Grasping for V. Group Read P.S.

[Ian Livingston]

On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 5:02 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> Myself of course I have to think of Heidegger first when I hear "waiting
> presence", but this is a German thing you certainly wouldn't understand ...

>> If every night is Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve is profane (and thus
> all the other days of the year, too).
>
> Anyone in agreement?

I'll buy it. Especially the "waiting presence" thing. The idea of
immanence certainly fits well with the discussion of Durkheim and the
numinous, yes? Then there's Benny's it-world nature. Because he cannot
enter into any depth of relationship, his inclination is to experience
life as a perpetually arising sort of phenomenon wherein the future is
an extension of the past happening to him rather than in concert with
his intentions. The profane is Benny's sacred. Everything happens sort
of mysteriously, spontaneously appearing as if it had been waiting for
the chance to materialize. The Duino Elegies also come to mind....

Btw, did you know that it was by a margin of one vote upon the
establishment of the Plymouth community, that English became the
language of the colonies rather than German?

> Regarding "emptiness" à la Pynchon: It's right in the first song, on the
> first page of my Picador UK edition (p. 9):
>
> "EVERY [emphasis added] night is Christmas Eve on old East Main"
>
> Although the 1960s were a decade of rediscovering religion (cf. Peter L.
> Berger: A Rumor of Angels. Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the
> Supernatural [1969]; dt. Auf den Spuren der Engel. Ffm 1970: Fischer),
> I read Pynchon's words as a catholic's criticism on secularization.
>
>
> Kai
>
>>
>> And, let's discuss: WTF does "emptiness into waiting presence" mean?....I've just realized
>> that in the analogy list, the first term is the good term equalling Benny before he turns onto East Main---dog
>> into wolf---so emptiness is the good term and waiting presence the bad??? Waiting presence of drunken
>> vomiting sailors, okay, but why 'emptiness" ?
>>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."