The Lure Of The Obscure

I frequently find myself drawn to the obscure. Not that I don’t like clarity. I like clarity. I want to be clear about clarity. I never met an ice cube I didn’t like. Though I prefer my beverages without it. I like ice in the abstract. I like the idea of ice. I like the actuality of ice. The structure of ice. The stillness of ice. The medium of ice. The iciness of ice.

Ice is a hexagonal structure which resembles a beehive, composed of layers of slightly crumpled hexagons, which is not only a delightful image, but clear, and drips a little, in the heat of my imagination. Many of the physical properties of water and ice are controlled by the formation of hydrogen bonds between adjacent oxygen and hydrogen atoms. The bonds, like all bonds, are sensitive to temperature. As water cools below 4°C, the hydrogen bonds adjust to hold the negatively charged oxygen atoms apart. This produces a crystal lattice commonly known as 'ice,’ which is easier to say than “crystal lattice,” especially if you slip up during a figure skating competition. You wouldn’t want to get to your feet and say, fuck me, I slipped on a shitload of crystal lattices.

Ice floats because it’s about 9% less dense than liquid water.

Hope floats because it was a movie starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr. and got an audience score of 72% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Although the information surrounding ice is slippery and hard to grasp, the data bites with clarity and freezes into cubes of sound called words.

Still ponds in forests fascinate me. I like to gaze at the silt on the bottom, the branches and debris of the forest reposing in insane clarity, the tiny shadow of a Jesus bug scampering over the surface of the pond projected below through the uncannily pellucid water and over extraordinary precisions of silt.

I like haikus, accident reports and the murmur of summer rain.

But I also like mysteries and obscurity. I like looking at physics equations on blackboards. I don’t understand them. They have no meaning for me. But they do have meaning. I could look into it if I wanted. And discover things. Frictional force. Uniform circular motion. Momentum. Impulse. Torque. Kinetic energy. Things that are unclear at first but then burst with clarity.

I like the idea of vast domains of knowledge and experience that not only exceed my personal comprehension, but are universally enigmatic and shrouded in mystery, like the dark matter that puzzles astrophysicists, or the water spouting out of the mouths of gargoyles.

There’s a species of poetry that has enormous appeal. Poems such as those by Stephane Mallarmé or Louis Zukofsky whose word joinings suggest far more than what’s on the page and do more to excite a mental energy alert to a growing multiplicity of association rather than cohere into a single meaning. I like that tantalizing obscurity, that enticing combination of clarity and shadow, like the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, that conceals and reveals simultaneously.

Tonight, there was a big thunderstorm, claps of thunder every few seconds and heavy rain. Our cat sat in the window, riveted. Spellbound. I don’t know what, exactly, was going on in her mind, but it’s clear she was fascinated and trying to figure out what was happening. It’s that quality of attention I find so desirable, particularly in aesthetic experience. I want to be a cat in the window during a thunderstorm every minute of the day. Enraptured. Ensorcelled. Mesmerized. Maybe a little frightened.

The sublime is supposed to be scary. Before the word 'awesome' was emptied of meaning, it meant "extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear." Now, of course, it just means ‘cool.’ "I like your hat, dude. It's awesome." "You got married? Awesome."

The world needs to be re-enchanted. Whatever strange physics equations Wall Street is using to keep its financial scheming afloat when it's so obvious that real wealth - the purity of our air and water, the health of our oceans and forests - is being depleted, have, nevertheless, a strange fascination for me. I have to admire the madness and hallucinatory vigor of it. What compelling hallucinations! Money is a form of language. Paper and numbers are ascribed a certain monetary value, and that value – which is strictly numerical – reflects what is valued in the culture. Paying for something is a form of communication. I want that. Here’s this, these numbers, I’m giving you in exchange for that thing I want. That hotel room in Honolulu. That doctor to look at my foot. That house. That car. That ride in the sky.

What sells easily? What hardly sells at all? Cars, computers, tickets to a basketball game or rock concert sell robustly. Even the mindfulness movement has been coopted and marketed. So much for transcendence.

Poetry is the hardest sell of all. Why is that? It takes work on the part of the reader. It can’t be consumed right away like a can of soda or bag of potato chips or flashy rock stars on a stage at Coachella. It takes an investment of time and energy and a certain quality of attention. A willingness to work all day at splitting a coconut. A coconut of words. A coconut of participles and ink.

Isn't this what I've wanted language to do? Create spirits of air, à la Prospero, and inflate them with nitrous oxide and rum. Lose control. And stand back to enjoy the delirium.