The language itself is languaged so that language gives us a view of the self that
got language, or the language that made the self what it is.
Language is not transparent. This is not Windex language but, but, but
stained-glass language so that you look through the language, and you're not
necessarily going to see some original true self.
>> This is what Lyn Hejinian is. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
I interrupted you. >> Yeah, so I mean.
If we just, even, like, look back at, I mean.
We, we keep coming back to this, but the Shirley Temple's Mary Janes line.
And the, and the, even juxtaposing that with the two bits, you know?
If you think about the way that their language constructs those two selves, and
the difference in those two selves. >> I think we have there, kind of like her
critique of, of how this language works. >> And both of those instances are, a
constructions of American culture. One looking back, a kind of pseudo history
of the cowboy, and the other this girlhood, which really is imposing.
Quietly, lusciously, in a friendly kind of, come-on-wear-the-Mary-Janes-way
helping. The girl compose her American self, her
feminized self, as distinct from Grandpa. These are, these are cult-, very specific
cultural markers. So.
>> What else, what else? She goes to the bathroom.
She vomits secretly because. >> She longs for her mother.
>> She misses her mother. You want to say anything about that?
Emily? >> Well, I just remember that list you
read of all her earlier fears, about, [inaudible] getting lost, being homesick,
of spiders and [inaudible] her ice cream cone.
They're all about this type of displacement, this disruption, what you're
talking about. And so, that disruption, to, for that to
define her childhood by creating these phobias and then to, for her to use
disruption as her poetic practice and her kind of structure and awe in structure
seems sort of lovely and resonant. >> What happens in a life?
When, you go to school. I mean, this is, this is a young girl.
She's what? Six.
>> Is that when you go to school? >> You go when you're five ...
>> Five. She's five to six in this particular year.
What happens? Talk about the development of the ego.
>> What's going on here? >> I mean it feels constructed by others.
He's sort of very accepting and vulnerable to external definitions, before you can
create yourself in lang, or recreate yourself in language.
>> It's a turmoil moment. Right?
But why, why, why do you miss mom? It's a fairly obvious question but
[inaudible]. >> I, I mean it's protective.
It's the womb, it feels safe, nurturing. >> What, what role is the mom, was the
mother play in this section, early in the section?
>> She's the birthday cake maker. >> Yes.
Well all the moms. >> [laugh] >> Right and earlier, in a
earlier section, what, what role does mom play, mother play?
>> Her childhood was a holy melodrama. Right.
So now Lynn goes to school this is the moment where you get socialized by another
set of agents and you move out of the sphere of the domestic; and it makes her
sick. Followed by a much later thought now, bid
chaos. What could she possible mean?
Or what do we do? What meaning do we construct from that
juxtaposition? I don't know that I had a tendency when I
was reading my life to interpret a lot of it meta-poetically.
So that anecdote might be factually accurate or not.
I saw it as maybe that sort of like Stein accumulation that she describes, that she
talks about, in let us describe a belief. Where it's sort of this just bodily, just
disorganized chaos. But it's more authentic in that sort of
illogical structure than would be, of the artificial, conventional narrative that
Anna was talking about. So when she says undone is not, not done,
it's not in the sense that. >> Hegenyon's way of writing lacks any
meaning or beauty at all. It's recreating that in a new way, which
requires a committee. >> So, translate that.
>> Or translators. >> Undone, it's not the same as not, not
done, translate. >> Right, it's a double negative.
So, it mean, it's not, it's just... >> It's not that we didn't do it.
It's that we undid it. >> [inaudible] >> Right.
>> Difference. >> Yes.
>> What's the difference? >>, Can you give them newly [inaudible].
>> Intentional, like [inaudible]. " ...
>> This is undoing. What we are reading is undoing or an
attempt to undo the layers and layers of encrusted, socially valued [inaudible]
Language imposition on the self, who at 37 of 45, takes it to be her mission to
reproduce the way in which the word disappeared and the world appeared, to use
the phrase from [inaudible]. So disappearance of the word, appearance
of the world. Let's go back to the appearance, the
reappearance of the word. We were worded.
We were languaged. Undone is undoing that to some extent
rather than not doing it at all. So this is meta consciousness about the
way in which we get created. Now bid chaos welcome.
Let's try one more time. Let's conclude with that.
Now bid, come on, bring it on, bring what on, Emily, now bid chaos welcome.
>> Accept that disorder. The disorder, which is the natural state
of things rather that the artificial order that we.
>> Mm-hm. >> Impose on it.
>> Cool. Dave, do you wanna say something?
While, while, while, while I'm asking Dave, I'm gonna add I've not done this
yet, but I'm gonna ask, Max to type in big caps, [inaudible].
I believe it's the language of invocation, of poetic invocation, I think it might
even be from Milton. >> Dave.
>> Hi. >> Big chaos welcome.
>> I agree with what Emily said, bring on life.
Bring on, the. >> Well what kind of life?
Chaos. >> Right, but.
>> This is not the order of a traditional memoir.
>> You don't have the control anymore. >> Anna, big chaos welcome.
>> It sounds almost like Shakespearian to me.
>>, What is she asking? What does she want?
>> She wants. >> All of life, words and all.
>> Molly? >> Well, I just sequence it with the, or I
put it together as a sentence before. As a child, like, you go out there
unprotected. You're five year old, five years old, and
it's like bring on the world. >> Max, did you come up with something?
>> Just no, [laugh], ... >> It's the name of a blog, as you search,
[laugh] ... >> Imagine that.
>> We'll post this. >> I'm like...
>> We'll post this. I believe it echoes Miltonic invocation.
>> Well, God created the heavens and the Earth out of chaos, right?
So, it's pre-creation mode. >> And in Milton, it's the, it's the,
calling of the Muse to take the chaos of, of what happened, and make it, make it,
ordered in the harmonious description of language.
And this is, this is, I'm doing that, this one decree, this is an invocation of
chaos. And of discontinuity.
And discontinuity is the way these lives get constructed and it needs to be the way
in which we tell it.