journal

Jalal Toufic Forthcoming Second edition Jalal Toufic

Forthcoming Second edition Books by Jalal Toufic Jalal Toufic is a thinker whose influence in the Beirut artistic community over the past two decades has been immense—notwithstanding that, as he What Were You Thinking? (Berliner Künstlerprogramm/ put it, many, if not all of his books, most of which DAAD, 2011) were published by Forthcoming Books, “continue The Portrait of the Pubescent Girl: A Rite of Non-Passage to be forthcoming even after their publication.” In (Forthcoming Books, 2011) relation to one of these books, he wondered: “Does not a book titled Forthcoming suggest, ostensibly What Is the Sum of Recurrently? (Galeri Nev, 2010) paradoxically, a second edition?” Here’s the revised edition of Forthcoming, a book first published nearly Graziella: The Corrected Edition (Forthcoming Books, 2009) a decade and a half ago by Atelos press. The Withdrawal of Tradition Past a Surpassing Disaster (California Institute of the Arts/Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts —Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle Theater [REDCAT], 2009; Forthcoming Books, 2009)

Undeserving Lebanon (Forthcoming Books, 2007)

‘Āshūrā’: This Blood Spilled in My Veins (Forthcoming Books, 2005)

Two or Three Things I’m Dying to Tell You (Post-Apollo Press, 2005)

Undying Love, or Love Dies (Post-Apollo Press, 2002)

Forthcoming (Atelos, 2000)

Over-Sensitivity (Sun & Moon Press, 1996; 2nd ed., Forthcoming Books, 2009)

(Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film (Station Hill Press, 1993; revised and expanded edition, Post-Apollo Press, 2003)

Distracted (Station Hill Press, 1991; 2nd ed., Tuumba Press, 2003) In memory of the Nizārī Ḥasan ‘alā dhikrihi’l-salām (on his mention be peace), the Qarmaṭī Abū Ṭāhir Sulaymān al-Jannābī, and the Twelver Shi‘ite Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Muḥammad al-Samarrī As many as 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the Persian Gulf War because of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council, according to two scientists who sur- veyed the country for the Food and Agriculture Organization.… The results of the survey will appear on Friday in The Lancet.

New York Times, December 1, 1995, A6

Each Friday, professors, writers, engineers and students can be found selling off their libraries on its [El Saray Street, Baghdad] sidewalk.… Samir Abu Zaid, a government worker, went one day to sell a favorite book of poems. “I almost began to cry,” he said. “I took my book and ran away.”

Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1996 Contents

13 Avertissement à l’écrivain

15 The Threshold of No Return

16 Every Name in History Is I

19 Gertrude; or, Love Dies—Followed by, A Fourth Wall that Proved to Be a Radical Closure’s Gateless Gate

39 If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? No

49 Forthcoming

85 You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed

106 First Aid, Second Growth, Third Degree, Fourth World, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Sense

107 Radical-Closure Artist with Bandaged Sense Organ

117 Copyright Free Farm Road

118 Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second

142 Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some Qur’ānic Prophets

156 Oedipus in Egypt

165 On Entities Older Than the World 170 Monstrous Units over the Plateau

174 The Anamorphic Skull’s Aside

176 On Names: Letter to Lyn Hejinian

189 The Dancer’s Two Bodies

200 On Portraits: Letter to Christy Turlington

209 A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: The Universe

224 Natural Apprehension at Human Burial films are not popular. them, the latter writers and filmmakers, books and since one often does not wish to be reminded of these instances of depersonalization are rare, and one even when he has deserted himself. Since some state accompany of depersonalization—they the one who, for whatever circumstances, is in a person; but there are others still, rare, who address person in us; a small number address the solitary Most writers and filmmakers address the social Avertissement à l’écrivain

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13 farewell or to reiterate one’s injunction or entreaty encourage them to accompany one or to bid them one turns one’s head backward ostensibly to try to the labyrinth, always already ‘in’ the labyrinth” trance already to the other side of the threshold, ‘in’ my own, and find myself when I come out of the am then and there entranced, thus have no will of chance to deliberate, to make a decision, since I “given that at the threshold itself I do not have the tively depart too early and in an arresting manner, nying one (if they are compassionate, they intui warning of those who have just ceased accompa ture or the actual or hallucinated farewell or final — On the pretext of reacting to the noisy depar Sacrifice — One trips on even ground (Tarkovsky’s

such a remarkable place” fully awake I must have noticed the approach of must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been Jonathan Harker’s Journal [ lapse of consciousness, if not of being (“Chapter II: — One discovers that one has gone through a no other than that one day one will return. inside me. There is nothing to worry about”), be they dren, whom I will raise. That is all determined. It is will marry Karl-Henrik and we will have a few chil reaffirm one’s plans (Alma [Nietzsche, “instincts, fundamentally rebels” against doing so one’s “habit, and even more so the pride of” one’s such and such.… Don’t mistake me! — One feels the urge “to say a threshold to a realm from which one cannot return: The following symptoms imply that one has neared How not to miss the point—the point of no return? The Threshold of No Return ). Ecce Homo ]); and/or to reiterate and 1 ).

in Bergman’s continued who I am ” (even when ,” that “ ]. 5 May Persona The I am .—I 2 - ), - : “I 3 - -

15 Jalal Toufic Every Name in History Is I 16 direction of the sound made by the two departing bridge to Nosferatu’s castle, ostensibly to look in the well, turned his head backward while crossing the disconnected, had lost the habit of bidding fare with someone from whom he was never totally due to prolonged living with a telepathic wife, hence over-turned). In Murnau’s point of no return, the limit beyond which turns are turn (the threshold to the realm of over-turns is a it is going to be impossible for one to accomplish a fully turn, since thenceforth, owing to over-turns, a leave-taking of turns, of the ability to success reconsider whether to proceed or reckon this turn ally to check that one can still turn and, if yes, to to some, if not all of them to stay behind, but actu sile during the Gulf War and to whom he is invisible soldiers at whom he is shortly going to fire a mis (1992) has to receive the call of the two Iraqi tank Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees time of undeath. The Jacob Maker of David Blair’s dered by him. Such a call is possible in the nonlinear calls of the unknown persons who will soon be mur receive, from their state of being already dead, the killed even by precision bombing, the soldier has to To fight the anonymity with which the war enemy is turn—he continued facing in the same direction. departure of the coach, yet—as a result of an over- nist was concerned, he turned on hearing the noisy in which a little (?) farther (?), as far as the protago coach. I can easily imagine a remake of refused to transport him to the other side in their Gypsies who had brought him to the Borgo pass but Every Name in History Is I In memoriam Nosferatu William S. Burroughs , Harker, who, Nosferatu - - - -

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- 4 dead—is occulted. Indeed, what most often occurs of some of the disparate bits of the minds of the the dead—due to the blindness of the vengeance ity where the constitutive injustice in the realm of to circular this recourse through with dealt really no initial action. Yet guilt is neither mitigated nor concerned are dealing with a series of reactions with guilt seems to have been done away with since those here becomes circular, with the consequence that at Iraqi soldiers in a tank, killing them. Vengeance them in 1991, during the Gulf War, by firing a missile in 1919 that I, Jacob Maker, will take revenge on (whether because he is flying a stealth fighter or is I. feels: at received, one times and in the state of death before dying in which it is In the state of undeath from which the call is sent, because the radars of their unit have been blinded). (Iraqi) dead taking the form of (Mesopotamian) bees because I, as Zoltan Abbasid, was murdered by the shortly kill, was killed by my anticipated victims: it is at a semblance of justice, discovering that I, who will death and dying before (physically) dying—to arrive time and the non-exclusive disjunction reigning in contortions since they are allowed by the nonlinear incredible contortions—which are not felt to be of sounds, figures, etc., I will try, through the most mostly according to disparate bits of thoughts and affects functioning dying physically), have not totally disintegrated into state. As long as I, as dead (whether or not before getting entangled in the generalized guilt of that his initial motives for dying before dying, his gesture oblivious and confused in the realm of the dead as to dying to access such a call, but also in his becoming Maker’s sacrifice does not reside only in dying before the reduction to anonymity and generality. Jacob 5

Every name in history is I is history in name Every displacement every name in history is one way to fight and association - 6

17 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 18 the end of the world” was the end of the world. To die is to experience death would be the end of him. But it was not. Death of undeath, with its its “survival of the fittest”; one can heed the realm promote injustice one need not look at nature, with agony of both the dead part of us and the dead. To able suffering, because that would hide from us the nated, have as an ideal to not, as long as death as undeath has not been elimi Although we have to minimize distress, we should just, and, if it can, then shouldn’t it be? No, it can’t. life can be just, then can’t death as undeath also be life to that of undeath or vice versa: if, within limits, mate and dangerous to generalize from the realm of without motive” abominably, intolerably guilty, without cause and is the eruption of an unoriginated guilt (“I was guilty, guilt through the circularity of mutual wrongdoing as a result of the attempt at expunging any trace of sisted, fittingly enough, of being guilty.” a guilt that “demanded punishment … [which] con every name in history is I as dead while alive, is founded in a basic way on the is precisely that my specificity as a mortal, that is, it unjustified to treat me in a substitutive manner way to reason from undeath to life, for what makes the wholesale slaughter in war? This is the wrong also be unjust, allowing, among other things, for decomposed souls of the dead, why shouldn’t life of some of the bits of thoughts and affects of the ask: if death is the realm of the blind vengeance unmotivated, blind, generalized revenge, and then the practical among them—unfit for that realm of 7 ), the formation of a vicious circle of survivors 9 ), practically all—certainly of my death and madness. totally (“He had thought that obliterate perceiv 8 It is illegiti - - - - between the interviewer and the playwright as well side and center. For the most part, the exchanges occupy the right side of the stage, the others its left rest of the play, the playwright and the interviewer recorder and a microphone, enter stage. For the playwright and an interviewer, carrying each a tape prompter’s box and disappears in it. Shortly, the adaptation, walks, unheeding, straight toward the the director’s blocking, one, carrying a text of the Fifteen actors enter stage. While fourteen listen to THEATER DIRECTOR: If by that you mean that I ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: How original for a the THEATER DIRECTOR: Curtains. ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: What are you writing ible next to the director. Polonius are already on stage. A tape recorder is vis both the theater director and the actor who plays role of the theater director. When the play starts, case he does direct it, he should play the diegetic ten with Richard Foreman in mind as its director. In This play, based on Shakespeare’s admire Lynch and Magritte for their curtains. Peaks: Fire Walk with Me painting Penguin Touquet other forms, for example, the TAPE in my play is the prompter out in theater? Or has he taken priation, there is nothing original about that. But repressed or some kind of postmodern appro would be instigating some sort of a return of the curtains are, unfortunately, out! ater director to do that when, like the prompter, about? Gertrude; or, Love Dies La Belle Captive ? Also, have you seen Magritte’s ? I, a theater director, or Lynch’s film Hamlet , was writ Twin - - - -

19 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 20 THEATER DIRECTOR: It is the because ghost is over ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: I still don’t ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: No. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Did he fix his eyes upon THE TWO ACTORS PLAYING THE TWO GUARDS AND THEATER DIRECTOR: Let’s resume the rehearsals. their lines. place when the rehearsing actors pause to go over as the playwright’s asides into his tape recorder take ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: It is an honest ghost, that PLAYWRIGHT: While not an illusion, the ghost of INTERVIEWER ( can be settled and thus justice reestablished. sion that a symbolic debt relating to mortality Hamlet’s father is the effect of the terminal delu you believe in ghosts? mouth then in the direction of the playwright ghosts appear. mist characteristic or fog amidst which fictional regard to the specter even in the of absence the him too. In turn, Hamlet’s gaze is askew with ghost, the latter’s gaze is awry with respect to when in the clear air Hamlet stands before the rect request for else:someone Hamlet. Yet late king’s ghost is seeking, and thus as an indi that none indication of them is the person the guards his his misconstrue averting gaze as an laid on his whereabouts. Horatio and the two from the original understand why this change in this adaptation you? of your father. THE ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: We saw the spirit had trouble with yesterday. We’ll redo today the scenes or parts of scenes we let me tell you. holding the microphone first to his “ Most constantly” to “No”?

): Do - - -

They swear. ACTOR PLAYING THE GHOST ( ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Swear by my sword. PROMPTER: Swear by my sword. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Never to speak of this that ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: Propose the oath, my lord. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Ha, ha, boy, sayest thou ACTOR PLAYING THE GHOST ( ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Indeed, upon my sword, ACTOR PLAYING MARCELLUS: We have sworn, my He holds out his sword. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Upon my sword. ACTOR PLAYING MARCELLUS: Nor I, my lord, in faith. ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: In faith, my lord, not I. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Nay, but swear’t. THE TWO ACTORS PLAYING HORATIO AND ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Never make known what ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: What is’t, my lord? Swear. Consent to swear. Come on. You hear this fellow in the cellarage. Swear. MARCELLUS: My lord, we will not. For your desire to know what is between us, We will. Give me one poor request. As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends, indeed. you have seen … so? Art thou there, truepenny? lord, already. you have seen tonight. from under the stage cries under the stage

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21 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 22 THEATER DIRECTOR: In his “to be, or not to be—that ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Why should I listen to the PLAYWRIGHT: To listen to a prompter who does not ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Well said, old mole! Canst They swear. ACTOR PLAYING THE GHOST ( PROMPTER: Swear … ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: cal injustice is forgetful of the forgery tion by revealing an ostensibly unknown histori any specter who comes back asking for retribu the ghost of King Hamlet is a forgetful creature; sively enjoining Prince Hamlet to remember, (Is it odd to forget the revenant? Although obses a messenger between life and death: the ghost. not and neither is nor is not, and as such acts as is the question,” Hamlet forgets what is and is Not to Be to be”? Is this a tribute to Lubitsch’s film prompter before saying the words “to be, or not one who has forgotten the play’s lines. to be placed in the structural position of some has forgotten them, but does so continuously, is utter the lines only when he senses that the actor A worthy pioneer!

… by his sword. Never to speak of this that you have heard. Swear by my sword And lay your hands again upon my sword. Come hither, gentlemen,

not to be—that is the question” is a symptom the realm of undeath.) Since Hamlet’s “to be, or substitutions that happen in his prison house, work i’th’earth so fast? shift our ground. ?

Hic et ubique

from under the stage

? Then we’ll 10 and To Be or

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ACTOR WHO IS TO PLAY THE KING IN ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET ( PLAYWRIGHT ( ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: God’s bodykins, man, ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Should I then play the words, words, the play I then Should HAMLET: ACTOR PLAYING THEATER DIRECTOR: No, because this utterance ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS ( her own image. to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up pose of playing, whose end, both at the first and Gonzago): Anything so o’erdone is from the pur players who are going to perform disregarding them. something redeeming and revelatory about their his instructions, yet he intuits that there may be pects that the players are not going to follow own honor and dignity. who shall ’scape whipping? Use them after your much better! Use every man after his desert, and of obliviousness, you are advised to play it as if ing for the prompter to remind you of it. you have forgotten it, that is, as if you were wait return from both from that undiscovered country. One cannot rather indicate that the ghost does not come gotten the specter he encountered, for it could does not necessarily show that Hamlet has for “death, / The undiscovered country, from whose whose bourn / from No traveller returns,”country, in the same manner? undiscovered The / “death, OF GONZAGO players characteristics of the dead’s prison house? 11:25). Who then displays to Hamlet some of the unless one is resurrected by “the life” (John indifferently with us, sir. their desert. ): My lord, I will use them according to to the interviewer : I hope we have reformed that death and the labyrinth addressing the three concerning the diegetic ): Hamlet sus The Murder of THE MURDER 11 — -

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23 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 24 PLAYWRIGHT: As far as I know, the theoreticians INTERVIEWER: What are you trying to accomplish show of protestation unto the king. Within the dumb show, the queen kneels, and makes ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET ( queen embracing him, and he her. [players as] a king and a queen very lovingly, the The trumpets sound. Dumb show follows. Enter ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET ( and noise”? front of them about “inexplicable dumb shows forming a dumb show? Have I not inveighed in Observe my uncle. Even with the very comment of thy soul Horatio not disclose about “his” prison house. ers “’ll tell all”: even that which the ghost could Shakespeare’s art and even to Hamlet. The play fest and accomplish is to do a great injustice to ing for, Hamlet only what he wanted it to mani prefaces it—as manifesting to, and accomplish within the play—including the dumb show that or director intended it to reveal. To read the play cessful play reveals more than the playwright catch the king’s conscience for others. Any suc est ghost.” Through the play, Hamlet wants to what the specter advanced? No: “It is an hon does Hamlet need a confirmation for himself of catch the king’s conscience in a mirror. And yet fest one that Hamlet explicates in a soliloquy: to the play within the play, reducing it to the mani were virtually unanimous about the purport of and critics who offered interpretations of with this adaptation of Shakespeare’s play? ): I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

aside to the actor playing ): Why are they per

Hamlet ------

He, along with the others, seems to discover the dead The poisoner, along with two men, comes in again. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: I could interpret between ACTRESS PLAYING OPHELIA: You are as good as a ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Madam, how like you this ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: This is one Lucianus, Enter the third player, as Lucianus. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: This play is the image of sleeper’s ears, and leaves him. Within the dumb show, the man pours poison in the ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: The players cannot keep ACTRESS PLAYING OPHELIA: What means this, crown; kisses it. leaves him. Anon comes in another man; takes off his down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, and declines his head upon her neck. He lies him Within the dumb show, the king takes the queen up, ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: O, but she’ll keep her word. ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: The lady dallying. you and your love if I could see the puppets

a knavish piece of work. name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. ’Tis a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s

chorus, my lord. nephew to the king. counsel. They’ll tell all. play? my lord? doth protest too much, methinks.

25 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 26 ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Forth at your puppet—in the direction of Ophelia. moves somnambulistically—in the manner of a By now entranced, Hamlet does not answer, but ACTRESS PLAYING OPHELIA: Belike this show (to the side) dumb show. and the late king during the earlier entry. Exeunt gestures of the two reflect exactly those of the queen seems harsh awhile, but in the end accepts love. The comes in again with the queen and woos her. She body. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner PLAYWRIGHT ( ACTRESS PLAYING OPHELIA: Pale as his shirt, his already during already the during dumb unable show—is to king to begins some manifest subtle reaction tion to Claudius’s reac incriminating subsequent show’s two kings, and thus King misses either he doubling sees in the gestures of the dumb act,criminal Hamlet gets by entranced the ter in apprehends the play, as in a mirror, his to catch of the conscience the king as the lat to be by performed them, and himself readying what is to be said by the players and how it is to everything the minutest detail as to both To speak of horrors—he comes before me. As if he had been loosed out of hell And with a look so piteous in purport Start up and stand on end. Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, And, as the sleeping soldiers in th’alarm,

eyes your spirits wildly peep, imports the argument of the play. knees knocking each other, The Murder The of Murder Gonzago to to the interviewer ): Having prepared

, or—in case the the case or—in ,

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ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Methinks it is like a ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: By th’mass, and ’tis like ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Upon the talk of the ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: Very well, my lord. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Didst perceive? Exeunt (to the side) all but Hamlet and Horatio. ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: Lights, lights, lights! without apprehending what the words signify—by: Hamlet is partly awakened from his trance—but ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: It is backed like a ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: My lord, the queen Enter (from the side) Polonius. ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Aha! Come, some music! ACTOR PLAYING HORATIO: I did very well note him. The director pushes the playback button ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: Very like a whale. ( ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Or like a whale. notic notic amnesia. remember what remember he saw then owing to posthyp

he being flippant? ate between a camel, a weasel, and a whale, or is Is he still entranced, so that he cannot differenti weasel. a camel indeed. that’s almost in shape of a camel? would speak with you, and presently. poisoning? weasel.

Exeunt Horatio. .

Aside

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27 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 28 TAPE: Fittingly the effect of the revelation of gener PROMPTER: … a state where one can mistake as TAPE: … where one can mistake as identical differ playback button. prompter’s words. The director pushes again the replacing what was originally on the tape with the he inadvertently presses the RECORD button, thus buttons, but instead of pushing the STOP button, director reflexivily presses on one of the recorder’s Startled by the interjection of the prompter, the PLAYWRIGHT: May I remind you that we are on INTERVIEWER: Why do you need a tape recorder Enter Hamlet in his mother’s closet. cal things. identical different things, and as different identi alized substitution is entrancement … taking place at the court, that Gertrude begins that follows it, which act as mirrors of the events It is clear from both the dumb show and the play that the latter undergoes in the undeath realm. tion of the lost love reflects the substitutions in the remaining cases the survivor’s substitu the lost love object signals a resolved mourning, in most instances the survivor’s substitution of has gone far deeper in mourning than him. While either a disgraceful lascivious mother or one who marriage to the brother of her late husband: alternatives with regard to his mother’s hasty Hamlet is that he is faced with two monstrous phone and recorder stage—with its asides? ( when I already have one? ent things, and as different identical things. ) The dilemma of Prince Aside, into his micro - - - - - THEATER DIRECTOR ( PLAYWRIGHT: Carmelo Bene recalls in an interview INTERVIEWER: No, please, I am very interested. PLAYWRIGHT: Oh, let us set what I said aside. INTERVIEWER: So? Gertrude than in the world at large? is easier to be that on the stage, with its asides, bitionist among the blind. Don’t you agree that it Cocteau’s proposition that the artist is an exhi that would allow him to take revenge. yet another effort to recuperate the difference vis-à-vis the queen in the dumb show, he makes guishability of the gestures of the two brothers time he sees and is entranced by the indistin his mother is already virtually established by the ior. Although Prince Hamlet’s reconciliation with rately and literally applies to the queen’s behav in marriage” is merely diplomatic and sly, it accu Claudius’s “with mirth in funeral and with dirge dissuades him from killing his mother. While King a sexual relationship with the brother of her of infidelity and fidelity with regard to the dead Dies”)! Hamlet’s intuition of this indiscernibility Coppola’s ent manners, counterexamples to the tagline of (Orpheus and is, accompanies beyond the threshold of death the case of ers, despite their different physiognomies. In perceives any difference between the two broth [including Claudius] dead King Hamlet feels ing the substitutions in that realm—where the of death-as-undeath, following and accept love for her late husband crosses the threshold late husband only after the latter’s death. Her ): Up till she learns from Hamlet that her Bram Stoker’s Dracula Hamlet Hamlet addressing the actress playing ’s Gertrude, love dies, that is I ’s Gertrude are, in differ —so that she no longer every name in history , “Love Never - - - - 12 - - -

29 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 30 PLAYWRIGHT: This is merely the inmost part that ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: No, by the rood, not so! ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Have you ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: What’s the matter now? ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Why, how PLAYWRIGHT ( ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Mother, you have my ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Hamlet, thou can be reached by a glass, thus not the inmost Where you may see the inmost part of you. You go not till I set you up a glass And, would it were not so, you are my mother.… You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife, the dead assumes all the names of history. ness, which is related to the circumstance that marriage,” is overlaid on unconscious guiltless conscious guilt, revealed by her “our o’er-hasty to the brother of her late husband, Gertrude’s our throne, … our son”; in relation to her marriage regarding him, “You are the most immediate to derous wishes toward the one who declared better my mother had not borne me”), and mur “I could accuse me of such things that it were you are my mother” (he also says to Ophelia: whom he confesses, “And, would it were not so, Oedipal incestuous desires for his mother, to scious guilt relating to more or less repressed conscious innocence is superimposed on uncon

diate to our throne, … our son.” Claudius say to Hamlet: “You are the most imme Her entrancement is deepest when she hears should be played as an entranced woman. late husband died an unnatural death, Gertrude forgot me? now, Hamlet? father much offended. hast thy father much offended. to the interviewer ): While Hamlet’s

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PLAYWRIGHT: “I hate to be bothered when I am INTERVIEWER: I have been told by some people, part part that, as in the case of the vampire, would not dead (Holofernes). sance Barker are tempted to tarry and witness the a future adaptation by some director other than May curtains fall before the audience members of sex with the corpse of the murdered Holofernes. Holofernes). Toward dawn, she insists on having dead, severed—thus parting from itself—body of ers another sense when she later parts from the here it is a parting from her body (the title cov play— ing from the body evoked in the title of Barker’s one site where and one sense in which the part is the vampire, and the undead in general. That is Which figure has provided us with this image? It it? before not eyes.”and mirror the before is Who implying that the continuation would be: “… his would play these words as if she is interrupted, the legions of mediocre actors and actresses, to undress? An average director, not to speak of acters’ lines.) Is she thus also encouraging herself italics, than the ones to be gleaned from the char play’s directions are often less those, explicit, in the mirror and not before—( in their nakedness.” She says: “As if I were before that people who do so would be “so humiliated ficult to do so, most probably because she feels Judith to undress. She finds it prohibitively dif Howard Barker’s General Holofernes orders thinking about death.” ( rary theater. adaptation, that you despise much of contempo including the actor playing Polonius in your appear in the mirror. of the dead (Judith) fucking the (headless) Judith: A Parting from the Body Aside, into his microphone She freezes —applies: ).” (The jouis ------)

31 Jalal Toufic Gertrude; or, Love Dies 32 ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alas, he’s ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Save me and hover o’er Enter Ghost ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: What wilt PROMPTER ( ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Do you not come your ACTOR PLAYING THE GHOST: Do not forget. This ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alas, how is’t ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: How is it with you, lady? You heavenly guards! What would your gracious Help, help, ho! And with th’incorporal air do hold discourse? That you do bend your eye on vacancy, the ghost are in principle able to take a swift revenge. ( generalized substitution in the undeath realm Only those who persist in being insensitive to this his being late in avenging the late King Hamlet. or at least delays Hamlet’s revenge, resulting in indefinitely into generalized substitution inhibits ing the ghost of his father he would project him Speak to her, Hamlet. O, step between her and her fighting soul! … But look, amazement on thy mother sits. Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. Th’important acting of your dread command? That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by figure? mad! me with your wings, thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? with you, visitation O, say! tardy son to chide, . ) Do not forget … aside

): The presentment that by aveng

To To

-

ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Do you see nothing ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: O me, what ACTOR PLAYING POLONIUS: O, I am slain! Polonius. He makes a thrust through the arras and kills ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET ( ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: No, nothing ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Nor did you nothing hear? PROMPTER ( PLAYWRIGHT: Not suspecting that her late king was Exit Ghost. PLAYWRIGHT: It is because Gertrude is already vir ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: Nothing at appear again. dered, she would perceive his specter were it to infidelity. Once she suspects that he was mur that her replacement of him by Claudius is an natural gifts were poor / To those of mine!” so others, saying about Claudius, “A wretch whose am thy father’s spirit,” and his difference from still asserts his identity, declaring to Hamlet, “I between life and death, a revenant, one who thus identities, in undeath, but rather in the realm the realm of substitutions and intermingling of murdered, she does not sense that he is not in enant who is coming back to ask for retribution. the guards and Horatio, does not see the rev tually to the other side of death that she, unlike

hast thou done? there? now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead! but ourselves. all; yet all that is I see. to Hamlet ): Nor did you nothing hear? drawing his sword ): How

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33 Jalal Toufic A Fourth Wall that Proved to Be a Radical Closure’s 34 Gateless Gate ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: A bloody deed—almost as ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Nay, I know not. Is it the ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: O, what a ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET ( THEATER DIRECTOR: That too is not your line. ACTOR PLAYING KING CLAUDIUS: Sorry. THEATER DIRECTOR: That’s not your line. ACTOR PLAYING KING CLAUDIUS: Polonius may utter ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Ay lady, it was my word. ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: As kill a king! Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled Is apoplexed. For madness would not err, Else could you not have motion. But sure that Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, And waits upon the judgment; and what The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble, You cannot call it love, for at your age And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear, This was your husband. Look you now what The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.… Look here upon this picture, and on this, in the undeath realm: “I, Claudius.” I took thee for thy better. Polonius ( As kill a king, and marry with his brother. He parts the arras and discovers the dead sense you have, judgment follows: farewell! bad, good mother, rash and bloody deed is this! king? ) Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool,

addressing the queen

):

where he sits in a reserved front row seat. The actor the wings, rather in the direction of the auditorium, Exeunt the director in frustration, but not toward ACTRESS PLAYING QUEEN GERTRUDE: O Hamlet, THEATER DIRECTOR ( PLAYWRIGHT: Hamlet ends up making her faithful But it reserved some quantity of choice proceeds to shut them Eyes without feeling ( That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind? To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t like this! his rehearsing role as the ghost. We can’t go on were once again straight looking at the actor ( acting vivaciously, and just before moments that out …”feeling Yet just ago moments you were But sure that sense / Is / apoplexed.… Eyes with sure you have, / Else could you not have motion. how the queen is by described Hamlet: “Sense locutors, the of demeanor a zombie, since that is as assume much as possible, with all your inter playing Gertrude and ( I repeatedly told you to look awry at the ghost, tions and forgery underwent by the dead. as-undead king and oblivious to the substitu murdered father, but unfaithful to the late dead- to the ghost and to the historical memory of his As will not leave their tinct. And there I see such black and grained spots Thou turnest mine eyes into my very soul, now addressing now the Hamlet actor playing addressing Radical Closure’s Gateless Gate Appendix: A Fourth Wall that Proved to Be a speak no more. he he turns toward and the addresses actress ) ) I repeatedly told you to to the actor playing Hamlet

he sees Polonius’s eyes and ) …

) ) you

- ):

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35 Jalal Toufic A Fourth Wall that Proved to Be a Radical Closure’s 36 Gateless Gate SOURCELESS VOICE: You go not till I set you up a box, he begins moving in the direction of the director. Having plunged his mock sword in the prompter’s ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING HAMLET ( ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING THE QUEEN: No, noth ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING HAMLET: Nor did you then turns abruptly, having heard a sound. who was playing Hamlet follows him with his eyes, THE TWO ACTORS WHO WERE PLAYING HORATIO & ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING THE QUEEN: Bravo! ahead, hits against the fourth wall and falls He manages to gather enough determination to move ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING THE QUEEN: He hesitates after a few steps ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING MARCELLUS: That ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING HORATIO: Was that line between us and the audience? side? Why are you acting as if there is a glass wall MARCELLUS: Why don’t you cross to the other you perform. That was the best miming gesture I have seen He See? glass. sword ing but ourselves. nothing hear? was inserted in my mind. We both had this is exactly how I too feel. It is as if that line feel that I was reading your mind. yours? I don’t feel it was mine, but I also do not ): How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead! I mean: What did he hear? … 13 drawing his What Did . - ACTOR WHO WAS FUNCTIONING AS THE PROMPTER: ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING OPHELIA: Look, span the theater space in several directions. characteristic strings appear all of a sudden and The other actors also begin to look around ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING THE QUEEN ( ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING THE GHOST: Where here? ACTOR WHO WAS FUNCTIONING AS THE PROMPTER: ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING HAMLET: This stage’s a ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING THE GHOST: I underwent ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING OPHELIA: Did you feel ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING MARCELLUS: How did it stage. direction of the director. He recoils before exiting the The actor who was playing the ghost walks in the What are they doing here? strings! shifter. around So, here we are … prison. feeling. there; I must have felt nothing and recoiled into a space where one feels absolutely nothing? I got a sort of anesthesia at that point. Can one cross touching space itself? ple or things? Or did you feel that finally you were schizophrenics feel sometimes on touching peo you were touching a glass wall, the way certain momentary concordance through a thought that feel when you reached that belonged to neither! ): How would I know? “Here” is a deictic, a gateless gate . Foreman’s looking ? -

37 Jalal Toufic If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? No 38 ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING THE KING IN THE DUMB ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING THE GHOST: Describe articulate belong? To whom do the latter words and the thought they two actors who were playing Horatio and Marcellus. was playing Hamlet, and another one between the one in the space next to the mouth of the actor who Two balloons containing visible words have irrupted, ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING OPHELIA: Look, words! ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING HAMLET: But why did he THE THREE ACTORS WHO PERFORMED other trajectories. paths of the strings, whereas before they could trace less gate, the characters’ movements follow only the cal closure delimited by the fourth wall as a gate Following the appearance of the strings in the radi the words he would use for the description turn SHOW: How would he be able to describe them if of what substance? them. How do they feel? Are they physical? If so, about melancholia and the realm of undeath? disobedience discloses a deeper characteristic back to their customary ways of acting, and this disobey director Hamlet’s instructions, going of become so cross with us when in his adaptation real world. acters who cannot exit the diegetic world to the this space, exactly as if we were fictional char ror up to nature,” have become imprisoned in psychologically while holding “as ’twere the mir tried but failed to impersonate the characters contrary to the diegetic director’s instructions MURDER OF GONZAGO The Murder of Gonzago : It is ironic that we, who he makes the actors THE -

- - - saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.’ She [a French Have we Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and in Lynch’s films paintings these curtains seem similar to the ones in Magritte’s of one of the limits of the radical closure. Some of viewer; the latter curtain functions as a demarcation and between them and the playwright and his inter Curtains suddenly appear amidst the performers ACTOR WHO WAS PLAYING HAMLET: Words, words, ACTRESS WHO WAS PLAYING OPHELIA: Vmber … a the stage are the curtains from view—so that all there remains visible on mance: first hiding the playwright and the interviewer curtain closes in two stages at the end of the perfor the curtains on the stage’s left side and center, a front gradually resulted in their becoming invisible behind performer who utters it). Their interactions having irrupt, it is experienced as a thought insertion by the tion by the performers (if such an extra text does ing the performance other than through improvisa closure whether any extra text is going to irrupt dur performance of a written play instancing a radical out themselves to be material and external to words. hot, or my complection … trennowed. heaue, a kissing hill … so loued Arm’d … sully and him? Dedicated to the living memory of Gilles Deleuze, If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? One cannot predict in relation to any specific not eyes Evening Falls ? No: “He [a Japanese man]: ‘You Blue Velvet , 1964, and a non-revengeful philosopher 15 1992 —then the whole stage. . , 1986, and 14

Mona Lisa No Twin , 1967,

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39 Jalal Toufic If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? No 40 beyond all doubt for me as I distinctly remember the which, however unbelievable it may sound, was the abdominal cavity and into the thighs, a process excluded. Food and drink taken simply poured into soul-character, absolutely divine rays perhaps mind’; great changeability is a marked feature of the W.’s soul during the meal ‘because of a change of ach, was usually removed again miraculously by v. duced by miracles, in any case only an inferior stom never lasted long; the stomach which had been pro showed a friendly spirit towards me. Naturally this which in at least some of its forms sometimes cles. This was done particularly by von W.’s soul, stomach was so to speak produced stomach. Sometimes immediately before meals a remember, that I could not eat because I had no ach; I expressly told the attendant M., as he may Paul Schreber: “I existed frequently without a stom Patrick Bokanowski’s we by what? [Who decides what stands fast?]”) whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested shouldn’t I test my eyes by looking to find out I don’t know why I should trust my eyes. For why sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then ask me ‘Have you got two hands?’ I should not make amour Nothing.’” ered had fallen out.…’ ‘You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Hiroshima, when they awoke in the morning, discov … [at] anonymous heads of hair that the women of thoughtfully at the iron … made vulnerable as flesh times at the museum in Hiroshima.… I … looked Hiroshima. You saw nothing in Hiroshima’ … ‘Four sure I did.…’ ‘You did not see the hospital in Everything woman visiting the city]: ‘I saw not hands ) (Ludwig Wittgenstein: “If a blind man were to 16 .… The hospital, for instance, I saw it. I’m (Marguerite Duras, [?] No—the man without hands in L’Ange . Organs everything Hiroshima mon ad hoc [?] No—Daniel . by mira 17 Have

