a performance dialogue

Showing posts with label Borges references. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borges references. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Infinity Dance of Carols made me think of Whirling Dervish

Remembered seeing Whirling Dervish in Cairo apparently Dervish means Doorway

As explained by Sufis:

At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God's unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth.



Quoting From Marcus
"In the essays in my addition of Labyrinths there is an essay by Borges dedicated to The Fearful Sphere of Pascal. It traces back how the sphere has been an important symbol for many philosophers. Parmenides: The divine being is like the mass of a well-rounded sphere whose force is constant from the centre in any direction. The music of the spheres. Kepler's model of the universe as interconnected spheres."

Monday, November 19, 2007

re the aleph (from kate 13/11/07)

Reread the aleph again and actually its is the 19th step where it is, he lies on the ground on a sack to look at it.

I like all the descriptions Borges writes as he hopelessly tries to write the description of the inconceivable universe. ....

"Alain de Lille speaks of a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere" (must ask Marcus about this? How does it relate to finite yet unbounded?)

"tigers, pistons, bisons, tides, and armies, saw all the ants on earth, saw a Persian astrolabe, saw a desk in a draw (and the hadwriting made me tremble) obscene, incredible detailed letters that Beatriz had sent Carlos Argentino, saw a beloved momument in Chacarita, saw the horrendous remains of what had once, deliciously, been Beatriz Viterbo, saw the circulation of my dark blood, saw the coils and springs of love and the alterations of death, saw the Aleph from everywhere at once, saw the earth in the Aleph, and the Aleph once more in the earth and the earth in the Aleph, saw my face and my visecra, saw your face, and I felt dizzy, and I wept, because my eyes had seen that secret, hypothetical object whose name has been usurped by men but which no man has ever truly looked upon: the invonceivable universe."

All this and that he ends with "Our minds are permeable to forgetfulness; I myself am distorting losing, through the tragic erosion of the years the features of Beatriz."

Friday, November 16, 2007

(from Marcus)
while I remember...
http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~haddock/poems/matthew.html