Delphi

January 9, some ideas on a new piece. The photos of Feininger are special in the ones he does on shops and stuff. Use a few of his and mine on my uncle and talk about the process of work, of ergasia.... and ask for more on work from any source available. A picture of the market in Franklin of Mr. Chilson, a picture of the Armenian culture, one of any place else that is of interest and compare it to the bodega today or the Korean market in L. A. or some other place. I like shops and wish to think on them. The ones up at the mall are also especially interesting. Call it "Shops." I wonder if I can pull it off. Yes, it is a nice thought to follow. Another way to see the general diaspora, in the shop and of course in the home where the woman labors. Homework, shopwork. Lifework. I take seriously the idea that Bob Briggs gave me, that the best way to know a people is to see them at what sustains them, their work. Be it at a computer screen or in a shop or before a cow that needs milking. I like the idea and wish to follow it some. So "work at shop and home." Or "Ergasia." Deeddoing. Raising the child and keeping the home, working at the shop. All the same. The maintenance of life in the daily crush of the diaspora. "Doing Deeds; Ergasia."

Durrell in the intro to Hogarth's book. Also look at his book on Greek Islands? Get title and list in the notebook. Modern Greece in all its defenceless loveliness. Then he says, "Suddenly the perennity of the whole country knocked me flat."

and to his mum, "I have had a sudden flash of realization. Greece is quite unique."

The above is for a Greek piece. Remember how you have to turn one out every few weeks or else. Go back in second notebook, choose a theme and run it up. That is always job one. The one on where the spirit lies , not in the head but in the place. The topospirits. The evasive ghosts of the temples and the old holy philosophers and poets and poetesses who inhabit the land. They do not pass away as they talk of death but continue the linguistic tradition of Greek people and any other people you might care to describe. The African-American, Langston Hughes, etc. THis is the Seferi piece on Delphi. You need to make it seem non magical or mystical. He does not see it that way. He states fact and then downplays its magicality. THat is what makes it special. The thing is mundane and that is what Durrell refers to, the daily magicality and not the religious, philosophical, mystical. Greece is on the surface the most interesting of all and Durrell picks it up as few do. That the magic is in our face only we seem not to see it or if we do, we deny it. Because we want or need to invest in some kind of arcane magic to titilate our senses. There is no need. the Holy are always where they are supposed to be. IN the old one's lone dance, in the bread, in the wine or the hand of the old woman on the stoop who's knitting and going "Tisk."

The daily miracle. Page 158 of notebook. November 3 at Rgis Raining. Or so I claim.

Seferi swooshes off the face of the earth like one of those ghosts he claims exists. Seferi is tricky like Kavafi is tricky, seeing figures from the past, disguising them, making new ones up all the time. That is what the saints, the literary saints do, th at is what they are for. TO give us the living some more fantasies to mull over. They recreate the past in modern terms so we will keep it alive. In the case of the Greek past it is so alive that mostly the nonGreeks do it for us on the stage and in the magazine and tv advertisements. We are amused by it but also a lot worried. When you use sacred buildings and statues and events to sell things, a few issues need to get raised. Should they do it? Of course not. Can they be stopped? by whom? How? We could just ask the liquor company not to show our columns any more. We please object? Or we could go to /Atlanta and say the olympics as they do it now have nothing to do with how we conceive they should be run. ANd who will listen or care how I feel? THat the competition is nefarious as it is practiced. That it encourages narrow nationalisms and we need a lot less of that in this fractured world. Who cares who is the best swimmer in the world? i don't or who is the best sled driver or basketball group? Who in the objective sense could really care if the gymast who wins the whole ball of wax as they say, uses Clairol or exercises some divine choice to prefer Excedrin or Advil?

The Greeks have one thing they can't take from us. They have taken everything else, so implies Seferi, the one whom no-one listens to anyways. WEven though he too won the giant prize, the Nobel. The Greeks and the Americans seem not to care even about their monstsrous prizes if the recipient doesn't reinforce the corporate theme and label the world in initials, the arcania , the linguistic arcania of the modern age, the AFof L, the NBC or the CNN. THE HMO. the OJ or the NFL.

