the store, the air on the street had settled into a deeper chill and a flatter shade of gray. She climbed 145th Street as quickly as she could, the pain still pinching her back and now creeping outward and grabbing around her waist and shoulders. The spattering of people in front of the would-be-Walgreen's had grown to twenty or so, and now she saw two white men on ladders struggling to attach a sign printed TSUNAMI RELIEF over the building's skeletal awning. Dominique approached, the dull pain pulsing over her hips as she stepped up onto the curb.
"Those children are so beautiful," she heard a woman say as she got closer. Two women stood in front of her, one blonde and one with brown hair that fell at her neck in a bump. They had their backs to her, and their purses rested casually on the folding table. At the table, two men and a woman sat in their blue vests and caps, peering over cardboard boxes stuffed with white envelopes and two large water jugs, each filled a few inches high with bills and change. Dominique had $6.51 in her wallet, and not much more at home.
The brown-haired woman pulled the cap from a shiny burgundy-and-gold pen and began to scribble on her checkbook.
"Oh, I know. Absolutely gorgeous," the other woman said. She dug into a brown-roped purse Dominique recognized as a Louis Vuitton. "Those exotic babies are stunning. You just want to eat them up, poor things."
Dominique said nothing to the women, but when she got to the table, she sat her oatmeal beside plastic jug with a thud. "I want to make a donation for Adale," she said. The man behind the table looked up at her and smiled warmly, his pale skin flushing as a breeze hit. "Hello," he said, as though he hadn't heard her. "Thanks for making a donation. Would you like an envelope, or will you be donating cash?"
"Cash." Dominique smiled back and opened her wallet. "For Adale."
"I'm sorry?"
"Somalia." She said, tired. She rested her hand on her belly. "I'm donating money for Somalia."
"I'm sorry, miss," he said. "We're only collecting for tsunami relief." When she explained that she understood that, and that she wanted to give money to tsunami victims in Somalia, he pressed his gloveless hands to his cheeks and told her that they would not be able to send donations to any specific country—that the money they raised would go to an organization whose name she recognized and who, he assured her with soft eyes, would provide aid for the countries that needed it most.
She gave him a polite thank-you, and asked for an envelope. He told her that the envelopes were for check donations only, and she told him that she understood that and would like an envelope anyway, and a piece of paper as well. Then she slid a pen and clipboard off of the table, and wrote "Adale" in dark letters, as beautifully, she hoped, as the first time she wrote it. She slid the paper neatly into the envelope, the letters facing front, and stuffed her money—the bills, the quarters, and even the penny—behind it.
As she turned away from the table, leaving the envelope in the man's hands, Dominique heard the women talking.
"Somalia?" The Vuitton woman's hands had disappeared into the pockets of her long gray coat.
"Yeah, I heard someone say there was a little damage to the coast of Africa, too." The brown-haired woman looked at Dominique as she pushed by.
"Only 300 people died there, you know," the woman said loudly. Dominique wasn't sure if she was talking to her, but she felt the words hit hard.
She parted her lips to say something, but the women gusted away before she figured out what. Watching them disappear into the new Bank of America whose awning glowed red, white, and blue up the street, Dominique considered this number: 300. It was a number she could more comfortably understand. She imagined the three hundred dollars she would find in her last pay check from her job—the only one she'd had in this place where she had lived her life and had her first child. She thought of the three hundred minutes she had spent in labor with Mandela, and the many cycles of three hundred sixty five days she had passed thinking of her children, planning for them and giving them as much as she could of what she thought they might need in the world. The plastic bag swung from her hands and knocked against her knees as she walked the long blocks back to the house, hoping that her mother and father would join them this morning for breakfast, and that Mandela had packed the last of his books.
# Friday, Field Trip Day
The little boy is disgusted by the monkeys, but adores the lions the way his classmates adore their big brothers and young uncles. They are slow and deliberate, they cannot be bothered by the bugs that gather on their manes and tails. They swat them away in a rhythm, and the boy tries to grasp it—a swat, a pause, a swat-swat, pause again. It reminds him of the hands of his mother's watch. At home, he has tried to understand the numbers, to predict what they will do, but always they confuse him. His father has given him a toy watch to practice with, and he tries, but he always gives up, frustrated. The lions, the thinks, have mastered time. They yawn, they stop, they walk, they rest. They look in the direction they are headed, to the rock wall, to the water well, to who knows where.
The biggest lion passes the through boy's shadow behind the bars of the cage. Two paws through his outstretched arm, the mane sliding into his shoulder. The shadows merge, and for a second, he is a boy with a lion across his chest. Then, paws out of his ribcage, a tail brushing through his left hand, past his little blue camera, the little toy watch, a gift from his father.
Judith, his mother, is standing in front of the kitchen sink, drying her own mother's china with a tea towel. She feels she has not seen or touched any of these things—her mother, the china, the kitchen sink—in ages. She rubs the plate hard, fast, her hair bucking and swaying from her head as her back and shoulders move. If the boy were here, he might think she was angry. At the dishes? At his father? But she is thinking about her son this afternoon, knowing deeply and quietly his wish to be a lion, admiring that quality in him, a result of her influence. She is wondering what she will tell him when she sees him today, how she will explain what has happened—what is happening—why she is home. Quietly, she is worrying about the moment when he discovers, much later, she hopes, that boys don't grow up to be lions after all.
She is the one who has given him his best traits, she thinks as she rotates the dish against the towel. Though her husband's music has helped out some—mainly jingles for local diners and small hardware chains—she is the one who supplied the natural creative talent. She is the one who nurtures his imagination, who beams and coos over the paintings and drawings, who has them framed and hangs them next to the Degas prints. Her husband has contributed mostly time. To her, this is a valuable contribution, a good thing for a father to give a son. She has been glad about their life.
Most days around this time, she is at her desk or at a meeting, and for a minute she imagines what the two of them are doing, father and son. Soon her husband would be picking the child up, since it's Friday—their day to "hang," her husband would say. Any other day, he would spend the early afternoon "jamming" with his friends, and then pick the boy up from after-school. They would go home, have a snack, and he would put dinner on. Then he would retreat to his "studio," the small shed off the side of the kitchen, and work on his songs. He would start the songs and stop them over and over, she imagined, emerging absently three or four times throughout the evening. First, he would take a break check the food, to stir it, to help a little with homework. Then, once she arrived home and the food was done, he would come out again to serve it and eat too much, to wash the dishes and eat some more. He would appear once again, perhaps, to go to the bathroom a few hours later; and, finally, he would emerge at three or four in the morning time to drag his weight up the stairs and heave himself into bed beside her, sometimes still humming whatever song he'd been writing.
These days it's a love song. When the songs are about love, she finds, this is when she is least in love with him. She cannot resist the urge to imagine that he is singing about someone else. The "storm of sand that steals my rain" could not be her. This is someone smaller, with wider eyes and better cheekbones, someone who will look at him in ways that she no longer can. And even though he seems to her to be too lazy for an affair—and even though, truly, he has never seemed to her to be the type, which is part of why she married him—still, hearing his love songs, she resents him.
But when the songs are about other things—tuna subs and steam cleaning services—she is inspired to love him well. He would think, for sure, that this is because the jingles bring money to the house and make him seem responsible, but that's not it. She feels these jingles show his true talent. He is not an artist, she feels, so much as a riddler. His poetry is unremarkable, but his ability to arrange collections of words and concepts into short snippets of song—Carpet Hut, Plankton Street, "Our staff is well-trained and helpful!" "We won't be undersold!"— astounds her. During these times, when there are jingles, she is pleased with the balance they have established; his gigs, her talent, her career, his work, their house, their marriage, their life, their son.
These days it is a love song, but even so there was a moment of almost-tenderness this morning. She woke up and thought for sure that she was right, that he was off sleeping with someone else, because he was not in the bed. She had not heard him lumbering up the stairs at dawn, she had not felt him sink into the mattress beside her, causing her to roll back slightly in her sleep as happened most nights. There was no smell of anything cooking in the kitchen when she woke up, and she did not hear him in the bathroom. He was with his love, his muse, she decided, wild with fantasy. She would divorce him right away. Then when she saw the light on in the shed on her way out of the house, she was relieved. She felt, for a second, an urge to pop her head into the shed door like a movie wife or a young girlfriend, to tell him to have a good day, remind him that she would be home late, perhaps even blow him a kiss. But then she saw that the boy was almost late for school, and she for work, and so the moment passed.
The boy is one of only two or three in his class whose fathers come to pick them up after school. It is mostly nannies from other countries, or babysitters. His father is a musician, he comes to pick him up every day from after-school. Some days, like today, Friday, field trip day, Dad will come early. And because Dad will come, the boy will not have to go to after-school, where they feed him stale oatmeal cookies that turn to powder in his mouth, and where they do not let him do what he wants to do. There are no kids from his class in after-school. There are only larger kids that sweat a lot and talk loud all the time. At after-school, they make them do activities, uninteresting things like tying cups together with yarn and pretending it makes a telephone. They will not let him sit and draw. They make him do activities he hates forever. Time goes so slow it becomes heavy on him. He gets tired and he begins to feel that if he does not do something interesting, his skin will erupt into an itch. This is one of the things he does not say to anyone. He does not know the words, and even if he did, he is not sure he would say them.
There are a lot of things he doesn't explain to anyone. He likes drawing mainly because he likes to hold the crayons between his pointer finger and his thumb, likes to peel away the tan-and-black, aqua-and-black, magenta-and-black paper in rivulets and press his nails into the wax. It gives him a satisfaction he cannot name, one that he gets he-can't-think-where else. Maybe from pressing his tongue against his gums when he has a loose tooth, or from biting the inside of his cheek lightly, then stopping for a while and biting some more. These are the greatest satisfactions of his life, though he can't say why. When he tries to explain them to his parents or cousins, it does not work. They give him a tilted eyebrow look for a second, then returned to whatever they were doing. From their looks, he learns that these are private feelings, feelings that could not be explained, not really, feelings that maybe should not be explained, even if he did learn the words.
He wonders if lions have these feelings, the private, important ones that no one understands. He is tempted to ask the teacher, but he refrains. The class is moving toward the picnic tables—the teacher says it's time for lunch. He feels it is too early. He has just eaten breakfast not so long ago in the car with his mother, and he would rather stand here against the hot metal railing and think about the lions. But remembering the good ham sandwich his father packed for him, he decides it is okay that the time has come to eat.
Later, many years later in life, there would be moments when time was flattened into a thin wisp, a passing scent, a question unasked in a split-second decision, and then lost forever. There would be times when, standing before the toilet after a long day spent working and needing to pee, the pleasure of release would be so great, so freeing, that he would have to wonder whether time had passed at all, or had it all been dreamt up? Was he a grown man come home dogged from work, or was he, in actuality, a seven-year-old boy urinating in his sleep?
By middle age, the questions would take on new shapes and tones. Simple questions like _Can a boy become a lion?_ would become frantic and imploring, and might cause him to slam tables in arguments with women or fall asleep, drunk, a lit cigarette in his hand. And large questions like _What is love_ would fade slowly into the light of various dawns until they had simply disappeared, leaving only a faint imprint on his face, like fog on an attic window.
But for now, time was an unfathomable expanse drawn in bold colors: green and brown for trees, brown for dirt, brown for the hair of his mother and his father and his cousins and himself. Red for apples and farmhouses, blue for water and skies. Time held all these things just out of his reach, just beyond his understanding of the numbers on the clocks that could never go past a certain point, never to 67, their house number, or 92, the number of their road. Time did hold promises, though. It promised that one day soon would be his birthday, and that eventually he would be able to tie his shoes the real way, without having to loop each lace first into bunny ears and then knot them together.
It promised that all these things he felt for the lions, he would one day become, that that was why he felt these things in the first place. He would one day walk high and tall on his two legs, pass between the shadows and keep his eyes forward, focused on something important only he needed to know. Time promised that soon the class would pile onto the bus where he would sit next to fat Jordan Richards and talk about television shows. Time promised that they would return to the classroom, that it would smell the same way it smelled when they left, like oatmeal and play dough, and that before long his father would come to pick him up and take him home. He would not have to go to after-school today. They would stop for Chinese food on the way to the house, since today was Friday, trip day, his mother's late night at work.
She has never liked her husband's friends. She runs hot water in the basin and squeezes the dish soap too hard. Half the liquid shoots into the water and a mound of bubbles spring up almost instantly. She has never liked them. They are all fat, all irresponsible. None of them have changed since college. None of them have given up their addictions, none have figured out how to provide for anyone as well as her husband has. They should look to him as a role model, she thinks, but they don't. They see him as a buddy, because they are still in the habit of having "buddies." They call him in the afternoon to "jam," to "play," but really just to hang out, eat pizza and drink beer. When they can't reach him, they call her, though she and he are rarely together—she works.
The one friend, Billy, called her four or five times this morning. It was a busy morning. She did not pick up the phone. She did not have time to check her messages until lunch. By 12:10 she was in the car, on the phone, driving, dialing, moving dizzily toward home. She had found it hard to hold the phone, she remembers now, gripping a clean soup bowl and dunking it firmly into the soapy water. She had had a hard time seeing the numbers on the phone, knowing who to dial. She had had trouble remembering how to press the buttons with her fingers and release the gas with her foot at the same time.
But somehow, she had found herself on the phone with Billy, who told her things she hadn't understood then and cannot remember now—not well enough—now that she is home with the bubbles and the running water and the china that refuses to get clean. So she will wash these dishes again, and she will think. She will remember her mother's advice on how to clean good china. She will remember whose number to call. She will remember Billy's messages this morning, and she will think, she will think, she will think about what to tell her son.
Nine-something AM, just after the start of her first meeting, Billy: _Wondering where he was, they had to pitch an idea to a client, he was late. Call back_. Closer to ten, Billy: _Jude, hey, hoping nothing's wrong, something something. Call back_. Some time later, a message, or maybe many, Billy: _Jude, uh, don't have your work number, at the house, listen... uhh_. This she remembers. She remembers the length of his stammer, the porousness and uncertainty of his breath: _Jude, you gotta come, call, pick up, shit_.
He always said he would have a heart attack. It was a pun to him. By this he meant that his big, animal heart would one day snap out of his control and attack him for all the love he made it dole out, which he felt was largely unreciprocated. This love, he said, left holes in his heart that would germinate little heart armies, which would eventually grow to overthrow him. He would laugh about it, good and hard from the gut. She would tell him to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop gaining weight.
But she cannot think too much about these things, because she will drop the dishes, or she will miss spots of grease and they will not be clean, and then she will have to wash them again. People will be coming over soon, some people, she will call them. And she will need to serve them on clean plates. She will need to run the water, she will need to scrub, to rinse, to wash, to dry, to soap up. To think of what to say to her son. She has to wash the dishes and she has to think, and so she does not have to remember what else Billy said, who Billy is, what she saw when she turned the corner and found her door, her front door, looking so strange with a man-shaped bag rolling out of it that she wondered if she was on the right street, if this was her house after all. She does not have to remember the date, she does not have to remember the time, she only has to think, to think, just for a moment.
The black nannies have all come. The mothers have all come with their big smiles and their hugs. The fathers have come, but not his. The after-school children have already gone down to the basement to be fed powdery cookies and juice from a can. The boy sits on the bench in the office while they call his mother at work. He tells them to call his father, that sometimes when his mother is at work she does not get to answer the phone. They call more people, someone, he doesn't know who.
