Tsitaatide tohuvabohu

Käesolevas postituses teen ma taas midagi esmakordselt. Selle blogi formaat tundub suhteliselt range niiet iga kord kui ma teen midagi teistmoodi siis tunnen kohe ka vajadust selle eest vabandada, sest mingil hetkel lakkab see olemast lugemisblogi ja muutub lihtsalt akadeemiliseks blogiks, mida iganes see ka ei tähendaks. Siin kajastan ma katkendeid mis ühel või teisel viisil rohkem või vähem puudutavad mitteverbaalset käitumist, aga ei pärine raamatuste ega artiklist vaid internetist või lihtsalt mujalt.

(3) SHE CAN TOTALLY READ YOUR MIND! Be careful how you move around a Cosmo girl. (Scratch your nose and you're so busted, you lying sack of shit.) And the way you eat: "A guy who craves a variety of ethnic cuisines is open-minded. . . . He's probably passionate and sensual." Redbook's got your handwriting figured: "Notice the narrow loops on his y's? This means he's superloyal and socially selective." And Jane points out that guys who shift gears frequently while driving "are dissatisfied and insecure with their position on the road (i.e., the real world) and, in bed, joylessly switch positions every 43 seconds." To them, "your vagina is just another luxurious, sensitive gadget for them to fiddle with."
[SOURCE: 7 Shocking Things We Learned From Women's Magazines - Esquire]

Mulle tundub, et nö "meesteajakirjad" on tegelikult naisteajakirjad mis üritavad jätta muljet, et nad on suunatud meestele. Või siis on asi selles, et formaat või žanr on selline. Igatahes, see katkend pärineb nimekirjast mis rivistab naisteajakirjade müüte nende loogilistes äärmustes. Ehk: naisteajakirju lugedes võib jääda mulje, et naised on mitte pelgalt intuitiivsed, vaid mõtetelugejad. Näideteks on rivistatud kolm jaburat müüti. Esiteks nö "kehakeele lugemine". Teksti autor näib olevat teadlik, et adaptorid (nina sügamine) ei ole usaldusväärne "valetamise märk". Käekirja lugemine on samavõrd müütiline - üks semiootika välistudeng rääkis omast kogemusest kuidas ta arvas, et võib käekirja järgi "inimesi lugeda" ja selleteemalise raamatu esimene peatükk lükkas kõik sellised ootused ümber. Käigukangi asi on juba puhtalt jabur, tundub nagu väljamõeldis millega rõhutada esimese kahe äärmuslikkust.

Setode, ja muidugi venelastega võrreldes on keskmine eestlane kindlasti hulga jahedama loomuga. Seda mitte südame, vaid eelkõige välise oleku poolest. Tal on raske teist inimest kiita, kallistada, üldse puudutada. Kui olin haiglas, kogesin seal patsiendina just seda idapoolse päritoluga meditsiiniõdede loomupärast ja vahetut soojust.[...] Praegugi öeldakse, et eestlased olevat töökad - nad lausa orjavad, teevad ületunde, ei oska puhata. Seda mainib oma kirjutises rohkem kui sajand tagasi (1909) ka rahvaluulekoguja ja -uurija, pastor M. J. Eisen. Ta toob iseloomulike joontena esile ka jonnakuse, alalhoidlikkuse, kättemaksuhimu ja kurvameelsuse, kujundliku kõneviisi, samuti nalja- ja pilkehimu. [...] Olen tähele pannud, et paljudel eestlastel on mingi suhtlemishirm või „igaks juhuks" distantsi hoidmine - mine tea, mis lähenemine kaasa toob. Eriti kui teine on veel kuidagi ebatavaline, nt võõramaalane või joodik või muud „ohumärki" kandev. Sellega on seletatav ka hiljutine juhtum, kus Arukülas lebas haige mees mitu päeva meelemärkusetult maas. Samas võib see olla ka nn suure asula fenomen, kus üksteist küll nägupidi teatakse, aga piisavalt hästi ei tunta. Hirm probleemse ja segaste tagajärgedega olukorra ees ja võimalusel selle vältimine, mitte sekkumine, võib näida ka hoolimatusena. [...] Ettevaatlikkus on eestlasele olnud kogu aeg üldomane. Võib-olla lähedaste ringis ollakse rohkem avatud, aga võõraid umbusaldatakse. Igaksjuhuks ei näidata oma tundeid kohe välja. Hirme on palju. Temperament ja reageerimiskiirus on ka aeglasem kui nt idanaabreil. Sellest siis need mornid näod...
[SOURCE: Kas tunned end ära: Milline on tüüpiline lõunaeestlane ja milline põhjaeestlane - Eesti Elu]

These excerpts paint such a vivid picture of stereotypical Estonian behaviour that I feel the need to translate it: "Compared to setos [estonians of the Võru region] and russians the average estonian certainly has a more colder attitude. Not primarily in terms of personality but in terms of outward appearance. The average estonian has trouble paying other people compliments, hugging, and touching in general. When I was at the hospitel I experienced first-hand as a patient that nurses from east [Russia] are naturally and immediately warm. [...] Even today they say that estonians are industrious - they outright slave, work overtime and don't know how to rest. These things were also mentioned more than a century ago (1909) by the folk poetry collector and researcher, pastor M. J. Eisen. He also characterized estonians as stubborn, conserving, vindictive and melancholic, using figurative language and fearing of being the butt of jokes. [...] I have observed that many estonians have some kind of a fear of communicating or keeping distance "just in case" - you may never know what approaching another person may cause. Especially if the other person is unusual in some regard, e.g. a drunkard or baring some other kind of "sign of danger". This may explain an incident of late, where a man laid unconscious on the ground for several days at Aruküla [this is punny - the literal translation of this placename is "Village of Consciousness" :D ]. Then again this may be a so-called large settlement phenomenon, wherein people know each other by face but are not more familiar. Fear and avoidance of consequences of a problematic and confused situation and not stepping in may seem like inconsideration. [...] Being cautious has always been generally characteristic of estonians. Perhaps among close ones [family and friends] they are more open but strangers are distrusted. Emotions are not shown outwardly right away, just in case. There are a lot of fears. Temperament and reaction speed is also slower than that of their eastern neighbours. That may explain the gloomy faces..."

These words are probably unfurling inside one of many open tabs on your computer screen. Perhaps one tab is for work, one is for chatting, and another is for Twitter. You probably even have some others open for no particular reason. This is the way we receive information and the way we communicate now: constantly, simultaneously, compulsively, endlessly, and more and more often, solitarily. This strange new mode of living - and its indelible effect on our humanity - is perfectly captured in a new short film that debuted this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
[SOURCE: You Need To See This 17-Minute Film Set Entirely On A Teen's Computer Screen | Co.Create | creativity + culture + commerce]

See on lihtsalt huvitav, sest iseloomustab 21. sajandi inimese suhtlemisviisi mis on üha enam "virtuaalne" ja sooritatud tegelikult üksinda olles. Füüsiliselt istud toas üksinda, virtuaalselt suhtled inimestega üle kogu maailma. Mitteverbaalset käitumist puudutab see tegelikult vaid nii palju, et mida rohkem me "suhtleme üksinda virtuaalselt" seda kehvemateks suhtlejateks me muutume teiste inimestega päriselus suheldes. See kuidas päevad läbi nutitelefoni jõllitamine mõjub mitteverbaalsele käitumisele on ennustamatu. Ma olen märganud, et neiud kelle pilk on väga tihti ja kaua ekraanile naelutatud on suhteliselt tuimade näoilmetega, aga see võib olla hetkeline (nägu on tuim, sest vaatab keskendunult ekraani). Pikemaajalisi mõjusid näeme lähiaastatel.

Not content with having helped to ban smoking in public places in pretty much the entire Western world, anti-smoking activists now want to go all ‘1984’ on cultural depictions of the past and stub out any mention of yesteryear’s smoking habits. [...] There’s a strong whiff of Stalinist airbrushing to these demands that even historical movies should refrain from showing too much smoking. Just as surely as Stalin rewrote the past by scrubbing from old photos one-time comrades he had since fallen out with, so anti-smoking activists seem keen to rewrite history to pretend that people didn’t smoke copiously and publicly in the past, when in fact they did. Such is the anti-smoking lobby’s Orwellian urge to scrub inconvenient facts from history that in recent years everything from very old Tom & Jerry cartoons to images of Winston Churchill have been physically doctored to remove cigarettes or cigars.
[SOURCE: Cigarettes in 'Rush': people smoked in the 1970s. Anti-smokers should get over it – Telegraph Blogs]

Siin meeldib mulle tõik, et kirjutaja on kasutanud nii George Orwelli nime kui ka tema teost 1984 nö "terminitena". Kuna see teos on nii laialt tuntud ja seda seostatakse "ajaloo ümberkirjutamisega" siis on see täiesti õigustatud sõnakasutus. Kahju, et teadustekstides pole selline sõnakasutus tervitatav. Tähendab, "prantsusepärases filosoofias" võib vabalt niimoodi kirjutada, aga ise niimoodi naljalt ei teeks. Või siis tuleb mul julgust koguda ja leida sobiv võimalus.

Samal ajal kui Tallinnas erakonnad rabelevad auhinnatu teise koha eest vere ninast välja, naba paigast ja täiega võlgadesse, siis Tartus, Eesti suuruselt teises linnas, hõljub endiselt tuuleke pajuokstes ja keegi ei tõsta kulmugi. [...] Selles valguses teiste parteide ja valimisliitude uimasus ja passiivsus on täiesti arusaamatu. Seni on piirdutud vaid suvalise ilmega näopiltide ülespanekuga ja kõik.
[SOURCE: Tartus on mõttetult vaikne | Õhtuleht]

Esiteks on siin põnevad väljendid. Ma teadsin, et "naba paigast ära" on väljend, aga "vere ninast välja" on veel ilmekam, sest erinevalt naba ümberpaigutamisest võib ninaverejooks päriselt toimuda. Tähendab, äkki see naba asi ka, aga ma ei tea sellest midagi - see tundub olevat metafooriline ütlus. "Ei tõsta kulmugi" seostub samalaadse ütlusega "silm ei pilgu" - need ütlused täheldavad millegi ootuspärase mittetoimumist. Teiseks on "suvalise ilmega näopildid" väga täpne kirjeldus Keskerakonna valimisplakatitest Tartus. Ma jõllitasin paar nädalat tagasi bussipeatuses pikalt Aadu Musta ja Aivar Riisalu suvalise ilmega näopilte. Tähendab, need ei olnud vististi päris suvalised - nad üritasid naeratada. Jõllitamise ja sügava järelemõtlemise tulemuseks sain, et Aadu Musta nägu on ilusalt sümmeetriline nagu südametunnistuseta sotsiopaadile kohane - olen näinud kuidas ta mingis paneelsaates kõigist teistest kõnelejatest üle sõitis; Aivar Riisalu nägu on aga asümmeetriline - tal on parem näopool niivõrd atrofeerunud, et üks põsevolt on silmnähtavalt lühem kui teine. Mulle läks see hinge, sest mul hakkas ka sinnapoole minema enne kui ma nägu treenima hakkasin. Need valimisplakatid on minu arvates "suvalised" selles mõttes, et nad on mittemidagiütlevad. Nende nägude kohal on suurtähtedes "TÖÖTAB" ja ongi nagu kõik. See ei ole isegi "me anname tööd" või "me loome töökohti" vms, vaid lihtsalt "töötab". Peab eeldama, et verbaalne sõnum on niivõrd dumbed down, et venekeelsed valijad saaksid ka aru, et midagi on pistmist tööga. Kahjuks rakendub minu kriitiline meel nii, et see üks sõna viitab naeratavale näole ja valimisreklaami üldsõnum on "Aivar Riisalu töötab" (riigikogus). Noh, tore on, aga mida see valijale peaks juurde andma? Ilmselt on keskerakond niivõrd laisaks läinud, et midagi lubada või öelda pole vajagi, "vaata meie nägusid ja hääleta meie poolt" - enesekindlad tõprad.

Tartus võidab reform niigi tudengite häältega, keda ei huvitagi linna edasine tulevik, vaid hetkel kenade aktiivsete noorte esinemine. Tartu suurim valimislubadus on Emajõele sadama ehitamine 40 laevukese jaoks, kuid Anne kanalit, milles ujumas ja puhkamas käivad tuhanded tavalinlased, ei peeta oluliseks. Hääbumine paistab igast nurgast. Suurehitused - jõesild ja Ringtee suured ja keerukad ringteed-viaduktid ei anna tavalinlasele midagi suuremat - need rohkem transiidi jaoks. Pidevalt ripub linlaste pea kohal hirm kaotada kesklinnast bussijaam ja avaturg - need ju Seli maadel ja omaniku õigusega hoiab kuni parema äri leidmiseni. Kui mõni firma läheb järjekordselt hingusele, pole töötajatel lootustki uut tööd leida, nooremad ongi kes Soome, kes Rootsi läinud koos lastega. Hubased väikepoekesed linnaosadest on kadunud, lapsi näeb järjest vähem liikvel. Kuhu kauplusse iganes sisse astud, näed vaid tühje müügisaale uimaselt igavlevate müüjatega. Elu on vaid Säästukas ja Maksimas õhtutundidel ja nädalalõppudel. Järjest rohkem meenutab J. Kärneri Elva elust kirjutatud "Soodoma Kroonikat".
[SOURCE: Kommentaarid: Tartus on mõttetult vaikne | Õhtuleht]

See on kasutaja nimega "tartlanna" kommentaar uudisloole millest pärineb eelmine tsitaat. Pidin selle enda jaoks ümber kleepima sest siin on nii palju "Jah"-e minu jaoks. Jah, noored lasevad Eestist jalga. Jah, väikepoed kaovad (viimati, suure kurvastusega, Tartu Pood Riiamäelt) ning asemele kerkivad ühtede ja samade kaubanduskettide üha suuremad kauplused (nt Maxima tekkis Raadile). Jah, lapsi jääbki järjest vähemaks. Jah, kauplustes on action-it ainult tipptundidel. Jah, asi liigubki sellise nõmeda väikelinna poole nagu on Kärneri raamatus. Ma olin meeldivalt üllatunud, et keegi üldse Soodoma Kroonikat mainib. Ilmselt tunneks "tartlanna" selle blogi ikooni ära. See oli üks esimesi "täiskasvanute raamatuid" mida ma 12-aastaselt lugesin.

flippy-feelings:
Did you ever realize how much your body loves you? I mean its always trying to keep you alive. That’s all your body has to live for. Your body is making sure you breathe while you sleep, stopping cuts from bleeding, fixing broken bones, finding ways to beat the illnesses that might get you. Your body literally loves you so much. It’s time you start loving your body back.

mikalhvi:
*distant, restrained sobbing*

recoverlovely:
this is actually wonderful

[SOURCE: you are lovely.]

See pärineb tumblr-ist ja on ühest käest tüüpiline patting on your back südantsoojendav jama. Teisest käest on see tõepoolest wonderful, sest kujutab keha "abistava sõbrana". Tähendab, kõik need autonoomsed ja märkamatud asjad on raamistatud isikustatuna - su keha teeb seda sinu jaoks! Keha ja vaimu lahutamise viimine äärmuseni, kindlast, kuid ka meeldivalt lohutav. Sul on keha ja su keha armastab sind.

In an effort to finally capture and detain Edward Snowden, the notorious NSA whistleblower, the Obama administration, knowing Russia offered him asylum yet hates all things gay, told Russian leadership that Snowden is a homosexual. Upon hearing the news of Snowden’s alleged sexuality they were immediately outraged and wondered how many things he may have touched at the airport. Apparently releasing sensitive information about trying to foil terrorist plots is not something Russia has a problem with, but gay cooties give them the heebie jeebies.
[SOURCE: US Tells Russia Snowden Is Gay So They Finally Arrest Him - Free Wood Post]

See satiiriline uudislugu suutis mind naerma panna. Ühtlasi pani mõtlema nö "lasteaia-mõtteviisidele" [childlore ehk "folk culture of children"] millest üht on siin huumori nimel osavalt kasutatud. See cooties on väljamõeldud nakkushaigus mis levib füüsilise läheduse ja puudutuse kaudu. Nalja sihtmärgiks on Venemaa homovastased seadused, mis on tegelikult kurb ja karm tegelikkus - ka "homosid pooldava" tolerantsuse eest võib saada kahenädalase vangistuse. Väga aktuaalne nali.

There's a movie by a french director named "Betty Blue" [fr. "37°2 le matin"]. There's a scene in which a woman is beginning to lose her mind. She is sitting at the table with her lover and she smears... She has a make-up that she's applied very badly. She looks garnished and desperate and large-eyed and just lost, just a total loss. And her man who loves her very much sees her face SO undone and his face registers the fear in that. But he doesn't recoil, he made pasta and he pulls pasta sauce from the pan and he smears it on his cheeks so that he mimics her destruction. And I remember thinking: at my lost moments and in my mid-twenties I was pretty low on mental health stuff, thinking: that is exactly what it feels like to be a woman losing her mind. And I can't think of a better response from a lover than "I'm going there with you if we're going there." I think that song in part is inspired by that kind of dynamic where a man watching a woman who really loves her is perched in sanity trying to figure out how to ground her OR, failing that, how to get where she's obviously going.
[SOURCE: Dessa describes "Anabel" - YouTube]

Ma transkribeerisin selle katkendi Dessa selgitusest, sest siin on midagi abstraktset (losing one's mind) väljendatud kehalises tegevuses. Midagi sarnast on Zamjatini "Meie"-s fantaasiaga. Nimelt teatab Riigiteataja selles, et nüüd saab fantaasiat röntgen-operatsiooniga eemaldada (see on in fact kohustuslik) ja fantaasia märkideks on "mõttetult unelev naeratus üle kogu näo" ja "öösel voodis rahutult küljelt küljele visklemine"; fantaasia on "uss kelle õõnestav tegevus jätab mustad kortsud su kulmudele". Fantaasia enda, või õigemini selle mitte-kehaliste tagajärgede, kohta öeldakse vaid nii palju, et see juhatab sind üha kaugematele lendudele isegi kui see "kaugem" koht võib olla see punkt millest õnnelikkus lõppeb. Ma arutan seda asja kunagi hiljem edasi. Dessa seletuse juures on vaimuhaiguse märgiks hoolimatus väljanägemise vastu - naine ajab kätega oma meigi segi, sest teda ei huvita enam, ta ei tule endaga enam toime; mees imiteerib seda pastakastmega, et jõuda samasse punkti. Millalgi tuleks lugu ("Annabelle") ennast ka uurida, sest selles on ohtralt huvitavaid kirjeldusi.

Viimased neli keskerakondlikku aastat näivad mulle väga vastuolulised. Esiteks meenusid reisisaatjad, kes tegid tööd sellise näoga, nagu oleks neil pidev hambavalu.
[SOURCE: ÜLLATUS: Keskerakond jättis tähtsamad valimislubadused täitmata - Eesti uudised - Eesti Ekspress]

Tabav. Valu ja nö "negatiivsete näoilmete" seos on ka huvitav. Meenub näiteks pilt tuttavast kes oli kipsis jalaga ja õnnetu näoga ning mõned oblivious kommenteerijad küsisid "Miks nii kurb?" nagu nad ei teaks, et jalaluumurd on valus. Valu ei ole kergesti suheldav, nagu Elaine Scarry raamatust The Body in Pain võib lugeda. Siin tsitaadis on vastupidi seostatud õnnetust hambavaluga.

Elder Plops: "Welcome everyone to our second trial - spooning. When I say "go" the big spoon will put his arm around the little spoon and cuddle. I will be watching you spoon, measuring and assessing your love by posture and overall vibe. The best cuddle or spoon wins."
[SOURCE: Adventure Time S05E35 - "Love Games"]

Ja viimaks väljavõte multikast, kus üks armastuse mõõtmise viisideks osutus kaisutamine. Poosi järgi armastuse mõõtmine ja hindamine on samalaadne vaimuhaiguse ja fantaasia näidetega üleval. See overall vibe ehk "üldine õhkkond" see-eest seostub nö "ruumi lugemise", situation baseline-i ja isegi Meadi suhtumisvestlusega.
Saidki selleks korraks märkmed läbi. Kui neid veel koguneb, eks siis teen veel ühe "tsitaatide tohuvabohu". Ma ei usu, et ma oma kirjutistes neid väga hästi kasutada saan - kui, siis ainult kindlate ainete esseedes - aga nad on huvitavad iseenesest. Need on need "väikesed lookesed" mille üle lihtsalt mõtteid mõlgutada.

FLSE.00.148 loeng 2013.09.24

FLSE.00.148 Semiotics and Theories of Art loeng 2013.09.24

Don't put "clothes" on the scheme!

