Friday, January 8, 2010

Contemplation of the Sublime



Confrontation, contemplation, the yielding of one's self to what is beheld. An alarming, piercing reality. A sense of suspension. The vertiginous falling into the world. The trance-like experience of immersion, submersion. Solitude, tranquility, isolation. Many of the actors in Werner Herzog's Heart of Glass performed under hypnosis, amplifying the oneiric atmosphere. The hallucinatory lucidity that lies slightly askance of the quotidian. How many degrees must one move to enter this realm, the everyday surreal sublime? What must shift for things to enter the pleasing unease? To allow one's self to suddenly fall, tumbling through the pane into the otherworldly realm that lies nearby, or within.



"Strange! So infinitesimally narrow is the threshold between the two realms, and yet no one raises their foot to cross it! The other reality borders on our skin, yet we do not feel it! Our imagination stops here, where it could create new land."

Gustav Meyrink, The White Dominican, 1921

4 comments:

billoo said...

jacky, happy new year!

what a co-incidence! I just bought this (err..illegally downloaded) this film yesterday.

anyways, hope all is well.

best wishes,


b.

jacky bowring said...

Happy New Year Billoo ... you should also 'buy' White Diamond, for the scene with the swifts alone!
cheers, jacky

Brian Davis said...

This seems utterly Nerud-ian! I love bigness, and the preservation of the idea of mystery. this seems to be more critical than we admit in our scientific age, the unknown.

the unknown means possibility. it just might work out.

jacky bowring said...

Thanks Roman ... vastness offers unlimited potential, which is both a source of fear, and optimism!
cheers, jacky