- - - - - pharynx which were torn or vanished repeatedly, further the death, had won promotion, was still under thirty and gone through the whole show, … European War, Septimus of Virginia Woolf’s mediation of the senses.” fied powers of concentration instead of through the experiences them directly through its own intensi cease to experience external phenomena but merely sions caused by sensory activity. The mind does not isolate and free the mind from the involuntary intru of the senses to external objects, thus helping to tion. The goal of aspirant to [the] fifth of the eight stages intended to lead the senses”), “in the Yoga system of Indian philosophy, achieved sensation. In the case of any other human being this I will only mention the without having a stomach.… Of other internal organs repeatedly went ahead with eating unperturbed, was soaked up again by the rays. Later, I therefore not damage my body because all impure matter in it an inevitably fatal outcome; but the food pulp could would have resulted in natural pus formation with able onset.” quency (up to several times per day), and unpredict duration (generally less than an hour), variable fre perceived size of a form. Such episodes are of short ment (macropsia) or reduction (micropsia) in the various ways (metamorphopsia), including enlarge objects or body parts are perceived as altered in cinations and perceptual distortions, during which characterized by transient episodes of visual hallu Carroll’s titular character, [and which] is a disorder Wonderland syndrome, [which is] named for Lewis Dimensions , which I partly ate up several times.” pratyahara samadhi [?] Not if one is subject to “the Alice in 19

Senses pratyahara , the state of perfect concentra (Sanskrit: “withdrawal of the [?] Not if one is a yogi who has gullet 20

Affections is to arrest the reaction and the Mrs. Dalloway intestines [?] No—the “had 18

, ------

41 Jalal Toufic If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? No 42 imagination, indeed was forced on to me by what another terrifying possibility which occupied my middle of the night in order to be drowned was hurt by the voices (“To be torn from the cell in the the same means weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by Scholium). Part II, Scholium 2, and Part V, Proposition 20, they constitute the least part of the mind” ( pletely destroy them, at least it brings it about that as they are passive emotions, if it does not com edge whose basis is the knowledge of God. Insofar knowledge, and especially the third kind of knowl effective against the emotions is clear and distinct essence of things. So … we readily conceive how attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain knowledge: “This kind of knowledge proceeds from Not if we have achieved Spinoza’s third kind of “Painting of a Rice-cake”). other than a painted rice-cake” (Zen master Dōgen, this is so, there is no remedy for satisfying hunger dha ancestors are actualized from a painting. Since human existence appears from a painting, and bud entire world and all phenomena are a painting, painted buddhas are actual buddhas.… Because the der-claps of fear. He could not feel.” had, especially in the evening, these sudden thun was all over, truce signed, and the dead buried, he was on him—that he could not feel. For now that it he became engaged one evening when the panic making hats, and to Lucrezia, the younger daughter, flowers in tubs, little tables in the open, daughters leted in the house of an innkeeper with a courtyard, indifference. When peace came he was in Milan, bil shells missed him. He watched them explode with was bound to survive. He was right there. The last 22

Fed with the same food [?] No, Daniel Paul Schreber was 23

Hurt with the same [?] No: “All 21

Passions Ethics [?] - - - , - - like a frozen hydraulic jack … his metabolism good but INSIDE so he can sit around with a spine wants His Junk—NOT OUTSIDE where it does him no be Cool-Cooler-COLD. But he wants The Cold like he con. A junky does not want to be warm, he wants to lars and clutching their withered necks…. Pure junk Cold Christian is? and cooled by the same winter and summer as a cure temporary rest for my nerves” and shameless twaddle of the voices, and so pro make some noise, in order to drown the senseless when I could not help myself but speak aloud or was said by the voices” as a result of bombardments or otherwise), I already spective of any wounds suffered in my life (whether tainly do not need such a demonstration since, irre in south Lebanon. With my affinity to Shi‘ism, I cer tain that we too bleed without having to bombard us of the Israelis, so that they would be able to ascer demonstration, it would be one only for the benefit onstration that Shi‘ites too can bleed? If indeed a its documentation of ritualistic bloodletting, a dem ‘Āshūrā’: This Blood Spilled in My Veins necessarily because of the prick. Was my video If you prick us, do we not bleed? approaching Absolute ZERO” (pure) rays in turn healed this damage.” some other destructive effect in it. The blessing germ of disease into the body or brought about other putrid matter, and therefore carried some mer were laden with the poison of corpses or some distinguished ‘searing’ and ‘blessing’ rays; the for removed again in the same way by rays,” germs only arise in me through rays and are immune to all natural disease influences; disease in his memoirs, “Even now I am convinced that I am as they call it, turning up their black coat col No: “Junkies always beef about 24 ; “there had been times 28 (William S. Burroughs). Burroughs). S. (William No, or at least not 25 ), and asserted , 1996, with 27 26

Warmed and, “One The ------

43 Jalal Toufic If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? No 44 would be persecuted for the attempted murder of a so without spilling one jot of blood, otherwise he of flesh from the latter’s body, but that he has to do tract signed by his debtor Antonio to cut one pound Scene 1]), that he is indeed permitted by the con mies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew” [Act 3, my / bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine / ene mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, / it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and / what’s that good for?” “… If it will feed nothing else, / sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take / his flesh: Shylock, a revengeful person (Salarino: “Why, I am The Merchant of Venice veins, someone affined to Shi‘ism. In Shakespeare’s the psychosomatic type; the blood spilled stigmata of some saints and of some hysterics of bleed, do so without being pricked or wounded: the do we not bleed?” by those who, although they the ostensibly rhetorical question, “If you prick us, revengeful person. A disturbance is introduced in stration that if pricked, Shi‘ites bleed: I am not a This Blood Spilled in My Veins that is, that I am bleeding in my veins. But feel even the blood in my veins to be spilled blood, stopped? Had Shakespeare’s play proceeded not only revenge but also revengefulness have been Christian—is still a revengeful gesture. Could not spilling blood and of possibly causing the death of a Antonio’s flesh to take one pound of it—for fear of Shylock’s desistance from making an incision in “If you prick us [Christians], do we not bleed?”? implying to Shylock during her defense of Antonio: she is a revengeful person? Was it not enough her punishments that Shylock is to suffer to know that discourse of Portia-as-lawyer when she lists all the Christian. Did I need to reach the latter part of the , the lawyer informs the Jew is not really a demon ‘Āshūrā’: in my - - - with the lawyer’s refusal of Shylock’s belated pro gee camps? cring the Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refu and their accomplice, the Israeli army, from massa bleeding have stopped the Christian Phalangists, revengeful logic of similarity. Would psychosomatic to take revenge while taking away from him the would have provided Shylock with the opportunity does not bleed Shylock and the lawyer, that when pricked Antonio have made apparent to all those present, including contours of the specified area for the incision would body]). Untouched Antonio’s bleeding at the precise area that was pierced by a lance in crucified Jesus’s somatically or in a saintly manner [from the same have been indiscernible from blood seeping psycho externally inflicted wound in Antonio’s side would disguises herself as a man, etc., the blood from an yer and his subordinate, where Shylock’s daughter woman and her maid assume the role of a male law the wounds inflicted by him (in this play where a incontestably proven that the spilled blood is from have cut the pound of flesh and nothing would have opportunity to take revenge, since he could then the incision would have provided Shylock with the ing at the precise contours of the specified area for bly have been stopped. Untouched Antonio’s bleed contract, revengefulness on both sides could possi the precise contours of the area specified in the lance in crucified Jesus’s body) or hysterically—at (along roughly the same area that was pierced by a sudden bleeding—whether in a saintly manner including still untouched Antonio, with the latter’s him by the lawyer; but, to everyone’s surprise, religious—conversion—to financial, imposed on revengeful long list of punishments, ranging from posal to settle for money, and the subsequent If you tickle us, do we not laugh? as a result of that . Such bleeding I, for ------

45 Jalal Toufic If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed? No 46 less laughable, so that I would be able to laugh again have already given several books is that it become ies that laughable. All I ask of this world to which I stop, dying of it: she did not find present-day societ ger of her starting laughing and not managing to certainly surpass hers. As for her, there was no dan normal state of consciousness, my laughter would pot. Yet I am sure that were I to start laughing in my extended laughter on the few instances I smoked everything on and on. I never had this kind of marijuana my ex-girlfriend would giggle virtually at not be able to stop. I remember how when high on able that were I to start laughing I am afraid I would because I find this historical period largely so laugh one, don’t, and not because I am depressed, but laughed themselves to death! That happened when light’—that is a lie! On the contrary: they once— merry, divine ending! They did not ‘fade away in twi long since met their end—and truly, they had a fine, death from laughter: “With the old gods, they have epoch, even the divinities are not immune to this thy which one feels—that is divine.” In a laughable found understanding, the emotion and the sympa and afford the sublimity of: “To see tragic natures sink in a less laughable age than this one for him to still humorous thinker Nietzsche must have been living sad than to laughing at laughable phenomena. The prone to let down my guard when it comes to being than of melancholic suicide, and thus I am more and an Iraqi in specific, I fear dying of laughter more period of the utmost sadness for an Arab in general, but also through being so laughable. Even in this the barbarisms and genocides it has perpetuated, This era has made me somber not only through all before my somberness becomes second nature. without dying of it—and that it does this soon, to be able to laugh at them , despite the pro ------become one of the salient features of my life. heightened vigilance against starting to laugh has was warranted. But from that day on an even more know whether the intense apprehension I felt then defense mechanism. Four months later, I still do not proving this time inadequate to do the job as a not be able to stop, even my aroused seriousness laugh on reading some of the listed names I would apprehension verging on anxiety: that starting to section in question, I was suddenly seized by an People.” Flipping through the pages to get to the Its cover story was: “America’s 25 Most Influential the adjoining rack, I saw the current issue of Bundy, Los Angeles. Amidst the many magazines on ter at the Ralphs was standing in a fairly long line at a checkout coun respect, I reached a critical point on June 20, 1996. I this seriousness not to expire in laughter. In this period one has to look among the serious, who enough; to find the most humorous people in such a people in laughable periods are not humorous work humorous—without dying of that? All funny Richard Foreman’s work, or for that matter my early humor? Can present-day humorous people still find deprived us of a major facet of these works: their Beckett, Thomas Bernhard? Has this age not in history, can one still laugh on reading Nietzsche, Hīnayāna Buddhism); or because we have become extended one: the death and rebirth cycles of treacherously murdered King Hamlet; or an unfinished business (in a restrained perspective: lutely from poisoning, whether because we have poison us, do we not die? the most godless saying proceeded from a god him Apostates,” other gods before me!’” (Nietzsche, “Of the self, the saying: ‘There is one God! You shall have no Thus Spoke Zarathustra

supermarket on Wilshire and No, we cannot die abso ). 29 At this point Time 30 need

If you - . - -

47 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 48 humanism (don’t we too reason, Spoke Zarathustra revengeful, regardless of any wrong suffered, and than no revenge at all” Nietzsche wrote: “A little revenge is more human ity is a revengeful one, is a discourse of revenge. every discourse that invokes a fundamental similar that we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in nor just because revenge is one more similarity etc., i.e., on one who can be affected by the revenge; take revenge only on what has senses, affections, one. It is revengeful neither simply because one can thinking that dwells on similarity is a revengeful detected and intimated that such a manner of not revenge? Merchant of Venice that directly follows the preceding ones from we undergo already undead even as we live, and that as undead against murder is rather that we are mortals, hence from murdering us. What should persuade us vent us from murdering others and to prevent others (don’t we too cry, laugh, biologically die, etc.?) to pre be only the revengeful morality of identification simply biologically die and are no more, there would Were we only the living, who at some future date is nothing but death” [“Birth and Death” ( In birth there is nothing but birth and in death there entire period of itself, with its own past and future.… own past and future.… Death is a phase that is an is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its mistake to suppose that birth turns into death. Birth death not leading to life (Zen master Dōgen: “It is a death are fully in death, life not leading to death, ness, and now when in life are fully in life, when in fundamentally liberated from any unfinished busi [Act III, Scene I]); but as such. Yes, ultimately, every name in history is I How insightful of Shakespeare to have ). Wouldn’t that be also because is: and if you wrong us shall we 31 (“Of the Adder’s Bite,” 32 weep . The question 33 … ?) is Shōji The )]). Thus

( if - - -

cerning cerning them only with a voice-over-witness able (even if one is able to write and speak con tration and extermination camps, are not unspeak by schizophrenics, etc.), and therefore the concen ān,Qur’ Dante, Hieronymus Bosch, many accounts able, the Apocalypse or Hell (see the Bible, the cabalists are certainly beyond speech, unspeak While the God of the Nizārīs and the En-Sof of the and resulting in yet other, novel kinds of revenge. even or especially when it invokes a tolerant coexis around ing or undoing the generalized revengefulness to such revengeful questions experiments in evad many of the aforementioned manners of saying no tence based on a fundamental similarity? And aren’t ( between the esoteric ( orful language of the messianists. ‘grayer’ language” (Paul Celan), or the dazzling, col disaster is either a “more sober, more factual … ing in Hiroshima.” there has been a withdrawal: “You have seen noth of Hiroshima and speaking about it, it stresses that effects and aftereffects of the nuclear conflagration mon amour withdrawal. The tact of Resnais/Duras’s implied attendant disregard of the consequent sanctions on Iraq, etc., that is indecent; it is any rule in Cambodia, the genocidal US-imposed UN genocide, Auschwitz, the Khmer Rouge 1974–1977 the atomic devastation of Hiroshima, the Rwandan is not speaking about the surpassing disasters of ẓāhir ) is to consider it a consequence of individual Forthcoming One way of viewing the difference in Islam What is appropriate past the surpassing 34 —unfortunately, in some instances failing is that while showing some of the bāṭin ) and the exoteric Hiroshima 36 ). It - - 35 ------

49 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 50 raise all the available the caliph, when Mu‘āwiya ordered his army both to renegade Mu‘āwiya was tilting toward a victory by between the fourth caliph, ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib, and the “extremist” Shi‘ites ( the initiate the differentiation between the what one encounters in Sufism. But Sufism did not otherwise have taken only in a literal sense: this is Muslims to other meanings of what they might spiritual encounters and events alerting some while tramplingān copies Qur’ and slaughtering of horsemen shouting with reverence his name lances, he, known for his vaticinal gifts, had a vision unsettling sight of the copies of ān the on Qur’ the was on the point of acquiescing when, catching the and feeling deserted by many of his followers, ‘Alī obstinate and insolent pressure of the dissenters, I imagine that becoming weary of resisting the cerning whether or not to discontinue the battle. duels, continued to be cited during the debate con during their declamations preceding their individual ān,Qur’ extensively cited by many of the combatants ers pressured him to put a stop to the battle. The in ‘Alī’s camp, a large group of the caliph’s follow happened. Led by a band ofān recitersQur’ ( were raised on lances. What Mu‘āwiya hoped for so copies of ān the availableQur’ to the Syrian army b. ‘Affān (d. 656)! Lo and behold the five hundred or ān in Qur’ the final years of the third caliph, ‘Uthmān after the recension of the canonical version of the fulfilled My favor unto you …”; and only a few years “This day have I perfected for you your religion and delivered to his community the last revealed words: in 657, barely twenty-five years after Muḥammad authoritative in our dispute.” This order was given on their lances and to say: “Their contents are to be ẓāhir ; such a distinction first appeared among ghulāt maṣāḥif ). The battle of Ṣiffīn (copies of ān) the Qur’ bāṭin qurrā’ and - ) - pilgrims. I imagine him disconcerted to hear in the the Book should and can be the sole arbitrator. Only quent arbitration between ‘Alī and Mu‘āwiya, since absoluteness of ā n,the Qur’ refusing the subse withdrawal, asserted all the more vehemently the of ān the in Qur’ ‘Alī’s camp, intuiting the danger of Khārijīs, whose nucleus was the band of reciters ference to ān.the Qur’ Another group, the proto- indication of their distance from and basic indif inserted in the conflict: the Umayyads—one more ān the wasQur’ affected fundamentally by being the battle of Ṣiffīn remained largely unaware that this, and remember your words to me.” One group at acquiesce. “Do not forget that I forbade you to do would have on the fledgling Muslim community, catastrophic consequences such an assassination example of the murder of the third caliph, of the Ibn ‘Aff ān,” did ‘Alī, aware, through the quite recent you up entirely to the enemy or do what we did with are called to it. Otherwise we shall indeed deliver qurrā’ Zayd b. Ḥusayn al-Tā’ī, al-Sinbisī, and a band of ened with murder by Mis‘ar b. Fadakī al-Tam īm and this happening as I see you.” Only after being threat justifiably so, around and in the Kaaba itself. I see are certainly going to be intentionally trampled, and maṣāḥif dissenters: “If we do not unintentionally trample the that the battle resume. I envision him saying to the have made him more vehement in his insistence of persuading him to consent, such a vision would terrific horsemen who struck nonetheless. Instead descendants) echoed by the triumphant tion] and disclosing their allegiance to him and his end, were letting go of their some of the pilgrims (who, at the approach of the vision the , “‘Alī, respond to the Book of God when you now, in the commotion of the battle, they ‘Alī of helpless invocation screamed by taqiyya [dissimula ‘Alī of the - - - -

51 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 52 of ‘Alī.” and established Abū Bakr [the first caliph] in place and returned to heaven when they apostatized concept … which left the Prophet’s Companions b. al-Ḥakam declared: ān “The is Qur’ an abrogated ān] returnsQur’ to Him.” His imāmī disciple Hishām Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq: “Coming from Him, this Word [the following words were attributed to the sixth imām, mer mainly through a withdrawal of the literal. through unveiling ( to esotericism by different routes: the latter mainly shaykh/pole in Sufism, but that they largely came the spiritual leader from the imām in Shi‘ism to the ferent tones, is not so much the displacement of Shi‘ism and Sunni Sufism, giving them their dif withdrawn. The fundamental difference between ture, sensing that ān the had Qur’ somewhat been the (proto-)Shi‘ites were really attuned to this ges — Differentiating between a limiting the withdrawal to the former. book) as the transcendent, uncreated word of God, it and — Viewing it as created, differentiating between according to various Shi‘ite sects, one can note: and consequences of the withdrawal of ān the Qur’ strophic battle. Among the differential symptoms by implicating it in the divisiveness and the cata instead separated that sacred book from itself purported to unite all Muslims around ān,the Qur’ and ones that are ān betweenQur’ sūras that are far beyond the basic distinction mentioned in the Hāshim ‘Abd Allāh, a grandson of ‘Alī, and that goes a differentiation reportedly introduced by Abū quent downgrading of the messenger Muḥammad: esoteric sense over the exoteric one, with a conse — The primacy given in certain Shi‘ite sects to the Umm al-kitāb 38 The dubious gesture of the Umayyads, mutashābiht kashf (the Archetype/mother of the ) and taste ( ẓāhir muḥkamāt (ambiguous). and a dhawq bāṭin (clear) ); the for , 37 - The - - - - in Ismā‘īlsm, Muḥammad is considered just the Hellenic, and other non-Arab elements in the land ers prefer to attribute solely to attempts by Persian, action that orthodox Sunni theologians and writ Qarmaṭīs. The Qarmaṭīs’ trampling of the āQur’ n, an itself in 930 by Ab ū Ṭāhir Sulaymān al-Jann ābī’s — The trampling of the under the from 1164 to 1210; it also took place briefly in Yemen Resurrection of Alamūt and other Nizārī strongholds abrogation had its most sublime form in the Great that Muḥammad is the seal of the prophets). This (this in spite of the insistence in Muslim dogma abrogates the revealed legislation of Muḥammad descendent of ‘Alī and Ḥusayn being the one who one prophetic legislation by a subsequent one, a — The Ismā‘īl notion of the cyclical abrogation of twelfth imām. only with the parousia of the presently occulted dants, the imāms, is going to be publicly revealed detained by ‘Alī and passed through his descen The faithful recension of ān,the Qur’ initially been altered, and parts not included, suppressed. ‘Uthmān, is somewhat forged, parts of it having guise of the canonical version recenced under Nawbakhtīs and al-Kulayn ī that ān,the Qur’ in the such pre-Buwayhid Twelver Shi‘ite authors as the — The view of many of the is the exact opposite of the literal sense. teric sense(s), the sole legitimate one even when it — The discarding of the exoteric sense for the eso is concealed behind an exoteric one. ( — The Ismā‘īl belief in “cycles of occultation” become those who alone know its esoteric meaning. with ‘Alī and the other imāms raised in rank to legislator of ān the in Qur’ its exoteric, literal sense, adwār al-satr dā‘ī ), during which the esoteric meaning ‘Alī b. al-Faḍl. maṣāḥif ghulāt around the Kaaba , but also of - - -

53 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 54 in the messianic movement around Sabbatai Zevi. year of the redemption. This withdrawal is intimated ing their calculation on unfortunate since according to many cabalists bas were experienced as particularly depressing and many Jews were implicated—these latter events oppressive Arenda system of land use in which (aka Bohdan Khmelnytsky), against the extremely 1648 Ukrainian revolt, led by Bohdan Chmielnicki mass reprisals against Jews in Poland during the of a parallel montage across around three centuries. lances by the Umayyads in 656. These are two images disaster, of the placement of the āQur’ n on the reflection, in the distorted mirror of the surpassing of Islam to religion,the subvert conquering is the baptism of the Jews of Portugal in 1497; fessing Jews from Spain in 1492; the forced mass tered in Judaism following the expulsion of all pro tradition due to the surpassing disaster is encoun ited to their petty measure as living common people. therefore already undead, and thus cannot be lim my knowledge that these people are also mortals, would answer with a categorical “No” were it not for enough contempt for the general population? I action but not by the Umayyad one. Can one have they were offended and scandalized by the ṭī Qarma in 930. As customary with the general population, the pilgrims by Abū Ṭāhir al-Jannābī’s ṭīs Qarma ān in Qur’ the battle of Ṣiffīn was the slaughter of battle? The answer to the sparing of Muslims by the on the lances and the subsequent cessation of the Arab Muslims spared by the raising of the those of the Iraqis if they all perish?” But were the tier districts of the Syrians if they perish, and who on their lances, they said: “Who will protect the fron When the Umayyad army raised the The same phenomenon of withdrawal of gematria , 1648 was to be the 39 and the maṣāḥif maṣāḥif

- - -

- - “Radical” Sabbatians advocated the systematic book on Jacob Frank. against the Sabbatians in his preface to a fiction oted journalist Elie Wiesel that he should inveigh to Islam: the Dönme. It is characteristic of the big and, following Sabbatai’s example, of some others “radical” Sabbatians, the Frankists, to Catholicism; tating catastrophe). Thus the conversion of some because it often itself turns into a no less devas atic response to the surpassing disaster, not least of the messiah himself (messianism is a problem required the surpassing disaster of the apostasy or even through apostasy—the latter extreme step to be made plain through the Torah’s transgression Torah has been withdrawn and this withdrawal has From the perspective of the surpassing disaster, the as the Torah of tion to the Torah of violation of the Torah, now viewed, in contradistinc clearly assume explicitly the nihilism into which lowing a surpassing disaster, it is those who do not ists. Indeed, past the withdrawal of tradition fol Judaism, all Jews are placed in the position of nihil dition following a surpassing disaster affecting such nihilism or not; past the withdrawal of tra nihilists, whether they care to assume expressly ing Islam, all Muslims are placed in the position of tradition following a surpassing disaster affect by branding them nihilists. Past the withdrawal of oneself from Sabbatians, Nizārīs, and ṭīs Qarma atic? It is disingenuous and simpleminded to divest to a surpassing disaster be other than problem a surpassing disaster—can any genuine response response is a just, albeit problematic, reaction to the dead, has no appreciation that the Sabbatian ter of the Shoah, the self-proclaimed emissary of of tradition and memory after the surpassing disas beriah atzilut 40 , of the unredeemed world. He, the ostensible upholder , of the messianic time, ------

55 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 56 Excommunicated, the Frankists engaged in several ing Judaism, including the apostasy of the Messiah. due to the preceding surpassing disasters affect that Jewish religion and tradition have withdrawn conversions were the consequence of their sensing transgressions of the religious law and even their nents, “radical” Sabbatians are Jews because their standing the bigoted view of their Jewish oppo abrogations were enacted. Similarly, and notwith reaction to Muslim surpassing disasters that their revealed religion and its law, are Muslims, for it is in and ṭīs,Qarma who abrogated the Muhammadan than the reportedly sinister Jacob Frank). Nizārīs treacherous nihilists (Wiesel is more insidious they have willy-nilly been placed who are the most lowing benediction over the ritually forbidden fat, cut off from among one’s people); reciting the fol by the Torah and punishable by “excision” (getting kidney” in 1658, an act which is strictly prohibited included causing ten Israelites to eat “fat of the started with Sabbatai’s “strange actions,” which Nizārīs under imām Ḥasan them. This reversal, which was also enacted by the was previously obligatory to act in accordance with to still follow the commandments of the law as it with the consequence that it had become as sinful rection, had become counterfeits of themselves, disaster and in the absence or failure of their resur that, owing to their withdrawal past the surpassing continued belief in a tradition and a religious law point the rabbis were the unbelievers through their themselves: Christianity, were then legitimately who they called ing those among them who converted to Islam or tainly concur with the Sabbatians that they, includ one of the two antagonistic parties, I would cer disputations with the rabbis. If I had to side with the believers ( ma’aminim ‘alā dhikrihi’l-salām ). At that - - , - - - - - abrogation of the Law—a response to the latter’s they established. But it is also possible that the secution of the surviving Nizārīs in the Sunni empire destruction of the Nizārī strongholds and their per Sufism would not be solely a result of the Mongols’ subsequent amalgamation of Ismā‘īl Shi‘ism and only be achieved by individuals realization that enlightenment and salvation can as due to a new cycle of taqiyya on the ascendancy, the Nizārīs again resorting to sifying threat to his initiates from a Sunnism again viewed as a diplomatic move to ward off the inten the grandson of Ḥasan gions. The reinstatement of the Sharī‘a in 1210 by tally affected respectively Muslim and Jewish reli Jews, also because their abrogations fundamen and ṭīs Qarma are Muslims, and the Sabbatians are because he proclaimed himself the Messiah. Nizārīs ing the Law and the prohibitions of the Torah, but endorsed his excommunication not for transgress them those rabbis who excommunicated Zevi or solely for abrogating the Law; I do not include among bis who excommunicated or banned Sabbatai Zevi I include among the common people those rab to the withdrawal due to the surpassing disaster. belonged to the common people, those not sensitive cal authorities, customarily considered the elite, revealed that the majority of the official rabbini Sabbatians’ response to the surpassing disaster “radical” Sabbatians to Islam or Christianity. The “Blessed are Thou, O Lord, who permittest that sinful”; now become not only obsolete but almost positively abrogation of the Lurianic devotions, “which had of the Seventeenth of Tammuz. It progressed to the which is forbidden”; and, in 1665, abolishing the fast 41 while maintaining their esoteric beliefs; or and culminated in the conversion of the ‘alā dhikrihi’l-salām satr (occultation); or as a 42 —in which case the can be ------

57 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 58 specialness of the land of Palestine. Similarly, an on, and thus continuing election of, the traditional effective transgression is still a (negative) stress because breaking the Law in Jerusalem is a more them that one should immigrate to the Holy Land the Sabbatians: the notion advanced by some of sensibility to the surpassing disaster even among ever be rebuilt.” One still finds lapses in the vigilant 1757, was: “We do not believe that Jerusalem will rabbis in Kamenets-Podolsk from June 20 to 28, Frankists submitted in their disputation with the the Frankist wing. a distinct anti-Palestinian bias especially among toward the middle of the eighteenth century into in the aftermath of Sabbatai’s apostasy, turning Land, which opposition became even more intense opposition to the notion of immigration to the Holy adherents, including Nathan of Gaza, there was an the Sabbatian outlook, where for the majority of the past a surpassing disaster affecting Jews is clear in urrected what was withdrawn. Sabbatians, Nizārīs and ṭīs Qarma did probably res and the ā’‘ulam had the last word because what the measure of the disaster. The rabbinical authorities ing measures the Sabbatians took in gauging the so possibly successfully because of the redeem fold after the devastating apostasy of Sabbatai did sacred books and places. Those who returned to the tion contributed to resurrecting that religion and its validly do that because the preceding ṭī Qarma reac abrogation of the Muhammadan revelation could of the false messiah Zakariyya al-Iṣfahānī with its of traditional Islam after the debacle of the episode years later. Those ṭīs Qarma who returned to the fold and therefore toward its reinstatement forty-six withdrawal—contributed toward its resurrection, The withdrawal of the holiness of Palestine 43 Indeed, one of the theses the - - - surpassing disaster of the Shoah has not produced racist oppressors?” but rather: How is it that the victims of a racist state (Nazi Germany) become me is not the hypocritically naive one, “How did has ensued. Therefore the question that intrigues ness or special traditional significance of Jerusalem surpassing disaster, then a withdrawal of the holi Nazi “final solution” to the “Jewish question” was a objection to immigrating to Palestine in terms of by humans but by angels? ( complements in the World of the Archetypal Form earth, and which cannot be truly viewed outside its axis mundi to their capital, al-Aḥsā’. Can one easily displace the the ṭīs,Qarma and their transfer of the Black Stone to it), the sacking and desecration of the Kaaba by negative emphasis to the latter, at least to still refer the Kaaba in Mecca can still be construed to give a of the pulpit precisely in the opposite direction to more valid manner (since the Nizārīs’ placement have to turn during their prayer; and, in an even tion opposite to the one toward which all Muslims Resurrection was proclaimed in Alamūt, a direc the pulpit to face west on the day when the Great is to interpret and evaluate the symbolic setting of of the withdrawal of the holiness of Mecca that one longer to be the Holy Land. It is from the standpoint be merely a pretext not to go to a land one senses no the land of Palestine—unless the advanced reason continuing election of the traditional specialness of tions for or changes of the messianic era—implies a the ingathering of the exiles—one of the precondi eschewing a as a consequence of a surpassing disaster. to indicate the withdrawal of the traditional one action was not to consecrate a new ‘ālam al-mithāl , which is the closet spot to Heaven on forcing of the ), and which is circumambulated not 44 [messianic] I think that the ṭīs’Qarma axis mundi end through 45 If the , but - - -

59 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 60 decry the remissness in accomplishing the ingath ies, towns, and villages with Biblical names, and condone the renaming of occupied Palestinian cit while underscoring the Shoah encourage or at least the sanctimonious discourse of those Jews who [and in the messiah] than in God!). Notwithstanding relinquish belief in the holiness of a certain land holiness of the land (it seems it is more difficult to who have written or talked about the demise of the about the death of God in Auschwitz, rare are those number of Jewish writers and thinkers have written land, more specifically of Jerusalem? While a good traditional holiness or specialness of a particular ers, and thinkers that reveals the withdrawal of the a widespread attitude among Jewish artists, writ pation of Palestinian land. its neighboring countries and its brutal illegal occu continuing expansionist and racist policies toward ing the colonial origin of that state as well as its because of ethical and political qualms concern years of the establishment of the state of Israel, or the dangerous and harsh conditions in the early assimilated in the host countries, or because of withdrawal rather than because they had become have not gone to Israel owing to an intuition of this ment of the state of Israel. I believe that many Jews Diaspora has continued despite the establish to the Holy Land, it is to the Jews’ honor that the ering of the exiles through the ment as a vast, extreme catastrophe with localized Solution” as a surpassing disaster, through its treat sianic event are thus an obliviousness to the “Final of the state of Israel in Palestine is a religious mes and Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook that the establishment let alone the ultra-orthodox view of Gush Emunim ultra-special significance of the land of Palestine; discourse, in its emphasis on tradition and on the 46 The continuing Zionist aliyah , the ascent ------guides and allies, and of divinities. Reportedly, especially in past eras, the withdrawal of spiritual damage is never only the material one; it is also, desecration—but they condemn such a condition). secular situation in Jerusalem as already a sort of did (certainly some of the ultra-orthodox view the their part that comes close to what the ṭīs Qarma tion to do that now. Yet I do not see any response on remains of the Wailing Wall. But they are in a posi ness, for instance by possibly further damaging the Jerusalem to reveal the withdrawal of its holi the state of Israel, were in no position to desecrate power, the Jews, up to the recent establishment of who were in the tenth century a formidable military valid. One can easily argue that unlike the ṭīs Qarma the presence of memorials to the Shoah there be Israel is no longer viewed as the holy land, would consequent of the surpassing disaster of the Shoah, Heroism [ Scroll of Fire state” to encounter such memorials in Israel, the “Jewish contemporary Jewry, it is unsettling and dismaying and in the United States, home to around a third of are memorials to the Shoah at Treblinka, Auschwitz, land of Palestine. Thus while it is fitting that there simply traditional ultra-special significance of the force the feeling of the withdrawal of the holiness or underscored and pondered, the more it would rein possibly, to an intuition that the more the Shoah is the figure of the Jew as a passive victim, but also, Israel, is to be ascribed not only to a wish to forget World War II and the establishment of the state of effects. The ambivalence that many of the Zionists Shoah, in Palestine betrayed toward the survivors of the

When it comes to surpassing disasters, the (Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem, Nathan Rapoport’s 47 especially during the early years following Yom Hashoah Vehagvurah [1971], the Day of Holocaust and ], etc.): only if, - - -