The big black clock in the office is moving to a rhythm, and if he pays attention, he feels he can move with it. He can click his tongue or blink his eyes or bite his teeth along with the two black hands. He can predict where it will be in three bites, four. He remembers his multiplication tables, thinks about the fives. Maybe his mother will come instead, he thinks. Maybe she will surprise him and cook dinner instead of take-out. He would rather take-out, but she is a better cook than Dad, at least. Sometimes he wishes she were a musician instead of Dad. When she cooks, her meat is soft and juicy and easy to chew, and he even likes the taste of her broccoli when he dips it in the juice from the steak. But in the office the secretary tells someone else he will have to go down to after-school. He is not surprised, but he is something else, something numb he cannot name. They will come, they will hold his hand and walk him down to the basement. He would rather do almost anything else.
He would rather sit and learn this clock. He would rather rub his fingers along the ridges of the wood bench until his father arrives. He would rather not have to hold the hand of the secretary or some other person, a hand that will be huge and strange and cold and sweaty. He would rather not have that hand lead him to a place he suddenly hates more than anything in the world.
He looks out the door down the long, muraled hallway to the stairwell. There are paintings of children laughing on these walls, different colors of skin and shirts. There are people playing, holding their arms out, smiling toward him at the center of the hallway. But he walks straight, looking at the stairs. He thinks about putting his hands in his pocket so no one will come and grab them, but instead he keeps them at his side. He walks not slow, but not fast, counting his steps, his own faultless rhythm. No matter the activity, he decides, no matter the puzzle-making or puppet show, he will find a way to draw. He walks straight and thinks of the things.
# Ruídos
"Nunca he tenido miedo," Aldóvar said, his voice curling with his cigarette smoke past the dusty saxophone beside him, disappearing into the room. He ran his fingers over the red wine stain that had spread, thick and sticky, across the dining room table. He could feel the woman's eyes on him, teeming, he was sure, with pity. He didn't need to look at her—just imagining the look on her face warmed him. He examined the crescents of dirt under his nails, tapped hard on the cigarette and said it again: _I have never been afraid. I have never had fear._ But she had already left the room.
Aldóvar had been sitting this way, in this corner of the dining room, in this specific marinade of beer and smoke and what he felt was sad wisdom for ten days straight now—since the morning of his thirty-fifth birthday, when he awoke to find that Patrick had gone to work, taken the car, and left him with nothing more than a birthday note, in which he promised at once to be back soon and to stay gone forever. Since then, Aldóvar had gotten up only a handful of times. He rose once daily to use the bathroom. On Tuesday, he had gone to the living room for the box where the marijuana was kept. On Thursday, he went to the little studio room to get his alto saxophone so that it could sit beside him and remind him of his beauty and all the ways he'd failed. On Saturday night, the dining room light had died, and he got up to pull the window shade a little so he could re-read the note in the light from the alley next door. Only today had he gone outside—first to the deli on 73rd and York for a pack of Camels and some rolling papers, then to the East River, where he walked slow and talked to the pigeons until he found what he was looking for, sitting on a bench in old sneakers and a red skirt.
Now back home, with the woman there, watching, breathing, filling the space with him, he could read Patrick's note once again. The note had been ten notes, a new note every time Aldóvar brought it to his face to squint at it under the back alley light. Ten days ago, it was a note about his birthday, a happy one, which Patrick would help him celebrate when he returned from the school, carrying a butterscotch cake. The note had said several things since then—things about his mother, his people, his home in Chile. Things about his thinning body and his habits, this attempt at a home here on the Upper East Side. By today, the tenth day, the note told him to mill about, to go out, to mourn and cry to someone else. All this in the last line, in the long indent, the short, indifferent dash where love should have been: "—Patrick."
Pots rattled in the kitchen and a light came on. "Eso no puede ser, mi alma," she said from down the hall. _Fear isn't optional in life. In memory, maybe, but that's it._
The smell of food began to spread through the house—meats with comino and achiote, soups that smelled like things his grandmother said her grandmother used to make.
"No me digas nada de la vida. No me conoces." Aldóvar started up from his corner, intending to gallop into the kitchen and tell this woman something about life and memory and the respect of the two. _Don't tell me about life. You don't know me._ But he burned himself with the cigarette he'd forgotten was in his hand, and rolled back into his corner, cursing.
She chuckled from the doorway. "Te quemaste, ¿eh, ancianito?" _You burned yourself, huh, old man? Little ancient man?_
He heard her thighs clap together as she walked away from him, down the hall, pausing every few steps to crack a door open and look in. Finally, he heard her step into the bathroom at the end of the hall and turn the water on. Then she was back, holding a wad of toilet paper, a stick of butter, and Patrick's rosewater jug.
"El me piensa infante," he said. "Tu tambien, a lo mejor. No saben na." _He thinks I'm a child. A pretty brown boy to play with and take care of._ _You think the same, but I disgust you, too. You both think I should be a man. Neither of you knows anything._
One hand on the table top, she knelt by him and dabbed his palm, first with the butter, then with the rosewater and tissue. He felt her, he smelled her, and he thought he could find his mother speaking to him through this woman's lips. If he closed his eyes, he thought, these breasts brushing his shoulders and these fingers pressed on his hand could become the body of his ex-wife in Santiago, his first girlfriend in Isla Negra, all the roundness and softness of the lives he had lived before.
"¿Qué sería mi vida sín tí?" He said to her, dizzily. _What would my life be without you?_
She fingered the saxophone. _Don't talk to me about life. You don't know me._
The children blew and banged on instruments all week, but Patrick did not mind. The sounds were horrid, airy, riotous, but he didn't wince. They'd begun, this afternoon, to throw things at each other, and Patrick was calmer than he had ever known himself to be. He took them aside individually and explained, for what it was worth, that instruments, like people, were to be respected, and that shoving or hitting either was unacceptable. He doled out time-outs and trips to the principal's office liberally but without malice. Palmer and Jackson told him in the lounge that he looked good, like a new man, they said, and they asked if he'd lost weight. On the first day after he left Aldo, Richards, the only other male teacher in the school—a science teacher, also gay—touched his shoulder and complimented him on his suit. It was a navy pinstripe which he had forgotten entirely until ten days ago, when he showed up, dazed, at his ex-wife's house, a butterscotch cake in tow.
"Rhon," he had said, and she opened the door and hugged him. She asked about Aldo, about their music and their apartment. He tried, at first, to tell her that things were fine, but by evening he had lost all his energy and could not explain his shattered face away. They cut the cake and spent the evening in the house where he had lived his last life, on the couch where she had helped him mourn his mother's death, at the table where he had told her, over toast and eggs, that he needed a divorce. And now, years later, she listened to him as he explained Aldo's mystery, the beauty of his sadness and his confusion, the terrible weight of his pain. He told her how hard it was to make music after work every day when Aldo had not played a note in months, how he drove around the block twice or three times each afternoon to delay coming home to a man that had not lived a second of life since he left him. Rhonda had worked through three slices of cake while listening, easing off bites of white sponge and smears of soft yellow cream with the edge of her fork and murmuring "yeah, _mmhm_ ," her eyes locked on his as he talked. He had stayed with her since, talking and eating, and had not yet had to ask how life was treating her.
That first evening, he found his old suits, and was reminded of a past version of himself, one whose primary pursuit in life was to convince the world he was a certain kind of man. He wore the charcoal gray suit to school the next day, then some black ones and a slate gray stripe. There were ties, too, responsible ones with just enough flare to say, _"And I have personality, too."_ He had waived to old neighbors all week as he picked up the paper, smiled at them as he pulled into the driveway each evening. He had cooked for Rhonda twice—stuffed artichokes and risotto with basil on Friday, apple French toast with mixed berries and crème fraiche for Sunday brunch. She had come home from work as she used to, with bottles of wine and CDs by new artists her company had discovered. Each night, they would peel the cellophane off of the cases and look at the promo photos—a Tunisian-Swiss folksinger, a Franco-American electro band—and she would say which ones she thought had promise, which seemed too naïve or too indulgent for their own good. They judged together. They comforted each other. They ate and drank and laughed like young lovers, like life-long friends.
There had even been moments when she reminded him of Aldo—Aldo in the early days, four-and-a-half years ago, when his English was bare and essential, forcing him to rely mostly on more precise means of communication. These days with Rhon reminded Patrick of the time when he was a young man, married to a beautiful young woman executive, growing more and more willing each day to throw his life away for this person—another man—who made languages with his eyes and vows with his music. In a rented basement studio, they had played—first for each other, then with each other, first lightly and then not lightly at all—for nearly a year. They had played in a band together, and their first times touching happened late in the evenings, after the other band members had left, but soon they began to arrange to meet early in the afternoons, before the others arrived. Eventually there were hotel rooms, bed and breakfasts, and finally, the apartment on 73rd.
"Patrick, it's going to happen, ok?" Aldo had said many times after hours of playing and pulling and pressing together, stretched and sweaty. "Music, I mean. We have to make it. I'm telling you."
"Ok, Aldo," he had responded, noticing only his fingers in Aldo's long black hair, Aldo's soft, stubbly cheek in his palm, the pulse of them both, pleading beneath their skins to be kissed and touched some more.
These things Patrick remembered in Rhonda's house no longer existed in the apartment on York. These good memories had been forgotten, like his suits and his pride and his patience, under heaps of Aldo—his fallen dreams, his broken heart, his eyes whose precision and eloquence had cracked and left nothing but water.
Suited up and driving back to a home that had seen light all day, and to a person who had lived, Patrick resolved not to go back. He had known it all along, he decided. Eleven nights ago when he circled the block three times and entered the apartment to find Aldo face down in his own vomit, a full ashtray smoking beside him on the dining room floor. And before that even, each day that passed without Aldóvar's _making it_. It seemed to Patrick that Aldo had devoted himself to proving it was all or nothing for him, that if he could not succeed he would be sure to fail. It was not surprising, Patrick resolved now. It was there from the beginning, all these years. It had taken him some time to see it, but as soon as he did, he acted—in his best interest and in Aldo's, too. He found all the words he could and he tried to say them, stuff them into the curves and lines of the note he had left on the dining room table:
Aldo,
I hope you feel better, and that your
birthday is good to you.
I cleaned up the mess. I'm going to work.
Money is in the cabinet.
Food in the fridge. Please eat.
— Patrick
"Pero, ¿por qué no me quiere jamás?" _But why doesn't love me anymore?_
But for Matilda, of course, there wasn't much to say. She did not know what was going on, really, except that this man was in love with another man, most likely a white man, who lived in a nice apartment and spoke good enough English, which he used to write what seemed like a fairly straightforward note, with a fairly straightforward message: goodbye.
But there was a lot of good food in the kitchen, and she had not eaten good food in a while—nothing better than wings from the Crown Fried Chicken on 86th or hard rice and green pea slop from the cafeteria at the hospital where she worked, a few blocks away from this apartment. She had not been to work in a while, had not really talked to anyone, about anything, in days. There was no reason why, at least none to speak of. There had been a man, and now there was not, and the only thing there was to say about him was that he was gone, leaving her to swim in the silence she'd become during their time together. He had been loud and she had been quiet, and she hadn't noticed it until it was too late. Now that he was gone, the quiet was all there was—quiet buzzing from the bathroom where he used to brush his teeth, quiet ringing from the sofa where he used to shout at basketball games, quiet clanging in the kitchen where he had slammed dishes and punched the wall, not often, but sometimes, while she stood there, mute. She felt menaced by the quiet now, in the sour way that comfort can menace. It was with her and it was in her—her throat and ears plugged with things unsaid.
So it was fine with her to have seen this man out the corner of her eye, cursing at pigeons on the FDR Drive this morning. She clocked his type immediately—the expensive but dirty clothes, the fancy shoes left unlaced and run-over—he was a pampered drifter. Men like him—and weren't they all?—they always needed someone to take care of them. A bosomy mother, a sexy nurse, an audience for whatever elaborate show. She was too tired from the last man to offer much, but men like him never noticed those things. They wanted, and they usually received. But this one would have something to offer her. Men who needed to be taken care of usually were—more than taken care of, in fact, with plenty extra to go around. She could tell when she saw him that there would be food, maybe money, and who knew what else. At the very least, there would be sound.
"No sé, mi vida," she put his hand back in his lap and stood up. "¿Como puede ser?" _Why doesn't he love you?_ _I don't know, my dear, my life. Look at you. What's not to love?_
His laughter broke into a mucusy cough.
"Bueno, amor, levántate. Vamos a comer." She held him now for the first time, pulling him up by his shoulders and leaning both their weights on a tall wooden chair. _Get up. We're going to eat._
In her arms, his smell surprised her. It was not the simple compound of smoke, beer, and weed she had expected. There was a cinnamon smell, or maybe nutmeg, something that must belong to this white man—his soap, perhaps, or his shampoo. Had she noticed this smell on Aldóvar sooner, down by the water, she might have smiled at him. As it was, his sweet, sad face had only been enough to elicit a commanding "Hola, papi, how you doing today?"
"Bien, ¿y usted, señorita?" He had said, stumbling up to her bench with a cigarette in one hand and a paper bag in the other, the teal morning sky hanging heavy over his head. _Fine, and you, young lady_?
"Todo bien," she had answered. "Gozando del ruído." She leaned back on the bench with her legs straight in front of her, looking past him as the cars whipped the air. _Good, all good, enjoying the noise._
This was exactly what she had been doing on that bench since the day before yesterday when the silence in her apartment began to beat on her ears. She had left that afternoon without her work uniform, without her tattered staff ID, without even five dollars, to go listen to the cars hum and the wind fly down the FDR. The man had not thought—or at least he had not said—that she was strange to be sitting there. He had not asked her why she so craved noise. He had not asked her to tell her story, to justify her restlessness or her effort to strangle it with sound.
By the time they had reached his apartment, she was sure he would expect her to sleep with him. This would not be the worst thing in the world, she had decided. She might do it. She had not been with a man in some time—the man who left had lost interest in that part of her months ago—and now the thought of sex brought to mind a set of huge, disfigured, subsuming sounds she'd almost forgotten. But when he pushed the door open and ushered her into the apartment, he had not so much as offered to take her jacket. He walked directly to the corner of the dining room and spilled down to the floor, amid a pile of Corona bottles, beside an ashtray, a box of weed, and a saxophone.
Matilda had often thought of being played like a musical instrument. She had imagined the feel of a bass player pushing deep against her g-spot, a guitarist who could pluck her clitoris like a knot of tight strings, the million tiny, cool notes a flautist might wrap around her neck. Sex with this man would not be a chore or mistake, she thought, looking at the brassy instrument. She had not yet imagined what a saxophone might be like.
"Hay vino en la nevera," he had said without looking at her. He licked a white paper and began to crumble clumps of weed into it. _There's wine in the fridge._
Matilda was surprised to find that the wine in the refrigerator was a merlot. The well-stocked wine rack beside the pantry door indicated that someone around here knew not to chill red wine. Matilda was proud to know this, too. Still, she had liked her red wine cold since junior high school, when she discovered that the taste of cold cheap red wine was not entirely different from the taste of grape juice—not the sugary, purple bodega kind, but the real thing, bloody and bittersweet, from the gourmet stores on Madison Avenue. She had poured herself a glass and sat.