Jakobson's communication model doesn't work in real life. Indrek claims that it doesn't have to. Theory is about theory.

For Roman Jakobson communication is act is the receiver trying to send a message to the receiver (with context, channel and code). According to Mihhail Lotman it is not the transmission of a ready-made message from A to B, but message and context are bound to each other and transform both Sender and Receiver.

This is a poor approximation of Indrek Grigor's saying because he's talking so fast, but there is a point (one that can be discerned from M. Lotman's own writings more readily). Too bad I can't dwell on that further here.

Saussure's sign is abstract. It is realised in concrete substance. Whereas the realisation already corrupts the sign. A sign realised in speech is not a sign anymore, in the direct sense. Speech only represents language signs.

I am instantly reminded of Derrida's grammatology.

Signified and signifier can not exist without each other. Signified is primary towards the signifier, but their relationship is symmetrical. The relationship between signified and signifier is arbitrary (non determined). Language sign itsely is determined by the language system, but the relationship of the elements forming the sign is arbitrary.

I have no idea what this means. I'm interested in neither language nor Saussure so I've done my best to avoid this kind of stuff. Should I reconsider it, at least for sake of concursivity?

To solve this paradox Saussure introduces value (valeur). Meaning is created in the combination of signified and signifier. Value describes the position of the element in the system. Value is the complex of all the relationships that the element has in the system (for example grammatical categories). (That means the relationships between the signs have an determinating character, whereas the relationship forming the signs are arbitrary).

Again, no idea. I have a faint memory of trying to understand semiology and coming up with nothing. It seems to give rise to more misunderstanding than understanding. I'm especially put off by the philosophers/semiologists who try to make sense of Saussure and end up with even weirder outcomes. This is an awkward situation for a young semiotician: you won't understand Saussure and you can't fully understand Peirce (because his system of semeiotics is infinitely complex).

Peeter Linnap, photosphere. All photos ever belong to this photospheres.

There is an endless array of spheres or imaginary totalities. The point seems to be that this is not ontological but methodological/epistemological. "We just treat it as such."

A language is always monolinguistic. There is the language and then there is what is outside of it, and can be translated into the language, but there is never two languages within one language.

I argued against the absoluteness of this statement and tried to refer to Bakhtin. Saussure's abstract language system is "no-one's language" but in reality there is my language and a multitide of other languages for every person who speaks.

1. Speech has semiotic characteristics which are not determined by language.
2. Speech can be a closed and stable system. This kind of system is called a text.
Text is an immanent system, the elements of the text form a structure, and every element of the text has a value.

This sounds like the structure of the artistic text. Text as a system makes sense from this point of view, but then again you have to presume that there are "elements".

Verbal language is not the primary modelling system? - Mihhail Lotman.
Just because primary and secondary are relative to each other.

Indrek Grigor seems doubtful.

A semiotic system has three obligatory components: language, field and author. Language consists of lexicon and grammar. Field consists of places, which are not determined by the language. But language and field depend on each other.
In chess we have pieces (lexicon), the rules (grammar) and the board (field). THe match is a dialog between two authors.

The place of authors here seems weird and Silvi Salupere points this out.

Use the work of art as it's own metatext.

I'm sensing the emic and etic contrast. I came to a similar conclusion lately, that I should not apply my neat typology on the works I'm studying but rather pay attention to the "native theories" within the works themselves. E.g. Zamyatin's geometric interpretation of facial expressions, for example. The "native theories" are surely limited and rather metaphorical, but valuable nevertheless.

John Deely: Understanding that a sign is a sign, not the use of signs is what differs anthroposemiosis from zoosemiosis.
Priit Põhjala: True, but it is also true that people usually are not conscious about using signs. That's why we speak about common language.
Grigor: Our awareness of the language is limited. We are aware of using language, because we are aware of other languages, but we are not aware of the language we are currently using.

This is what is commonly referred to as "metalevel" awareness.

A language can realise itself not only in materialistic substances (sound images, objects, etc.), but also in other languages.
For example, a fabula can be realised in prose, film, dance, comics... They all have lexicon and grammar that means they are languages in a semiotic sense.
In this case functions one language (primary) as the field for the other language.

This sounds like isology between language and fabula. Just like in the case of Jelena Grigorjeva, I'm skeptical if "language" is such a valuable term. I made this suggestion and referred to Charles Morris. Silvi Salupere corrected me that Morris said this about "meaning" not "language". I can't find the exact quote so I might be wrong - it's about time to re-read Morris's book.

The world is materia
The world is a horse

First refers to descriptive metalanguage, multilingual world. Second refers to (mythological) meta(linguistic) text, that belongs to the same languages as the world it describes. There are no metalanguages.

I thought about this yesterday. If I approch bodily behaviour in literature with intellectual tools from the study of nonverbal behaviour then it is a case of "the world is materia". But if I take up the "native theories" within the novels and try to explain nonverbal behaviour that certain authors describe with the intellectual tools (explanations) that the author him- or herself provides then it is a case of "the world is a horse". I should of course consult Lotman and Uspensky's article on this before proceeding.

Describing the object in the language constituted by the metatext, can be described as a translation, where the describing language starts to act towards the object, it is describing, as a metatext. The object described becomes the world. Because the describing metalanguage precedes the object and constitutes the order fixed by the metatexts which determine it, despite the language of the object. (That's why you should be very cautious when APPLYING A THEORY).

I'm not sure what exactly it is that this passage says, because it seems like something that should be laid out in a scheme before I get it. Indrek repeats his earlier point: "Don't apply theory on art, apply theory on theory." That seems to be exactly how many a theoretician operate.

Loomulik keel on loomulik keel, sest ta on meil loomulikult olemas, aga kunstikeelt tuleb õppida. (Salupere)

Ka huvitav, aga kuidas seda "loomulikku antust" mõtestada?

The dialectic of word and image seems to be a constant in the fabric of signs that a culture weaves around itself. What varies is the precise nature of the weave, the relation of warp and woof. The history of culture is in part the story of a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguistic signs, each claiming for itself certain proprietary righs on a "nature" to which only it has access. (Mitchell 1986: 43)

My own first article was essentially about the dialectic of bodily behaviour (standing for image) and text (standing for language). I tried to "unweave" this fabric by marking out certain "intersections" of bb and text - the result was an outline of four different phenomena.

There is the natural, mimetic image, which looks like or "captures" what it represents, and its pictorial rival, the artifical, expressive image which cannot "look like" what it represents because that thing can only be conveyed in words. There is the word which in a natural image of what it means (as in onomatopoeia) and the word as arbitrary signifier. (Mitchell 1986: 43-44)

Actually a useful distinction, because what again comes to my mind is the opposition between descriptions of bodily behaviour (describes what it captures) and bodily metaphors (can only be conveyed in words).

Iconology

Mitchell, W.J. Thomas 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.

It is one thing ... to apprehend directly an image as image, and another thing ho shape ideas regarding the nature of images in general.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Imagination (1962)

Any attempt to grasp "the idea of imagery" is fated to wrestle with the problem of recursive thinking, for the very idea of an "idea" si bound up with the notion of imagery. "Idea" comes from the Greek verb "to see," and is frequently linked with the notion of the "eidolon," the "visible image" that is fundamental to ancient optics and theories of perception. A sensible way to avoid the temptation of thinking about images in terms of images would be to replace the word "idea" in discussion of imagery wit hsome other term like "concept" or "notion," or to stipulate at the outset that the term "idea" is to be understood as something quite different from imagery or pictures. This is the strategy of the Platonic tradition, which distinguishes the eidos from the eidolon by conceiving of the former as a "surpasensible reality of "forms, types, or species," the latter as a sensible impression that provides a mere "likeness" (eikon) or "semblance" (phantasma) of the eidos. (Mitchell 1986: 5)

Damn, this is good.
1. I should perhaps consult Sartre's Imagination if and when I take up the topic of somatoception (e.g. imaginations of bodily forms).
2. The etymology of "idea" is good to know. Also, in this light Platon's cave story makes more sense in terms of images - the shadows in this case would be the "ideas".
3. "suprasensible reality" is an awesome notion, because it is exactly what "supraindividual realities" like the semiosphere are - beyond the sensible.

For modern criticism, language and imagery have become enigmas, problems to be explained, prison-houses which lock the understanding away from the world. The commonplace of modern studies of images, in fact, is that they must be understood as a kind of language; instead of providing a transparent window on the world, images are now regarded as the sort of sign that presents a deceptive appearance of naturalness and transparence concealing an opaque, distorting, arbitrary mechanism of representation, a process of ideological mystification. (Mitchell 1986: 8)

This sounds to me like "the crisis of representation" discourse, but then again I have tried my best to avoid common ("trampled in mud") problems of both language and imagery, because both are something different from my own object of interest - the body. Both language and image are outcomes or results of bodily activity that can refer back to bodily activity but there is a distance - that of objectification or externalization - which removes it from the immediate interest of nonverbalists. That is to say, both language and imagery "present a deceptive appearance of naturalness".

Images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status, a history that parallels and participates in the storues we tell ourselves about our own evolution from creatures "made in the image" of a creator, to creatures who make themselves and their world in their own image. (Mitchell 1986: 9)

Wikipedia says that Mitchell "draws on ideas from Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx to demonstrate that, essentially, we must consider pictures to be living things." My question is: does this amount to "image organicism" alongside word, text, language, culture, etc. organicisms? Thinking of "image" as "something like an actor" would imbue it with the normal capacities an "actor" (in the sociological, not dramaturgical sense) should have. The main one is that of volition or free will and this is where things get weird, because images are then - like memes in some discourses - viewed like "parasites" that use humans (especially our semiotic capacity) as a means to proliferate.

If images are a family, however, it may be possible to construct some sense of their genealogy. If we begin by looking, not for some universal definition of the term, but at those places where images have differentiated themselves from one another on the basis of boundaries between different institutional discourses, we come up with a family tree something like the following:

• Image - likeness, resemblance, similitude
  • Graphic - pictures, statues, designs
  • Optical - mirrors, projections
  • Perceptual - sense data, "species", appearances
  • Mental - dreams, memories, ideas, fantasmata
  • Verbal - metaphors, descriptions

Each branch of this family tree designates a type of imagery that is central to the discourse of some intellectual discipline: mental imagery belongs to psychology and epistemology; optical imagery to physics; graphic, sculptural, and architectural imagery to the art historian; verbal imagery to the literary critic, perceptual images occupy a kind of border region where physiologists, neurologists, psychologists, art historians, and students of optics find themselves colaborating with philosophers and literary critics. (Mitchell 1986: 9-10)

Very useful. The latter bit called to mind Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (because of the notion of "sense data"). And "verbal imagery" as the playground of the literary critic makes a good lot of sense. Especially because "body language in literature" seems to follow this exact distinction between descriptions (what I call concourse) and metaphors, or, to be more exact, "metaforms" in Danesi's sense (e.g. "grasping an idea").

And this power is called "likeness," "image," and "species" and is designated by many other names. ... This species produces every action in the world, for it acts on sense, on the intellect, and on all matter of the world for the generation of things.

It should be clear from Bacon's account that the image is not simply a particular kind of sign but a fundamental principle of what Michel Foucault would call "the order of things." The image is the general notion, ramified in various specific similitudes (conventia, aemulatio, analogy, sympathy) that holds the world together with "figures of knowledge." (Mitchell 1986: 11)

This is also how this discourse is related to concourse: whenevery I read a description of bodily behaviour in literature and let it "sink in" so to say, what happens is that the world call forth an "image" (in my mind) of the described bodily behaviour. In this sense imagery is the "semantic domain" of concursive passages (descriptions).

Discussions of poetic imagery generally rely on a theory of the mental image improvised out of the shreds of seventeenth-century notions of the mind; discussions of mental imagery depend in turn upon rather limited acquaintance with graptic imagery, often proceeding on the questionable assumption that there are certain kinds of images (photographs, mirror images) that provide a direct, unmediated copy of what they represent... (Mitchell 1986: 12)

It sounds like Mitchell has "figured me out" long before I even existed.
1."Poetic imagery" is indeed a large part of the study of body language in literature - namely, it was preceded by "gesture in poetry" discourse.
2. My previous approximation that descriptions "call forth an "image" (in my mind)" may very well be what Mitchell criticizes as a composition of "seventeenth-century notions of the mind". My only defence here is that I rely on Mead, who in turn relied on Wundt. And...
3. The bit about "a direct, unmediated copy" sounds like a critique against my broad statement that "verbal concourse is recoded, visual concourse is recorded". That is, verbal descriptions of bodily behaviour are mediated by language and "recoded" to suit the text - there is "mental processing" done by the human mediator; with photographs of human bodies, the behaviour is merely "recorded" - "captured in pixels", so to say. Of course recording is also mediated and there are various permutations that can occur - from resolution to lighting to whatever, but the behaviour itself does not seem to change, whereas languaging may make the behaviour ambiguous or even unintelligible, make it connote something or other, etc. There is also the question of function, e.g. verbal concourse is necessarily within a text, but what are pictures used for? (my ignorance of visual theory comes into play). More on this in the footnote:

I will have more to say about the fallacy of the "copy theory" of mental imagery in what follows. For the present, it might be helpful to note that both critics and proponents of mental imagery have fallen into this fallacy whin it serves the purposes of their arguments. Proponents of mental imagery see the copy theory as a guarantee of the cognitive efficacy of mental images; true ideas are regarded as faithful copies that "reflect" the objects they represent. Opponents have used this doctrine as a straw man for debunking mental images, or for claiming that mental images must be quite unlike "real images" which (so the argument goes) "resemble" what they represent. For a good introduction to the debate between modern iconophiles and iconophobes in psychology, see Imagery, ed. Ned Block (Cambrudge: MIT Press, 1981). The best critique of the copy theory is provided by Nelson Goodman in Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), discussed below in chapter 2. (Mitchell 1986: 12)

Due to my lack of knowledge in this regard I don't have anything significant to add. I cannot dismiss "mental imagery" just yet, because what else would I then call the visual "thoughts" every one of us has? (and which is purportedly tied neurologically with our visual center in the brain - are we to dismiss "seeing" altogether because of some abstruse philosophical quarrel?).

The mental and verbal images on the right side of our diagram, for instance, would seem to be images only in some doubtful, metaphoric sense. People may report experiencing images in their heads while reading or dreaming, but we have only their word for this; there is no way (so the argument goes) to check up on this objectively. And even if we trust the reports of mental imagery, it seems clear that they must be different from real, material pictures. Mental images don't seem to be stable and permanent the way real images are, and they vary from one person to the next: if I say "green" some listeners may see green in their mind's eye, but some may see a word, or nothing at all. And mental images don't seem to be exclusively visual the way real pictures are; they involve all the senses. Verbal imagery, moreover, can involve all the senses, or it may involve no sensory component at all, sometimes suggesting nothing more than a recurrent abstract idea like justice or grace or evil. It is no wonder that literary scholars get very nervous when people start taking the notion of verbal imagery too literally. And it is hardly surprising that one of the main thrusts of modern psychology and philosophy has been to discredit the notion of both mental and verbal imagery. (Mitchell 1986: 13)

My first thought was: so, let's turn back to physicalism/behaviorism and deny consciousness altogether? Yes: (1) the content of mental processes cannot be verified objectively; (2) they vary from person to person because we are not machines with a carbon-copy programming; and (3) our minds operate with every modality, not just the visual or verbal. Should we still dismiss mental imagery? In a footnote Mitchell adds: "Mental imagery has, however, been making a comeback." and then links this with psychology's dissipation with behaviorism. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a whole branch of ToM (theory of mind) that deals with mental imagery. Haha, wikipedia definition of "mental representation" is "hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality" (personal pun). Ooh, the visual episodes when falling asleep are called hypnagogic imagery. Okay, so it's a controversial isse, I'll leave it at that atm.

Imagination for Aristotle is the power of reproducing these impressions in the absence of sensory stimulation by the objects, and it is given the name of "phantasia" (derived from the word for light) because "sight is the most highly developed sense" and serves as the model for all the others. (Mitchell 1986: 14; footnote 13)

This is relevant for a completely unrelated discussion (offtopic). Zamyatin's We occurs in a glass city and the events occur around the elimination of fantasy in order to make people "like tractors". In this sense it is almost ironic that the etymology of "phantasy" comes from "light". There are sevelar interesting quotes concerning sunlight that should be considered, in this light (pun?).

...an image cannot be seen as such without a paradoxical trick of consciousness, an ability to see something as "there" and "not there" at the same time. When a duck responds to a decoy, or when the birds peck at the grapes in the legendary paintings of Zeuxis, they are not seeing images: they are seeing other ducks, or real grapes - the things themselves, and not images of the things. (Mitchell 1986: 17)

The case of "this is not a pipe" and also Lotman's formula of art: "I know that it is what it depicts, but I clearly see that it is not what it depicts". It then seems that Mitchell's issue with images is something like "why can't the pigeon go to the cinema?"

Ideas, images, "what the mind thinks" (or what it "thinks in") are no more "in" the mind than the words on this page are "on" it prior to being printed there. (Mitchell 1986: 18; footnote 16)

Wat? What the f*** do you think a mind is? Wiki warned that Mitchell draws on Freud so I'm suspicious that there is some kind of a rinky-dink conception of mind lurking here. Or it could be that I just don't understand this dialect of philosophese. This text is beginning to annoy me - if it weren't a seminar text I'd ragequit right now.

Wittgenstein may say that "we could perfectly well ... replace every process of imagining by a process of looking at an object or any painting, drawing, or modelling; and every process of speaking to oneself by speaking aloud or by writing," but this "replacement" could (nd does) move in the other direction as well. We could just as easily replace what we call "the physical manipulation of signs" (painting, writing, speaking) with locutions such as "thinking on paper, out loud, in images, etc." (Mitchell 1986: 19)

This seemingly touches autocommunication. I have the habit of "thinking in writing" - this blog is a testament of that.

In contrast to mental imagery, verbal images seem immune to the charge of being unknowable metaphysical entities locked away in a private, subjective space. Texts and speech-acts are, after all, not simply affairs of "consciousness," but are public expressions that belong right out there with all the other kinds of material representations we create - pictures, statues, graphs, maps, etc. We don't have to say that a descriptive paragraph is exactly like a picture to see that they do have similar functions as public symbols that project states of affairs about which we can reach rough, provisional agreements. (Mitchell 1986: 20)

I'd like to agree, but I'm not exactly sure what "projecing states of affairs" and "rough provisional agreements" are about.

Literal language is generally understood (by literary critics) as straight, unadorned, unpicturesque expression, free of verbal images and figures of speech. Figurative language, on the other hand, is what we ordinarily mean when we talk about verbal imagery. The phrase, "verbal imagery," in other words, seems to be a metaphor for metaphor itself! Small wonder that many literary critics have suggested retiring the term from critical usage. (Mitchell 1986: 21)

This may also be why this is the first occasion when I meet the notion of "verbal imagery".

Derrida's answer to the question, "What is an image?" would undoubtedly be: "Nothing but another kind of writing, a kind ag graphic sign that dissembles itself as a direct transcript of that which it represents, or of the way things look, or of what they essentially are." This sort of suspicion of the image seems only appropriate in a time when the very view from one's window, much less the scenes played out in everyday life and in various media of representation, seem to require constant interpretive vigilance. Everything - nature, politics, sex, other people - comes to us now as an image, preinscribed with a speciousness that is nothing but the Aristotelian "species" under a cloud of suspicion. (Mitchell 1986: 30)

It's starting to look as if this might be the type of text that "beats readers into submission". Is that an actual quote by Derrida or is Mitchell using him as a mouthpiece? I have no idea what is meant by "interpretive vigilance" and "preinscription of speciousness". These notions may have very specific meanings that I'm not aware of, maybe they were just constructed on the spot in the spirit of Derrida - I have no idea and I quit.

