Nothing Man

You can call me Joe...

Possessed By Memory

Possessed by Memory is 88-89 year old HB reading and reminiscing about the literature that has meant the most to him throughout his long life.

It is stunning in its clarity (Bloom is not known for that) and wisdom.

His reflections are interlaced with remarks about his ruined body, which must seem so strange to him, with his mind still razor sharp.

It covers much the same territory as he has covered before but nonetheless remains fresh somehow.

It is elegiac but in no way maudlin.

It is a marvel of literary appreciation (Walter Pater wrote what he called “appreciations” and Bloom is following in his steps here in the dimming eventide).

Another Room In Paradise

The Great Western Unravelling

Western civilization, as we now know it, begins with Plato dividing mind and body. Out of that split came philosophy. Out of philosophy science, and out of science technology. There was no necessity that this development take place. The world could have been left to Homer and the Greek poets or patterns of social stability developed, in the manner of classical Chinese civilization, without our ever building up these elaborate conceptual structures that make up science. It happened nevertheless; and we are today working out the consequences of that historical eruption.

~ William Barrett, Time of Need (1972), p. 182.

Kula

Kula / Manisa / Turkey from yasin ilcebay on Vimeo.

Turkiye

All The Small Tribal Gods

To this day, reign supreme in the hearts of human beings.

Thomas Carlyle

God's True Friends

God is not good, or else he could be better.

~ Meister Eckhart

The great mystics have been critics of the injustices perpetrated by the status quo--whether of religion or state. And if, in the end, responsibility for injustice can be laid at the feet of God, the great mystics, as the true Friends of God, have not been shy to do so.

Those who claim to have achieved mystical insight that allows them (conveniently) to rationalize those injustices (on behalf of religion, state, or God) lack the intimacy with the Divine of the great mystics.

A Poor One

The Shape Of The Path

'Ali Ibn Abi Talib