b o o k s | " t h e b o o k o f a n t i c i p a t i o n "
the book of anticipation
stamped text and drawings
46 pages
9" x 7.5"
[2012]
stamped text and drawings
46 pages
9" x 7.5"
[2012]
I.
i’m reading a searle piece on chomsky. s. begins by positing a “fundamental opposition” between those who think the study of man progresses through rigorous observations of actual behavior & those who think such observations are valuable only in so far as they reveal the “hidden & possibly fairly mysterious” laws that underly behaviour.
II.
as i read, i think about another s. — sandip — who, on the phone this morning, told me how he met someone i know at the sauna yesterday: anuj, who, for some reason, told him his name was arjun. i am picturing s. naked with a. as s. on the page urges me to consider the two sentences “john is easy to please” & “john is eager to please.”
III.
they look as if they have the same grammatical structure, but in fact their grammar is quite different: in one john functions as the direct object of the verb [the sentence means: it is easy for someone to please john], in the other john is its subject [the sentence means: john is eager that he please someone].
IV.
noun-copula-adjective-infinitive-verb: the surface similarity, s. points out, conceals the underlying differences of syntax. re-reading the sentences, idly replacing each “john” with “sandip”, i feel the floor begin to tremble. i look around me. my apartment is shaking.
V.
it isn't, i know, simply a matter of my taking this revelation of the complex internal relations within sentences badly. nor is it the sudden discovery of s.’s easy-going nature, or his niceness. an earthquake, then. i briefly consider heading outside, but the grill door downstairs is locked. i’d rather die up here in my apartment than down there struggling with that door. i decide to stay in.
VI.
when the tremors stop, i check the internet for reports of an earthquake in delhi. nothing. i look out at the trees, picturing the ground shifting, picturing something under the ground shifting. [what is it?] i recall how, last year, a naked man stabbed 5 people in his apartment building with a kitchen knife, somewhere in washington heights; apparently ‘driven to distraction’ by an earthquake.
VII.
s. on the phone apologized, then asked me why i’m so easily upset. why am i so easily upset? & now “what is love?” chris goodwin is asking, lightly. “’tis not hereafter; for present mirth hath present laughter; what’s to come is still unsure.” he sounds fairly sure of himself. sure enough, at any rate, to want to sing the verse twice. i listen carefully, knowing what’s coming. each time, each time.
VIII.
in the picture of the ‘psychotic naked stabber’ i find on the net, he lies face-down on a road, handcuffed. two policemen loom over him. “he was under the influence of the earthquake. that’s why he did what he did,” edwin rivera says underneath. edwin’s eighty-four year old mother was stabbed six, seven, eight times. & now i begin to see the first reports: “earthquake in delhi and noida at 1:10 pm.”
IX.
“an earthquake rocked the indian capital new delhi on monday, with strong tremors shaking buildings & sending residents into the streets. there was no immediate evidence of damage in the centre of the city or information on the strength of the quake.” & later: “a 4.9 earthquake rocks delhi-NCR, five injured. the tremors were reportedly felt for 15 to 20 seconds.”
X.
& then this: “a spokesman at the india meteorological department attributed the tremors to an earthquake that measured 4.9 on the richter scale with an epicenter in the state of haryana. earthquakes are fairly frequently felt in new delhi, often stemming from quakes near the himalayas. but rarely are aftershocks felt for as long as they were monday.”
XI.
the aftershocks from powerful earthquakes can last for years, as the crust around the displaced fault plane slowly adjusts to the effects of the main shock. in continental interiors, where plate motions are slower, this process sometimes goes on for centuries. the aftershocks of the new madrid earthquakes of 1811 & 1812, for instance, are still being felt today.
XII.
after several weeks of assertives, directives, comissives, expressives, & declarations, s. finally let me take his clothes off one night in december. we’d tramped across G.K.II for hours, snogging under trees. then we went in, & i reached across a shifting surface for his cardigan, his t-shirt, his underwear, for where the grammar of “know” meets the grammar of “can”.
XIII.
eliza bryan, a new madrid resident, describing that earthquake of 1811 in a letter, says: “we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse & vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor…”
XIV.
“the screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to & fro, not knowing where to go, or what to do — the cries of the fowls & beasts of every species — the cracking of trees falling, & the roaring of the mississippi — the current of which was retrograde for a few minutes, owing as is supposed, to an irruption in its bed — formed a scene truly horrible.” for ten days, she says, “the earth was in continual agitation, visibly waving as a gentle sea.”
XV.
“not knowing where to go, or what to do.” with the earth waving as the sea, & the river running backward. “& now, sir, wishing you all good, i must bid you adieu.” in what sense of the word ‘know’ do i know s.? in what sense of the word ‘know’ do speakers know the rules of grammar? chomsky doesn’t seem very clear about this himself. i look, & i look closer: “s. is easy to please.” & “s. is eager to please.” & “what is love?”
