Three Excerpts from Kleinzeit
In memoriam Russel Hoban.
NNVSNU TSRUNGH
RSSPosts tagged with "Hoban"
…the air itself seemed honeyed, and it was in that fragrance that I first heard her voice, the voice of the woman who became my story. I heard her weeping in the leafy shade while the dragonflies printed themselves gigantically on the transparent stillness over the river.
There rose in my throat a terrible ache and in that moment the world became me and I became the world-child who knows nothing and believes whatever it is told; I was the world-child whose innocence binds the world together, whose innocence betrayed will unfasten the world. Oh yes, I thought, and as I listened to the weeping of the unseen woman in that golden, golden afternoon I became the tortoise I had killed. I felt my own cruel knife enter me, felt my life spurting out, felt my still quivering body being dug out of my shell. In an explosion of brilliant colours I suffered the many pains of death as underworld opened to me, underworld and the moment under the moment. I suffered many pains, the many colours of death and I knew everything. The colours were swallowed up in blackness, there came a stillness and I found myself weeping by the river with the lyre in one hand and the plectrum in the other. The strings were still sounding as a song died on the air and I could feel in my throat that the singing had come from me but I could remember nothing of it. I tasted blood in my mouth and there was blood coming out of my nose. On both sides of the river the trees came down to the water’s edge and swayed their tops against the sky.”
“There opened to you underworld,” I said, “and you knew everything. I remember how it was, I remember her weeping.”
“Yes,” said the head [of Orpheus], “in the weeping of Eurydice there opened to me underworld.
-
Hoban, TMF, page 40.
Nothing to declare.
oof.
this is essentially irrelevant to the Orpheus-thesis, but I conducted a piece on a concert today. it’s been awhile. was an emotional day; I had scary dreams but was also afraid to wake up and get out of bed. had a less-than-great rehearsal (with pros whom I’ve known since I was five). the soloist is a very sweet person, and I wanted to do a good job for her sake, but it was a 9/11 memorial, the concert was about something more than just itself: and, instead of calming me down, that thought only made me more nervous that I’d stick out as under-qualified. concert ultimately was good; about as good as it could’ve been on one rehearsal.
one thing that I always forget about conducting is how much it drains you. sure, it’s invigorating and thrilling in the moment of performance - but part of the excitement is that it is transitory, and once it’s over, you feel so wiped out. to concentrate so intensely for such a short period of time…it’s a real workout. that is, I think, actually kind of relevant to Orpheus.
ahh, I’m sorry. I’m not too coherent tonight. just thought this was an important thing to write down, even badly. I took a bus home tonight, was feeling down, listening to “How to Disappear Completely”. it was almost pitch black; I couldn’t recognize the roads even though I’ve made that trip a million times before. it reminded me of when I was very young - we used to take family vacations, and there was something so enchanting and exciting about driving at night, it didn’t feel like vacation if we didn’t do at least some night-driving. now, it seems terrifying to me, to not be able to know where you are or where you’re going. and then I thought of russell hoban (of course):
That night I went to the road. There was no moon, only the night and the dim road wending into darkness. I stamped on the road, I whispered, “Hermes!” The road moved backward under my feet, faster, faster. The steady rhythm of it stretched its long dream into the darkness and the whispering of the night. Running, running I said to the night “I have no name but the one you give me, no face but the one you see.”
I was, I am, an emptiness. I don’t know what anything is: I don’t know what music is, I don’t know the difference between running and stillness, between dancing and death. The world vibrates like a crystal in the mind; there is a frequency at which terror and ecstasy are the same and any road may be taken.
From The Medusa Frequency, through the mouth of Orpheus. I also think about how often the novel depicts travel, how important movement is. The first time I read it, I read those parts quickly because I thought they were unimportant - now, I find myself dallying through them more and more.
anyway. going to try to do some work now. (wish me luck - what usually happens on nights like these is that I’m too invigorated to fall asleep and too brain-dead to do anything important.) good night.
About NNVSNU TSRUNGH
this is a blog about Orpheus. the author is a senior undergraduate at Columbia University.
this blog will serve as an aid to/record of the author's thesis project, which will investigate the depiction of Orpheus throughout the course of musical history. the project will culminate in three concerts and a paper (which will be advertised/made available here). feedback and suggestions on all aspects of the project are welcome.
every now and then i write about my life too, but i try to keep things mostly Orphean here.
"NNVSNU TSRUNGH" roughly translates to "I'm afraid I exist", and is a tip of my hat to the great novelist Russell Hoban, without whose books i would not have found the head of Orpheus.
this blog will serve as an aid to/record of the author's thesis project, which will investigate the depiction of Orpheus throughout the course of musical history. the project will culminate in three concerts and a paper (which will be advertised/made available here). feedback and suggestions on all aspects of the project are welcome.
every now and then i write about my life too, but i try to keep things mostly Orphean here.
"NNVSNU TSRUNGH" roughly translates to "I'm afraid I exist", and is a tip of my hat to the great novelist Russell Hoban, without whose books i would not have found the head of Orpheus.
