Scott LeViness

His face has been haunting me this week. -- of course, I don't really mean his face; I 'm talking about his memory. I heard he had died from another close friend but didn't know why until an email received last week. Drug overdose.

Why? I keep thinking to myself--why him? Why, when we all grew up relatively stable in Germany, or so I thought. We all went to the same DoDS school: Zweibruecken High; we all went to the same parties, skated at the same ice arena, flirted and had brief romances amongst our group, though often venturing out. And then the orders came; and then our families relocated; and then we grew a part.

Why? Why him? How did his path lead to drugs? How did he get lost in the shuffle?

Scott. LeViness. Trouble, my friends always said. But that was because he was older than me. And by trouble they didn't mean the alcohol or drugs kind of trouble. By trouble, we meant, dangerous to our hearts. Older and more experienced; pressures of sex always looming on the horizon. Not to mention his overly flirty nature.

I see snapshots of him in my mind. Some are pictures: blue and white, as he was in his football uniform. I used to tell J.P. Parker, the assistant coach, all about our drunken weekends with these guys. J. P. was my mom and dad's best friend. But he couldn't do anything about the partying -- because J. P. had promised never to punish. He just wanted a way to keep tabs on them, to make sure they didn't get into serious trouble. But where was this type of guardian two years ago? When everything fell apart for him?

I remember Scott, always ready with a smirk; always ready with a quick comeback.

I remember his tongue, strong and insistent; it's not true. I don't remember how he tasted--only that there was alcohol involved--I don't remember how he kissed--just that he was a great kisser. But the desire to remember, to recall, to at least have something from him left in my memory is strong. I can't change that.

I remember, though, going to Laura's birthday party; she was probably 15 at the time, which made me 14. We videotaped stupid things, confessions, dance moves we choreographed to Technotronics--Pump up the Jam. I laugh now thinking about it. It was in September, then, that I kissed him and confessed on video tape, which later Frank, Laura's brother, saw and teased me about for days afterward.

It all seems so strange, so foreign. The past generally comes out that way, I guess.

Scott LeViness. I'm sorry that you died.
It's worthless now, my sorrow, my apologies.
I wish I could have known you better.

A New Discovery

I discovered Charles Baudelaire today. Or at least, Richard Howard's translation of Baudelaire. Upon reading the last lines of "To My Reader" I cursed myself for not knowing French. There are so many things that are lost in translation--surprisingly, a hot topic since forever (or so it seems). I know Virginia Woolf had commentary about translation, as does Dr. R- (very strongly, in fact), and I never got it, actually, never understood the immense dissatisfaction some feel with teaching works that are translated until just recently.

For me, translations of Homer are acceptable. To teach the great epics like The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeniad, Divine Comedy all seem vital to an education in literature--especially British or American literature. But the key to all of these works is that they are poems, epic poems, and they are in translation. Something is missing; and yet, to translate provides the reader access to works they would not normally acquire access to. Derrida reminds me,though, that while translations are automatically doomed to fail in translating the poet's original meaning, language, already imperfect, never allows the poet to transfer his meaning ever onto the page or into the auditory space between reader and listener.

So, what do I do with this knowledge? To put meaning into language, le langue, is already always "deja" to miss the point. Oh but not to despair, D tells us, for it is in this slippage of meaning, in the gap, that other meanings are given an opportunity to make themselves known. For language, Saussure says, Derrida repeats, (and which I, subsequently am repeating) is like a law; it is received. But more than that, more than a reception, it is transmitted in a particular time and in a particular place and transformed by another temporality, by another locality.

So, again, I say, what do I do with this? Well. . . I read Baudelaire, though he be Howard's on the page, soon to be mine from my own experiences and intertextual snobberies, and I enjoy. Though I am now hellbent on learning this tongue, which, saddly, I know I will never truly master.

I'll leave you tonight with the final three stanzas of Baudelaire's "The Head of Hair":

Drunk, and in love with drunkenness, I'll dive
into this ocean where the other lurks,
and solaced by these waves, my restlessness
will find a fruitful lethargy at last,
rocking forever at aromatic ease.

Blue hair, vault of shadows, be for me
the canopy of overarching sky;
here at the downy roots of every strand
I stupefy myself on the mingled scent
of musk and tar and coconut oil for hours . . .

For hours? Forever! Into that splendid mane
let me braid rubies, ropes of pearl to bind
you indissolubly to my desire--
you the oasis where I dream, the gourd
from which I gulp the wine of memory.

To no longer have a name. . .

Derrida writes "I am writing this, but already incapable of memory, in any case of the memory of my name, a name become for [my mother] at the very least unpronounceable, and I am writing here at the moment when my mother no longer recognizes me, and at which, still capable of speaking or articulating, a little, she no longer calls me and for her and therefore for the rest of my life I no longer have a name, that's what's happening."

Names -- Derrida spends a lot of time talking about names, proper names, and what they mean. But in this poignant narrative, this thought, this outcry in response to his mother's amnesia, Derrida simultaneously establishes great emphasis on his name, while also completely negating it. By his mother's amnesia, he can no longer remember her last intelligible sentence, nor can he remember the memory of his own name, of when she named him, of his naming. What is more, and what is implied, is that even the memory of the way she said his name, the many varied intonations by which a single word can carry with it so many meanings--scolding, pleading, pride, questioning--all this with one name comp[letely gone. And yet, it is this name which he has lost. He no longer has a name, those names, by which his mother named him.

Such heartbreak; such loss. Not so much for his mother--her memory all confusion now--but for him, he who so clearly feels this sense of utter annhilation of his "self" as her son.

Greetings from Dublin!

Just a quick blog to describe the feeling I get from being in Dublin. I have waited literally years to get to Ireland. after being in Dublin 2 days, i know that I would like to visit more of the rural parts of Ireland. However, this is not to say that Dublin doesn't have its charms. Aye, for it houses the literary writer's museum, the best Irish beer made: Guinness, and home of the cutest wall-street-looking business men in the world.

Just today, as I walked across Marion Square, a good looking lad in a full piece-suit crossed from the other side. He walked with 3 other people--probably on his lunch break. He had black hair, cut short and neat, with the deepest blue eyes I have ever seen. For a moment, as we came closer to the pass, our eyes met; and for that brief second, we connected, and he smiled. Had I had time to turn around, I would have, but we were on our way to Oscar Wilde. We couldn't keep him waiting! yes, it was love. Love at first sight.

Love happened again, though, just 2 hours later in the Auld Dublin pub with the handsome young man next to me offered to buy me a pint. . . we were done drinking though, since we wanted to make sure we had our wits about us to walk back to the hostel, so I thanked him and told him that I'd take a kiss instead. :-)

A moment of serenity

To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; the blessed mood
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:
. . . Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of Harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things. -- William Wordsworth "Tintern Abbey"

He stirs my spirit within.
Awake, awake oh gentle observer of natures both human and earthly.
Arise and meet the world with wise eyes;
Open wide your presence to accept this simple,
though transitory gift.
Account for the world around you;
delve deep within your own intellect
and let not the weight of the past control you.
Breathe and be inspired.

Today is a beautiful day.--Jessica