Darkening

Late fall fragments and impressions

Pilgrims,

It’s a coming. This range runs north south, and as the year wanes, the sun sets farther and farther to the left. Not like God needs Stonehenge, but you can see something like that from here. The sun has a way left to go, still, before he — to mix gods — turns around and comes back to us.

In the library, with a candlestick. Yes, this is that library, the Clue box top from childhood. Vanderbilt town home, later literary club, Mark Twain, Upper East Side.

I’m feeling blissfully mindless these last weeks. Right. Seriously, the usual existential exigencies, but just have little that’s ready for show, and some struggles (essays) do not produce artifacts. Also, so tired of “critique,” especially my own, the “takes” that fill my feeds. Was going to talk about that, the negative quality of our discourse, why do we all structure our responses in such predictable forms, blah blah my eyes glazed over even if/when/where I was probably right.

Let’s do shit! Here’s something constructive. Take these fragments, call them errata if you wish, and see if they might make some sense vis a vis one another, at least establish a resonance, a vibe. Even a poisonous, weirdly sparkly, maybe interesting, vibe.

Somebody told me my work juxtaposed things that do not occur together very often, and that was different from, resistance to, LLMs. Indeed. Trying to represent the improbable, odd, puzzling and even wondrous is also true to life, my life anyway, if that’s worth anything. LLMs are not true to the world, they have no world, no theory of representation and so no sense of failure, or even some success, in expressing what matters about what is as itself, an sich, as opposed to data. The LLM is always right, on its terms, that is the terms of data run through neural networks, but who cares about those terms save those more capitalist than they understand?

Heart of Stone

It has been a good couple of weeks for seeing. Today, I limit myself to suggesting something about fall, the darkening of the land. Although it might be hard for digerati to remember, understanding, not only of “nature” but also of those not at all independent things we call our culture and ourselves, requires attention to such things, the rhythms of light and dark, of the seasons, of the movements of birds and the cycles of insects, and larger animals, too . . . that is, I mean “darkness” in a primitive way.

I suspect if the recent longing for the Romantic is to get anywhere, it will have to get more primitive. I’m not sure folks in Bushwick and the like will be cool with that, but we shall come to know.

Not much to eat, but doing what they can before the snow drifts, there is no food, and running becomes almost impossible. Before the dangerous months. The Seneca used to hunt deer in deep snow with knives, or so I’ve heard.

Probably mountain lion, deer killers. Maybe a first for Substack, big animal shit?

Working with another’s good mind, genius in a more humane and capacious sense than the usual Schwarmerei (untranslatable, but start with the less than admirable status of “fan)” [but in what sense genius, and how could I be sure?] is a thing of wonder. [And since it is a thing of wonder, you cannot be sure, nor do you need to be.] As I age, I have come to find such engagements a blessing and an honor. And I understand, in ways I didn’t not long ago, the competitions, disappointments, and encouragements of my younger selves, and the warm desires and even pathos of my teachers.

Interior of fireplace, back wall, it all deserves art if you can afford it, Vanderbilt dining room.

The young black dog, excited at being loose in the woods, threatened to knock the old white dog down on the rough ground. I shouted “Hey” in a somewhat angry voice. A man up the hill yelled back, trying to sound friendly while being loud. Lost in my thoughts and then distracted by the dogs, I hadn’t yet seen the elk hunter, but he didn’t know that. He probably worried I was shouting at him. Angry property owners are a big deal around here, and he couldn’t see I was unarmed. No, no, just the dogs, I shouted back, my Southern friendly when not murderous self kicking in, didn’t see you, now I do of course, and I managed to catch and leash the young dog, who had started barking, followed by the old dog, on general principle.

Is this how it begins? Ends?

The man came down the hill on the right side of the fence, on federal land, where hunting is permitted. Black powder and bow season over, rifle season another week. The hunter held his gun across his chest, muzzle skyward, properly and comfortably, good looking scope but I didn’t inquire. Traditionally, a 30.06, but that’s a bit old fashioned.

All escalators should be wood. The wood means something. Coffin, live yet dead. What are you going to do with that?

I berated him for voting for Trump. Just kidding. We talked, he admired the land. The old dog, who could see the hunter now that he was only a few feet away, and hearing our friendly tones, stopped barking and decided to go say hi. She didn’t see the barbed wire that marks the edge of the National Forest, got halfway through and tangled, fell a bit. We sorted it out, no harm done. He had an old dog, too. The dogs and I resumed our walk. The hunter continued on down the hill, needing to cross the creek, reach the road, and in the gathering darkness, find his car.

If you want my advice, and you may keep better counsel, do as you will. But for my part: Embrace the winter that is coming for you, Pilgrims, and though there is nothing you can do about that. Enjoy the world, and your strength, if you have it. Hold one another close, regardless. Make something good, if you can. Or not, but that’s what I am going to try to do.

— David A. Westbrook