#wallace-stevens — Public Fediverse posts

A properly ethical attitude must risk an encounter with the unsettling real of the other’s being

From Mari Ruti’s The Singularity of Being pg 192:

Against this backdrop, what is most innovative about post-Lacanian ethics is its emphasis on the idea that a properly ethical attitude must risk these supports, must risk an encounter with the unsettling “real” of the other’s being. Ethics, in other words, can no longer be merely a matter of more or less prudent interpersonal negotiations within the symbolic and imaginary registers, but instead calls for our ability to withstand the other’s devouring jouissance. This is why Lacanian ethics is less interested in the “morality” of our actions than it is in our capacity to endure the unconscious psychic intensities that get activated by the others’s jouissance and that cannot be assimilated into our schemes of symbolic and imaginary reciprocity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bYDeZpIZvk

There's a gap in between
There's a gap where we meet
Where I end and you begin

And I'm sorry for us
The dinosaurs roam the earth
The sky turns green
Where I end and you begin
I am up in the clouds
I am up in the clouds

And I can't, and I can't come down
I can watch and not take part
Where I end and where you start
Where you, you left me alone
You left me alone

X will mark the place
Like the parting of the ways
Like a house falling in the sea
In the sea

I was suddenly struck by how the ‘X’ here reminds me of The Motive for Metaphor by Wallace Stevens:

You like it under the trees in autumn,
Because everything is half dead.
The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning.

In the same way, you were happy in spring,
With the half colors of quarter-things,
The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds,
The single bird, the obscure moon⁠—

The obscure moon lighting an obscure world
Of things that would never be quite expressed,
Where you yourself were never quite yourself
And did not want nor have to be,

Desiring the exhilarations of changes:
The motive for metaphor, shrinking from
The weight of primary noon,
The A B C of being,

The ruddy temper, the hammer
Of red and blue, the hard sound⁠—
Steel against intimation—the sharp flash,
The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X.⁠

The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X that marks the place where I end and where you start. I don’t think Thom Yorke’s lyric is a deliberate reference but I do think these lines can be read together as the sharp flash, the rupture in what we imagine, constituted by the Lacanian Real. The X marks the terrifying point where symbolisation breaks down, when something darker and older bursts through to the surface. Note the next verse in Radiohead’s song after X marking the place:

I will eat you alive
I will eat you alive
I will eat you alive
I will eat you alive

And there'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies

A removal of the distance, a suspension of the hiatus, an obliteration of the X. There will no longer be a point which marks our edges. There will be fusion and with it there will be no more lies. It’s a song about exactly the “devouring jouissance” which Ruti is describing but in this case it describes the story of this jouissance from the inside. This is the terrain of Lacanian ethics and it maps out aspects of our existence together which too easily get lost in other approaches.

Thought of the day.....
The pressure of reality overwhelms our sense of perspective.
#WallaceStevens

Where you yourself were never quite yourself and did not want nor have to be

You like it under the trees in autumn,
Because everything is half dead.
The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning.

In the same way, you were happy in spring
With the half colors of quarter-things
The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds,
The single bird, the obscure moon—

The obscure moon lighting an obscure world
Of things that would never be quite expressed
Where you yourself were never quite yourself
And did not want nor have to be,

Desiring the exhilarations of changes
The motive for metaphor, shrinking from
The weight of primary noon,
The A B C of being,

The ruddy temper, the hammer
Of red and blue, the hard sound
Steel against intimation—the sharp flash,
The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X

– The Motive for Metaphor, by Wallace Stevens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NlF-nPHTt8

#articulation #change #WallaceStevens

A Postcard from the Volcano

Namatjira et al, 2025

Prompted by the text of the eponymous Wallace Stevens poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43432/a-postcard-from-the-volcano

Prompts in description

#aiart #stablediffusion #fooocus #surreal #wallacestevens

A Postcard from the Volcano

Namatjira et al, 2025

Prompted by the text of the eponymous Wallace Stevens poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43432/a-postcard-from-the-volcano

Prompts in description

#aiart #stablediffusion #fooocus #surreal #wallacestevens

¡Oye! The former Emperor of Ice Cream was just reminded that this is National Ice Cream Day! Thank goodness I was reminded. #IceCream #NationalIceCreamDay #EmperorOfIceCream #WallaceStevens

¡Oye! The former Emperor of Ice Cream was just reminded that this is National Ice Cream Day! Thank goodness I was reminded. #IceCream #NationalIceCreamDay #EmperorOfIceCream #WallaceStevens

The former Emperor of Ice Cream knows how to snack: half chocolate chip and half ginger. #IceCream #snack #WallaceStevens

The former Emperor of Ice Cream knows how to snack: half chocolate chip and half ginger. #IceCream #snack #WallaceStevens

I’ve been reading some #WallaceStevens today (An Ordinary Evening in New Haven).

