An Aesthetic of the Shabby
The Introduction to this sequence justifies (unconvincingly) the choice of 144 entries, and offers a précis of the aesthetic principles that form the core of this ideal onion. Chief among these is the specious identification of a “turn” in Beckett’s fundament aesthetic (his stabbing in the chest and streets of Paris in the post-epiphany hour of 1:13 a.m. on 13 January 1938); this leading to a meditation on the consequences of that moment in terms of an overall aesthetic of the shabby commedia that follows. An analogy of the London Underground is offered, to offer a choice of facultative entries and exits, these cross-referenced in bold to suggest something of the fugal structure of the “choose your own adventure” whole; and to advise the first-time traveller to observe the narrative sequence (and, when brought into service, the Index) to avoid being lost in the rabbit-holes of the footnotes.
Contents
aesthetic of the shabby, the advent of grace in the unworthy.
The Analyst, Bishop Berkeley’s ideal tarwater, troubled by fluxions.
Arsene is buggered, the epiphanic experience leaving him bewidlered.
aspirins, for critical headaches triggered by cheese-mites.
asylum, the final refuge of the irrational.
Atomism, which enchanted Beckett’s fancy, until he met Leibniz.
Augustine’s redemptorist waistcoat, into which to button oneself, but not yet.
Bally, Ballyba, Ballybaba, a vade mecum to the Beckett country.
Becky, Bella, Beatrice, en ce bordel où tenons notre état.
Beethoven pauses, what must be, if it must be, must be.
Bible stories, telling tales of the Lord.
biblical tips, as Lazarus to Mary Magdalene.
birds and beasts, a Beckett bestiary.
Callipygian ends, no child left behind.
Cartesian co-ordinates, Mahaffy’sguide to the clear and distinct.
circles and centres, the frigid machinery of a time-space relation.
Coetzee’s tractate, his PhD thesis as a premonition of disgrace.
coincidence, echoes and analogies in a serial universe.
colours, in a monochromatic universe.
concrete images, made of the metaphysical sands of time.
Condom-sur-Baïse, and other Turdy Holes.
dactyls, to flick the chiroplatonic finger at the pretentious.
deadbeat escapement, the half-hunter in pursuit of the clockwork cabbage.
demented particulars, the littles and tittles that can be known.
deux besoins, why one testicle cannot be preferred to the other.
Easter risings, strange comfort from the Bunny in times of troubles.
elements of logic, or the tyranny of the syllogism.
equilibrium, the cosmic principle of trim.
error, the imperfection (fallor, ergo sum) of all that fall.
faces, figures to feature against the blooming, buzzing confusion.
fearful cemeteries, Tous ceux qui tombent.
fictions, faltering footsteps towards a theory of disbelief.
football, the round and the oval, with mysteries of the dodecahedron.
fundamental unheroic, he who hides in the brambles lives to make the songs.
geology of conscience, deep down, between the mud and the rock.
guffaws of the Abderite, to laugh at that which is unhappy.
gulfs, in which the subject, seeking to save the object, drowns.
hardy laurels, funambulistic staggers towards distant felicities.
hawthorn, homage to Proust, the pink amidst the white.
hyphens etc, whereby the wanton revel in the joys of punctuation.
identified contraries, that coincide in the Monad.
imagination penetrative, whereby the arithmetical seeks the geometrical.
incoherent continuum, limits of the Unlimited.
In the beginning was the pun, superfoetation of τό ἔν.
involuntary memory, the ideal no longer real but re-created.
I the Supreme, whose skull found asylum in a box of noodles.
Jean du Chas and other sad cunts, who wish no longer to be vertical.
Kram and Krim, witness and scribe, to the mystery of vanishment.
Krapp’s last tapeworm, memories of a beautiful girl in a konditorei.
Laetus exitus tristem, that a merry outgoing attains a sad return.
Lisbon’s great day, that came too late for Leibniz.
Lucky’s word-salad, and other take-aways.
lures of the limerick, time doth tick, quick, a pox on clocks, an alembic.
machinery of transcendence, syzygetic forms to contain the chaos.
measurement, to be counted on as memory fails.
medical misadventures, all heartache and shock that flesh is heir to.
mémoires d’outre-utérus, and other attempts to integrate the matrix.
misogyny, to blast our principal boy and those who say it is not so.
mixed choirs, within or without, that is the question.
Monadology, concerning the finite centres of infinite speculation.
motion, between the sky above and the rock below.
mud, between the slime and the sublime.
multis latebra opportuna, an upright young man as a creepy-crawly.
Murphy’s mind, as it pictures itself to be: a diachronic evolution.
Murphy’s mind, as it pictures itself to be: a synchronic model.
Murphy’s suicide note, in which an unexpected verdict is reached.
mysticism, the flame that burns away filthy logic.
mythological present, don’t mind it.
nature, it must be the Spring.
necessary journey, leading to the necessity of staying put.
neither, Anteros and anti-matter, ghostly oscillations (perhaps).
nescience, whatever that means.
Nihil in intellectu, that nothing succeeds like a toothless parrot
Nominalist irony, for the qualified affirmation of demented particulars.
nominative determinism, the omen in the nomen.
Nordau and the Not-I, the squalid origin of the degenerate self.
obsessional images, of first and final childhood.
occasions of fiasco, as manifest on the plane of the feasible.
old wine, new bottles, the past decanted into the present.
order, oases in the deserts of entropy.
petites perceptions, peeps into the windowless monad.
phrase-bombs, Prince Rupert drops and other small explosions.
poetry as prayer, or the accent of quietism.
pre-established arbitrary, the identified contrary of universal APMONIA.
quaestiones quodlibetales, propositions of intelligence in agreeable form.
quanta of wantum, sub-atomic particles as isotopes of equivalence.
qui vive la pietà, rare movements of compassion in the halls of hell.
riddles of the universe, Haeckel’s embryology and Beckett’s larval forms.
Romantic agonies, raddled but embraced.
roses, that cannot forgive the relative immortality of the vase.
sartorial decorum, Sir’s guide to the well-dressed deplorable.
scatology, the necessary house where the happiest penny is spent.
Schrödinger’s cat, and the improbable death of Neary’s tractate.
science, nuclei of sanity in an atomist void.
serialism,Spiegel im Spiegel, or sempiternal form?
shape of ideas, even if you don’t believe in them.
silence:
speculator hujus machinae, for the limits of aesthetic detachment.
‘Ständchen’, die fröhliche Mädchen and “sentimental Viennese shit”.
“suddenly”, the mysterious moment between impasse and motion.
tableaux vivants, dramatic stases in the flow of narrative time.
tragedy of idealism, sole elect, that’s what they all say.
transubstantiation, within the rat that ate of the consecrated hostie.
Ubi nihil vales ibi nihil velis, the ethical heart of an aesthetic.
unimaginable library of the dead, where all the books are read.
validity in annotation, to separate the fly-specks from the pepper.
Vermeer’s A View of Delft, Bergotte’s death, the yellow potatoes he ate?
the voice, within or without, that is the question.
War, don’t mention the, all that boy scout stuff.
‘The Way’, in which the self coming down meets its self going up.
‘Who*oscope’, wherein it is demonstrated that love is the pits.
xenia, flowers of thought, to enwreathe the loutishness of learning.
Zweispringerspott, Endon v. Murphy (1935), a classic encounter.
Epilogue, the dust settling on a pot-pourri of faded memories.
Bibliography, that Charles Augustus Conybeare may see whence ideas come.
Index, that the foolish might follow the ignes fatui through the quags.