"Pues, ¿tu eres músico?" _So you're a musician?_
"Ah, linda, mejor dicho soy fracaso." Laughter. _Better put, I am a failure._
"Pero eso te gusta, ¿no?" she said. _You seem to like that title._
"Es el único que tengo. Me debe gustar." He rolled the joint, lit it, and took a pull. _I have to like it. It's all I got._
Matilda had known men like this, hopeless dreamers who bathed themselves in the wreckage of fantasy to keep from having to make anything out of real life. Her father had been one, and her brother, and the man who'd left was probably one as well, although that, too, she had failed to notice in time. These men were selfish, too selfish to live with, but also too selfish not to love, at least a little. The insistence of their misery was pitiful, almost comical, and beautiful at once. The key, she thought now, was to take what they could offer and give them _just_ that little bit, just enough so that the giving cost her nothing, and perhaps even felt good. Perhaps that was the closest she would come to an equal exchange.
"Qué caballero eres," she said. "Que no compartes la hierba con tu compañera." She crossed her legs and leaned toward him. _What kind of gentleman are you, that you don't even share the herb with your lady friend?_
"Es que si fumamos juntos," he said, dabbing the joint against the ashtray, "tu te vas a enamorar de mí." He coughed. _If we smoke together, you'll fall in love with me. And I am a betrothed man._
Matilda smiled and took the joint. She blew smoke in his face and asked him about his life. She pushed the tall dining room windows open and spread the drapes, flinging them against the wall with a _whack_. She made pepper steak and cabbage, the grease popping like rainstorms in the skillets, the boiling water a song of burbles and licks. She drank the wine and spilled it on the table, heard the glass crash to the floor, and laughed. She listened to him talk about his boyfriend, a white teacher who had left him drunk and sick and lonely on his birthday. Once he had slid the last of the cabbage into his mouth, she got up to take his plate. He grabbed her arm and held it.
"Tu eres la mujer de mis suenos, señorita," he said. _You are the woman of my dreams._
Matilda put the plate on the table and lit a cigarette. _So you've fallen in love with me?_
"Claro."
So play me something.
He dragged the saxophone from the corner and began to play. Matilda heard his lungs' struggle, his breath like a smashed harmonica—all strain and no sound. But his fingers wrapped around the gold pads with more force than she had thought his body could muster. He pushed and pressed the instrument with a fierce diligence, and she began to believe that, eventually, something worth hearing would come out.
Patrick turned off of First Avenue, onto 73rd only once. He parked a few doors down and zipped up his jacket, keeping the car keys in his hand. He paid close attention to the look of the building—the low yellow lights of the lobby, the cracked marble floors in the hallways, the warm and faintly mildewy smell in the elevator, which the janitorial staff had never been able to defeat. He wanted to keep these things safe in his memory—because they were all memories now. Each floor that passed on the elevator, each number lit white as it climbed, was a step toward the end of this life and the beginning of the next one—a former life re-envisioned, refashioned and improved. The next life would be him and Rhon—friendly and comfortable—with good wine and a kitchen brimming with light. It would be his suits, the neighbors, a big airy home and weightless laughter. He would not take too much with him. He would not say too much of a goodbye.
The familiar groans of novice playing greeted him when the elevator doors opened on the eighth floor—an alto saxophone screeching a song he thought he might have heard once. But as Patrick walked toward his door, he heard the sounds easing down, tones becoming sturdier and more solid, notes clear as wind beginning to form. He turned his key in the lock and walked in to a place that he doubted, for a second, he had ever been before. Food and wine and an open window. Aldo playing the sax for a brown woman who sat on their dining room table with her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. Her eyes were closed, and her head waved to the music.
_But why doesn't he love me?_ became a song, and the men played it for her. One on the alto saxophone, one on the soprano. It was a battle of beauty, of blood and of hearts. Matilda felt her spirit running on the underside of her skin. The men would not stop. Their notes made love, told stories. Arguments ensued and stopped just short of violence. Promises were made, and kept, and broken, but the sound made no move to leave.
She sat with the saxophones, in the noisr of them, for what could have been hours, thinking about the rush of cars she had left this morning, the food she had just eaten, all the things she had heard today. She thought about these men—this stranger who had declared from a pit of ash and headache that he had never been afraid, and this other one who wrote clear notes and did, in fact, bring home a cinnamon smell, whose love and whose absence clearly terrified the first. She thought about her life, herself, all the things that were or could one day be. Humming a melody that both matched theirs and didn't, Matilda sipped her wine and listened as they talked.
# The Anvil
My wild grace and I shift on my right hip. We perch there and tilt towards the airplane window, considering the possibility that I have swallowed an anvil in my daydream. Camera light on my cheeks, red liner sealing thickly my precisely drawn lips, I am sure of it. A rust-encrusted, black-barnacled anvil. And now that it has glubbed its way down my digestive tract, sliding to the seasick rhythm of my peristalsis, it sits, I'm sure, perched in my stomach, dangerously close to my womb. I run my tongue lightly over my teeth to clear away any nasty fuchsia smudges, angle my jaw and smile for the cameras.
I say this to no one, but: the Atlantic sky is looking thick and frothy, all sun and cloud, like banana pudding and lemon meringue. It compels me to dive in, reckless and open-mouthed, to swallow the air until I am full almost to bursting and raining myself. I am reminded of the time in the fourth grade when I ate the class gerbil. This, of course, was back when I was a large American civilian, and a carnivore.
Mr. Weiss, the nice baldheaded teacher, had charged me with pet duty for the afternoon. I had put up quite a dynamic protest, I remember, stomping my feet on the soft green carpet and sending him my sharpest look of malevolence, all to no avail. But I didn't eat Galileo out of spite. I did hate him for his alien grunts, which interrupted my dramatic readings in English class—a star on the rise, I was!—and for the cedar-and-feces funk he emitted, so offensive and impolite. Anyone who had cared to spend two minutes' thought on the matter could easily have deduced that I would never have intended to put the nasty rodent into my mouth, and that, in fact, I would sooner have taken a running leap over the George Washington Bridge, or run naked and barefoot through Marcus Garvey Park on Halloween night. But, of course, nobody thought about that. The fat girl ate the gerbil. It was quite a laugh.
The school called my mother, and she arrived more promptly than she had arrived for anything, ever. When I opened the door to the main office where I was to meet her, I saw Mr. Weiss shaking her hand gravely. She muttered long apologies through cascades of mascaraed tears, never bothering to ask me if, after having ingested an entire gerbil, I might need a glass of water or an x-ray. I was whisked onto the A train without so much as a word, and she succeeded in saying absolutely nothing to me until the following night before dinner, when, because my protruding stomach blocked the handle of the cabinet door, she was forced to ask me either to move or to pass her the cayenne pepper for her latest tabloid diet soup. Once this line of communiqué was reopened, I was subject to epics about the embarrassment she felt when her secretary (her secretary!) handed her the yellow message log paper stating that her only daughter had eaten the class pet. I was made to recall that day as the day my mother gave up on ever having grandkids, for what decent black man would marry a girl who would eat a gerbil? What assurance could he have that I would not eat the children and the microwave, too? I understand now, of course, that even my mother could not have known the heights of beauty and fame that I, then an unkempt, sloppy-figured Harlem girl, would one day reach. Still, the memory is painful, all the same.
I look away from the airplane window and notice a pregnant lady with a blonde pig-tail sitting in the aisle seat across from me. She looks at me with a knowing eye, and any loitering doubts vanish. She sees it: just as some potent of human life grows in her pale, gourd-like belly, so in me grows a huge and terrible blend of mold and rust. But all is well, I tell myself, channeling the wisdom of the Mantra-of-the-Month club I've subscribed to, and my self-help books-on-tape. Even if this pregnant girl has caught my indiscrete bout of consumption, I am the center of my universe. And who, really, is she?
After a few months I stopped thinking about my gerbil incident, and was reminded of it only by my mother's sporadic bouts of shame, and by the little white teeth that appeared in the toilet bowl well into the fifth grade. I told no one about the fantastic daydream that had sent my mind into ether that afternoon: I was on an airplane, flying first class, dressed as African royalty. Africa! Africa, of the capital A and the small a, and all the delicious unknown in between. My robes were heavenly, intricately swirled with Benin gold and deep purple, and there were large men and a frenzied air of camera flash around me. The sky was creamy yellow with thick, frothy clouds, several of which looked delicious. I remember now the excitement that had begun to sweep over me, before I was torn from that daydream by LaSharia Bennett's shrieks of horror at my fur-fuzzed face and shirt.
Since then, I have eaten many things. Telephone cords, fire hoses, nearly anything you would find lining the ground of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. And I have learned, with the help of my dear mother, to eat furtively and cover my tracks. It is amazing what gluttony you can get away with, you know, with just a little tact and creative thinking. Last week, for example, my good friend Patrice, who owns a brownstone in Bed-Stuy, invited me over for a barbecue. As I stood in line for a low-cal veggie burger, I was seized by the desire to hang glide. And then I _was_ hang gliding, grip tight on thick black handlebars, my face and feet lifted and battered by air. It was a fabulous feeling, one that I was truly sad to let go of, and perhaps I would have stayed in that daydream longer, had I not gotten a splinter in my throat from the picket fence I had begun to munch on. I had eaten two long planks and was holding a third in my hand, but the pain of the splinter was so huge that I had to abandon my eating and hang gliding to find some water. Now, Patrice is the type who drinks tap water. And, well, you never know what's in the water these days, so I refuse to touch the stuff. Anyhow, Patrice didn't have any bottled water (she doesn't even own a Brita!), so it was iced tea for me. I knew that it would take at least a gallon to dislodge the wood from my throat and wash it down to a less delicate part of my GI tract, but the iced tea was loaded with sugar (Patrice has never had a weight problem) and I really did not want to ruin my diet, so I followed my grandmother's advice for swallowed fish bones, soaking a piece of bread in the tea and swallowing it whole. In the end I was happy to have rid myself of the splinter, and while I was disappointed with my behavior (carbs are not on my diet), I was able to pass the whole incident off as a party trick (some clowns eat fire, I eat wood).
Things like that happen all the time, and by now I have learned the tricks of the trade. First, I stay away from all animals. No exceptions. My gerbil incident, and a few other carnivorous episodes shortly after, taught me that fat in one's mouth really does become fat on the hips, the thighs, the belly. And who needs that? Plus, I can eat so much more of other things, like, for example, paint, which has no calories or teeth. Also, another tip: it is very important to stay in the daydream for as long as possible, preferably until present company has begun to scream or cry, for if you stop at people's quizzical looks or quiet expressions of concern, you will have eaten practically nothing, and you will miss the best part of the daydream. Finally, you must allow yourself to trust in the empathy and human kindness of your audience. For instance, after my gerbil incident, my mother nearly disowned me. But once I gave animals up in favor of other less fattening, synthetic items, I dropped fifty pounds, and her love for me increased tenfold. Such was the case with Patrice and her guests, too, and now that I am thin and famous I can tell you with certainty that people will tolerate almost any strange behavior as long as you don't eat too much food.
Still, I am embarrassed at times like these, when I seem to have ingested something so unappealing as an anvil in so public a space as this, and with cameras nearby. Had it been a magazine, an air mask, or even some of the cotton that is peeking coyly from the hole in the seat in front of me (in first class!), it would not be so bad. The pregnant lady would not be staring at me, her blonde eyebrows arched in shock. But I'm absolutely sure now that it was an anvil, because when I press here on my pelvic bone I feel a sharp protrusion. Yes, it was an anvil, and the pregnant girl looks as though she might faint at the sight of me. But no matter, really. I am on my way to Africa where I will be regarded as royalty, and when she sees me on television she will remember me with forgiveness and regret.
# Wall Women
" _Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time, the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics."_
– _Virginia Woolf_
Women curve themselves around the television screen, whipping their hair against their backs, smacking it over bare shoulders, bending low and shaking it at their knees. The beat is steady and they seem steady too, always the same, always the same, like identical parts in a moving machine. But there is always one who catches my eye, throws the beat off, just a little. Today her hair is yellow. Not blonde, or gold. Not a color I've seen on heads before. It is crayon-yellow, the color of the sun in the pictures on the social workers' offices, drawn by the younger foster children, taped to the walls you sit under while you wait to go from one life to the next.
These same women are on every television screen—not just at the social workers' offices, but at the homes, too, even the new one where I am now. This home is different from all the others. I have been to four by now, two per year since I turned ten the year before last. Most of the houses are loud with children and always smell like food, but here there are no children here besides me. The woman here, my newest mother, has never brought children in before. "I'm surprised we got you," she tells me. "They never would've given you to me alone. Must be because of Obette."
While the crayon woman dances on TV, the mother, Cheryl, talks about Obette. She says Obette is the responsible one, the clear-headed one, the one with the good job and the plans. She says Obette has taken care of her, and soon she will take care of us both. Cheryl stirs grits at the stove and says that Obette will come back soon. She says Obette will love me, that she'll be so glad I'm here, and the three of us will be a pack.
Cheryl tells me about the dreams she has, and I'm not sure what kind she means at first—nighttime dreams or day. After a while, though, I know she means the better kind, the kind you can hold in your hand as long as you stay asleep. The other dreams—the day kind—are far away, like planets or imaginary friends. To me, sleeping dreams are better; they are all the way real, right up until they're not.
Cheryl tells me that, when she wakes up in the mornings, she does not know where she is, how things work. She thinks people can move without touching the ground, or that her mother is holding her hand. She tells me she does not know what world is real until she sees Obette beside her. Then she settles into herself like bubbles into a pan of dishwater, and they can begin the day.
I listen and do not say anything. I catch words here and there and mix them in my juice glass. _Pack, hand, ground, mother_. I wonder about the crayon woman, if she speaks, what she does when she is not dancing behind a screen. I wonder if she has someone like this Obette, someone who helps her settle into herself. Sometimes, I imagine myself dancing like her, a little out of step, my hair a neon shock on top of my head. But then I think about what other people would say about me—the social workers, the kids at the school, my next mother, whenever my next life comes. So I sit by the screen, I watch and I listen.
It never smells like food here, even though we eat fine every day. Mostly it smells like a woman working hard to build things—smells like paint and metal and wood and cinnamon tea. Every day, Cheryl talks and works on the house, sawing things, bringing in pretty lighting fixtures that she says Obette will like. She tells me her plans for the house, how the two of them will sleep in the big room upstairs and my room will be the one right next door. I don't wonder why they would share a room until Cheryl asks if I'm wondering. I shake my head and say, "No, it makes sense to me." I think for a second what my past mothers would say about it, but then I think, _How much can they matter, if they aren't here?_
Cheryl tells me we'll all play games and dance together in the back room, but the front room will be just for Obette. "She's like a man, but better," Cheryl says. "Time alone is how she keeps her magic."
I listen and watch the television, and then I go to the new school and I wait. Sometimes I'm waiting for someone to come—a police officer, a social worker—and take me to my next life. Sometimes I'm just waiting for the day to end. One time I try to wait for Obette, like Cheryl has been doing since I came here, but I don't know how. A new life usually comes, the day always ends, but people are harder to wait for.
