Thank you so much, Patti, for the message and the photos from Nice. I had to do a double take when I saw you standing in front of the Fishermen’s Chapel in Villefranche sur Mer. It is a place that my brother loved. We went there together when we were young, by which I mean when he was alive. You put it so well in saying that one is enveloped by all the benevolent angels, made manifest by the miraculous Cocteau. You remind me of him, Patti, because you are so limber - as he was - in your creative capacities, going from one medium to the next, in a constant progression of artistic expression.
How wonderful that you are staying in the hotel where Joyce began “Finnegan’s Wake.” I love that book and always say both that I’ve never read it and also that I’ve read it a lot. Like Woolf’s “The Waves,” I don’t think one ever finishes “Finnegan’s Wake,” and no one can claim to understand it in any traditional way. The great Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector said that she didn’t want her work to be understood, but “encountered,” and I think that’s how one has to approach “Finnegan’s Wake.” It is an encounter that yields infinite meanings that deepen with every reading.
I read about a book club in Venice, California, that took 28 years to read “Finnegan’s Wake,” and when they finally finished, the club's founder said that one is never really done reading it, and that's the beauty of it, he said. “It's rock and roll in print.” I love that line because it really is. I turn often to it for the joy and illumination that comes merely from the act of reading. As Joyce says in it: “Let us leave theories there and return to here’s hear,” “over the bowls of memory where every hollow holds a hallow.”
The book is so deeply imbued with depths of feeling that would be impossible to express in a traditional text. Here’s joy: “The Gracehoper was always jigging ajog hoppy on akkant of his joyicity.”
I will cherish the photo of you standing outside the chapel. In my mind’s eye, my brother is there, standing beside.
Thank you for saying that it’s hard to say goodbye once you start talking to us. I have the companion feeling: as soon as you begin, I start thinking, “let her go on for a long time.”
Wishing you good work and safe travel. Wishing everyone safety and what peace is possible while there is so much suffering.
From “Finnegan’s Wake”: “We’ll meet again, we’ll part once more.”
As others have pointed out, both Man in the Long Black Coat and Summertime Sadness are on YouTube. They're wonderful, especially when we were there as you were learning them. Jackson's guitar solo on the Dylan song is exquisite.
Thanks for the beautiful photos. A Mistake of Angels could be a poem.
It's true that there's a limit to how much we can help those that are struggling but you, through your work, are gifting beauty and wonder to the world. That is a vital contribution. All the best with your writing.
Thank you so much, Patti, for the message and the photos from Nice. I had to do a double take when I saw you standing in front of the Fishermen’s Chapel in Villefranche sur Mer. It is a place that my brother loved. We went there together when we were young, by which I mean when he was alive. You put it so well in saying that one is enveloped by all the benevolent angels, made manifest by the miraculous Cocteau. You remind me of him, Patti, because you are so limber - as he was - in your creative capacities, going from one medium to the next, in a constant progression of artistic expression.
How wonderful that you are staying in the hotel where Joyce began “Finnegan’s Wake.” I love that book and always say both that I’ve never read it and also that I’ve read it a lot. Like Woolf’s “The Waves,” I don’t think one ever finishes “Finnegan’s Wake,” and no one can claim to understand it in any traditional way. The great Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector said that she didn’t want her work to be understood, but “encountered,” and I think that’s how one has to approach “Finnegan’s Wake.” It is an encounter that yields infinite meanings that deepen with every reading.
I read about a book club in Venice, California, that took 28 years to read “Finnegan’s Wake,” and when they finally finished, the club's founder said that one is never really done reading it, and that's the beauty of it, he said. “It's rock and roll in print.” I love that line because it really is. I turn often to it for the joy and illumination that comes merely from the act of reading. As Joyce says in it: “Let us leave theories there and return to here’s hear,” “over the bowls of memory where every hollow holds a hallow.”
The book is so deeply imbued with depths of feeling that would be impossible to express in a traditional text. Here’s joy: “The Gracehoper was always jigging ajog hoppy on akkant of his joyicity.”
I will cherish the photo of you standing outside the chapel. In my mind’s eye, my brother is there, standing beside.
Thank you for saying that it’s hard to say goodbye once you start talking to us. I have the companion feeling: as soon as you begin, I start thinking, “let her go on for a long time.”
Wishing you good work and safe travel. Wishing everyone safety and what peace is possible while there is so much suffering.
From “Finnegan’s Wake”: “We’ll meet again, we’ll part once more.”
With affection, as ever,
Robin
As others have pointed out, both Man in the Long Black Coat and Summertime Sadness are on YouTube. They're wonderful, especially when we were there as you were learning them. Jackson's guitar solo on the Dylan song is exquisite.
Thanks for the beautiful photos. A Mistake of Angels could be a poem.
It's true that there's a limit to how much we can help those that are struggling but you, through your work, are gifting beauty and wonder to the world. That is a vital contribution. All the best with your writing.