61 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 62 was thus ushered in. ment.” The Greater Occultation of the twelfth imām hands of God, and He will bring it to accomplish about his successor, he said: “The matter is in the taken place.” When Shi‘ites came and asked him in your place, since the complete occultation has Muḥammad al-Samarrī … do not appoint anyone from the imām saying: “In the name of God. O ‘Al ī b. al-Samarrī (d. AH 329/940–41), received a note twelfth imām, Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Al ī b. Muḥammad shortly before his death, the last deputy of the Hidden Imām) assumed by the ā’‘ulam (who argued Nā’ib al-‘ āmm which case the notion, position, and function of the Greater Occultation began, either it is persisting, in tinued to be the withdrawal of the imām. Once the Safavid Iran, the determinant circumstance con Twelver Shi‘ites in the great Shi‘ite state that was in that manner? Yes, it partly did, since for many disaster? Yes, it could have. Did it experience itself experienced itself as an empire and civilization of inely and legitimately, rather than hypocritically, and great civilization of the Safavids have genu ation of such a rhetoric. Could the mighty empire which is the reason that would validate the continu ous of the withdrawal past a surpassing disaster, lead. In turn, it is vital that one not become oblivi hypocritical abuses to which such a rhetoric can period. In turn, it is critical that one unmask the must have inculcated in them cannot fade in a short chronic persecution of these two communities into account that the patterns of response the intensifies despite that ascendancy, that one take achieved political ascendancy, but sometimes even during periods when these communities have and victimization that not only continues unabated certain Shi‘ite and Jewish rhetoric of powerlessness (the general representative of the 48 It is crucial in relation to a - - - - - that what has been canceled by the twelfth imām was proclaimed may be considered sloppy from self. The process by which the Great Resurrection claimed the imāmate for his father and for him and successor, Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad II, explicitly imām’s Ḥasan abrogating the Muhammadan religious legislation, during which he proclaimed the Great Resurrection teric sense: in his transiently, amidst the manifestation of the eso intimation of withdrawal was maintained, however the proclamation of the Great Resurrection, an their leader. And yet even in the Nizārī Alamūt of the imām was present in the world in the form of continued despite Shi‘ite rule; in the latter three, withdrawal, in the guise of the imām’s occultation, the occultation of the imām—the sensibility to the Nā’ib al-‘āmm prior to the time when the notion and function of the among his Turkmen followers, the Qizilbash, and ist view of the Shah as the imām himself, especially In the former, past the initial period of the extrem al-Iṣfahāni episode in Aḥsā’, and the Fatimid state. (1164–1210), the ṭī Qarma state during the Zakariyya the Nizārī state during the Great Resurrection Twelver Shi‘ite Safavid Iran, and on the other hand and crucial difference between on the one hand imminent parousia? At one level, there is a manifest ity to clearly instigate this move, which entails an among the ayatollahs and ā’‘ulam has the audac of the resumption of the Lesser Occultation. Who Greater Occultation should be replaced by that and thenceforth the assumption of a continuing khāṣṣ that of an individual representative, of the is not the function of representative as such, but ) is a travesty; or else there is a ‘alā dhikrihi’l-salām khalīfa was introduced—a move alleviating (deputy). It is only later that his son Khutba on the 17 placed himself as the th of Ramaḍān, Nā’ib al-‘āmm Nā’ib - - - -

63 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 64 tice an earth filled with oppression. If the messiah Islamic tradition, the Mahdī is going to fill with jus “either wholly sinful or wholly righteous”; and in David would appear only in a generation that was tion, minimized this danger. dhikrihi’l-salām the Law has withdrawn. The a condition that has already occurred, namely that siah/Qā’im does not annul the Law but manifests place owing to a surpassing disaster: the mes rather than a description of what has already taken proclamation of the abrogation to be a performative sion to be resisted, it is the danger of mistaking the sense and the abrogation of the exoteric Law is done announcement of the manifestation of the esoteric manifestation, that Ḥasan drawal past a surpassing disaster with a messianic But from the perspective of the conflation of a with tance on his part to assume such a momentous role. making such a claim on his behalf; and/or to a reluc imām and from those of his followers who were divest himself both from the claim that he was the father, Muḥammad b. Buzurg-Ummīd, to publicly during the reign of his predecessor and ostensible ascribed to his having been successfully pressured speaking in the name of another could then be fully a supernatural event: Ḥaṣan the strict perspective of the messianic advent as ates. the one proclaimed Messiah/Qā’im “merely” enunci disaster produces a withdrawal of tradition, which amidst the messianic epiphany. The surpassing the maintenance of the tone of withdrawal even least until he himself is clearly declared the imām, sloppy, but rigorous and precise, since it allows, at in the name of another, the still hidden imām, is not 49 According According to a Talmudic saying, the son of In which case, if there is an ominous impreci , in Alamūt, with its two-step revela ‘alā dhikrihi’l-salām’ Khutba ‘alā dhikrihi’l-salām’ of Ḥasan ‘alā - s s ------appears in a generation that is wholly righteous, soul-light, the and to holy the received, in complement tation; another, auspicious, the messiah having once, abortive, to intimate the time of total occul the messianic manifestation has to be done twice: ering in of the cycle of epiphany. In such a situation, that announces the necessity of the messianic ush that the first manifestation did not reveal anything not yet has come. revelation It is circumstance the not become maximal and the time of the messianic long as implemented by the consequent withdrawal. As of the surpassing disaster, since they are already arcane are no longer mandatory in the aftermath it. withdrawn that even its manifestation won’t reveal ety: the highest, secret name of God has so much that the world has been totally given over to impi sign that the parousia is near, since it indicates is not wholly righteous can function as an occult manifestation of the esoteric in a generation that sianic era proper, the cycle of epiphany. The abortive law of the cycle of occultation, ushers in the mes the manifestation of the esoteric, barred under the the answer of the Second Emanation in a Gnostic Emanation of the answer the Second s ī l is ī in the delay ‘ ā for the Ism disaster surpassing internal: cumstance. or the later It becomes sooner not, and perhaps cannot, remain an external cir galut etc.; for the Jews, of the the destruction Temple, the the prophet’s family and many of his companions, of most with ammad] ḥ of Mu the prophet grandson m ā m [im ā of usayn Ḥ im slaughter ‘Al’sī son and the inaugurating the period of redemption. Taqiyya neshamah [exile], the expulsion from [exile], Spain, the expulsion etc.) does The surpassing disaster (for the Shi‘ites, disaster the The surpassing taqiyya taqiyya (dissimulation) and (dissimulation) the discipline of the yehifah , which he already had, the highest is is still obligatory, the withdrawal has , 50 thus becoming capable of nefesh , ruah - , - - - -

65 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 66 imminent catastrophe—an attitude widespread Elie Wiesel in his book tation to the concentration camps, as described by Jews of Sighet, Romania, on the eve of their depor Antelme, Lyotard appreciates the attitude of the against the activism of the resistance fighter Robert of the library of Alamūt, etc.). been burned or destroyed (the Mongols’ destruction works of the Nizārīs, ṭīs,Qarma and Sabbatians have enforced by their orthodox enemies: most of the jected to another kind of withdrawal, a material one sequent of a surpassing disaster, have been sub which have tried to deal with the withdrawal con Sabbatians? Unfortunately, these communities, surpassing disaster: Gnostics, Nizārīs, ṭīs,Qarma used to be theirs, but the other communities of the tion for such communities no longer the one that added up to a surpassing disaster? Is the tradi world in Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, and earlier Palestine the conjunction of catastrophes affecting the Arab in the first edition of my book nity? If so, is it accurate on my part to have written Arab world, undoing any notion of an Arab commu divested these two communities of the rest of the sanctions against Iraq, now [1996] in their sixth year, Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the continuing Arabs and the rest of the world during the 1982 demonic realm. dispersal of sparks of that light in the to light, the leading this the supernal to contain is the cabalists for the Lurianic disaster the surpassing to catch up and ascend again to rank; third the again to up ascend catch and attempt to tion rank the tenth and its subsequent drama in Heaven, which delay produces its retarda breaking of the vessels In his Have the desertion of West Beirut by the Heidegger and the “jews,” Night : obliviousness to the Over-Sensitivity that were supposed were that supposed setting it qelippah that - 51 , the - -

- - - among Jews then. Unfortunately, the dichotomy articles. the Israeli army in a series of flagrantly prejudiced Israelis, and his total embrace of the actions of subsequent lauding of the activism shown by the with the Nazis, from being taken aback by Wiesel’s induced by the depth of Heidegger’s involvement one, particularly in a book addressing the shock an easy enough task for the impartial—would spare munity’s attitude. The discernment of such a tone— Wiesel’s critical tone in as Lyotard is, one has to colordeafen oneself—to colordeaf—and in case one is as attuned to timbre Antelme. To set the latter dichotomy, one has to be resistance fighters, but also between Wiesel and munity of Sighet and the community of Jewish Lyotard sets is not only between the Jewish com ers: to remain faithful’ ‘This is why I write certain things rather than oth ness on his part? Are you forgetting Wiesel’s express “But Jalal, How can you write about an oblivious unquestioning adherence to the state of Israel. positive attitude to the Zionist enterprise and his tive attitude to the Sabbatians, but also in his very disaster is shown not only in his extremely nega Wiesel’s failure to feel the Shoah as a surpassing to wax appreciative about such obliviousness? ing disaster continues past it, is it permissible them—as undead. Wiesel: a bigoted, hypocritical were when still alive is already a forgetfulness of them.” as their emissary.… Not to do so would be to betray owe the dead my memory. I am duty-bound to serve (Bertolucci’s betraying themselves, betrayed by themselves in history is I faithful to the dead, who, undergoing 55 To think and write about the dead as they 52 When the obliviousness to the surpass , thought-insertion and doubling, are The Spider’s Stratagem 54 Night ?” Is it simple to remain concerning concerning his com )? Wiesel: “I every name 53 - - - -

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67 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 68 induces in the reader any feeling of anxiety, of the and largely set in an asylum, but that at no point purportedly revolving around the mad and madness encountered. Were the author of laws of the living, the sort of entities Judge Schreber undead, those who do not know and are alien to the before dying to encounter modes of the dead-as- they were when they still lived. One has to have died already interfering with his discourse on them as playing his role of the emissary of the dead, they are Wiesel to harken more, he would discover that while pompously feel the duty to be that emissary. Were him to think that the dead need an emissary, and to sion of the dead is going on in Wiesel’s books for sort of Horatio. How much filtering out and repres as Hamlet’s dead father has the decency not to do to talk for the dead. Even such a revengeful spirit sary of the dead; they are aware how indecent it is none of these authors would claim to be the emis that is the epitome of the derisory. But precisely barely bearable; but that Elie Wiesel should do themselves emissaries of the dead, this would be Essay on the Undead in Film Giacometti Schreber, the Jean Genet of Artaud, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Klossowski, Judge their talk as quickly as possible? Were Antonin can welcome the uncanny?—as try not to repress them? Would he not so much welcome them—who guards at concentration camps), would he listen to of their modes obscene, as obscene as the Nazi in lascivious, demonic tones (the dead are in one camps but sometimes exchange obscene remarks the name of people who died in the concentration ited voices at inopportune moments that speak in alien thoughts in his head, and to hear unsolic uncanny—to encounter the insertion of ostensibly , or the author of (Vampires): An Uneasy L’Atelier d’Alberto to have proclaimed Twilight —a novel - - - so: “But that I am forbid / To tell the secrets of my and the torturers in Israeli, Bosnian Serb, and Iraqi Ekelund). The Nazi concentration camp guards, to see the likeness and the correlation in it” (Vilhelm and stupidity. But it requires great spiritual strength bird as above the skull of a human petrified by evil just as clearly inscribed above the head of a young “everything mortal expresses defenselessness. It is of no use to Wiesel with regards to mortality is that ful living human, all too human Wiesel. What is also The latter vengefulness is of no use to the revenge revengefulness of the latter is not circumscribed. name(s) of the dead (in the undeath realm), for the we can be sure that he or she does not speak in the restricted vengefulness in the writings of someone, undeath realm. And when we encounter such sort of ously, to life, that he is not fully a creature of the indicate that the ghost still belongs, however tenu a demand for a specific retribution, would thus the vengefulness of the revenant is motivated, someone: one’s child, mother, or the stranger. That when seemingly indiscriminate, it usually spares living is somewhat determined, and limited; even him the Nobel Peace Prize. The vengefulness of the to accept gullibly what he proffers and confer on fulness? No; but neither does one have the right of Wiesel. Can one blame Wiesel for that revenge of Hamlet’s father is as nothing compared to that emissary. But then the revengefulness of the ghost himself or herself as dead, to fully be his or her own ostensibly a revenant, is not allowed to speak about in the name of the dead (as undead); even the ghost, blood.” Even the dead (as revenant) does not speak eternal blazon must not be / To ears of flesh and row up thy soul, freeze thy young blood.… / But this could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would har prison-house [including of “myself” as dead], / I - - - -

69 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 70 undetected temporary substitution of undetected temporary the substitution stones) for suffering, for torture, probably for death. The obvious: he wants to suffer. He has prepared himself of if it is not suffering? And suddenly, the answer is tion of a second but Ilan notices. What is he so afraid lightning go through the prisoner. It lasts only a frac hides his irritation. Then, he sees a shudder quick as not appear stupid. Ilan doesn’t understand, but he of not suffering worries the terrorist. Yet he does (“Now Ilan is convinced: the thought, the prospect for the torture of Palestinians by the Israeli army one of his characters in his book Peace laureate and journalist Wiesel gives through and, notwithstanding the vile justification the Nobel exposed as mortals (that is, as dead while alive), prisons are indefensible, that is, both infinitely fore, to choose inhumanity” practice torture, therefore to betray himself, there paganda. And also to force the Jewish adversary to list of Palestinian martyrs. To feed anti-Israeli pro reason? Perhaps to set an example. To lengthen the provided provided in an form) unavailable list of in Jewish cemeteries is Germany pre-Nazi and both memorial (the withdrawal most complete Saarbrücken was back in the path, the name facing down. The result of one of the cemeteries, they secretly it placed the of underside each removed stone the name each replacing with a substitute. After on incising of entrance the Saarbr removed from cobblestones the pathway to the the night and with no authorization, the students torship. Between April 1990 and May 1993, during that were in use up to dicta the Socialist National collected extensive data on the Jewish cemeteries 2146 Stones—Monument against Racism, In collaboration with In students,collaboration Jochen Gerz . One can in discern this monument ü cken cken castle, temporarily 56 ), unjustifiable. 57 The Fifth Son and (through the - - - - the ever present possibility the that ever what present possibility one takes to by anyone other than a threat present in counterfeit—a any resurrection period, that he was not really Lazarus, but a double, feel, Martha or fleetingly whether for an extended those who met the brother ostensible of Mary and lowing the latter’s not resurrection once did any of was several buried days earlier, but also that fol Lazarus came out from the grave in which Lazarus come out” (John 11:43), body the of recognizable 11:25) was not simply that on saying, “Lazarus, have corroborated that Jesus was life”“the (John and that the is memory a false memory. What would have the that impression the is memorial a fake the that ever one present possibility day one would affected with some and discredit through disgrace when resurrected following their withdrawal, subtly ing disaster, the and memorial are,memory even merely a or counterfeit imposter. Past a surpass is resurrection not what was withdrawn/dead but be what was made available/alive again through that tradition, including art, is still withdrawn. leave ostensibly healthy, he or she soon discovers atric treatment fails, or else though the patient may Without the latter’s contribution, either the psychi of writers, thinkers. and artists, efforts resurrecting psychiatrists or psychoanalysts, but demands the lective, and therefore cannot be fully addressed by not a subjective symptom, whether individual or col the withdrawal of tradition, for that withdrawal is ing through cannot on its own succeed in remedying tion and culture in general. But that subjective work of tradi of world, the a including to cathexis regain Many of these survivors seek psychiatric treatment encounters myriad cases of traumatized survivors. Rwanda, that have suffered a brutal civil war, one In countries, such as Bosnia, Lebanon, or the the life . 58 ------

71 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 72 amour seen nothing in Hiroshima” (Duras’s withdrawal of what we think is still there. “You have acts like the mirror in vampire films: it reveals the record? No. One should record this “nothing,” which such photographs become themselves withdrawn. out resurrecting their withdrawn referents? It seems these withdrawn buildings become available with zones, off-limits to cameras. Can photographs of many of these ruined areas were declared military destruction around them, as well as by the fact that civil war they must have grown habituated to the by the circumstance that toward the end of the graphs, films, and videos cannot be fully explained ence to documenting the carnage through photo The Lebanese’s overall obliviousness and indiffer their association with these withdrawn buildings? affected with an additional overlooking through of political power and their economic destitution, gees, who are marginalized because of their lack still noticed and lived in them? Yet aren’t these refu drawal of civil war Beirut buildings when refugees is, resurrected it. But how can one speak of a with perceived it, that is countered its withdrawal, that looking, one has initially to have, however minimally, prerequisite work of resurrection to avert its over to be overlooked; but in order to accomplish that drawn, so that, unless it is resurrected, it is going circle: what has to be recorded has been with might be mistaken for purely formal ones. A vicious itant risk that facets relating to the subject matter referential, documentary pieces—with the concom resurrected, they are not going to be available as referents’ withdrawal, and until their referents are to take photographs even though because of their only after the resurrection can be available. We have With regard to the surpassing disaster, art , 1961). 59 Does this entail that one should not Hiroshima mon ------There is going then to be “a time of development” of with its thirty-four volumes, 41,000 articles, 6,802 plified by Macmillan’s Main …); and cataloguing and inventorying, as exem Kaiser’s German National Library, Frankfurt am France; Mete Arat and Hans-Dieter and Gisela Dominique Perrault’s Bibliothèque nationale de the doubling in size, to 60,000 m Grand Louvre Project [1981–1999], which involved Museum, an extension of the Berlin Museum; the to existing museums (Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Meier’s Getty Center, Los Angeles …); extensions Nussbaum Museum, Osnabr Art, Frankfurt, Germany; Daniel Libeskind’s Felix Prestied, Norway; Hans Hollein’s Museum of Modern Finland; Steven Holl’s Knut Hamsun Centre, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain; Steven Holl’s Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Frank Gehry’s proliferation of new museums (Mario Botta’s San immaterial one. While in the West there has been a different kinds of unavailability, a material and an the museum, thus confronting the viewer with two 18, 1990, theft of several famous paintings from next to the spaces left blank following the March would be the Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, able, one of the appropriate sites for their exposition thought that until such photographs become avail of resurrection has countered the withdrawal. He the referent only in the future, only when the work but also in that it can function as a preservation of serves the present referent for future generations, is for the future not only in the sense that it pre ing the latter stages of the war. The documentation the chemically developed photographs taken dur Wilson’s British Library, St Pancras, London; tion areas of the museum …); new libraries (Sandy The Dictionary of Art ü ck, Germany; Richard 2 , of the exhibi (1996), (1996), 60

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73 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 74 the subjective wish to forget whatever had strong only to criticize the financial interests at stake and not to be a foregone oversight, it was crucial not of these severely damaged and/or ruined buildings To allow the discussion about the future condition them, unconsciously acting as if they weren’t there. against others, although ostensibly perceiving buildings had withdrawn: as a preventive measure that some of these severely damaged and/or ruined tion of a new city center. He had to explicitly show true deliberation, to provide space for the construc were in imminent danger of being erased without gone—withdrawn, but because large sections of it consequence of the severe damage it had under not that this area was particularly—as a possible cally Beirut’s for the present. If he tried to document specifi presentation of the withdrawal is an urgent task documentation of the referent is for the future, the of disasters.past tradition surpassing through the (negative) matting due to the withdrawal ing” countries, presence is affected with an absence ence and telesensing; increasingly in the “develop affected with a mode of presence through telepres fully available. Increasingly in the West, absence is this would not be enough to make them once more film copies of the originals in other libraries …), happened to be on loan to other libraries or of micro somehow be recovered (in the form of copies that Library and the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo to of the contents of both the National and University immaterial withdrawal. Even were substantial parts only through material destruction, but also through been divested of much of their artistic tradition, not illustrations, Afghans, Bosnians, and Iraqis have contributing scholars, and 15,000 black-and-white After the surpassing disaster, while the Aswāq (in the central district), it was - 61 -

- - - - associations with so many individual and collective and collective so with many individual associations 1987; Boltanski’s Hiroshima mon amour some artists is to disclose the withdrawal (Duras’s disaster, After the surpassing of the duty at least iousness, overlooking it and its recommendations. ing to that community treated that book with obliv as a consequence of the withdrawal, those belong integration into the future reconstructed city. But, in a their book and recommend buildings ruined and/or damaged the severely notice Woods could Lebbeus architect Sarajevo, American ravaged the that disaster the surpassing suffered that munity and/or ruined buildings? Not being part of the com damaged severely in these embodied forgetfulness ten,the implemented so largely the that erasure quasi-forgot already somewhat ter therefore and buildings were withdrawn by the surpassing disas and/or ruined damaged severely these ily because it rather that they were able to erase them so eas and/or to ruins buildings forget, damaged or was them. replace could Did they many erase severely so center a that new commercial be demolished be so overlooked, easily so could readily and thus of future the city, could buildings withdrawn these the and planning ally thinking try to when counter a factor that one could consciously and intention become not having hence explicit, become having fest their withdrawal, so that the withdrawal not managed neither to resurrect them nor to mani in the and/or buildings ruined damaged severely these to to the failure save contributed What demolition. their for against the argument be still available works, and architectural art so they that would through withdrawal their or ings make manifest traumas, but also to either resurrect these build Aswāq area was that artists and filmmakers and filmmakers area was artists that Monument: La Fête de Pourim , 1961; Godard’s Godard’s 1961; , King King Lear - , , ------

75 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 76 lover and the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima, but lia as to the ineluctability of forgetting her German is implied not only in the French woman’s melancho images. The loss of memory in in Saab’s film, to human recollection and archival I have forgotten.…” Memory is not to be limited, as solable, a memory of shadow and stone.… Like you, starts: “… Like you, I wanted my memory to be incon even the memorable Duras epigraph with which it unmindful film: it is grotesque how quickly it forgets ting, unfortunately mainly in the sense that it is an ( (Godard’s and/or 1988) to withdrawn has what been resurrect thus provide and instance some form of memory, than implying that they are available, and that they appearance in images of an earlier period rather enter in them? But past a surpassing disaster, one’s are inaccessible than to have the film’s characters drew as a consequence of a surpassing disaster effective way to hide that certain images that with 1920s, had undergone a withdrawal. Is there a more for example some of the images of Lebanon in the the archival documentary footage Saab presents, opens would have entailed showing that some of ten …” of the Duras epigraph with which her film memory. To accord with the “Like you, I have forgot of the surpassing disaster is a betrayal of it, a false forgetfulness by those belonging to the community that whose withdrawal is in the guise of its abrupt [stone]) due to a surpassing disaster. A memory of example, of film images [shadows] and buildings an effect of an objective withdrawal of beings (for the result of subjective factors; it is sometimes nothing in Hiroshima.” Forgetfulness is not always also in the Japanese man’s repeated “You have seen Kān ya mā kān Bayrūt Jocelyne Saab’s King King Lear ). ), 1994, is a film about forget Once Upon a Time: Beirut Hiroshima mon amour

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would in a genuine film, on the contrary, suggest sions of the two protagonists in the images, allows the irruption of unworldly ahistorical ver turned into a radical closure. The radical closure disaster was so divested from the others that it that the country that underwent the surpassing my book ent surpassing disaster. After a public reading from current events, have been withdrawn by the pres by many as the part of culture least connected to inely traditional art and writing, which is viewed “avant-garde” writing and art, as well as all genu and that added up to a surpassing disaster, much of the series of catastrophes that hit the Arab world most linked to actuality, has not been withdrawn by tions, commercial culture, which to many is what is to tradition’s resurrection. While, with rare excep past a surpassing disaster, let alone of contributing examples of sensing the withdrawal of tradition one belonging to a profession that has not provided in a film directed by a journalist, that is, by some is represented mostly through bad Egyptian movies case in Saab’s work. It is not fortuitous that Beirut Beirut archival images. Unfortunately this is not the as the clearly matted shots of them in the 1920s the same impression of artificiality and overlaying shot of each other in early Beirut 1990s manifest images of the two characters in the film scenes they the authenticity of these images; or by having the archival images in such a way as to put in doubt ing the insertion of the two female actresses in the could still have intimated the withdrawal by design to subtly imply the withdrawal of the images. Saab protagonists and projected: a missed opportunity ably lost gets returned to the two young female reel that is forgotten in the taxicab and presum the images themselves are withdrawn. The film Over-Sensitivity , I played back taqāsīm 62 but - - on - - - - -

77 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 78 vehemently attacked vehemently “tradition” are, prior to any contrariwise, many works of modernist art that disaster as surpassing not really of part tradition; of are tradition revealed by past a their availability and thinkers. Many works one had taken to be part resurrected bybeing subsequently artists, writers, withdrawn byimmaterially it, and had the fortune of disaster,the materially survived surpassing was disaster.surpassing Tradition is what conjointly byand delineated becomes specified tradition the process of the artificial somewhat canon formation, of time: in normal times a despite entity nebulous what materially and ostensibly survived “the test” than commercial culture. Tradition is not merely and writers are much more in touch with actuality passing disaster, many presumably elitist artists … Allāh! … it then with the quasi- able to really hear this music again, accompanying I affirmed: “I am trying to resurrect tradition to be their heads to the sounds. After the music stopped, the Middle Easterners present there began swaying Soon after the music started, and except for me, and on maqām nahawand proximity of the dead—come to prevent the world’s encountering the gutted, decomposing corpses; the pher was taking them; the hasty looking away on threatening conditions under which the photogra due to one or several of the following factors: the — Those from the civil war’s period itself were Lebanese civil war: graphs, films, and videos of the period around the of-focus and/or sloppy compositions in the photo to withdrawal be of part that tradition. gradual reluctant canonization, revealed by their There were two fundamental kinds of out- maqām kurd ).” Judging from their reaction to the sur performed by Riād al-Sunbāṭī performed by Munīr Bashīr. dhikr of a musical high ( Allāh! - - - desertion desertion of those suffering a surpassing disaster But But he could recognize no between basic similarity in the Acconci’srandom compositions photographs. and attracted by the in blurring Snow’s piece and by background of a of section Venice. He was aware of a blurred Snow framed the against accidentally shots he took with his eyes closed, each showing Snow’s ground while repeatedly forward;falling or Michael by his clicking camera handheld as he reached the (1969): a of series produced Acconci photographs by influenced such works as Vito Acconci’s focus almost always off. He was asked if he was nent danger, haphazard and the the compositions lacking time photographer to aim since in immi countries, still looked like they were taken by a those of composed his shot photographs in other by this Lebanese photographer, who classically the of photographs the ruins in Lebanon taken events and at experiencing the rhythm of peace, even after he used became to at looking buildings of period lasted a adjustment full two years. Yet he to learned look again at a leisurely pace. This nor photographs shoot any videos, until waiting while after the civil war’s end, he did not take any to at things viewing the speed of war. So for a photographed. due mainly to the withdrawal of what was being — Those from the aftermath of the civil war were encounter with the dead often occurs. appear blurry; and the entranced states in which the including the restless motionlessness of the living, but as creatures of the undeath realm, all motions, motion freezing, not as corpses ( from turning into a radical closure—against whose Like Like so many others, he had used become less Venetian Blind Venetian ness, therefore still a variety of motion) (1970): twenty-four snap twenty-four (1970): rigor mortis is a form of Fall

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79 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 80 School reproduction of Boltanski’s the sensation they were shot during the war. “No.” framings were intentionally created by him to give asked critically whether the blurring and hit-or-miss whether with regards to framing or focus or both, thing in the referent cannot be localized exactly, the withdrawal past a surpassing disaster some that of Baudrillard. Someone unaware that due to reply to someone who simplified both his work and also this one did not take place.” He did not care to photographer implying that not only the Gulf War but a disciple trying to outdo his master: a Baudrillardian Someone remarked critically: “One more example of tious or that he was apologetic for the aggressors. the war unscathed. Many thought that he was face surprised that so many buildings had weathered tasteless humor; others had to admit that they were War.” Some felt offended at what they found to be be grouped into an exhibition titled “The Savage glass. He insisted that these photographs should shrapnel or shrapnel marks, indeed not even broken framed photographs of intact buildings with no with thousands of largely blurred and haphazardly folio of the destruction in Bosnia. He returned to of vision unavailability the material. formal strategy but due to the and withdrawal thus focus and/or the haphazard were framings not a misunderstanding, since in his work the out-of- to and Acconci to Snow. The revealed question a finder, in Snow’s the road, through looking without filmed the view the of sections Venice in the and earth grass in the photographs,Acconci these works and his current photographs, since Someone had forgotten a high-quality laser They sent him to shoot a photographic port (1988) in the copy of Seated Figures Venetian Blind Venetian Altar to the Chases High The Holocaust Museum (1988) are (1988) available , as well as - - - - a result of a surpassing disaster. withdrawal and possibly their own withdrawal as disclose to us nothing beyond their referent’s None of the above. These blurred photographs association of the dead with haze and furtiveness? memory? Or is it rather to render the stereotypical sation that those depicted are already fading from been subjected in the camps? Is it to give the sen of individuation to which those depicted would have in Washington grimace of death” sockets, any hint of a smile metamorphosed into a etal vestiges—their eyes reduced to empty black proposes (“Boltanski transformed them into skel sivity of the photograph, as curator Lynn Gumpert school yearbook an enhancement of the expres duction of a graduation photograph he found in a from a library. Is the blurring in Boltanski’s repro rience on seeing Boltanski’s blurred photograph? suddenly yell: “Focus!” Who may have such an expe were some spectator at the museum’s cinema to with blurring. In which case, I would not be surprised oblivious of how this would affect all the items there able, since the vast majority of curators would be Museum in Washington DC? It is certainly conceiv 1939, in the United States Holocaust Memorial of a Purim celebration at a Jewish school in France, The Purim Holiday tor would place a Boltanski piece such as included in the book. Is it conceivable that a cura the Auschwitz prisoner identification photographs of that Boltanski photograph that he was looking at felt that it was with eyes adjusted to the blurriness on them. They had become blurred and distant. He graphs in the book. He could no longer really focus went back to looking at the illustrations and photo that Boltanski photograph for a few minutes, he (Rizzoli, 1995) that he checked out 63 (1989), based on a photograph )? Does it render for us the loss 64 After looking at Reserves: ------

81 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming 82 nothing in Iraq,” because they now belong to the mainstream media of the West) to “You have seen depend for their political outlook on the biased historical knowledge and no direct experience and Iraq” (most frequently because they have scant would one progress from “You have seen little in in the aftermath of the Gulf War! With rare people seen in Iraq and the Kuwaiti theater of operations Herzog, the director of or “You have seen nothing in Iraq.” How little has would I say: “You have seen nothing in West Beirut” they presume is perceptible. To very few Westerners are merely ones who do not want others to see what ones who “have seen nothing in Hiroshima”; they National Air and Space Museum are certainly not End of World War II” it planned to hold in 1995 at the the exhibit “The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the the Smithsonian to an out-and-out scaling back of nity. person, she is not sure she is yet of that commu certain things, it must be because, being an ethical Japanese man’s words, insisting that she has seen surpassing disaster. If she reacts negatively to the since she is experiencing the withdrawal due to the another level, it includes her in the community, that you have seen anything in Hiroshima. At yet fects should not have the presumption to consider of the atomic explosion and its radioactive afteref woman, removed from both the direct experience woman could at one level mean: You, a French said by the Japanese man to the visiting French such an experience. community of that surpassing disaster would have nal Boltanski himself implies in an interview in the jour Is it everybody? Not at all, and this despite what Autrement 65 Those Americans who managed to pressure The “You have seen nothing in Hiroshima” , 1996. Only those who belong to the Lessons of Darkness , 1991, - - - views whose addresser and addressee is mostly no ing them, how little effective is the placement of a with these stereotypes then at least at problematiz the rational, conscious level if not at doing away scious—and therefore, while arguably effective at spread stereotype is not implicated with the uncon to the unconscious and its processes—no wide herself how much these stereotypes are linked community of the surpassing disaster and thus are turalism, orientalism, etc., ing something or other around issues of multicul her contribution to one more anthology negotiat Westerners have of Arabs, Iranians, etc., as his or catalogue the litany of stereotypes the majority of any aspiring academician who intends to once more of stereotypes to the unconscious. Certainly by now ness, even at the intuitive level, to the connection cian himself or herself through his or her oblivious such a critique reveals that he or she is an academi revolves around how better to express and convey full of resentment. Anyone whose “art” merely the occasion for subsequent verbose discussions that do not even furnish such a critique but merely stereotypes of Middle Easterners, let alone works main function is to provide a critique or parody of California, Berkeley, I did not show any works whose for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of have seen nothing in Palestine and Iraq. Nothing”! tainly would not have said to the living Duras: “You for how little she saw in Palestine and in Iraq. I cer “seen nothing in Hiroshima”; I feel contempt for her passing disaster. I highly respect Duras for having in relation to communities that underwent a sur critical and exclusive; the second is inclusive when affected with the withdrawal. The first expression is , a negative sign, a critical attitude before these In the two film series I curated at the Center 66 has to ask himself or ------

83 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 84 that’s all.” bother him, provoke him, she can even kill him— a man. He carries all his tragedy within him. She can representations. “A woman cannot do much harm to self to criticizing or parodying such widespread mis are termed terroristic!) is no excuse for limiting one in the part of Lebanon illegally occupied by Israel operations by the Lebanese against military targets name of a defense against terrorism (even guerrilla destruction of villages in South Lebanon in the land without a people” …) can facilitate the Israeli tion of Palestine by many of the early Zionists as “a manner (up to denying their existence: the descrip tion of Arabs and Iranians in the most simplistic embassy employees. All in all, that the representa tions with prejudiced airport security officials or Arabs even more oppressive than the rude transac critical academic catalogues of stereotypes of ing them. I find the encounter with such ostensibly dealing with these academics seemingly defend tures and ethnic groups relax their vigilance when immune to them, since many people from other cul propagating such stereotypes to sectors previously of the unconscious; moreover, they are indirectly the maintenance of these stereotypes at the level and academics are playing an important role in stereotypes, the unconscious level. These critics tive they are at the level where it really matters with by the difference between “That’s all.” That something exceeds all is implied mortals, have the reaction, and not tautologically: negative, and no negation” the unconscious, which “knows nothing that is concerned” writes, “‘No’ seems not to exist so far as dreams are is not all. that death is the absolute end and a total loss, all 70 69 To any totalizing “that is all,” we, laconic (That is, even for those who consider 68 ); indeed how largely counterproduc 67 that’s all (Freud, who elsewhere and that’s all -

------deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi two Gulf Wars and that contributed to the additional the harsh sanctions imposed on Iraq between the Hiroshima in 1945, the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Catastrophes such as the atomic devastation of and confirmed by the difference between counterfeit tradition. to suspend transmission, so as not to hand down of the resurrection of tradition, of the obligation of the withdrawal, and, in the absence or failure ing disaster, one must be sensitive to the eventuality ence. But in case what was suffered was a surpass in spite of the latter’s acculturation and indiffer mit the traditional songs and dances to their youths would plainly be to do everything possible to trans the issue for the present-day Native Americans forebears had undergone only a vast catastrophe, than its handing down. Were it the case that their dance would be less detrimental and problematic the discontinuation of the transmission of the dance. Something must have indicated to her that expressly discontinued the transmission of a tribal withdrawal of tradition. do worse: produce a surpassing disaster and thus a the hundreds of thousands? Unfortunately, they can us—that’s all. But is that all they can do? Kill us—in can even treat us like potential terrorists and kill their resultant flagrant stereotypes about us; they rance of our tradition; provoke us, for example with words, they can bother us, for example by their igno all ible to this difference between and and between c’est tout You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed A Kashaya Pomo chief and scholar recently [this excess includes but is not reduc c’est tout 71 and c’est tout that’s all ].) In other and c’est tout that’s - - - - -