Soon I figure out that Cheryl is nice, and sad. I don't know how she takes my silence. Sometimes I think that she likes how I listen. The dead space between her talking gets shorter and shorter, and I think that if I wanted to I could leave the house and go dance on the corner while she talks, do all the dances the video women do, and then come back to find her right there, still talking, just fine. But in the end, I wouldn't want to go outside. I wouldn't know anyone, and no one wants to know a girl who dances by herself.
Soon, I start to like Cheryl. I like the stories she tells me about all the places she and Obette have been, all the things they have done together, and the things we will do, the pack of us, when Obette comes back. Soon, I stop waiting to leave. I stay and make Obette up in my mind, mix her in with the video women, only the strange ones, the ones with sad faces or candy hair.
"She'll be here tomorrow," Cheryl says one day after she picks me up from the school. I am watching a video, but I turn to her and listen. "Or maybe sometime next week. Obette is afraid," she says. "And fear slows people down. Do you understand?" But she doesn't wait for my answer.
One day, in the summer, Cheryl's dream is about ducks. They are half real and half fake, she tells me, with dirty feathers and ugly voices, but perfect orange feet. She tells me about their yellow color, how it's bright but tinged with gray. She thinks they could fly, she says, because one of them, the biggest one, said something like that to her in the dream. "There were three of them, but then there were six," she says, "and sometimes they were all just one. And when they were one they were Obette. They smelled like soup, the way she smells when her body is working hard." And this makes Cheryl feel she should never wake up from the dream.
While she tells me this, she is frying sausages in a pan. She waves the spatula around, and I wonder if it will drip grease into the fire. Then I notice that I am afraid, and Cheryl is not. She presses the sausages into the pan and smoke puffs up, thick and almost blue. The grease makes a smear on the white wall that Cheryl has just painted. I worry that the house will burn down, that me and Cheryl and all the dreams will float away into ash. The smoke alarm goes off, but Cheryl just looks at me. I decide that I will cook from now on.
Later in the summer it gets hot and there is too much time to spend it all just waiting. Most summers, there is something new—a new mother or another child in the house, or some kind of problem. But this summer there is just me and Cheryl, going grocery shopping and making trips to the hardware store. Cheryl does all kinds of things to the house. She makes new banisters with ends that curl like thick wooden snakes and stains them in what she says is the color of Obette's palms. She buys putty and scrapes it along the bottoms of the walls, then presses long cylinders of wood into it so the cracks between the wall and the floor disappear. "Obette likes things to be seamless," she says, and I don't think I know what she means, but I nod.
On the day she paints the front room—Obette's room—Cheryl spends an hour standing in the middle of the floor, frowning. "It's not right," she says. "The walls are too flat for her." Again, I'm not sure I know what she means.
While she works I watch the video women dance behind the glass, and I make a game of counting the ones I will like. I follow the rhythm while I wait for Kool-Aid hair, a set of green fingernails, or a pair of talking eyes to flash across the screen. There is always noise outside the house. Children from the school are listening to music, doing all the dances, rapping and singing and tagging the stoops. I would not say this to anyone, but sometimes I do imagine myself with them. Sometimes, when Cheryl talks about Obette—all the thing she has done and the things we will do, the three of us—I get a feeling that I could dance with the kids, that they might not bother me for not talking, that I might not have to fight girls to tell them who I am, to prove I belong here, in this life. Other times, when Cheryl talks, I am afraid I am like her, and then I want to run hard and fast, through the plaster and the brick, to get out. But I don't want to leave Cheryl talking alone to the walls. And, also, I like her dreams. If I left, I would be alone, too, and I would miss them.
One morning, while I'm cooking, I hear Cheryl's voice loud in her bedroom. I turn the flame off and go quietly to her door. She has pushed the bed to the middle of the room and is cooing like a dying bird. When she sees me she begs me to help her.
"I can't move," she says.
She calls me Obette and tells me all of her dreams over again, all the ones I've heard already and new ones, too. She crawls over the mattress and kicks the sheets to the floor. She tells me that she needs me.
When I don't speak, she says, "Fuck you!" Her eyes tell me that in this dream she could tear a body apart. But when she moves to the edge of the bed, she shrieks like she's been shocked, then she whimpers and lies down. "Come back, please. Please."
On my way down the stairs I think of what to do. I think of the people I should go to—a social worker or a police officer, a teacher at the school or the nice man at the corner store—but I am afraid I will not know what to say. By the time my hand curves around the banister's tail, my voice is gone already. I feel like my mouth has melted away and all I am is limbs. My legs carry me into the front room, Obette's room. I step over the newspaper and the plastic tarps, the nails and the hammer and the cans of paint.
I feel strange, light, like I'm not sure where the ground is. I wonder if this is how Cheryl feels when she wakes up, if this is why she thinks only in dreams. My hands go soft and they sink toward the paint cans, pry them open. At first I don't know what I'm doing. I'm scared, but then I'm excited, my whole body filled with breath. I dip into the yellow and feel my fingers soak in the cool of the paint. Then I am at the wall, making smears that turn to yellow balls, and balls that turn to tufts of yellow fuzz, and fuzz that turns to feathers. I am painting ducks for Cheryl, hoping this will help her. Time disappears into Cheryl's voice as I fill the room with round yellow bodies, sculpting sloped heads and pulling perked tails up toward the ceiling. I run down the hall for the orange paint, and then I make long open beaks and webbed feet that float along the room's white sky. I am whirling, making ducks, Cheryl's ducks, no one else's. But when I look at them I see the yellow, and it makes _me_ feel good, too. I feel like I am dancing in my own way, waiting for nothing, for no one. And so I keep going, my body bright and whirling in color, flying in its own directions, bouncing against nothing but air.
As I walk up the stairs, I can feel things bubbling in me. I put my hands in my hair, and I don't worry about the color I have left there. When I open the door, Cheryl is sleeping. She smiles when she feels me coming toward her.
"Obette?" she says.
I tell her "no," but I say it softly. Then I say my name.
# Acknowledgments
These stories come from years of listening to and learning from many wonderful storytellers, advice-givers, coconspirators and supports. The first of these have been my parents, Martha and Jamal, who taught me early on to love books and value my imagination, and my brother, Malik, one of the smartest writers I know.
I am so fortunate to have had such a fabulous team of people collaborating on this project. I'm incredibly grateful to Magnus editor Don Weise, and Riverdale Avenue books publisher, Lori Perkins, whose time and care with this book have been invaluable, and to my agent, Janet Silver, from whose brilliance and generosity I learn new things with every step.
Thanks to the many teachers who have pushed me to pursue my writing to its best possible ends: Amy Kissell, Nancy Gannon, Daniel Rouse, Kevin Quashie, Suzanne Gauch, Salamishah Tillet, Heather Love, Herman Beavers, and Thadious Davis, who have shown me what it is to teach and learn from literature. And to the incredible writers whose encouragement and rich critique have made these stories better: Cheryl Clarke, Howard Norman, Randall Kenan, Jim Sheppard, Percival Everett, and especially Joan Mellen, Chip Delany, and Darryl Pinckney, whose time, thoughtfulness, and support over the years have meant everything.
This book wouldn't have been possible without the support of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, the Hedgebrook Writers' Retreat, the Pan-African Literary Forum in Ghana, the Hambidge Center, the New York State Summer Writers' Institute, and the Center for Fiction, whose incredible vision and tireless staff—especially Noreen Tomassi and Kristin Henley—have been nothing short of gifts for me. Thank you to the department of English at the University of Pennsylvania, the Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies department at Williams College, the English department at Temple University, the English department at Rutgers University, and all of my colleagues in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for providing the best kinds of intellectual homes, and for supporting me in this project, and in all of my work. I'm grateful also for the resources at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University,
One of the best things about writing is that it puts you in touch with a world of writer friends. I'm grateful to all those who've read drafts, offered comments, and clinked glasses in joy and commiseration through the writing and rewriting: Quincy Scott Jones, Kamilah Aishah Moon, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Kristen-Page Madonia, Aracelis Girmay, Marie-Helene Bertino, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Xoaquima Diaz, LaMonda Horton-Stallings, Marci Blackman, Tiphanie Yanique, and so many more. Thank you to my homies—my family of the heart—who have supported me and my dreams since forever: Erica Khan, Keisha Warner, Nicole S. Junior, Lecynia Swire, Julia Jarcho, Ásta Hostetter, LaMarr Jurelle Bruce, and Effie Richardson, my fellow foodie, long-distance roommate, and middle-school kindred soul. Thank you to Patreese Johnson, Terrain Dandridge, Venice Brown, Renata Hill, Chenese Loyal, Lania Daniels, and Khamysha Coates for your fierceness and your courage. Thank you, Jeanette Aycock, for showing me what love and support look like, for years and years and years. C. Riley Snorton, thank you for being a true homie and showing me new depths of laughter; hope to see you on the AC soon. Nina Sharma, Fufs, the world's finest writer friend—and one of its greatest souls—your generosity and perceptiveness astound me every time; these stories owe so much to you.
And to Hanifah Walidah, the beautiful one, who has been down for me in every sense, supporting and loving me since the beginning in ways that have known no bounds—and to everyone I haven't named whose voices move through these pages—thank you, thank you, thank you.
# If you liked this, look for more from Riverdale Avenue Books
Growing up Golem
How I Survived my Mother, Brooklyn, and Some Really Bad Dates
By Donna Minkowitz
Confessions of a Librarian
A Memoir of Loves
by Barbara Foster
The Circlet Treasury of Lesbian Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy
by Cecilia Tan
50 Shades of Pink
by KT Grant
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Books3 |
Progesterone inhibition of functional leptin receptor mRNA expression in human endometrium.
Leptin is secreted by adipocytes and regulates appetite through interaction with hypothalamic leptin receptors (OB-R). Leptin is involved in the stimulation of reproductive functions, and local expression of leptin and OB-R in the ovary, oocyte, embryo, and placenta might play a role in early development. The mRNA and protein of the long form leptin receptor (OB-R(L)) but not of leptin are expressed in the human endometrium and the abundance of OB-R mRNA expression varies during the menstrual cycle with a peak in the early secretory phase. We examined the steroidal regulation of OB-R(L) mRNA expression. Northern blot analyses showed that in organ-cultured proliferative endometrial specimens, oestradiol (10(-9) and 10(-8) mol/l) had no acute effect on the OB-R(L) mRNA expression, whereas oestradiol plus progesterone (10(-8), 10(-7) and 10(-6) mol/l) or medroxyprogesterone acetate (10(-8) and 10(-7) mol/l) suppressed the expression by approximately 50%. This progestin-induced suppression was blocked by a concomitant addition of mifepristone. Additionally, incubation of endometrial specimens in the presence of leptin resulted in the phosphorylation of its intracellular target, STAT3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 3). These results indicate that, in the human endometrium, progestins act via the progesterone receptors to suppress functional OB-R(L) mRNA expression, and may thereby alter the sensitivity of the endometrium to leptin. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Capital punishment in Sweden
Capital punishment in Sweden was last used in 1910, though it remained a legal sentence for at least some crimes until 1973. It is now outlawed by the Swedish Constitution, which states that capital punishment, corporal punishment, and torture are strictly prohibited. At the time of the abolition of the death penalty in Sweden, the legal method of execution was beheading.
Dates for abolition of the death penalty
Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes committed in peacetime on 30 June 1921.
Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes, including those committed in time of war, on 1 January 1973.
The clause that prohibits the death penalty has been a part of the Constitution since 1975. Sweden is a state party to the Second Optional Protocol to ICCPR (ratified in 1990), Protocol No. 6 to ECHR (1984), and Protocol No. 13 to ECHR (2003).
In the Riksdag of the Estates, a majority of the peasants worked for the abolition of the death penalty, for example when the new penalty code of 1864 was discussed.
Titles
Two titles were used for the official who carried out the execution. Skarprättare, who carried out beheadings and Bödel, who carried out other types of capital punishment. Originally beheading by sword was reserved for nobles, where as commoners could be beheaded by axe or hanged. By the 18th century all beheadings were made by axe, for commoners and nobles alike, and some crimes such as forgery always carried the punishment of hanging. During the 19th century, each province of Sweden along with the City of Stockholm had an appointed executioner who travelled the area to carry out executions. In 1900, a national executioner () was appointed, a position that was filled by the last executioner Albert Gustaf Dahlman who until then had been responsible for carrying out executions in Stockholm.
Last execution
Last execution
Johan Alfred Ander was the last person executed in Sweden. He was sentenced to death for a murder during the course of a robbery that was committed in January 1910. His sentence was not commuted and he was executed 23 November at Långholmen in Stockholm using a guillotine (the only time a guillotine was used in Sweden). The executioner was Albert Gustaf Dahlman, who died in 1920. At his death at 72, he was the last of all executioners in Sweden.
Last death sentence issued
Mohammed Beck Hadjetlaché, an exiled monarchist and member of the White movement, received the last death sentence in Sweden, on 28 May 1920, for robbery-homicide of three Russian nationals, all supposed Bolshevik sympathisers in the so-called Ryssvillan ("Russian villa") in 1919, though the crimes, denounced as particularly gruesome and meticulously planned, may have claimed of another four victims, all missing to this day. His accomplices received lesser penalties, and after appeal, the death sentence (as was practice at the time) was changed in Svea Hovrätt (appellate court) to a lifetime of hard labour. Hadjetlaché allegedly succumbed to mental illness in jail, and died in confinement in Långholmen in 1929.
The last woman sentenced to death – also the last death sentence not to be reprieved – was the "angelmaker" Hilda Nilsson, who was sentenced to the guillotine on 14 July 1917 for the murder of several infant children. She preempted the execution by hanging herself in her cell in Landskrona Citadel. It is suggested that a decision to commute the sentence had in fact been taken, but if so she did not know of it at the time of her suicide.
Last execution of a woman
The last woman executed was Anna Månsdotter, who was executed on 7 August 1890 by decapitation with an axe. Månsdotter and her son Per Nilsson had murdered Per's wife, Hanna Johansdotter. Månsdotter was also involved in an incestuous relationship with her son, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and who was released in 1914. The last woman executed in the capital of Stockholm was Helena Katarina Löv, who was decapitated for the murder of a child on 19 September 1829.
Last public executions
The last public executions in Sweden were carried out 18 May 1876. Both executions, by means of beheading, are supposed to have been carried out at the same time in the morning, at 7. The executed were Konrad Lundqvist Petterson Tector and Gustav Erikson Hjert and the executions were carried out at Stenkumla Backe near Visby and at Lidamon (near Malmköping). Both had been sentenced to death for the same crime, a failed robbery against a stagecoach two years earlier, which resulted in the murder of one of the passengers and the driver of the coach. The executions were carried out by Per Petter Christiansson Steineck and Johan Fredrik Hjort.
Last use of method other than beheading
The last time a method other than beheading was practiced was in 1836; the method used was hanging by the neck. Although it was not subsequently used, it remained available as a form of capital punishment until the Penal Code of 1864 removed that option.
Last execution for other crime than murder
The last time a death sentence was carried out for any other crime than murder was on 10 August 1853 when Mårten Persson was executed for aggravated assault at Rögla (near Ystad). The last execution carried out for a non-fatal assault was on 29 March 1837, when Anders Gustaf Lindberg was beheaded in Stockholm.
Last execution for bestiality
In 1778, the last known execution for bestiality in Sweden happened.