XVI.
what is love? there’s a video on youtube where someone asks chomsky this question. “i just know it’s — has an unbreakable gr-grip,’ he says, “but i can’t tell you what it is.” &: “it’s just — life’s empty without it.” it has been a while since i last got naked with s. i first met him three years ago, when he was seeing my architect friend, veer. look: “it is easy for [someone] to please s.” look: “s. is eager that he please [someone].”
XVII.
what did i want from sandip, what was i looking for? to unearth something. hopkins puts it like this: “that taste of myself, of ‘i’ & ‘me’ above & in all things, which is more distinctive than the taste of ale or alum, more distinctive than the smell of walnutleaf or camphor.” [that.] he adds immediately that it is “incommunicable by any means to another man.” put your hand here & you can feel it, the grip of a fundamental opposition.
XVIII.
“what is love?” noam chomsky first met carol schatz when she was five years old. he was seven. they were married for fifty-nine years. she died of cancer at the age of 78. “in delay there lies no plenty, then come kiss me, sweet & twenty. youth’s a stuff will not endure.” & now i am taking s.’s clothes off, once again. & once again i find him naked beneath his clothes, & clothed beneath his nakedness. “what is love?”
XIX.
simple repetition can sometimes break down the functional constituents of a sentence — the subject, the predicate, etc. — into merely so many words, so many sounds. [“what is love?” “what is love?”] the naked stabber knocked on doors, stabbing anyone who answered, then walked down the street covered in blood, screaming “do me a favour, kill me please!”, calling out “it’s the end of the world!” sometimes you see it coming, & sometimes you don’t.
XX.
searle calls chomsky’s work a “remarkable intellectual achievement”, ending his essay by saying: “in the long run, i believe his greatest contribution will be that he has taken a major step toward restoring the traditional conception of the dignity & uniqueness of man.” i like the sound of this, even though i’m baffled by it. it might have something to do with man being, for chomsky, “essentially a syntactical animal”; i’m not sure. i’ll have to re-read the text to find out.
XXI.
all the surfaces of the world endlessly shifting, sliding. what remains? the last time i spoke to anuj-arjun he didn’t seem too keen on meeting; i mumbled something & hung up. later this afternoon i’m going on a walk with kőel. her baby is due any day now, is overdue already if she hasn’t miscounted, she says, sounding quite ready to be done with the whole business. i’m seeing her in lodi gardens at half past four. but it’s only two o’clock yet, i still have a couple of hours before i need to head out.
i’m reading a searle piece on chomsky. s. begins by positing a “fundamental opposition” between those who think the study of man progresses through rigorous observations of actual behavior & those who think such observations are valuable only in so far as they reveal the “hidden & possibly fairly mysterious” laws that underly behaviour.
II.
as i read, i think about another s. — sandip — who, on the phone this morning, told me how he met someone i know at the sauna yesterday: anuj, who, for some reason, told him his name was arjun. i am picturing s. naked with a. as s. on the page urges me to consider the two sentences “john is easy to please” & “john is eager to please.”
III.
they look as if they have the same grammatical structure, but in fact their grammar is quite different: in one john functions as the direct object of the verb [the sentence means: it is easy for someone to please john], in the other john is its subject [the sentence means: john is eager that he please someone].
IV.
noun-copula-adjective-infinitive-verb: the surface similarity, s. points out, conceals the underlying differences of syntax. re-reading the sentences, idly replacing each “john” with “sandip”, i feel the floor begin to tremble. i look around me. my apartment is shaking.
V.
it isn't, i know, simply a matter of my taking this revelation of the complex internal relations within sentences badly. nor is it the sudden discovery of s.’s easy-going nature, or his niceness. an earthquake, then. i briefly consider heading outside, but the grill door downstairs is locked. i’d rather die up here in my apartment than down there struggling with that door. i decide to stay in.
VI.
when the tremors stop, i check the internet for reports of an earthquake in delhi. nothing. i look out at the trees, picturing the ground shifting, picturing something under the ground shifting. [what is it?] i recall how, last year, a naked man stabbed 5 people in his apartment building with a kitchen knife, somewhere in washington heights; apparently ‘driven to distraction’ by an earthquake.
VII.
s. on the phone apologized, then asked me why i’m so easily upset. why am i so easily upset? & now “what is love?” chris goodwin is asking, lightly. “’tis not hereafter; for present mirth hath present laughter; what’s to come is still unsure.” he sounds fairly sure of himself. sure enough, at any rate, to want to sing the verse twice. i listen carefully, knowing what’s coming. each time, each time.
VIII.
in the picture of the ‘psychotic naked stabber’ i find on the net, he lies face-down on a road, handcuffed. two policemen loom over him. “he was under the influence of the earthquake. that’s why he did what he did,” edwin rivera says underneath. edwin’s eighty-four year old mother was stabbed six, seven, eight times. & now i begin to see the first reports: “earthquake in delhi and noida at 1:10 pm.”