Arutlus vaba tahte teemal

Hei.
Mis on sinu arvamus vabast tahtest ning determinismidest (jäik, mittepooldav ja leebe?)? Pean sel teemal kirjutama arutluse, ent jooksin kinni ja nii ma sondeerin pinda, et näha, mida teised arvavad, et siis uuesti kuskilt otsast arutada.
Aitäh :D

Viimane kord kui sa pöördusid minu poole mingi koolitöö-asjaga andsin ma lühikese vastuse. Kui ma õigesti mäletan siis see oli midagi teemal "mis teeb inimesest inimese" vms (ja minu vastus puudutas inimese keelevõimet). Pärast seda olen mõelnud, et kui sa veel midagi sellist küsid, siis ma pühendan sellele korraliku vastuse. "Korralik" tähendab siin mitme(kümne?)leheküljelist arutlust mille käigus ma sisuliselt mõtlen läbi kirjutamise.
Vaba tahte (free will) teema on midagi mida ma olen püüdnud ise igal võimalusel vältida. Bourdieu kirjutas, et inimesed koguvad informatsiooni, et kasutada seda informatsiooni vältimiseks. Siin on juhtunud täpselt see, et nooruses religiooni kohta loetu tegi mind skeptiliseks vaba tahte ja determinismi küsimuste suhtes. Seetõttu pole ma sel teemal varem vaaginud ja kasutan nüüd võimalust. Plaanis on pöörduda ka oma lugemisblogi poole ja vaadata mida ma olen sel teemal kokku kogunud. Praegu aga alustan ebainformeeritud arvamustega, et saada need nö out of the way. Kui sa otsid pinnapealset vastust - eeldades, et ma ei ole ainus FB kasutaja kellele sa selle palve saatsid - võid lugeda läbi ainult järgneva lõigu ja ülejäänu jätta lugemata. Minu jaoks on tähtis, et ma ise saaks midagi kirja pandud ja sel teemal selguse leida.

Momendil ma ütlen, et meil on vaba tahe ning determinismi ma ei poolda, ei jäika ega leebet. Vaba tahte ja determinismi küsimused on sellised, mille mina viskaks hea meelega üldse intellektuaalsesse prügikasti. Tähendab, need teemad juba tunduvad seal olevat, sest need ei ole autonoomsed küsimused mille üle vaimu pingutada, vaid peaaegu alati seotud millegi muuga. See midagi muud on antud juhul religioosne, kuid võib olla ka sotsioloogiline (üksikisiku ja ühiskonna vastandus), poliitiline (enesemääramine poliitilisel tasandil), kehalis-käitumuslik (kas meie liigutame oma kehasid või meie kehad liigutavad meid) jne. Religioosne argument kõlab umbes järgnevalt (ma ei ole veel interneti poole pöördunud, vaid proovin oma versiooni artikuleerida): Jumal lõi maa ja taeva jne ning ta tegi seda oma täiuslikus kõiketeadmises, mistõttu ta teab kõike mis on juhtunud ja mis saab juhtuma. Seega on Jumalale ette teada mida sa teed (ta on ette determineerinud mida sa teed) ja sinul endal on vaid pettekujutelm vabast tahtest ehk tunne, et sa kontrollid oma elu ja saad teha valikuid, kuigi need valikud on tegelikult juba sinu eest ette ära tehtud. Ma pole kindel kuidas täpselt, aga kuidagi seostub sellega ka füüsikalise maailmapildi muutumine 20. sajandil. Albert Einsteini kuulus ütlus, et "Jumal ei mängi täringuid" pöörati vist kvantfüüsika saabumisega ümber vms. Ma ei tea sellest tõesti peaaegu mitte midagi ja religioosset aspekti väldin teadlikult, sest ma ei usu Jumala olemasolusse ja seetõttu ei tundu ka selline ettemääratus mitte mingit pidi mõistlik. Vaba tahte küsimus see-eest on teema mis on nipet-näpet mitteverbaalse käitumisega seotud, niiet ma vaatan nüüd mida ma leian selle kohta oma lugemisblogis.

"Americanization occured by our own free will"

Siin on jutuks eestlaste suhe võõraste maailmavaadetega. Venestamine (russification) oli katse istutada võõrast maalmavaadet eestlaste teadvusesse. Läänestamine - täpsemalt Americanization - toimub aga vabatahtlikult (Ahhaa! Esimest korda taipasin, et sõna "vabatahtlikult" ongi with free will ehk willfully). See kontrast on silmatorkav, sest Nõukogude ajal sunniti eestlasi õppima vene keelt ja marksismi - need olid need kaks õppeainet mis tehti kõigile õppuritele kohustuslikuks kohe pärast Tartu Ülikooli ülevõtmist Nõukogude võimude poolt. Praegu aga on inglise keel "prestiižkeel" ja selle oskamine on ihaldatav. Spordihalli riietevahemisruumis tunnistasin ise pealt kuidas kolm väikest poissi lalisesid inglise keeles; see oli kummastav, sest nad teadsid üksikuid sõnu ja tsitaate nt muusikast ja andsid endast parima, et omavahel mängides mitte kasutada sõnakestki eesti keelt. Ma arvan, et see on nii, sest me oleme praegu USA mõjuväljas ja see tähendab ka kultuurilist imperialismi - filmid, telesaated, muusika, raamatud, internet jne mida me tarbime on põhiliselt USA toodang või mõjutatud USA toodangust.
Siin on vaba tahte küsimus oluline, sest ma just üritasin lükata vastutuskoormat "kultuurilise imperialismi" kaela, aga tegelikult on ju igaüks ise vastutav selle eest millises suunas ta kultuuriliselt vaatab. Mina tunnen natukene isegi häbi, et ma nii palju Ameerika kultuuri tarbin. Enamus üleval- ja allolevatest katkenditest pärinevad Ameerika mõtlejate/kirjutajate raamatutest/artiklitest. Aga lähme edasi!

"makes no mention of individuals having any free will, consciousness, motives, personality, etc."

Siin protesteerisin ma "aksiomaatilise" lähenemise vastu, sest mulle ei meeldi mõte, et "käitumise" asemel peaks rääkima "käitumisjadadest". Loogika ja käitumine ei lähe minu arvates hästi kokku, sest inimest ei saa taandada ainult selleks mis on väliselt jälgitav (overtly observable) - inimestel on ka tunded ja mõtted. Üritades seda kriitikat sõnadesse seada, asetasin ja ühte ritta väga tüüpilised psühholoogilised mõisted: vaba tahe, teadvus, motiivid, isiksus jne. See on peaaegu, et irooniline, sest ma eelistan harilikult vältida kõiki neid mõisteid just nende ideoloogilisuse ja mitmetähenduslikkuse tõttu. Kokkuvõttes tuleb välja vaid see, et ma usun, et inimesel on vaba tahe, teadvus, motiivid, isiksus, jne.

"Why doesn't the system slip so that, after sleep has disassembled the mind, its memory and will, the mechanism is not reassembled somewhat differently, to form a different person, a different me?"

Naljakas. Ma olin väga vaimustatud kui Mihhail Lotman ütles midagi sarnast: "Kultuur peab endale pidevalt meelde tuletama kes ta on. See, et hommikul ärkan üles ja ikka olen mina." Ülevalolev tsitaat pärineb kelletki perekonnanimega Jacob ja aastast 1988 (ma ei tea täpselt, sest leidsin selle ühest T. A. Sebeoki artiklist ja ei jäädvustanud viidet). Vaba tahte seisukohast on siin märkimisväärne, et see Jacob on mõistuse olulilimateks komponentideks nimetanud mälu ja tahe. Need kaks on omaettegi huvitavad, sest näiteks J. R. Kantoni mäluteoorias oli see oluline, et on asju mida me tahame mäletada ja meelde tuletada ja siis on ka asju mida me ei taha otseselt mäletada, aga siiski mäletamie ja mis justkui iseenesest tuleb meelde. Siin peaks siis küsima: kas sul on oma mälu üle vaba tahe?
Mälu ja tahte ristumisest võib vaadelda ka individuaaliüleseid protsesse. Näiteks nö "kultuurimälu" saab küll tahtlikult muuta või "ümber kirjutada". Just täna sattusin lugema kellegi vihast blogipostitust sellest kuidas tubakavastased üritavad ajalugu ümber kirjutada - mingi film 1970ndate F1 võidusõitudest olevat kujutanud inimesi suitsetamas nii nagu nad 1970ndatel suitsetasid - ohtrasti ja avalikult - ning F1 autod olid sponsoreeritud tubakafirmade poolt. Mind paelus see kuidas autor kasutas Orwelli 1984-i metafoorina: "anti-smoking activists now want to go all ‘1984’ on cultural depictions of the past and stub out any mention of yesteryear’s smoking habits" ja "Such is the anti-smoking lobby’s Orwellian urge to scrub inconvenient facts from history". Siin peaks siis küsima: kas meil on vabat tahet oma kultuurikeskkonna üle?

"The Arabic word for intent, niya, not only means "purpose," "design," and "will," but inasmuch as these features manifest themselves in direct faith niya also means "simple," "naive," and "sincere."

Siin tuleb peatuda, sest see katkend puudutab väga otseselt vaba tahte probleemi. Artikkel ise räägib vastutusest Araabia kultuuris ja kohtusüsteemis. Autor alustas artiklit kirjeldusega sellest kuidas Araabia arusaam kauplemisest erineb kardinaalselt meie Lääne arusaamast - nimelt on meil hinnad staatilised, aga neil toimub asi "kaubeldes" (bargaining). Intentsiooni küsimuses toimub selle autori järgi midagi sarnast. Ülaltoodud tsitaadis on öeldud, et araabiakeelne sõna "tahe" (niya) tähendab mitte ainult "eesmärki", "kavandust" ja "tahet" vaid need väljenduvad usus ja kannavad ka järgnevaid seoseid: "lihtne", "naiivne", ja "siiras". Siin on oluline, et nii eesmärk kui ka kavand puudutavad ka "determinatsiooni" küsimust - Jumalal on plaan/kavand milles on inimestele ette määratud kindel tee/eesmärk. Semantiline seos lihtsameelsusega on ära märgitud, sest siin rõhutatakse ausust - inimene peaks nii oma sõnades kui ka tegudes alati kuvama seda mis on tema sees. Siin on väga huvitav tähelepanek: "most Arabs do not recognize the idea of a distinct inner self that could exist apart from action". Tähendab, "mina olen see mida ma teen ja ütlen", mitte "ma olen mina, sõltumatult sellest mida ma teen või ütlen". See on päris oluline kultuuriline erinevus. Araabia kohtusüsteemis tähendab see - minu arvates kummalisel kombel - et kohtunik usaldab tunnistaja ütlusi ja on kindel, et saab neist ilma takistusteta kätte tõelise intentsiooni. Aga me räägime siin kultuurist kus naisi karistatakse selle eest, et neid on vägistatud. Liigume edasi.

"Thus to the question, what is man? or even, what is essentially man? The answer will be a symbol enjoined by a Final/Normal Logical interpretant."

Vahemärkus. Mulle meenus, et Araabia kultuuris on keelatud rääkida tulevikust. Islamis teab ainult Allah tulevikku ja inimesel on keelatud öelda midagi selle kohta. Seetõttu peaks neil puuduma future tense ehk see sama sõna, will. Enamus nendest juhuslikest lausekatkenditest ütlevad midagi tuleviku kohta, ennustavad seda mingil moel ette. Selle sõna üks funktsiooni on väljendada vältimatuid sündmusi (expressing inevitable events). Selles mõttes on see sõna ise lahutamatult seotud determinatsiooniga, sest kui ma ütlen something will happen siis tekib ettekujutlus, et something will happen ja kui seda ei juhtu, siis on ettekujutlusest, plaanist, kavandist, vms eksitud, kõrvale kaldutud. See on peaaegu nagu "mikrodeterminism".
Ma võin öelda: "nüüd ma kindlasti kirjutan edasi ja jätkan seda imelikku arutlust kuniks ma jõuan mäletamist mööda ainsa artiklini oma lugemisblogis mis räägib konkreetselt vabast tahtest" siis tekib "võimalik maailm" mis tundub väga võimalik, sest ma olen nii palju juba kirjutanud - miks ma ei peaks edasi kirjutama? Aga mida mina praegu seda kirjutades näen on tühi valge ruum mida ma katan järjest rohkemate tähtede ja sõnadega. Ma võin igal hetkel lõpetada ja jättagi tühja valge ruumi lihtsalt tühjaks valgeks ruumiks. Kas mul on vaba tahe lõpetada?
Veel üks teema mida tuleks siin natukene puudutada on "ennastteostavad ennustused" (self-fulfilling prophecy). See on ennustus mis ise põhjustab iseenda täidesaamist. Ma ütlen: "ma kirjutan seda teksti terve päev" ja siis juhtubki nii, et ma kirjutan seda teksti terve päev. Peale psühholoogilise tõsiasja on see ka huvitav kirjanduslik vahend. Olev Remsu kasutas oma teoses Kurbmäng Paabelis sellist vahendit. Eks see oli üks nendest asjaoludest mis tegid sellest sürrealistlikust barokkromaanist sürrealistliku barokkromaani. Ta kirjutas iseennast oma raamatusse sisse kui kirjaniku kes kirjutab seda raamatut. Tema peategelane oli teadlik, et ta on Olev Remsu raamatu jaoks prototüüp ja mitmel korral nad isegi kohtusid ja arutlesid selle üle. Esimene neist kohtumistest oli eriti meeldejääv. Toimus mingi paraad ja peategelane Arthur märkas Remsut nõiatumas kurekrõnksus vastu seina ja kritseldamas märkmikusse märkmeid raamatu jaoks. Tasa ja targu hiilis Arthur oma autori selja taha ja piilus mida ta seal kirjutab. Mida ta seal kirjutas oli see, et Arthur hiilis oma autori selja taha ja piilus mida ta seal kirjutab. Selliseid momente oli raamatus mujalgi ja seda kordamise asja teostas ta ikka imetlusväärse innuga - sellele oli vahva kaasa elada (üldse, hea raamat). Aga liigume edasi.

"And that is why not alone understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are the same thing as thought."

See tsitaat kuulub René Descartesele. Nii palju kui talle ka ei viidata ja temast ei räägita, on see vististi ainus koht minu lugemisblogis kus on teda ennast tsiteeritud. Mingis mõttes pole siin midagi imestada - ta filosofeeris väga väga ammu ja tolleagsed arusaamad on natuke iganenud. Aga kaalume seda: "Arusaamine, tahe, kujutlusvõime ja tunnetus on sama asi mis mõte." On või? Probleem on vististi selles, et tegu on "mentalistlike" kontseptsioonidega - erinevalt kehalisest käitumisest ei ole arusaamist, tahet, kujutlusvõimet, tunnetust ja mõtet võimalik näha, katsuda, mõõta, salvestada, taasluua jne. See viimane aspekt tundub eriti tähtis, sest vaimne tegevus tundub olevat nagu Heraclituse jõe-metafoor (samasse jõkke ei saa kaks korda astuda) - midagi ei toimu täpselt samamoodi kaks korda.
Descartese tsitaadi juurde naastes... See läheb edasi umbes nii, et me ei saa usaldada väiteid nagu "ma näen või ma kõnnin, seega ma olen", sest ma võin ka unes midagi näha või kogeda kõndimist. Seega kehalised tegevused ei ole usaldusväärsed. See "cogito, ergo sum" tuleb siis sellest, et Descartese arvates on mõte usaldusväärsem kui tajumine või tegemine. Kui sa tead, et sa mõtled, siis sa oled (ja sa tead, et sa oled). Aga see kõik ei huvita meid praegu.

"When the student has a good thought he writes it down, so that it may be recalled at will and made the starting point for a better thought in the same direction; and so mankind at large records and cherishes its insights."

Siin võiks peatuda ja arutleda. Tsitaat kuulub C. H. Cooley'le aastast 1909. See on äge, sest kehastab in a more accessible way Peirce'i arusaama märkide kasvust (signs grow). Mõtteid tasub kirja panna, sest siis on kerge neid uuesti ellu kutsuda - tahte peale "meelde tuletada". Siin tuleks tähele panna, et recalling at will on üks oluline mäletamisviis - õigemini on tegu meenutamisega. Peirce'i märgikasvuga seostub see sel viisil, et meenutatud mõtet saab edasi viia samas suunas. Tal oli üks huvitav kirjeldus mõttetööst, mis läks umbes nii: sul tuleb hea mõte, siis sa unustad selle ära, aga kunagi hiljem tuleb sul see uuest meelde ja sa lisad sellele midagi, et see siis uuesti ära unustada ja uuest meenudes veel midagi lisada. Ni tekib kontinuiteet. Cooley lisab sellele kirjutamise - mis Peirce'l, kes tegelikult kirjutas ääretult palju, ununes mainida. Kirjutatut saab kergesti meelde tuletada ja edasi arendada. Sellest seisukohast ei ole lugemisblogist sõna "will" otsimine ja mõne tsitaadi kommenteerimine midagi muud kui juba läbimõeldu veel kord läbi mõtlemine ja edasi arendamine.

"It always involves individuals' free activity, their choice of the language they will use in their relations with society"

Siin on midagi mis puudutab vaba tahet. Peaagu... Tegelikult on see lihtsalt huvitav katkend Lotmanilt; pealegi raamatust (The Decemberist) mida ma ei ole lugenud ega saagi lugeda, sest see on vene keeles. Siinne katkend on inglise keeles ja ma tõlgin selle nüüd eesti keelde.

See erinevus [tavalise ja semiootilise käitumise vahel] on hädavajalik: üksikisikud ei vali oma tavalist käitumist vaid pigem omandavad selle oma ühiskonnalt, ajalooliselt perioodilt milles nad elavad või siis oma psühholoogilisest või füsioloogilisest ülesehitusest; sellele ei ole alternatiivi.
Semiootiline käitumine seevastu on alati valiku tulemus. See on alati seotud üksikisikute vaba tegevusega, nende keelevalikuga mida nad kasutavad oma ühiskondlikes suhetes.

Siin on mõningaid tõlkimisraskusi - näiteks routine behavior pole otseselt "tavaline käitumine" (mis on "tava"?) ja mitte ka päris "rutiinne" ehk "tavapärane" (mis on "tava"?). Ma kahtlustan, et tõlkes on kaduma läinud üpris lihtne eristus "semiootilise" ja "mitte-semiootilise" käitumise vahel. See eristus tegelikult põhinebki sellel, et semiootilises maailmas on valik - kas kasutada ühte märki, koodi, keelt, vms, või teist. Mitte-semiootilises ehk füüsilises maailmas puudub valik - gravitatsioon ei küsi õunalt kas ta tahab maha kukkuda, magu ei küsi toidult kuidas ta soovib saada seeditud.
Vaba tahte ja determinismi poole pöördudes selgubki nüüd, et mehhanitsistlik/füsikalistlik maailmapilt on mitte-semiootiline - Jumal on lükkanud universumi veerema ja nüüd ta siis veereb: õunad kukuvad maha ja päike loojub läände. Igasugune determinism põhineb seaduspära kehtestamises reeglina - õun on määratud maha kukkuma, sest gravitatsioon on seadus. Religioosse determinismi eesmärk on selles mõttes jätta inimene valikust ilma ja allutada ta Jumala tahtele - Jumala seadustele. Mihhail Lotman arutles oma hiljutises raamatus Struktuur ja Vabadus I Augustinuse või kellegi teise kuntud kirikuisa arusaama, et vabadust on kahte sorti - suur (major) ja väike (minor). See käis umbes nii, et meie "väike" vabadus seisneb valikus kas uskuda Jumalasse või mitte. Meie "suur" vabadus on aga Jumala poolt ette ära otsustatud - ühel või teisel viisil jõuame me ikkagi Jumala rüppe ja Jumalas oleme me "suurest" vabad. See on väga umbkaudne tõlgendus - ma ei trükkinud seda katkendit ümber. Noorema Lotmani raamatust võib hiljem veel rääkida, praegu pöörduks vanema Lotmani poole tagasi.
Kui mitte-semiootiline käitumine (psühho-füsioloogiline ülesehitus) on determineeritud, siis semiootiline käitumine seisneb vabas valikus. "Valiku moment" semiootilises mõttes tähendab muidugi märgivalikut - millist märki kuidas ja milleks kasutada. Tekst on selles mõttes vabaduse suurim saavutus, sest erinevalt päriselust on tekstis kõik võimalik. Ma võin siia Remsu kombel kirjutada, et tegelikult on mind kaks - üks istub laua taga ja toksib klaviatuuri, teine tatsab mõõda tuba ringi ja dikteerib neid sõnu, vahepeal peatudes, et mõttepausi ajal ideid seedida. Tegelikult on mind muidugi üks, aga mis keelab mul kirjutada, et mind on kaks ja üks mina seisab mul praegu selja taga ja loeb mida teine kirjutab: "Tegelikult on mind muidugi üks, aga mis keelab mul kirjutada, et mind on kaks ja üks mina seisab mul praegu selja taga ja loeb mida teine kirjutab..." Vist ei tasuks mainidagi, et sülearvuti taga omakorda seisab peegel?
Olgu, olgu, tagasi teema juurde. Räägitakse ka "semiootilisest vabadusest". Hetkel meenub, et see on oluline teema Hoffmeyer biosemiootikas ja seostub ökosüsteemi semiootilise mitmekesisusega, aga ma ei näe põhjust miks ei võiks semiootilisest vabadusest rääkida ka kultuuriliste märgiprotsesside tähenduses. Sama lugu on Ivar Puura "semiotsiidi" mõistega, mis originaalselt kuulub paleontoloogia valdkonda. Minu arvates võivad semiootiline vabadus ja semiotsiid moodustada vastanduse kahe protsessi vahel - üks taotleb märgiliikide vähendamist ja teine märgiliikide paljundamist. Väga lihtne näide oleks rahvuskeelte juhtum, mida ääri-veeri sai ka ülevalpool puudutatud. Kui läänestamine jätkub samasuguse hooga nagu praegu, siis võib eesti keel päris reaalselt välja surra. Selle vastand muidugi on rahvuskeelte elushoidmine ja edasiarendamine, kasvatamine ja mitmekesistamine. Probleem mis mind ennast vaevab on see, et ma ei saa eesti keeles rääkida väga tehnilistest asjadest millest inglise keeles on väga mugav rääkida. Ma ei taha millegi pärast olla ka see tüüp kes hakkab väga paljusid uusi mõisteid eesti keelde leiutama - põhiliselt selle pärast, et minu lugemus eesti keeles ei ole väga hea ja võib-olla oleks see lihtsalt (lobudiku) jalgratta leiutamine. Aga nüüd ma kaldun küll vist teemast kõrvale. Üritan veel kord naaseda tsitaadi juurde...
Mitte-semiootilise käitumise determineeritus seiseb selles, et see omandatakse ilmtingimata kas kultuurilis-ühiskondlikust kontekstist või psühho-füsioloogilistest paratamatustest. Ma ei saa näiteks midagi parata aksendi puhul - suurest pingutusest hoolimata tuleb inglise keeles kõneledes varem või hiljem ilmsiks, et see on second language. Samamoodi ei saa ma suurt midagi parata kui üks mu jalg on lühem kui teine ja kõnnak on natuke teistmoodi. Küll aga on mul võimalik vabalt valida millest ma räägin ja kuidas ma tantsin. Ma pole kindel kas vabaduse ja vabadusetuse saab nii lihtsalt ühildada nö "semiootilise lävendiga", aga üldjoontes tundub see olevat korrektne - vähemalt Kalevi Kulli järgi eristuvad füüsiline ja semiootiline reaalsus selle poolest, et ühes on valik ja teises mitte. Liigme edasi...

