tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post6040774928558939004..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: At AveburyCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15990695423265640662007-10-17T20:30:00.000-04:002007-10-17T20:30:00.000-04:00History, it seems, is literally immemorial, “out o...History, it seems, is literally immemorial, “out of memory,” impossible to hold for long.<BR/><BR/>To contradict the idea that seems to be evident here, I personally don't think that just because these megaliths have been re-erected means that they have somehow lost their (for lack of a better term) "weight" in history. Think of all the reconstruction and modification to ancient buildings in Europe - it may seem blasphemous to some historians, but to others, myself included, it's a chance to allow history to be available to later generations. Since history is ongoing, letting these monuments stand where they once were is not changing their histories, it's allowing them to be explored by those interested in their stories.<BR/><BR/>(this comes from a young university student who has yet to be free in the world and see all the pretty structures that I see in the textbooks. I'm glad people have helped conserve them so I might be able to explore in the future.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-43932191412544152202007-10-12T11:50:00.000-04:002007-10-12T11:50:00.000-04:00yes, to all that's above. and, a little tiny thin...yes, to all that's above. and, a little tiny thing: that domens as seen things are definately re-constructions, by way of excavation. i mean, these things were structures that were covered in earth. but a lump of dirt is not so stone-age as a physical visual dolmen, no? heh.dan remeinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13011645541207076650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-26378224516662328752007-10-12T06:35:00.000-04:002007-10-12T06:35:00.000-04:00Mary Kate, I think you and I share many of the sam...Mary Kate, I think you and I share many of the same obsessions, as well as perhaps a melancholy disposition towards them. I certainly had your wonderful post on lost languages in mind as I revised this vignette. As to these lines:<BR/><EM>I wonder if a part of the fabric of the narratives we weave of the past, whether we call them history or myth of science fiction, is that odd sense of dis-ease that comes with knowing we weren't the first to pass this way -- that things in the landscape outlast any story we could tell of them, that in our minds they must somehow, to borrow your phrase, mute as stone, bear witness to our human finitude. </EM><BR/>Well, you expressed it better than I could! It's funny. I read Martian Chronicles so long ago, and the power of that scene you quote didn't cling to me as it did you ... or if it did it is somewhere I can't reach anymore. I love it; thanks for furnishing it.<BR/><BR/>Steve, it'd be great to hear from your students!Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-5745486057424181722007-10-11T19:46:00.000-04:002007-10-11T19:46:00.000-04:00In my mind I'm going to Carolina...Good post, good...In my mind I'm going to Carolina...<BR/><BR/>Good post, good comments. I'm linking my blog here on the chance that a few of my students will follow it up.Steve Muhlbergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18136005762428407135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-44040910648814455502007-10-11T10:40:00.000-04:002007-10-11T10:40:00.000-04:00This is a really lovely meditation on something th...This is a really lovely meditation on something that seems to come up so often in reading about time vis a vis history -- i.e., the way we endow physical objects with the "weight of the past." I'm particularly interested in your reading of the stone-as-agent vis a vis the stone as the reconstruction of our present desires. <BR/><BR/><I>History, it seems, is literally immemorial, “out of memory,” impossible to hold for long.</I><BR/><BR/>Interesting too that in our own fashioning of history, we rely so much on that very <I>memory</I>, codified, rewritten and reshaped, to give us a way of understanding what is at times a product of a complex but subjective interaction between our minds and our environment, most particularly in the form of these monuments, coupled with stories passed down. <BR/><BR/>It reminds me of that beautiful line in Bradbury's <I>The Martian Chronicles</I>, which I happen to have recovered my copy of yesterday upon my return to NC for the weekend (downside of my little sister becoming an English major: she stole my books!!). It's the part where the men have just landed on Mars, and the crew is making a huge racket, and one of them, Spender, separates himself out, admonishing the others, and feeling that they're being disrespectful: <BR/><BR/><I>"It was just the idea of Them watching us make fools of ourselves."<BR/>"Them?"<BR/>"The Martians, whether they're dead or not." <BR/>"Most certainly dead," said the captain. "Do you think They know we're here?"<BR/>"Doesn't an old thing always know when a new thing comes?"</I><BR/><BR/>He goes on to talk about it as a feeling of being uncomfortable in the new situation because of the marks left by the past: <BR/><BR/><I>"Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you kno what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves." </I><BR/><BR/>Rereading that now, from the perspective of nearly a decade since my first encounter with it -- it seems to be saying something that resonates with the questions you raise in these initial moments of the "Weight of the Past". I wonder if a part of the fabric of the narratives we weave of the past, whether we call them history or myth of science fiction, is that odd sense of dis-ease that comes with knowing we weren't the first to pass this way -- that <I>things</I> in the landscape outlast any story we could tell of them, that in our minds they must somehow, to borrow your phrase, <I>mute as stone</I>, bear witness to our human finitude. It's a difficult silence to bear. <BR/><BR/>Hm, not sure any of that makes sense. I blame it on the Carolina sunshine.Mary Kate Hurleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14892991966276345782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-41808884179557115412007-10-10T18:10:00.000-04:002007-10-10T18:10:00.000-04:00Thanks, Adam, for those kind words.As to how much ...Thanks, Adam, for those kind words.<BR/><BR/>As to how much a buttload weighs, I'd like to think in my case not all that much, but others will have to judge that aspect of my physicality.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-41650819436157675212007-10-10T15:11:00.000-04:002007-10-10T15:11:00.000-04:00Fascinating stuff. The stone in your photo has th...Fascinating stuff. The stone in your photo has the look of a Picassoan, Guernicaesque horse's head, I'd say.<BR/><BR/>There's a pub that does B&B inside the circle of stones at Avebury, and I stayed the night there once; I know what you mean about the glamour of the place ... I mean, about the way it's about seventy-five percent wish-fulfilment projection from the adult mind. I especially like the way you're going against the against-the-grain, if you see why I mean, by dealing with a literally weighty thing as a, well, weighty thing ... instead of arguing that (for instance) the lancet found in the purse of the corpse has the most 'weight' (in, say, symbolic or hermeneutic terms). I like it that you don't do that. Sometimes the elephant, whether in the room or out on the grass, <I>is</I> the biggest thing.<BR/><BR/>One other point: given the context of discussing weightiness ... how much, exactly, does a 'buttload' weigh?Rachel Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09514816247989239714noreply@blogger.com