85 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 86 away with it; only that whose eternal recurrence an ethical injunction to do without nostalgia, to do more?’” ( do, ‘Do you will this once more and countless times Nietzsche’s “The question posed to each thing you concentration and extermination camps produced! of the absence or desuetude of the will, have the it. Evil is nostalgic; how much nostalgia, a symptom mination camps, a cryptic fundamental attack on in 1934), was, through the concentration and exter mentary on the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg of the will Nazi Germany, seemingly an episode of will the eternal recurrence of such catastrophes? children, undermine the “will.” Who or how many can is nostalgia, rather than the event itself. But can’t ing” some event what we, nostalgic beings, “will” recurrence and ends up willing, beneath “will recurrence). Until someone experiences countless of the will only insofar as it was also one of eternal nally (Nietzsche’s philosophy could be a philosophy its eternal recurrence, thus making it recur eter do not will events. I really will an event only if I will in an ostensibly transient present than because we if at all—because we are creatures who remember when it happened. We are nostalgic beings less— gic, I know that I did not “will” its eternal recurrence with regard to any event toward which I feel nostal nostalgia is basically a facet of the present event; recurrence. When it is not merely psychological, it happened in the past: I did not “will” its eternal past event, but also how I “willed” that event when Nostalgia reveals not only what I feel now about a event, that is, did not “will” its eternal recurrence. event than an indication that one did not will the basically less a yearning for the repetition of an is willed does not produce nostalgia. Nostalgia is The Gay Science (the title of Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 docu , no. 341) is to be read as the triumph - -

- - - this basic nostalgia itself be genuinely willed? No; for nostalgia and the possibility of overcoming it. we could not will if we did not have the capacity our greatest liability, nostalgia is also our chance: of the event. With respect to the will, while being ory but to not having willed the eternal recurrence basic nostalgia, which is linked directly not to mem desire, does not by itself signal the absence of the affective nostalgia, which is linked to memory and I just told you! It is over between us!” The absence of case.) “You wish you were not nostalgic despite what while he or she is in one’s presence is always the eternal recurrence of the moment, missing the other talgia, which is related to the inability to will the were true!” (From the standpoint of the basic nos difficult to love you.” “Me not nostalgic? I wish it events. You lack nostalgia. That’s why I feel it is so She lamented: “You never talk about or evoke past only the psychological nostalgia can be “willed.” not stop at all (Takuan Soho’s to totally stop at the event (eternal recurrence) or the contrary, willing its eternal recurrence. One has sidering it “self-arisen and self-liberated”; or, on detached even while the event is happening, con Freedom from nostalgia implies either remaining become ripe, the feasible way to end nostalgia is the conditions for the experience of recurrence until one wills the eternal recurrence of events. Until successive virtual versions in similar simulations— which one would die countless times through one’s fully detached; or the cycles of recurrence—during of death-rebirth of Buddhism until one becomes nostalgia, one has to go through cycles: the cycles nal recurrence of each of the duel’s events. To end by some matter or aim; or one has to will the eter have no abiding place, not stop and be detained For example, during a sword duel, the mind has to immovable wisdom - - ). 72 - 73

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87 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 88 two centuries” (Nietzsche: “What I relate is the history of the next ripe in the last decades of the twenty-first century somewhat abstract. Are such conditions going to be (future) conditions, his eternal recurrence remained of Nietzsche that he sensed that pending the right Hour,” was ripe but he was not yet ripe for it (“The Stillest the teacher of eternal recurrence, when his fruit were ripe; and it came to his character Zarathustra, turely, before the conditions for its implementation books, untimely, Nietzsche (the author of, among other recurrence; it came to the philosopher of the several senses: it makes events untimely through eternal recurrence is the thought of the untimely in conditions for that were not ripe yet. The thought of which was left in the form of notes, was that the Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values through the writing of his projected major work, The reason that Nietzsche did not actually carry play a very important role in modern philosophy.” tion is possible and what importance it has] will in his prognosis: “This question [whether a repeti is that of “the will to will,” Kierkegaard was right will, and since according to Heidegger our epoch recurrence. Since repetition is a prerequisite of the rence that we may reach the will, that is, will eternal why he did so. burning his family’s house but also not justifying in Tarkovsky’s karma yoga), thus of linkage: Alexander’s sacrifice through sacrifice, that of the fruit of action (as in the future only (up to the use in English of “will” to in a coming historical period in which virtual-reality indicate simple futurity), this is likely because only It is only through the experience of recur Thus Spoke Zarathustra Untimely Meditations The Sacrifice 75 )? If the will seems to be linked to (1986) includes not only , 1873–1876), prema ). It is to the credit - The 74 - -

, generators that can produce emulations have been virtual virtual versions, countless recurrence until we or edly experience, through our or our descendants’ because simulations make it possible to repeat be eternally willed, but also, more fundamentally, because some computer simulations are going to linked to computer-simulated worlds, it is not only thus the possible production of the will. If the will is allows the initiation into countless recurrence and very long sequence of past events, but because it since different outcomes can issue from the same because it proves that I could have done otherwise possibility of the generation of the will, not so much double-slit experiment is the one that allows for the ism of quantum physics and of the results of the of time travel, such an interpretation of the formal the multiverse); when connected to the possibility alternatives are actualized in various branches of make any real difference what I choose, since all the of the will, strikes it with irrelevance (it does not interpretation of quantum physics makes nonsense of the possibility of time travel, the many-worlds ontological creation of the will. While in the absence less times more?’”), but also as a condition for the thing you do, ‘Do you will this once more and count cal notion (Nietzsche: “The question posed to each a relatively abstract and individual selective ethi then have reached countless recurrence not only as is willed, that is, willed to recur eternally). We would in the future: the Edenic epoch, in which everything that we place in the past what is going to occur only a symptom of our inability to will, of our nostalgia, but also to experience countless recurrence (it is only to think in the manner of a thought experiment, has become feasible is it going to be possible not many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics constructed or time travel in the multiverse of the - - - -

89 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 90 ity of the objects and events of “everyday life,” the starts the exploration of the variety and complex at the repetition, one is relieved for a while as one spans several phases: past the initial stupefaction recurrence). The experience of countless recurrence no one would bear its countless, let alone eternal (at the level of narrative only, since cinematically experiment in experiencing countless recurrence on a story by Rubin) can be viewed as a thought Day transfigured by the will. Harold Ramis’s a major means to fully accept it as it is going to be primarily escapist in relation to this world, but as computer simulation is going to reveal itself as not our descendants will their eternal recurrence. Thus people of our epoch tion, of meditation, of the otherwise distracted recurrence functioning then as the form of atten overman, a man who experiences the same state of of the multiverse; the achievement of the will by an tions or some of one’s versions in similar branches one’s successive virtual versions in similar simula later, one commits suicide through one or more of and disgust with the recurring events. Sooner or many times the hour of the great suffocation by reached, and thus tion itself and resents it. The will is not going to be one becomes again preoccupied with the repeti first seemed to be indefinitely open recedes and of Innocence / and eternity in an hour” (William Blake, a wild flower / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand “To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in ing us notice previously unnoticed facets of it) or branches of the multiverse, minor changes mak transversal movement through similar simulations more so our descendants, have to go through a , 1993 (script by Ramis and Danny Rubin, based , 1803). But then this phase that at amor fati 76 (to explore an event, we, and , without undergoing Groundhog Auguries 77 : - - - - - things over and over and ends up willing the eter death of man nal recurrence of various events, would include recurrence! One should not summarily judge a day ages to do so only when at last he wills its eternal itself a stupendous number of times, and he man same day tries to get released from it as it repeats can will its eternal recurrence. A man stuck in the ring day’s events, perfected each moment so that he nist has, after innumerable rehearsals of the recur February 3 arrives; I think it is because the protago in relation to it. It is not manifest in the film why tion at the day’s recurrences, he was still nostalgic the ground, it was that, despite all his despera after Phil leapt from a window and smashed against nitely. If the same year’s February 2 returned even Phil as the same year’s February 2 returns indefi then anxiety then desperation of Messiah/Mahdī. so many comings to the same state of things: the ushered in by his achieving the will at the end of the title that befits the transfigured, redeemed time sects strictly associate with the one it designates, and of the genealogy various religions and religious term of some of its orthodox religious connotations him, once we take the precaution of divesting the overman, or, better, the over-man; we could also give of eternal recurrence and the will to power: the term borrowed appropriately from the philosopher ended up committing suicide. We could give him a versions in similar branches of the multiverse who in computer simulations or those of his physical to himself in the guise of those of his virtual versions not only to other humans or future cyborgs but also rence of various events is exceptional in comparison recurrence and ends up willing the eternal recur Nostalgia is present even in the frustration . 78 The one who lives through countless Groundhog Day -

the - - - ’s - - -

91 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 92 eternally recur” transient but subsist only because they are willed to but would be living in a universe where things are able, even what cannot be willed to recur eternally, preserved, even what is Evil, even what is unforgiv universe of spacetime of relativity, in which all is realized, one “would no longer be living in the block block universe of spacetime], but once the will is to the theory of relativity, events do not pass in the been achieved no day passes [indeed, according what allows it to pass (so long as the will has not eternal recurrence has been willed; the latter is criterion for the perfection of a day is whether its while falling from a tree does not thank him. The to the boy who on once again being caught by him be perfect: Phil willed the complaint he addresses and billiard shots that missed, for these too can as imperfect merely because it contains complaints of any of Adam and Eve’s previous acts, each of of the lack of the will? Judged from the perspective caused our entrance into the long historical episode maybe the weightiest “act,” since it apparently the knowledge of good and evil a weighty “act,” but only overlaid on it. people, they seem not really integrated in the town willing the eternal return of his stay with the town’s the graphic rendition of the weather, but who attains shown superimposed on a blue screen displaying gia. Compared to him, a TV weatherman, who is first 6,782 inhabitants, are separated from it by nostal “repetitiveness” of their lives in that small town of tation in their town, they, although bored with the them, since, not having attained willing their habi when he wills the eternal recurrence of his stay with not when, elitist, he treats them with contempt, but furthest away from the inhabitants of Punxsutawney Was Adam’s eating of the prohibited tree of 79 ). Phil is far more Nietzschean and - - - which was willed, i.e., willed to eternally recur, the was done without will, it is his one “act” “there” that edge of good and evil: it is his one “act” “there” that Paradise, but for his eating of the tree of the knowl makes it possible. The nostalgia of Adam is not for future get introduced—nostalgia precedes the past, sequently with nostalgia, that the past and the eternally, it is only with the lack of the will, and con forgetfulness! Since any willed act is willed to occur gic is already the insinuation of this possibility of scription, and thus cannot be forgotten. How nostal the mode of eternal recurrence, even God’s pro this question in a realm where everything is willed in not eat from any tree in the garden’?” How strange is through the question: “Did God really say, ‘You must Genesis (3:1), it does so by implying forgetfulness make them dubious of the existence of the will. In the knowledge of good and evil, the serpent tries to will. In the Adam and Eve episode with the tree of Adam to will; rather, he tempted him no longer to he or she regrets nothing. The devil did not tempt willed by him. The one who wills can do no evil, and with a ioned Eve out of his rib, seemingly confronting him his unconscious state while he slept and God fash rather as his first “act” that was not willed—even good and evil evil because it was willful? It was evil Adam’s eating from the tree of the knowledge of the gravest since these were willed to recur eternally. It is one of tinuing to look at something for one extra “instant,” foot one further step while walking; or than his con deeply production of Eve from one of his ribs from Adam’s perspective, infinitely lighter than the edge of good and evil was unbearably light. It was, transgression of eating from the tree of the knowl fait accompli (Genesis 2:21–22); than his displacing his contresens on his awakening, was fully to connect evil to will. Was while he slept ------

93 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 94 as a symptom of the inability to any longer “will,” bated nostalgia—on account of the objective spirit advanced stage of nihilism—and thus of exacer nally. Technology and science, avatars of an only what can be willed, that is, willed to recur eter nostalgia for Paradise, that is, for what consists of and more simply because it is impossible to feel motive for the will, can never mobilize it; but also to it not only because nostalgia can never be a ported nostalgia for Paradise is not going to lead us accordingly already outside of Paradise. Our pur no longer able to view them as perfect, he was ability to will the eternal recurrence of events, thus he cannot will to eternally recur. Having lost the liarity of the world, including of the world of the for as long as this universe is not willed, is a pecu is, cannot be willed to recur eternally, and therefore, “Patmos”). Evil is that which cannot be willed, that is, grows / The saving power also” (Hölderlin, where evil is no longer possible: “But where danger to make it possible to will, thus leading to an epoch ostensibly cannot be willed, are nonetheless going and Nagasaki …) and whose eternal recurrence made possible (the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and on account of so many catastrophes they have that ‘evil’ out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred … self an idea of ‘bad’! This ‘bad’ of noble origin and ously out of himself and only then creates for him the basic concept ‘good’ in advance and spontane contrary of what the noble man does, who conceives this ‘outside,’ what is ‘different,’ what is ‘not itself’; and Slave morality from the outset says No to what is ment (“The slave revolt in morality begins when concept of evil as the outcome of slave morality noble. Hence, Nietzsche’s critical exposition of the No is its creative deed.… This, then, is quite the becomes creative and gives birth to values.… ressenti - - 80 - - -

- - how different these words ‘bad’ and ‘evil’ are, cept ‘good’” the same concept ‘good.’ But it is although they are both apparently the opposite of fall’” late Middle English: from Latin, from surely die” it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of God commanded the man, saying, … of the tree of tal, that is, dead while (physically) alive (“The Lord the knowledge of good and evil, man became mor Genesis, through his will-less eating of the tree of it is a characteristic of the realm of death. In of the living, the basic obstacle to willing this world, the will. While evil is an exceptional part of the world is wanting precisely because he is a philosopher of making possible the will, since in a willed universe, additionally and more radically, going to be through through breakthroughs in biology and medicine; it is, going to be simply by ending biological demise and technology are ever to abolish death, this is not rinthine, one feels one has depends on him, and a realm “in” which, being laby feels that the fate of the (falling apart) world death long since become oblivious that they carry in them the eternal recurrence of various events, they have in the process possibly achieve the will by willing position yet to experience countless recurrence and unbearable lightness of being because, while in no majority of people nowadays unwittingly embody an made it include an implicit fall changed his body into a potential cadaver, and thus into a mortal, i.e., someone dead while alive, recur eternally, and that, moreover, by turning him “act” that was not willed, i.e., that was not willed to 84 ), was as undeath 82 81 ). What Adam felt once he performed an the unbearable lightness of being ) while a fully justified act of resistance , a ,

state in which one at least once always 83 ( cadaver not been. If science cadere the same con :

“ origin ‘to ‘to . 85 The

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95 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 96 will its eternal recurrence); that will induce us, across one or more suicides, to bear, we sense that it implies the unbearable joy least one suicide (even in the utmost joy that we can almost certainly bound to include committing at rence of any of the joyful days with the beloved is process of accomplishing willing the eternal recur the beloved, but, more fundamentally, because the parison to a melancholic response to the death of do us part” is noncommittal, not so much in com guilt and evil are intrinsic, is abolished. “Till death recur eternally, death-as-undeath, a realm to which that is, in a universe where everything is willed to going to be aptly called Operation Sisyphus ished. The operation to realize the will is probably with the beloved is one from which death was abol which one can will the eternal recurrence of being of of how shallow is Sisyphus’s with encounter death in encounters the myth.Orpheus It is symptomatic has and none induces of one the uncanniness existence in Tartarus, of part the realm of the dead, ing him so the would offerings resume. Sisyphus’s underworld, with the result that they end up releas wife to her to offerings discontinue the gods of the him to go back to the life realm, where he asks his ages soon to win a temporary reprieve that allows Ares hands him to the freed Hades, Sisyphus man thus linked with the impossibility of death. When dies on earth, even those dismembered. Sisyphus is Until the god of war, Ares, releases Hades, no one jugates and chains Hades, sent against him by Zeus. death. During his first encounter with death, he sub will without entertaining a superficial relation to Sisyphus could not have been a possible hero of the summit only to then watch it fall back to the bottom. recurrence, repeatedly pushing a rock uphill to the Sisyphus is said to have experienced countless 86 and because a world in 87 , 88 since ------

that that in the retelling of the story of his punishment, accomplished the will. Sisyphus, having, one can a envision joyful (rather than merely happy) have led to which case,its abolishment—in yes, ily death subjugated at their first encounter, would nal recurrence? In that case he, who had temporar ordeal of recurrence come countless to will its eter Could have Sisyphus at some point his during of the absurd and not just by dint of desperation. was going to in succeed it ending all, only by force attempt suicide, and believe that by doing so he Tartarus, thus ostensibly already dead, he could Camus’s book: since was Sisyphus already in connected,indeed but in than manner another in equally. The absurd, suicide, and are Sisyphus heavy as the pushing rock uphill, thus it dreading resulted in his to coming feel the to descent be as the weight of must repetition have countless a his during remission short walk downhill; but then or hundreds of thousands repetitions, felt Sisyphus cide, but only attempt it, futilely. the During first already dead, hence could not really sui commit was in Tartarus his during punishment, that is, absurd, it is misplaced, basically since Sisyphus of perspective that hero’s by punishment the his problem,” philosophical serious as Camus does in pose the of question as suicide the “only … really as Sisyphus the figure exemplary through which to rock, and his ordeal are in Tartarus. While choosing many narrators forget to inform us that the hill, the accomplishment of the will is a revaluation of all into countless recurrence and the consequent lished is an injunction to nihilism. fati ; demanding it before the will has been estab The The Myth of Sisyphus One has to be careful when to demand across many attempted suicides 89 , from seems felicitous the 90 The initiation amor - - - , -

97 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 98 one’s versions in similar branches of the multiverse, virtual versions in similar simulations or of some of rence and, in the guise of some of one’s successive not only that one has to go through countless recur plished would be in “Eden.” The ordeal of the will is plished. Those present when the will is accom worlds” (Leibniz) only by the time the will is accom world is going to become “the best of all possible past, and thus a philosopher of cation of evil, indeed of its erasure even from the of eternal recurrence, a philosopher of the eradi of the will has also to be, in addition to a philosopher evil would have become impossible. A philosopher have moved values, at least in the sense that one would then anything, of what he would have viewed prior to the but downright willing, as he had never before willed possibly deal with the implicit not just acceptance, turn out to be as nothing compared to his having to during his experience of countless recurrence may virtual versions in similar simulations—committed the many suicides he—in the guise of some of his to be epochal). He came to the realization that even will does not remain an individual faculty, but proves willed (while it may be attained by an individual, the continue to happen, they can be, and indeed nal recurrence of various events, then if genocides countless recurrence and ends up willing the eter possibly an empirical question: if one lives through rence: recurrence impossible, to affirm its eternal recur thing that cannot be willed in the mode of eternal ontological selector that automatically renders any that happens, but also, since a genuine will is an forth is going to have not only to accept everything also that once the will is accomplished, one thence in desperation commit suicide myriad times; but amor fati beyond good and evil . Can genocides be willed? This is amor fati (Nietzsche), since . The actual are - - , ------establishment of the will as unequivocally evil, no field.” of negative energy in the form of the gravitational can be counterbalanced by a corresponding amount large positive energy of the masses in the universe ation—essentially from nothing at all—because the around us could have originated in a vacuum fluctu the universe is zero.… The vast cosmos that we see universe: it is “conceivable that the total energy of ance out of nothing and continued existence of the aged to produce a null balance sheet for the appear rence of everything that exists. do not have to affirm, indeed will the eternal recur tion, that the will is not yet accomplished, that we It is our chance, the relative lightness of our condi form of being nostalgic about the preceding period. longer able to distance himself from it even in the eral relativity), are not deducible from quantum physics and gen the fine-structure constant [1/137.035999074 (44)], the dimensionless physical constants, for example, ently one of the signs of this is that the values of spacetime; it, the outcome of a “dice throw” (pres and for it to continue to exist that it be a block one of appear that the balance sheet of its energy be zero, quantum physics, and/or through being recurrently the multiverse of the many-worlds interpretation of similar branches among the infinity that comprise over by means of time travel to many of the quite the one who experiences the same period over and an infinity of branches that, through the overman, monotheistic religions, but with a multiverse with universe willed from the outset by the one God of Heat Death scenario. We are not dealing with one violent in the Big Crunch scenario or cold in the itself prior to its hypothesized “death,” whether 91 Science has tried and has seemingly man And yet, it is not enough for the universe to 92 has to have the possibility to will ------

99 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 100 at most 4 × 10 10 culated design: “A human being can be in one of only of man in general, but even of the overman. be fundamentally nihilistic from the perspective not amor fati man, what prevents even the overman from having to include what cannot be willed even by the over descendants, then it is very probable that it is going the universe to will itself irrespective of us or our Crunch through expansion then contraction). Were between 10 generation of the will is going to be accomplished itself irrespective of us and our descendants: the lished. A sublime hypothesis for a universe that wills recurrence of what is still there once it is estab thing, the will, which wills nothing but the eternal knowledge, extra change, nor extra, unearned, unevolutionary greatest!—That was my loathing for the human! And too-human, even the greatest! All-too-small the human being: all-too-similar to each other—all- once saw them both, the greatest and the smallest of its digital emulation, is boundless. “Naked I thing, including the pettiest, to recur, in the guise yet the nostalgia of this scientist who wants every and over 10 irrespective of the overman: an infinity of universes then is the expenditure for the universe to will itself going to produce is neither some extra bodies, generates the will. The excess that time travel is virtually projected in similar computer simulations, sal simulation is going to occur). bound as to when the hypothetical future univer bers physicist Frank Tipler advances for the upper the singularity of the Big Crunch (these are the num 10 45 [quantum] states at most, and can undergo The physicist Frank J. Tipler is finite in a cal , that is, it is very probable that it is going to 38 94 -10

but, on the long run, that excessive years (from the Big Bang to the Big 10 53 seconds and 10 changes of state per second;” -10 95 123 How prodigious seconds before 96 93 -

nor - - - - - eternal recurrence even of the smallest!—That was and shuddered” disgust!——Thus spoke Zarathustra and sighed my loathing for all existence! Ah, disgust! disgust! great! All-too-small the great! firms Nietzsche’s lament: All-too-human, even the thought-provoking something to affirm, cherish, and celebrate (Tipler’s paradox (the time traveler to the past causes the no paradoxes, such as the so-called grandfather through the ordeal of countless recurrence, possibly to the past before one has achieved the will by going past; only the frivolous fancy that. Were one to travel universe, this would not be through time travel to the selective one. processing power and memory capacity—but only a cost of doing so in terms of the available computer resurrection would happen—however negligible the emulations, everyone in history, no such universal it is still impossible to resurrect, in the form of becomes impossible; and if the will is reached when anything whose eternal recurrence cannot be willed a universe where the will has been accomplished been resurrected are going to vanish again since in the vast majority, if not all of those who will have form of digital emulations, everyone in history, then point when it becomes feasible to resurrect, in the I would think that if the will is reached after the who has lived, is living, and will live,” lations near and at the Omega Point, “of everyone tion to eternal life,” in the guise of numerical emu the Resurrection of the Dead Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the smallest!” Tipler, hypothesizing in his book found most disgusting, “eternal recurrence even of Thus Spoke Zarathustra If events can be changed at all in the same 97 (Nietzsche, “The Convalescent,” The Physics of Immortality ). Even what Nietzsche (1995) “the resurrec 99 ). Qualifying Tipler, 98 considers con The - - -

101 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 102 start start their great into initiation willing, in the process their knowledge of other historical periods than to going to travel in time less to experience and add to order to experience countless recurrence. They are going to use time travel and computer emulation in But those preoccupied with the issue of the will are or computer emulations to visit different periods. will. Mediocre people are going to use time travel the living: countless recurrence and possibly the would be an introduction to the weirdest of all for time travel or more probably computer emulation More than to any weird branch of the multiverse, of will. the appearance to past, inaugural the but that supposedly can be made by some time traveler What can rend things. the fabric same of realitythe are not changesexactly doing up ending “choices,” cannot yet will and thus makes the same seeming another branch of the multiverse; or because one of the multiverse but tracing the different past in that one is not changing the past of the same branch one traveled to another branch of the multiverse so relativity’s block universe of spacetime; or because could ensue, whether because there is no change in conceived: how is it then that he was born at all?), death of his grandfather before his own father was the most in search of the new: the will. the most parochial, actually it is that person who is very similar branches of the multiverse would seem again the same time and place through traveling to while, cursorily, the one who experiences again and of the multiverse are really the most restrained. And travelers who visit conspicuously different branches most cosmopolitan and adventurous, those future commit suicide many times. While seeming to be the similar branches of the multiverse, are very likely to sions in similar simulations or physical versions in of which they, in the guise of ver either their virtual - ering in of the epochal will, was no longer relativity’s just a little from where it was in what, with the ush [ Sutra,” seeming fixed, they sider displacing mountains in space, since although influenced as he was by Zen master Dōgen, con

move like clouds in space, since although seeming steadfast, master Junayd, did not consider moving mountains various events, the overman, influenced by Sufi ity and ended up willing the eternal recurrence of versions of it in the multiverse or in virtual real world countless times in the guise of largely similar the redeemed world yet.” Having gone through this tains, but do not have will, I have nothing to do with responded: “If I have a faith that can move moun (Matthew 17:20). He, rephrasing 1 Corinthians 13:2, tain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move” small as a mustard seed, you can say to this moun reminded him of Jesus Christ’s “If you have faith as his experience of countless recurrence, someone ‘Stay,’ so I stayed”)? Shortly before he embarked on with him for the night of February 2: “You said, guest’s answer to his inquiry as to why she stayed ( experience.” “‘Willing’ something … —I know none of this from and neither had the philosopher of the will to power: many have truly tasted what it is to will? I haven’t, feeling what it is to be truly without nostalgia. How how nostalgic one was that one discovers how devoid one was of any will, something that can be felt as such. It is only then eternal recurrence of an event that volition becomes Groundhog Day Sh ō b ō It is only once one has attained willing the Who or what can resist a genuine will genz Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma ō])—he moved a stone on that mountain 100 ’s Phil is not surprised with his ān,(Qur’ 27:90); walk all the time (“Mountains and Waters 101 neither did he, before, suddenly they

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103 Jalal Toufic You Said, “Stay,” So I Stayed 104 the Messiah come.” humans are incapable of it and it is necessary that so difficult to find that, with regard to the world, ment is so difficult to achieve and its measure is little, and thus everything. But this small displace displace this cup or this bush or this stone just a to begin a completely new world. It is sufficient to peace it is not necessary to destroy everything nor list, once said that in order to establish the reign of recur eternally, never existed: “A rabbi, a real caba world’s past could not be willed, that is, willed to block universe but a universe where whatever of the ing again—also through the spectrum of physical space—appearing then disappearing then appear ahistorical unworldly entities that irrupted in the dress designs; and, in case they happen to be myriad changes in mannerisms, hairstyles, and radically-closed space are going to pass through to fantasies. Those who find themselves in a reflections of the desire of the male character: Lynch’s of spacetime: the will does. reality, for example so it is no longer a block universe living in the epoch of the actual will who transmute subject but to one who has its cause. The will does not lead to a voluntaristic tered repeatedly as preceding what seemed to be thing that could possibly function as a goal, encoun chronology, what appeared to be later, thus some from goals—not least because recurrence subverts encing countless recurrence, which divests action ing the will, since such an ordeal includes experi because we would like to avoid the ordeal of reach be induced to muster the will, but, on the contrary, We crave goals not because we have will or wish to The two versions of the woman in David Will and goals are not constitutionally linked. Lost Highway 102 are not to be reduced to

amor fati . It is not those ------characteristics and identities. Moreover the phrases intonations and given different interpretations. permuted among them and uttered in different said by the different protagonists are going to be affecting even published books and released films. only one who does not go through the permutations in a spatial radical closure and he is going to be the its eternal recurrence once and for all; but place him and he is not going to repeat any event, for he wills who wills in a space that is merely relatively closed uted to the same person. Place such a character amidst the surrounding permutations and attrib rence was willed would be repeated again and again tures, responses, and behavior whose eternal recur recur eternally. In a radical closure, only those ges immune to it if one willed the event, i.e., willed it to ten times, or a thousand times—or be altogether event, i.e., to whether one “willed” it to recur twice, inverse proportion to how intensely one “willed” an one is going to be subject to the permutation in fair-haired, she is very dark … In a radical closure, as old nor as young as the protagonist says; she is etc.; she is French, she isn’t French; she is neither closure: her first name is Eliane, Liane, Lucile, Lale, this passage through all the variations in a radical have kidnapped the said woman; they rather reveal instance one that traffics in slaves and that may people belonging to some secret organization, for are they the intentional misleading statements of to the specific woman to whom he is referring, nor understanding on the part of his interlocutors as variations in perception, nor do they disclose a mis woman are not to be ascribed to mere subjective interviewed by the protagonist give of the missing between the descriptions that the various persons In Robbe-Grillet’s L’Immortelle , the discrepancies 103 -

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105 Jalal Toufic First Aid, Second Growth, Third Degree, Fourth World, 106 Fifth Amendment, Sixth Sense entities that irrupted fully formed in such a closure. apparently issue, but because they are unworldly characteristic of the undeath realm from which they as impostors not because of the doubling that is a a radical closure, where apparitions are experienced may appear in time, before the quarantine turns into by the rest of the world. These posthumous entities people that the dead are not party to their desertion business but to intimate to the quarantined living quarantined region, not to complete an unfinished on Us,” last sky?” (Mahmoud Darwish, “The Earth Is Closing last frontier? Where should the birds fly after the in deciding to leave: “Where should we go after the radical closure might have contributed to the delay and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. A feeling of tified by the subsequent massacres in the Sabra would be left behind—a mistrust that proved jus dreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who they were being offered for the safety of the hun Lebanon; and by their mistrust of the guarantees administrative apparatus they had established in land and to relinquish the elaborate political and had become to many of them a surrogate home caused only by the reluctance to decamp from what delay in coming to a decision may not have been leave that enclosure. The Palestinian combatants’ closure; yet they were being violently pressured to ber—may have changed their enclave into a radical Council permanent, thus veto-wielding, mem trated by Israel’s main ally, the USA, a UN Security their desertion by the rest of the world—orches the Palestinians faced a double bind: the siege and During the Israeli army’s 1982 siege of West Beirut, Fourth World, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Sense First Aid, Second Growth, Third Degree, Ward Aqal , 1986). Ghosts may appear in a - - - - - They may appear there although the quarantined nothing). I term such spaces radical closures. ing (the one referred to in the Latin with Me Red Room in David Lynch’s environs are open to the diagram (for example, the Spaces that are radically disconnected from their which I happen to reside and Beirut. to Beirut, my coordinates are conjointly the city in ing’—to New York in 1984”? Even if I never go back Beirut—a city where ‘nothing [is] left. Not even leav cal closure. Haven’t I written: “He left (did he leave?) be quite accurate only from the perspective of radi geographical coordinates was then and continues to to the Middle East. I think such a description of my ably to stress the connection of the included artists December 1996. His reason for doing this was prob place at YYZ Artists Outlet, Toronto, in November– of Here…. (Re)Imagining the ‘Orient’” which took and Beirut in his catalogue for the exhibition “East Jayce Salloum placed me as residing in Los Angeles in Beirut for the previous four years, the curator from history. Despite the fact that I had not been cal closure, those in it would become disconnected living, since were the quarantine to turn into a radi possibility of their continuing remembrance by the dead. The dead appear there also to maintain the the modern world rubble, or burned to ashes, themselves party to their bodies hallucinated as chopped, buried under quasi-spontaneous Buddhist-like meditations on living were, and possibly continue to be, despite the ostensibly finished radical-closure painting may Sense Organ Radical-Closure Artist with Bandaged ) or to an unworldly elsewhere or to noth

’s desertion and exclusion of the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk ex nihilo , out of

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107 Jalal Toufic Radical-Closure Artist with Bandaged Sense Organ 108 ance against this eventuality. from it? I suggest that the owner take out insur eventuality of the disappearance of the paint birds van Gogh Foundation, apprehensive about the that costly painting, the Van Gogh Museum/Vincent Wheatfield with Crows headline: “No crows in Van Gogh’s ultra-expensive of my wild concepts—were I to read the following surprise—but apprehension at the confirmation suddenly irrupt outside the painting sustained by the undersigned were the crows to from any claim or liability for the damage and injury releasing the museum and owner of the painting the museum’s visitors that they sign a legal release museum and owner of the painting demand from painting? Wouldn’t prudence command that the the eventuality of the crows irrupting outside the present owner of the painting apprehensive about it may suddenly disappear from it. irrupt in it, and since what had already irrupted in undergo sudden changes, since entities may later hear on looking at that painting? to stop experiencing the sounds he or she starts to she to end up cutting off his or her ear in an attempt line the path through the compact field of wheat where the two converging lines of grass, which out off.” It turned out that for another picture this very night, and I shall bring it two away.… I have no thought of fatigue, I shall do out stirring except to take some food a step or the morning till six in the evening I worked with brother, Theo: “Today again from seven o’clock in Gogh wrote in a September 26, 1888 letter to his interlocutor into doing the same: work, work. Van his painter’s life as constant slaving and prods his wheat field before his canvas, Van Gogh describes In Kurosawa’s Dreams !” Isn’t the present owner of Wheatfield with Crows (1990), standing in a 106 Moreover, isn’t the 105 107 I would feel no or were he or - - , - and trace lines of perspective, meet in the middle [ and Pipe ent self-portrait [ “A third line of thought argues that only the pres been a far more appropriate choice for that role. give the sense of indolence; David Lynch would have sion of someone hardworking, he does not at all infelicitous, since while Scorsese gives the impres casting of Martin Scorsese in the role of Van Gogh is the radical closure he produced. Thus Kurosawa’s the artist, more precisely, irrupts fully formed in birds of part of the painting, for example the black paint basically a consequence of the circumstance that cal character trait (although it can be that too); it is of radical closures is not necessarily a psychologi itself” for him. Obviously, the indolence of artists part of that radical-closure painting “paint[ed] artist of, among other things, ready-mades), since indolent artist, as indolent as Marcel Duchamp (the constructed a radical closure, to some extent an to his painting a hardworking artist, but he was also, in relation as a voluminous correspondence, was manifestly hundred paintings and a thousand drawings as well Van Gogh, who, in a decade, produced around eight irrupt sooner or later, is indolent in some measure; radical closure, in which fully formed entities may and “the scene paints itself for me.” The artist of a possessed” [ letter to his brother: “I am ploughing on like a man in a state of trance (from a September 5–6, 1889 scene, Van Gogh says that while painting he gets construct a radical closure. In the same parallel to the horizon, Van Gogh worked hard to of the field not in a point but rather in a green line Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear Wheatfield with Crows ] was ever done by Van Gogh, the other one je laboure comme un vrai possédé Wheatfield with Crows Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear , “paints itself” for ] being a pastiche , in which he Dreams ])