Number of executions during 1800–1866, 1867–1921
Between 1800 and 1866, 644 executions were carried out in Sweden, the second highest per-capita number in Europe after Spain. In 1864, when the Penal Code was reformed, and the use of capital punishment was severely restricted, rather than abolished (as had been proposed), and hanging was abolished. In the following years (from 1866) up until the abolishment of the death penalty in 1921, fifteen people were executed (out of about 120 sentenced). The only crime that after 1864 carried a mandatory death sentence was the slaying of a prison guard by a prisoner serving life sentence. Two of the executions carried out after 1864 were for this crime; the execution of Jonas Magnus Jonasson Borg in 1866 and the execution of Carl Otto Andersson in 1872.
Attitude towards capital punishment in the general public
The support for capital punishment in Sweden varies between 30-40%. A 2006 study from SIFO shows that 36% of the population believes that there are crimes that should be punished by death. Support is in general more common amongst young males, but no age group shows a majority in favor of capital punishment.
See also
Capital punishment by country
Crime in Sweden
Historical murders and executions in Stockholm
References
Sources
"Sveriges Siste Skarprättare A. G. Dalman – Föregångare och Förrättningar" i Skandinaviska Pressförlaget, Stockholm, 1934
Hanns v. Brott och straff i Sverige: Historisk kriminalstatistik 1750–1984 Sthlm 1985 (SCB).
Sweden
Category:Swedish law
Category:Death in Sweden
Category:Crime in Sweden
Category:Human rights in Sweden
Category:1910 disestablishments in Sweden | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Recently we have been focusing on the role of tumor suppressors in models of myeloid leukemia developed in our laboratory. Cyclin dependent kinase (cdk) inhibitors are tumor suppresses that play an important role in cell cycle control and have been inactivated in human leukemias either by deletion, promoter hypermethylation or by mutation. In particular, in a high proportion of human AML, MDS and ALL the promoter region of the gene encoding the cyclin dependent kinase (cdk) inhibitor p15INK4b has been found to be hypermethylated. In the mouse, the gene encoding the cdk inhibitor p15INK4b (Cdkn2b) is located on Chr 4 proximal to Cdkn2a which encodes the cdk inhibitor p16INK4a. Additionally, Cdkn2a encodes, through alternative splicing, p19ARF, a positive regulator of the p53 tumor suppressor pathway. p15INK4b is particularly interesting because it is upregulated at the transcription level in myeloid cells by differentiation and growth-inhibiting cytokines and is highly expressed in mature cells of the monocytic lineage. In one area of research we have completed an examination of myeloid leukemias induced by c-Myb and c-Myc for alterations in INK4 gene. The neoplasms induced by endogenous c-myb, through retroviral insertional mutagenesis generally do not express p15Ink4b RNA. A lack of expression in the Myb tumors is not due to deletion or methylation. Further studies in vitro have indicate that the c-Myb itself can repress the expression of p15INK4b. The Myc tumors that were induced by a retrovirus carrying the c-myc gene, in contrast to the Myb tumors general do express p15Ink4b RNA and protein, suggesting that c-Myc can bypass the effects of these tumor suppressor. Two Myc tumors had aberrant INK4 transcripts that were determined to be fusions of p15Ex1 with p16Ex2 or 3 and this was due to deletion of a region encompassing Ex1? for p19Arf. Interestingly, most of the Myc tumors have deleted p19Arf exons even in some cases where p16Ink4a is not deleted. Therefore, our data would suggest that alterations in the Cdkn4a locus in the Myc induced tumors may primarily be due to attempts by the cell to inactivate p19ARF and, therefore, the p53 tumor suppressor pathway. The laboratory has now embarked on a systematic analysis of p15Ink4b. We recently created a new recombinant retrovirus, called MOL4070LTR, that is unique in its ability to infect all strains of mice and to induce myeloid and lymphoid disease in approximately equal proportions. Infection with this virus, which is proving to be extremely useful as a model for induction of myeloid leukemias, induces leukemias with hypermethylation of the p15Ink4b gene, thus mimicking the situation in man. The lab is in the process of determining the common initiation sites for methylation and analyzing the spread of methylation through the extended promoter region of the gene in these leukemias. In addition, we are correlating specific methylation patterns with transcription during progression from the primary tumor stage to transplantation and tissue culture establishment. For the purpose of demonstrating a tumor suppressor function for p15Ink4b in mice, we have developed a mouse with targeted deletion of this gene. The resulting mouse has been used in combination with inoculation of the MOL4070LTR leukemogenic retrovirus. Initial experiments are providing the preliminary data to suggest that p15Ink4b is a suppressor of myeloid leukemogenesis, because the incidence of leukemia is higher in mice with the targeted deletion than it is in wild-type mice. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | NIH ExPorter |
Raven Alexis shows off every inch of that perfect pale skin under her sexy black lace teddy but she knows that all you want to do is to cram your dick deep in her sweet snatch! Just watch her slip that teddy down and show off those plump tits! | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
William Waldegrave, 9th Earl Waldegrave
William Frederick Waldegrave, 9th Earl Waldegrave, VD, PC (2 March 1851 – 12 August 1930), styled Viscount Chewton between 1854 and 1859, was a British Conservative politician. He served as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, government chief whip in the House of Lords, between 1896 and 1905.
Background and education
Waldegrave was the eldest son of William Waldegrave, Viscount Chewton, eldest son of Vice-Admiral William Waldegrave, 8th Earl Waldegrave. His mother was Frances, daughter of Captain John Bastard. He gained the courtesy title Viscount Chewton in 1854 on the early death of his father. In 1859, aged eight, he succeeded his grandfather in the earldom. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Military career
Waldegrave was commissioned into the 3rd Cambridgeshire Rifle Volunteer Corps in 1869. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1870 and resigned his commission as a Captain in 1872. He was commissioned an Ensign in the 1st London Rifle Volunteer Corps in 1873 and was promoted Lieutenant and Captain in 1874 and Major in 1886. He retired as a Lieutenant-Colonel.
Political career
Lord Waldegrave sat on the Conservative in the House of Lords. He was a Lord-in-waiting under Lord Salisbury from 1886 to 1892 and again from 1895 to 1896.
After the death of Lord Limerick in August 1896, he was promoted to Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard and Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords. He continued in these posts until 1905, the last three years under the premiership of Arthur Balfour. He remained as Conservative Chief Whip in the House of Lords until 1911.
In 1897 he was sworn of the Privy Council. Waldegrave was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Somerset on 25 January 1911.
Family
Lord Waldegrave married his first cousin, Lady Mary Dorothea Palmer, daughter of Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne, on 5 August 1874. He died in August 1930, aged 79, and was succeeded by his eldest son, William. The Countess Waldegrave died in November 1933.
References
Category:1851 births
Category:1930 deaths
Category:People from Mendip District
Category:People from Somerset
Category:Earls Waldegrave
Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Category:People educated at Eton College
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:Conservative Party (UK) Baronesses- and Lords-in-Waiting
Category:Waldegrave family
Category:Cambridgeshire Regiment officers
Category:London Regiment officers
Category:Deputy Lieutenants of Somerset | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
1984 1 oz Mexican Silver Libertad Coins
Volume PricingCurrent Spot Price: $16.92
Silver Mexican Libertad coins are the official silver bullion products of the government of Mexico. Introduced over 30 years ago, the Mexican Libertad currently enjoys increasing popularity in North America and around the globe. Today, you have the opportunity to purchase a 1984 1 oz Silver Mexican Libertad coin from Silver.com.
Coin Highlights:
Total mintage of 1,014,000 coins.
Consists of one ounce of .999 fine silver.
Singles ship in plastic flips, lots of 20 ship in mint tubes.
Struck by the Mexican Mint.
Features historic images from the gold Centenario coin.
In 1982, the Mexican Mint introduced the Silver Mexican Libertad as the nation’s sovereign coin. Unlike other sovereign coin programs, these early Silver Libertads have a slightly different design than the modern coins. The position of engravings has been altered in recent years, and Winged Victory is now depicted as she appears on a statue in Mexico City.
On the 1984 1 oz Silver Mexican Libertad, Winged Victory is depicted in full-length figure with a front-facing orientation on the obverse. Known as the angel of independence, she can be seen walking forward with a crown wreath in her hand, symbolizing freedom, and the broken bonds of Spanish colonialism symbolized by the chains in her left hand.
The obverse side of the coin bears a number of identifying engravings. Included are the coin’s weight, metal content, purity, year of minting, face value, and the Mexican Mint’s official mint mark.
On the reverse side of all coins is the image of the nation’s coat of arms. The seal depicts a bald eagle as it is locked in combat with a serpent. Perched atop a cactus branch, the eagle uses one talon to control the snake’s body as it fights it off with its beak.
The Mexican Mint was established by Spanish conquistadors in 1535 to produce gold and silver bars to send home to Spain. It is one of the world’s oldest facilities, and is the oldest operating facility in the Western Hemisphere.
If you have questions for a Silver.com associate, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at 888-989-7223. You can also connect with us online through our live web chat and email services. If you are looking for similar products, make sure to check out our entire selection of Mexican Silver Libertads. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Biocatalysis in multi-phase reaction mixtures containing organic liquids.
A wide range of enzymes and whole microbial cells will act as catalysts in reaction mixtures that contain 2 or more phases, one of which is an organic liquid (either a reactant or including water-immiscible organic solvents). These "biphasic" systems have a variety of structures, knowledge of which aids predictions about biocatalyst activity and stability. There is often a dilute aqueous solution phase (containing the biocatalyst), which may be emulsified with the organic phase, or "trapped" within catalyst particles; sometimes however there may only be traces of water adsorbed to the enzyme or cells. These reaction systems offer several advantages for industrial applications, notably the higher solubilities of many reactants of interest, and the ability of readily available hydrolytic enzymes to catalyse syntheses. The most non-polar organic liquids are least likely to inactivate biocatalysts, though many do remain active with relatively polar solvents. Modification of the biocatalyst may stabilise against inactivation, especially where this is due to direct contact with the phase interface. The mass transfer processes required in these systems remain poorly understood, particularly because the interfacial area is often unknown. Attractive continuous reactors may be operated using a packed bed of catalyst with a trapped aqueous phase. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Q:
Android datepicker dialog title pillarboxed
I'm trying to style the datepicker dialog. So far I managed to change the background and button color. But as you can see in the image below, the title is sort of 'pillar-boxed'.
My datepicker dialog with the dark boxes left and right of the title:
My xml code so far (values/styles.xml)
<style name="PickerDialogTheme_dark" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Dialog">
<item name="android:background">@color/colorBackground_bgreen</item>
<item name="android:buttonBarButtonStyle">@style/ButtonColor</item>
</style>
<style name="ButtonColor">
<item name="android:background">@color/colorBackground_bgreen</item>
</style>
In java it is just a regular datepicker dialog constructor with the theme set to PickerDialogTheme_dark and I'm trying to get this to work on pre Lollipop versions.
So hope you guys know how to get rid of this pillar-boxed title. If possible without using fragments and all in xml would be favourable :)
A:
Fixed it finally after searching some more on the internet!
How my final xml code looks now:
<style name="PickerDialogTheme_dark" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Dialog">
<item name="android:gravity">center</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">@android:color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:alertDialogStyle">@style/DialogBackground_dark</item>
<item name="android:windowMinWidthMajor">@android:dimen/dialog_min_width_major</item>
<item name="android:windowMinWidthMinor">@android:dimen/dialog_min_width_minor</item>
</style>
<style name="DialogBackground_dark">
<item name="android:topDark">@color/colorAccent_bgreen</item>
<item name="android:centerDark">@color/colorAccent_bgreen</item>
<item name="android:bottomDark">@color/colorAccent_bgreen</item>
<item name="android:bottomMedium">@color/colorAccent_bgreen</item>
</style>
This is how it looks like now
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Koko Plunge T-Shirt Bra
Regular price
$59.00
Sale price
$59.00
Sale
Size
Color
A style your lingerie drawer should never be without, the Koko Plunge bra from Cleo by Panache gives incredible cleavage with its sexy plunge shape. Get amazing lift and shape under all your favorite plunging outfits with this must have solution piece. Its soft, moulded cups make sure you get a smooth finish under clothes and the J-Hook allows you to convert your straps to a racer-back style. Choose this rich Caramel shade for a versatile piece!
Moulded, padded cups
Double layer microfibre wings for extra comfort and security
J-Hook for racerback conversion, which adds support and allows straps to be hidden under racerback tops
Fully adjustable straps
Style 9176
**Please note: Cleo by Panache is a UK company and is therefore sized differently from US companies. For your convenience, we have listed the UK size, followed by the equivalent US size. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
INTRODUCTION {#s1}
============
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers in the world, and is also the third most common cause of cancer-related death in adults \[[@R1]--[@R3]\]. Although new therapeutic strategies have significantly improved survival for tumors detected at early stages, the majority of patients are still diagnosed at an advanced stage and their prognosis remains poor \[[@R4]\]. Invasion and metastasis of HCC are the main reason for its high mortality rate. Therefore, many studies have been conducted to investigate genes and gene products that drive the HCC metastatic process.
Krüppel-like factor 6 (KLF6) is a tumor suppressor gene that is functionally inactivated through a range of mechanisms in several types of cancer, including HCC \[[@R4]--[@R6]\]. KLF6 encodes a zinc finger protein that belongs to the family of Sp/KLF transcription factors that are composed of an N-terminal activation domain and 3 C2H2 zinc fingers. KLF6 is ubiquitously expressed in human tissues and regulates genes controlling cell cycle, apoptosis and differentiation \[[@R7], [@R8]\]. However, the function of KLF6 in HCC invasion and metastasis has not been investigated.
Basigin-2, also known as extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN), CD147 and HAb18G/CD147, is a 58-kDa transmembrane glycoprotein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily \[[@R9], [@R10]\]. Basigin-2 is highly expressed in many tumors, including breast cancer, lymphoma, oral squamous cell carcinoma, glioma, melanoma, lung, bladder, liver and kidney carcinomas \[[@R10]--[@R12]\]. It has been demonstrated that basigin-2 contributes significantly to tumor growth, metastasis and angiogenesis through stimulating the production of hyaluronan, multiple matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) \[[@R13]\]. Our previous studies have shown that the transcription factor Sp1 can bind to basigin-2 promoter motifs and regulate basigin-2 expression in lung and liver cancers \[[@R14], [@R15]\]. These motifs are also the cognate recognition sequences for KLF6. Regulation of target gene expression often occurs through the cooperativity of KLF6 and Sp1 through a direct physical interaction \[[@R16]\]. In this study, we determined whether KLF6 is involved in basigin-2 regulation and whether it participates in HCC progression and metastasis.
We first measured KLF6, Sp1 and basigin-2 expression levels in HCC tumor tissues compared with normal liver tissues, and HCC cell lines. We identified the role of KLF6 in Sp1 and basigin-2 expression regulation. Specifically, we identified a microcircuitry mechanism in which KLF6 can repress basigin-2 expression directly by binding to its promoter or indirectly by inhibiting the expression of transcription factor Sp1 to block gene expression. In addition, overexpression of KLF6 suppressed the invasion, metastasis and proliferation of HCC cells *in vitro* and *in vivo* by targeting basigin-2. Thus, our data suggest that KLF6 has an important role in HCC progression and that KLF6 is a potential target for HCC therapies.