And although some parts read like a description of the ideas behind a poem, and some parts I frankly can’t make full sense of, there are phrases and sections that do I think evoke something unusual, beautiful and true:

I’ve been reading some #WallaceStevens today (An Ordinary Evening in New Haven).

And although some parts read like a description of the ideas behind a poem, and some parts I frankly can’t make full sense of, there are phrases and sections that do I think evoke something unusual, beautiful and true:

John Davidson grew up in Greenock, a son of the manse – although he soon rebelled against his father’s religious beliefs. A prolific writer, he influenced many #Modernist writers such as WB Yeats, Wallace Stevens, TS Eliot, Virginia Woolf & Hugh MacDiarmid

#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thCentury #Victorian #Modernism #WBYeats #WallaceStevens #TSEliot #VirginiaWoolf #HughMacDiarmid

2/2

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/apr/18/poem-of-the-week-john-davidson

John Davidson grew up in Greenock, a son of the manse – although he soon rebelled against his father’s religious beliefs. A prolific writer, he influenced many #Modernist writers such as WB Yeats, Wallace Stevens, TS Eliot, Virginia Woolf & Hugh MacDiarmid

#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thCentury #Victorian #Modernism #WBYeats #WallaceStevens #TSEliot #VirginiaWoolf #HughMacDiarmid

2/2

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/apr/18/poem-of-the-week-john-davidson

Anecdote of the Jar

Based on the poem by Wallace Stevens

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14575/anecdote-of-the-jar

Prompt in description

#poem #wallacestevens #aiart #fooocus #stablediffusion #surrealism

Anecdote of the Jar

Based on the poem by Wallace Stevens

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14575/anecdote-of-the-jar

Prompt in description

#poem #wallacestevens #aiart #fooocus #stablediffusion #surrealism

Am currently pondering the wonderful fact that both #CharlesIves and #WallaceStevens were insurance execs for their "day jobs" -- at roughly the same time, too.

Ives, however, retired earlier in his life (1930, according to Wikipedia), while Stevens stayed on until nearly his death.

So much of Ives's critical work was composed in the pre-war years that seem pretty critical to Stevens development, too -- the mid-1910s.

Am currently pondering the wonderful fact that both #CharlesIves and #WallaceStevens were insurance execs for their "day jobs" -- at roughly the same time, too.

Ives, however, retired earlier in his life (1930, according to Wikipedia), while Stevens stayed on until nearly his death.

So much of Ives's critical work was composed in the pre-war years that seem pretty critical to Stevens development, too -- the mid-1910s.

“There must be something of the peasant in every poet.” — Wallace Stevens

#writing #poetry #WallaceStevens

“Poetry is an abstraction bloodied.”
― Wallace Stevens
#poetry #literature #wallacestevens

“Poetry is an abstraction bloodied.”
― Wallace Stevens
#poetry #literature #wallacestevens

“Throw away the light, the definitions, and say what you see in the dark.”
#wallacestevens
#poetry #LitStudies

“Throw away the light, the definitions, and say what you see in the dark.”
#wallacestevens
#poetry #LitStudies

So I'm at a Lou Malnati's in fucking Phoenix AZ, of all places, with Ramon.

#Beer and real, actual #pizza goddamn.

Rage for order, pale Ramon. Deep dish awaits.
#wallacestevens
#theideaoforderinphoenixaz

Just in time for #stpatricksday the best Irish band you may have never heard of, Emperor of Ice Cream a la the #wallacestevens poem. My fave track is "High Rise, Low Rise" from their debut album "No Sound Ever Dies." #bandcamp

#music #poetry #guitars #cork

https://emperoroficecream.bandcamp.com/

A great reading for a wintertime day
#poetry #Poem #wallacestevens #mindofwinter #snowman

https://modpo.org/2021/02/19/the-mind-of-winter-collaborative-close-reading-by-zoom-of-stevenss-the-snow-man/

A great reading for a wintertime day
#poetry #Poem #wallacestevens #mindofwinter #snowman

https://modpo.org/2021/02/19/the-mind-of-winter-collaborative-close-reading-by-zoom-of-stevenss-the-snow-man/