"The sort of friends he will have, the sort of organizations he will join, the sort of political leadership he will follow, the sort of person he or his son will marry, will all be strongly influenced by the side of this ideological bifurcation which he adopts as his own."

See katkend pärineb ühest noore Cliffort Geertzi artiklist. Ma ei ole siiamaani järgi vaadanud mis bifurcation'i vaste eesti keeles. See on: lõhenemine, mitmeks hargnemine. Täiesti omaette teemana saaks rääkida bifurkatsiooni-punktidest Lotmani kultuuriteoorias, aga mitte praegu ja mitte siin. Ideoloogiline lõhenemine millest Geertz siin räägib puudutab jällegi religiooni. Artikkel rääkis nimelt ühel Jaava saarel juhtunud intsidentist milles Islam põrkus kohaliku rahvausuga. Nimelt oli sugulaste juures elanud poiss haigestunud ja öösel ära surnud ning hommikul kutsuti vanemad kohale, et ta maha matta. Konflikt tekkis sellest, et matus on religioosne kombetalitus ja sugulane kelle juures poiss elas oli rahvausundi ehk mitte-Islami poolt. Tähendab, poliitika ja religioon on siin - nagu Islami puhul alati - tihedalt seotud: Islami vaimulik keeldus poissi Islami kombe kohaselt matmast. Keegi ei teadnud mida teha, sest tavaliselt oli matmine kombetalitusega täpselt paika pandud. Nii palju siis kontekstist.
Geertzi point näib siin olevat, et ideoloogial on "determineeriv" mõju. Religioosne ja poliitiline kuuluvus võivad mõjutada (pane tähele, et mitte päris määrata) seda milliseid sõprussidemeid sa moodustad, milliste organisatsioonidega sa liitud, millist poliitilist juhtimist sa järgid, millist tüüpi inimesega su laps abiellub jne. Eesti kontekstis on neil asjadel minu arvates natuke vähem kaalu, aga eks mingi mõju ikka on. Tänagi sattusin hommikul vaatama Reporteri tänavaküsitlust "mida teeksite, kui teie laps abielluks mustanahalisega". Enamus vastuseid olid mõistlikud "inimene on inimene" ja "armastus on armastus" tüüpi, aga kommentaariumis tuli muidugi lollus esile. Siin väärib vististi mainimist, et Ameerika kultuuris on kombetu/tavatu pärida inimestelt religioossete ja poliitiliste vaadete kohta. Omagi kogemus on öelnud, et sellistel teemadel vestlemine pigem lahutab inimesi kuiet liidab. Lõhenemine, neh.
Siia võib kokkuvõttes vististi kirjutada, et ideoloogial ja grupikuuluvustel võib ka olla määrav mõju inimese elukäigule. Aga samas on see vististi niivõrd üldine väide, et midagi uut siit ei tule.

"a small group discusses something and the mood drops visibly, predicting that the discussion will soon dissipate and the group will disperse. Or, a person indicates with his hands (the "come here" motion) and thus predicts what the target will do next (s/he will come)."

See on üks huvitav seisukoht mis läheb käesoleva teemaga hästi kokku: "žest kui ennustus". Siin on kõne all üks C. Wright Mills'i artikkel motiividest (õigemini, vocabularies of motive). Artikkel pärineb aastast 1940 ja momendil oluline katkend ütleb, et sotsioloogias on hakatud ümber lükkama Wundt'ilikku arusaama, et keele põhifunktsioon on "väljendada" midagi mis on isikus eelnevalt juba olemas (et "keelega me väljendame mõtteid"). Mills seletab, et uue vaate kohaselt lähenetakse keeletegevusele mitte sellelt seisukohalt, et kõnes väljendavad inimesed midagi mis on nende sees juba olemas, vaid seisukohalt, et keele ühiskondlik funktsioon on koordineerida erinevaid tegevusi. Asja pirn: keel osutab tulevastele tegevustele (see on indicator of future actions). Midagi sarnast on mulle tuttav Birdwhistelli kineesikast, sest teda ei huvitanud emotsioonide väljendumine näoilmetes vaid see kuidas me kasutame näoilmeid, et üksteise käitumist koordineerida (selle üldnimetus on interaction management). "Žest kui ennustus" siis selles mõttes, et see kuidas ma käitun annab aimu sellest mida ma võin teha vahetus tulevikus. Näide mida ma ülal tsiteerin puudutab grupikäitumist: kui sa paned tähele, et seltskonna tuju langeb, jutt hakkab venima ja inimestel on justkui ebamugav, siis see on prognostiline märk, et seltskonna lahkuminek on lähedal. Teine näide on otsesem - viipad käega "tule siia" ja teine inimene tuleb siia. Kui sa kujutad end ette kõrvaltseisjana, siis see näeb välja näiteks nii, et üks inimene ühel pool tänavat sooritab selle käe- ja pealiigutuse ning teine inimene teisel pool tänavat kellele see suunatud oli muudab oma liikumissuunda (või hakkab liikuma) ja ületab tee. Selline "juhendamise" juhtum on niivõrd igapäevane, et ei vääriks muidu mainimistki, aga ma usun, et siin peitub midagi võimast - on tõenäoline, et eksisteerib taolisi "prognostilisi märke" millest inimesed ise ei ole otseselt teadlikud, aga mis sellegipoolest toimivad. See on intuitsiooni ala kuhu on raske teaduslikult tungida, aga varem või hiljem tuleb aeg mil ka "olukorra lugemist" peaks lähemalt uurima (veel üks prognostikatsioon, veel üks will).

""'Power' (Macht) is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance," according to Weber. Tawney's definition similarly centers on imposing one's will on others, except that he explicitly directs attention to the asymmetry of power relations"

See pärineb Blau raamatust Exchange and Power in Social Life (1964). Ma lugesin seda suure tuhinaga kuniks taipasin, et see on majandusteadlase lähenemine ühiskondlikule elule. See oli nagu majandusliku determinismi viimine inimsuhete tasandile. See siin on Max Weberi klassikaline võimu-definitsioon, mille kohaselt võim seisneb ühe inimese võimes panna teine tegema seda mida ta ei taha teha. Tahte küsimus on siin oluline, sest võim on "vaba tahte" vaenlane. Võim röövib vaba tahte ja asendab selle sunniga. Sund on mingis mõttes ka determinatsiooni sisu - sa ei taha, aga sa oled määratud, sunnitud...
Naljakal kombel on sellise sunni tipp elu ise. See on nüüd mingisugune pseudo-eksistentsialism, aga kas elu pole mitte "ellu sundimine"? Sündimist ei saa valida. Elamist ei saa valida. Unest üles ärkamist ei saa valida. Küll aga saab valida elu lõpetamist ja sedagi võimalust üritatakse peita ja keelata (eriti religioossete inimeste poolt kes peavad elu - isegi õnnetut elu - pühaks). Eutanaasiast ma praegu rääkida aga ei taha. Pöördun tagasi võimu poole. Foucault' biovõim tegeleb just selliste pseudo-eksistentsialistlike probleemidega ja ma ei ole sellega kõige paremini kursis.
Klassikalise (Weberi) määratluse järgi on võim siis vaba tahte asendamine sunniga. Selle sunni iseloom jääb praegu muidugi lahtiseks, sest see võib üldsegi mitte tunduda sunnina vaid näida positiivsena. Ülevalpool on isegi üks hea näide: "Soldiers will venture their lives for an obliging officer"... Vaba tahe on sellest seisukohast "võim iseenda üle" - võimalus "valida ise oma tee" või "olla iseenda käskija". Kui natuke ette mõelda oma TACS tüpoloogia peale (pole kindel, kas ikka seostada seda TACS-iga), siis on tahte küsimuses kolm võimalust: (1) oma tahe - teen mis tahan; (2) teise tahe - nt "Tule siia"; ja (3) impersonaalne norm - kõnnitakse kõnniteel mitte risti-rästi siia-sinna vaid otse ja korrapäraselt. Kolmas on siis nagu situation baseline ja (1) ning (2) võivad olla nii sellega harmoonias kui kakofoonias. Ma võin tühjal tänaval otsustada istuda keset autoteed maha ja ka reageerida sellele "Tule siia"-le. Aga lähme edasi.

"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge­hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic."

Hah. See on Orwelly 1984-st "Two Minutes Hate" episood mil töötajad kogunevad suure ekraani ette ja karjuvad Goldsteini jutu peale. Siin on illustratiivne juhtum sellest kui teiste inimeste tahe trumpab enda oma ning vihkamine nakkab. Charles Morrise järgi on see communization, uuema psühholoogia järgi emotional contagion. Minu tüpoloogia seisukohalt on oluline, et situatsioon ("Two Minutes Hate") kehtestab käitumisviisi kõigile osalejatele.

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten."

Newspeak on hea näide keelelisest semiotsiidist. Kui sõnad oleksid elusad (nagu sõna-organitsismis), siis Newspeak oleks sõnade massimõrv. See teema ei puutu vististi väga vaba tahte ja determinatsiooni teemaga kokke. Või kui, siis ainult Sapir-Whorfi hüpoteesi mõttes, et meie maailma piirideks on meie keele piirid. Kui hävitada keelt, siis hävineb ka osa meie maailmast - Orwellis on selleks teisitimõtlejate (mõttekurjategijate) maailm mis hävitatakse.

"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect."

Nüüd taipan, et see on Orwelli vastus Zamjatinile, kelle E-330 ütleb, et "just as there is no highest number, there can be no final revolution".

"Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking ­not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

Kummalisel kombel jõudsime siingi teemasse. "Freedom is slavery" on üks kolmest jaburast loosungist 1984-s. Seda võib seostada nii araablaste arusaamaga intentsioonist kui ka Augustinuse suure vabadusega. Kõigil neil juhtudel on vabaduse sisuks tajutud paratamatus: sa oled vaba tegema seda mida sul on lubatud teha, sa oled vaba ütlema seda mida sul on lubatud öelda, sa oled vaba tundma seda mida sul on lubatud tunda. Viimane aspekt läheneb juba Equilibriumi (2003 film) sisule. Zamjatini Meie, millel nii Orwell kui ka... ohjah, sisuliselt iga hea düstoopia põhineb, sisaldab kogu inimtegevuse (tunnete, tegevuste, mõtete) kontrollimist Riigi poolt. Seda on isegi natuke raske visuaalselt ette kujutada - klaasist majas kõiki "numbreid" täpselt samal hetkel voodist tõusmas, väljas kõik ühes korrapärases rivis sammumas jne. Ma arvan, et Meie point jääbki vist selleks, et D-503 on rahul oma tajutud paratamatusega. Ta on üks number miljonist ja mitte millegi poolest silmapaistev ning teda häirib mõte, et ta ei ole Meie.

"Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-­destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane."

Nüüd meikik ka rohkem senssi miks "enesehävitus" on nii tähtsal kohal Orwellis. Meie-s ei ole mind. Individuaal peab saama allutatud kollektiivile, vabast tahtest peab saama ettemääratus, valikute tohubavohust peab saama seaduspära.

"When we come to the study the great principles of continuity and see how all is fluid and every point directly partakes of the being of every other, it will appear that individualism and falsity are one and the same."

See on John Dewey, aastast 1946. Midagi analoogset olen leidnud ka mujalt (T.S. Eliot nt), aga meeldejäävaim ja konkreetsem on Bakhtini väide "only error individualizes". Siin võiks vististi ka lõpetada. Ma ei usu, et vaba tahte ja determinismi suhtes midagi väga palju selgemaks sai, aga mul endal oli küll huvitav seda teksti kirjutada.
Samamoodi peaksin ma tegema teemadega, millega mul tegelikult on vaja tegeleda. Niiet ma võin seda võtta kui harjutamist tegelikuks asjaks. Või kas siin üldse on midagi tegelikku? Ma lihtsalt usun, et kui midagi pühendunult läbi kirjutada, siis see saab palju selgemaks.

FLSE.00.148 loeng 13.09.10

FLSE.00.148 Semiotics and Theories of Art loeng 2013.09.17

Indreg Grigor translated “kim?” from Latvian as “WTF?” but a latvian student corrected that it actually means “What is art?” Ekraani peale on Peeter Linnapi lehekülg ööülikooli kodulehel. He's a professor of art photography. Indrek soovitab 2008. aasta loengut õnneküttide teemal. When you write your scientific article you should think about “why am I doing it like that?” Also, you cannot create your own little happy world, but your world is always connected with the rest of the world.

A > T > R
kus
A – kunstnik (kunstnikud)
T – kunstiteos (-teosed)
R – retsipient (retsipiendid)

Siia tuleks lisada veel koodi ja konteksti ja kanali. These latter elements/functions are missing because the “message” dominates in art. The message of art is seemingly self-sufficient. It isn't about the artist nor the audience but about the artwork itself. Art is created independently from the people who create and receive it. E.g. art is for art's sake.

When you ask if art should be looked at independently from everything else, Tanel Randpere claimed that it should.

Indrek adds that Tanel has a very tense social nerve (I still don't know what this “social nerve” consists of). Mulle tundub, et Tanel Randpere pildi taustal on Valga Jaani Kirik.

When we start to define art then Randpere thinks that we're doing something that we shouldn't do.

He goes on that for him art is like life for the biologist – it just is. Now showing Juri Lotman's article “The place of art among other modelling systems” (SSS 29(2/4) 2011).

1.2.0. No definition of art or a work of art will be given here. For the present work, an intuitive conception, allewing us to ...

Moving on too fast, Indrek! I can't type that fast.

1.3.0. Modelling activity is human activity in creating models. In order that the results of this activity could be taken as analogues of an object, they have to objey certain (intuitively or consciously established) rules of analogy and, therefore, be related to one modelling system or another.

But is it, though? It does not model the real world, does it? If it is fictional then it models the fictional world in the writer's head. I'm still extremely skeptical of modelling systems theory, especially because there is no consensus on modelling and there are those who speak of “modelling models of modelling systems modelling the models of modelling systems” or something like that. I'm sure that modelling can be a useful heuristic device even in my own work, e.g. concourse is a model of bodily behaviour.

The formula of art is: “I know that it is not what it depicts, but I clearly see that it is not what it depicts”.

When I read about nonverbal behaviour I know that it is not nonverbal behaviour that I'm reading, but I clearly see that it is what I'm reading about. No, that doesn't give us anything.

The content of art as a modelling system is the world of reality, translated to the language of our consciousness, translated in turn to the language of the given form of art.

This is more useful, because the reason why I study verbal concourse not visual concourse is that the visual is too immediate – verbal discriptions on the other hand must go through human consciousness and evaluation. Unlike the photograph, the ouput can in this case become something wholly different or more significant than the input. To put it into nice words: verbal concourse is recoded, visual concourse is recorded.

It can be said that specifically artistic content is syntagmatic content. Semantic relations only give us a translation from the language of art to a language of non-art.

I'm not exactly sure what is meant by “syntagmatic content”, but it seems as simple as: when I recognize an apple in the painting (in the language of art) I know that it is a depiction of an apple (in the language of non-art). But the “artistic meaning” comes to the fore from the apple's relations to other things in the same painting – is it an apple in an apple basket, is it the fruit from the Fall from Paradise story, etc.

Marina Grishnakova [?] discovered that Nabokov's works contain references to Palcal.

Neat. Should check it out. Also, the “nabokovists” have their own journal/magazine. Again, neat.

1. Reality. Object. Non-discrete series (speech)
2. Theoretical model. Our concept of the object. Discrete series (language)
3. Art. Work of art. Non-discrete series (speech) in relation to 2, discrete series (language) in relation to 4
4. Reality. Reality interpreted in the light of prior artistic experience. Non-discrete series (speech)

According to this we have: (1) bodily behaviour that we interpret through (2) body language or simply knowledge of nonverbal communication and then we (3) use the previous two – the behaviour and our knowledge of the behaviour – and use them to describe the behaviour of fictional characters, which in turn will (4) enable us to interpret bodily behaviour of actual people. Makes a whole lot of sense.

4.1.3. The relationship between the performance and the performed text is the same as between a performaed artistic text and a non-artistic modeling structure equivalent to it: it sharply increases “play” - that is, the multitude of functions that elements have in interlinked semantic fields and the relative randomness of...

A tough nut to crack. This is a quote that Indrek himself was unable to interpret, because the Estonian translation is completely different – something about tõlgenduskunst. To me it seems that we are dealing with the opposition of script and acting (instruction and realization).

We

Glenny, Michael 1984. Introduction. In: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 9-18.

Zamyatin not only spoke English fluently but was quite remarkably well read in English and American literature - to a degree which would put most English-speakers on either side of the Atlantic to shame. With equal skill Zamyatin translated such disparate writers as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, O. Henry and H. G. Wells, and wrote analyses of their work which deserve to be placed alongside English and American writing on these authors - not as curiosities bit as autonomous and original contributions to our ciritcal literature. He wrote, too, with knowledge and insight on a host of other British and American writers ffrom Bacon to Bernard Shaw; but by far the longest and in many ways the most interesting ofg Zamyatin's critical essays on English writers are his studies of H. G. Wells. Zamyatin's opinion of him, though tempered by a realistic sense of Well's weaknesses, was very high. He saw Wells as a Janus-writer standing at the treshold of our era, with one face looking back at his Victorian exemplars such as Dickens and Gissing while his other face gazed prophetically into the enigma of the twenthieth century. It was in Zamyatin's view the special genius of H. G. Wells to have created the literary genre most perfectly suited to a writer's need to comment on our exciting yet terrifying age. Analysing this Zamyatin wrote:

Well's novels of 'socio-fantasy' are not Utopias. One characteristic of Utopias is that their authors present us with the structure of what they regard as an ideal society, or to put it in mathematical language the Utopia is preceded by a plus sign. The other characteristic, which preceeds organically from its subject-matter, is that in form the Utopia is invariably static: the Utopia is always a description and always lacks any dynamic of plot. These peculiarities of the Utopia are practically never to be found in Well's novels of socio-fantasy. In the vast majority they are preceded not by a plus but by a minus sign; what is more the subject-matter is always dynamic, made up of clash and struggle, and the plot is complex and absorbing. Wells used this form almost exclusively in order to reveal the defects of the existing social structure and not in order to construct some paradise of the future... These books... are, in fact, social pamphlets disguised as sciesce-fiction novels. ...To his literary predecessors Wells is linked only by the subject-matter itself nor by his literary techniques... All this forces one to the conclusion that in his novels of socio-fantasy Wells created a new and entirely original species of literary form.