RESULTS {#s2}
=======
Expression of KLF6 is down-regulated in HCC tissues and cell lines {#s2_1}
------------------------------------------------------------------
The expression levels of KLF6 were first evaluated in fifty pairs of HCC and normal tissues by immunohistochemistry. As shown in Figure [1A](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, KLF6 was localized to the nuclei of hepatic cells. Twenty-six percent (13/50) of HCC specimens were positive for KLF6 expression, which was significantly lower than the 66% (33/50) in the adjacent tissues. The expression of basigin-2 and Sp1 were also detected. Basigin-2 was predominantly localized to the cytoplasm and membrane whereas the transcription factor Sp1 was localized to the nuclei of HCC cells. The positive expression rate of basigin-2 and Sp1 was 72% (36/50) and 68% (34/50) in HCC, respectively, and 18% (9/50) and 26% (13/50) in ANTs, respectively.
{#F1}
KLF6 protein expression was negatively correlated with basigin-2 and Sp1 (r = −0.6963, R squared = 0.4848, *P* \< 0.0001 and r = − 0.6031, R squared = 0.3637, *P* \< 0.0001, respectively) (Figure [1B](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). This correlation indicates that KLF6 may negatively regulate Sp1 and basigin-2 expression. Next, we examined whether down-regulation of KLF6 is correlated with HCC patient survival. Kaplan--Meier analysis showed that higher expression of KLF6 was correlated with higher overall survival (Figure [1C](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). The survival rate of KLF6-negative patients was lower than that of KLF6-positive patients, as determined using the log-rank test (*P* = 0.015). These results confirm that down-regulation of KLF6 is associated with advanced and aggressive tumor behaviors that are relevant to tumor metastasis and survival in HCC.
We further evaluated the expression levels of KLF6, Sp1 and basigin-2 in HCC cell lines by real-time RT-PCR and western blot analysis. The results showed that the mRNA and protein expression levels of basigin-2 and Sp1 were significantly increased in all tumorigenic HCC cell lines compared with non-tumorigenic HCC cell lines and normal liver tissues and cells. By contrast, KLF6 levels were lower in all HCC cell lines compared with normal liver tissues and cells (Figure [1D](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). These data suggest that the expression of KLF6 and Sp1/basigin-2 were mutually exclusive.
KLF6 directly binds to the Sp1 and basigin-2 promoters {#s2_2}
------------------------------------------------------
To determine the role of KLF6 in Sp1 and basigin-2 transcription, we cloned the human basigin-2 core promoter fragment (nucleotides −217 to +1) \[[@R15]\] and minimal Sp1 promoter into the pGL3 luciferase vector for a luciferase activity assay. The transcriptional activity of Sp1 and basigin-2 were reduced by KLF6 overexpression. Multiple siRNAs targeting KLF6 were designed and validated ([Supplementary Figure S1](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Silencing of KLF6 by pooled siRNA promoted the transcription activity of Sp1 and basigin-2 (Figure [2A](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). These results suggest that KLF6 participates in the regulation of Sp1 and basigin-2 transcriptional activity. We also confirmed that Sp1 could bind to its own promoter and upregulate its own transcriptional activity.
{#F2}
Furthermore, we performed *in vivo* ChIP assays to investigate whether KLF6 binds to basigin-2 and Sp1 promoter regions. We detected the protein levels that were pulled down in the ChIP assay by western blotting ([Supplementary Figure S2](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). The ChIP assays revealed that endogenous KLF6 bound to basigin-2 and Sp1 promoters (Figure [2B](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). We also detected the binding of transcription factor Sp1 to the promoters of basigin-2 and Sp1. Interestingly, the binding of KLF6 in HCC cells was less than that in normal liver cells whereas the inverse was observed in case of Sp1.
To validate this notion, we mutated these binding sites individually and used them in a reporter assay. The results showed that the mutations in KLF6 binding sites in either the Sp1 promoter or basigin-2 core promoter significantly impaired the effect of KLF6 on Sp1 and basigin-2 transcription activation (Figure [2C](#F2){ref-type="fig"}), suggesting that KLF6 can bind to its special binding motifs on Sp1 and basigin-2 promoters to down-regulate their transcription. Additionally, we found that increased KLF6 clearly reduced the binding of Sp1 to the basigin-2 promoter. Increasing Sp1 got similar results ([Supplementary Figure S3](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). The Sp/KLF family member Sp1 and KLF6 can bind to the basigin-2 and Sp1 promoter and regulate basigin-2 and Sp1 transcriptional activity.
KLF6 negatively regulates Sp1 and basigin-2 expression {#s2_3}
------------------------------------------------------
To further assess the biological roles of KLF6 in Sp1 and basigin-2 expression, we applied loss- and gain-of-function approaches. We showed down-regulation and upregulation of Sp1 and basigin-2 mRNA and protein expression in HCC cells upon ectopic expression and siRNA knockdown of KLF6, respectively (Figure [3A](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). The role of KLF6 in Sp1 and basigin-2 gene transcription were further elucidated by immunofluorescence. As shown in Figure [3B](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, we detected nuclear localization (red) of KLF6 and Sp1 protein whereas basigin-2 was localized in the cytoplasm and at cell membrane (green). The expression of Sp1 and basigin-2 altered with changes in KLF6 expression, which was consistent with the results presented in Figure [3A](#F3){ref-type="fig"}. Together, these results suggest that KLF6 serves as a transcription factor that inactivates Sp1 and basigin-2 transcription and down-regulates their expression.
{#F3}
KLF6 decreases the invasive, metastatic and proliferative capacities of HCC cells *in vitro* via basigin-2 down-regulation {#s2_4}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on above results, we examined whether KLF6 can change the migration and invasion capacity of HCC cells. We transfected SMMC-7721 cells and Huh-7 cells with KLF6 expression vector or KLF6 siRNA and evaluated cell proliferation, invasion and migration. To confirm the role of KLF6 in HCC progression via its regulation on basigin-2 expression, we restored basigin-2 expression through transfecting a basigin-2 expression plasmid or siRNA to block KLF6 regulation. As expected, transfection of the KLF6 expression plasmid into SMMC-7721 cells resulted in decreased basigin-2 expression compared with the negative control (NC)-transfected cells. By contrast, si-KLF6 transfection increased basigin-2 expression in HuH-7 cells (Figure [4A](#F4){ref-type="fig"}).
{#F4}
To examine the role of KLF6 in the proliferation of HCC cells, we performed MTT cell proliferation assays in which KLF6 expression was altered in SMMC-7721 and Huh-7 cells. Our results showed that overexpression of KLF6 suppressed cell proliferation in SMMC-7721 cells and knock-down of KLF6 promoted cell proliferation in HuH-7 cells. However, restoring of basigin-2 expression blocked this effect (Figure [4B](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). Next, the wound-healing assay with SMMC-7721 and Huh-7 cells showed that overexpression of KLF6 presented a slower closing of scratch wound and knock-down of KLF6 resulted in a faster closing, compared with the negative controls (Figure [4C](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). Moreover, *in vitro* cell migration and invasion assays showed that overexpression of KLF6 inhibited migration and invasion ability of SMMC-7721 cells and knock-down of KLF6 boosted those of Huh-7 cells, compared with corresponding control (Figure [4D](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). At the same time, restoring of basigin-2 expression showed opposite effect on the invasive and metastatic capacities of HCC cells (Figures [4C and 4D](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). Our results indicate that KLF6 functions as a tumor suppressor and inhibits migration and invasion of HCC cells.
KLF6 inhibits tumor growth, invasion and metastasis potential of HCC *in vivo* {#s2_5}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We next determined whether KLF6 overexpression could suppress tumor growth and metastasis *in vivo*. Using an orthotopic HCC model in nude mice, the negative control and KLF6/basigin-2 mice showed the apparent presence of GFP fluorescence emitted from primary tumor, whereas mice with KLF6 overexpression exhibited a lower GFP fluorescence signal at the observation endpoint. By contrast, knockdown of KLF6 expression significantly increased the GFP fluorescence signal (Figure [5A and 5D](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). The growth curve based on the data of living image repeated weekly revealed that the proliferation of KLF6 overexpressed tumors was slower than that of negative control. However, knockdown of KLF6 exhibited the fastest proliferation rate. Significant differences were observed between the fluorescence signals in KLF6 overexpressed mice and those in negative controls at days 28 and 35, and between the fluorescence signals in KLF6 knock-down mice and those in negative controls at days 21, 28 and 35 (*P* \< 0.05; Figure [5E](#F5){ref-type="fig"}), suggesting that KLF6 exerted significant tumor growth suppression *in vivo*. All the mice were sacrificed after the last imaging, the tumors were excised and tumor volumes were measured. The KLF6 overexpressed mice had the smallest tumors, which were almost single tumors with no obvious live metastasis, whereas KLF6 knock-down mice presented the biggest tumors with multiple metastasis in liver (Figure [5B and 5F](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). We also compared tumor metastasis to important organs in these groups and were surprised to find that KLF6 overexpression resulted in obvious inhibition of distant metastasis to lung, omentum and mesenterium around stomach and small intestine (Figure [5C and 5G](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). Similarly, restoring of basigin-2 expression showed opposite effect on the growth, invasion and metastasis of HCC tumors compared with KLF overexpression mice (Figure [5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). These findings suggest that KLF6 significantly inhibits proliferation, invasion and metastasis in HCC *in vivo* by down-regulating basigin-2.
{#F5}
Interaction of KLF6 and Sp1 regulates basigin-2 expression {#s2_6}
----------------------------------------------------------
Our previous studies validated that the transcription factor Sp1 could bind to the basigin-2 promoter motifs and regulate basigin-2 expression in HCC \[[@R14]\]. Our above results suggested that endogenous Sp1 is positively involved in basigin-2 promoter activity, whereas KLF6 functions in an opposite manner. KLF6 and Sp1 have antagonizing effects on the basigin-2 promoter activity. In addition, our results showed that Sp1 could activate its own transcription activity indicating that the Sp1 gene is autoregulated \[[@R17], [@R18]\]. Therefore, KLF6 down-regulates Sp1 expression through augmenting the negative regulation of KLF6 and attenuating positive autoregulation by Sp1. Altogether, we have identified a microcircuitry mechanism in which KLF6 can repress basigin-2 expression directly by binding to its promoter or indirectly by inhibiting the expression of the transcription factor Sp1 to block gene expression. The interaction of KLF6 and Sp1 regulates basigin-2 expression and is involved in processes such as cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis that are mediated by basigin-2 and its downstream genes in HCC. A summary diagram that outlines the above-described regulatory network is shown in Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}.
{#F6}
DISCUSSION {#s3}
==========
In our study, we found that the expression of KLF6 was downregulated in HCC tissues and cell lines, whereas Sp1 and basigin-2 were upregulated. Kaplan--Meier analysis showed that higher expression of KLF6 was related to increased overall survival. The survival rate of KLF6-negative patients was lower than that of KLF6-positive patients. We found that KLF6 could directly bind to the Sp1 and basigin-2 promoters and inhibited their expression. Therefore, we identified a microcircuitry mechanism in which KLF6 could repress basigin-2 expression directly by binding to its promoter or indirectly by inhibiting the expression of transcription factor Sp1 to block gene expression. In addition, overexpression of KLF6 suppressed the invasion, metastasis and proliferation of HCC cells *in vitro* and *in vivo* by targeting basigin-2 both. Our study provides the first evidence that the interaction of KLF6 and Sp1 regulates basigin-2 expression in HCC and that KLF6 represses invasive and metastatic capacities through basigin-2 in HCC.
Invasion and metastasis, two of the most important hallmarks of malignant tumors, are the prominent fatal factors in human cancers \[[@R19]\]. Therefore, many studies have been conducted to investigate genes and gene products that drive the metastatic process. Previous studies have observed the loss of KLF4 staining in primary HCC, particularly the metastasis specimens. Reduced KLF4 expression was significantly correlated with advanced tumor biology and poor patient survival \[[@R20]\]. Because KLF6 and KLF4 bind to similar DNA sequences, we investigated the role of KLF6 in the HCC. KLF6 plays a crucial role in tumor suppression by modulating the expression of a broad range of genes governing biological functions associated with cell growth, differentiation, adhesion and endothelial motility \[[@R21]\]. Our work showed that KLF6 was more significantly down-regulated in HCC specimens than in the adjacent tissues and that this down-regulation correlated with the survival rate of HCC patients, indicating that KLF6 may serve as a new prognostic biomarker in HCC.
The inactivation of KLF6 by loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and/or mutation occurs in many types of tumors \[[@R5], [@R22]\]. Promoter hypermethylation has been reported to participate in the inactivation too \[[@R23]\]. Recently, a unique mechanism of KLF6 inactivation has been identified wherein alternatively spliced isoforms of KLF6 are generated that antagonize the tumor suppressive functions of the full-length, wtKLF6 protein \[[@R24], [@R25]\]. Three alternative splice variants of KLF6 termed SV1, SV2, and SV3 have been identified. An increased SV1/KLF6 mRNA ratio has been observed in HCC samples, which antagonizes wtKLF6 function \[[@R4]\]. The SV2 variant is down-regulated in HCC and displays anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic functions \[[@R26]\]. Our work has validated the expression of all variants by variant-specific PCR. However, the expression levels of all alternative splice variants were fairly low in HCC cells and tissues. So we focused on the roles of wild type KLF6 protein in HCC.
Our previous work showed that basigin-2 was more strongly upregulated in HCC specimens than in the adjacent tissues and that this overexpression correlated with tumor metastasis and advanced histologic grades \[[@R11], [@R27], [@R28]\]. The transcription factor Sp1 can bind to the basigin-2 promoter motifs and regulate basigin-2 expression. Sp1 is usually recognized as a transcriptional activator of various genes involved in almost all cellular processes in mammalian cells \[[@R29]\]. Sp1 also participates in cancer development and progression \[[@R30], [@R31]\]. The current study provides a novel mechanism for the regulation of basigin-2 expression. Endogenous Sp1 is positively involved in basigin-2 promoter activity, whereas KLF6 has an opposite function. KLF6 and Sp1 have antagonizing effects on the basigin-2 promoter activity. Altogether, we have identified a microcircuitry mechanism in which KLF6 could repress basigin-2 expression directly by binding to its promoter or indirectly by inhibiting the expression of transcription factor Sp1 to block gene expression. Physiologically, the balance between Sp1 and KLF6 expression may play a critical role in the homeostasis of liver. However, during HCC development and progression, alteration of KLF6 expression that changes Sp1 expression may finally lead to aberrant basigin-2 expression. This mechanism may not be limited to HCC but rather a common mechanism in the progression of other cancers, because Sp1 overexpression and KLF6 down-regulation have also been reported in many cancers \[[@R32], [@R33]\].
Because of the central role of KLF6 in the mechanisms of basigin-2 regulation, we investigated its role in HCC progression. Gain-of-function assays were performed to assess the effects of KLF6 on HCC invasion and metastasis. The results showed that overexpression of KLF6 inhibited basigin-2 expression as well as cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis *in vitro*. Overexpression of KLF6 significantly suppressed tumor growth and metastasis in a mouse model of HCC metastasis, indicating the therapeutic potential of KLF6 in HCC metastasis. The identification of KLF6 as an important regulator of HCC cell migration and invasion emphasizes an essential role of this tumor suppressor gene in mediating HCC oncogenesis and tumor behavior \[[@R34]\].