Here he is. HE says we have the one advantage. THE "exertion of reason over the emotions." Seems strange coming from a guy who tells us the spirits are lurking about the temples that lie in ruin or partial ruin there in the greek holyland. THere is no contradiction. NOne. The Greek mind in my view is rational. It allows for anything, even stuff we don't really understand. Only we don't get carried away by it. The dead live. THey just do. Walk into the next room and see your grandfather. We just do that or go into the kitchen and see mum. Look at the photo or a watercolor by the giant, Paull Hogarth and you see Greece, Paros or Lindos or Sunioun. I mean see. You are there. H ogarth transports you there as you look; at the book. SO what is new? Not a thing. Seferi is in two worlds at one time. SO am I and that is not a big thing. The mind comprehends the other dimension and folds it into the real and everday life. Ritso's poetry does it as does the work of Vrettakos. Only a few care. Of c ourse as you can see, I do.

Now Seferi gets really cute. You can say anything to him, like "Seferi, the NFL playoffs are here today. Who is gonna win? Green Bay or Dallas? Seferi replies with a clear glance and a steady beat of his voice as follows. He ignores my important question and goes off into space .

Here is where his head is at. Seferi takes the concept of reason over violence and harangue, complaint, assassination, blamesetting, bitching and he says some vague stuff about his hero, Aeschylus who is dead a long time now. Seferi has to bore us to the ultimate with his most nagging concern. HE says with no reason there is no human life worth a damn. Our life in this warlike century has not exercised reason over treachery as Aeschylus admonished us. THe eternal scold, Seferi, Aeshcylus. Socrates, I don't know who.

THere is The idea of Aeschylus that Seferi fixates on, that idea of reconciliation, the resolution of conflicts not by violence but by justice and persuasion.

Seferi is our constant bridge , our very own yefira, to the past. He says not to get exercised too mu ch over what they have done to our culture but keep our eye on the ball. That has to do with right, justice, peace and that sort of thing. NOt how many millions of dollars the Nike symbol makes or the Acropolis picture on the olive can. That is not the big deal. NOt the column drum with the liquor bottle on it or the ad that sa ys come to Greece and make the past live or some such crap. NOt the Zorba figure ogling or the street whore swishing her naughty skirt. NOt the evzone in front of the palace performing for the one clicking the camera. What counts is the old stuff. Not the business on the gods that lurk about . That is just Seferi having fun and worshipping the miracle. What counts the most is the rational, the need to stop the killing, the bombing, the hating, the murder of the children. TO do that we need to use our minds, our hearts harnessed to reason and our hearts bound to love. Love as the Greek ultimately views it. Love of the whole human and natural world we are privileged to occupy. In Elytian terms. When shall we all of us feel how deep serious charming life is? Only Elyty does know. Why don't we? Why does Seferi harp on it so? because that is the point of our whole culture. THe idea that to be human is a responsibility. To kill and maim is a crime against humanness. It is unecessary to find blame, to tear down, to bury and pillage, to slander and to lie, to neglect the old grandfather, to hate anyone for their color or religion or for how they use their genitals.

Reason may guide. It may lead. Listen to Aeschylus. HE said that way back then.

For Seferi, the old man, the quintessential old man, the truly generic old man, says the same thing over and over. He is named Heraclitus, Socrates, Seferi, Ritso, Cavafi, Miller, Aeschylus. HE is Ulysses. He is anyman or anywoman. He is a witness is all. A quiet observer. A village smithy who looks over the place he occupies and sees how the townsfolk use the implements his forge fashiones.Hear ye or hear ye, the master, speak. Seferi.

I think so much these days about the great river,

That symbol which moves forward among herbs and greenery...

That current which goes its way and which is not so different from the blood of men,

from the eyes of men when they look straight ahead without fear in their hearts.

Seferi is ever referring in an unstated fashion to the just man as depicted by Socrates. There is only one right way to live and that is to live straight. Seferi tries this and mostly succeeds. THe tool in this whole business is the rational mind. Not somne mystical bullshit, but the everyday exercise of reason and the mind. The p's and qu's is all. Don't hurt or insult. Try not to lie. Work for the betterment of the people around you and those not around you. Be of good cheer and all that sort of thing. THat is what Seferi tries to get from the ancients before him. THat is what will allow him to one day don the coat of the ancients. He will earn his stripes and get to keep good company when he dies and goes to fairyland where they will speak in Greek to him. It is tricky but he must balance the real with the fairytale as he calls it. He has some fun with the ghosts that inhabit EPhesus or Delphi, but he does manage to keep his eye on the ball. The daily civil society around him that cares not for poems but dwells only on the drachma and what folks around him are calling symferon, self interest. Screw they their neighbor and go home to take an untroubled nap.

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