Posted by giveawayboy on June 04, 2001 at 20:47:31:
In Reply to: of Australian Brazilians and words without meanings posted by John on June 04, 2001 at 17:26:49:
: Wow... that was weird. your post evoked a sort of strange feeling that i will attempt to describe publicly. It was a sort of foreign, new wave, empty, angsty, high school, depressed but trapped and becoming too familiar with the oddness to want to leave it sort of feeling. It was a familiar feeling that I am happy to have shed. I hope this isn't what that word means... because if it is I have to hate it. But perhaps it was more a reaction to Bill's language, which is a function of Bill, whom I DON'T hate... in fact quite the contrary. so either way, I leave a list of words that I like... and I know there are many people reading this, so get past whatever inhibitions or reasons you have developed for not posting and say something too so we don't feel like we are talking to air.
: Freedom.
: Breathe.
: Water.
: Ocean.
: Chain.
: Night.
: Endeavor.
: Conflagration.
: Absolute.
: Resolute.
: Bead.
: Green.
: Rush.
: Lush.
: Cush...
***************
I can assure you that SAUDADE is not that angsty newwave (be careful here) thing. It is not us living in some sick aesthetic category where nothing exists. It is not this sort of ambivalent thing. To understand I will suggest two states of mind: One is the RED HAZE, which I experienced once in a very dirty dream. There was myself and an old 'girlfriend'(?) and her girlfriend and these two younger boys who looked very loose. Well, we were sitting in this bar under this red cloudy haze and then at one point, everything seemed to blend sort of sickly together and I was basically being propositioned by the other four to join in some sort of bizarre group experiment of naughty proportions. It was so sick, as I saw the image of God in each of them going unnoticed or acknowledged. It was like a waste of people. There was a profound disrespect circulating in the fog. It was just a real sick dream. It was people allowing themselves to merge into a some lowest common denominator cosmic soup. It was a slow death in a bad pub. Something like this. Then there is this reality that SAUDADE points to. It is the a fuller, deeper world. It is not the opposite of the RED HAZE, it is the actual reality that the RED HAZE is falling away from. This is the very real world of ELFLAND. If you want to read about it you can find it in almost every fairytale or ancient myth. C.S. Lewis can aquaint you with it, but by far the best commentator on it is G.K. Chesterton, especially in his book ORTHODOXY, and especially in the chapter entitled THE ETHICS OF ELFLAND. Here is a world of striking proportions, where things are sharp and clear and where things are what they really are. ELFLAND might be a world of longing, of yearning, of SAUDADE, but it is a world that actually exists. ELFLAND cannot be contained or controlled or harnessed, for it is wild, but it can be navigated in and known and touched and eaten and embraced since it is definite and actual and bold and available. ELFLAND is not a world that is fleeing at our touch. It is not the shadow of a dead world. It is the world that greets us everyday when we listen with our elfin ears, and look through our elfin eyes. It is the world that the birds and trees are singing about. It is the world that dolphins are jumping through. It is a world with an actual cow jumping over an actual moon--even if they are real only as metaphors. It is this world that SAUDADE is pointing to--even if in a broken way. It is this world that lovers sing about. It is this world that Augustine wrote about. It is this world that the Ghostdancers danced for. It is this shining city illuminated by the Lamb. It is this world that made Australia turn upside down in reverence. It is this world that we have the 'sensucht' for. And ELFLAND is the land of new wave anthems, but only in the ways that those anthems were vital and liquid and reverent and atmospheric and grand and romantic and sleek and passionate and strong. Something like this.
Bill