The Day I Didn't Get Dressed

[poliphilo]

I spent all of yesterday in my dressing gown- not because I was sick or anything but simply because I could. It felt mildly transgressive.  I don't think I'll do it again.

I've been reading Peter Lamont's The First Psychic- a life of Daniel Dunglas Home, the Victorian spirit medium. Home was amazing; he got heavy furniture to dance around, he materialised spirit hands, he levitated; He did all these things in front of eminent scientists and the crowned heads of Europe; and he was never caught cheating. Thackeray, Elizabeth Browning and Mark Twain admired him, Dickens, Robert Browning and Leo Tolstoy detested him, and Alexandre Dumas pere was best man at his wedding to a Russian aristocrat. Was he the greatest medium the world has ever known or the most successful charlatan? Either way it's a fascinating story. And one that raises all sorts of disturbing and unanswerable questions such as  "How far can we trust the historical record?",  "How far can we trust scientists?"  and "How much do we really know about anything?"

In the evening I watched 2001, A Space Odyssey. It holds up very well.  The special effects are as good- no, better- than those in any modern film. Everything is handmade- so you're seeing real objects not computer simulations. And I don't care what anyone says, CGI always looks fake. 

Comments

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I'm not dressed yet too. At 2 pm. But I'm kinda sick, so I guess I have an excuse ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'll let you off then. :)

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

I love 2001 and Bladerunner for the same reason; a tangible future, the understated point of the story, the languid shots of a dreamy world. They both predate this Uber Science Fiction World that Hollywood has created. They are both sublime.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I saw it when it first came out in 1968. I remember being totally baffled. Wow what a trip, but what the hell did it mean? I've watched it many times since. Yes, "sublime" is exactly the word.

How much do we know about anything?

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

I think you might enjoy:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399877/

Just out of curiosity, why did staying in your robe all day feel mildly transgressive? Why was this not good?

Re: How much do we know about anything?

[(Anonymous)]

I think it is upbringing. I would feel the same.
Jenny (sister)

Re: How much do we know about anything?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That looks fun.

As for the mildly transgressive thing, my sister has put her finger on it. Having a more than usually lazy day makes me feel guilty. It's the Protestant Work Ethic, I suppose.

Re: How much do we know about anything?

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

It takes about two days of sloth before I reach guilt about inactivity. However, these days with high-speed access, sloth has a different level of inactivity than it used to.

As far as clothing is concerned, I've known people who've worked at home who have to dress in a shirt and tie in order to function even if they aren't greeting clients. I understand that there are those who cannot sleep without their pajamas. Me? I would be more than happy to do any of these things in my birthday suit. I guess I never internalized that sense of ritual emotionally...

Re: How much do we know about anything?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm very much a creature of habit. I don't like it when my normal routines are broken up. Not changing out of my dressing gown was something I had to steel myself to do.

Spanish poems

[(Anonymous)]

I should have said this before - I seem to have mislaid my set of photographs and your poems. I think it is since our move. I love your poems and I want to do something with the paired images and poems. What can we do? Do you have the set?
Jenny

Re: Spanish poems

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, I'm not sure. I don't think I ever had a set, but I could be wrong.

When you say you've lost them, do you mean you've lost the negatives too?

Re: Spanish poems

[(Anonymous)]

no, not the negs. but the complete poems set next to the chosen photographs in a folder. I thought we each had some sort of copy of that.

Re: Spanish poems

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I must take a look.

But even if the collection no longer exists I'm sure I'd have no problem matching the poems to the pictures.

[le-oef.livejournal.com]

yeah i even prefer the crappiest handmade special effects to the best "real" looking cgi.

i love ray harryhausen.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The effects in 2001 are handmade but not crap. I don't think there's a single shot that doesn't convince. It's the ultimate effects film.

[le-oef.livejournal.com]

yeah those 2001 effects are incredible and sublime.
didn't mean to imply that i thought they were crappy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"didn't mean to imply that i thought they were crappy."

I didn't think you had. Sorry to imply I thought you'd implied......

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

I hate wearing my dressing gown for longer than I need to, but that's cos I associate wearing it with being ill. Also the... what's it called... lead... cord does tend to fall into things it oughtn't... like the loo bowl...

Your movie thingie about old stuff versus new special effects reminds me of how I feel about old movies like the Hitchcock ones versus the new ones with lots of blood and gore. I think newer movie makers have lost the plot..

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read the other day that they're going to remake The Birds. I know- just know- it's going to be dreadful.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

Yes, I expect it will be. Remakes are rarely as good as the original film. Why do people do them? Isn't there enough original material out there to make a new film altogether? Mind you, the same holds true for watching a film before reading a book, usually. I wish I'd read Bram Stoker's Dracula before I saw all the crappy Hammer Horror films! (Mind you, I did enjoy the Hammer Horror films, but had to watch them as something different.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was surprised at how good Dracula is- the book, I mean. You're right, the films are "something else". The best of them is Murnau's Nosferatu- which turns the story into a horrible Grimm's fairytale.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Murnau's Nosferatu is way up there with the good films, erm, if you can call that sort of darkness 'good'!

I think Grimm and Anderson should have swapped names, as Anderson's fairy tales are far grimmer than Grimm's...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

If he could do it, why can't everybody do it?

I read one of Deepak Chopra's new-age books, and he said while he was meditating he "found himself" across the room from where he'd started out. He said it was common for fakirs--something--to levitate while meditating, so why not him?

Tony, if I sat still with my eyes closed meditating and felt myself lifting off the ground I would be so scared I would never meditate or even close my eyes again.

Maybe I've just answered my own question: I don't do that fakir stuff because I don't want to, God knows.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's always the question "why?"

I mean, what's the point of floating across the room? It doesn't seem to have any moral content.

Healing the sick? Yes, that's a worthwhile thing to do. But levitating?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

If levitating were possible, I'd (assuming I didn't scare myself to death) would try to start flying like Superman, over trees.

If one assumes that the saints of old and fakirs of India (there are, I now recall, woodcuts of saints up in trees while in ecstatic prayer) float in the air, then my best guess is that they are somehow partly moving into other dimensions, because our brains aren't constructed (nor are our bodies) for floating.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can do it in dreams- and then it seems like the most natural thing ever.

Also it makes me happy.

I'm willing to believe the laws of nature get suspended for certain remarkable individuals.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I've told you, I think, about the one time I had a truly psychic moment--a boy asked me to look for his dog, and gave me a phone number on a piece of paper. I went inside, and, in a bemused, sleepy, and somehow expectant optimistic state of mind, opened our big city phone book, wondering (idly) how long it would take to find the phone number.

I looked down, and there it was. No kidding.

There was no name on the boy's piece of paper, and I had nothing to guide me.

I think that dreamlike fugue-state, coupled with optimism, helps us let go of our earth-bound-ness.

Fakirs don't fly around after breakfast--they have to be in a state of some sort. And mystics have to be "in ecstacy."

I think maybe we can suspend the laws of nature (the rigidity of expectation)--all of us--if we are not fully awake in this world.

It helps me believe in something other than this world, just barely.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've had things like that happen to me, only I can't remember what they were. They have a dreamlike quality- and unless you make the effort to hang onto them they escape into the aether.

When I was a witch they were happening all the time. I think you're right, attitude has a lot to do with it.

Daniel Dunglas Home seems to have been a very naive, unworldly sort of person. (Or a very cunning charlatan.)

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I feel transgressive, too. Also when I don't make the bed. But I kind of like being naughty sporadically. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I never make the bed :)

Oh wow!

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Does someone else make it or do you just sleep in an unmade bed?