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109 Jalal Toufic Radical-Closure Artist with Bandaged Sense Organ 110 lamps,” he had taken from the boy while he was his filling used for painting, or by paraffin,ingesting which son himself, byeither colors swallowing that he and on he several occasions has attempted to poi … which [during he] is to subject terrors,terrifying attacks for lasting between two weeks and a month the St Rémy asylum (May 16, 1890), “had several added by Dr. PeyronThéophile when Van Gogh left make drawings?”; and who, according to an entry you why don’t you clear them away for a time and is dangerous for you to have colors [oil near paint] him in a 3,January 1890 letter, “If you know that it go back to the hospital”); whose brother advised (which that made conclude Signac “it was time to of turpentine of that was turpentine on his bedroom table” in March 1889 suddenly to “tried gulp down a liter to hospital his studio in the company of Paul Signac in shorthand under continuous dictation.” he to have stayed awake day and night transcribing him to have written them during his life even were are in his handwriting, it is this eerie fact: although all the found manuscripts in-progress collected works with: “We simply note tors of his oeuvre preface their introduction to his are discovered in his house, and years later the edi writer, an incredibly large number of manuscripts this situation: after the death of a radical-closure bly irrupted fully formed. I can quite easily envision the quote: of thought that emends the third one mentioned in closure in the field itself, I would add a fourth line Wheatfield with Crows 245); if the radical closure Van Gogh constructed in in Arles by another hand” (Ronald Pickvance, Van Gogh, who on an in outing Arles from the [The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984], 109 ended up producing a radical-closure Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear rendered an actual radical physically impossible Van Gogh possi 108

for - - - the the horizon or from amidst the wheat stalks. sented landscape, did not appear in it from behind outside it outside a little”; retinal, except for the Surrealists, who tried to go sophical, Our moral.… whole is century completely had other functions: it could be religious, philo one’s error. The retinal shudder! Before, painting is painting to addressed the retina. That was every Duchamp: Courbet, “Since it’s been that believed vous vous system birds thick brushstrokes of paint, is retinal, but the much doubt it. The rest of the painting, with its Gogh’s Van cized the black birds that appear over the field in one encounters, rather than castration anxiety, an Grandmother universe, where characters, as is revealed in his psychoanalytical notion of castration. In Lynch’s has nothing or very little to do with the standard ting off of a sense organ by a radical-closure artist the treasure uncovered to be the phallus? The cut Did his gesture of amputation imply auto-castration, severed ear and said: “Keep this and treasure it”? was implied when Van Gogh handed a prostitute his [Arles], December 30, 1888). What kind of treasure tal as an emergency case” ( sign of life. The unfortunate was admitted to hospi ing and found him lying in bed and giving almost no the police went to the man’s address the next morn action, which could only be that of a poor lunatic, sure it.’ Then he disappeared. Informed of this and handed her—his ear, saying ‘keep this and trea of Tolerance [brothel] No. I, asked for one Rachel, Vangogh, a painter, born in Holland, arrived at House painting in which aren’t; they they aren’t; “On Sunday last, at 11:30 p.m., one Vincent Wheatfield with Crows Wheatfield . 112 (1970), are not sexually conceived, come across directly onto the ner paint 111 would Duchamp have criti

birds Le Forum républicain irrupted in the repre as retinal? I very 110 paint

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111 Jalal Toufic Radical-Closure Artist with Bandaged Sense Organ 112 on the floor. Get closer to the ear and listen.” “ nations.” “Not at all. They are long last, you do acknowledge that they are halluci are nowhere else; they are only in my ear.” “So, at they were only in his head: “Yes, these sounds answered the first person who again affirmed that times that he was hallucinating them, he now times a torment to him. Having been told so many easier for others to hear these sounds that were at realized that he had cut off his ear also to make it heard diagrammatic or unworldly sounds in it. He coming close to his severed ear to throw it away, he tion he severed his ear—to stop the sounds. On musician to recreate them. In a moment of despera Unfortunately, the student was not a good enough less, obtrusive sounds from which he was suffering. to render through musical compositions the source encouraged his patient, who was a music student, the asylum’s doctor, on May 9, 1889). A doctor four-hour certificate issued by Théophile Peyron, ting off his ear” lucinations that led him to mutilate himself by cut attack of acute mania with visual and auditory hal under treatment at this city’s infirmary, suffered an at present domiciled in Arles (Bouches du Rhône), Vincent van Gogh, aged 36, a native of Holland and St Rémy mental home, certify that the man named the undersigned, Doctor of medicine, Director of the by getting rid of the corresponding sense organ: “I illusory hope that he can stop hearing these sounds death may cut off his ear because he still holds the sure or in the falling apart world of psychosis and tering irrupting unworldly sounds in a radical clo sometimes in the sense organs. A person encoun them one or more penises?), sounds, and images, unworldly fully formed ahistorical entities (among anxiety induced by the unstoppable irruption of 113 (from the transcript of the twenty- ‘in’ my severed ear That’s

------fucking crazy, man! tive tive in Arles? Auditory “hallucinations”?) while the his wish aborting to a establish painters’ coopera he to planned leave him, thus impairing, indeed Gauguin who had him informed before shortly that the off cutting of the ear (a fight with the painter and Pipe world, or that one, formed in relation to some radical closure in the Gogh while the other, unworldly, irrupted fully that one of the two was actually painted by Van with ear bandaged could indicate self-portraits your ear next to mine!” That there are two Van Gogh ship good at this point is to hear ear to ear. Place about eyeseeing to eye; what will do our relation except for them, we lous you sounds hear sometimes, for basically, should have a match shouting over these anoma is talking bound to lead to a quarrel. I don’t think we to mine and listen!” “This provocative of manner ear; next in your ear my put remaining to sounds the of his acquaintances: incredulous “Come and listen in … ? One day, while in a perverse mood, he told one others too could hear them—couldn’t they be heard tively was present—as from evident the fact that were sounds not only in his mind, but were objec of the whereabouts an unworldly sound. If these mately the source of a worldly sound, is sometimes to one allowing to locate more or less approxi- closure),(radical circumstances the ear, in addition the best of his ability. They perceived that in certain the unworldly he sounds to had described them to did, to amazement, their horrified hear in the ear in induced them by that detached, organ putrefying close to enough the ear in spite of the revulsion the of benefit the doubt; but those few who did go told subsequently the same thing did not give him , refers to the anecdotal, cause extrinsic of Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear ” Many of those to whom he

see see eye to eye.” “I don’t care

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113 Jalal Toufic Radical-Closure Artist with Bandaged Sense Organ 114 ics.” lullaby in colors is something I leave to the crit woman rocking the cradle.’ … Whether I really sang a Van Eeden’s Dutch, quite simply ‘our lullaby or the A. H. Koning, “I call it ‘La Berceuse,’ or, as we say in … off his ear and regarding which he wrote in a letter to La Berceuse different manner—in sounds through painting more surely—though in a Wheatfield with Crows you, the reader, at times hear sounds in Van Gogh’s sounds of possibility—a radical closure—of the irruption of paint for sounds, but of constructing the condition eral to painting is not that of finding equivalents in In this case, the relation of music and sound in gen unworldly paint crows that irrupted in the painting. caws without seeing any crows) but also of the converging, radically-closed paths, Van Gogh hears Theo sounds he was hearing (in Robert Altman’s of possibility of at least some of the unworldly painting that evinces a radical closure, the condition that Van Gogh later painted empty canvas in think that it is on the referent of the represented tation of his ear had to do with a painting. I would to the left of the painter, that what led to his ampu through the empty canvas visible in the background other, movement.” painting, and I hear like a little wind, and I see a little early paintings: “I’m looking at this figure in this ably David Lynch. David Lynch said about one of his painted much of period in which he severed one of his ears and designer for a film concerning Van Gogh in the 114 , having painted the field, the sky, and the two Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear Who would be the best present-day sound in the painting. Whether a critic or not, don’t 115 , which he painted shortly after cutting

This movement and sound induced Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear Wheatfield with Crows Wheatfield with Crows ? I do. Van Gogh reached Wheatfield with Crows , implies, ? Most prob Vincent & than in -

- , a a , - - in it?” “What about the source of the sounds one can hear responded, to the consternation of the detective: sors.” Unlike in Lynch’s film, Jeffrey could have person.… It looks like the ear was cut off with scis blood type, whether or not the ear came off a dead can you tell about the person from the ear?” “Sex, the severed ear in the field, asks the coroner: “What tive in the coroner’s office, Jeffrey, who discovered Lynch’s the shots themselves are then no longer continuous. wheat stalks and are seemingly enduring entities, closed. Although the crows appear from amidst the front of the canvas mounted on an easel as radically painting Minnelli’s film on Van Gogh, light, but a zone of inexistence. if the black is not the circumstantial absence of can light not affect the black areas? This can happen the totally black regions remained unchanged. How in the intensity of the illumination directed at them, other sections of the ear shifted with the variations the ear. While the regions of light and darkness in the what he had said, the coroner aimed a spotlight at areas of black. Nonetheless, to shed more light on Jeffrey or to the detective to direct a light at these to get adapted to. Thus it no longer occurred to not grow adapted to anything, for there was nothing begin to discern some outlines. But their eyes did illumination of these black areas in the ear and that their eyes would grow adapted to the quite low was referring to: they both persisted in assuming Jeffrey nor the detective made out what the corner black.” In my thought experiment, at first neither unable to determine it, owing to these areas of total him to change media: from painting to film. 117 In the scene of the crows in Vincente Blue Velvet The coroner would have responded: “We are Wheatfield with Crows (1986), standing with the detec Lust for Life reveals the field in (1956), the 116

In - -

115 Jalal Toufic Copyright Free Farm Road 116 closed a makeshift excuse for not crossing the radically- witless, was not going to supply the comic relief of bility by providing the imperceptive peasant, who, suicide a last-ditch attempt to avert the impossi One may intuit that death is not a way out of a radi Grillet’s that death is not a way out of such a closure (Robbe- writer, artist, or filmmaker knows or at least intuits “way out” of a radical closure? A radical-closure does it rather refer to a radical closure? Is death a it, “No way out,” does this portend his suicide? Or a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbles on after uttering, “It’s impossible,” Van Gogh takes out driver through a radically-closed path? When soon Or is it the ostensible progress of the cart and its of hallucinations and his precarious livelihood? living despite his anxiety about both the recurrence what is impossible? Is it for Van Gogh to continue and, minutes later, shoots himself. In this scene, wheat field, Van Gogh exclaims, “It’s impossible!” of going beyond the radically-closed path in the crows and seeing a peasant-driven cart on the point closure. Having all of a sudden been assaulted by others, which could imply that the space is a radical suddenly appear and disappear, to be replaced by through jump cuts, the impression that the crows lessly, felicitously manages in connect non-contiguous spaces-times seam Minnelli, who in the ballets of his musicals can ety,” cal closure but nonetheless be “suicided by soci paths in posedly arbitrary distortions of the field and its radically-closed path and later deplored the sup have ostensibly impossibly continued along that and turn back, toward the gravely wounded painter, 118 by all those who, like that peasant, would gateless gate L’Immortelle Wheatfield with Crows , and 120 with a justification to stop The House of Assignation Lust for Life . 119 Was Van Gogh’s to give, - - - - - ).

before he incredibly transgresses the radical clo dealing with a radical closure.” “A what?” It is his familiar: Andrew Wyeth’s paintings happened to be one with which I am quite she could recognize the paintings. “One of the two morning. During their meeting, he asks her whether friend Jalal Toufic. They decide to meet the following the bricked up window, she, alarmed, phones her she witnesses another irruption of a painting in caused by her lack of sleep. When, some time later, morning, she manages to dismiss what she saw as bricked up window and sees a painting. The next her way there, she glances in the direction of the nia, she heads to the kitchen for sleeping pills. On window facing it. One night, suffering from insom reason she finally decides to rent it is the bricked up another building and that the rent is exorbitant. The ment is spacious, she dislikes that it gives onto Melville’s Bartleby. While she likes that the apart up window. She begins blabbering to herself about pans 180 degrees to show what faces her: a bricked ing room and looks ahead into the camera, which the bedroom and kitchen, then goes back to the liv hat, revealing beautiful blue short hair. She inspects the apartment advertised for rent. She removes her finishes closing the entrance door and moves into tive stories and stops on a young woman as she tion of the cinematic in it or in its diegetic world. script; such specifications probably signal the irrup ment does not necessarily indicate that the text is a of specifications of camera placement and move In the case of a radical closure, the presence in a text sure’s border? The camera tracks up the windows of consecu Copyright Free Farm Farm Road Farm Road .” “You may be ------

117 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 118 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second inexistence, disappears. actual existence to anything, it reverts instantly to have a necessity of existence, so when God gives al-‘Arabī, the things of the world, unlike God, do not ject to processes akin to those of cinema. For Ibn provides a way of considering the world as sub of the Ash‘arites and in the Sufism of Ibn al-‘Arabī notion of works on the basic cinematographic apparatus. The about which comparatively little has been written in the predominant Islamic conception of time but atomicity facet, which makes cinema very close to camera lenses and disregards cinema’s temporal to the kind of space favored by the standard film- religion’s tradition if one pays inordinate attention disadvantage Muslim filmmakers steeped in their Renaissance perspective? Cinema would appear to regions, still resistant to, rather than ignorant of, (the age of cinema) was, especially in its Arabic from a tradition that until only a century or so ago medium of cinema, since these filmmakers came when it came to a genuine formal contribution in the place early Muslim filmmakers at a disadvantage from Renaissance Western monocular perspective Did the descent of the standard film-camera lenses ever-renewed creation (Ibn al-‘Arabī’s gloss on the cess goes on indefinitely, making of the world an tence to a similar thing the next moment. This pro remarks: “Your kitchen looks exactly like mine!” sitting around the kitchen table, she, bemused, fee?” “I happen to make excellent coffee.” Shortly, turn to exclaim: “Why are a Second Returns to Thee Middle Eastern Films renewed creation —in Less than 1/24 of 122 you God “then” gives exis in the kalām (theology)

Before Thy Gaze the one making cof

- 121 - - - ān’sQur’ “a new creation” [50:15]). In Paradjanov’s ing horse deconstructs itself: through the miracle Kerib’s proof of his miraculous one-day trip on a fly pen by means of the flying horse; and (c) that Ashik to his mother’s ruined house and that does not hap another visit that he makes from that distant land to his native town is anachronistically preceded by that Ashik Kerib’s miraculous trip on the flying horse supernatural horse also presented in jump cuts; (b) jump cuts and his repeated attempts to mount the is introduced by Ashik Kerib’s prayer presented in have otherwise required a hundred days of travel ing globe in the background) a distance that would with no discontinuities (as is implied by the revolv the one-day miraculous trip that ostensibly covers ted a missed opportunity here were it not (a) that appear again (in jump cuts). I would have regret their riders often suddenly disappear then suddenly since in Paradjanov’s previous two films horses with version of Ashik Kerib at his destination, especially of departure and the appearance of a very similar of the disappearance of Ashik Kerib from the point ment to occur by a new creation, that is, by means expected, in this film of jump cuts, the displace ported her throne to Solomon’s palace; I would have Solomon and the Queen of Sheba would have trans manner to the way the his native town in one day, presumably in a similar who appears in response to his prayer flies him to He prays for help. It is jarring that the horse rider ing two days a distance of one hundred days’ travel. passed, has to journey back in that period’s remain lead him, to marry her before a thousand days have wherever his instrumental pursuit of riches might approval of her wealthy father) and to return, from ised his lover to become rich (in order to gain the Ashik Kerib , Ashik Kerib, a poor minstrel who prom jinn in ān the storyQur’ of ------

119 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 120 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second linkages in the world. In my case, it has happened omnipotence of God despite the apparent causal Ash‘arite theologians tried to maintain the absolute to it to resolve certain paradoxes. By means of it the creation substitutions? A still larger number resort renewed- such to sensing to be attributed syndrome lar person—are some of the cases of the Capgras not identical to himself or herself, but merely a simi symptomatically, by sensing that the other person is number of people become aware of it indirectly, directly, through ation. Extremely rare people become aware of it this. There are several ways to know of renewed cre things replace each other before the eye can detect Ibn al-‘Arabī and the Ash‘arites, very similar frames/ thee”? With films as well as the world according to largely similar earlier one “before thy gaze returns to within the same shot the next frame replaces the lar to it. Is this not reminiscent of cinema, where ing the disappearance of an earlier one is very simi (Qur’ān 27:40) and that the form that appears follow appearance occur “before thy gaze returns to thee” both that the appearance, disappearance, then appearance, disappearance, then appearance, it is unaware of the universal and perpetual acts of kling of an eye. being told that he died—in other words, in the twin of his mother—who became blind years earlier on placed on a table, I had the clear impression that it that while looking at a half-filled cup of coffee day since he was back and disproves that he covered the distance in one the flying horse and thus his miraculous trip on it, his incredulous audience the supernatural power of the horse’s hoof, Ashik Kerib conjointly proves to of healing his mother’s blindness with dust from If, with very rare exceptions, people are kashf , unveiling. A slightly larger before

the return of the gaze - -

- - - cannot be moved, that no alterations were occurring replaced by a largely similar thing. Peter Kubelka’s rently appearing then disappearing then being Nobody and nothing changes: every thing is recur impossibility ( sory in the world as it is in cinema: there is an of ever-renewed creation, gradual change is as illu motion a few moments later. From the perspective indefinite immovability of the vase with its induced ance of a largely similar entity than to reconcile the rent appearance then disappearance then appear sequential passage of time with this ultrafast recur secondary, special effect of it, the ostensible the table? No. It is easier for me to reconcile, as a and, more generally, unchangeability of the vase on than the previous impression of the immovability narrow door opening—more incontestable to me of the cat that has just elegantly glided through the progression of time, of change, of movement—that be moved or already moving it. Is the impression of a impression of immovability and I feeling that it can state, the vase no longer inducing the incontestable then were recreated, appearing again in a changed each represents an imbalance, a fluctuation), and it could be argued by others, in relation to which back to the nothingness from which we arose (and, must be another vase. Both I and the bottle returned only mildly surprised at my success in doing so, it place it, if I nonetheless ended up moving it and was table I was certain that I could not gradually dis mild surprise? Since while looking at the vase on the enough to unsettle me, but induced instead merely a immovability and its later motion was not strong between the preceding certain impression of its vase a short time later, and that the disjunction then that I myself or someone else did displace the in or to it, that it does not change. How can I explain istiḥāla ) of change of state ( istiḥāla - - ). - - -

121 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 122 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second dane “action”: this is our aristocracy—is aristocratic distracted from the ostensibly chronological, mun logical moments. We are constantly, ontologically to the ostensibly previous and subsequent chrono bound to instantly return, and only indirectly related them and/or to the nothingness to which they are tence, are directly related to the Being who created immutability. Things, not having a necessity of exis as 35 mm filmstrips mounted on a wall, it instances appearance-disappearance; in its installation form four seconds, it instances the flicker of recurrent projection form as a film of six minutes and twenty- ilar entities since it exemplifies both modes: in its then disappearance then appearance of largely sim junction of stasis and quick recurrent appearance Arnulf Rainer frames and blank ones. Conrad’s film is prefaced with the filmstrip in both an alternation of dark 1966, and Peter Kubelka’s tracing of it: Tony Conrad’s thirty-minute two films that are a sort of diagrammatic, abstract growth into, the old Vardo), it finds its purest form in indicating young Vardo’s replacement by, not her Sofiko Chiaureli playing her as an old woman, this playing Vardo as a youth steps behind the actress Suram Fortress Nova young by the old in Paradjanov’s films from the jump cuts and the discrete replacement of the entity is discernible in pixilation films, as well as in disappearance then appearance of a largely similar dependency. While quick recurrent appearance then felicitous mixture of aristocracy and absolute disappearances, Paradjanov’s cinema presents a our poverty. With its recurrent appearances- We are constantly returning to nothingness: this is what is detached from other things, other moments. (1968) onward (for example, in remains the best example of the con , 1986, the actress Leila Alibegashvili Arnulf Rainer The Legend of , 1958–60, The Flicker Sayat

- - - 123 - - ,

mode of being “ “attention” to the “durational” “action,” albeit in the returning to God/nothingness, they evince some lowing each of its recurrent creations is limited to situation, since, unlike inorganic matter, which fol ken. From this perspective, animals are in the worst awareness, then the chain of karma would be bro nothingness that occurs almost always outside manage to accompany consciously this return to of the consciousness of the witness. Were one to entities itself produces a temporary disappearance flicker of the ultrafast recurrent disappearance of not having a necessity of existence, witnessing the their recurrent disappearance on account of their ation doubly undergo very rare people who actually witness recurrent cre logical seizure, a with a warning and disclaimer, which reads: nous neuronal activity in the brain,” or symptoms due to abnormal excessive or synchro longer merely “a transient occurrence of signs and/ similar one, induce a more basic kind of seizure, no ance of one entity and its replacement by a largely the ultrafast recurrent appearance then disappear actual witnessing of the ever-renewed creation, of itself be flickering in and out of existence. Does the material camera projecting this flickering film would the world of Ibn al-‘Arabī and the Ash‘arites, the may induce epileptic seizures in the spectator. In dance.” Indeed, the exposure to the flicker effect at your own risk. A physician should be in atten sons, you are cautioned to remain in the theatre only mild symptoms of shock treatment in certain per this film may induce epileptic seizures or produce bly caused by the motion picture waive all liability for physical or mental injury possi “WARNING. The producer, distributor, and exhibitors simply given over fanā’ fanā’ , an annihilation in God? The , since, in addition to ” The Flicker

to it 124 but an onto

“ without . Since ------

123 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 124 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second attention is drawn in the direction of change; if Our as well as every other entity’s (ontological) a symptom of obliviousness to the ontological does not become entranced, since trance would be of God during a it implies that however much he reiterates the name meditated enough temporal atomicity and the poor entity to the Reality. The disciple must have form of the recurrent reversion of the ontologically necessary Reality echoes an implicit repetitive remembrance and invocation of the one ping,” jump cut, “the sound of one hand [or image] clap absolute dependence of the myriad entities. The beyond concepts and memory?); or the notion of the heedful absentmindedness regarding the “God” brance) of the one necessary Being (and then a films, any concept, but a image, does not arise, unlike in Sergei Eisenstein’s any two images, but even more clearly of any one nothingness in an aware manner. Out of the clash of humans, cannot accompany the return to Being/ petual renewed return to Being/ we—Muslims and non-Muslims—are, through this Buddha-nature ( Samsāra, ignorant and unenlightened, we have God. As in Buddhism, where though we are in of God, but of our return to, of our remembrance of, standpoint of renewed creation, we are not forgetful reverts to Him, thus remembering Him. From the that one can possibly forget Him, since one instantly God for an instant, it is that that is the maximum alone endures, God. If one is enjoined not to forget sity of existence, are always returning to that which macro illusion, since creatures, not having a neces being able to grasp 126 dhikr is a silent . The explicit dhikr busshō dhikr ” it ceremony, “Allā h, Allāh …” he

“ as such . Forgetfulness of God is a ) and Buddha face, in Islam, dhikr dhikr al-Haqq (invocation, remem in the form of the ,” 125 , involved in a per but, unlike dhikr in the dhikr dhikr - - - - .

of the movement, capture the instant but is clearly an abstract arrest in Harold Edgerton’s stroboscopic works, does not the Being is this praise. The snapshot, even the one constant going back, from moment to moment, to stand not their praise” ān (Qur’ 17:44): the entities’ not a thing but hymneth His praise; but ye under earth and all that is therein praise Him, and there is change is the reversion to nothingness/Being rather atoms, also in the case of inanimate matter, including of change applies not only in the case of humans but clinamen in relation to the ostensible chronological attention is basically drawn. This detachment from, than continuous alteration then that is where our the latter looks in the direction of the camera, the Fortress Being happens. When in spatial direction in which the return to nothingness/ era, it is because he, intuitively, places it in the non- the characters in Paradjanov’s films face the cam nothingness to which the figure instantly reverts. If interactive manner), but, ontologically, toward the (whether to trigger or enhance distantiation or in an Sayat Nova direction of the gaze in Paradjanov’s films from relation to the apparent chronological “action.” The Sayat Nova “action.” What we witness in Paradjanov’s films from any psychological turning away from the mundane logical distraction, ontologically turning away from humans are distracted ontologically from psycho where we see this ontological distraction, where “action”; to reach the instant is to reach the element us a distraction from the apparent chronological change has a face. ness in relation to the ostensible chronological 127 Osman Aga interpellates Durmishkhan, and which as a result of this askew attentive onward is not toward the spectator onward is this askewness of the gaze in 129 128 otherwise it would disclose to “The seven heavens and the The Legend of Suram - - - -

125 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 126 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second tion: “I [God] am … his tongue through which he the character in voice-over, a reality; or, when in the form of words and thoughts of dhikr manifests, when in the form of jump cuts, a silent mate thoughts of the character, the Muslim aside ventional theatrical aside Ashik Kerib toward the reversion to nothingness/Being or, in chronological “action” toward the real action, that is, the aside is the turning away from the apparent tion, in Paradjanov’s films from related to the progression conflict-climax-resolu ter the thoughts made manifest in the aside remain ventional one in traditional theater. While in the lat world evinces a different kind of aside than the con there is the face of God” ān (Qur’ 2:115). Paradjanov’s more fundamental level “whithersoever you turn, the one Being, God, thus a facing toward Him, at that ance is a turning aside from apparent chronology to his companions that since every entity’s disappear aware with regard to the prayer of Osman Aga and these other, esoteric prayers. We should thus be a form of prayer, the exoteric prayer is itself full of back to Being are remembrances of the latter, hence disappearances, and since the disappearances prayer is shot in jump cuts, hence in appearances- tator what Islam. But this should not mask from the film spec Kaaba in Mecca, this locus of orientation in exoteric Osman Aga and his companions turn toward the Like Muslims in general, during their explicit prayer reversion back to nothingness/Being/the camera. locutor toward the non-spatial direction of his also the facing of the character away from his inter turning of the character toward his interlocutor, but film spectator is witnessing the resultant spatial of the only self-subsistent, true ontological Ashik Kerib , to the camera. Moreover, while the con intimates: since Ashik Kerib’s

manifests various inti ḥadīth quds ī’ Sayat Nova s asser onward ------everything at every moment is reverting back to the golden age, a certain kind of chaos …), because chronological source (whether it is assumed to be a there is little urge or temptation to return to a tent Being. In temporally atomic artworks and films stantly returning to the only necessary, self-subsis than to becoming—but because its entities are con shots thus ostensibly connected to being rather the stasis of the shots at the chronological level— ema is an ontological cinema not really because of reated again by God, to haunt. speaks” (indeed in symbolic debt appear for good until they settle some outstanding ghosts and revenants—who ostensibly cannot dis tator to his or her fundamental nonexistence. Even has no audience, since it basically recalls the spec speaks.” Whether such a cinema is popular or not, it and his sight, and his tongue through which he tion in the one and only Subject, Who is “his hearing, another, similar entity, and to his or her subsump alerts the film spectator to his or her substitution by makes to answer the structural “Hey, you there!” but the always already attempted turn around he or she not transform each individual into a subject through Althusser conceptualized, this interpellation does pearance in jump cuts. Unlike the interpellation diegetic character but the latter’s recurrent disap lates the film spectator is not the frontally looking tongue through which he speaks.” What interpel creation, with the voice-over, the “I [God] am … his relation of the jump cut, as a symptom of renewed Paradjanov’s cinema makes clear that there is a cor ing, Ashik Kerib); or, more frequently, both: instrument of the one purportedly singing and play ment of the lips and of the hands on the musical and music are not fully synchronous with the move 130 —vanish definitively then are rec Ashik Kerib 131 , the diegetic songs Paradjanov’s cin ------

127 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 128 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second perceives, that whenever he looks at any entity he is Muslim who subscribes to atomism knows, if not of temporal atomicity at the level of extension. A of himself or herself. The arabesque is a rendition temporal arabesque, myriad very similar versions son in front of the arabesque is himself or herself a sense of recognition the next instant), for the per an instant, to be seamlessly replaced by another occurs to me in front of an arabesque (one that lasts then something akin to it. A sense of recognition to produce at the spatial level if not the arabesque very similar entities recurring in atomic time is apt enduring entity is considered to be actually myriad of making retro works. them …), Paradjanov cannot be legitimately accused restored—until a young man is bricked up alive in walls keep crumbling however many times they are based on a Georgian folk tale about a fortress whose loric references ( troubadour Sayat Nova [1712–1795] …) and his folk century characters (in Sayat Nova ness. That is partly why in the case of his films from more basic and immediate source, Being/nothing a nature and proper characteristics. He had seen in without my me being of my own abstraction, reminds multiplication; the abstraction of its unit figure figure gives me a spatial rendition of my temporal is doubly my mirror: the multiplication of its basic the figures are juxtaposed rather than interlaced, one flower. The arabesque, especially the one where each other—the Muslim floral scroll is a bouquet of myriad very similar flowers that momentarily replace are lined with floral arabesques is itself in reality that I see in the courtyard of a mosque whose walls seeing an arabesque—a temporal one. The flower A view of reality where what seems to be one onward, and despite his pre-twentieth- The Legend of Suram Fortress Sayat Nova , the Armenian is - - - museums centuries-old ornamented silver mirrors this violet, this rose.’ But at last Dahoum drew me: crumbling room to room, saying, ‘This is jessamine, ers. My guides, sniffing the air like dogs, led me from water, but with the precious essential oils of flow have been kneaded for greater richness, not with for his queen. The clay of its building was said to made by a prince of the border as a desert-palace of the Roman period which the Arabs believed was out over the rolling plains of North Syria to a ruin was given me in early years, when we had ridden far knowledge of their sense of the purity of rarefaction sense organs and brains]). T. E. Lawrence: “A first we associate with it given its chemistry [and our not intrinsic to a flower to have the scent and color sessing a nature is in actuality without them (it is seems to us to be rich in characteristics and pos time; from the related occasionalist viewpoint, what replace each other from (atomic) time to (atomic) one enduring plant is in actuality myriad ones that point, what seems to us even for a moment to be characteristics. From a temporal atomicity view lasts one instant only, and has no nature and proper human being, since the latter really is as ephemeral, rate reflections of the ostensibly much longer-lived accu be can craftsman Muslim a by decorated ror creation, the flowers of the arabesque of some mir always one instant old. In a worldview of renewed aging, while the other intimated to him that he was ror, day after day one side showed him that he was no proper characteristics. Looking in such a mir was myriad entities and that he had no nature and with floral arabesques, he had the inkling that he had features, but in their reverse side, ornamented glass mirrors, he saw that he was one and that he which certainly did not reflect as well as modern that belonged to Muslim rulers: in their silver side, ------

129 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 130 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second has no taste.’” of the desert.… ‘This,’ they told me, ‘is the best: it open mouths of the effortless, empty, eddyless wind sockets of its eastern face, and there drank with we went into the main lodging, to the gaping window ‘Come and smell the very sweetest scent of all,’ and does not manifest any abstraction in relation to figures in Muslim art. The Muslim floral arabesque tics, when actually they are as devoid of these as the the artwork have certain qualities and characteris reality, for that would imply that the objects outside abstraction of Muslim art in relation to everyday cannot legitimately speak about a proper and basic mutakallimīn of creation; but judged from the standpoint of the possible accusation of usurping God’s prerogative of abstraction in Islamic art aiming at eluding the to occasionalism, one can speak about a procedure occasionalist worldview. From a standpoint alien the absence of any intrinsic scent of flowers in an ostensible tastelessness, still an approximation of natures and therefore characteristics, is, despite its occasionalist view of reality, where objects have “has no taste.” Indeed even the desert air in a non- of a flower for the latter, intrinsically, “is odorless,” est scent of all, the one they are in love with, is that mentioned by T. E. Lawrence that the very sweet these artists could have told Whitman and the Arabs evoke and sometimes reactivate the past. Many of lar smells, those that for others are most likely to of the air, but also in the case of the most particu I am in love with it” [ tillation, it is odorless, / It is for my mouth forever, sphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the dis T. E. Lawrence and like Walt Whitman (“The atmo tastelessness not only, like the Arabs mentioned by produced floral arabesques would be delighted with ’s occasionalist denial of nature, one 132 Many of the Muslim artists who Leaves of Grass ]), in the case - - - - - rials: by creating the same designs across various colors; but also at the level of the media and mate tive, shadows, or modulation and with unworldly iatures, human and animal figures with no perspec given medium, in the form of arabesques or, in min is thus double: it is an abstraction not only within a Muslim theologians. Muslim abstraction in the arts media and materials according to the majority of of nature and proper characteristics of the various ably and cogently a consequence of the absence ent media, scales, and materials. This is most prob inscribe the same motifs and designs across differ tical ingenuity, Muslim artists managed to validly have given it a red color. Deploying an amazing prac when He recreated it anew—God could possibly die, but because God chose to give it a black color was causally changed by its contact with the black white object, the latter is then black not because it for the the flower in the world, since there are, basically, God—and consequent separation of accidents the occasionalist denial of nature—for a custom of cases because they are allowed by or a result of condemnation of the ā’,‘ulam but are there in many essarily to avoid verisimilitude in order to avert the and the rose or sky-blue of grass, are not used nec the blue, turquoise, green, mauve, or white of rocks incredible colors in Muslim miniatures, for instance etrization of the shapes of animals and plants. The occasionalism, through pushing toward a geom that primary abstraction advanced and argued by art abstracts only secondarily, merely accentuates of Islam are the atomistic occasionalists. Islamic and touches his tools; the primary abstractionists applies before the Muslim artist plans an artwork Primarily and fundamentally, in Islam abstraction no nature and proper characteristics of the latter. mutakallimīn , when a black die touches a 133 - : - 134 ------

131 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 132 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second and appearances temporal interval between their disappearances the figures and objects, and this even if there is no rent return to the void, and thus disappearance, of through some space left empty in it but by the recur in it: the Muslim miniature breathes not so much art in general, while not seen in the frame, is implied besques. The void in Muslim miniatures and Muslim works of M. C. Escher, an admirer of Muslim ara one experiences in the arabesque does not induce the sense of suffocation ing the entire space, leaving no gaps, the Muslim impression of overcrowding. Even with figures fill successful Islamic miniature does not give the essential attributes. or more of the divine emanations), Who alone has also being surrounded by) God (or, in Ismāī‘lism, one the sūras’ titles, the world itself surrounds (while arabesques surround many of the words, especially Allāh. The same way that in copies of ān the Qur’ characteristics, is a vast arabesque that ornaments its recurrent creation and its absence of nature, of ury. For the perceptive person, the world itself, with istence—luxurious poverty, in other words, poor lux clothes with what hints to us its fundamental inex what is implied to be poor in characteristics, one with what has no proper nature, one enriches with are rare in Islamic art, but in Islam one decorates a proper nature, and materials, intimating that none of the latter has media and materials, they abstracted such media but in a different manner and to a different kind are virtually as linked to the void as Chinese art, see it. Muslim miniatures and Muslim art in general ceramics, bricks, and paper. guishes textiles, jade, ivory, metalwork, glass, wood, Even when full with figures and objects, a 135 137 that nothing intrinsically distin . 138 Now you see it—and now you regular division of the plane 136 Undecorated objects - - - -

- - many times did the vampire’s victim Harker witness stay at Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, how of body and consciousness. During his traumatic ization of figurative expressions in altered states — the absence of metaphors through the literal creation although they too are recurrently created.” but only six persons who are oblivious to recurrent capacity of this room is ten Ibn al-‘Arabī disciples differential capacity of a particular space: “The recommend placing signs that would indicate the people who practice it: their presence is subtle. I ances, affects the quality of the presence of the renewed creation, with its recurrent disappear of Cairo! The constant meditation on the notion of the present crowding of the majority-Muslim city subtle fullness of many a Muslim miniature from ( ing to Ibn al-‘Arabī, “brings together all opposites ‘ālam al-khayāl of void. What strikes me as paradoxical about the ing them]” [without interruption of the breath that is animat ments of the painter’s brush must be interrupted brushstroke (Li Jih-Hua: “This means that the move ( ity of Taoism, where the continuous breath-energy the seemingly continuous line; and the continu revert back to God/nothingness, punctuating even rently gives existence to the entities that instantly of the all-Merciful ( coexistence of the discrete modality of the breath virtually antithetical kinds of void, evincing a valid they are anomalously connected to two different, the Ilkhanids, are not their unworldly colors but that rocks appeared first during the Mongol dynasty of contorted rocks in many Persian miniatures, which al-jam‘ bayn al-aḍḍād chi ) underlies even the seemingly discontinuous The poetic can take the form of: 139 ). These rocks most probably belong to , the Imaginal World, which, accord nafas al-Raḥmān ).” 140 How different is the ) that recur ------

133 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 134 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second Bilqīs’s throne] in the court of Solomon.” the matter was that he effected the renewal [of one—was at Solomon’s court. “A ṣaf’s only merit in not the identical throne but an extremely similar to them (in less than 1/24 of a second), the throne— sions of) Solomon and his guests had time to return appeared again before the gazes of (very similar ver the cosmos disappeared, and when the cosmos throne was at the court of the Queen of Sheba, then plished this by invoking God’s renewed creation. The thee” (27:40). According to Ibn al-‘Arabī, he accom “I will bring it to thee before thy gaze returns to “the “the mountains Scripture” (27:40), Āṣif b. Barkhayā (?), court. Someone “who had knowledge from the have the throne of Bilqīs, the Queen of Sheba, in his ān,the Qur’ Solomon declared that he wished to — the universal extension of the metaphorical. In hair now totally white. says these words, Harker appears in Bremen, his haven’t seen him in ages.” A few weeks after she yearning fiancée Mina says to her friend Lucy: “I to Transylvania ostensibly a few weeks earlier, his Talking about Harker, who traveled from Bremen allowed by the freezing of the vampire in the coffin)? Bilqīs arrived, she was bidden to enter the palace. whether or not she will recognize it” (27:41). When said: “Let the throne be altered, so that we may see imagine to the surprise of those present—Solomon (27:43), to become a Muslim. Instead—I would inducing her, who “was from a disbelieving people” Bilqīs as a proof of the omnipotence of God, thus Solomon would have then presented the throne to my Lord …” (27:40). One would have expected that sure of his fitting response: “This is of the bounty of No; consequently, he was unaware of the full mea Solomon aware at that point of renewed creation?

