Orientations within the Zwischenwelt
by strannikov
Times within times without, times connected disconnected. Locales poised between concentration and neglect, stupidity from further stupidity, ignorance sifted from ignorance of unknown provenance.
Saved or started by the limits of cosmography! Gravity and dispersion both present and able. (The day dims the lamps lit!)
Those moments yesterday, remember? In the afternoon just after that little snack you'd stolen: your back was turned to the sink, what were you thinking?
Those moments tomorrow, anticipate if you can the moment you wake, the first moment the day transfixes you: the summit of immediate intents the loo (and well immediately, of course), then beyond: the waiting hours of other ambition between the waking and the dying of the day.
All so many tightropes never end to end: stepping or leaping from borrowed tightropes to borrowed tightropes, and rarely the same tightrope twice!
Any day morning or afternoon, an injection can come recreational or medicinal, enough to nudge trajectory one hair, or two. Each parallel path a separate direction, our compasses lack and do not share measured scope. (Parallels wind up diverging each and every time, it only now dawns, because of simple failure to maintain empiric observation: once supper was packed sometime a century ago [it was close—the supper could have been packed late in the earlier century], everyone forgot that the only notebooks were already filled, or that already their notebooks were only filled.)
Calibrated stems of mercury are not measuring immediately adjacent spaces accurately, two inches away a blowtorch chars metal or skin, the thermometer registers neither heat nor sound.
Planets spin on microscopy slides, bacteria whirl in galactic splendor above observatory domes. Puke congeals, shit slides too much like liquid brain. Muddy children play in piles and pools untidy to the nose grating to the tongue deafening to the skin acrid to the ears putrid to the eyes.
Or again: sphygmomanometer headbands do not measure thermal spectra or cognitive velocity with enough accuracy (or reliability) to forestall the kinds of brain ossification and cranial petrification that afflict us almost as much as igneous residue and sediments beset and overtook the late residents of Herculaneum (and of Pompeii).
The gutter between pages one and two is never crossed! Licking bowl and spoon taste and foretaste follow.
-END-
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Author's Note
No necessary link with the earlier "Die Zwischenwelt: The World as It Is and as It Is Not".
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This piece kick-starts so many things in my head. The quote by Eugene O'Neill: “There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.” ... as well as episodes of the original Outer Limits ... and lithographs by MC Escher ... the prose voice of Donald Barthelme.
I especially like the interruptions to the flow (a constant in the Elizabeth Bishop's writing, by the way) -
"(The day dims the lamps lit!)"
"(and well immediately, of course)"
"(or reliability)"
"(and of Pompeii)"
The most prominent interruption - break within the break - is the long moment in paragraph 6. Nice.
What this does in Bishop's work and, at least for me, here in your work is to personalize the moment. Give it a certain reality that is at once conventional and imaginary. The technique lends an "in the room" voice to the writing. I really like that approach when it's successful, and I think you are successful here.
The set-aside closing paragraph - "The gutter between pages one and two is never crossed! Licking bowl and spoon taste and foretaste follow." - is effective. Yes. strong closing - in image and word.
Do I like this piece? Most definitely. Can I explain it? Not fully, but then again, I can't really explain the works of Anne Carson though I can talk for hours on Plainwater (my favorite of her books) or Autobiography of Red. But, why do literary works need explaining? I don't think they do. They need to be experienced. I don't explain music. I feel it - take it in - find my way in it - or, better still, let the music find its own way in me. This is how “Orientations within the Zwischenwelt” comes to me – very Waiting for Godot.
Surreal: "Or again: sphygmomanometer headbands do not measure thermal velocity with enough accuracy (or reliability) to forestall the kinds of brain ossification and cranial petrification that afflict us..." Marvelous.
Good piece, Edward.
I like it - a great deal. I do think it stands complete and on its own.
It's time like this Ed I wish I were able to take a stroll through your mind.
You see clutter ... I read treasure hunt.
[disclaimer: This comment should in no way be seen as an attempt to pretend membership in the microscopic coterie for whom this magnificent piece was written, but merely to acknowledge its esoteric brilliance and note that I shall be tripping through it several more times today in search of treasures (as Amantine so charmingly described the subtly placed linguistic, literary, dramatic, musical, and purely cerebral surprises woven throughout) as well as to peruse it using Sam's comment as a study guide to identify especial nuggets for further investigation and enlightenment. I must confess I would not have attempted to read this celestially brilliant piece were it not for the aforementioned comments in this thread. Furthermore, please do not interpret my faving "Orientations within the Zwischenwelt" as a back-door association with the aforementioned coterie, but merely to denote my respect for this page--piece and aforementioned commentary--and because, unless for purely private reasons, I invariably award the unequivocally deserved "fave" to any post here to which I leave a comment.]
Having scanned this stunningly intricate piece of word artistry
only once thus far, I nonetheless must single out this paragraph--not only because it engaged me with an undeniably visceral impact, but to emphasize my distinctly outlier standing with the aforementioned esoteric--extremely esoteric, I daresay--coterie of, narrowing the focus to our Fictionaut community, Ed's appreciative readership:
"Planets spin on microscopy slides, bacteria whirl in galactic splendor above observatory domes. Puke congeals, shit slides too much like liquified brain. Muddy children play in piles and pools untidy to the nose grating to the tongue deafening to the skin acrid to the ears putrid to the eyes."
Так заканчивается Евангелие скатологического просвещения.
You mean you MESSED WITH IT after I read it?? Now I'm afraid to read it again, worried I might find unfamiliar constructions, nuances, new interruptions, tangents and such, and miss the ones I think I remember...damn, I should have taken notes!! I should wait until Sam reads it again and leaves another analysis. (Fortunately for my GPA I'm only auditing this class) ;)
Matvei: fret not. Fortunately, you quoted earlier "liquified" where "liquid" now appears (the former being a prose word, the latter a poetic usage in its specific context). It is proper and good that the two usages both be kept in mind--just alternate between re-readings.
(Plus I only added the second "already" to celebrated paragraph #6.)
Absolutely. "Liquid" is the poetic, but right now I'm playing with the more suggestive "lubricious," altho that trips the cadence unless a slicker segue can be found. Maybe "shit slides, uneasily aping lubricious brain." Sam's the poet amongst us. Perhaps... (o lort, I hope me saintly mother up in heav'n's not watchin'.)
All of the above. I'm kidding, sort of.
Sam's study guide helped and Matt's comments (even the Russian) were helpful too.
I do like "liquid brain" more than "liquified brain." Goes better with the visuals of my exploding brain.
In awe as always, Mr. Strannikov.
Sam: thank you, I am privileged with your generous response. (--but do tell: do you like it or no?)
Not when I wrote it but as I edited it (even after posting), I gained the feeling it was assembling itself. (As I post this, I think it stands complete.)
Grazie, bolshoi spasibo, i merci beaucoup!
Amantine: you would want to prepare yourself for dim lights and lots of clutter, in which case.
From this dimly-lit, cluttered perch: thank you, thank you, and thank you.
Matvei: you leave me speechless with tears, friend, reading your response I can do without listening this morning to Shostakovich.
Bolshoi spasibo, by the way, i grazie.
Each of your responses thus far I cannot find as anything but gratifying. Thank you again, all and each.
Perhaps possibly maybe I have stopped fiddling with it, I had just minor stretching of the material to repair. As of THIS post, I have polished away all defects visible to my eyes.
Permit me to say once more I do appreciate the sincere responses you three have greeted this piece with.
Dianne: thank you, thank you, and thank you for your kind response. (Matvei's Russian summary still makes me smile.) Grazie i bolshoi spasibo!