Commenting that Wells's creation will have a continuing influence on literature all over the world, Zamyatin turns to Russia: '...Having become the most fantastic country in all present-day Europe, post-revolutionary Russia will undoubtedly reflect this period of her history in a literature of fantasy. And a start has already been made in the shape of the present author's nover We. (Glenny 1984: 10-11)

Actually some quite valuable ideas here.

But whereas Wells, for all the ingenious and often genuinely prophetic trappings of his novels, was concerned in essence with a critique of his own time, Zamyatin vitally enlarged the scope of the anti-Utopian novel by using it as a vehicle for an indictment of the future. It is this aspect of We that gives it such significance as the forerunner of two of the most widely read classics of modern English literature: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984. Writing in 1930, Huxley undoubtedly owed Zamyatin the basic concept of a critique of the future based on an extrapolation of certain present trends; but aside from this obvious debt Huxley also shared to a great degree Zamyatin's concern about man's enslavement to the demands of a society whose rationale is that of technology - in Zamyatin's case his world of the future is an almost successful attempt to subordinate man to the laws of mathematics and engineering, while Huxley sees the chief danger to humanity in a surrender to the logic of the biological and genetic sciences. What is absent in Huxley, however, is a sense of the power of ideology: his Brave New World is a-political, whereas for Zamyatin, writing in a Petrograd redolent of ideology triumphant, ideology plus terror was the main threat. (Glenny 1984: 17)

If I were to write a dystopia it would most likely project a future in which man is subordinated to information technology (e.g. TACS).

Zamyatin, Yevgeny 1984. We. Translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney; introduction by Michael Glenny. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

I, D-503, the builder of the Integral - I am but one of the mathematicians of The One State. My pen, accustomed to figures, has not the power to create the music of assonances and rhymes. Ishall merely attempt to record what I see, what I think - to be more exact, what we think (we precisely, and let this We serve as the title of the entries I am making). However, these things will be a derivative of our life, oth the mathematically perfect life of The One State, and if that be so, will not all this be a poem per se, whether I wlil it or not? It will be a poem - I believe it and know it. (Zamyatin 1984: 20)

Spring. From beyond the Green Wall, from the wild plains that lie out of light, the wind brings the honeyed yellow pollet of certain flowers. The lips become dry from this pollen; you run your tongue over them every minute or so and, in all probability, all the women you come across have sweet lips now (which must hold true of the men also, of course). This interferes with logical thinking, to some extent. (Zamyatin 1984: 21)

Why is this dance beautiful? The answer was: Because this was nonfree motion, because all of the profound meanings of the dance lay precisely in absolute, aesthetic submissiveness, in ideal nonfreedom. And if it be true that our ancestors abandoned themselves to dancing at the most inspired moments of their lives (religious mysteries, military parades), it signifies only one thing: the instinct of nonfreedom is organically inherent in man from the times of old, and we in our life of today are only consciously -
I will have to finish this thought later: the intercommunication board clicked at this point. I looked up - O-90, of course. In halp a minute she herself will be here; she is coming to fetch me for a walk. (Zamyatin 1984: 22)

"Intercommunication board" precedes the "telescreen". Nonfreedom may have inspired "freedom is slavery".

'Yes, it is wonderful. It's spring,' O-90 gave me a rosy smile. (Zamyatin 1984: 22)

All this without a smile - even with a certain deference, I would say (perhaps she was aware that I am the builder of the Integral). However, I don't know whether it was her eyes or her brows, but there was some sort of strange irritating X about her, and no matter how I tried I could not capture it, could not give it a numerical formulation. For some reason I became embarrassed and, somewhat haltingly, began giving a logical motivation for my loughter. It was perfectly clear that this contrast, this uncrossable abyss between the things of today and those of that time - (Zamyatin 1984: 24)

'You are sure?" she put in. I cought sight of eyebrown quirked up at an acute angle towards the temples, like the sharp horns of the upper halp of an X. For some reason I was again thrown off balance; I looked to the right, to the left and... (Zamyatin 1984: 24)

E-330, the one on my right, apparently intercepted my distracted glance and said, with a sigh, 'Yes, alas!' (Zamyatin 1984: 24)

She glanced at my hands, then at my face: 'Yes, there is an exceedingly curious accordance.' She was running her eyes over me, as if she were weighing me; I had another glimpse of the tiny horns at the tips of her eyebrows. (Zamyatin 1984: 25)

As she was leaving E-330 smiled at me slyly, in that same X-ish way, 'Look in at Auditorium 112, day after tomorrow.'
'If I get an assignment to the auditorium you have just mentioned -' said I, with a shrug.
'You will,' she said with an odd assurance which I could not understand. (Zamyatin 1984: 25)

And so I was glad to be left alone with dear O-, if only for a brief while. Arm in arm we passed four intersecting avenues. At the last corner she had to turn to the right and I to the left. (Zamyatin 1984: 26)

Each morning, with six-wheeled precision, at the very same minute and the very same secon we, in our millions, arise as one. At the very same hour we mono-millionedly begin work - and, when we finish it, we do so mono-millionedly. And, merging into but one body with multi-millioned hands, at the very second designated by The Tables of Hourly Commandments we bring our spoons up to our mouths; at the very same second, likewise, we set out for a walk, or go to an auditorium, or the Hall of Taylor Exercises, or retire to sleep. (Zamyatin 1984: 28-29)

With a heart pleasantly missing a beat or two I looked about me. I think I must have been on the look-out: perhaps I would catch a glimpse, about the blue unif-waves, of a bright, rosy crescent - the dear lips of O-90. There - I cought sight sight of somebody'n extraordinarily white and sharp teeth, so much like those of... no, they weren't. This evening, at 21.00, )s is coming to my place: my desire to see her here was perfectly natural. (Zamyatin 1984: 32)

And again I don't remember what was said next, very possibly because I - Well, yes: I'll come right out with it: because she - E-330 - had walked up to the Royal Grand. Probably I had simply overcome by her unexpected appearance on the platform. (Zamyatin 1984: 34)

The number seated on my left looked at me out of the corner of the eye - and sniggered. One detail has, for some reason, remained with especial distinctness in my memory: I saw a microscopic bubble of saliva pop up on his lips - and burst. That bubble sobered me. I was I once more. Like all the others what I heard now was only the incongruous, fussy chatter of strings under percussion. I was laughing. Everything had become light and simple. The talented phonolecturer had given us too lively a depiction of that wild epoch - and that was all. (Zamyatin 1984: 34)

All the numbers came out of the auditorium in their usual even ranks of four each. A familiar double-curved figure flittered by - I bowed to him with deferenc. (Zamyatin 1984: 35)

She listened in such a rosily enchanted way - and then suddenly a tear trickled of of her blue eyes, and another, and a third, plopping right on the open page (the seventh). The ink ran. Well, now I'll have to transcribe it. (Zamyatin 1984: 35)

It is not clear, then, that bliss and envy are but the numerator and denominator of a fraction called happiness? (Zamyatin 1984: 37)

I believe that you will realize that it is harder for me to write than it has been for any other author throughout the history of mankind: some authors wrote for their contemporaries, others for their descendants, but no one of them ever wrote for his ancestors - or for beings resembling his savage, remote ancestors. (Zamyatin 1984: 38)

The windshield was down, the wind bbuffeted us, making one's lips dry - willy-nilly one kept running the tongue over them constantly - and constantly kept thinking of lips. (Zamyatin 1984: 40)

Standing at the glass door was a crone, her face all wrinkled - but especially so her mouth, which consisted solely of pleats and folds; the lips had become withdrawn by now, the mouth seemed grown over, somehow, and it seemed altogether unbelievable that she would break into speech - but, just the same, that was just what she did.
'Well, now, darlings - have you come for a look at my house?' - and her wrinkles beamed (i.e. they had had probably arranged themselves in raylike formation, which had, precisely, created the impression of beaming). (Zamyatin 1984: 40)

'It is clear -' I began, but immediately cought myself on that word clear and looked at E-330 furtively - had she noticed it or not? She was looking off somewhere in a downward direction; her eyes were lowered - like blinds. I recalled something: in the evening, about 22.30, as you walk along an avenue, you will see among the brightly illuminated, transparent cubicles some darkened ones, with their blinds lowered, and there, behind those blinds - What was going on there, behind her blinds? Why had she rung me up today, and what was back of all this? (Zamyatin 1984: 41)

Her utterances came from within me, somehow; she was uttering my thoughts. But, throughout, that irritating X was lurking in her smile. There, behind those blinds something was going on within her - I don't know what it was, but it was exasperating me; I wanted to contradict her, to yell at her (yes, yell, precisely), yet I was compelled to agree with her: it was impossible not to agree. (Zamyatin 1984: 42)

I went out, too ka seat. From a small bracket on the wass the snub-nosed, asymmetrical physiognomy of one of their ancient poets (Pushkin, I think it was) was smiling right in my face with a barely perceptible smile, and what was all this for - why was I there, and whence the preposterous state I was in? That irritating, repellent woman, the strange game going on... (Zamyatin 1984: 43)

'Yes, among us -' I began - and then, suddenly, she broke into laughter. There, I simply saw that laughter, saw it with my eyes; I saw the pealing, steeply climbing curve of that laughter, a curve as stubbornly springy as the lash of a whip. I was all aquiver, I remember. (Zamyatin 1984: 44)

Night. Green, orange, blue; the red royal instruments; a yellow - orange-yellow - dress. Then - a brass Buddha; suddenly he raised his brass eyelids - and, out of Buddha, sap began to flow. (Zamyatin 1984: 46)

We, however, know that having dreams is a serious psychic disturbance. And I know this: up to now my brain was a chronometrically tested, sparkling mechanism, without a single speck of dust, whereasnow... Yes, now that is precisely the trouble: I feel some foreign body or other there, in my brain, just as you feel some a very fine eyelash that has lodged in your eye. You feel entirely yourself, but as for that eye with the eyelash in it - that's something you can't forget, not even for a second. (Zamyatin 1984: 46)

From the head of my bed came the brisk, crystal-clear ringing of a small bell: 7.00, time to get up. To the right and left, through the walls of glass, I seem to be seeing myself, my room, my clothes, my movements - but repeated a thousand times over. This is invigorating: one sees oneself as an enormous, mighty whole. And such precise beauty: not one superfluous gesture, deviation, turn. (Zamyatin 1984: 46-47)

'Not at all, please - not at all,' I smiled to my neighbour, and bowed. S-4711: I saw the glitter of his number on his badge: it became understandable why, from the very first moment, I had associated him with the letter S: it had been a visual impression which had not registered on my consciousness. Just then his eyes sparked: two sharply pointed little gimlets, revolving rapidly, were boring in, deeper and deeper, and now, at any moment would bore their way to the very bottom, would see that which I dared not confess even to my own self - (Zamyatin 1984: 48)

'Yes, yes! To be sure, to be sure! Quite' - my smile was becoming broader and broader, more and more inane, that smile stripped me, made me foolish. The little gimlets had reached to the very bottow within me; then, revolving rapidly, had bored in reverse, back into his eyes; S- smiled ambiguously, nodded to me, slipped off towards the exit. (Zamyatin 1984: 48)

I was out by 16.10 - and, looking towards the corner, immediately caught sight of O-, all in a rosy rapture over our encounter. (Zamyatin 1984: 49)

'Out for a stroll?' O- seized my hhand. Her round blue eyes were wide open - blue windown giving access within - and I penetrated within without catching against anything, and found nothing therein - i.e. nothing extraneous, unneccessary.
'No, I'm not out for a stroll. I have to go-' I told her my destination. And, to my amazement, I saw the rosy circle of her mouth fold itself into a resy crescent with its horns pointing down - as if she had tasted something sour. This made me explode. (Zamyatin 1984: 49)

The blinds were not lowered. We diverted outserves by solving the problems in a nancient textbook of mathematics: this sort of thing soothes and clarifies one's mind very much. O-90 was sitting over her exercise book with her head inclined towards her left shoulder and was trying so hard that she had thrust her left cheek out with her tongue. This was so childlike, so charming. And everything within me was so fine, precise, simple... (Zamyatin 1984: 51)

Today, exactly at 16.10, I was standing before a glittering glass wall. Overhead was the golden, solar, pure glow of the letters on the sign of the Bureau of glass a long sequence of bluish unifs. Their faces had the warm glow of lampads of ancient church: they had come to perform a great deed - they had come to commit to the altar of The One State those they loved, their friends, themselves. As for me, I was drawn to them, to being with them. And I could not stir: my feet were fused deeply into the glass of the pavement; I stood there, dully staring, unable to move from the spot. (Zamyatin 1984: 52-53)

I was startled. Dark eyes, lacquered with laughter, were contemplating me; the lpis were thick, Negroid. It was R-13, the poet, an old friend of mine, and the roseate O- was with him. I faced them angrily. (Zamyatin 1984: 53)

'I have served knowledge and will continue to serve it,' I frowned. I am not fond of jokes and do not understand them - yet R-13 has the bad habit of joking. (Zamyatin 1984: 53)

O- looked at R-; then, clearly, roundly, she looked at me; her cheecks coloured, ever so fointly, taking on the tender, agitating hue of our coupons. (Zamyatin 1984: 54)

'We're at it from eight to eleven, every day -' R- tossed his head and scratched the nape of his neck - the nape of his neck looks like some kind of a small, square valise tied on behind (at this point I recalled an antique print, 'In the Carriage'). (Zamyatin 1984: 55)

'Questions, questions!' R-13 made a wry face. '>Well, if you must know, it was a death sentence. I was poetizing a death sentence. Passed on a certain idiot - one of us poets, no less. For two years he had sat alongside me; nothing wrong with him that you could see. And suddenly, out of a clear sky, 'I am a genius,' says he, 'and a genius is above the law.' My, and the things he popped out with! Well, what's the use of talking-' and he sighed with regret. The thick lips drooped; the lacquer had become eroded from his eyes. R-13 sprang up from his seat, turned about, began staring at some point through the wall. I was looking at the tightly locked little valise at the nape of his neck and pondering: What was he rummaging for now, in that little valise of his? (Zamyatin 1984: 55-56)

R- turned around to face me. Words spattered, lashed out of him as before, but it appeared to me that there was no longer any lacquer and gaiety in his eyes. (Zamyatin 1984: 56)

The Plaza of the Cube, Sixty-six gigantean concentric circles: the rostra, these. Any sixty-six tiers of faces serene as lamps, of eyes reflecting the radiance of the heavens - or, it may be, the radiance of The One State. Flowers crimson as blood: the lips of women. Lovely garlands of children's faces - in the front tiers, closest to the scene of action. Intensified, austere, Gothic silence. (Zamyatin 1984: 58)

And up there, on the Cube, near the Machine, was the figure, immobile, as if of metal, of Him whom we style The Benefactor. From below, where I sat, one could not make out His face: all one could see was that His face was confined within austere, majestic, rectangular lineaments. But then, His hands... As it occasionally happens in taking photographs, the hands, if they are too near to the camera, in the very foreground, will come out enormous; they rivet your attention, they overshadow all else. Those heavy hands of His, as yet resting quietly on His knees - it was clear that they were of stone, and that the knees could barely sustain their weight. (Zamyatin 1984: 59)

The pen scratched as she wrote; I saw myself - D-503 - on the page and, right alongside, an ink blot. I was just about to call her attentiot to this when she suddenly raised her head and let an inky bit of a smile sink into me: 'Why, here's a letter. Yes. You'll get it, my dear - yes, yes, you'll get it.'
I knew that the letter, which she had already read, had yet to go through the Bureau of Guardians (I consider it superfluous to explain this normal procedure) and that it would be in my hands not later than 12.00. But I was confused by that same bit of a smile, the drop of ink had muddied the transparent-solution mood I had been in. And that to such an extent that later, at the building site of the Integral, I could not concentrate - and at one point actually made an error in my calculations, a thing which had never yet happened to me. (Zamyatin 1984: 62)

20.45, at last. A white night. Everything is greenish-glassy. But this is some sort of different, fragile glass; not our sort, not the real glass - this is a thin glass shell, and under that shell everything is swirling, rushing, humming. And I would not be surprised if right now the cupolas of the auditoria were to rise in rounded, slowly moving billows of smoke, and if the elderly moon were to smile inkily - like that female number at her small desk this morning - and if all the blinds in all the houses were to be lowered simultaneously, and if behind those curtains - (Zamyatin 1984: 63)

She let her eyes drop to the letter again - and what was going on there, within her, behind the blinds lowered over her eyes? What would she say - what was I to do in a second or so? How was one to find this out, how calculate it, when all of her came from there, from the wild, ancient land of dreams?
I was watching her in silence. My ribs were rods of iron; I was cramped... When she speaks her face is like a rushing glittering wheel: there is no distinguishing the individual spokes. But right now the wheel was not in motion. And I perceived a strange combination: dark eyebrows, quirked high at the temples: an acute triangle of mockery; and two deep, small wrinkles from the nose to the corners of the mouth: another triangle, coming to an apex. And these two triangles somehow contradicted each other, placing upon the entire face that disagreeable, irritating cruciform X: it was a crossed-out face.
The wheel began to turn; the spokes blended together:
'There, you didn't go to the Bureau of Guardians after all, did you?'
'I was... I couldn't go - I was unwell.'
'Yes. Well, that's just what I thought: something must have kept you back - it doesn't matter just what [sharp teeth - smile]. But then, you are in my hands now. You remember: "Any number failing to make a report to the Bureou within forty-eight hours is considered -"'
My heart pounded so hard that the rods of iron buckled. Like a little boy - foolishly, like a little boy - I had fallen into a trap; foolishly, I wasn't saying anything. I felt myself all entangled - I couldn't stir hand or foot.
She stood up, stretched lazily. She pressed a button: with a slight rattle the blinds fell on all sides. I was cut off from the world - all alone with her. (Zamyatin 1984: 64)

The membrane was still vibrating. The sledge-hammer was pounding away there, within me, against the red-hot rods of iron. I distinctly heard every blow and... and what if she were hearing it too? However, she kept on sending op the smoke, glancinc at me calmly from time to time, and neglectingly flicked the ashes from the tube on to my pink coupon. (Zamyatin 1984: 65-66)

The dark eyebrows quirked high towards the temples: the acute triangle of mockery: '"The rapid destruction of a few is more rational than giving tot he many the opportunity of working their own ruin" - then there's the matter of degeneration, and so on. (Zamyatin 1984: 66)

She was laughing. But I could clearly see her sorrowful lower triangle: the two deep creases from the corners of the mouth to the nose. And somehow, because of these creases, it became clear to me: that double-curved, stoop-shouldered, wing-eared fellow had embraced here - the way she was now. He! (Zamyatin 1984: 66)

E- kept laughing in a very strange way and for a very long time. Then she looked at me - into me - intently: 'But the main thing is that I feel perfectly safe with you.' (Zamyatin 1984: 67)

She poured into her mouth the entire content of the tiny glass of green poison, stood up and, shimmering roseatedly through the thin saffon tissue, took a few steps, halting behind my chair. Suddenly her arm was about my neck, her lips plunged into my lips - no, somewhere still deeper, still more frighteningly... I swear that this was utterly unexpected by me and, perhaps, merely because - For I could not possibly - right now I comprehend it with the utmost clarity - I could not possibly have desired of my own will what happened next.
Lips unbearably sweet (I suppose this was the taste of the liqueur) - and then a swallow of searing poison was poured into me - and another - and still another... I took off from the earth and, as an independent planet, rushed down, down, following an uncharted orbit...
What followed I can describe only approximately, only by means of more or less close analogies.
The idea had never come into my head before - but then the thing is precisely thus: we who live on this earth are constantly walking over a burbling, blood-red sea of fire hidden there, deep within the maw of the earth. But w never thing of that. But now suppose that this thin shell under our feet were suddenly turned to glass, that we were suddenly to see -
I had turned to glass. I saw into myself, deep within me. There were two Is. One I was my former self, D-503, the number D-503, while the other... Up to now he had merely shoved his shaggy hands just a little out of the shell, but now all of him was crawling out; the shell was cracking , any minute now it would fly into smithereens and... and what then? (Zamyatin 1984: 67-68)

I am in front of a mirror. And for the first time in my life (yes, precisely so: for the first time in my life) I see myself clearly, distinctly, consciously; I see myself with amazement, as if it were somebody else's I. There he is, this I: black eyebrows, as straight as if they were drawn with a ruler and, between them, like a scar, a vertical wrinkle (I don't know if it was there before). Steely grey eyes, ringed with the shadow of asleepless night, while behind that steel... well, it turns out that I had never known what was there. And out of there (this there is at the same time both here and infinitely far off) - from there I am contemplating myself (or him) and know that that fellow with his eyebrows as straight as if drawn with a ruler has nothing to do with me, a stranger whom I have met for the first time in my life. But I, the real I, am not he. (Zamyatin 1984: 70)