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move like clouds” 141 142 (a time-lapse responded: 143 Was - - - She experienced then an encounter with the figura of God—notwithstanding that “there is nothing aware of God’s renewed creation, and in the likeness the likeness of himself or herself, by becoming nothing) but to become cognizant that he or she is in who has no necessity of existence—is basically not to be himself or herself (in Islam he or she— renewed creation. In Islam, the task of a human is that they included also the sure knowledge of limited to what he went on to tell him? I would think with sure tidings” (27:22), are these tidings to be apprehendest not, and I come unto thee from Sheba birds” (27:16), “I have found out (a thing) that thou Solomon, who had “been taught the language of ing slaves’” [27:15]). When the hoopoe said to to Allāh, who has favored us over many of His believ Solomon knowledge, and they said, ‘Praise [is due] court (“And We had certainly given to David and altered what looked very much like her throne at his which she might have received had Solomon not the Worlds” [27:44]), but not of renewed creation— and I surrender with Solomon unto Allāh, the Lord of knowledge (“My Lord! Lo! I have wronged myself, newest believing slave, Bilqīs, who too received by God. Thus had God favored Solomon over His but as though it ( in his court wasn’t strictly speaking Bilqīs’s throne becoming aware that the throne that was presently (“on a soil very unlike” Japan), a sudden knowledge, these words, Solomon underwent a kind of satori it were my throne” (27:42). I imagine that on hearing it carefully then she said: “It is as though ( with what appeared to be her throne. She examined She was introduced in the palace and presented legs. Solomon was quick to inform her of her error. made of transparent glass for a pool, she bared her tive in its most manifest guise; mistaking the floor ka’annahu ), actually its recreation ka’annahu

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135 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 136 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second nation (Roman Jakobson), the poetic function stresses selection over combi Disclosures of God. Taking into consideration how she is at each moment one of the infinite Self- whatever like unto Him” ān (Qur’ 42:11)—since he or Genesis 1:27, where likeness precedes creation and image of God? Is the second half of the quote from that mankind is made by God or that they are in the (Genesis 1:27). Which is more basic, determinant: image, / diately by: “So God created mankind in his own In the Bible these words are followed almost imme kind in our image, in our likeness …’” (Genesis 1:26). from the Bible: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man Nova self in jump cuts in Paradjanov’s poetic film. stitution of the poet by very similar variants of him Nova duction of the poems included in Paradjanov’s Nova made extensive use of substitution in the pro itself. One can easily remark that the poet Sayat is not by another but by a very similar variant of ematic prose poems since the substitution of a term Paradjanov’s films from the jump cuts showing apparently the same entity. cinema, since everything is in the image of itself in one of the main instantiations of the metaphoric in occasionalist world and thus with its jump cuts, is onward, Paradjanov’s cinema, with its atomistic already in the pre-Islamic period. From logians, since Arabs were known to exalt poetry was the one prevalent among the Arab Muslim theo felicitous that this atomistic occasionalistic view rather metaphors of ourselves: appears to be them, where we are not ourselves, but where entities are recurrently replaced by what modality to an atomistic occasionalist universe, starts with a voice-over reciting these words ; but the spectator can also clearly see the sub

in the image of God he created them” Sayat Nova 144 there is a basic poetic ka’annanā onward are cin Sayat Nova . It is thus Sayat Sayat ------

- - become blind on hearing the convincing report of his Kerib’s lover turned melancholic, and his mother ment by a very similar entity! What would heal Ashik beloved, but wholly accepts his or her or its replace kind of universe does not require the selfsame last (the Ash‘arites’ view). While melancholic, this by God from instant to instant if it is to appear to attached to the person and that has to be recreated all occurrence, but is an accident momentarily death of someone is not a final one, a once and for such a state, because in such a universe the state of can be melancholic but actually has an affinity with maker of, among other films, film dedicated to the memory of Tarkovsky (the film the clothes as proof. The universe of announces that Ashik Kerib drowned and exhibits clothes while crossing the river, returns to town, his rival tricks him into entrusting him with his of Ashik Kerib’s journey in Paradjanov’s an unworldly entity, in radical closures. At the outset encountered in Capgras syndrome, undeath, and, as identical to itself does not induce the kind of anxiety universe, that which is extremely similar but not for the singularity of the replaceable. being, a clarification of the first part? In case it is, shown so much love not for the irreplaceable, son with Paradjanov’s world it shows is in the image of itself. In compari ing images, but also and basically because the doubly a cinema of the image: because of its arrest Paradjanov’s cinema from metaphor precedes ontology, is more basic. but in Paradjanov’s films from ontology, derives from it (a poor kind of metaphor); than as being himself. Metaphor is usually based on than to likeness, characterized more as like himself man would be fundamentally related less to being Ashik Kerib Sayat Nova Solaris Sayat Nova , no other film has Ashik Kerib [1972]), not only 146 onward is In such a Ashik Kerib onward, 145 but , a - , - - -

137 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 138 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second Ashik Kerib was marked by death: even setting aside disappointed by the absence of any symptoms that an atomic one, I would be surprised and somewhat rality of the universe of Paradjanov’s but of someone very much like him. Were the tempo death? It is the return not necessarily of Ashik Kerib, theologians, each of these portraits is that of account the occasionalism of the Ash‘arite Muslim creation, there is nothing but portraits. Taking into traits; to God, and to those who are aware of renewed instantly, to existence, nonexistence revert are por cf. ān Qur’ 50:15]), we, who, lacking any necessity of first instance, then He reproduces it” ān [Qur’ 10:4; of the world (“surely He begins the creation in the and to those who are aware of His renewed creation ally occasions for the Reality, God, to act. To God change.chronological All other “actions” are actu to nonexistence rather than toward the seeming act of creatures is facing toward the reversion back one passion: to return back to nonexistence. The one marked by death at all. Ashik Kerib is not merely no longer dead, he is not accident of death is no longer recreated by God, is Ashik Kerib’s double or an imposter: once the justifiably at no point feeling any suspicion that he appears again after an absence of several years, beloved end up wholly accepting him when he reported to be dead, Ashik Kerib’s mother and his of Sultan Aziz. Notwithstanding that he was both his mother and his lover, beheaded at the court nonetheless, prior to his return, and unbeknownst to actually drown at the start of his journey, he was spectator knows that while Ashik Kerib did not quently are, indicative of dying before dying, the film feigned or falsely reported death can be, and fre that, at least in art and literature, episodes of We who have no necessity of existence have Ashik Kerib the - not - - - man without qualities in comparison to Paradjanov’s How slow are the most frenetic MTV music videos Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors later films, even the exacerbated camera motion in disappearances then appearances in Paradjanov’s senses the universal and perpetual appearances, in the latter to a more basic level. To someone who pervasive camera motion, but pushes the motion Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors abrupt departure from his hectic preceding film, (as well as his subsequent feature films) is not an goes back to nonexistence/God. ing an intrinsic necessity of existence, it as something that does not change, since, not hav ān [Qur’ 28:88]); and to treat it and show it as a mask, perishing (“Each thing is perishing except His face” praising God, Whose face is the only thing that is not the man or woman to whom it apparently belongs) is task is to manifest that the face (but not necessarily not beautiful to be saved, the Muslim portraitist’s manifest the implicit imploration by the face that is ful). While one of the tasks of other portraitists is to God is not also imploring others to save it is beauti God: it is just praising God (a face that while praising woman to whom it apparently belongs) is closer to that a beautiful face (but not necessarily the man or woman) imploring to be saved. That is why we feel ing, sneering, or that of the dead body of a man or is additionally (irrespective of whether it is laugh face is praising God—but, if it is not beautiful, it understand not their praise” ān [Qur’ 17:44]), the there is not a thing but hymneth His praise; but ye and the earth and all that is therein praise Him, and Musil novel). Like other things (“The seven heavens Legend of Suram Fortress Paradjanov’s ostensibly static (to borrow the title of a Robert ! Sayat Nova (1965), with its seems tame. Sayat Nova instantly or The

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139 Jalal Toufic Middle Eastern Films Before Thy Gaze Returns 140 to Thee—in Less than 1/24 of a Second ject to recurrent appearance and disappearance. around a diegetic world akin to cinema, since sub manifest, on the contrary, the revolving of the film tion of the cinematic to painting, Paradjanov’s films Sayat Nova causality between the separate still frames. From and disappearance of entities, and absence of apparatus in terms of both recurrent appearance functions at the level of the basic cinematographic the world according to the Ash‘arite view because it the first medium adequate to represent and reflect the basic cinematographic apparatus. Cinema is … Nonetheless, it certainly is the one most akin to time is continuous; to the Ismā‘īls, time is cyclical highly Hellenized Muslim philosophers, the only temporality to be found in Islam? No: to the of orthodox Islam: atomism. Is this atomicity the account the kind of temporality most characteristic reached this investigation simply by taking into ing: they could and in a way ought to have indirectly the medium of the art form in which they are work ones who have not had a tradition of investigating and demand much from Muslim filmmakers, even the Egyptian film industry. But one should expect from mere actresses, especially ones working in went back to the veil. One is not to expect much early a 1990s large number of Egyptian actresses of the object at the same indivisible spatial unit in framing—so that the more frequent such recreation several “subsequent” moments—a sort of double- moving object at the same indivisible spatial unit in being a result of the recreation of the ostensibly fast or slow movement, the perception of slowness also because the and reflect the world according to the Ash‘arite view Cinema is the first adequate medium to represent Reaffirming their Islamic faith, during the onward, rather than being a capitula mutakallimīn denied there being a falāsifa - 147 - -

, and figures, films and TV programs on Islamic themes, motifs, Akkad’s Saladin sonages associated with Islam. Muhammad but also all the aforementioned per Islam on the representation of not only the prophet the thoughtless prohibition in mainstream Sunni (Salah Abouseif’s Chahine’s [Moustapha Akkad’s acters one of ānic the prophetsQur’ (Muhammad and/or, when the film includes among its char tecture, and music (accompanied by a commentary), Islamic tradition’s arabesques, calligraphy, archi “subsequent” moments the slower the object is istic temporality of Islam cinematography Muslim) from exception of the films of Paradjanov (who was not a whether one repeats certain frames or not. With the moving, and is slower or quicker according to and an accident added to the thing that is shown kalām’s view, where the movement is both atomic pixilation is the kind of filmmaking closest to the films are rarely screened in the Islamic world, for duced very few pixilation films, and that pixilation is unfortunate that Muslim filmmakers have pro same stage/frame of the horse’s trot is repeated. It to prove his contention that at certain points the a future rich Muslim patron commissions someone May 1872 at a racecourse in Sacramento, California: setting up of his cameras, ropes, and diagrams in time—which reportedly was behind Muybridge’s ting horse has all four feet off the ground at one cally, Ash‘arite) version of the bet—whether a trot perceived to be. Here’s my Islamic (more specifi , Abouseif’s The Message The Emigrant 148 which are content with parading Sayat Nova can be located only in the atom al-Qādisiyya Al-Qādisiyya The Message , three (tasteless and ] …) or the first four caliphs

onward, up to now Islamic and not in the numerous ), trying to tackle 149 , and Moustapha Youssef Chahine’s ], Joseph [Youssef ------

141 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 142 Qur’ānic Prophets three consecutive jump cuts in a Paradjanov film. figures and events, convey far less of Islam than do thoughtless) “epics” revolving around major Muslim provides one manner of doing so. In that film, the regarding her two characters in her film that case, what the writer and filmmaker Duras did prophet Muhammad even while not showing him. In have the other characters interact with the diegetic matter for interpretation.” other hand, he gives him something, its [form] is a or implicit, or in whatever sense they are. If, on the ing to whether the sense of the words is explicit he would accept his precepts in this world accord him all he commands or forbids and all he says, as Thus, whoever sees him in this way accepts from a protection from God for the recipient of the vision. decay …, which form Satan is unable to assume, as form of his body when he died, albeit unaffected by … The spirit of the Prophet appears to one in the for the Devil cannot take my form upon himself.’ ‘Whoever sees me in sleep has seen me in waking, of the Wisdom the great Sufi Ibn al-‘Arabī writes in an actor. This applies to the prophet Muhammad; as himself or herself is not to be represented by or she does not appear thus is not to be interpreted always appears as himself or herself, and when he nisms of condensation, displacement, etc., but Whoever is not subject to the dreamwork mecha Musnad of ānic Some ProphetsQur’ Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies , “Taqī b. al-Mukhallad, the Im ām and author , heard that the Apostle had said, Dedicated to Wojciech Has for The Hour-Glass Sanatorium 151 A filmmaker may opt to The Bezels of Le Camion

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two actresses) in actors (as Buñuel does with the woman protagonist Shi‘ite imam—at a certain age played by several than Muhammad)—or for that matter the same actors through having the same prophet (other problematize and relativize their embodiment by having actors play these prophets, he or she could reason a filmmaker still feels some qualms about son’s dream, with psychoanalytical interpretation, in the figure of someone else in my or another per another character in the same film. If I can appear as well as by having one of these actors play also fit the verbal description we hear of the prophet; filmmaker and “screenwriter” Duras sits with the ān exceptQur’ Muḥammad This applies to all the prophets recognized by the ing other constraints—its embodiment by an actor. appears in the waking world, permits—disregard appearing under a different form there than it performatively, hence without images. made to see the prophet Muhammad through words, addresses to Depardieu: “You see?” One can thus be are seeable, through the performative that Duras showing the protagonists, it is indicated that they and complexity of Duras’s protocol is that while not inside of the moving truck is shown. The subtlety rative never appearing on screen—even when the through the landscape, the protagonists of the nar alternates with shots showing the truck passing picked up by a truck driver. This on-screen reading the events happening to a female hitchhiker who is papers. Both take turns reading the text describing around a table on which are placed two stacks of actor or, more precisely, the reader Depardieu Shi‘ite imams—except the Mahdī?). That Obscure Object of Desire What admits its transfiguration in dreams, 154 —some of whom clearly do not 152 (as well as to the , who is played by 153 If for some - - -

143 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 144 Qur’ānic Prophets Maurice Pialat’s Kurosawa’s Vincent & Theo Lust for Life acted the role: Kirk Douglas (in Vincente Minnelli’s in which he is in the guise of the various actors who several dreams, or a dream with several episodes, ogy, the Van Gogh of a future film biography can have bygone film actors made possible by digital technol of the seamless interaction of living actors with painter in several days earlier Scorsese’s segment around a Scorsese! Was that inflected by her having seen was in the guise of the American filmmaker Martin his companion also dreamt of Vincent van Gogh: he the guise of the actor Tim Roth?” A few weeks later, ple of weeks ago, in which I saw Vincent van Gogh in licking it: “Do you recall the dream I told you a cou movie theater and whispered in her ear, not without ber turned to his companion in the darkness of the Altman’s ible as to be ridiculous. At the premiere of Robert would strike us as illegitimate and as so incred representation of a historical personage by an actor them in the guise of other persons, then the filmic were it not a facet of dreams that we can appear in that dream; were we not creatures that dream and historical characters is a prerogative of creatures cal characters by actors. Fictional cinema based on at least with regards to the embodiment of histori cal episodes are thus essentially related to dreams in a film. Cinematic fiction films recreating histori it would be legitimate to have an actor embody me tion, indicating that the one in the dream is me, then drawing on the material provided by free associa sions’ use of various actors to embody the painter. tual recapitulation would ground the previous ver Vincent & Theo New York Stories , 1956), Tim Roth (in Robert Altman’s Dreams , 1990), Martin Scorsese (in Akira Van Gogh , 1990), Jacques Dutronc (in (1990), an audience mem , 1991), etc. Such intertex , 1989? Taking advantage ------sumptuously attired Egyptian personages in the of the granaries. Amongst many other imposing, bet was to try to have an audience with the overseer Egypt to purchase food. They decided that their best and his sons dwelt. Jacob sent ten of his sons to famine devastated the land of Canaan, where Jacob “I was dressed in Egyptian attire!” Years later, a

in it. his dream, Jacob did not ask him how he appeared Not being a dreamer, when Joseph recounted to him made Jacob doubt that the dream was prophetic. Benjamin, Joseph’s younger brother, must have already died years before, just after giving birth to dreamer, the fact that Rachel, Joseph’s mother, had implied that his son must still be alive? Not being a prophetic dream had not yet been actualized mourning Joseph when the circumstance that the the grave’” (Genesis 37:35). Why did Jacob start said, ‘I will continue to mourn until I join my son in fort him, but he refused to be comforted. ‘No,’ he absence. “All his sons and daughters came to com claiming that a beast devoured their brother in their back to Jacob his son’s shirt drenched in blood, Joseph accompanied them, his brothers brought dream to his brothers. Back from an outing on which to harm him, Jacob told Joseph not to recount his even more jealous of him, his favorite son, and wish before me” ān (Qur’ 12:4). Fearing that they might get sun and the moon; I saw them prostrate themselves to Jacob: “Father, I dreamt of eleven stars and the this dreamer cometh” [Genesis 37:19]). Joseph said they [Joseph’s brothers] said one to another, Behold, ation that Joseph was considered a dreamer (“And maker Youssef Chahine failed to take into consider prophet Joseph, the thoughtless Egyptian film tagonist clearly modeled on the Biblical and Islamic 155 Had he done so, Joseph would have answered: answered: have would Joseph so, done he Had In his crass The Emigrant , which

shows a pro - - - -

145 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 146 Qur’ānic Prophets knew him not” ān (Qur’ 12:58). could not answer. “He recognized them, but they pharaoh’s granaries.” “What is my name?” They They answered: “You are clearly the overseer of the He asked these Hebrew shepherds: “Who am I?” grand hall, they immediately recognized their man. cows which seven lean ones devoured; in the disturbing dreams: in the first, he saw seven fatted ble dream. Nine years ago, the pharaoh had two I correctly interpreted the pharaoh’s prophetic dou “Do you know how I achieved this exalted position? and brought into the dignitary’s presence. He said: that? Benjamin and his brothers were soon released ous one? But what would be his purport in doing had instigated this anomaly—as well as the previ interpretation in prison: Was it the high official who his belongings. They continued their attempt at an tried hard to interpret why the cup was found among earnest protests of his innocence, his brothers too first of all to himself, the anomaly? Swayed by his for he was certain he did not steal it. How to explain, Benjamin’s bag. Benjamin felt greatly confounded pharaoh’s cup. The cup was indeed found in by a posse of Egyptians and accused of stealing the started heading home, when they were intercepted food. Once they purchased the provisions, they way they could have an additional camel’s load of to Egypt, this time in the company of Benjamin; this ers? Later, needing more provisions, they went again of the maximum he had insisted on with the broth allowing some Egyptians to buy portions in excess it be the high official’s apologetic compensation for they paid for the food. How to interpret that? Could Canaan, they discovered in their packs the silver money to buy more. When they reached the land of most a camel-load of provisions even if he had the that each one of them was allowed to purchase at 156 He informed them

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second, seven green ears of corn and seven dry tuary offering. The task of ensuring there is enough as part of the responsibilities of my office, in a mor have to excuse me; I have to presently participate, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, resumed: “You’ll the high official, himself a priest married to the not understand. When the priest had taken leave, cial and spoke to him in a language the brothers did point, a priest entered and approached the high offi ize the food in the tomb’s wall paintings.” At this to invoke the magical formulae that would material rified priests to perform that ceremony for them and the Mouth ceremony, in desperation forced the ter become functional only by means of the Opening of take of this food, a mouth that moreover could another kind of mouth that one can magically par being told by conscientious priests that it was with robbed, this time for the painted food there, and, on people headed to the tombs they had already tombs. With worsening famine conditions, some large numbers of people boldly attempted to rob the death. During the previous famine, exceptionally also the dead, who would die a second, definitive famine threatened mortally not only the living but fied when he heard my interpretation. The announced years of the severest famine. The pharaoh was horri seven years of plenty would be followed by seven dead. Ostensibly, the interpretation of this dream is: the world of the living but also to the realm of the cate that what they portended related not only to had two dreams with the same signification to indi the same, one for each land. More importantly, he was natural he should have two dreams portending thenceforth joined into a double one, he wears, it period of the reign of Dynasties and whose crowns, Lower Egypt, whose unification ushered in the long ones. Being the king of ‘The Two Lands,’ Upper and ------

147 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 148 Qur’ānic Prophets offerings to the royal mummies at the temples. It is implicated years ago, I personally attend only the women in whose untimely death I was inadvertently such offerings at the tomb chapels of a number of compared to the Egyptians. “With the exception of inequitable in his distribution of the food to them as then the brothers understood why he had seemed dead, in the form of the mortuary offerings.” It is itly accepted to be in charge of food also for the and the food distribution to the population, I implic meal. By accepting to be in charge of the granaries fish and bread, feed five thousand dead people a conjunction with the magically materialized painted by a counterpart: two fish and five loaves can, in remaining hungry. To give you an idea of what I mean the mummies’ would no longer provide any effective sustenance, tation of magical formulae, into meat, beer, etc., the painted food, albeit turning, through the incan and chiseled into the table of offerings would fail, or figuration of the food painted on the tomb’s walls food, without which counterpart the magical trans provide the dead with a modicum of this world’s two years is compounded by the duty to regularly food in Egypt despite the lack of harvest in the last the vicinity of the tomb and then left. They must the appointed time they brought these Hebrews to ers? How to interpret that? Despite their qualms, at tomb, either on their own or in complicity with oth of theft. What would deter them from robbing the moreover, had just been in prison on the accusation to be known to these Hebrew foreigners, ones who, he would allow the precise whereabouts of a tomb for me outside it.” His assistants were intrigued that cultic precincts of the tomb chapel. But you can wait have to head now. You are not allowed within the to the tomb chapel of one of these women that I ka s, although regularly eating, - - - - have arrived too early, for the dignitary was nowhere father in Canaan and place it on his face, so he off his shirt and ordered them to return to their desirable to a prospective Egyptian buyer.” He took added by the merchant to make me, his slave, more uttered these words then, or whether they were day!’”’ To this day, I do not know whether I actually fallen, he ecstatically exclaimed: ‘Coming forth by well in which he had presumably inadvertently the merchant said: “When we pulled him out of the subsisting regard for you, was one peculiar remark pened to lay her eyes on you, and what initiated my your beauty was producing in any woman who hap buying you despite being troubled by the commotion merchant, told me one day: ‘What swayed me into tain of the guard who bought me from an Ishmaelite up toward a bright light. Potiphar, the pharaoh’s cap sciousness, for when I woke up, I was being pulled hitting the bottom. I must shortly have lost con in that pit. I remember the excruciating pain I felt on Canaan, you threw me, a spoiled youth of seventeen, you must have left me for dead when, back in that I am indeed your brother Joseph. I presume that Joseph?” ān (Qur’ 12:90). “I know it is hard to believe from the past, they exclaimed: “Are you indeed was not the seventeen-year-old Joseph emerging one who ascended moments later from the tomb Notwithstanding that they were relieved that the two decades earlier come out of the tomb. enteen-year-old Joseph they threw in the pit almost uncanny apprehension that they would see the sev Joseph?” For a moment, they were seized with the cern the words: “Do you recall what you did to sounded exactly like Joseph’s. They managed to dis through the tomb’s shaft, the high official’s voice Reverberating and distorted along its passage to be seen. Then the brothers heard his voice. - - - - -

149 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 150 Qur’ānic Prophets wrapped that item of clothing tightly around his what faint scent lingered in the shirt, Jacob’s sons sure Jacob would have the opportunity to smell ity—retorted: “In your dreams!” Wishing to make ifestation of obstinacy—or an initial sign of senil exasperated by what he took to be yet another man can sense it: Joseph is alive!” One of those around, Jacob could not restrain himself from exclaiming: “I Seeing their caravan approaching in the distance, traveled for days on end to reach their destination. them with a number of wagons with drivers. They the remaining five years of the famine. He provided his household to Egypt, at least for the duration of He asked them to entreat their father to move with would be able to recognize his son from the smell. Rachel, was being treated as alive, then we have dream his father and mother) was actualized in life for his eleven brothers and the sun and the moon for ner) by Joseph and his father (the eleven stars stand dream whose interpretation (in a pre-Freudian man ān (Qur’ 12:100). If we do not view this scene as a knees and prostrated themselves before him” helped his parents to a dais, and they all fell on their thus: “I have everything to do with you, mother.” “He addressed the old woman standing next to Jacob father, Joseph threw his arms around him. He then ‘Behold, this dreamer cometh.’” Upon seeing his recalled that they had once “said one to another, appeared at the entrance, Joseph’s brothers were led to Joseph’s headquarters. When he Egypt. When they arrived at On (Heliopolis), they in the company of his household, Jacob went to scent, Jacob fully recovered his sight. Shortly after, looking at a mummy’s head. On smelling his son’s Joseph sent with them had the impression he was face. For a moment, one of the Egyptian charioteers , since a character who in reality was dead, as a

- - - cally] dying is not to awaken to a life that is not a they awaken at their death”: to die before [physi The prophet Muhammad indicated, “Men are asleep; they, unawares, occasioned his dying before dying. actually physically kill him when he was a youth, aware that life is a dream? While his brothers did not here, in the omniscient narration older sister. woman Joseph raised on the dais was Leah, Rachel’s since its author is God, a parapraxis. Most likely, the is is a dream and that what we usually view as a dream dreams); but because he was aware that human life ers, were also actualized in reality, being prophetic raoh, people who were not characterized as dream of the dreams of the two prisoners and of the pha later actualized in reality (the interpreted purports nor simply because at least one of his dreams was orously realistic manner during the years of famine; seeing that he managed the affairs of Egypt in a rig dreamer, it was neither because he was unrealistic, clear by now that if Joseph was characterized as a my Lord has fulfilled it’” ān (Qur’ 12:100). It should be Joseph to his father, ‘is the meaning of my old vision: awareness that he was dreaming. “‘This,’ said but the signified is Rachel.” Jacob was jolted into wiped her tears, and said: “The eyes, dull, are Leah’s, awake. Joseph approached his mother on the dais, was still dreaming even while he believed he was it was not because she was veiled, but because he wearing a veil. If now too Jacob took Leah for Rachel, Leah, who, as was the custom then, had come to him as a result of a Laban subterfuge, he had lain with ered the morning following his wedding night that, ter Rachel as wife, the then still young Jacob discov Laban for seven years to be given the latter’s daugh Rachel once before: having accepted to work for a dream within a dream 157 After all, she had already replaced 158 (how come Joseph was par excellence , ------

151 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 152 Qur’ānic Prophets warm olive oil on their hands; lemon, as a condi making up: placing cucumbers on their faces; luke Potiphar’s house, the women guests were busy While the various meals were being prepared at women implicated in these rumors to a banquet. failed attempts at seducing Joseph, she invited the was informed of the rumors circulating about her the atmosphere of dreams? When Potiphar’s wife haven’t many of the episodes of the sūra of Joseph those present that they were dreaming. Indeed, dreams, which made manifest to at least some of some, if not all of his dreams in reality was as a lucid dreamer); and because the actualization of dreaming while seemingly awake, that is, to become dream; it is rather to become aware that one is shortly she too was inadvertently cutting her one was seized with a voracious appetite, and revolted by the example of the others, the satiated continued cutting—their fingers. Instead of being ān (Qur’ 12:31) and they, in dreamy enchantment, meat, when Joseph appeared as “a gracious angel” began cutting their rarely cooked choice cuts of the food, but per chance to espy Joseph. They had that these women accepted her invitation not for to a banquet?” but checked herself, for she knew respond, “Then why have you accepted my invitation eating?” “I am not hungry.” She had the impulse to touching her plate, she asked her: “Why are you not another, “Ambrosial.” Noticing one who was not them: “How is the food?” One exclaimed, “Luscious,” her guests, she earnestly inquired of several of hostess momentarily superseding her loathing of these two concurrent activities.) Her role as the scene, one would see a parallel montage between on their arms and legs. (In a film adaptation of this boiling lemon with sugar and water, as a depilatory, tioner, on their hair; and the solution obtained from - - between his feet. papyri of chapters of (Genesis 50:26) according to Egyptian custom, with embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt” Joseph died, he was embalmed, and “after they cupbearer forgot to do this for several years. When Joseph’s mastery of dream interpretation, but the asked him to inform the pharaoh, his lord, of bearer as indicating his imminent release, Joseph preted the dream of the pharaoh’s imprisoned cup women at the banquet: for example, having inter sode, this tale full of dreams, is not limited to the for a time” ān (Qur’ 12:35). Forgetting in Joseph’s epi dence they had seen, they thought it right to jail him quickly forgot the whole episode: “Yet, for all the evi be consumed. As with a dream, the women guests other the required solution, that not all the harvest first confirmed the ominous image of a famine; the He also recalled food that was barely touched. The only sustenance they could still lay their hands on. people drinking of their own blood, as if it were the raoh’s two dreams, he recalled this striking image of beholding a dream. Years later, listening to the pha power, mightier than any other shining one.” fingers. They seemed unconcerned with the blood sang, du rouge their own or as if it were not blood but red ( flowing from their hands, treating it as if it were not umph, as unto Ra.… Zaphenath-Paneah, when they behold him in tri who dwell in heaven ascribe praises unto Osiris shalt be hymned in the Praises shall be offered unto thee in thy boat, thou sky, thou shalt be joined unto the starry deities. shalt come forth in heaven, thou shalt pass over the further formulae from Opening of the Mouth, the lector priest recited some ). 159 160 Joseph felt certain he was Following the ceremony of the 162 Coming Forth by Day I am a shining one clothed in Coming Forth by Day atet boat.… 161 May the gods placed pas du : “Thou 163 ------

153 Jalal Toufic Notes Toward Cinematic Biographies of Some 154 Qur’ānic Prophets sidiary and unnoticed” what is essential and important but what is sub from our waking memory, since they do not recall They make their selection upon different principles impressions of the immediately preceding days.… essarily: “Dreams show a clear preference for the appears in my dream. Is this significant? Not nec to occur. I see a woman during the day. At night, she diegesis, a rare concatenation of circumstances has Nativity woman as the Mary of Bernard L. Kowalski’s creature, the actress Madeleine Stowe is a dream actor who plays a historical character is a dream exquisite corpse against a group of surrealists participating in an etc. How mundane is any “dream team” when set temporary American culture (“the American dream,” tory,” and by the debased rhetoric of dreams in con sloppy and facile use in Hollywood, the “dream fac “dream woman,” having become nauseated by its appears, through a chain of circumstances in the ment. When I see her again in my waking life, she work mechanisms of condensation and displace looks different, having been distorted by the dream with It is showing a Hitchcock double feature, beginning accomplice Kathryn Railly hide in a movie theater. the past James Cole and the psychiatrist turned his to evade detection by the police, the time traveler to by Madeleine Stowe, is such a dream woman. Trying Railly of Terry Gilliam’s turns a woman into a dream woman. Dr. Kathryn of the dreamer’s unconscious had altered her that reasons and means into how the primary processes change through the waking world’s uncorrelated world, as she was in the dream. It is this unintended Vertigo P.S.: Should one dismiss outright the term . To be a dream woman in the world or in the . Why )? No. Given that, basically, every Vertigo 164 Twelve Monkeys ? It is in part because of the (Freud). In the dream, she , 1995, played The ------likelihood that the traumatized protagonist would be a public phone. She turns around and starts heading rent dream. He catches sight of her. She is talking at same kind of wig in which he appears in his recur she placed on his bald head during his sleep—the dream figment? He rushes outside in the blonde wig wakes up, she has disappeared—was she only a formation into the images of the dream. When he the police, Kathryn, unawares, initiates their trans awake companion to make him less recognizable to dream, by attaching a moustache to her ostensibly ignorance of how he and she looked in his recurrent umbra is no dream woman). Notwithstanding her pen greenish a in Scottie approaches and room long last into Madeleine, appears from the dressing mechanisms (the Judy who, transfigured by him at who is for the most part the product of unconscious his dream, she could no longer be a dream woman, transform her into the exact look of the woman in in consciously actualizing the changes that would also because he must intuit that were he to succeed ish since associated to his ostensible death? It is question was not only desirable but also nightmar able from a dream? Is it also because the dream in dream, he would be making reality indistinguish slip into the blonde wig and the dress she had in the own sanity, he is apprehensive that by making her was in the dream! Is it because, already doubting his refrains from trying to make Kathryn look as she Vertigo during the subsequent film. Unexpectedly, unlike able, for when we see him next, he is waking up adopt the same hair color and style? It is undecid Madeleine by making her don the same dress and see Scottie transforming Judy into his dead beloved appears in his recurrent dream. Did the protagonist tempted to try to make Kathryn look exactly as she ’s Scottie, Scottie, ’s Twelve Monkeys Twelve ’s protagonist ------

