Stein-inspired

In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the morning there is meaning. In the meaning anything is anything, in the meaning there is everything, in the meaning there is nothing. In every space an absence of less, in every space a hint of more. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is sleeping soundly, in feeling anything is rising from its bed, in feeling there is dulled and heightened sensations, in feeling there is tension, in feeling there is knowledge, stiffening or loosening neck, back, and shoulders. In meaning and in feeling a clean dream is danced.

Picture Credit: Equestrian Fantasy with Pink Lady, 1913, Alice Bailly (source: WikiArt).

See Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein.

Written December 2022.

The Dance Begins

A lyrical dance, a fluid turn. A careless reader caught in flowing prose. Eyes racing on, mind giddy with words. Thoughts tripping over themselves, quite unable to appreciate all detail, its fine layers. Fitzgerald's misfortune, for turning back, re-reading repeats the effect. The dance begins, and details deserving notice are again glossed over.

An elegant step, a flawless note. A song sung by a reasonable tenor voice. A stranger, a pilgrim always ready to move on, to take to the road in birch-bark shoes. A follower of Tolstoy, reading his works and living his ideals in tribute to his memory. A writer of poetry in a peasant blouse. Selwyn Crane, a player of Fitzgerald's: accountancy at Reidka's (dear little Reids) his work, Tolstoy his passion.

Moscow. Old England. 1913. Popular agitation. Mirrored in 2022. Railwaymen out again, nurses and paramedics, and postmen and postwomen too, and teachers voting on industrial action. All out, out, out protesting their real grievances: pay and working conditions. Widescale trouble and strife, troops on standby. A tango or pasa doble between employers and employed.

Picture Credit: The Dance, 1912, Konstantin Korovin (source: WikiArt).

See The Beginning Of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald. 

Written December 2022.

Questions

Questions. Lots of questions. What is meant by art; what is good, useful art – is it art for which sacrifices are made, lives stunted; is all that professes to be art really art; is art's objective, as some have claimed, to make beauty manifest?

But then: What is beauty? Another big question much discussed over centuries, but no agreement come to. For, we each have our own idea of it, that is, our idea of it is individually determined. There may be in some pockets a general consensus, over, say, a crafted object or a work of art, but ask anyone outside that specialised (or cultural) appreciation and they will likely disagree - not find any beauty in it at all. Even the Russian definition of beauty in Tolstoy's time falls short of the mark, for if defined as only something which pleases the sight, then it neglects the other senses, when Europeans have long understood it to include hearing, touch and taste, anything which gives one pleasure and which could be described by one as beautiful.

So, if no definition of beauty can be constructed then no definition of art can be. For although the two are (I believe) separable, that is, they do not depend on one another, the question of determining in general what they are poses the same difficulties. Art does not have to contain beauty or be considered in some way beautiful to be art. Finding beauty in it may determine whether one finds it good or bad, but forming that individual opinion again does not prevent it from being art. Art is then everywhere; there are no limitations to what could be included. The simplest answer to Tolstoy's question What is Art? is perhaps: Art is a means of communication; though what may “speak” to one may not necessarily “speak” to others.

Picture Credit: Question Marks, 1961, Saul Steinberg (source: WikiArt).

See What is Art? by Tolstoy. 

From journal, written December 2022.

The Scott Entries

 Chapter Two: On the March

Tuesday, January 16. (1912)
A black flag tied to a sledge bearer; the remains of a camp; sledge and ski tracks; the paws of many dogs tells the whole story: the Norwegians have forestalled Scott; Amundsen first at the Pole.

*

The Pole, after all that struggle and effort, a subdued affair. Victory robbed.
Now the return.
Frostbite (Evans), cold feet (Oates), and snow blindness (Wilson). All hungrier, thinner and weaker. Food insufficient and short. Strained tendon (Wilson), bad fingers (Evans), bad shoulder (Scott). Concussion from a fall (Evans). All faces – especially noses – much cut up by the winds. A horrible light made everything look fantastic; made them lose their way more than once; then regain the right track. Bad attacks of snow blindness (Bowers and Wilson). None going strong. A blistered foot (Evans). Reduced food, reduced sleep, feeling done. Evans broken down in brain. A troublesome march with perhaps more troubles ahead. Evans dead! Scott's response seeming cold, too practical: his anxieties relieved.

*

Shambles Camp: plenty of horse meat, a fine supper. More hopefully – from now on – to come.

Terrible surface, hard plodding.

Desolation Camp: more pony meat looked for; found none.

Terribly slow progress. Pray God for better travelling; that the weather clears.

