Day 31: Vasco Popa, Jules Renard, Johan Huizinga
Poem: Vasco Popa - The Small Box
The small box gets its first teeth
And its small length
Its small width and small emptiness
And all that it has got
The small box is growing bigger
And now the cupboard is in it
That it was in before
And it grows bigger and bigger and bigger
And now has in it the room
And the house and the town and
the land
And the world it was in before
The small box remembers its
childhood
And by overgreat longing
It becomes a small box again
Now in the small box
Is the whole world quite tiny
You can easily put it in a pocket
Easily steal it easily lose it
Take care of the small box
...
This poem is at the very start of Ted Hughes' book on how to write poetry, which gave me some clue to its importance, and wow does it really make me feel happy at what very simple words can do! This translation (I think translated by Hughes himself) is a joy to read out loud.
What is the box a metaphor for? I'm not so sure. Something precious and unique. I would guess imagination.
Vasco Popa reminds me of my nephews first joke:
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Poppa the chicken.
Story: Jules Renard - The Mouse
As I sit under the lamp, writing out my daily page, I hear a faint noise. If I stop, it stops too. It begins again, as soon as I scratch my way across the paper.
It is a mouse waking up.
I sense her comings and going around the dark corner where the maid keeps her rags and brushes.
The mouse jumps onto the floor and trots across the kitchen tiles. She passes near the fireplace, under the sink, vanishes into the dishes, and by a series of reconnaissance missions which she extends farther and farther, approaches me.
Each time I set down my pen, the silence alarms her. Each time I use it, she thinks, I suppose, that there is another mouse somewhere, and this reassures her.
Then I lose sight of her. She is under my table, at my feet. She circulates from one chair leg to the next. She brushes against my shoes, nibbles the sole, or, boldly, gets up on top!
And now I must not move my leg, or breathe too hard: she would vanish.
But I have to go on writing, or else she would abandon me to my solitude—I write, I doodle, little things, tiny, dainty, the way she nibbles.\
A prose poem / short short story I can hear and feel so clearly. I love the relationship between the narrator and the mouse, and I love Renard's love for all creatures in his animal stories. He describes them all with such beautiful observation.
Essay: Johan Huizinga - Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon (Homo Ludens Chapter 1)
As soon as we proceed from “play is non-seriousness” to “play is not serious”, the contrast leaves us in the lurch—for some play can be very serious indeed
We all know play is important. For children and animals but also adults (think of all the time we spend playing video games or watching sports or gambling). From this chapter, Huizinga seems to be stating the obvious, though I appreciate he has dedicated so many words to the obvious- he is a useful citation nethertheless.
The Huizinga's definitions, parameters and functions of play are clear and helpful. I like what he says about play being ordered and having its own boundaries of conduct:
Play: it creates order, is order. Into an imperfect world and into the confusion of life it brings a temporary, a limited perfection. Play demands order absolute and supreme. The least deviation from it “spoils the game”, robs it of its character and makes it worthless.
Later:
The player who trespasses against the rules or ignores them is a “spoil-sport”. The spoil-sport is not the same as the false player, the cheat; for the latter pretends to be playing the game and, on the face of it, still acknowledges the magic circle. It is curious to note how much more lenient society is to the cheat than to the spoil-sport. This is because the spoil-sport shatters the play-world itself.
The second half of the chapter is spent talking about play's relationship to ritual in religious and "primitive" cultures. I don't have much interest in religion or anthropology so I skim read the last ten pages.
I spend a lot of time playing pretend with my three year old nephew. Sometimes we take his toys on an adventure in the garden, or sometimes we make up a game with its own rules. It is fun to work out the "game of the scene" as you would say in improv. We repeat the joke until we get tired of it and move onto the next thing to do. He is a funny and creative boy and hopefully he keeps this "small box" with him for the rest of his life.