155 Jalal Toufic Oedipus in Egypt 156 eat) again. Physicists inform us of a cosmic back in a specific ceremony so that they could talk (and natural, whose mouths had to be artificially opened Egyptian statues, these entities to whom talk is not hieratic culture of silence of the funerary ancient ative and noisy culture of present-day Egypt the Museum in Cairo, to find in the context of the talk not fully prepare me, when I visited the Egyptian and the extravagantly rich in present-day Egypt did Even the sharp contrast between the brutally poor usher, as if he were gazing at them in his dreams. There was something voyeuristic about that sleeping at them, gaping at them even, rather than dreaming. would have preferred that the old usher be looking is taking a nap on a chair at the cinema entrance. He in the movie theater, and that of the old usher, who dream between two sleeps: his own, having dozed off in the blond wig in which she appears in his recurrent may wake one from a dream. So then, he first saw her him. The sound has also the tone of an alarm that like the distant voice of a hypnotist, soon reaches unstoppable, toward him.but sound, faint A snoring Egyptian Egyptian culture. in death, than in this museum and in present-day which otherwise seem (almost) not to be exiled even figures of ancient Egyptian statues and bas-reliefs, Nowhere else do I feel so strongly the exile of the amid the noise of the visitors, from ancient Egypt. there is a background silence that reaches one, that started the universe; in the Egyptian Museum, approximately 379,000 years after the Big Bang the time of the decoupling of matter and radiation, radiation) of 2.7260 ± 0.0013 K reaching us from ground noise (aka cosmic microwave background Oedipus in Egypt - -

B.C., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) but at the area Menkaura (Mycerinus) and his queen (2490–2472 occurs not in the heads of the statues of King at that indefinite area, in a haptic manner. Vision are looking at each other and seeing each other nally standing right in front of them may move), (this applies however far back the person origi human figures who come and stand in front of them distance beyond, always bypass the present-day whose gazes, fixed on an area at an indefinite and bas-reliefs facing in the same direction, and us—do this): tion that seems to be especially directed toward tal eyes in the bas-reliefs’ profile faces—a posi bas-reliefs is directed beyond us (even the fron the majority of the ancient Egyptians. of exterior the temple to its sanctuary, tooff limits no less monumental tality: the statues become physically smaller, insensitive to the aforementioned other monumen is Abu largely Simbel to who are those impress of of II the colossi at Ramses cal monumentality our size having when physically. physi The blatant even are monumental and bas-reliefs sculptures monumentality. in figures Egyptian The ancient small, us and aware making comparatively of its bas-reliefs’ eyes, thus implying that we must be in front standing of and level the with statues’ and by times over going even our heads we when are seemingly straight trajectories are curved); some tell us,relativity what with general that even our by gravity,physical determined gaze this resonates next to us in who are front standing of it not (while at the spot where we are; by passing sometimes us to seem making thus or overlaid be transparent The gaze of ancient Egyptian statues and statues The gaze Egyptian of ancient The ancient Egyptian figures in sculptures 165 sometimes by going through us, us, through going by sometimes , as from one progresses the 166 - but but - - - - -

157 Jalal Toufic Oedipus in Egypt 158 at that indefinite area occurs in a haptic manner. the gazes are fixed, that is intimate, since the vision and a distance, that of the indefinite area at which far-off area at which the gaze of the two happens; raoh, that remains distant, due to the indefinite there is an intimacy, since Ptah is hugging the pha god around the waist of the king. In this pillar relief, Ptah standing face to face, with the arms of the Cairo a pillar relief of King Senusret I and the god tele-vision. There is at the Egyptian Museum in a distance—I am not surprised by this external, jars—so that his or her sustenance happened at were removed from the body and placed in canopic that in that culture the viscera of the dead person at which their gazes are fixed and meet. Knowing avenue is incredibly wider than it seems. nite area ahead, or they do see each other but the ing them, since their gazes are fixed at an indefi the Sphinxes in one row do not see the ones fac In the case of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, either managed to solve the riddle (“What creature has Sphinx, that so many others failed, but Oedipus interpolated. In their encounter with the Greek or a tomb) and in the direction of the Thebans she looked down (it was seated on a mound, a column, as it appears on vessels, urns, etc.: the latter’s gaze between Egyptian Sphinxes and the Greek Sphinx of its gaze in their direction yet bypassing them. bers who became oblivious of themselves because gaze was fixed, as well as against those human rob gers situated at the indeterminate area where its less? No: it successfully guarded against the dan the pyramid imply that the nearby Sphinx was use gus. Does the fact that thieves managed to get into Great Pyramid of Khufu was the lidless sarcopha object that was left in the King’s Chamber in the The following are two of the differences 167 The only ------only one voice, walks sometimes on two legs, some riddle and the gaze that by its total disregard of the the riddle but also in the disjunction between the encountered was because it resided not simply in to solve the enigma of the Egyptian Sphinx they the latter outstanding. That so many people failed resourcefulness of Oedipus, and by no means made certainly doing so did not require someone of the ancient Egyptians could have solved such a riddle; resided solely in the riddle? A good percentage of the encounter with one of the Egyptian Sphinxes is naïve enough to consider that the difficulty of its body, the Sphinx would make him the ruler). Who dreamt that if he cleared the sand that had engulfed to have slept at the base of the Sphinx at Giza and or hallucination: the future King Thutmose IV is said ing in front of it, may address him or her in a dream Egyptian Sphinx, who disregards the human stand clear, Oedipus hallucinated or dreamt the riddle (the one; from a distance at which its features were not tered again a Sphinx, though this time an Egyptian father), Oedipus traveled to Egypt. There he encoun sexual intercourse with his mother (and killing his tion from Thebes, Greece, for marrying and having because he blinds himself. After his excommunica to the help of a staff while not yet an infirm old man indicating a prophesy specific to him: he will resort and on two in between), Oedipus was, unawares, old age [since he will use then a staff for support], someone who walks on four as a baby, on three in ing a rational generic answer to the riddle (man as pointing to himself). While believing that he was giv the iconic representations, Oedipus answered by answer to it was not est when it uses the most legs?”) was because the contrary to the general law of nature, is at its weak times on three, sometimes on four, and which, man but Oedipus (in some of ------

159 Jalal Toufic Oedipus in Egypt 160 he said at the start of his conquest of Egypt, “From How utterly beside the point was Napoleon when marriage was that of the god Osiris to his sister Isis). ancient Egyptian culture (where the paradigmatic not exiled for doing so, for incest was affirmed in in the Field of the Reeds of the afterlife), but was physically in the grave and, vindicated, virtually was depicted in the bas-reliefs of her tomb, to live appropriate magical spells, which made actual what of the Dead name. Thou hast been resurrected” ( … thou shalt not perish. Thou hast been called by the Egyptian manner, then called by name [“Arise lowing her physical death Antigone was buried in temples and tombs were located and where fol the vicinity of Deir el-Bahri (where many funerary his half-sister and daughter Antigone in Thebes, in Egyptian Sphinxes, Oedipus knowingly married Following his successful encounter with one of the a gaze that made people oblivious of themselves? ing gaze of the Egyptian Sphinx he encountered, to recollect himself in front of the totally disregard mind and self-centeredness did Oedipus manage forget the answer. By what incredible presence of person in front of it made him forget himself, that is, Ten Commandments of my thought experiment. In Cecil B. DeMille’s would have been, unawares, vying with the Oedipus these monuments, forty centuries look upon direction—had Napoleon said, “From the summit of look beyond us even when seemingly looking in our a tation of the king but, as a result of certain rituals, not look (the Sphinx is not an inanimate represen implication the statues in the nearby pyramids, do look upon us,” and not because the Sphinx, and by the summit of these monuments, forty centuries seshepankh )], then managed, through uttering the , a living statue); but because they , one scene starts with a long Egyptian Egyptian Book me The - ,” he - - shot of the pharaoh, seated at his court, looking at Gawhara Palace in al-Qal‘a; the King’s Chamber Mosque; the Mosque of Sult ān al-Nā sir and al- but on antiquities, for example, the Ibn Tūln be well advised to look for it not on the city’s walls glory to the mountain He sent it crashing down”). thou wilt see Me. And when his Lord revealed (His) upon the mountain! If it stand still in its place, then upon Thee. He said: Thou wilt not see Me, but gaze he said: My Lord! Show me [Thy Self], that I may gaze appointed tryst and his Lord had spoken unto him, 23]; cf.ān 7:143,Qur’ “And when Moses came to Our back; but my face must not be seen’” [Exodus 33:18– by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the one may see me and live.’ Then the LORD said, ‘When And the LORD said, ‘You cannot see my face, for no look (“Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’ Whose glory, face and/or self made him avert his when looking in his direction; and Yahweh/Allāh, who, in the guise of a Sphinx, disregarded him even gods and thus with problematic vision: the pharaoh, regarding Moses. Moses had two encounters with whose eyes look at an indefinite area ahead, dis form of a Sphinx with the pharaoh’s likeness and the pharaoh is seated in the lap of a colossus in the direction,” as the camera zooms out to reveal that to look at me while you are looking straight in my pharaoh, who is still looking at him, “I entreat you interlocutors, with Moses saying at one point to the sequence of medium shots-reverse shots of the two shot of the seated pharaoh and continue with a with the pharaoh is to begin rather with a medium tion for a remake of that scene of Moses’s audience Moses and addressing him and Aaron. My sugges In Cairo, the one searching for graffiti would - -

161 Jalal Toufic Oedipus in Egypt 162 tionally died physically at one point or another is already dead even while they lived. That they addi on its pedestal. ostensibly do so, inscribing his or her Arabic name Egypt, any of an ancient Egyptian figure; but in present-day Oedipus could have remembered himself in front dwelling or an ancient monument. Erstwhile, only siders an old building in this old city just another not only the Supreme Council of Antiquities, con that tells one whether the common Egyptian, and Museum—graffiti becomes a differentiating mark of the pedestals of the statues in the Egyptian in the Great Pyramid of Khufu; as well as on some the Egyptians of the Ancient Kingdom believed) death is the prerogative of only the few (this is what always already dead; and that I almost believe that ously I include myself among them—are themselves ing around in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo—obvi believe what I presume: the diminutive people walk anthropoid coffins that I almost find it impossible to is so compellingly implied in ancient Egyptian resurrection to fail. This endless death-as-undeath less death-as-undeath it would undergo were the cal death and then live indefinitely, but also the end would hopefully get resurrected following its physi fin encasing the mummy is not only the figure that cal object. What we witness on the anthropoid cof against history it manifests, it is still fully a histori ary masks, for notwithstanding the great struggle artificial preservation, than the statues and funer mies. The mummy is far less uncanny, despite its conspicuous in the Egyptian Museum: the mum spectral by the funerary statues’ gaze that totally are wholly within life (while having been rendered and that the people walking around in the museum Like other mortals, ancient Egyptians were insensitive mediocre living Egyptian can 168 - - - -

------Chahine been still occasionally a fine filmmaker, which that ancient culture revolved. Had Youssef Salam does not appear to have done so), around be bridged only by crossing into death (Chadi Abdel facets of that ancient culture? No. It can possibly taught on the language, religion, as well as other in present-day Egypt, where university courses are highest bidder. Has this chasm largely been bridged el-Bahri and sold the enclosed treasures to the tors that they desecrated the latter’s tombs in Deir of the link that relates them to their ancient ances teenth century had become so uncomprehending region of Luxor in the latter decades of the nine moment when Egyptian mountain dwellers in the filmmaker Chadi Abdel Salam chose the historical The Night of Counting the Years bas-reliefs. the funerary ancient Egyptian sculptures and mixing of the living Egyptian museum visitors with remains far more comprehensible than the casual disregards them who are standing in front of it and day Egyptians in the “Cities of the Dead” in Cairo dwelling of around three-quarter million present- upon physically dying they cease completely. The encounter death only as an external event, and that sees beyond them), that is, that they tangentially resulting surgery he underwent. But, characteristically, in the of his life occasioned by a dangerous open-heart in threshold, thus complementing what he had done maker to deal with death from the other side of that for the then sixty-eight-year-old Egyptian film Egypt, I would have expected it to be the occasion hearing that he was working on a film on ancient or a less limited, more spiritual person, then on An Egyptian Story It is appropriate and symptomatic that in his The Emigrant , 1982, his filmic recapitulation , 1994, which revolves around , 1968, the Egyptian - - 170 169 -

163 Jalal Toufic On Entities Older Than the World 164 to introduce American to motifs introduce and American architecture in an effect of the undeath realm as such. crosses into death: the uncanniness would then be iar yet most strange: ancient Egypt); or whether it Egyptian the otherness he or she hosts as famil by the Frenchman Champollion, to disclose to the ment of the hieroglyphic language of ancient Egypt seems to have also served, through the decipher other, in the form of the Napoleonic campaign, Muslim Egyptians], racial, national, and geographic iarity uncanniness would then relate to the whether the work maintains itself within life: the day Egyptian filmmaker deals with ancient Egypt, ter the can be no familiarity with death. I expect to encoun that art and culture transfixed by death, since there that civilization, for there can be no familiarity with assumed familiarity of the Egyptian filmmaker with filmmaker and a foreign one cannot reside in some ancient Egypt, the difference between an Egyptian treats ancient Egypt as the familiar. With respect to the exoterically the stay of the foreigner Joseph in ancient Egypt, ( in Hopper is that towards which the figures face gazes where meet.the misaligned otherwise Light gazes fixed on a beyond (Hopper’s Egypt; motel rooms, offices, etc., in and Hopper) the of the constriction the (tombs spaces in ancient ary culture one the encounters contrast between In both funer and his Egyptian ancient paintings than in his watercolors) for an Egyptian. (ancient) never can be,” can be easily taken (in his oils rather who wrote in 1933, “After all we are not French and painting, American and early twentieth-century Pennsylvania Coal TownCoal Pennsylvania of ancient Egypt itself (the religious [for the Edward Edward Hopper, this painter who did so much unheimlich human, all too human whenever a genuine present- , 1947), the one exception Intermission Chahine strange famil - ), - - - - to the mismatching, awry gazes of his figures. resurrected by the Christ, the undead Lazarus lost burial (several days after dying and prior to being the world because they are coming back from a least some of these figures in paintings older than the figure in your unworldly entities that irrupted in a radical closure): are (and not they because necessarily would be that are older than the universe in which they It is not that uncommon in art to encounter figures Dear Frank Auerbach: there is no of building his, just light. he towardturns the window; to his consternation, you.” “I see only light.” Doubtful of her assertion, facing the window: “I dwell in the facing building heard something?” “No.” He then says to the woman from the window asks the other man: “Have you at Conference Night frozen in the exact of positions those in Hopper’s Book of the Dead a reciting in Egyptian ancient from passage the who Egyptians sion that they are akin to the ancient departed entrance door in Sun example, the woman facing the window in an accordant gaze at the light, Hopper’s figures, for source of light cannot be localized. By with looking ter is always in directional Hopper, even when the ties accordant in becomes relation to light, the lat the Because awry gaze in relation to all other enti (1952) and (1952) the woman at standing her house’s On Entities Older Than the World manifested in manifested the light High Noon Head of E.O.W. V reanimates reanimates two men and a woman (1949). The man facing away (1949), give the impres Jalal Toufic, Los Angeles , 1961, etc. Are at . A voice-over 6/14/1996 Morning Morning -

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165 Jalal Toufic On Entities Older Than the World 166 stare totally ahead since nothing can come from the they issued—it is not a fascinated one. Your figures having been buried by the background from which while being exclusive of everything else—the world at the person in front of them is perplexing, because ure. The aforementioned figures’ concentrated gaze not even revenants, can come from behind the fig interred or repressed having been buried, nothing, of shallowness, because, the world and what it because of the thickness of the layers of paint, and E.O.W. V of your figures issue. One encounters in revenants. It is from such a background that many even what might return from a traditional burial: background that buried the world so well it interred ticular thickness of paint—became a fundamental of limitlessness—achieved in part through a par on the canvas a depth that through an impression him and some others. Being a painter, he produced be there when it was needed, that had deserted felt like burying the world that had seemed not to their own burial; rather from the world’s burial. He year-old universe of the Bible)? Yes, but not from than the world, certainly than the few-thousand- in an unworldly labyrinth seemed and “was” older which they met, and to gradually drift into a loss of ensued the temptation not to leave the apartment in of heightened, if not excessive differentiation, there sitivity to the beloved’s particularities were states her previous love affairs, which with their hypersen lover completely oblivious of the world. In each of wished that the infatuation would make her and her appear behind us. the same totally frontal gaze, since something can they issued; we cannot reciprocate such a look, with background that buried the world and from which In each of her previous love affairs, she a complex impression, conjointly of depth, Head of - - - differentiability, disorder spreading, garbage accu finishing his host’s portrait, the painter asked him: is impossible to make an image of him. Soon after partly humorously because he considered that it his permission to paint him. The vampire accepted, pire, who has no (mirror) image, the painter asked host, and not knowing that the latter was a vam by the look of abjection and extreme old age of his which she looks older than the universe. Struck castle one of his paintings of his fiancée Mina in an artist who brought with him to Count Dracula’s remake of Coppola’s the undead, have managed to do so. Were I to do a number of paintings, whether or not dealing with creatures that are older than the world, but a good since she could not fully reciprocate his look. for him, she knew that she was still aware of others which he issued. However consuming was her love tion but the darkness of the burial of the world from see as she looked into his eyes was not her reflec her because there were no others. What she would that had already buried the world, was focused on the world,” since he, who came from a background to the exclusion of all others, to the exclusion of she had demanded of her previous lovers, “See me of the world? No. She could not demand of him, as lover to Was it possible for the love affair with her present according to thermodynamics: the rise of entropy. consequence of the (relative) closure of a system and to the outside in general by the paradigmatic were thus implementing the obliviousness to others up to the great loss of differentiability of death. They their mail and the resultant failure to pay the bills— because of the occupants’ disinterest in picking up mulating, electricity and phone line disconnected Vampire films have failed to give rise to cause both of them to become oblivious Dracula , I would have Harker be - - -

167 Jalal Toufic On Entities Older Than the World 168 only only it and the universe but even God, who alone its because subsists excessive makes oldness not than the universe the of burial the world. vertently fell vertently from my jacket as I was reaching for tograph of Mina that I always carry with me inad the contract for the house he is to buy, the pho “A few days ago, as I was going with Dracula over ing he did of ‘me’”). The painter wrote in his diary: ceive of ever being as old as the figure in the paint later,turies the vampire confessed: “I cannot con painter made of him were (several possible cen that as entities old as the figure in the the portrait vampire was so old; the vampire couldn’t believe longer know.” The painter couldn’t believe that the hundred years.’ But since you did my portrait, I no my portrait, I would have answered: ‘Around five tion when we first ‘met’ and before you painted “How old are you?” “Had you asked me this ques the earth repeatedly comes back for recurrently rejected by an who entity accursed is repeatedly but buried her figure in the painting, a between relationship him with blood to with his continue relationship He used the flesh and blood Mina merely to provide figure rather than with the flesh and blood Mina. than the universe. The vampire fell in love with this that of portrait Mina in which she appeared older posts.” As he got closer, he saw a painting. It was been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed- toward “a niche of the room which had hitherto the entering painter’s room, the vampire felt drawn slightest interest.”genuine Several days later, on was, then it returned to me the showing without it in momentarily his hand, politely asked who it a pen from my pocket. Count Dracula saw it, held The figure in 171 and a painted figure that fromissued without preceding it historically Head Head of E.O.W. V , who is older - - - - -

, - has has a of necessity existence, of oblivious its lack old. have been estimated at 14 to billion 16 years billion universe was younger than the oldest stars, which pause. The new made it findings appear that the no errors.…obvious But one aspect gave everyone omers praised the complex analysis and could find between 8 and billion 12 years.billion Other astron and thus a relatively young age for the universe of they a derived high value for the Hubble constant tance and between Earth a far-off galaxy. From this get the most yet precise measurement of the dis Freedman “used the Hubble Space Telescope to team national of astronomers led by Dr. Wendy L. the Universe,” dated 27,December 1994, an inter “Astronomers Data Debate on Conflicting Age of issue. As reported in the older than the universe from which they ostensibly gists’ turn to tackle the paradox of that entities are moment to moment). recreated—in the form of entities—from similar appears to be of millions years old but is newly only one, would strike us as older than a figure that even two moments, rather after than disappear recurrently created (a figure that would forsubsist to inability mental on subsist its own being without of such a necessity, of and consequently its funda prove unsolvable. least or one class phenomenon of phenomena, will will be again and,encountered in the case of at they are to part be solved by science, the paradox paradox of older than entities the universe of which your paintings. Were avatar of this particular the dox, 172 174 ” they would probably from benefit at looking After After a of number artists, it is cosmolo 173 Before rush scientists to solve this para New New York Times article article ------

169 Jalal Toufic Monstrous Units over the Plateau 170 neither in dance and death, with their frequent ones, is an illegitimate generalization, since it holds usually downplayed as background, non musical there is no silence, that there are always sounds, erworldly) aural background. Cage’s proposal that cases only to construct its own (unworldly or oth total absence of ambient worldly sounds—in some plateaus that bury the world and hence instances a music ( Cage, accepting so-called background sounds as two sound relations to the background: that of John The following are, at the two ends of the spectrum, the world never function as an accompaniment. sounds that emerge above the plateau that buried of the world it accomplishes. The distinguishable various musicians, and functionally by the burial tiability of the respective sounds produced by the nizable aurally by the effacement of the differen the construction of a sound plateau that is recog an encounter with chaos within the piece, but also phone octet, Figure 8, one notices not only such Ochs for Rova Saxophone Quartet’s offshoot saxo pieces, for example of the generation of the sounds. In rare musical mentally less some noisiness than the possibility already heard sounds. In music, chaos is funda latter case, the origination of some or all of their along their endangered progress, presenting, in the whether before they start, as their prehistory, or generate them through an encounter with chaos, Most music pieces take sounds ready-made. A few construct plateaus that bury the world, including its silence-over, nor in the works of musicians who Monstrous Units over the Plateau 4’33” ); and that of a music that establishes Triceratops , composed by Larry For Larry Ochs - - - - - sounds. Any sound, however complex, that appears and Stella West (E.O.W.) been buried while posing it. How many times have Juliet Yardley Mills (J.Y.M.) figure, scratching it and painting over it, i.e., burying never seems to be satisfied with the first painted replayed, deepened at another level: Auerbach comes from the burial of the world as it were gets cumstance that the painting’s figure of the model of that of corpses, made the burial easier. The cir part because such motionlessness, reminiscent to stay motionless during the painting sessions in paint. The painter must have required his models partly through a particular thick layering of the an equivalent production of a burial of the world, buries the world. torical up to the establishment of the plateau that sounds through an encounter with chaos—it is his Roscoe Mitchell); but also because it generates its Braxton, Morton Feldman, Iannis Xenakis, and Pete Townshend, Ray Charles, Steve Lacy, Anthony through the dedications of the pieces: Albert Ayler, Saint, 1994], he provides a partial listing of these inspirations and influences (in world. Ochs’s music is historical not only through plateau the musicians produced and that buried the with chaos and issue as unanalyzable units over the beginning are generated through the encounter ungenerated and analyzable at the music piece’s In some instances, the same sounds that were issued from the plateau as an unanalyzable sound. buried the world may appear again, this time having tion of the plateau the musicians produced and that cases, the whole music piece up to the construc unanalyzable unit, an element. In not so rare limit and effectively gives the impression of being, an above this aural plateau that buried the world is, In the paintings of Frank Auerbach there is Pipe Dreams [Black - - -

171 Jalal Toufic Monstrous Units over the Plateau 172 a great painter of the background from which the Auerbach is one of the great portraitists by being the thick background from which the figure issued. went, ignoring the changes the painter made to concentrates on the alterations the figure under (Thames and Hudson, 1990) is inadequate since it of which the figure issues. Robert Hughes’s discussion ing not the figure, but the burial of the world from sessions, Auerbach becomes more adept at paint previous day’s work is scrubbed. Along the painting since, when not valid, the resultant figure of the result from the modification of the previous ones, Auerbach’s figure in each of the forty-one sessions ending in figure that issues from the burial of the world. The the model before the painter, but the unanalyzable of the world. The fact of this kind of painting is not buried, when actually it had issued from the burial was judged to be a botched one and consequently too-human artistic misjudgments, where a figure Auerbach painting, this would be due to human, all- were one to, exceptionally, encounter a ghost in an applies even better to the work of Frank Auerbach— “there “there are no ghosts in the paintings of van Gogh” you discard me!” Overall, Artaud’s assertion that 1973: “You divested me even of my ghost and now I can envision Stella West lamenting to Auerbach in model’s burial, of the possibility of “having” a ghost. session, through the figure that issues from the the burial, and, even more, perhaps, the dispos image has been subjected to violence, violated; but figure, or may make him or her feel that his or her or her to recognize himself or herself in the painted “deformations,” which might make it difficult for him est aspect of posing for Auerbach would not be the for Auerbach! For any discerning model, the hard Portrait of Sandra Portrait of Sandra in his book , 1973–1974, does not Frank Auerbach -

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figure issues. In some artworks, what is a matter which the figure issued. How insensitive must the world, having been buried by the background from or anybody in front of it, everyone, indeed the whole Auerbach’s figures cannot be arrested by anything has buried the world through painting; the stare of interactive as a Frank Auerbach painting once he buries the world. And few artworks are as little Quartet has produced the musical plateau that Larry Ochs music piece once the Rova Saxophone is the figure who is obsessive!” Auerbach protesting: “It is not I who am obsessive; it sion of the image rather than of the painter. I picture Auerbach’s paintings is symptomatic of an obses few figures issue from the burial of the world in produced and that buried the world. That the same Rova Saxophone Quartet and Figure 8 musicians the sounds that issue from the plateau that the certain specified sections of his pieces; it includes Ochs’s music is not limited to the improvisations in music piece was to be generated. The unplanned in established the chance procedures by which a given more effaced than John Cage once the latter had himself or herself buried the world, the musical plateau or painted background that world. Once the musician or painter has produced that) he or she was buried along with the rest of the painter since (the music work or painting implies sion, erasure, or destruction by the musician or that buried the world should not be subject to revi issues from a successful background or plateau plateau buried the world. The figure or sound that over the plateau, but whether the background or the figure in front of the background or the sound of judgment in terms of success or failure is not Few music works are as little interactive as a , he or she is as effaced as, if not including the musician or painter - -

173 Jalal Toufic The Anamorphic Skull’s Aside 174 one may, like Rilke’s Malte Laurids Brigge, If one has not died physically prematurely, one day be to continue to be distracted! spectators or listeners of such works of art or music 3:50. He would have to head immediately to the entrance at 4 p.m. He looked at his watch: it was was scheduled to meet a friend at the museum’s 10:30. This last observation reminded him that he 11, 1533, as well as the following times: 9:30 and drical sundial showed the date of the painting, April between the two standing men, and that the cylin The Ambassadors standing in front of Hans Holbein the Younger’s ger audible to him. What drew his attention while in the distance, but their conversation was no lon couple into the next room. He could still see them “Here were those eyes …” He moved away from the ibility, did not extemporize a supplement such as: this man standing in a museum, this array of vis ment … ? Quite chop-fallen?” He wondered why your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merri kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now, king’s jester: “Here hung those lips that I have utters while holding the skull of Yorick, the late the man started reciting some of the words Hamlet in associative reaction to the skull in the artwork, thirties approached the painting. Most probably A man and a woman in their late twenties or early before a vanity in the National Gallery in London. works may learn to gaze at one. He was standing initiation of dying before dying, one day some art to see. If one has not ceased to live prior to the nience of waiting. Having reached the end of the exit if he wished to spare his friend the inconve The Anamorphic Skull’s Aside was both the amorphous shape 176 learn ------room, he turned. Why? He sensed that he was had none, just empty sockets; but in its entirety. focus, had gazed at him not with its eyes, since it of the aside. The anamorphic skull, presently in clear what it actually is. Anamorphosis is an art amorphous shape appears in focus and it becomes turned was the exact point from which the blurred, being gazed at from behind. The spot at which he the anamorphic skull in of the aside: Hamlet saying, “to be, or not to be,” or the anamorphosis. Who is a more exemplary locus certainty, he knew that the voice was the skull’s in was nobody there! Suddenly, with an ineluctable own grinning?” Startled, he turned around. There same Hamlet speech: “No one now to mock your tance behind his back, a voice reciting part of that one quite clear, so that he could locate it a short dis museum, he suddenly heard, in a sort of whisper, but ful silence-over was spreading elsewhere in the and employees becoming frozen. While this dread rest of the museum, more and more of its visitors ing. But soon silence-over began spreading in the toward others who were still animated and talk were now frozen. Anxious, he averted his look again, temporarily on the couple: the man and the woman the world). He quickly averted his eyes. They rested by Hamlet, the anamorphic one does not belong to the skull becomes in focus (unlike the skull held ance, through blurring, of the rest of the world as to see—this blindness is implied by the disappear him, a skull, something that lacks eyes with which actually was, he turned into what it disclosed to because while he saw it, now in focus, for what it he only saw a shapeless smudge; the second time because, looking at it from the wrong standpoint, twice did not see it while seeing it: the first time The anamorphic skull gazes at us as vanities. He The Ambassadors inducing - 177 -

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175 Jalal Toufic On Names 176 but in the last phase of a turn to face me; indeed I a stop, the image of my face not still as mine was, a Band-Aid, I glimpsed in it, while it was coming to while closing the cabinet’s glass door after getting one of these, with their slow reaction time, that longer intervals, attacks of anxiety. It was during I would still experience, although at increasingly pened in actuality or in a dream. During that period the aftermath of the publication of episode, which I remember as having occurred in I don’t know at this point whether the following Lyn Hejinian: where the inside is outside (and vice versa). only through the latter’s twisted space and time, thenceforth he could still exist outside the labyrinth friend drove in tense “silence,” he realized that snapped him out of his somnambulism. While his hell are you so late?!” The loud voice of his friend ally at the door, opening it and leaving. “Why the museum, he unexpectedly “found” “himself” actu of moving. Having despaired of ever exiting the He slowed, then stopped, doubtful of the efficacy and that he must have been undergoing over-turns. realized that he was moving in a labyrinthine space, for what seemed a very long time. At some point, he in Maya Deren’s kind of statue (as in the case of one of the dancers ning, afraid of being frozen any moment into some others? He was seized by anxiety and started run aside, though no longer conventionally, not heard by to belong to the outside world are, like the theatrical voices in one’s head that although they seem to one On Names Ritual in Transfigured Time (Vampires) Jalal Toufic ). He ran , hap - - - call he heard must have been a repetition of some if Echo could only repeat, not initiate, then that first became aware that these two calls were Echo’s. But But when the word “Narcissus” was repeated, he direction from which Echo’s odd utterance came. even instinctively turn away from it to look in the the image in the spring’s water, Narcissus did not then a voice say: “Narcissus!” Deeply entranced by not go without saying. And indeed he heard right facing him. Somehow, he felt that such a thing did As he looked into its limpid water, he saw his image, conversation with him. He soon came upon a spring. words so as not to give her the opportunity to have a sensed her presence. He resolved not to utter any could for a very brief moment espy a small stretch of with me!” die before you ever lie with me!” Echo replied: “Lie extricated himself from her embrace, saying: “I will do you avoid me?” She rushed toward him, but he again: “Why do you avoid me?” Echo replied: “Why Looking around, but not seeing anyone, he asked inquired: “Is anyone here?” Echo replied: “Here.” his walk, feeling unsure of where he was, Narcissus said, not initiate an utterance. At one point during was that she could only repeat what had just been while the god’s concubines managed to escape ment for distracting Hera, Zeus’s wife, with stories him. She could not address him, since her punish ors shunned by Narcissus. One day, she followed my anxiety-induced slow reaction time. effect of the mirror’s own motion compounded by convince myself that that furtive movement was an on that episode, I tried, without much success, to mind). For a short period, whenever I thought back of the back of the head fine?” passing through my the back of my neck (with a barber’s, “Is the haircut The nymph Echo was one of the many suit 178 During another of his solitary walks, he - -

177 Jalal Toufic On Names 178 interpellation. also the Althusserian symbolic turn to answer an nary identification with the unitary mirror image, but presupposes not only the standard Lacanian imagi answer a call. To see one’s mirror image facing one monologue), of oneself is virtually the beginning of the interior lessly called himself (this voiceless interpellation to the realization that he himself must have voice the addresser of that initial interpellation? He came initial utterance of his name. Who could have been admit that unlike with the other objects to which him in the mirror). In which case, one would have to ing then, as in a dream, his figure with its back to rehearsal, glitches may occur, the child perceiv in the future to others’ interpellation (as with any the mirror, in the process preparing him to respond given by his parents, address to the image he sees in he will one day, using the name he would have been 180° turn of response to the voiceless interpellation most accomplished teachers, rehearses for him the unity, but also, and in this it is one of his earliest and image not only anticipates for the child his future his image facing him. If that is so, then the mirror — Whenever the infant looked in the mirror, he saw it doesn’t in Lacan pated motor control includes—it is disappointing this coordination in the mirror image. The antici nation of motor functions, he or she anticipates gave them his back, seemingly shunned them. did not know how to call him; this is partly why he suitors, Echo included, did not call him by his name, name and called him by it. Prior to this scene, his lessly interpellated himself that Echo learned his a successful interpellation. It is only when he voice image in the water was facing him was the result of At a stage when the child still lacks coordi 179 181 and that the circumstance that his Two possibilities: 180 —the ability to turn around to ------thing that has been mastered, it may fail to take ror image’s facing a human is not natural, but some objects aren’t subject to over-turns. Since the mir the book placed on the mantelpiece is not, because we, adults, normally experience, the mirror image of the human figure is turned 180° in relation to what ror? While in Magritte’s painting, the mirror image of assume an image facing the one looking at the mir as well as others who elaborate on his mirror stage, he ascribes animation, Joan Copjec, the author of the preceding quote, terms of these laws.” Why then does he, but also vision, Lacan does not theorize the visual field in the propagation of light map space only, and not retort: “Because, as he says, the geometric laws of case since it contradicts the laws of optics, one can objection that such a configuration cannot be the cannot be called and consequently recalled. To the name yet, thus by an indeterminate one, one who because it is witnessed by someone who has no on account of its traumatic uncanniness? It is also witnessed, why doesn’t the child remember it? Is it tion? If it is none of these, but something actually A recall such a scene. Is that scene then mythical? laws of optics, but also because the child does not not be the case not only because it contradicts the its back to him. It may be objected that this could Prohibited figure facing the mirror in Magritte’s what Lacan termed — What the child facing the mirror sees prior to turning to answer the interpellation. ror image, but would also include the mirror image’s be limited to the child’s identification with his mir there is misrecognition in this context, it would not fied in ascribing animation to the mirror image. If Gedankenexperiment , 1937, witnesses: a similar figure but with the mirror stage 182 ? A structural presupposi the child would be justi is what the Reproduction 183 - -