Southern Barrier Depôt: shortage of oil. A race between the season and hard conditions, their fitness and good food. Strong tea, biscuits and butter.

Very cold nights now. Cold, very cold.

Mid Barrier Depôt: three distinct blows: more shortage of oil; even with rigid economy won't go far. Oates, very frostbitten toes. The wind brought dark overcast weather.

Surface simply awful; feel cold horribly. In a very tight place indeed.

Mt. Hooper Depôt: shortage on allowance all round.

Wind foul. Oates near the end.

The season rapidly advances; the cold intense.

Oates disappears in blizzard; walked to his death.

All now cold on the march and at all times.

No. 14 pony camp: two pony marches from One Ton Camp. Leave theodolite, a camera, and Oates' sleeping-bag.

Ill-fortune presses. Scott's right foot gone. Bowers in first place with same condition.

Will the trouble spread?

Fatal blizzard: very low on fuel and only one or two [days] of food left. A continuous gale blows; a scene of whirling drift outside the tent. The end, Scott writes, cannot be far.

Picture credit: Scott's Party - Oates, Bowers, Scott, Wilson, Evans - at the South Pole, 1912.

See Journals, Captain Scott's Last Expedition, Robert Falcon Scott (Oxford World's Classics). 

Adapted from a series of entries on reading Scott's journals, November 2022.

The Scott Entries

 Chapter One: In Training

19 ponies, 33 dogs, and 130 men – 24 of whom were officers. Poor beasts suffering – on the ship Terra Nova – the effects of the sea's motion, or, when the sea got up, in real danger of being washed overboard, saved or hanged, in the dogs' case, by their chains. 'So much', Scott writes, 'depends on fine weather.'

*

The sensory experience of an expedition in the Antarctic. Impressions that read like poetry. One can hear, see and feel it, though remote from the landscape, though separated by the passage of time.

Herbert Ponting's – the expedition's photographer – black and white stills and moving image bring it closer. (YouTube and Wikipedia are wonderful research tools!) There is Terra Nova! There are the men of whom Scott writes. There are the dogs and ponies. There is the hut, the home from home, they erected, which inside sounds so well organised. There are the penguins, which afforded much comic entertainment. There is the scenic shot Ponting gushed over and got: 'a view of the ship seen from a big cave in an iceberg', not included in this Oxford edition of Scott's journals. And there is Ponting himself with his camera.

Most effecting.

*

Comfortable; too comfortable? At Hut Point and more so at Cape Evans, the Home Station. Are there too many comforts? Are they growing dependent on them? And will these cause them to slack off? Explorers, says [Edward Adrian] Wilson in his journal, want hard conditions, the opposite of modern living; therefore, they will also explore at the end of a productive day these soft questions.

*

Sunday Service: prayers and hymns. A 'stretch off the land': ski or walk, exercise the dogs or ponies. Evening discussions, splitting into various groups, at the dinner table, in the dark room, to debate: political progress; the origin of matter; military problems, etc. Wordy contests, with never a too raised or a too sharp voice, always concluded with a laugh. Lectures: reading papers thrice weekly; Scott assessing – in his journals – each speaker's ability and the attention of the audience. A slide show. A birthday dinner. A midwinter festival: games, music, dance, and stimulating liquid refreshment. Community; company. A unity of purpose; an uplifting of spirits. Men, where they have to (and want to), pull together.

*

The hut converted into a lecture hall: slide shows and talks. Physiographical in nature with illustrations from scientific books. Subjects worked up from the polar library. Tales of travel with Ponting's plates to a confusing number of places: Burmah; Japan; India; North China; Alpine scenery. An impression here, an impression there. 'A lecture need not be a connecting story, [links joining one episode to another]; perhaps it is better it should not be', writes Scott after a Ponting lecture.

Another night: an adventure with Meares to a wild place of the earth, illustrated only with maps. Scott provides the outline; then notes (p.280): 'We are all adventurers here, I suppose, and wild doings in wild countries appeal to us as nothing else could do. It is good to know that there remain wild corners of this dreadfully civilised world.'

*

Twelve good men for the Southern advance; all experienced sledge travellers. In a letter to Kathleen (Scott's wife) Scott writes (p.303): 'You see altogether I have a good set of people with me,' going on to mention some by name and character: Wilson, Bowers, Wright, 'The Soldier' Oates, Edgar Evans, Crean, Lashly; thus bringing to an end the first chapter of the expedition's history.

Picture credit: Scott at Cape Evans taken by Herbert Ponting.

See Journals, Captain Scott's Last Expedition, Robert Falcon Scott (Oxford World's Classics). 

Adapted from a series of entries on reading Scott's journals, November 2022.