In conclusion, KLF6 is down-regulated in HCC and inhibits cell migration and invasion of HCC cells *in vitro* and *in vivo*. Interaction of KLF6 and Sp1 plays an important role in basigin-2 transcription regulation. This newly identified KLF6/basigin-2 link provides a new, potential therapeutic target to treat HCC.
MATERIALS AND METHODS {#s4}
=====================
Tissue specimens and immunohistochemical analysis {#s4_1}
-------------------------------------------------
Fifty paired tissue specimens of HCC and matched adjacent normal tissues (ANTs) were collected from Tangdu Hospital of Fourth Military Medical University (Xi\'an, China) from 2011 to 2012 and were histologically confirmed by staining with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E). Three fresh normal liver tissues (NT) were also collected as normal controls. All individuals provided written informed consent, and the study was approved by the hospital\'s Ethics Committee.
Immunohistochemistry was performed using Histostain-SP kits (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer\'s instructions. Antibodies were purchased from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, CA, USA). Immunopositivity was independently evaluated by two pathologists. Expression of protein was evaluated as described previously \[[@R15], [@R35]\].
Cell lines and culture conditions {#s4_2}
---------------------------------
The following cell lines were used in this study: human normal liver cell QZG \[[@R36]\] and QSG-7701 \[[@R37]\]; human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines: HepG2, Huh-7, SMMC-7721, BEL-7402 and HCC-9724 \[[@R38]\]. All cell lines were purchased from the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences (Shanghai, China). All cell lines were routinely cultured using standard protocols. Cell line authentication was assessed using short tandem repeat (STR) DNA profiling method every year in our laboratory and the latest verification was done in March 2013.
Real-time quantitative RT-PCR {#s4_3}
-----------------------------
Real-time quantitative RT-PCR was performed as described previously \[[@R14]\]. Expression data were uniformly normalized to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) as an internal control, and the relative expression levels were evaluated using the ΔΔCt method \[[@R12], [@R39]\]. Primers were used as described previously \[[@R12], [@R40], [@R41]\]. The oligonucleotide sequences of PCR primers are listed in [Supplementary Table S1](#SD2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}.
Western blot analysis {#s4_4}
---------------------
Cell samples were lysed with RIPA buffer (Beyotime, China). Equal amounts (10 μg) of total protein were loaded, and then subsequently immunoblotted with the primary antibodies, including anti-basigin-2, Sp1, KLF6 and tubulin monoclonal antibodies (Santa Cruz, CA, USA). Proteins were detected using the Amersham enhanced chemiluminescence system (Pierce, Rockford, IL, USA) according to the manufacturer\'s instructions.
Vector construction, siRNA, and luciferase reporter assay {#s4_5}
---------------------------------------------------------
The core promoter of the basigin-2 gene (−217 to +1, relative to the transcription start site of the basigin-2 gene) was constructed as previously described \[[@R15], [@R40]\]. The minimal promoter of Sp1 (−281 to -20, relative to the transcription start site of Sp1 gene) was amplified and cloned into the pGL3 plasmid as previously described \[[@R17]\]. To generate the site-directed mutants of KLF6 binding element of basigin-2 or Sp1 promoter, a QuickChange mutagenesis kit (Stratagene, La Jolla, CA, USA) was used as described previously \[[@R18], [@R40]\]. The coding sequences of Sp1 and KLF6 were amplified from the cDNA template of SMMC-7721 cells and cloned into pcDNA3.1 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA). Pooled multiple siRNAs targeting KLF6 (pooling si-KLF6-374, si-KLF6-554 and si-KLF6-682 in equal proportion), Sp1 and basigin-2 \[[@R42]\] were synthesized by Genepharma (Shanghai, China). All constructs were further confirmed by sequencing. All the oligonucleotide sequences of PCR primers and siRNA fragments are listed in [Supplementary Table S1](#SD2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. Cell transfection and dual luciferase reporter assay were performed as described previously \[[@R40]\].
Immunofluorescence {#s4_6}
------------------
Cells were seeded in 4-well 35-mm dishes (Greiner Bio-One North America Inc., Monroe, NC, USA) at a density of 1,000 cells/well and grown for 48 h in culture medium. Then cells were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde for 20 min and permeabilized in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) supplemented with 0.5% Triton X-100. After blocking, cells were incubated with the indicated antibodies for 2 h. Cells were washed in PBS, incubated with their corresponding FITC-labeled secondary antibodies (Pierce) for 1 h at room temperature and stained with DAPI (Vector Labs, Burlingame, CA, USA). Finally, the cells were mounted using glycerol and observed using a Nikon A1 laser scanning confocal microscope (Japan).
Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) {#s4_7}
------------------------------------
ChIP assays were performed using a EZ ChIP Assay Kit (Millipore Corporation, Billerica, MA, USA). DNA was quantified using RT-PCR. The antibodies used were: anti-KLF6, anti-Sp1 or IgG antibodies (Santa Cruz, CA, USA). The ChIP assay was performed as described previously \[[@R40]\]. Oligonucleotide sequences of PCR primers were listed in [Supplementary Table S1](#SD2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}.
Cell proliferation assay {#s4_8}
------------------------
Cells were plated in sextuplicate in 96-well plates (2 × 10^3^ per well) in 100 μL complete medium and allowed to adhere overnight. 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) (20 μL at 5 mg/mL; Sigma, St. Louis, MO, USA) was added every 24 h and incubated for 4 h. The supernatant was discarded, the precipitate was dissolved in 200 μL dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and plates were read with a microplate reader at 570 nm \[[@R43]\].
*In vitro* invasion assay and migration assay {#s4_9}
---------------------------------------------
*In vitro* invasion assays were performed as previously described \[[@R12]\] with MilliCell chambers (Millipore). The migration assays were performed in the same way as the invasion assay, except that no Matrigel was used and the cell permeating time was 12 hours.
Wound-healing assay {#s4_10}
-------------------
The wound-healing assay was used to evaluate tumor cell motility capacity. Briefly, 1 × 10^6^ cells were seeded in six-well plates, cultured overnight, and transfected with KLF6 or controls. When the culture reached nearly 90% confluency, the cell layer was scratched with a sterile plastic tip and then washed with culture medium twice and cultured again for up to 24 with serum-reduced medium containing 1% FBS. At different time points, photographic images of the plates were acquired under a microscope and the data were summarized based on sextuple assays for each experiment.
Orthotopic HCC model, *in vivo* fluorescence imaging, and animal studies {#s4_11}
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Female BALB/c nu/nu mice at 4 to 6 weeks of age were provided by the Laboratory Animal Research Center of FMMU, and the animal study was reviewed and approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee. The SMMC-7721 cell stably expressing GFP was prepared previously and used as negative control (NC). Then, the cells were respectively stably transfected with KLF6/pcDNA3.1, KLF6/pcDNA3.1 rescued with basigin-2/pcDNA3.1 and KLF6 shRNA vector, and resuspended in 100 μl Matrigel and injected subcutaneously into the right flanks of nude mice \[[@R12]\]. When tumors reached a size of ∼1 cm^3^, the mice were sacrificed. The tumors were resected, cut into 1-mm^3^ sections under aseptic conditions, and then implanted under the liver capsules of the left hepatic lobes of nude mice. The health states and body weights of mice were observed every other day.
The animals were imaged weekly for 35 days using a Carestream MS FX Pro i*n vivo* imaging system (Carestream Health, Cheektowaga, NY, USA). For *in vivo* fluorescence imaging, mice were anesthetized with isoflurane, and a whole-body \[image was acquired for 20 s with an excitation filter at 480 nm and an emission filter at 535 nm. Another image with an excitation filter at 430 nm was acquired for elimination of the nonspecific fluorescent background from skin and muscle. The region of interest (ROI) was drawn over the liver area and quantified using Carestream MI image analysis software. Fluorescence signals were normalized to photons per second per millimeter squared (photons/sec/mm^2^).
After the last imaging, mice were sacrificed, and livers were excised. Tumor volume was determined using direct measurement and calculated using the formula length × width^2^/2. Other organs (lung, stomach, spleen, kidney, and intestines) were examined for metastases.
Statistical analysis {#s4_12}
--------------------
All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS statistical software package (version 16.0, Chicago, IL). Each *in vitro* quantitative test was independently replicated, and all data are presented as mean ± SEM. One-way ANOVA or Student\'s *t* test was used to compare the expression levels, luciferase activities, migrated or invased cell numbers, fluorescence signals, tumor volumes, and grayscale values of immunohistochemistry staining among the different groups. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze the repeated measured data in proliferation assays. Follow-up time was limited to 1 year. Survival rates were compared by Kaplan--Meier test and log-rank test. The Spearman\'s rank correlation coefficient was used as a statistical measure of association. All the statistical tests were two sided, and *P* \< 0.05 was considered with statistical significance.
SUPPLEMENTARY FIGURES AND TABLES {#s5}
================================
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81101568, 81101614 and 81171995), Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M542504) and Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi (2013JQ4039).
**CONFLICTS OF INTEREST**
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Central |
Q:
Difference in syntax and time complexity for C# for loop
I am trying to figure out what the difference between the following for loops is.
The first is code that I wrote while practicing algorithms on codewars.com. It times out when attempting the larger test cases.
The second is one of the top solutions. It seems functionally similar (obviously its more concise) but runs much faster and does not time out. Can anyone explain to me what the difference is? Also, the return statement in the second snippet is confusing to me. What exactly does this syntax mean? Maybe this is where it is more efficient.
public static long findNb(long m)
{
int sum = 0;
int x = new int();
for (int n = 0; sum < m; n++)
{
sum += n*n*n;
x = n;
System.Console.WriteLine(x);
}
if (sum == m)
{
return x;
}
return -1;
}
vs
public static long findNb(long m) //seems similar but doesnt time out
{
long total = 1, i = 2;
for(; total < m; i++) total += i * i * i;
return total == m ? i - 1 : -1;
}
A:
The second approach uses long for the total value. Chances are that you're using an m value that's high enough to exceed the number of values representable by int. So your math overflows and the n value becomes a negative number. You get caught in an infinite loop, where n can never get as big as m.
And, like everyone else says, get rid of the WriteLine.
Also, the return statement in the second snippet is confusing to me. What exactly does this syntax mean?
It's a ternary conditional operator.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
MEXICO CITY—A day after 44 inmates died in Mexico's worst prison riot, authorities said they believed the massacre was a cover for the escape of 30 drug-gang members.
Nuevo León Gov. Rodrigo Medina said that 30 inmates, all members of the Zetas drug cartel, used the massacre on Sunday as cover for an escape from Apodaca state prison, a few miles from the state capital of Monterrey.
"Without a doubt there was premeditation," said Mr. Medina, speaking at a news conference. "This was planned."
Mr. Medina said all the dead prisoners were members of the rival Gulf Cartel. The Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have been warring for two years for control of drug routes and lucrative drug markets, especially in the northeastern Mexican states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
Mr. Medina said prison personnel appeared to have been involved in the massacre and escapes. He said four top prison officials had been fired from their jobs, as had 18 guards on duty at the time of the incident. All were being investigated for complicity, he said. As police and soldiers combed the state searching for the escaped prisoners, Mr. Medina said the state was offering a reward of about $800,000 for information leading to their capture. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Preterm infants born to women who had an elevated prepregnancy body mass index appear to be at increased risk of germinal matrix hemorrhage.
In a sample of 449 infants of birthweight ≤ 1.5 kg, the risk of germinal matrix hemorrhage increased monotonically with increases in maternal body mass index (BMI, wt/ht2 ). This relationship was repeated in many strata of the sample, including those defined by the occurrence of labor, maternal preeclampsia, route of delivery, intubation of the baby and acidosis, as well as strata defined by birthweight and gestational age. Even though the dose-response relationship is prominent, caution is advised in drawing inferences from these findings until confirmation is provided that preterm infants born to mothers of high BMI are at increased risk of germinal matrix hemorrhage. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Q:
wordpress add field to post_class
I need to add a custom field to my article post but not sure how to add an additional class to it.
Currently the classes get pulled through like this <?php post_class($classes); ?>.
However I need to add a custom field to this as well. To demonstrate ive added a class= but this doesnt work as class= is being added twice.
<?php post_class($classes); ?> class="<?php the_field( "size" ); ?>
So i need post_class and the_field to work together.
A:
I would first store your field value in a variable after your loop just before the posts HTML tags start:
<?php
$size = the_field( "size" );
?>
And then add this variable to the post class function:
<?php post_class($size); ?>
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Q:
joins across multiple sqlite db files
hey guys android has some serious limitations with file system space on certain devices and my app starts giving me errors once my sqlite db file size grows beyond 5mb and i try to run the vaccum command
i am thinking to separate my data across multiple sqlite files to break them into smaller db files so that i can simply delete the appropriate sqlite file when its data becomes obselete
that way my main sqlite file never grows too big and i dont ever need to eat up space when doing vaccum
however i wanted to know if there is a way to make inner joins work across multiple sqlite files (such that the primary data is there in my main sqlite file) and secondary data split across different sqlite files
if this isnt possible in sqlite then i guess i will have to recode stuff to work with gzipped xml files :-(
A:
Use ATTACH DATABASE to query more than one database in your SQL:
http://www.sqlite.org/lang_attach.html
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
love Anatomy of a Play. one of my favorites is the 4th and 6 against steelers in 08 where eli tried to call a timeout with clock winding down but couldn't cause they called one previously.
this worked out because every potential receiver that ran a route could all catch the ball. imagine if one piece was missing. no ballard but pascoe and nothing against pascoe but he probably wouldn't have drawn three defenders but eli probably would've thrown it to him instead of mario. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
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Based on model year EPA mileage ratings. Use for comparison purposes only. Your actual mileage will vary, depending on how you drive and maintain your vehicle, driving conditions, battery pack age/condition (hybrid models only) and other factors.
Disclaimer:
New vehicle pricing includes all offers and incentives. Tax, Title, and Tags not included in vehicle prices shown and must be paid by the purchaser. While great effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, errors do occur so please verify information with a customer service rep. This is easily done by calling us at (856) 380-5190 or by visiting us at the dealership.
**With approved credit. Terms may vary. Monthly payments are only estimates derived from the vehicle price with a 72 month term, 5.9% interest and 20% downpayment.
*Prices shown include a destination & handling charge but do not include taxes or license. Destination charges for ILX, TLX and RLX is $965.00, NSX is $1800.00 and MDX and RDX is $995.00. Actual vehicles/accessory costs, labor and installation vary. Please consult your selected dealer.
Payment Details
New vehicle pricing includes all offers and incentives. Tax, Title, and Tags not included in vehicle prices shown and must be paid by the purchaser. While great effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, errors do occur so please verify information with a customer service rep. This is easily done by calling us at (856) 380-5190 or by visiting us at the dealership.
**With approved credit. Terms may vary. Monthly payments are only estimates derived from the vehicle price with a 72 month term, 5.9% interest and 20% downpayment.
*Prices shown include a destination & handling charge but do not include taxes or license. Destination charges for ILX, TLX and RLX is $965.00, NSX is $1800.00 and MDX and RDX is $995.00. Actual vehicles/accessory costs, labor and installation vary. Please consult your selected dealer. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Voluntary evacuation alert issued for Clear Prairie
CLEAR PRAIRIE, A.B. – The Siphon Creek fire has caused the Alberta Government to issue a voluntary evacuation alert for part of Clear Hills County.
