01.30.2005

NEITHER

To and fro in shadow from inner to outershadow

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither

as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close, once turned away from gently part again

beckoned back and forth and turned away

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the other

unheard footfalls only sound

till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other

then no sound

then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither

unspeakable home

Samuel Beckett, (1906-1989)

01.29.2005

Is it possible, is that the possible thing at last, the extinction of this black nothing and its impossible shades, the end of the farce of making and the silencing of silence, it wonders, that voice which is silence, or it's me, there's no telling, it's all the same dream, the same silence, it and me, it and him, him and me, and all our train, and all theirs, and all theirs, but whose, whose dream, whose silence, old questions, last questions, ours who are dream and silence, but it's ended, we're ended who never were, soon there will be nothing where there was never anything, last images. And whose the shame, at every mute micromillisyllable, and unslakable infinity of remorse delving ever deeper in its bite, at having to hear, having to say, fainter than the faintest murmur, so many lies, so many times the same lie lyingly denied, whose the screaming silence of no’s knife in yes’s wound, it wonders. And wonders what has become of the wish to know, it is gone, the heart is gone, the head is gone, no one feels anything, asks anything, seeks anything, says anything, hears anything, there is only silence.

Samuel Beckett, (1906-1989) Texts for Nothing, 13

01.28.2005

In this new music nothing takes place but sounds: those that are notated and those that are not. Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences, opening the doors of the music to the sounds that happen to be in the environment.

John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings

01.27.2005

The artist who creates silence or emptiness must produce something dialectical: a full void, an enriching emptiness, a resonating or eloquent silence. Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech (in many instances, of complaint or indictment) and an element in a dialogue.

Susan Sontag (1933-2004), The Aesthetics of Silence, 1967

01.24.2005

Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

01.23.2005

Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.

Herman Melville (1819–1891), Pierre, or the Ambiguities, Book XIV, 1852

01.22.2005

Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage . . .

Fulke Greville (1554-1628), Elegy on the Death of Sidney

01.21.2005

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.
(The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.)

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées, iii. 206

01.20.2005

Silently, God opens his golden eyes over the place of skulls—Trakl, Psalm
There is no harmony like the silence of God—Pascal, Pensées

01.01.2005