Coincidence
Posted at 3:22 on Feb 21st
By Eric Olson
I just came across this poem, Jurek, by little-known (or at least little-known to me) Lithuanian poet, Algimantas Mackus, who died in a car accident in 1964. I’ll just give you the relevant passage here, but the entire poem is worth reading:
VII
The slow, lumbering procession of mollusks.
Green grass and soft clouds,
pool of blood in the forehead
into the warm redness
into the soft sunrise
behind the slithering, silent
procession of mollusks.
Oh, cantor at the Synagogue of Vilnius,
with his mother's voice
bewail the fate of Jurek:
the pool of blood in his forehead
This has to be a coincidence. Obviously.
My title is a play on Jean Baudrillard’s essay and was designed as a way to approach the more difficult theoretical aspects of my own text, for better or for worse.
But this is a very strange coincidence. Now, of course, I’m looking for connections in this passage, so (of course) I’m finding them. The “green grass” and the “soft clouds”; the “pool of blood in the forehead”—all of this, it seems, could apply to my own text.
And also this:
After finishing a second draft of Mollusks, long after I came up with the—at the time, seemingly ridiculous—idea of a David Attenborough BBC series The Life of Mollusks, I was horrified and a bit confused when the BBC released Life in the Undergrowth, a four part natural history documentary about insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and (you guessed it) mollusks. While only one episode is largely dedicated to the phylum, the coincidence still (both in subject matter and timing) feels eerie.
I like these arbitrary and unintentional interlocutions—language has its own life, and these convergences are like when it falls in love or falls down. It has something to do with falling.
Is it significant that Mackus died in a car accident in 1964? Probably.
Mollusks is slowly slithering out into the world. Thanks to all who have bought copies. I hope you enjoy reading.
Check out Lyle Zapato’s review/blurb for Mollusks here:
review/blurb
Lyle Zapato inadvertently confused and frightened 7th graders with his campaign to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (featured in the second half of Mollusks). Check out the Wikipedia entry on this interesting experiment concerning the role of internet literacy and research: tree octopus
Thanks, Lyle
VII
The slow, lumbering procession of mollusks.
Green grass and soft clouds,
pool of blood in the forehead
into the warm redness
into the soft sunrise
behind the slithering, silent
procession of mollusks.
Oh, cantor at the Synagogue of Vilnius,
with his mother's voice
bewail the fate of Jurek:
the pool of blood in his forehead
This has to be a coincidence. Obviously.
My title is a play on Jean Baudrillard’s essay and was designed as a way to approach the more difficult theoretical aspects of my own text, for better or for worse.
But this is a very strange coincidence. Now, of course, I’m looking for connections in this passage, so (of course) I’m finding them. The “green grass” and the “soft clouds”; the “pool of blood in the forehead”—all of this, it seems, could apply to my own text.
And also this:
After finishing a second draft of Mollusks, long after I came up with the—at the time, seemingly ridiculous—idea of a David Attenborough BBC series The Life of Mollusks, I was horrified and a bit confused when the BBC released Life in the Undergrowth, a four part natural history documentary about insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and (you guessed it) mollusks. While only one episode is largely dedicated to the phylum, the coincidence still (both in subject matter and timing) feels eerie.
I like these arbitrary and unintentional interlocutions—language has its own life, and these convergences are like when it falls in love or falls down. It has something to do with falling.
Is it significant that Mackus died in a car accident in 1964? Probably.
Mollusks is slowly slithering out into the world. Thanks to all who have bought copies. I hope you enjoy reading.
Check out Lyle Zapato’s review/blurb for Mollusks here:
review/blurb
Lyle Zapato inadvertently confused and frightened 7th graders with his campaign to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (featured in the second half of Mollusks). Check out the Wikipedia entry on this interesting experiment concerning the role of internet literacy and research: tree octopus
Thanks, Lyle
