I think of Kafka… the aphorism, that the “way” of man is like a rope stretched a foot above the ground, seemingly more meant to be tripped over than to follow.

Kafka, too… is thinking of Eros… and trying not to.

I grateful to have found your blog through litlove. But heavens!
Those word’s COULD not be “I love you,” as that’s what any erotically engorged subject blurts out from their most primal mamnilian brain… Stevens is pointing out (ruefully, perhaps… had he an Alma to go back, he may not have even needed Freud!)… contra Romantic popular assumptions (and with no little anxiety, lest it not be so) … that poetry is driven by a source not so easily limited.

… what he longs for, is something beyond Eros… but that he knows well enough, we will never be quite free of…

It is the human that is the alien,
The human that has no cousin in the moon.

It is the human that demands his speech
From Beasts or from the incommunicable mass.

If there must be a god in the house, let him be one
That will not hear us when we speak: a coolness,

A vermilioned nothingness, any stick of the mass
Of which we are too distantly a part.

Hello and Welcome Jacob, That’s such a great reading of those lines. I have always thought the “wished for words” were the dreaded “I love you.” I’m not sure I’m ready to give up that reading, but I love having your alternative, and also getting to check out your blog.

Archie, I can only say I agree, and that’s pretty good, don’t you think, coming from a venusian?

Dear Litlove, I’m supposed to be packing up my things — and it’s well after midnight — but I’ve had such a fun night at the theater that I can’t get myself to admit I’m leaving in the morning. It has been a lovely time.

Hello Dorothy — I’ve loved all the theater, and have lots of things to say, when I get home and can finally return to a normal sleep and work schedule. xo, BL

If it were otherwise, sex being what it is, anyone could make poetry, an ironic hint that perhaps, had he found erotic satisfaction, he wouldn’t need to write poems, as Mahler seems to have given up music for Alma after his famous stroll with Doctor Freud!

Maybe it’s time I re-read Jane Austen? (And lovely to meet you yesterday. That was a first!)

What an orgasmic outcome that would be – - -

Why thank you Cam. It’s so much fun to be at the theater alone. You can sit in silence during the intermission, eating your incredibly expensive little thing of ice cream, the one that costs a stunning six dollars, and think whatever thoughts you want to think. And at the end of the play, you do not have to turn to your companion and say anything, including “that was good.” You can walk to the tube and figure out what you really, really do think. It’s the best thing I’ve done in a long time, getting to be alone to really think.

LK, There is a place for a box of dingdongs. In fact, Stevens was a huge lover of chocolate, but I’m guessing it was more fine chocolate than the kind that comes wrapped around and in a donut-like thing.

Dear Ben, Have a great trip! As for the landscape, I’ve never thought of it that way. I’ve always thought it was more about the weather, which keeps people indoors here in England so much, and thus gives them a lot of time to consider what one might best do indoors.

Have a good trip!

Sometimes I think that the geography of Geneva may have something to do with Calvinist reserve: if the beauty of human intimacy were added to the overpowering (and very feminine) wonder of the Alps rising up over the lake, it might have overpowered Calvin’s somewhat feeble human frame.

In London, where it is foggy and flat, he might have gone to the theater more often.

Dear Gentle Reader, Thank you. I’ll be interested to hear about your Austen re-reading. The biography was far quite powerful.

Charlotte, that’s such a sweet thing to say. I am having a fun time — I guess that’s obvious, huh!?