Suddenly I saw all the lustre leaving R-'s eyes and his lips taking a leaden colour. (Zamyatin 1984: 71)

'It's an ancient legend, do you understand, about Paradise [the P was a fountain]. For that legend applies to us, to our present time. Yes - you just thing it over! Those who in Paradise were offered a choice: of happiness without freedom or freedom without happiness. They were not offered a third. They, the dunderheads, chose freedom - and what do you think happened? Naturally, for ages thereafter, they longed for shackles. For shackles, you understand - that's what Weltshmerz is all about. For ages! And it is only we who have again struck on a way of bringing happiness back. (Zamyatin 1984: 72)

R- apparently read all this on my face; he broke into laughter as he took me around the shoulders: 'Oh, you... Adam! By the way, about Eve -' He rummaged for something in his pocket, drew out a notebeek, turned its leaves: 'The day after tomorrow - no, two days from now - O-90 has a pink coupon for you. How about you? Just as before? Would you like her to -' (Zamyatin 1984: 73)

'But tell me, did you ever happen to try nicotine or alcohol?'
R pursed his lips, looking at me from under his brows. I could hear his thoughts, perfectly clearly: 'When it comes to friends, you're a friend, sure enough... But just the same -' And then he answered, 'Well, how should I put it? Properly speaking, no. But I did know a certain woman -'
'E-!' I shouted.
'What - you... you were with her too?' He swilled up with laughter, gulped, and was on the verge of exploding.
My mirror was hung in such a way that in order to look into it one had to lean over the table; from where I sat all I could see were my forehead and eyebrows. And then I - the real I, caught sight in the mirror of my eyebrows as a distorted, twitching line, and my real I heard a savage, disgusting shout, 'What's that too for? No - just what is that too for? No - I demand -'
Protruding Negroid lips. Eyes goggling. I (the real I) got a good grip on the collar of that other self of mine, wild, shaggy, breathing hard. (Zamyatin 1984: 73)

A smile flitted over the thick lips: 'Yes, yes, yes! I understand, I understand" I'm familiar with that sort of thing - theoretically, of course. Good-bye!' (Zamyatin 1984: 74)

Darling O- will come tomorrow; everything will be simple, regular and limited - like a circle. I'm not afraid of the word limitation: the work of the highest faculty man has, his reason, consists precisely of a ceaseless limitation of infinity, of fractioning infinity into suitable, easily digested portions - or differentials. That is precisely what the divine beauty of my element - mathematics - consists of. And yet an understanding of that same beauty is the very thing that that... female number doesn't have. However, that is just in passing - a chance association of ideas. (Zamyatin 1984: 75)

It is so gratifying to feel somebody's vigilant eye upon me, lovingly guarding one from the least mistake, from the least erring step. It may sound somewhat sentimental, but that same analogy again comes to my mind - that of the guardian angels, whom the ancients used to dream about. How many of the things which they merely dreamed about have materialized in our life! (Zamyatin 1984: 75-76)

All of life in all its complexity and beauty is minted for all time in the gold of words. (Zamyatin 1984: 78)

#concursivity - All knowledge of nonverbal behaviour and it's variety and significance is minted for all time in the gold of words.

...and the barely audible sussuration of the listening membranes under the streets. (Zamyatin 1984: 78)

Just like UA, all of the glass city is one big receptor - in this case for listening.

I awoke at dawn: a roseate, unmarred firmament met my eyes. Everything was fine, rounded out. O- was coming this evening. I was all well by now, beyond a doubt. I smiled, went back to sleep. (Zamyatin 1984: 79)

I was silently watching her lips. All women are lips - nothing but lips. The lips. The lips of one are rosy, resiliently round, a circle, a gentle enclosure against the whole world. And then these: but a second before they had not been here and then, in a moment - the knife, slashing, and the sweet blood still dripping. (Zamyatin 1984: 80)

I remember smiling in a muddled sort of way and saying, for no particular reason, 'Fog... lots of it -' (Zamyatin 1984: 80)

And a homunculus - the thinnest ever. As if he were a paper cut-out, and no matter which way he might turn it wouldn't matter one bit: he would still have only a profile, ground fine, his nose a glistening blade, his lips a pair of scissors.
I didn't catch what E- was saying to him; I watched her speaking and felt that I was smiling irrepressibly, beatifically. The blades of the lip-scissors gleamed and the physicist said, 'Right, right. I understand. The most dangerous disease. I know of nothing more dangerous -' At that he laughed, wrote something with his tissue-paper hand, turned the slip over to E-; wrote again, handed the other slip over to me. (Zamyatin 1984: 81-82)

The heavy, creaking, opaque door closed and at once, painfully, the heart opened wide - wider still - to its widest. Her lips were mine: I drank and drank, tore myself away from time to time, gazed wordlessly in the eyes opened wide for me, and again - (Zamyatin 1984: 82)

The ripening was completed. And inevitably, as with iron and magnet, with delectable submission to an infallible, immutable law, I infused myself in her. There was no pink coupon, there was no accounting, there was no One State, there was no me. (Zamyatin 1984: 82)

In an excrutiating mood I kept pacing and pacing the room: after all, how was I to behave with her, with O-? To my right I clearly felt my neighbour's eyes fixed upon me, I distinctly saw the wrinkles on his forehead -a succession of yellow, illegible lines - and for some reason it seemed that those lines had to do with me. (Zamyatin 1984: 84)

Someone had terms for people who think that the behoviour of others is directed at them.

O- was lying down. I was kissing her slowly. I kissed that naive, chubby little fold at her wrist; her blue eyes were closed; the rosy cresent was slowly blossoming, unfolding - and I kissed her all over. Suddenly I clearly felt to what extent everything had been devastated, how everything had been given over to others. I couldn't, I mustn't. I had to - and I mustn't.
My lips instantly grew chill. The rosy crescent began to quiver; it dimmed, shrivelled. O- threw a coverlet over herself, wrapped herself up in it - and buried her face in the pillow.
I was sitting on the floor near the bed (what a desperately chill floor that was!); I was sitting there in silence. The excruciating cold from below crept higher and higher. Probably the same taciturn cold reigns out there, in the blue, mute interplanetary spaces. (Zamyatin 1984: 85)

I had barely set foot on the building site of the Integral when the Second Builder came towards me. His face had its usual look: it was a round plate of white faience, and when he spoke he was offering something unbearably tasty on that plate. (Zamyatin 1984: 87)

'They'll get the why and whereof out of the dear fellow' - this with a smile, a tasty smile. (Zamyatin 1984: 87)

The very air is so faintly rose-tinted, and everything is saturated wit hthe gentle blood of the sun; everything is alive - the stones are alive and soft, iron is alive and warm, people are alive and every last one of them is smiling. (Zamyatin 1984: 89)

And then I was shoulder to shoulder with them, welded with them, caught up in a steel rhythm. Their motions were measured; their cheeks were round as a rubber ball, their foreheads mirror-smooth, unclouded by the insanity of thoughts. I was afloat on a mirrorous sea. I was in repose.
And suddenly one of them turned to me insouciantly, 'Well, now, it is over - better today?'
'Better? What do you mean?'
'Why, you weren't here yesterday. We thought you were down with something serious' - his forehead was glowing, his smile was childlike, innocent.
My blood rushed to my face. I could not lie to those eyes - I simply could not. I was silent, I was drowning -
A face of faience, glowing in its round whiteness, thrust itself through the hatchway above: 'I say, D-503! Do come here, please! We've got the consoles jammed in the frame, you understand, and the tension readings aren't right -'
Without waiting to hear more I dashed up the ladder towards him: I was ignominiously saving myself by flight. I hadn't the heart to raise my eyes; there were spots before them because of the glittering glass steps underfoot, and with evvery step I was becoming more and more despondent: there was no place here for me, a criminal, a man filled with toxins. (Zamyatin 1984: 90)

She flitted by, filling for a second the yellow, empty world. Arm in arm with her was that double-curved S, who reached only to her shoulder; there was also the tissue-paper doctor, and some fourth number - all I can remember of him was his fingers: they were fluttering out of the sleeve of his unif like clusters of rays - fingers unusually slender, white, long. E- raised her hand and waved to me, then leaned over the head of her short companion towards the number with the finger rays. I thought I caught the name Integral: all four looked over their shoulders at me, and then they were lost against the grey-blue sky, and again there was the yellow, calcined path. (Zamyatin 1984: 92)

S-! Why, all these days, do I hear behind me his flat-footed steps, that sound as if he wer splashing through puddles? Why, all these days, is he after me like a shadow? A grey-blue, two dimensional shadow - ahead of me, on either side of me, behind me; people walk through it, step on it, bit it is just as intalterably present, close by, bound to me by an invisible umbilical cord. Is she, E-, this umbilical cord, perhaps? I don't know. Or, perhaps, is it already known to them - the the Guardians - that I -
Suppose you were to be told that your shadow sees you - sees you all the time. Do you understand? And then, suddenly, you have a queer sensation: your arms aren't your own but some stranger's - they're in your way. And I catch myself swinging my arms in a ridiculous fashion, completely out of rhythm with my walk. Or, suddenly, I must look over my shoulder, yet it is utterly out of the question to do so: my neck is in an iron clamp. And I run, even faster, and I sense with my back that the shadow is also running faster after me, and there is no place - no place! - where one may espace it... (Zamyatin 1984: 93)

Why, at any moment now, there would bob up the acute mocking angle of eyebrows quirked up towards the temple, and the dark windows of her eyes and within them, would be a fireplace flaming, and certain shadows flitting. And I would make my way in there, deep within, and I would call her thou (thou, without fail): 'Surely, thou knowest I cannot do without thee. Why, then, dost thou treat me so?' But she would not say a word. (Zamyatin 1984: 93-94)

A slight rustle - and a double-curved shadow was before me. I felt, without looking, how quickly the two augers of grey steel bored into me. I summoned all my strenght to smile and said (I had to say something), 'I... I have to go to the Medical Bureou -'
'What's keeping pou back, then? Why are you standing here?'
Blazing with shame, feeling that I was absurdly, topsy-turvidly hanging with my feet up in the air, I made no answer.
'Follow me,' said S- grimly.
I started walking, swinging my unnecessary arms, which apparently belonged to someone else. I couldn't raise my eyes; all this while I was traversing a wild, topsy-turvy world: over there was some machines or other, with their bases up, and people with their feet stuck antipodally to the ceiling and, still lower, was the sky, shackled by the thick glass of the pavement. The most humiliating thing of all, I remember, was the fact that, as the last sight of my life, all this should be thus, inverted, not as it really was. But raise my eyes I could not.
We came to a halt. There were steps before me. Just a step - and I would see figures in white surgical gowns, the enormous mute Bell Glass...
Forcing myself, as if I were using some sort of inner wormgear, I at last tore my gaze away frome the glass underfoot: suddenly the golder letters of Medical Bureau spattered my face. (Zamyatin 1984: 94-95)

'Well, then, take a plane, a surface - there, this mirror will do. And you and I are on this surface - there, you see: we're squinting our eyes because of the reflected sunlight, and there's the blue electric spark in that tube, and just now the shadow of an aero has flitted by. Only on the surface - only for a second. But just imagine that through the application of some form of firue this impenetrable surface has suddenly softened, and nothing any longer glides over it - everything penetrates it, into that mirror-world which we eyed with such curiosity when we were children - children aren't at all as foolish as people think they are, I assure you. The plan has become a mass, a body, a world, and that which is within the mirror is within you: the sun, and the whirlwind from the propeller of the aero, and you rquivering lips - and the lips of someone else. And, you understand, a cold mirror reflects, rejects, whereas my suppositious mirror absorbs, and retains a trace through all time of all things that have affected it. You may have once seen a barely perceptible wrinkle on someone's face - and that wrinkle is within you for ever; you may have once caught the sound of a drop of water falling amid silence - and you are hearing that sound right now -' (Zamyatin 1984: 96)

I nodded absent-mindedly. He gave me a look, broke into sharp, lancet-ish laighter. That other medical number heard him, stomped over on his stubby iron-pillar legs, tossed my thin-as-thin doctor on the horns of his eyes, then tossed me. (Zamyatin 1984: 96-97)

He put on enormous Roentgen spectacles and for a long while walked around me and peered intently through my skull, right into my brain, jotting some notes into a book. (Zamyatin 1984: 97)

Again his eyes transpierced me, smiling the narrowest of smiles. And it seemed to me that I saw, perfectly clearly, a word, a letter, a name - the unique name - wrapped up in the fine tissue of this smile. Or was that only my fantasy again? (Zamyatin 1984: 97-98)

Turbidly, dully, the blunt muzzle of some beast showed through the glass; its yellow eyes persistently kept repeating the same unvarying though which was incomprehensible to me. For a long while we looked into each other's eyes, those shafts from the superficial world into that other world under the surface. And a thought began stirring within me: 'But what if that yellow-eyed creature, living its uncalculated life among its ridiculous, dirty deaps of leaves, is happier than we are?' I swung up my arm: the yellow eyes blinked, backed away, disappeared in the leafage. The pitiful creature! What an absurdity - its being happier than we! Yes, happier than I, perhaps - but then I am only an exception: I am ill. And, even I - (Zamyatin 1984: 100)

'You? Here?' - and his scissor-lips clicked shut. And I - it seemed as if I had never even known as much as a single human word; I stood there, saying nothing, and understood absolutely nothing of what he was saying to me. Probably that I would have to leave that place, because the next thing he did was to shove me quickly with his paper-flat abdomen to the end of this better-lighted stretch of the corridor - after which he nudged me in the back. (Zamyatin 1984: 103)

I don't remember at what point we turned off into the darkness - and then, in the darkness, silently, started mounting endless steps. I did not see it but I knew that she was walking the same way that I was: with eyes closed, like one blind, her head thrown back, biting her lips and listening to the music - the music of my barely perceptible tremor. (Zamyatin 1984: 104)

I was in my room. The morning was still green, congealed. A splinter of the sun rested on the mirror of the closet door. I was in my bed. So - a dream. But my heard was still beating riotously, fluttering, ketting; there was a nagging tingling at my finger and toe tips, at my knees. There was no doubt about these things. And right then I did not know which was dream and which reality; irrational quantities, were sending up shoots through all that was solid, habitual, tri-dimensional, and instead of firm, polished planes there was something gnarled, shaggy around me... (Zamyatin 1984: 106-107)

I sought for a way out of the logical wildwood and could not find it. This wildwood was much the same as the unknown and scary impenetrable forests beyond the Green Wall - and, at the same time, these forests were extraordinary, incomprehensible creature who spoke without words. (Zamyatin 1984: 107)

I felt myself all gummed over by her smile: it was intended as a plaster to be applied to all the wounds which would shortly be inflicted upon me by the letter shaking in my hand. (Zamyatin 1984: 110)

There, I can hear footsteps, and I can see - can feel - through the door that a plaster-smile has been slapped on my face; then she passes by and goes down another staircase. (Zamyatin 1984: 113)

D-503's response to a shadow that is following him is to slap a smile on his face.

I was confronted by a forehead that looked like a rakishly slanted and lowered cap brim, while the eyes... the eyes created a very odd impression: as though the fellow were speaking from under his eyebrows, as if speech were coming out of his eyes. (Zamyatin 1984: 113)

The letter is torn into scraps. I caught a second's glimpse of my distorted, broken eyebrows in the mirror. I picked up the coupon, to have it share the fate of her note - (Zamyatin 1984: 114)

She sat down behind me, just a little to my left. I looked at her over my shoulder; she submissively took her eyes away from the table with the baby on it, fixed them on me, within me, and, once more, she, I and the table on the platform constituted three points, and drawn through these points were three lines, the projection of certain events, inevitable but as yet unperceived. (Zamyatin 1984: 115)

'That means' - a smile concealed the almost imperceptible tremor of her lips, but I perceived it. 'Very well, then! I'm going right... right now.' (Zamyatin 1984: 116)

Her eyes were shut, as if she were staring directly at the sun. Her smile was moist, refulgent. (Zamyatin 1984: 117)

Something crackled. Most probably it was nothing more than O-, slightly shifting. She sat there, hands between her knees, without uttering a word. (Zamyatin 1984: 117)

The thing is very simple: in the first place, isolated by the blinds from all plastery, therapeutic smiles, I am able to write these very lines in peace. (Zamyatin 1984: 121)

...homo sapiens is man in the fullest sense of that phrase only when his grammar has absolutely no question marks but exclamation points, commas and full stops exclusively. (Zamyatin 1984: 121)

There, just what did she mean by that no use? And what odd behaviour, to consider me no more than somebody's shadow! But perhaps all of you are my shadows: was it not I who peopled with you these pages which only recently were quadrangular deserts of white? Come, if it were not for me, would you ever be seen by those whom I shall lead over the narrow paths of the lines I have written?
Naturally, I did not say all this to her; through my own experience I knew that the most excrutiating thing is to implant in an individual a doubt as to his or her being a reality - a threedimensional reality rather than some other sort. I merely remarked to her drily that her business was only to tend the entrance, and she let me into the courtyard. (Zamyatin 1984: 122)

I fell into pits, stumbled against stones; rusty paws kept clutching at my unif, acrid-salty drops of sweat crept down my forehead and into my eyes. (Zamyatin 1984: 123)

However, I realize that I could not write just then. All the time I was listening intently; all the time I was looking behind me, expecting something. Expecting what? I don't knew. (Zamyatin 1984: 124)

I am very fond of children, and I consider that cruelty constitutes the most arduous, the highest sort of love. You understand? (Zamyatin 1984: 124-125)

Something that the Underground Man would say.

