Thursday, February 15, 2024

we invent each other here, to some degree



Jacques Derrida’s 1987 preface to Psyche: Inventions of the Other seems to express an essential aspect of his self-analytical sensibility, which places author and reader in a mirrorplay of discernment and invention, inevitably.

Saturday, December 16, 2023

a luscious parody of man abusing nature (and Eves)



After reading admiring reviews of “Poor Things” in several leading media,
I saw the first showing in Berkeley (in the darling Elmwood district). I loved it!

The surreally comical allegory is a stellar polemic aimed at misogynistic desire to control nature and girl-women. But as cinema, it’s a delight in every mode—a masterly parody of abusive mankind.

Sunday, September 3, 2023

looking well at "Never Look Away"



Hi, Lisa,

I saw ”Never Look Away,” after so many evenings when I wanted to, but couldn't fit 3 hours of viewing into available time. So, I'm glad that the occasion of your essay caused me to make the time. 

I didn't read your discussion of the film (or, rather, that scene) until today, since
I avoid reading about a film that I want to see, before I've seen it.

The film disappointed me, though again I'm glad I saw it. Auteur von Donner-
smarck did a masterful essay, as the film, about art in mid-20th century Germany, though anchored by cardboard characters' changing eras of life relative to box office-sure contexts of struggle and tragedy (as if Germany needs more), done with compelling cinematic expertise. It's great enter-
tainment! Von Donnersmarck did great service to art history. My disap-
pointment is no discredit to the film. (I want psychological depth—insightful plausibility between characters—beyond another proper indictment of satanic nazi minds.)

Friday, August 18, 2023

whose mind am i reading?



In the beginning, there were no words, but we know now that there was caring: good enough attachment of infant to mother…In the beginning, there was no other, just the caring, so-called “relationality,” primal inter-ing. Everything was interal—unrepresentable interality, what Antonio Damasio, decades ago, called “the feeling of what happens” (though he wasn’t primarily oriented by relating-ness).

Then, one day—or gradually emerging from all nebulosity—there was an other: mother, which is first primal personification.

One, two, three,…infinity: Everything is personified.

Monday, May 30, 2022

enthralling appeal



Being drawn into experience (of a person, a phenomenon, a text, etc.) responds to appeal as if being enacted by the appellant, rather than (as if not) by oneself.

It is oneSelf, of course: already receptive to experience of who (or what) evinces response—but one’s not being thrown by the experience (which would be impositional, like surprise, albeit welcomed).

A serenity may precede the drawing or be instilled by it. A play of engagement may be evinced by phenomenality, to be savored, maybe evincing enchantment
or a delicate entrancement.