The 38th Parallel

From the moment of birth your past is like the DMZ at the 38th parallel. Enter purgatory at your own peril. There are those who wouldn't extend the metaphor with the North as hell. The North may be death in life but Hades is a vast battlefield in which death is not infinite but as far as the eye can see. Most people think of the past as a version of the familiar in aged form, but in fact everyone carries a cemetery of ancestors one is seldom prone to think about even in the age of Ancestry. Hades is real and you don't need Charon to cross the Acheron. You may visit it in your sleep.

read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

and listen to "Boogaloo Down Broadway" by Johnny C

Moonarching

Jean-Michel Claret

Gaslighting is what Trump does when he's accusing the Democrats of killing democracy. But what's "moonarching?" BTW if you're ever asked about your signs, tell them "my moon is in windshield." The most common example of "moonarching" occurs when someone looks up and says "look at that moon." There is, of course, the famous Moondance Diner. The Chinese recently sent a rocket to the far side of the moon. Sullen individuals are often described as "mooning about." "Fly Me To the Moon" is a Frank Sinatra song but what is one to do when one gets there, exclaim like Neil Armstrong, "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind?" Lunar eclipses are more frequent and less dramatic than the recent solar eclipse which caused traffic jams in the Northeast. The Moon and Sixpence is the title of a novel by Somerset Maugham. "There's a Moon Out Tonight" is a classic 50s top 40s song. The Capris sang it. "Let's go strolling. There's a girl in my heart," are the next lines. People who look up towards the moon are those who might be found reading Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination."

Listen to "There's a Moon Out Tonight" by the Capris

and listen to Francis Levy's playlist for The Kafka Studies Department on Largehearted Boy

Tristan and Isolde

Ludwig and Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld as Tristan and Isolde

For a moment when the dragon is no longer breathing down your throat you experience a sigh of relief. Desire lies at the heart of all suffering, Buddhists say and there are people who elevate the level of discomfort and pain they're willing to experience, if only to increase the after effect. Maintaining the feeling of gratitude that comes from getting your breath back is another matter. Compulsive ultra marathoners seek this kind of ultimate relief. Where does happiness stand on the graduated cylinder of pleasure? Is there a line at which relief shifts to exhilaration? And is there a form of happiness that doesn't require a cold bath? Satori or nirvana salves consciousness from turbulence but are not states that would serve the thrill seeker. The German for "passion" is "leidenschaft." "Leiden" is sadness. Wagner's great lovers Tristan and Isolde sing their famous "Lisbestod." Is the flame of happiness a super nova, a dying star that explodes magisterially before turning into a black hole?

listen to Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

and listen to "A Wonderful One" by Marvin Gaye

Dostoevsky

People frequently regret the past and the choices they've made or failed to make. There's the famous Wayne Gretzky line, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take." And there's Mike Tyson's "everyone has a plan until they get punched on the mouth." You don't have to believe in God or the notions that everything  is as it's supposed to be or it would be different to accept a deterministic universe. Free will is an illusion if one considers heredity, environment, DNA. In fact even so-called aleatory or chance phenomena follow built-in laws. You may be playing roulette or even Russian roulette but what time of day it is and where you are in space/time are some of the forces already at work. The Gambler is the title of a Dostoevsky novel and Dostoevsky himself was a gambler but is one ever gambling? The great Russian writer experienced a mock execution. After such a hair-raising experience anyone would be forced to concede to fate. There's actually no second guessing or turning back, no life that would have been. The only life you can have is the one you're living.

listen to "Do the Funky Chicken" by Rufus Thomas

read the review of The Kafka Studies Department in Booklife (PW)

Baby Love

drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

There is gestation and birth. Freud talked about the Oceanic Feeling or connection between infant and mother. Isn't this what everyone is nostalgic for? The infant entering the world is a jilted lover who will forever have a chip on their shoulder. One other thing about intra-uterine life is that it's the perfect solitude. You're alone while being all one.

listen to "Baby Love" by The Supremes

and read the Kirkus Review of The Kafka Studies Department 

Lost Souls

The true lost souls are those who don't realize it. One who proclaims a state of unknowingness has attained a greater degree of awareness than one thinks they have it down pat. Success by the standards of a particular industry or epistemology can be disconcerting since it creates the delusion of wisdom; there will be many leaders of industry, politics and the arts who go to their graves thinking they are sitting on top of the world or carrying it on their shoulders like that Atlas in Rockefeller Center. Aptitude and facility constitute a demonology. Those possessing these traits--those guilty of the sins of insouciance, self/confidence verging on hubris and most importantly self-satisfaction should sit at the foot of Purgatory where pride, along with envy and greed, come a cropper. The last shall be first and all the those who feel their lostness by virtue of incompetence or failure will be fast tracked, on the backs of saints, to heaven.

See Francis Levy playlist forThe Kafka Studies Department, Largehearted Boy

and read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy," Exquisite Corpse

The Night Watch

The ocean is anxiety producing because of rip tides just as sex is anxiety producing for those who are concerned about performance. The Coney Island Cyclone should advertise adrenaline. Skydiving attracts those seeking Adrenalin highs though Adrenalin ironically is the substance that causes impotence. In fact a treatment for a priapism is a shot of adrenaline. Cheap thrills contrast to the kind of enduring pleasure that may derive from a memory of "The Night Watch" or even Courbet's "The Origin of the World" which walks a fine line between stimulation and the kind of illumination, resulting from supernovae that produce an explosive burst of light before they explode and die.

read "Died Young" by Francis Levy, The Brooklyn Rail

and listen to "Can I Get a Witness" by Marvin Gaye