She smiled; if spelled out, the text of that smile would have evidently approximation, 'Oh, what a stubborn little boy!' Then she sat down. Eyes lowered. Hands modestly adjusting a fold of her unif which had again fallen between her knees. (Zamyatin 1984: 125)

Picture yourself standing on the shore of the sea. The waves rise rhythmically and, at their highest, suddenly remain thus, congealed, comatose. It was just as ghastly and unnatural a phenomenon when our walk, ordained by The Tables of Hourly Commandments, was suddenly thrown into confusion and, disrupted, came to a halt. The last time anything like that had happened was 119 years afo when, as our chronicles proclaim, a meteorite plunged into the very midst of the walkers with great noise and much smoke. (Zamyatin 1984: 127)

But a certain movement of hers (as she twisted her hips to the left) - and it became clear to me that I knew (I knew) that body, as pliant as a whiplash; my eyes, my lips, my hands knew it - at that moment I was utterly certain of it. (Zamyatin 1984: 128)

There I was, at that point, walking in step with all of them, and yet, despite everything, apart from them all. I was still shaking from the perturbations I had gone through, like a trestle over which a railway train of the ancients had just rumbled. I was conscious of myself. But then, consciousness of self, awareness of individuality, pertains only to an eye with a speck of something in it, to an infected finger, to an aching tooht; when an eye, a finger, a tooth is sound each seems non-existent, as it were. Is it not clear that consciousness of self is only a disease? (Zamyatin 1984: 130)

U- took my pink stub - and through the glass of th ewall one could see, hanging over her head from an unprecedented branch, a light-blue, aromatic moon. I solemnly pointed my finger at it and said, 'The moon - you understand?'
U- glanced at me, then at the number on the stub - and I saw that familiar, charmingly chaste movement of hers: she was adjusting the folds of her unif between her angular knees. (Zamyatin 1984: 131)

'But what makes you think that folly isn't a good thing? If we had groomed and cultivated folly through the ages as we groomed and cultivated intelligence, it is possible that something exceedingly precious might have resulted from it.' (Zamyatin 1984: 132)

'Yes - I am completely yours!'
She took my face - all of me - between her palms, raising my head:
'Well, now what about your "obligations of every honest number"? Eh?'
Sweet, sharp, white teeht; a smile. In the open calyx of the armchair she was like a bee: there was a sting in her - and honey.
Yes, obligations... In my mind I turned over the pages of my last entries: really, there was not the least idea in them to the effect that, properly speaking, I was obliged to -
I kept silent. I was rapturously (and, probably, inanely) smiling, gazing into her pupils, shifting from one to the other and seeing myself in each one; I, tiny, a millimetre high, was imprisoned in those tiny, iridescent dungeons. And after that, again the bee lips, the delectable pain of florescence. (Zamyatin 1984: 133)

E- raised her head and propped herself on her elbow. The two long sharp lines at the corners of her lips and the dark ongles of her raised eyebrows formed a cross.
'Perhaps, on that day -' she stopped, and her eyebrows turned still darker. She took my hand, squeezing it hard. 'Tell me: you won't forget me? You will always remember me?' (Zamyatin 1984: 133-134)

She said (already near the door), 'You'll see for yourself.'
I was alone. All that had remained behind her was a barely perceptible fragrence, something like the sweet, dry yellow pollen of certain flowers frowing on the other side of the Green Wall. (Zamyatin 1984: 135)

But as for us, we have nothing to conceal or to be ashamed of: we celebrate our elections openly, honestly, in the light of day. I can see how all give their votes for The Benefactor - all can see how I give my vote for The Benefactor - and how can things be otherwise, since all and I are the one We? (Zamyatin 1984: 139)

Raising myself a little I looked about me, and my gaze met lovingly alarmed eyes that were shifting from face to face. There, one number had raised his hand and, wagging his fingers barely perceptibly, was signalling to another, whereupon a finger wagged back in answer. And a third joined in... I grasped the situation: they were the Guardians. I also grasped that they were alarmed by something: the spider web was taut, it was vibrating. And within me, as if in a radio receiver tuned to the same wave-lungth, there was a responsive vibration. (Zamyatin 1984: 141)

I was transpierced, twisted into a knot by a lightning discharge of hich voltage. In our row, only 40$$$ from me, S- came to a stop, bent over. I saw E- and, alongside her, R-13 with his repellently Negroid lips, smirking.
My first thought was to rush over there and to shout to her, 'Why are you with him today? Why didn't you want me to be with you?' But an invisible, beneficient spider web had coconed me hand and foot, immovably; gritting my teeth I sat there as if I were of iron, without taking my eyes off the group. (Zamyatin 1984: 141-142)

Without raising my eyes I could constantly see those two - E- and R- - side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and a pair of shaggy hands, hands which were somebody else's, which I abominated, were trembling on my knees. (Zamyatin 1984: 142)

If I could have looked into His eyes, straightforwardly and devotedly as formerly: 'Here I am, all of me. All of me! Accept me!' But I dared not, then. It was with an effort, as if all my joints had rusted, that I raised my hand.
The rustling of millions of hands. Somebody's muffled 'Ah!' (Zamyatin 1984: 143)

It was but a hundreth part of a second, but a hair's-breath. I saw: thousands of hands beat, winglike, upward, against - then lowered. I saw: the pale face of E- with a cross marking it, her raised hand. Everfthing turned dark before my eyes.
Another hair's-breath; a pause; everything stilled; the pulse pounding. Then - as if at the signal of some insane conductor, simultaneously on all the rostra: crackling, screams, a whirlwind of unifs billowing in flight, figures of Guardians distractedly darting about, the heels of somebody's shoes in the air before my very eyes - close to those heels somebody's mouth stretched wide and straining in an inaudible scream. For some reason that has become engraved in my memory most sharply of all: thousands of inaudibly bellowing mouths, as if in a silent film thrown upon a monstrous screen. (Zamyatin 1984: 143)

This was no longer o a screen - this was within my own sely, within my vice-gripped heart, within my temples, which had begun to pound. R-13 suddenly leapt forth on a bench over my head, towards the left - all red, frenzied, his lips spattering. In his arms was E-, pale, her unif torn from shoulder to breast, blood staining the white cloth. She was holding fast to his neck and he, making enormous leaps from bench to bench, repulsive and agile as a gorilla, was carrying her off, higher and higher.
Just as if at a conflageration among the ancients, everything turned red - dark red - before me, and I had but one thought - to leap after them, to reach them. Right now I cannot explain to myself whence I found such strength, but I breached the crowd like a battering ram, stepping on somebody's shoulders, on benches - and then I was right near them, had seized R- by the back of his collar: 'Don't you dare! Don't you dare, I tell you! Right now' - fortunately, my voice could not be heard: all were absorbed in their own screaming, all were running.
'Who's that? What's going on? What -' R- turned around; his lips, spluttering, were quivering - he probably thought that he had been seized by one of the Guardians.
'What? I'll tell you what - I won't have any of this - I won't allow it! Put her down this minute!'
But he merely made an angry, plopping noise with his lips, tossed his head and ran on. And at that point I - I am unbelievably ashamed to write this down, yet it seems to me that I am nevertheless bound, absolutely bound to write it so that you, my unknown readers, might study the case history of my disease to the very end - at that point I swung back and struck him over the head. You understand? Is struck him! I remember that distinctly. And I also remember the sensation of a certain liberation, of bouyoncy in my whole body as a result of this blow.
E- quickly slipped out of his arms.
'Go away!' she shouted to R-, 'There, you can see for yourself that he... Go away, R- - go away!'
R-, baring teeth as dazzlingly white as a Negro's, spattered some word or other in my face, made a dive, disappeared somewhere below. As for me, I picked E- up in my arms, clasped her hard to my breast and bore her off. (Zamyatin 1984: 144)

'But tomorrow' - she was breathing avidly through clenched, gleaming sharp teeth - 'why, nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. Do you understand - I do not know, nobody knows - the thing is unknown! Do you understand that the known has come to an end? Henceforth the new, the improbably, the prodigious!'
There, below, people were churning, rushing, screaming. But all that was far off, and receding ever further, because she was gazing at me, she was slowly drawing me into herself through the narrow golden windows of her pupils. Thus for a long while, in silence. And for some reason the recollection came to me of how once I had been gazing through the Green Wall into certain incomprehensible yellow pupils, while birds were soaring above the Wall (or I may have seen those birds on another occasion). (Zamyatin 1984: 145)

Are you familiar with the strange state of waking in the night, opening your eyes to blackness, and suddenly feeling that you are lost? And quickly, as quickly as possible, you begin groping around you ,seeking something familiar and solid - a wall, a small lamp, a chair... That was precisely my sensation as I groped and searched through the Gazette of The One State quickly, as quickly as possible... (Zamyatin 1984: 147)

My step as I walked along the Prospect was particularly firm and resounding - and it seemed to me that all were walking along in much the same way as I was. But then I came to the crossing where I had to turn the corner, and I saw that everybody was going around the corner of the building somewhat oddly, sliding away from it, as if a pipe had burst in its wall and were spurting cold water, making the sidewalk impassable.
Five steps more, then ten - and I in my turn was doused with cold water that made me sway, knocking me off the kerb. Upon the wall, at a height of two meters or thereabouts, there was a square piece of paper, and staring from it were incomprehensible letters of a venomous green:

MEPHI

- while below it I saw a black bent in the form of an S and wing-ears transparently swaying from wrath or agitation. With his right arm raised and his left helplessly stretched back as if it were an aching, maimed wing, S- kept leaping upward to tear down the bit of paper - and couldn't manage it, missing it by the tiniest margin. (Zamyatin 1984: 148)

S- turned around, quickly; ever so quickly he sank the tiny drills in his eyes into me, to the very bottom, got something out of there. Then he cocked his left eyebrow, sort of winked with that brow in the direction of the wall where the MEPHI thing had been hanging. And the tail end of his smile flittered before me - to my astonishment it seemed to be actually a gay smile. But then, what is there to be astonished at? The physician will always prefer a rash and a fever of 40$$$ centigrade to the exhausting, slowly rising temperature of an incubational period: the high temperature at least made clear the nature of the disease. This MEPHI which has broken out of the walls is a rash. I understood his smile.* (Zamyatin 1984: 149)

*I must confess that I found the exact solution for that smile only after many days that were chock-full of the strangest and most unexpected events. (Zamyatin 1984: 149; footnote)

In the stillness the distinct humming of the wheels was like the pounding of enfevered blood. One of the numbers felt a touch on his shoulder - startled, he dropped a bundle of papers. And another number, to the left of me, was reading the selfsame line, the selfsame line in his newspaper - and the newspaper was barely perceptibly trembling. (Zamyatin 1984: 149)

I was questioning the second Builder. His face is of faience, decorated with little flowers of sweet blue and tender pink (his eyes, his lips), but that day they were faded, washed out, somehow. We were tallying aloud the cubes of frozen air when I broke off suddenly, in the middle of a word, and stood there with mouth gaping: there was a barely noticeable small white paper pasted on a blue block of frozen air which a crane had lifted hich, under the very cupola. And my whole body was shaken - by laughter, perhaps. Yes, it was laughter - I could hear myself laughing. (are you familiar with the sensation of hearing your own laughter?) (Zamyatin 1984: 150)

Water dripping on stone somewhere. No one had come. With rather rueful joy I felt I was saved. I slowly walked back along the corridor. The tremulous dotted line of small electric bulbs on the ceiling was becoming dimmer, ever dimmer. (Zamyatin 1984: 151)

The spears of her eyelashes moved aside, letting me enter, and... How can I convey what this ancient, preposterous, wonderful rite does to me, when her lips touch mine? Through what formula can I express this whirlwind which sweeps everything out of my soul except her? Yes, yes, out of my soul - laugh at me, if you like.
Slowly, with an effort, she raised her eyelids - and her words came with difficulty, slowly: 'No, that's enough... later... let's go now.' (Zamyatin 1984: 151)

'We have simply gone beyond the Green Wall -'
It was then I opened my eyes - and was face to face, in reality, with that very sort of thing which up to then none of those living had seen other than diminished a thousand times, weakened, smudged over by the turbid glass of the Wall.
The sun - it was no longer that sun of ours, proportionately distributed over the mirror-like surface of the pavements; this sun cunsisted of some sort of living splinters of incessantly bobbing spots which blinded one's eyes, made one's head go round. And the trees - like candles thrusting into the very sky, like spiders squatting flat against the earth on their grarled paws, like mute fountains jetting green... And all these things were going on all fours, stirrring, rustling; some sort of rough-skinned little ball darted out from underfoot. As for me, I stood there rooted to the ground; I could not make a step, because the surface underfoot was not a flat plane - not a flat plane, you understand, but something repulsively soft, yielding, alive, green, springy.
I was stunned by all this, I gulped (that is, perhaps, the most approximate word). I stood there, clutching a swaying branch with both hands.
'That's nothing - nothing at all! You feel that way only at first - this feeling will pass. A little more courage!' (Zamyatin 1984: 152)

Here D-503 comes into contact with living nature outside of the city walls.

He turned his shaggy eyebrows ternly upon me: 'Shhh! Not so loud,' and the eyebrows shaggily nodded in the direction of the central point, where the skull-yellow boulder was. (Zamyatin 1984: 154)

'No, brothers - not "down with it!" The Integral must be ours instead. On the day when it first casts off its moorings and sails into the sky we will be abroad. Because the Builder of the Integral is with us. He has abandoned walls; he has come here with me to be in your midst. All hail to the Builder!'
An instant - and I was somewhere up there; below me were heads, heads, heads, mouths distended in clamour, hands plashing upward and subsiding. All this was extraordinarily strange, inebriating; I felt myself superior to all, I was I, a world by itself, I had ceased to be an item, as I had always been, and had become an integer. An then, with my body rumpled, suffused with happiness, crumpled as if after the embraces of love, I was down to earth, near the very boulder. The sun, voices above, the smile of E-. A woman with golden hair (and all of her was satiny-golden; redolent of grasses) was holding a chalice, apparently of wood; her red lips drank off a little and she held out the vessel to me - and avidly, closing my eyes, I drank to drown the fire within me; I drank the sweet, prickly, cold sparkles. And then, my blood and all the universe raced a thousand times faster; the light earth flew like down. And all things were, to me, light, simple, clear. (Zamyatin 1984: 154-155)

E- was by my side; her smile was drawn in two shaded strokes - up, at angles, from the corners of her mouth. (Zamyatin 1984: 155)

A bird, in low, slow flight. I perceived it was alive, even as I was; it turned its head to the right, to the left, even as man does, and its black beady eyes held me fast as if with screws. (Zamyatin 1984: 156)

I squeezed E-'s hand with all my might. She looked at me over her shoulder: 'What is it?'
'He's here. It seems to me -'
'Whe's he?'
'S-. There, just now, in the crowd -'
Coal-black, slender eyebrows quirked up towards the temples: the acute triangle of her smile. It was not clear to me why she was smiling - how could she smile?
'You don't understand, E-; you don't understand what it means, if he, or any one of that lot, is here.'
'Funny fellow! Come, would it ever enter the head of anyone there, inside the Wall, that we are out here? Think back; take yourself for example - did you ever imagine that this was possible? They're hunting us there - let them hunt! You're raving.'
She smiled, lightly, gaily, and I smiled as well; the earth, inebriated, gay, light was floating along... (Zamyatin 1984: 156)

More and more new things are happening, there is something very like a cloudburst of events, and there isn't enough of me to catch all of it - I hold up the flaps of my unif, I hold out my cupped hands, but just the same bucketfuls splash past me and only droplets fall on these pages. (Zamyatin 1984: 157)

E- placed her hand on the back of my chair and smiled over her right shoulder at the other - with her teeth only. I wouldn't want to stand up against that smile. (Zamyatin 1984: 157-158)

An instant's glimpse in the mirror of the broken, jumpy line of my eyebrows; then I sprang up and, with difficulty restraining that other fellow within, whose hairy fists were shaking, with like difficulty getting each word out through clenched teeth and quite sibilantly, I shouted at her, at her very gills, 'Out - this very second! This very second - ' (Zamyatin 1984: 158)

'I can do what, at any moment I like?' - and then I understood what this what was; the blood surged to my ears, my cheeks, and I cried out, 'You mustn't speak of this - you must never speak to me of this! For surely you must understand that was the other I, my former self, but that now -' (Zamyatin 1984: 158)

E- was stroking my head. I could not see her face, but by her voice I could tell that just then she was looking at some point very far off; her eyes had grappled a cloud that was inaudibly, slowly floating to some destination utterly unknown. (Zamyatin 1984: 158-159)

'But this is madness,' I was saying. 'You - against The One State! That's just the same as putting your hand over the mouth of a gun and thinking that that should keep the shot back. This is utter madness!'
She, with a smile, '"We must all go mad - as speedily as possible." Somebody said that yesterday. You remember? Over there -'
Yes, I had made an entry of it. And, consequently, all that had really taken place. I was looking at her face in silence: that dark cross was especially in evidence on her face just then.
'E-, dearest, before it is too late ... If you want me to, I'll drop everything, I'll forget everything, and you and I will go there, beyond the Wall, to those... I don't know who they are -'
She shook her head. Through those dark windows, her eyes, I saw there, deep within her, an oven flaming, sparks, tongues of flame licking upward, mountains of piled dry, resinous firewood. And it was clear to me that it was too late, already my words would avail nothing. She stood up - she was about to leave. Perhaps the last days were already here - perhaps the last minutes. I seized her hand: 'No! Stay, if only a little - well, for the sake of... of -'
She was slowly raising my hand to the light - my hairy hand that I detested so. I wanted to snatch it away from her but she held it fast. (Zamyatin 1984: 159-160)

A pause - and how strange: that because of a pause, of a void, of nothing at all, the heart should race so. (Zamyatin 1984: 160)

I remember, distinctly, every movement of hers. I remember how she had picked up my glass triangle from the table and, all the while that I had been talking, had held its sharp edge against her cheek, until a white weal had appeared there; then, as she took the triangle away, I saw the weal filling with rosiness, disappearing. And, amazingly, I cannot recall her words - especially when she began - but only certain images, colours. (Zamyatin 1984: 160)

Comparable to Clarisse's flower trick, I think.

At that moment there was a tap at the door, a whisper of a tap, and that same flattened fellow with his forehead shoved down over his eyes, who had more than once brought me notes from E-, sprang into the room. He came towards us at a run, halted, wheezing like an air pump - and could not utter a word; he must have been running for all he was worth. (Zamyatin 1984: 161-162)

Shrunk into a tiny lump, cowering under the overhang of my own forehead, I saw (somehow stealthily, from under my evebrows) how they were going room to room, starting at the right end of the corridor and coming ever nearer. Some of the occupants were sitting as cataleptically as I; others (the lucky ones!) would spring up to meet the inspector and fling the doors open for them. If I could have done the same! (Zamyatin 1984: 163)

S- was in the lead, his eyes somberly, silently, quickly drilling wells in me, in my armchair, in the sheets twitching under my hand. Then, for a second, I caught sight of certain familiar, everyday faces in the doorway, and shortly one of these separated itself from the others: the palpitating rosily brown gills emerged. I recalled everything that had taken place in this room half an hour before, and it became clear to me that at any moment she would - All my being was pounding and pulsating in that (fortunately) opaque portion of my anatomy with which I had shielded my manuscript. (Zamyatin 1984: 163)

His butt was pounding and pulsating.

There, what hadn't I been thinking about her! What a wonderful, amazing woman... S- glided in my direction, bent over my shoulder towards the table. I placed my elbow in such a way as to screen what I had written, but he said sternly in a loud voice, 'I must ask you to show me at once what you have there!'
Blazing with shame I handed him the sheet. He read it through and I saw a smile slither out of his eyes, dart down his face and then squat, with its tiny tail barely twitching, somewhere in the vicinity of the right corner of his mouth: 'Somewhat ambiguous but, just the same - well, now, do go on; we're not going to bother you any further.'
He flapped off, as if he were whacking water with paddles, towards the door, and at his every step I felt my feet, hands, fingers gradually revert to me; my soul was once more distributing itself proportionately throughout my body; I was drawing breath again - (Zamyatin 1984: 174)

In this last bit reconsider the connection between the word "soul" and the other connection (besides "breath") it has with the body - blood.

When I was only a short distance away from the enormous, solid, rust-red pile of the House of Antiquity I caught the sounds of hard breathing, a patter of somebody's hurried footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw it was O-, trying to catch up with me. All of her was somehow peculiarly, resiliently rounded in a painstakingly finished fashion. Her arms, and the inverse chalices of her breasts, and all her body which I knew so well, were in the round, and making her unif taut: there, at any moment, the thin material would be rent and everything would be in the open, under the sun, in the light. (Zamyatin 1984: 165)

For a few seconds her eyes shed their blue light upon my face; then, 'I saw you that time - on the Day of Unanimity.'
'I saw you too -' and immediately the recollection came to me of how she had stood there hugging the wall in the narrow passage below and protecting her belly with her arms. I involuntarily glanced at the round belly bulging out her unif.
She must have noticed my glance, became spherically rosy - even her smile was rosy, 'I am so happy! I am filled - filled to the brim, you understand. And so I walk about and hear nothing of what's going on around me, but am all the time listening to what's going on inside me, within my own self -'
I kept silent. Some foreign substance was clinging to my face, bothering me, and I simply could not get rid of it. And suddenly, unexpectedly, the blue light beaming a still more intensive blue, she seized my hand - and I felt her lips upon it. This was my first such experience in all my life. It was some sort of an ancient caress which I had known nothing of up to then, and it shamed and pained me so much that I snatched my hand away - likely as not I may even have been rough about it. (Zamyatin 1984: 166)

She was extinguished; all her circumferences sagged, warped. As for me, I felt an unpleasant (even a sickly) contraction, linked with a feeling of pity, within my heart (the heart is nothing but an ideal pump: to speak of compression, contraction in connection with a pump's suction of a liquid is a technical absurdity; hence it is clear to what an extent all these loves, pities, etc., etc., which bring about such a contraction, are essentially absurd, unnatural, sickly). (Zamyatin 1984: 166)

In my mind's eye I saw E- and myself leading O- through those corridors; why, she was already there, outside the Wall, among those flowers, grasses, leaves. But she backed away from me; the tiny horns of her rosy mouth-crescent were quivering and twisting downward. 'It's that same woman,' said she. (Zamyatin 1984: 167)

And, throughout the conversation, we were under the smile, frozen in marble, of that snub-nosed ancient poet. (Zamyatin 1984: 168)

He means Puškin.

'Dear man, you're a mathematician' - her eyebrows were a mocking acute triangle. 'Even more - you're a philosopher, because of your mathematics. Well, then: name the ultimate number for me.'
'What do you mean? I... I don't understand - what ultimate number?'
'Why, the ultimate, the supreme, the greatest number of all.'
'Come, E-, that's preposterous. Since the number of numbers is infinite, what number would you want to be the ultimate one?'
'Well, and what revolution would you want to be the ultimate one? There is no ultimate revolution - revolutions are infinite in number. The ultimate revolution - that's for children. Infinity scares children, yot it is necessary for children to sleep soundly of nights -' (Zamyatin 1984: 169)

'Well, we know, for the time being, that there is no ultimate number. It may be that we will forget that. No, not maybe but surely, we will forget that when we will have grown old, as all things must, ineluctably. And then we too will drift downward, as autumnal leaves drift down from a tree, as on the day after toworrow you - no, no, dearest - not you! For you are with us - you are with us!' All ablaze, cyclonic, coruscant - never yet had I seen her like that - she embraced me with herself, with all of her. I vanished - At the last, looking steadfastly, firmly into my eyes, 'Remember, then: at noon.' (Zamyatin 1984: 170)

MECHANISMS HAVE NO FANTASY!