Due to the forecast for high winds Saturday night, the Province issued a voluntary evacuation alert for the Clear Prairie area west of Range Road 100. The evacuation preparedness alert remains in effect for other areas north of Highway 64 and west of secondary Highway 726.
If you evacuate contact 780-835 8097 by text or phone.
If you require lodging contact the same number 780-835-8097.
Any persons having trouble breathing due to smoke should seek immediate medical assistance.
At last report the Siphon Creek Fire was 24,000 hectares and moving to the east into Alberta. We hope to receive a further update on the fire Saturday night. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
One Ass to Rule Them all (shoot me with lightning cause its gotta be a dream)
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Explore similar videos | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Iran’s foreign ministry has issued a statement on the US administration’s extension of waivers of Iran nuclear sanctions and imposition of a series of new sanctions on certain Iranian companies and individuals.
Here is the full text of the statement released on Saturday:
In the Name of God,
On Friday, January 12, 2018, the president of the United States, in spite of his one-year efforts to terminate the nuclear deal, was once again forced to extend the bindingsanctions relief for Iran called for under the JCPOA. The solidity of the deal and the international support for this agreement have made it tough for Donald Trump, the Zionist regime, and the sinister alliance of belligerent extremists to nullify the agreement or make changes to it.
However, the US president continues to take hostile actions against the Iranian people based on his past-year approach and repeats the threats that he has failed to carry out many times. WhileTrump is forced to carry out the binding measures included in the JCPOA, he is continuing his past years approach,andin order to show his hostility towards the great Iranian nation,he has put some Iranian and non-Iranian individuals on the sanctions list out of desperation under illegal, worn-out, and ridiculous pretexts so as tomake up for at least part of his failures.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, while condemning US threats and the addition of new people to the sanctions list, underlines the following points:
1. The Islamic Republic of Iran, together with other parties to the JCPOA and the international community, has repeatedly emphasized that the nuclear deal is a credible international document and cannot be renegotiated in any way.
2. The Islamic Republic of Iran explicitly stresses that it will not carry out anything beyond its obligations in the JCPOA, and will not accept any changes in thisagreement now or in the future. Moreover, it will not allow that the nuclear accord would be linked to any other matter.
3. The US government, like other parties to the deal, is obliged to fulfil all its obligations, and if it fails to comply with its obligations under false pretexts, it should be fully held accountable for the consequences.
4. Over the course of two years after the signing of the deal, the US government has always been violating various parts of the agreement by breaking its pledgesand through procrastination and hostile policies. Trumps past-year policy andFriday’s announcement violatesthe deal’s paragraphs 26, 28, and 29, and the Islamic Republic of Iran will follow up this blatantviolation and report it to the JCPOA Joint Commission.
5. The decision of the US regime to add a number of Iranian and non-Iranian nationals to its self-createdand illegitimate sanctions list is merely a proof of the continuation of US administration’s hostility towards the great nation of Iran.
6. The hostile and illegal move by the Trump regime in placing the name of Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah SadeqAmoliLarijani in the so-called new US sanctions list shows that Washington has crossed all the red lines of conduct in the international community. It is a violation of international law and a breach of bilateral and international obligations of the United States, which will surely face the strongreaction of the Islamic Republic, and the US will be responsible for all the consequences of this hostile move.
7. Referring to the lofty concept of human rights to boycott Iranian authorities and citizens by a regime, whose most important allies are the worst violators of human rights and humanitarian law in the contemporary history, is a disgrace to civilized nations and a shame for modern rule, especially when they are imposed by a person obsessed with racist and anti-foreigner mentality whose recent indecent racist remarks against various nations has stirred hatred inthe international community and among the American people; a person who has sold billions of dollars in weapons to massacre innocent people in the Middle East and considers provocation of violence and chaos as hishonour.
8. Over the past decades, the US has always had the worlds worst record in suppressing liberal nations and supporting repressive regimes, including unconditional support for the oppressive regime of Shah and the coup against the democratically-elected government of the Iranian people. It is also supporting the occupying, aggressive and repressive regimes, such as the Zionist regime and its regional allies, from the occupied Palestinian territories to Bahrain and Yemen. On the one hand, Washington sheds crocodile tears and claims to beadvocating the human rights of the Iranian people using empty slogans and false allegations and, on the other hand, by imposing cruel sanctions, banning the entry of Iranian citizens into that country and other insulting behaviours, calls the civilized Iranian nation “terrorists”.
9. Imposing illegal sanctions and the hostile statements and moves of the US government against the Iranian authorities and the Iranian nation, which are rooted in the despotic and hegemonic nature of American rulers, have always been considered a failed and discredited policy for public opinion and the vigilant people of Iran and the world. Such actions are due to the countrys frustration with the vigilance of the Iranian nation in confrontation with the interventionist measures designed to create turmoil and crisis in the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past decades, and especially during the recent events.
10. The United States must learn that all the three powerful branches of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Establishment, which enjoy the support of the great nation of Iran, unanimously do not pay attention tothese kinds of double standards and hostile policies against their country, and will respond appropriately to such hostile US actions in due time. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circle drawing method for drawing a circle at high speed by a personal computer or the like on an output device such as a display, a printing device or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has been proposed a method for graphically outputting a circle by a personal computer or the like (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 4-52776). In the method disclosed in the above-identified publication, a one-eighth fraction of a circle is drawn by a minimum axial distance method. In the minimum axial distance method, a function expressed by the following equation (1) is defined with respect to a known or determined point P.sub.i-1 (X.sub.i-1, Y.sub.i-1) on the circle. EQU f(Z.sub.i)=R.sup.2 {(X.sub.i-1 1/2).sup.2 +(Y.sub.i-1 +1).sup.2 } (1) EQU .DELTA.Y.sub.i-1 =2Y.sub.i-1 +1 (2) EQU .DELTA.X.sub.i-1 =2X.sub.i-1 +1 (3)
Then, depending upon the sign of the function f(Z.sub.i), coordinates of points to be plotted are determined for progressing drawing of a circle. For example, when, assuming a coordinate of a start point of drawing of a circle is (R, 0), a one-eighth fraction of the circle to the intersection with a straight line Y=X is to be drawn with increase of the Y coordinate, if the function f(Z.sub.i) is positive, the X coordinate is not reduced, and if the function f(Z.sub.i) is not positive, the X coordinate is reduced. When f(Z.sub.i)>0 is established, the following equations (4) to (6) are established, and when f(Z.sub.i).ltoreq.0 is established, the following equations (7) to (9) are established. EQU f(Z.sub.i+1)=f(Z.sub.i)-.DELTA.Y.sub.i-1 (4) EQU .DELTA.Y.sub.i =.DELTA.Y.sub.i-1 +2 (5) EQU .DELTA.X.sub.i =.DELTA..sub.i-1 (6) EQU f(Z.sub.i+1)=f(Z.sub.i)-.DELTA.Y.sub.i+1 .DELTA.X.sub.i-1 (7) EQU .DELTA.Y.sub.i =.DELTA.Y.sub.i-1 +2 (8) EQU .DELTA.X.sub.i =.DELTA.X.sub.i-1 -2 (9)
Next, discussion will be given for the circle drawing method disclosed in the above-identified publication with reference to the drawings. FIGS. 1A to 1C are flowcharts illustrating a circle drawing method disclosed in the foregoing Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 4-52776. First, as shown in FIG. 1A, a coordinate of the center and a radius R of a circle to be drawn are input (step 101). Then, the input coordinate of the center is stored in a center coordinate storage means (step 102). Then, P.sub.1 (R, 0) as a drawing start point is determined. At this time, f(Z.sub.2)=R-5/4 is established. However, in order to avoid operation of fraction, the foregoing equations (1) to (9) are used as multiplied by four, in practice. Then, the drawing start point P.sub.1 (R, 0) is stored in a first storage means, and f(Z.sub.2)=4R-5 is stored in a f(Z.sub.i) value storage means. Furthermore, .DELTA.Y.sub.1 =4 is stored in a .DELTA.Y.sub.1. value storage means, and .DELTA.X.sub.1 =8R+4 is stored in a X.sub.i value storage means (step 103).
Next, the coordinate (R, 0) stored in the first storage means is transferred to a (Y=X) axis symmetric coordinate generating means (step 104). Then, a coordinate (0, R) symmetric to the coordinate (R, 0) with respect to the (Y=X) axis is derived. The coordinate (0, R) thus derived is stored in a second storage means (step 105). Next, the coordinate (R, 0) stored in the first storage means is transferred to an X-axis symmetric coordinate generating means (step 106). Then, a coordinate (R, 0) symmetric to the coordinate (R, 0) with respect to the X-axis is derived. The coordinate (R, 0) thus derived is stored in a third storage means (step 107). Furthermore, the coordinate (0, R) stored in the second storage means is transferred to the X-axis symmetric coordinate generating means (step 108). Then, a coordinate (0, -R) symmetric to the coordinate (0, R) with respect to the X-axis is derived. This coordinate (0, -R) is stored in a fourth storage means (step 109).
Next, the coordinate (R, 0) stored in the first storage means is transferred to a Y-axis symmetric coordinate generating means (step 110). Then, the coordinate (-R, 0) symmetric to the coordinate (R, 0) with respect to the Y-axis is derived. This coordinate (-R, 0) is stored in a fifth storage means (step 111). Then, as shown in FIG. 1B, the coordinate (0, R) stored in the second storage means is transferred to the Y-axis symmetric coordinate generating means (step 112). Then, the coordinate (0, R) symmetric to the coordinate (0, R) with respect to the Y-axis is derived. This coordinate (0, R) is stored in a sixth storage means (step 113). Furthermore, the coordinate (R, 0) stored in the third storage means is transferred to the Y-axis symmetric generating means (step 114). Then, the coordinate (-R, 0) symmetric to the coordinate (R, 0) with respect to the Y-axis is derived. The coordinate (-R, 0) thus derived is stored in a seventh storage means (step 115). Next, the coordinate (0, -R) stored in the fourth storage means is transferred to the Y-axis symmetric coordinate generating means (step 116). Then, the coordinate (0, -R) symmetric to the coordinate (0, -R) with respect to the Y-axis is derived. This coordinate (0, -R) is stored in an eighth storage means (step 117). These coordinates stored in the first to eighth storage means are plotted in a memory via a dot plotting means (step 118).
Next, as shown in FIG. 1C, the sign of f(Z.sub.2) is checked (step 119). If the sing of f(Z.sub.2) is positive, P.sub.2 (X.sub.1, Y.sub.1 +1)=(R, 1) is stored in the first storage means as the next coordinate (step 120). Then, f(Z.sub.3) for the next coordinate is calculated (step 121). Next, f(Z.sub.3) is stored in the (Z.sub.i) value storage means (step 122). Also, .DELTA.Y.sub.2 is calculated and stored in the .DELTA.Y.sub.i value storage means (step 123). Then, .DELTA.X.sub.2 is calculated and stored in the .DELTA.X.sub.i value storage means (step 124). Next, X.sub.i value and Y.sub.i value are compared for checking whether drawing of the one-eighth fraction of the circle is completed or not in the next coordinate. If not X.sub.i>Y.sub.i, the operation is terminated as completed. If X.sub.i >Y.sub.i, the process returned to the step 104 in FIG. 1A (step 130).
On the other hand, if f(Z.sub.2) is not positive as checked at the step 119, P.sub.2 (X.sub.1 -1, Y.sub.1 +1)=(R-1, 1) is stored in the first storage means (step 125). Then, the processes up to the comparison of X.sub.i value and Y.sub.i value are performed similarly to the case where the f(Z.sub.2) is positive (steps 126 to 130).
Next, discussion will be given for a method for deriving coordinate values to be stored in the first storage means until the one-eighth fraction of the circle is drawn. FIGS. 2A to 2G are diagrammatic illustrations showing points stored in the first storage means in sequential order. First, as shown in FIG. 2A, a point 201 has been determined as the drawing start point (R, 0). Then, as shown in FIG. 2B, the coordinate of the next point 202 is determined in response to the sign of f(Z.sub.2). In this case, since the sign of f(Z.sub.2) is positive, the Y coordinate is increased by one from the point 201 and the X coordinate is held unchanged. Next, f(Z.sub.3) is derived from f(Z.sub.2), .DELTA.X.sub.1 and .DELTA.Y.sub.1. The coordinate of the next point 203 is determined in response to the sign of f(Z.sub.3). In this case, as shown in FIG. 2C, since the sign of f(Z.sub.3) is positive, the Y coordinate is increased by one from the point 202, and the X coordinate is held unchanged. Furthermore, f(Z.sub.4) is derived from f(Z.sub.3), .DELTA.X.sub.2 and .DELTA.Y.sub.2, and the coordinate of the next point 204 is determined in response to the sign of f(Z.sub.4). In this case, as shown in FIG. 2D, since the sign of f(Z.sub.4) is not positive, the Y coordinate is increased by one and the X coordinate is decreased by one from the point 203.
Similarly, f(Z.sub.5) is derived. Depending upon the sign of f(Z.sub.5), the coordinate of the next point 205 is determined. In this case, as shown in FIG. 2E, since the sign of f(Z.sub.5) is positive, the Y coordinate is increased by one from the point 204, and the X coordinate is held unchanged. Then, f(Z.sub.6) is derived, and the coordinate of the next point 6 is determined in response to the sign of f(Z.sub.6). In this case, as shown in FIG. 2F, since the sign of f(Z.sub.6) is not positive, the Y coordinate is increased by one and the X coordinate is decreased by one from the point 205. Furthermore, f(Z.sub.7) is derived, and the coordinate of the next point 7 is determined in response to the sign of f(Z.sub.7). In this case, as shown in FIG. 2G, since the sign of f (Z.sub.7) is not positive, the Y coordinate is increased by one and the X coordinate is decreased by one from the point 206. Then, since X=Y is established at the coordinate of the point 7, calculation of the coordinates of the one-eighth fraction of the circle is completed. It should be noted that, while not illustrated, points symmetric to respective points 201 to 207 with respect to the (Y=X) axis, the X-axis and/or the Y-axis are derived sequentially.
By the circle drawing method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 4-52776, a full circle is drawn by calculating a one-eighth fraction by the minimum axial direction method. Therefore, a circle can be drawn at high speed.
However, in the foregoing conventional circle drawing method, all of f(Z.sub.i), .DELTA.X.sub.i and .DELTA.Y.sub.i have to be calculated for calculating each coordinate point. When a radius of a circle to be drawn becomes large, a circumferential length becomes long to increase number of points to be calculated. Therefore, when large amount of calculation has to be performed for deriving each coordinate point as the foregoing conventional method, number of process steps increases significantly according to increasing of radius. Thus, process period becomes significantly long. On the other hand, since respective points calculated are stored in respective of the first to eighth storage means at every occasion, memory region for these points is necessary. Thus, large memory region used for drawing a circle becomes required. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | USPTO Backgrounds |
Hunting of Birds with a Hawk and a Bow
Hunting of Birds with a Hawk and a Bow is a 16th century tapestry in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Woven from dyed wool and silk thread, the tapestry is part of a larger series of hunting tapestries attributed to the Southern Netherlands.
References
Category:Tapestries
Category:Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Category:16th century in art | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |