|k| clippings: 2015-02-25 — creatively absorbed

On Twitter, a reader asks, “Is there a word—or can we create one—for when your muse disturbs your sleep schedule? CreativeGloaming? MuseLag?” Can the Clamor help? I got nothin’.

WORK

“We believe that we can change the things around us in accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise we can see no favourable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favourable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible has it become.”

—Marcel Proust (trans. by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)
—from In Search of Lost Time

WORD(S)

meraki /me-RAH-kee/. adjective. A Greek word used to describe doing or making something with great passion, soul, ardor, and creativity. The absorptions and intense enthusiasm when focused on a particular, creative activity. Often (wrongly) called an “untranslatable.” In modern Greek script: μεράκι. From Turkish merak (curiosity, whim, passion). See also: kefi and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow.

“Every kind of work has this meraki, this…it has a beauty, a…creativity, how can I describe this to you? It’s…even the cook, when he makes a good meal…I, when I cook, I know that…the pot’s on the fire and I can’t read, I keep getting up all the time, tak!, to go and see, you know, how it’s doing.” (Andreas Nenedakis, as cited in Portrait of a Greek Imagination).

“The long-term appearance of boredom and disengagement may be reproduced in a fully socialized artisan as the nonchalant skill of one who does not need to think about what he is doing in order to do it successfully. It is not that he is indifferent; on the contrary, his nonchalance is the product of his Meraki, his love for the craft, which is such that he neither cares about the jibes of others nor feels diminished by his own missteps…” (Michael Herzfeld, from The Body Impolitic)

WEB

1. Sure, the “paintings made by household appliances” category is a small field, but still…not bad. → Roomba Seascapes

2. “These international authors regard detachment, spectation, a fascination with one’s own intellect, unequivocally as a sickness or a vice, the signal of a spirit deficient in courage if not in insight. This isn’t because they don’t care about authenticity, but because they regard authenticity as the product of an engaged life in society, as opposed to a detached one.” → “Always Already Alienated” — Jon Baskin on (and against) Ben Lerner and the “novel of detachment.”

3. That brought Hall to her own answer about college’s mission: “It is for developing the muscle of thoughtfulness, the use of which will be the greatest pleasure in life and will also show what it means to be fully human.” → Anne Hall on the purpose of higher education [Note: it is possible to agree with this sentiment and disagree with much else she says.]

4. Louis C.K. and Cathy Are Basically the Same Person…with One Glaring Difference

5. Today in 1943, Beatles guitarist George Harrison—as underrated a guitarist as it’s possible to be when a member of “the world’s most famous band”—is born. Rolling Stone’s founder Jan Wenner wrote of Harrison that he was “a guitarist who was never showy but who had an innate, eloquent melodic sense. He played exquisitely in the service of the song.” So true. You don’t have to listen to me when you can listen to your ears: xxx. When asked in 1992 to choose his favorite slide guitar work, Harrison chose his solo in Belinda Carlisle’s “Leave a Light On” (!?).

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader W. shares a bit of serendipity: As it happens, I stumbled over ‘pleach’ [last issue’s WORD] in the novel Embers by Sandor Marai and thought I’d share:

…one could see the old city with its streets running straight as a die, and the Emperor’s summer palace, the roofs of Schönbrunn, and the paths bordered by pleached trees.

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