Did you ever see a wool-gathering, senselessly dreamy smile spread over the physiognomy of a pump cylinder while it was working? Did you ever hear any cranes tossing restlessly in bed and sighing of nights, during the hours appointed for rest?

YOU NEVER DID!

And yet the Guardians have more and more often (well may you blush!) seen these smiles and heard these sighs among you. And (you may well hide your eyes!) the historians of The One State are tendering their resignation so that they may be spared having to chronicle sundry ignominious occurrences.
However, you are not to blame for these things - you are sick. And the name of your sickness is

FANTASY!

Fantasy is a worm whose boring leaves black furrows on your brows. Fantasy is a fever which drives you on to further and further flight, even though this further point may begin where happiness ends. Fantasy is the last barricade on the road to happiness. (Zamyatin 1984: 173)

This was on the front page of the Gazette of The One State.

You, if you had read all this not in these notes of mine, which are so much like some whimsical novel of antiquity, but if instead had this newspaper sheet, still redolent of printer's ink, quivering in your hands as it is quivering in mine, if you knew, as I know, that all this is the most actual reality (if not today's then tomorrow's) - would not your sensations be the very same as mine? Would not your head be spinning, even as mine is spinning right now? Would not these same eerie, delectable needles of ice be darting your back and arms? Would you not feel that you were a Titan, an Atlas, and that if you were to stand up straight your head would inevitably bump against the glass of the ceiling. (Zamyatin 1984: 174)

The darling! Such a dear, dear darling. 'Without fail!' I felt I was smiling, and simply couldn't stop, and I would go forth like that, bearing this smile through the streets like a lantern, high above my head! (Zamyatin 1984: 174)

A cautious tap on my elbow, from behind, I turned, confronting the Second Builder's dish face. (Zamyatin 1984: 175)

What a peculiar, limited fellow. Can't see anything beyond that dish face of his. (Zamyatin 1984: 176)

I was in my room at 15:30. I entered - and saw U-. She was sittitng at my table - bony, erect, unyielding, her right cheek planted on her right hand. She must have been waiting a long time, because when she sprang up to greet me the impression of the four fingers and thumb remained for quite a while on her face. (Zamyatin 1984: 176)

I unhesitatingly held out my hand to her, forgiving her everything: she clutched both my hands hard, squeezing them with prickly fingers, while her cheeks, which dangled like antique ornaments, quivered from time to time... (Zamyatin 1984: 176)

She adjusted the grey-blue cloth between her knees; plastered me silently, quickly with a smile; went out. (Zamyatin 1984: 177)

I sank on the floor near her chair, embracing her legs, throwing my head back so as to look into her eyes, now into one, now into the other, and saw myself in each, held in wonderous captivity. (Zamyatin 1984: 177)

She broke into loud - much too loud - laughter. Quickly, within a second, she laughed until she reached some brink, took a step - and went over... A pause. She stood up. Placed her hands on my shoulder. Looked at me - long, deliberately. Then drew me to her - and there was nothing save her keen, searing lips. (Zamyatin 1984: 178)

The triangle was mercilessly acute, black against white: 'What? You don't want happiness?' (Zamyatin 1984: 178)

Do you believe that you will die? Yes: man is mortal; I am a man: ergo... No, that's not it - I know that you know all that. But what I am asking is this: have you ever had occasion to believe in this, to believe it indefinitely, believe it not with your mind but your body, to feel that the fingers holding this very page will one day be yellow, icy - (Zamyatin 1984: 180)

Existentialism.

And it was strange that the flat, schematic face of the Second Builder should suddenly speak up: 'Well, now, how much motor fuel are we taking on? If we reckon on three hours - or on three hours and a half, let us say -'
Before me - in projection, as if on a draft - is my hand holding a computus, a logarithmic dial, the figure fifteen. 'Fifteen tons. No, you'd better take on... yes, take on a hundred tons' - this because I knew, after all, that on the morrow - And, from the side, I saw my hand with the logarithmic dial beginning to tremble, barely perceptibly. (Zamyatin 1984: 181)

As always, the numbers were walking in ranks, four to each. But the ranks were, somehow, unstable and (perhaps because of the wind) wavering, sagging. More and more, right along. There, these groups had collided with something at the corner, had rolled back, and then frozen into a solid, tight, quickly bretahing wad: all of them, instantaneously, acquired the elongated necks of geese. (Zamyatin 1984: 181)

Somebody's piercing scream: 'It's a dragnet! Run!'
Everything in a tidal surge. Near the wall of the building there was still a small, narrow living gateway - all stampeded towards it, their heads momentarily sharpening into wedges, their elbows, ribs, shoulders, hips becoming ocute. Trampling feet, fluttering hands, unifs - all these sprayed out like a fan and came showering down all around me, like water under high pressure escaping through a firehose. For a second a doubly-curved, S-shaped body, a pair of translucent wing-ears, impinged on my eyes - then their owner was no longer there, had vanished through the ground, and I was alone in the midst of instantaneous arms, legs; I was on the run -
A brief respite to catch my breath, at some entrance, with my back pressed hard against the door - and immediately a tiny human sliver was flattened against me, as if driven by the wind.
'I've been... I've been running after you all the time, I don't have any of this - you understand? I won't have it! I am ready to -'
rounded, diminutive hands on my sleeve, the eyes round, blue - it was she, O-. And then, somehow totally, she slid down the wall, slumped to the ground. She contracted into a small ball down there, on the cold steps, and I stood over her, stroking her head, her face... and found my hands were wet. It was as if I were very big, while she was utterly little - a little part of my own self. This was an altogether different emotion from that which I felt for E-, and at that moment I had a notion that there might have been something of that sort among the ancients in their attitude towards their private children. (Zamyatin 1984: 182-183)

Under her unif the sap-swollen body stirred anew, the belly grew just the least trifle rounder, a barely glimmering dawn, a morning glow, appeared on her face. I thrust the note into her chilled fingers, clasped he hand hard, my eyes drank for the last time from the blue of her eyes. (Zamyatin 1984: 185)

No time lost in getting at the Gazette. I read it with my eyes (the phrase is precise: my eyes just then were like pen, like a computus, objects which one holds, feels in one's hands; my eyes were extraneous, they were instruments). (Zamyatin 1984: 186)

Through the inertia of dayl habit I stretched out my hand (an instrument) towards the bookshelf to put today's Gazette together with the other issues in a binder ornamented with gilt. (Zamyatin 1984: 186)

When I came aboard the Integral all were already mustered, all were at their posts, all the cells of the glass behive were filled. Through the glass of the decks one could see the people below, tiny, like ants, standing by the telegraph instruments, dynamos, transformers, altimeters, ventilators, dial indicators, pumps, tubes. In the wardroom some numbers (probably assigned by the Scientific Bureau) were bent over tabulations and instruments, with the second Builder and his two assistants standing by. These three had their heads drawn in between their shoulders like turtles; their faces were grey, autumnal, anything but beaming.
'Well, how do you feel?' I asked.
'So-so. Kind of scary,' one of the trio smiled, greyishly, without beaming. 'We may not land no one knows where. And in general, everything is unknown -' (Zamyatin 1984: 188)

Grey faces, grey unifs flitted through that passage, and for a second one face stood out against the others: the hair was a cap pulled low over the forehead, the forehead an overhang above the eyes: it was that messenger of E-'s. I surmised that those of whom he was one were here, and that there was no place I could escape to from all this, and that only minutes - a few decades of minutes - remained. An infinitesimal, molecular tremor ran all through my body (nor did it cease to the very last) - just as if an enormous motor had been placed within me, but the construction of my body was too light, and consequently its walls, partitions, cables, rafters, lights, all were trembling. (Zamyatin 1984: 189-190)

Faces grey, not beaming. Blue, tensed veins of the water below. A laminated sky of crushing cast iron. And it was as hard for me to pick up the speaking tubes as if both hands and tube were of cast iron. 'Up - at forty-five degrees!' (Zamyatin 1984: 190)

The wardroom. Heads were bent over the instruments, the charts - heads circuited all over the grey bristles and heads that were yellow, bald, ripe. One quick look scraped them up and wadded them; then I was on my way back again, traversing the narrow passageway and going down the trap ladder into the engine room. There the tubes, incandescent from the blasts, were emitting head and rumbling; the sparking cranks were doing a drunken, desperate, squatting dance; the dial indicators were trembling with a barely perceptible tremor that did not cease for a second. And then I caught sight of him at last, standing near the tachometer with his forehead shoved down over a notebook.
'Listen' - I had to shout in his very ear on account of the rumbling - 'is she here? where is she?'
'She?' - this with a smile, from under the shadow of his overhanging forehead. 'Over there. In the radio communication room -' (Zamyatin 1984: 191)

'Write it down,' I told her loudly and still panting (from having run). 'Time, 11.30. Speed, 6,800 -'
She, from under her winged, helmet-like headset, softly, without taking her eyes off the paper: 'She came to me last evening, with a note from you. I know - I know everything; don't say a word. However, the child is yours, isn't it? And I got her away; but now she is there, beyond the wall. She will live.' (Zamyatin 1984: 192)

'But then, it wasn't I - it wasn't I! Why, I didn't discuss it with anybodp, I confined it only to those white, mute pages' - inwardly I was shouting this to her - inaudibly, desperately, deafeningly. She was seated across the table from me - and not even once did her eyes alight on me. Next to her was somebody's ripe-yellow bald head. I overheard E- saying, ,"Nobility of character"? But, my dearest professor, even a simple philosophical analysis of this phrase indicates that it is a prejudice, a survival of ancient feudal epochs. Whereas we -' (Zamyatin 1984: 194-195)

Ah, if I could but make my own way to the radio room - if I but could! Winged helmets, the ozone odour of blue lightnings... I remember I was telling her something, loudly; I remember, too, her saying, looking through me as if I were of glass and with her voice coming from somewhere far off: 'I am bosy - I am receiving a message from down there. You can dictate to her' - indicating another female number. (Zamyatin 1984: 195)

Suppose the black, specific letters on this page were suddenly to shift, each one going off lickety-spit this way or that, in its fright, and there wouldn't be a single recognizable word, just a lot of meaningless pi: igh for fright, ty-spi for lickety-plit. Well, that's just the way the crowd in the street was: out of alignment, barging straight ahead, backing off, criss-crossing, acting contrary. And then - nobody. Also, frozen for a second in headlong flight, there, up on a second floor, in a glass cage suspended in mid-air: a male number and a female number, in a kiss, standing; her whole body was bent backward, as if broken. This for the last time, for all time. (Zamyatin 1984: 198)

Next, an urchin; he was straining forward, all of him; there was a shadow under his nether lip. This nether lip was everted, like the cuff of a turned-up sleeve - for that matter, his whole face was everted; he was bawling and trying to get away from somebody as fast as his legs would carry him - I could hear the pounding of pursuing feet. (Zamyatin 1984: 198)

An empty train frozen on the rails. And, amid the silence, a voice. I could not see her but I knew that voice, resilient, flexible as a whiplash, lashing - I knew it; and somewhere over there was that acute triangle of eyebrows quirked up at the temples. 'Do let me through!' I shouted. (Zamyatin 1984: 198-199)

I went up to my room, put on the light. My temples, tightly bound by their hoop, were pounding; I paced the room, still encircled by that ring forged around me: the table, the white parcel on the table; the bed; the door; the table, the white parcel. The blinds of the room to the left were lowered. In the room to the right, a knobby bald head, and a forehead like an enormous yellow parabola, bent over a book. The furrows on the forehead were a series of yellow illegible lines of print. Now and then our eyes met - and I would then feel that those yellow lines had to do with me. (Zamyatin 1984: 200)

The piston rod was in front of me on the table. I sprang up, breathing still more loudly. She heard me, broke off in the middle of a word, and also got on her feet for some reason. I already saw the right spot on her head for the blow; there was a disgustingly sweet taste in my mouth. I reached for my handkerchief but it wasn't there - I spat on the floor. That fellow on the other side of the wall, to the right, with the yellow, staring lines that had to do with me - it was necessary that he should not see; the thing would be even more repulsive if he were to look on. I pressed the button (very well; I had no right whatsoever to do it, but did that at all matter at that juncture?); the blinds fell. She evidently understood, instinctively, made a dash towards the door. But I headed her off and, breathitng loudly, without taking my eyes for a second from that spot on her head - (Zamyatin 1984: 200)

U- was still lying on the bed, her eyes closed, gills widely distended in a smile. I scraped her garment up from the floor, tossed it at her, told her through clenched teeht, 'There! Make it quick - make it quick!'
She raised herself on her elbow; her breasts splashed over to one side; her eyes were round; all of her had turned to wax: 'What?' (Zamyatin 1984: 201-202)

Suddenly her nether lip turned inside out, like that urchin's, and tears spurted from and rolled down her cheeks. (Zamyatin 1984: 202)

It is odd: there seems to be a blank white page in my head. I don't remember how I made my way there, how I had to wait (I know I did wait); I don't remember a thing, not a single sound, not a single face, not a single gesture. As if all the wires connecting me with the universe had been cut. (Zamyatin 1984: 203)

To blood splashed up to my head, my cheeks, then - another blank page: there remains only the memory of the pulsing at my temples and the voice reverberating up there, above, but not a single word. (Zamyatin 1984: 203)

He "blanks" also when The Benefactor speaks to him.

At this point there is another blank white page. All I remember is feet. Not people but, precisely, feet. Hundreds of feet, discordantly trampling, falling on the pavement from somewhere above: a downpour of feet. And some sort of rollicking, provoking song, and a shout (probably meant for me), 'Hey! Hey! Come over here - join us!' (Zamyatin 1984: 206)

This morning, in the dining hall, my neighbour to the left whispered to me in a scared voice, 'There, do eat! People are looking at you!'
I smiled, exerting myself to the utmost. And I felt that smile as if it were a crack of some sort on my face: I was smiling, the edges of the crack were crawling further apart, and this was causing me more and more pain. (Zamyatin 1984: 207)

'Aha!' - in somebody's triumphant voice. I saw before me the nape of somebody's nack, and his finger aimed at the sky: I remember most distinctly the yellow-pink nail, and its white, like a crescent crawling out from under the horizon. And that finger was like a compass: hundreds of eyes, following it, were directed at the sky. (Zamyatin 1984: 208)

Compare this to the "pointed finger as index".

'Aha-a!' - the triumphant neck turned around. I saw the fellow whose forehead was an overhang. But all that remained in him now of his former characteristics existed in name only, so to speak; he had somehow clambered out clear from under his overhang of a forehead, and rays were sprouting like tufts of hair on his face about the eyes, the lips; he was smiling. 'You understand?' he shouted to me amid the whistling of the wind, the flapping of wings, the cawing. 'It's the Wall - you understand? They've blown up the Wall! You un-der-stand?' (Zamyatin 1984: 208)

I stumbled against the taut hawsers woven out of wind and kept on running to her. What for? I did not know. I stumbled on. Deserted streets; the city alien, barbarous; ceaseless, triumphant din of birds; Judgement Day. Through the glass of their walls I saw, in several buildings (this was deeply engraved on my memory), female and male numbers shamelessly copulating - without as much as lowering the blinds, without any pink coupons, in broad daylight. (Zamyatin 1984: 209)

On the floor, the pink coupons, like rose petals fallen ond trampled upon.
I bent down, picked up one, a second, a third: all boret he number D-503; I was on all of them; each bore a drop of myself, molten, brimming over. And this was all that remained. For some reason it seemed impermissible for them to be lying thus on the floor, and to have everybody trampling over them. I scooped up another handful, placed them on the table, smoothed them out painstakingly, looked at them - and broke into laughter. I hodn't known it before; now I know it, and you know it too: laughter comes in different colours. It is only a remote echo of an explosion within you; it may consist of festal rockets, red, blue, golden; it may consist of gobs of human flesh blown skyward.
I caught a glimpse among the coupons of a number utterly unfamiliar to me; the figures made no impression on my memory - only the consonant, indicating a male, did: it was F-. I swept all the coupons off the table on to the floor, stamped on them, on myself, with my heel - there, take that! and that! - and left the room. (Zamyatin 1984: 209-210)

The old man turned around, dismissed me with a gesture of angry despair, and hobbled on. (Zamyatin 1984: 210)

I sprang up. Sitting at the table, with her chin propped up on her hand, was E-, regarding me with a mocking smile. (Zamyatin 1984: 211)

But half-way through what I wanted to say I was brought up short by the pointed, fixed spears of her eyelashes: she had given me exactly the same look that last time, aboard the Integral. (Zamyatin 1984: 211)

She tossed her cigarette on the floor, leaned all the way back over the arm of her chair (the release button was in the wall, and was difficult to get at) and I remembber how the chair rocked and two of its legs came up from the floor. Then the blinds fell. (Zamyatin 1984: 212)

'They say you were at The Benefactor's yesterday. Is that true?'
'Yes, it is.'
And thereupon her eyes flew wide open - and I watched with gratification how quickly her face paled, became obliterated, vanished: only the eyes were there. (Zamyatin 1984: 212)

Little by little, as on a photographic plate in a developing solution, her face emerged: cheeks, white streak of teeth, lips. She got up, walked over to the mirror on the closet door. My mouth was again dry. I poured water for myself, but it was revolting to drink it; I put the glass on the table and asked, 'Was that just why you came here -because you had to find out?'
A mocking actue triangle of eyebrows quirked up towards the temples looked at me out of the mirror. She turned around to tell me something but in the end did not say a word.
There was no need. I knew.
Should I say farewell to her? I shuffled my feet (not really mine: they were some stranger's)... (Zamyatin 1984: 213)

I remember: I stumbled against something that was unbearably soft, yielding and yet, for all that, motionless. I bent over: it was a corpse. A male number. Sprawling on his back, his legs apart, like a woman's. His face... I recognized the thick Negroid lips, that seemed to be splattering laughter even then; I recognized his teeth. With his eyes puckered tight he was laughing in my face. (Zamyatin 1984: 215)

Fortunately, there were only twenty steps more, the gold-lettered sign, BUREAU OF GUARDIANS, was already in viem. I paused in the doorway, drowned a big a gulp as air as I could, and entered. Inside, in the corridor, holding sheets of paper and thick notebooks, the numbers were standing in an endless queue, the nose of the number almost up against the nape of the neck of the number in front. Every now and then they would move a step or two, at a snail's pace, and then stop again. (Zamyatin 1984: 215)

Suddenly someone seized my elbow from behind. I turned around: thanslucent winged ears. Not their usual rosy hue, however, but crimson; his Adam's apple bobbing so restlessly that it seemed likely to rip through its this dust-cover at any moment. (Zamyatin 1984: 216)

His mocking smile (he was silent) was becoming more and more twisted. And then, 'But, do you know, you intended to keep a thing or two back from me? There, you have enumerated all those whom you noticed on that occasion beyond the Wall, yot you have overlooked one. No, you say? But don't you remember catching a momentary, fleeting glimpse of... me? Yes, yes - me.' (Zamyatin 1984: 217)

Without tearing my eyes away from the mocking smile, which was constantly becoming more twisted, I propped my hands against the edge of the desk, slid away from it, chair and all, slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, then abruptly grabbed all of me by the scruff of my neck and rushed out helter-skelter - past shouts, stair steps, mouths. (Zamyatin 1984: 218)

I smile; I cannot help but smile: they have extracted some sort of a sliver out of my head; my head is light, empty. To be more exact: it is not empty, but there is nothing extraneous in it, nothing that would interfere with smiling (smiling is the normal state for a normal human). (Zamyatin 1984: 220)

On the evening of the same day - seated with Him, The Benefactor, at the same table - I found myself for the first time in the famous Chamber of the Gas Bell Glass. That woman was brought in. She was to give her testimony in my presence. This woman remained contumaciously silent - and smiled. I noticed that her teeth were sharp and very white - and this created a beautiful effect.
Thes she was led in under the Gas Bell Glass. Her face became very white and, since her eyes were dark and large, this created and extremely beautiful effect. When they started pumping the air out of the Gas Bell Glass she threw her head back, half closing her eyes and compressing her lips: this reminded me of something. She kept looking at me as she gripped the arms of her seat - kept looking at me as she gripped the arms of her seat - kept looking until her eyes closed altogether. Thereupon she was dragged out, quickly brought back to consciousness with the aid of electrodes, and was again made to sit under the Gas Bell Glass. This was gone through three times - and she still had not uttered a word. Others, who had been brought in with this woman, proved more honest: many of them started talking after the first treatment. Tomorrow all of them will mount the steps leading to the Machine of The Benefactor. (Zamyatin 1984: 221)