What happens to Cameron at the end also distantly recalls the Vietnamese Buddhists who immolated themselves in protest against the war (and also against the anti-Buddhist policies of the Diem regime). There's no rational case that they contributed to the failure of the American occupation, but you could say that those monks and nuns embodied a kind of ultra-soft power against which napalm and Agent Orange were useless. But the I Ching has a hexagram called The Taming Power of the Small. A beautiful essay.
Impressive! Philip K. would've been proud of your noninability to draw correlation between high-low culture. In his exegesis he wrote about "sacred trash" unspotlit moments that only writerly-minded notice. DeLillo also talked about "wordless shock" of solitary moments of awareness. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, there is no one to share it with. Love it and trust it and leave. (P.S. Please write me back some day!)
I love "the eccentric throughline" and Nabokov (everything), Munro (everything) and Italo Calvino though I've not yet read the story—thank you for the link— and haven't seen the flick. Your ability to both wander and hold the center amazes and bings us back to Marilyn in your last line. xo Mary
There isn't anything alive that isn't vulnerable but some examples illustrate it more than others. Even Super-Man could not withstand Kryptonite. Your image of gulls flying by the trade towers could stand for so much. My first thought was if all humans were vanquished from the Earth, the animal kingdom would not give a shit and would in fact, be happy about it. We hold ourselves in great importance but in fact we are not, except when it comes to destroying the planet. As a living entity, earth is a great example of firm vulnerability. I think it has had enough of us. It is folding, like a Venus fly trap after being touched.
Particularly enjoyed this entry. It strikes me that these conjunctions are clearly NOT oxymorons. Rather, they are mutually implicit, despite the contrast btw the individual words on their own. Marilyn seems a perfect exemplar/avatar for this.
Mary, your words are exquisite, and your Sstack, a masterclass in writing (and thinking). I could go on about each story and your thoughts here, how transcendent, but I will keep this brief. I love that you bring up Adam and Eve re: Qfwfq and the hubris of his "I know!". Him wanting to tell the world, causing his expulsion from heaven (Or)—the great mystery. It made me think of the loss of a loved one... when the realization of their passing hits… how it can drop you into a liminal space where the mystery shimmers, turning sorrow into something strangely luminous. In those gaps, we feel seized, made to experience the shocking beauty of the world. I sometimes feel 'it' when I read you and other magnificent stories like those you've cited here. Whatever this 'it' is comes on like an ineffable conjuring—an invitation from the other side of the veil as in the case of loved one gone, or a come-hither from the fingers of a writer-turned-magi. How skillful to pierce the veil that can't be analyzed, yet to speak to it so tenderly. Thank you for these posts, Mary. One question about the ending of Scanners… I watched the Youtube clip and it occurred to me: did Vale inhabit the body of Revok as a mask? As his only way to survive in a world that chooses evil over good? (Or) was it saying that inside every malevolent force sings a God?
I hope Mary won't mind, but I've had the audio book of The Complete Cosmicomics on a shared drive forever so if anyone wants to hear The Origin of the Birds (about 29 minutes), they can click this.
Nov 10, 2022·edited Nov 10, 2022Liked by Mary Gaitskill
Not sure if this form of analysis helps, but power, or agency is the *ability to do something*, i.e. help or hurt someone else, whereas vulnerability is the *ability to be hurt*. So they can coexist, and most people have varying amounts of both.
i.e. if you view them as varying, independent quantities rather than on-off switches, you can be very powerful and yet very vulnerable, or neither powerful or vulnerable. (Perhaps many people are sensitive to their lack of power and compensate by decreasing vulnerability?)
Very engineering-y but I haven't seen anyone bring it up yet!
Thank you so much for sharing both your reaction to 9/11 and finding comfort within a book. Marilyn is an icon, and your description fits her. The examples from the books and movie have me thinking. I’m only familiar with Scanners, which kept my attention. Power and vulnerability, a hint at the political environment?
A parting piece of advice from a professor in college was, in times of stress, to set the floodlights on everything. It made sense to me, at least for professional settings. And it’s something I aspire to live by when I’m working. I have never thought of applying that to my personal life. Because, who lives like that! However, when I think of people who might live by that motto, it evokes the same feelings of maximum power alongside maximum vulnerability
What happens to Cameron at the end also distantly recalls the Vietnamese Buddhists who immolated themselves in protest against the war (and also against the anti-Buddhist policies of the Diem regime). There's no rational case that they contributed to the failure of the American occupation, but you could say that those monks and nuns embodied a kind of ultra-soft power against which napalm and Agent Orange were useless. But the I Ching has a hexagram called The Taming Power of the Small. A beautiful essay.
Impressive! Philip K. would've been proud of your noninability to draw correlation between high-low culture. In his exegesis he wrote about "sacred trash" unspotlit moments that only writerly-minded notice. DeLillo also talked about "wordless shock" of solitary moments of awareness. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, there is no one to share it with. Love it and trust it and leave. (P.S. Please write me back some day!)
I love "the eccentric throughline" and Nabokov (everything), Munro (everything) and Italo Calvino though I've not yet read the story—thank you for the link— and haven't seen the flick. Your ability to both wander and hold the center amazes and bings us back to Marilyn in your last line. xo Mary
There isn't anything alive that isn't vulnerable but some examples illustrate it more than others. Even Super-Man could not withstand Kryptonite. Your image of gulls flying by the trade towers could stand for so much. My first thought was if all humans were vanquished from the Earth, the animal kingdom would not give a shit and would in fact, be happy about it. We hold ourselves in great importance but in fact we are not, except when it comes to destroying the planet. As a living entity, earth is a great example of firm vulnerability. I think it has had enough of us. It is folding, like a Venus fly trap after being touched.
Particularly enjoyed this entry. It strikes me that these conjunctions are clearly NOT oxymorons. Rather, they are mutually implicit, despite the contrast btw the individual words on their own. Marilyn seems a perfect exemplar/avatar for this.
Mary, your words are exquisite, and your Sstack, a masterclass in writing (and thinking). I could go on about each story and your thoughts here, how transcendent, but I will keep this brief. I love that you bring up Adam and Eve re: Qfwfq and the hubris of his "I know!". Him wanting to tell the world, causing his expulsion from heaven (Or)—the great mystery. It made me think of the loss of a loved one... when the realization of their passing hits… how it can drop you into a liminal space where the mystery shimmers, turning sorrow into something strangely luminous. In those gaps, we feel seized, made to experience the shocking beauty of the world. I sometimes feel 'it' when I read you and other magnificent stories like those you've cited here. Whatever this 'it' is comes on like an ineffable conjuring—an invitation from the other side of the veil as in the case of loved one gone, or a come-hither from the fingers of a writer-turned-magi. How skillful to pierce the veil that can't be analyzed, yet to speak to it so tenderly. Thank you for these posts, Mary. One question about the ending of Scanners… I watched the Youtube clip and it occurred to me: did Vale inhabit the body of Revok as a mask? As his only way to survive in a world that chooses evil over good? (Or) was it saying that inside every malevolent force sings a God?
I hope Mary won't mind, but I've had the audio book of The Complete Cosmicomics on a shared drive forever so if anyone wants to hear The Origin of the Birds (about 29 minutes), they can click this.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/29w94rdkworh7fg/16%20Chapter%2016.mp3?dl=0
Mary, please delete this if you want this taken down!
Thanks so much for this post.
Not sure if this form of analysis helps, but power, or agency is the *ability to do something*, i.e. help or hurt someone else, whereas vulnerability is the *ability to be hurt*. So they can coexist, and most people have varying amounts of both.
i.e. if you view them as varying, independent quantities rather than on-off switches, you can be very powerful and yet very vulnerable, or neither powerful or vulnerable. (Perhaps many people are sensitive to their lack of power and compensate by decreasing vulnerability?)
Very engineering-y but I haven't seen anyone bring it up yet!
Thank you so much for sharing both your reaction to 9/11 and finding comfort within a book. Marilyn is an icon, and your description fits her. The examples from the books and movie have me thinking. I’m only familiar with Scanners, which kept my attention. Power and vulnerability, a hint at the political environment?
A parting piece of advice from a professor in college was, in times of stress, to set the floodlights on everything. It made sense to me, at least for professional settings. And it’s something I aspire to live by when I’m working. I have never thought of applying that to my personal life. Because, who lives like that! However, when I think of people who might live by that motto, it evokes the same feelings of maximum power alongside maximum vulnerability
I had forgotten the ending of Scanners. I will be back after I read the two stories. Thank you for the insights, as always.
Such a lovely post it engenders worthy comments.