IX.
“an earthquake rocked the indian capital new delhi on monday, with strong tremors shaking buildings & sending residents into the streets. there was no immediate evidence of damage in the centre of the city or information on the strength of the quake.” & later: “a 4.9 earthquake rocks delhi-NCR, five injured. the tremors were reportedly felt for 15 to 20 seconds.”
X.
& then this: “a spokesman at the india meteorological department attributed the tremors to an earthquake that measured 4.9 on the richter scale with an epicenter in the state of haryana. earthquakes are fairly frequently felt in new delhi, often stemming from quakes near the himalayas. but rarely are aftershocks felt for as long as they were monday.”
XI.
the aftershocks from powerful earthquakes can last for years, as the crust around the displaced fault plane slowly adjusts to the effects of the main shock. in continental interiors, where plate motions are slower, this process sometimes goes on for centuries. the aftershocks of the new madrid earthquakes of 1811 & 1812, for instance, are still being felt today.
XII.
after several weeks of assertives, directives, comissives, expressives, & declarations, s. finally let me take his clothes off one night in december. we’d tramped across G.K.II for hours, snogging under trees. then we went in, & i reached across a shifting surface for his cardigan, his t-shirt, his underwear, for where the grammar of “know” meets the grammar of “can”.
XIII.
eliza bryan, a new madrid resident, describing that earthquake of 1811 in a letter, says: “we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse & vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor…”
XIV.
“the screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to & fro, not knowing where to go, or what to do — the cries of the fowls & beasts of every species — the cracking of trees falling, & the roaring of the mississippi — the current of which was retrograde for a few minutes, owing as is supposed, to an irruption in its bed — formed a scene truly horrible.” for ten days, she says, “the earth was in continual agitation, visibly waving as a gentle sea.”
XV.
“not knowing where to go, or what to do.” with the earth waving as the sea, & the river running backward. “& now, sir, wishing you all good, i must bid you adieu.” in what sense of the word ‘know’ do i know s.? in what sense of the word ‘know’ do speakers know the rules of grammar? chomsky doesn’t seem very clear about this himself. i look, & i look closer: “s. is easy to please.” & “s. is eager to please.” & “what is love?”
XVI.
what is love? there’s a video on youtube where someone asks chomsky this question. “i just know it’s — has an unbreakable gr-grip,’ he says, “but i can’t tell you what it is.” &: “it’s just — life’s empty without it.” it has been a while since i last got naked with s. i first met him three years ago, when he was seeing my architect friend, veer. look: “it is easy for [someone] to please s.” look: “s. is eager that he please [someone].”
XVII.
what did i want from sandip, what was i looking for? to unearth something. hopkins puts it like this: “that taste of myself, of ‘i’ & ‘me’ above & in all things, which is more distinctive than the taste of ale or alum, more distinctive than the smell of walnutleaf or camphor.” [that.] he adds immediately that it is “incommunicable by any means to another man.” put your hand here & you can feel it, the grip of a fundamental opposition.
XVIII.
“what is love?” noam chomsky first met carol schatz when she was five years old. he was seven. they were married for fifty-nine years. she died of cancer at the age of 78. “in delay there lies no plenty, then come kiss me, sweet & twenty. youth’s a stuff will not endure.” & now i am taking s.’s clothes off, once again. & once again i find him naked beneath his clothes, & clothed beneath his nakedness. “what is love?”
XIX.
simple repetition can sometimes break down the functional constituents of a sentence — the subject, the predicate, etc. — into merely so many words, so many sounds. [“what is love?” “what is love?”] the naked stabber knocked on doors, stabbing anyone who answered, then walked down the street covered in blood, screaming “do me a favour, kill me please!”, calling out “it’s the end of the world!” sometimes you see it coming, & sometimes you don’t.
XX.
searle calls chomsky’s work a “remarkable intellectual achievement”, ending his essay by saying: “in the long run, i believe his greatest contribution will be that he has taken a major step toward restoring the traditional conception of the dignity & uniqueness of man.” i like the sound of this, even though i’m baffled by it. it might have something to do with man being, for chomsky, “essentially a syntactical animal”; i’m not sure. i’ll have to re-read the text to find out.
XXI.
all the surfaces of the world endlessly shifting, sliding. what remains? the last time i spoke to anuj-arjun he didn’t seem too keen on meeting; i mumbled something & hung up. later this afternoon i’m going on a walk with kőel. her baby is due any day now, is overdue already if she hasn’t miscounted, she says, sounding quite ready to be done with the whole business. i’m seeing her in lodi gardens at half past four. but it’s only two o’clock yet, i still have a couple of hours before i need to head out.