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179 Jalal Toufic On Names 180 addressing anyone in particular: “Moreover, animals sionable child fired promptly? He resumed, not who proffers such misinformation to an impres The thinker thought with dismay: Why isn’t a servant ing a rejoinder to what the servant had just said. thinker, partly feeling vindicated and partly await glanced in their direction. The child looked at the dog’s name is Max.” The dog pricked up its ears and to overhear this conversation volunteered: “The has no name.” A passing servant who happened dog?” He answered: “I have no idea—anyway, a dog party, a child asked him: “What’s the name of this or undeath. place: a condition actually encountered in psychosis that the names that he gave them were generic performed in relation to the animals; it confirms designated). This is the same sort of naming he had there was then only one specimen of the one it calls her “Woman” (a common name even though performs two acts of naming his wife. Initially, he to give names to animals. He does. A while later, he In Genesis, God tells the man (from Hebrew ing the poor child confusing untruths?” “Untruths? for confusing the child, she said: “Why are you tell him. “Nadja?” “Yes. Jalal?” “Yes.” Annoyed with him saw a woman standing a few feet away staring at the child’s confusion, the thinker looked aside. He “You see? Exactly as I told you.” Disconcerted by him while attentively following the dog’s movement: to interject that the dog turned, the thinker said to yelled to the dog: “Max!” Before the child had time which is so deep in animals’ faces.’ it around, so that it sees objects—not the Open, Open.… We … take the very young child and force ‘With all its eyes the natural world looks out into the never turn. For the poet Rilke, they are in the Open: While he was waiting for his blind date at a 184 ” 185 He then ‘āḏām - - - ) close and kissed him: “You brought me round!” thus do not see only half of existence.” She drew because they exist, according to Rilke, in the Open, would be doing both themselves, but, taking into consideration that they mirror not only frontally but also with their backs to could be that animals also see themselves in the and therefore it does not properly have a name. It essentially never has the occasion to call itself, the established laws of optics. Thus the animal relation to the mirror is from the outset fully within mirror image of an animal faces it because animals’ in the mirror because they called themselves, the case that they see themselves facing themselves names, rather than proper ones. Subsequently, the as Adam, a proper name. Thenceforth the Hebrew surely die” (Genesis 2:16–17, King James Version). it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of God commanded the man, saying, … of the tree of dead even while still physically alive: “And the Lord knowledge of good and evil, becoming fully mortal, man and the woman eat of the prohibited tree of the themselves in a mirror, chimpanzees and orangutans, who can recognize the possible exception of those animals, such as animal has no proper name, only a generic one. With owner may believe, strictly speaking the individual humans; it is only biological demise. Whatever its their death is not of the same kind as that of the alive therefore do not, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and mals are not offered by God the opportunity to eat a name; this time, it is a proper name: Eve. The ani introduction of mortality, Adam again gives his wife , die as a result of eating of such a tree. Thus while continuing to be physically simultaneously 187 186 and of whom it may be the ‘āḏām Past the surreptitious is to be rendered , this would be -

181 Jalal Toufic On Names 182 Affection-Image: Face and Close-Up”; du visage,” Bonitzer’s “Bobines ou le labyrinthe et la question the condition of possibility of such a back, the by some other name, or one must have reached the ostensible model of trouble naming, for example, calling Edward James, in key. To reach the non-accidental back we witness which he is standing, and which functions as their to us both inside and outside the mirror in front of the mortal’s back, which shows a man with his back Prohibited fully appreciated irrespective of his The aforementioned Magritte paintings cannot be then, nor to simply ask him or her to turn around. side of a person facing one and paint what one sees in this manner, it is not enough to walk to the other to provide the right conditions for it to be painted in the way it appears in these paintings, or at least 1962; and 1956; Pandora’s Box painters of the human back, of the mortal’s back: and art (Magritte …). Magritte is one of the great concept also been taking place in thought (Jalal Toufic’s But a subterranean investigation of the back has [ Guattari’s “Year Zero: Faciality”; twentieth century thought (Levinas; Deleuze and figure. The face has certainly been investigated in the great paintings of the back are of the human many animals, especially during their courtship, back, certainly in comparison to the rear side of consequently, despite the blandness of the human Persona Reproduction Prohibited L’ami intime The animal does not undergo over-turns; over-turn …], Dreyer’s Decalcomania , 1937, the pivotal and greatest painting of 190 etc.) and cinema (Ingmar Bergman , 1951; , 1958; …), cinema (Beckett’s The Ready-Made Bouquet The Passion of Joan of Arc Reproduction Prohibited The Spirit of Adventure , 1966. To render the back , one has to have had 188 Deleuze’s “The Reproduction 189 Pascal Film …), , , …). , Before Language (Children Playing Carmen) Before the Name “the real title of the film [ the business of naming them,” and advancing that they can be given a name, or that we can give in to show things before they receive a name, so that 1983, Godard was proposing that “cinema should Lear ‘image’ but the real word is ‘reality’” (Godard’s the flower by another name?”/“Suppose we call it how would we know today?”/“What if I have called take at the very beginning and we called red ‘green,’ the question of naming: “Suppose we made a mis intertitle “A Picture Shot in the Back” should raise it at all surprising that a film with the epigraphic over-turn, which the dead man or woman undergoes “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” [This is not a pipe] 29, one can read under what clearly looks like a pipe, Treachery of Images moon,” a hat, “Snow,” a glass, “Storm” (and in his an egg is “called” “Acacia,” a woman’s shoe, “The ing trouble naming: in Magritte’s at least one painting that can be viewed as instanc the oeuvre of the painter of by his or her proper name. It is thus fitting to find in and which undoes his or her turn to answer the call Carmen The parenthesis of the alternate title for have provided an occasion for the latter scene. image—the transitory madness of King Lear would psychotic experience of the over-turn of the mirror to around a year old, or to someone undergoing the mirror) or that instances its undoing: to an infant up that precedes one’s interpellation of oneself (in the prior to any name requires that one get to a time humans than for flowers. Reaching the condition is much more difficult to reach this condition for , 1987)? Already at the time of , “(Children Playing Carmen),” prepares one . Before Language, in other words, [ La trahison des images Prénom Carmen Reproduction Prohibited Dream Key Prénom Carmen Prénom ] could be .” 191 , 1930, ], 1928– 192 ). Is King It The - , -

183 Jalal Toufic On Names 184 himself became amnesiac—although not fully so: this anomaly proved traumatic for the doctor. He patient was giving the latter its back. Witnessing patient. To his amazement, the mirror image of his ued to look in the mirror. He gingerly approached his that his patient did not turn toward him but contin did not recall his name and so felt no consternation He quickly remembered that his amnesiac patient On the spur of the moment, the doctor called him. stopped in front of the mirror hung in the hallway. doctor turned around and saw that the patient had there, the patient slowed down. Sensing this, the accompanied the patient to his room. On the way one more fruitless session in his office, the doctor not remember his own name, may be healed. After progress, he still felt that the patient, who could of amnesia. Even after several weeks of lack of was treating a patient with an intractable case French title. Carmen Name: Carmen tators have their backs to each other. Therefore arrangement in cinema theaters, in which the spec film, etc.—and a critique of the customary seating daughters, that of himself by the producers of the thematic of betrayal—that of King Lear by two of his develop the “picture shot in the back” beyond the tion of the back, Godard failing in the latter film to Carmen commerce de cinéma Schygulla), and 1982 (mainly the video shots of the face of Hanna of the face in such Godard works 1980s as have provided a complementary exploration to that Picture Shot in the Back” for the second. Both would for the first eventuality; A doctor who used hypnosis in his work , is more appropriate than the original, and King Lear , the English title of Godard’s Grandeur et décadence d’un petit , 1986. Unfortunately, present a mundane investiga King Lear ’s intertitle “A Passion Prénom Prénom First - , - - only apparently could he no longer remember his is straightaway ethical”; ethical than the face (Levinas: “Access to the face a result of an over-turn, is even more the site of the then that the condemned still has his back to us?” space itself rotate with him, or would we discover mortal, who did not turn when called, around would yell in panic and dread: “Stop! Were you to turn that diers approached him, he heard the commander order his soldiers: “Turn him forcibly!” As the sol another man. At this point he heard the commander and so disregarded what he took to be a call to not turn, for he did not recognize that name as his then yelled the prisoner’s name, yet the latter did mity with the doctor’s prognosis?). The commander over-turn—had he already died by then in confor ued facing the wall (his turn was overturned by an there!” As far as he knew, he turned, yet he contin ing squad, he heard the commander yell, “Hey, you A few days later, as he stood with his back to the fir that his punishment would be death by firing squad. flee the prison. He was caught, and it was decided deadline, the prisoner made a desperate attempt to the deadline. A few days before the aforementioned tives that turned the person into a dead one come deadline he proffered since they were performa the sick man or woman ostensibly survived the cated imminent death were accurate even when but also because those of his prognoses that indi diagnoses of sicknesses were medically accurate, more reliable … than most” not only because his incurable disease—the doctor was “a great deal the prisoner would die within three months of an mirror faced him. name, since when he faced a mirror, the figure in the The back turned to us not accidentally, but as The prognosis of the prison’s doctor was that

193 “the ethical relation, the ------

185 Jalal Toufic On Names 186 the opposite direction, thus becoming disoriented notwithstanding one’s turn (again and again) in one continues then to look in the same direction is unsettling to undergo over-turns not only because the wrong person, cease calling and leave. Hence it likely to sooner or later consider that he is calling to respond to the call by turning toward him is most whose back is to him without the latter appearing dying, the one calling again and again someone the call, did not turn at all. Unless he has died before ently by the caller: the one called did not respond to in the same direction; his bewilderment, he continued nonetheless to face the dead man: he turned to answer the call but, to undoes the initial turn is experienced otherwise by call but his turn is overturned by an over-turn that cess in which the dead man turns to answer the from me. What I am describing as a two-stage pro by an over-turn and so he continues to look away name while he lived)—but his turn was overturned “every name in history” includes “Friedrich” (his tion of every name in history he turned —since having died before dying and his resultant assump that he “is” Friedrich and that notwithstanding his addressed to another man; yet another possibility is fore does not turn as he considers that the call is Chambige—if not every name in history, and there he assumes other names—for example Prado or he “is” Friedrich but, having died before dying, Friedrich from the back; another possibility is that not Friedrich, that he merely happens to look like person does not turn. One possibility is that he is take to be his name, for example: “Friedrich.” The undergo over-turns, is basically related to the back. dead while alive and hence, insofar as they are dead, face face to face, …” Someone has his back to me. I call what I 194 ). Ethics regarding mortals, who are 195 and it is experienced differ - - - - in a labyrinthine space, but also because, as a ure in the mirror responds. After a while, the figure as I have not died before (physically) dying, the fig call of myself in the mirror, the one to which, as long extends my speechlessness to the fles my voice, rendering me speechless, but it also self (in the mirror). At its intensest, fear not only sti most is no longer to successfully interpellate one hear his its back to him. But his mirror image did not seem to voiceless call than of seeing the mirror image with mirror would manage somehow to sense his fearful soon became even more scared that the figure in the screamed, but no sound issued from his mouth. He his back to himself in the mirror. Frightened, he that one has been deserted even by oneself: he saw one will then discover to one’s dismay and horror that one can still count on oneself. It may be that body, one looks in the mirror to confirm to oneself are calling the wrong person. answer a call, and so they end up deducing that they the over-turns they undergo, successfully turn to is, as dead while alive, that the dead cannot, due to don’t heed what they should intuit as mortals, that ability abandoning him or her? It is because they melancholically the one who died end up in all prob died before dying physically, even those who love (other) living human. Why is it that, unless they to manage not to be separated from at least one (as well as not to enter it “in the first place”) is labyrinth, since one way to get out of the labyrinth in the process losing the possibility of leaving the unable to mourn one successfully, to let go of one, those who love one in such a manner that they are their calls, one ends up being abandoned even by consequence of one’s repeated failure to answer When one is deserted or betrayed by every sous-entendu call. Maybe what one fears sous-entendu -

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187 Jalal Toufic The Dancer’s Two Bodies 188 of the one who turns to respond to interpellation is While many scholars have argued that the main state the mirror but not to the one in front of the mirror. of the paradigmatic interpellation, to the figure in the one who answers the interpellation; in the case ing attention exclusively or at least inordinately to is also because such a view implies that one is pay hails: a child who has no motor control or unity yet. It interpellation, it is the weakest, most fragile who of hailing one’s image in the mirror—in the primary for example, by a policeman in the street, but that tion is not that of being hailed in private or public, tion. This is because the paradigmatic interpella misrecogni to is of to a guilt related be guilty double expression the mirror, the figure with its back to him, and the take place between the anomaly he was seeing in of the connection he, unawares, was allowing to the result not of some specific act he had done but realized that the guilt or shame he was feeling was shame and guilt? When he became less anxious, he was absentminded. Why was his anxiety tinged with hypothesizing that the person who bumped into him subsided, he tried to account for that incident by the dread that had taken hold of him then having thoughts, someone bumped into him! Later that day, he was there. While he was preoccupied with these someone to pass by, that person would not notice that he did not exist. He was apprehensive that were turn. He felt that if the figure did not do so, it was image, did not appear to sense his gaze and thus had its back to him, he no longer viewed as a mirror mirror, but because the figure, which, because it that the mirror image faces the one looking in the disconcerted no longer because he took it as natural in the mirror not having turned toward him, he felt To view interpellation as basically and mainly lost face . - - - “automatically,” do that for her child. her for that do “automatically,” interpellated—even the mother does not always, the figure in the mirror for turning toward them when mortals, who can undergo over-turns, are grateful to of always mortals an contains element of gratitude: 180°-turn of the figure in the mirror. The narcissism tion in front of the mirror, there is, in response, the in psychotic states, every time there is interpella the responsive turn is trusting gratitude, for, except interpellation in front of the mirror and witnessing that the main state of the one initiating the primary guilt (while the example of the policeman as hailer feel anxious when it happened so unmistakably. written about it, but that nonetheless made him then, something he should have expected, having up on a large screen. Something uncanny took place the stage became dark and he could see her close- rored by another, physically dissimilar dancer. Later, surprisingly her movements were then shortly mir briefly on him. Soon, she lost her mirror image; not audience member that her look happened to rest he was seated. He was sure that it was as a general looked toward the section of the auditorium where dance in which she performed. At some point, she His fascination with her started during a multimedia ‘have something on their consciences’” by ‘guilt feelings,’ despite the large numbers who nomenon, and one which cannot be explained solely hailing by a figure of authority] is a strange phe [the 180° physical turn to respond to the unspecific aforementioned interpreters of his text: “And yet it innocent, Althusser is more circumspect than the in his text on interpellation is neither accidental nor He had the unsettling feeling that she was gazing The Dancer’s Two Bodies 197 196 ), I think - 198 - -

189 Jalal Toufic The Dancer’s Two Bodies 190 the building, Scottie is told by the desk attendant appearance from a hotel (having followed her into of amnesia;posthypnotic and her mysterious dis sion by a dead woman; the accompanying episodes of Madeleine’s posses guise her and states trance with absence! In ence itself was already not a full one, but affected cinematic works of melancholia, this earlier pres is partly what makes these films two of the major presence and current absence, except that, and this places that ostensibly convey the beloved’s earlier expectedly the bereaved protagonist revisits the Vertigo hear her say this. In the second half of Hitchcock’s me were I to prematurely die.” It perplexed him to we happen to be when I dance! You’ll quickly forget keep telling me that I am not fully present where this impression he had on looking at her dance. “You her.) into which her dance projected a subtle version of realm of altered movement, body, space, and time longer fully in the room. (She was also not fully in the a dance partner arrived, and the two dancers started ment, space, and time, he hugged her. Soon, her subtle dancer into dance’s realm of altered move was partly disappearing, by being projected as a ask him to do that but started to dance. Feeling she the studio. She wanted him to hug her. She did not see her rehearse a new dance. They arrived early at he was dating her. One day she invited him to come performances of that dance in its brief run. Soon them specifically. He attended all her subsequent radio broadcast: that the broadcaster is addressing times feel on watching a TV program or hearing a psychotic moment, of the sort schizophrenics some at and addressing him specifically. It was a quasi- pas de deux 199 On various occasions he mentioned to her and Robbe-Grillet’s Robbe-Grillet’s and . Shortly, he could feel that she was no Vertigo , this absence assumes the L’Immortelle , rather rather , - - - - - that she did not see the woman in question come in, from dance’s realm of altered silence, body, space, She asked him: “What if one day I don’t come back body, movement, of altered realm space, time.and that she could linger longer and longer in dance’s her projection as a subtle dancer, she began to feel movement, space, and time. She advanced so far in refined to a subtle body in dance’s realm of altered material body, the dancer having been hence where disappearance is not final; but of the where backward-in-time movement is possible, nary movements possible) can take place, therefore element of movement, makes all kinds of extraordi realm in which immobilization (which, as the genetic not of the subtle body, since the latter exists in a cific to it is not death but definitive disappearance: and therefore the temptation and predilection spe realm of altered movement, space, and time) tends (that produces a projection of a subtle dancer into its ing in melancholia. The limit towards which dance that undoes the normal process of mourning, usher to accept that the latter’s death is final, a refusal difficult for the dancer in love with another dancer heightens such an eventuality since it makes it very of an intensely loved dancer? On the contrary, it tuality of melancholia following the premature death in principle death can be reversed, reduce the even realm of altered movement, space, and time, so that in dance allow a backward-in-time motion in dance’s doesn’t the circumstance that the immobilizations ( they die when melancholia to induce ment, body, space, and time, dancers are most apt subtle dancers into dance’s realm of altered move ostensibly are, since they are conjointly projected as because as dancers they are not fully where they room whose shutters he saw her open). Precisely and he ascertains for himself that she is not in the Giselle completely ). But

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191 Jalal Toufic The Dancer’s Two Bodies 192 two other occasions on which they were again in her: “Where are you now?” “Also in a forest” (on the mirror in the hall where they ostensibly were, asked dancing, he, an undead, who did not appear in the space and time, she began to dance. While she was to partly be elsewhere, in dance’s realm of altered realm. Then, in order to regain her composure and by them, closed his eyes that gaze at the undeath Dracula in the great hall of his castle, she, horrified possible. As she, a dancer, stood “with” Count film, the following situation would have become joined the two realms of death and dance in one 1982, and form of two independent films, foray into the musical and the vampire film took the unfinished business. has come to meet her in the figure of a revenant with advances toward Jose, thus toward the past, which time—to before they headed to the encounter. Lucia Candela and Carmelo start moving backward in tion. Jose’s ghost appears. In dance movements, Jose. They advance in space toward their destina lover Carmelo to the ruined location haunted by The latter accompanies Candela and her present between her and the dead man’s mistress, Lucia. Jose, her slain husband, is to manage a substitution only way to release Candela from being haunted by A Love Bewitched gous: was not but somewhat analo identical nonetheless ment of a Dzogchen master to manage a feat that pates; that it took all the discipline and enlighten much more difficult to accomplish than she antici to the subtle dancer?” He replied that such a feat is and time, having become so refined as to be reduced the great transference into the body of light In It is unfortunate that Francis Ford Coppola’s

Carlos Saura’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula , 1986), Carmelo is told that the 200 Love, the Magician One from the Heart , 1992. Had Coppola (aka

. - - - , - the same hall and he asked, while she was danc join him—with one leap. Psychologically, at the level balcony overlooking the station, she tried to quickly ning toward him. Spotting him from the edge of the waiting for the train, he saw her in the distance run ture cessation of their relationship. Soon after, while with him or bear the responsibility for the prema giving her an ultimatum to either immediately leave crudely insisted that she cease her dancing career, performance was to begin, her selfish husband ballerina’s room backstage just before the ballet Shoes in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s be since he still remembered the twisted last scene was aware how futile such a demand would prove to not ask her to put a stop to her dancing career: he performances. It was for ethical reasons that he did he told her that he would no longer attend her dance was, however intense, a commonplace one. And so, feel that his relationship with her in the same world dance projected subtle versions of them made him realm of altered space and time into which their partner across the two separate branches of the less tele-interaction of his beloved with her dance specifically, as her dance partner could. The seam He had to admit to himself that he could not do it ing, he did, but only in a general, abstract manner. music, space, and time? In a way, through his writ dance’s realm of altered body, movement, silence, hands her figure—“hidden in the forest.” he, while his eyes were still closed, outlined with his momentarily. He resumed, “see the …”—at this point respond, “I do …” she placed her finger on his lips in this hall as it was fifty years ago”). As he began to time, “Also in this hall,” and the second time, “Also ing, about her whereabouts, she answered the first (1948). In this film, arriving at the principal Did he, as a writer, accompany her into The Red - - - - -

193 Jalal Toufic The Dancer’s Two Bodies 194 interested solely in his or her flesh and blood body, Thus the dancer is surprised when someone is space, and time, who could be taller, thinner, etc. realm of altered body, movement, silence, music, dancer induced by dance and projected by it into its to the mirror image, since it also involves the subtle doubling lasts only for the duration of the dance.” not being at a ‘basic level’ an act of infidelity?” “The ing no guilt at the personal level, brushing it off as performance in which I lost my mirror image, feel have sex with the dancer who doubled me during a image, to properly see the image. “Will you some day through the striptease of a reduction to the bodily but also, and despite the ostensible enactment to distinguish the two different-looking women, Consequently it became extremely difficult not only she losing through the doubling the mirror image. same gestures, quickly becoming her double, duet with another female dancer who made the next dance, she started the performance with a Shoes same entreaty—to the diegetic priest—in in the latter, for he remembered that she made the synecdochically of dance, she was still implicated her get rid of the ballet shoes, recognized that even while imploring him to help she beseeched him to take off the slippers. He then tion of spaces that are not contiguous. While dying, dance, which allows the seamless direct connec that she chose dance: the leap was a throwback to two exclusive options simultaneously intimated her failure to resolve the conflict between these gesture. And yet, this gesture by which she indicated and her love for her husband, the leap was a suicidal of a character torn between her passion for dance ballet in which she starred. The body image of the dancer is not limited Although she did a striptease during her 201 and thus seemingly The Red - - feeling: What about the subtle body? It is those who Berkeley; dancer in one of those formations dear to Busby change to solos. With others as the flesh and blood than the others, something often indicated by the where one is already in another time and place into dance’s realm of altered body and movement one accomplishes dance and is thereby projected becomes of no importance, the lightest to bear, once this multiplication, this absence of uniqueness, other. What is exasperating at the level of training, doing the same gesture, mirror images of each large mirror covering one of the studio’s walls, all blood one and a subtle one. and a soul than of having two bodies: the flesh and With the dancer, it is less a matter of having a body and blood) body are also the most distant from it. dancers, who while being the closest to the (flesh (flesh and blood) body, who are most attracted to cannot stand the suffocation of a reduction to the have a problematic relation to the body, those who principal ballerina, while functioning at the story performance of the ballet despite the death of the form of the absence of one of the dancers: the final the couple. Or being perfectly matched dance movements by was until then and what will subsequently resume matching of the couple’s dance movements in what take the form of an odd awkwardness and mis the two dancers can, as in time into which dance projects subtle versions of realm of altered body, silence, music, space, and formed across the two separate branches of the movement, silence, music, space, and time. the separate branches of dance’s realm of altered So many dancers are training in front of the The revelation that the 202 alone as the subtle dancer in one of

it can take, as in The Belle of New York pas de deux The Red Shoes is per , the - - ,

195 Jalal Toufic The Dancer’s Two Bodies 196 than acquire auto-mobility). The following words of allows everything else to remain in its place rather the resultant motionlessness and immobilization, remainder, which is one of the differences between of stopping leaves a rest as it comes to rest—this posture, eternal and immobile, since every other kind not exactly superimpose over the Idea, over the ideal dead stop brought about by silence-over, one can immobilization in dance and death, an unnatural the transcendent poses (other than through the at any-instant-whatever artificially coincide with the dancer and that the subtle dancer may undergo of body a subtle projects dance which into realm immobilizations that are a characteristic of the nent immobilizations. It tried to make the immanent a mixed regime of transcendent poses and imma are themselves eternal and immobile.… Movement, refers to intelligible elements, Forms or Ideas which instant-whatever.” ing movement not to privileged instants, but to any- modern scientific revolution has consisted in relat of poses or privileged instants, as in a dance.… The transition from one form to another, that is, an order conceived in this way, will thus be the regulated subtle version of each of them. music, space, and time into which dance projected a rate branches of the realm of altered body, silence, ner tele-interacted seamlessly across the sepa when she was physically present, she and her part that even the first time the ballet was performed, her name and whose name she made”), also implies to present indeed any other night. Nevertheless, we’ve decided you that Miss Page is unable to dance tonight—nor his star (“Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to tell level as a tribute of the ballet company’s director to

Gilles Deleuze: “For antiquity, movement The Red Shoes 204 Classical ballet ( ballet Classical ; it is the ballet that made 203 Giselle … ) was - - - - - mate allowed by dance). its own, manifesting the auto-mobility of the inani pet’s dismemberment, its leg continues to dance on Pressburger’s the dancer (in the “Olympia” section in Powell and movement in which it projects a subtle version of by dance in its realm of altered body, silence, and move, having acceded to the auto-mobility allowed faint sound no longer audible, the doll continued to time the winding mechanism came to a stop, its vicinity a number of dancers were frozen. The third stop, the doll became again motionless, while in its of times when its winding mechanism came to a an auto-mobility of the inanimate. The first couple all sorts of extraordinary movements, including bilization, the genetic element of motion, allows subtle version of the dancer, makes possible immo silence, and movement into which it projects a sis divested of psychological remembrance. backward-in-time motion, a kind of bodily anamne movement, silence, music, and time make possible the immobilizations in dance’s altered realm of body, latter, entailing no residue, have no past and since the Idea and the ideal pose and posture since the The subtle dancer of classical ballet was affined to shortly before was mingling with others at a party. reached through the freeze-framing of a dancer who unlike the others, which are embodiments of Forms, Time even better to Maya Deren’s Deleuze, “The privileged instants of Eisenstein, or of regular regular to put it simply, the any-instant-whatever can be any other director, are still any-instant-whatevers; ment would be due to its becoming frozen in dance’s attains the state of dance, a of cessation its move , where one of the sculptures in the park is, is, park the in sculptures the of one where , Dance, which, in the altered realm of body, or singular, ordinary ordinary singular, The Tales of Hoffmann 206 When the mechanical doll doll mechanical the When or Ritual in Transfigured remarkable,” , after the pup the after , 205 apply - - - - -

197 Jalal Toufic The Dancer’s Two Bodies 198 would never be affected. For affectation appears, tage? First a negative gain … : that such a figure puppet would have over a living dancer?’ ‘The advan own once the had silence-over receded. to time again. The doll resumed its movement on its tuated until the doll was no longer frozen but subject place in time or is a form of time, could not be effec quence that the action of rewinding it, one that takes frozen still, thus withheld from time, with the conse he would not be able to do so since the doll was then dancer, he dismissed it—he must have sensed that occurred to its erstwhile master, but, being himself a The notion of rewinding the doll’s mechanism body,of altered realm silence, music. and movement, sticks to the dancing flesh and blood person, not seems that in his “On the Marionette Theatre” Kleist body, movement, space, and time certainly can; it projected by him or her into dance’s realm of altered not be as perfect as the puppet, the subtle dancer Neumiller). While the flesh and blood dancer can the Marionette Theatre,” translated by Thomas G. that is, in the mechanical puppet, or in the God” (“On sciousness at all—or has infinite consciousness— in that human bodily structure that has no con to this matter.… Grace … appears to best advantage being. In such a realm only a God could measure up to attain even an approximation of a mechanical dancers.… It would be almost impossible for a man outstanding quality that we look for in vain in most pendulums following the simple law of gravity, an other limbs are what they should be—dead, pure over no other point than this one: therefore all the trols the wire or string, he controls and has power movement. Because the puppeteer absolutely con at any point other than the center of gravity of the as you know, when the soul ( Heinrich von Kleist: “‘And the advantage … a vis motrix ) locates itself ------

perceiving superimposed on him or her the subtle for example, silence-over, immobilization, the loss subtle version of them, a realm with many dangers, silence, space, and time into which dance projects a graceful in the realm of altered movement, music, for dancers?” “I admire dancers because they are music. His friend asked him: “Why this admiration walked to the platform and started to move to the and movement. he or she projects into dance’s realm of altered body dissatisfaction, but, unawares, to the subtle dancer the dancer compares himself or herself and feels blood dancer, not even an Ulanova or an Astaire, that tle dancer. It is not in relation to any other flesh and isfaction is the result of a comparison with the sub intuit his or her presence, since this litany of dissat ing about this subtle dancer they project, they must dancer they project. Although not expressly know that dancers did not seem to know about the subtle of body and movement while dancing. It amused him ers’ complaints about not reaching the perfect state writer tolerantly listened to the litany of the danc has to emulate the electronic dancer. Once more the grasp is that it is not she, but her subtle dancer who Tharp’s dance movement and body. What the protagonist of Twyla and the space and time of dance’s realm of altered body that alone can be adequate to music (-over) but rather to enable him or her to project the subtle what were up to then two-dimensional objects, etc.; produced by dance, such as entering and moving in goal), and to the spatial and temporal possibilities poreal earthly thing, music (a crazy temptation and a perfect one adequate to that most spiritual, incor is not to change his or her flesh and blood body into dancer he or she projects. The training of the dancer They were out with a friend at a nightclub. She The

Catherine Wheel (1981) does not - - - - -

199 Jalal Toufic On Portraits 200 and then who can compete with the graceful ‘walk’ around them have become altered, began dancing, already, as is revealed by how time and the space that while seeming to be simply walking, they have uous spaces-times. used, as dancers, to connect directly non-contig more difficult than others to walk because they are than dancers?” “No, I don’t deny it. Dancers find it “Jalal, do you deny that models walk more elegantly to write on the grace of models? None.” I was asked: the author of ‘On the Marionette Theater,’ the taste supermodel would have given Heinrich von Kleist, have the grace of a dancer? None. What fashion Arts, I put forth: “What fashion supermodel will ever “Dance in/and Film” at California Institute of the Toward the end of a recent session of my class Christy Turlington, New York: immobilized by silence-over.” trol and which, angelically, can save me from being appearance and disappearance is out of my con awe that as a dancer I feel for music-over, whose to sway to the music-in, in order to mitigate the remarked: “I need to come here a few times a week, are merely elegant.” On returning to her seat, she has no occasion to manifest itself—her movements silence, space, and time, and therefore her grace into dance’s realm of altered movement, music, but risk nothing. Right now, she is not projected els, and even the poise of cats, which are playful, and limited is the elegance of many fashion mod of the mirror image … How comparatively sheltered On Portraits 208 Yet it sometimes happens Jalal Toufic, Los Angeles 207 1/24/1998 - - - Quincey Morris, having heard various reports that a Arthur Holmwood (the fiancée of the late Lucy), and in which Doctor Van Helsing, Doctor John Seward, remake and were now beginning to film the scene They had already shot a substantial part of the it because his last film had plunged him in debt? this period glutted with remakes of that work? Was a remake of extremely difficult task of accomplishing a portrait? a taste to do a portrait of you. How to go about the enough disappointment with the result to give me enough deference while Clemente works, and passed through the portrait stage.” You show most of them, I have also, looking at my portrait, through the mirror stage in my infancy, but, unlike not hear you exclaim: “Like others, I have passed it. During the portrait session with Clemente, I did of you, and I am sure that you too can easily endure Elegies it serenely disdains / to annihilate us” (Rilke, just able to endure, / and we are so awed because ing / but the beginning of terror, which we still are ness it, would, among other things, make those who wit of the dancer? Anyway, while elegant, is supermod his assertion! How conceited is Clemente here and how false is you: “This is what you’re going to look like in heaven.” had just painted of you, Francesco Clemente said to scene of the film, while handing you the portrait he it—in its entirety. I promised to do so. In the last Catwalk ward and asked if I had seen Robert Leacock’s author of ‘Walking.’” A student came to me after the grace of walking of Henry David Thoreau, the els’ walk graceful? No supermodel will ever achieve When a producer proposed to him to direct ). I can easily endure the Clemente “portrait” including herself (1996). I said no. She requested that I watch Dracula 209 A real portrait of a beautiful woman , why did he accept to do it, in , feel that “beauty is noth Duino - - - -

201 Jalal Toufic On Portraits 202 later irrupt in a radical closure, one can view it as novel about the sort of entities that may sooner or exactly like Ira.… That is not my uncle Ira”) or as a syndrome (“He looks, sounds, acts, and remembers Body Snatchers or alongside reading Jack Finney’s with the illustrative, traditional portrait. Instead of, skeptical in relation to, and least easily satisfied toward portraiture, the ones that have been most cinema that have had the most exacting attitude ror and comedy are the two genres of mainstream his portraiture in his previous films was inadequate. film to render more explicit a nagging suspicion that Dracula he realized why he had accepted to do a remake of the undead doubles of themselves. It is then that characters, including those who did not turn into mirrors, but also with his portrayal of all the other undead double of herself who no longer appears in his portrayal of Lucy prior to her turning into the Arthur!” He had felt dissatisfaction not only with the director suddenly screamed, “But that’s not shot was still in progress, took the crew by surprise: this is not Lucy!” tinued to advance. Van Helsing screamed: “Arthur, failed to jolt Arthur out of his entrancement. He con toward her, Van Helsing yelled, “Stop!” The shout ing for his prematurely dead Lucy, began to move In the next shot, as Arthur, seduced and still yearn alive; she managed to pull this off after five takes. yet more seductive than when her character was actress playing Lucy to act slightly mechanical and then intercept her. The director had instructed the wait outside her empty grave until she shows up and by night and leaving two punctures in their necks, woman with Lucy’s features was stalking children With their problematizing of identity, hor ; obscurely, he was drawn to make such a as a fictional version of Capgras 210 What happened next, while the Invasion of the - - - a coming to terms with the extreme difficulty of irruption of the imposters, is either experimental in such a remake would result in a book that, past the man. And this was him …”? No. If carried through, gait now, but still a vigorous, shrewd-eyed, nice-old “He’s big, well over six feet, a little shambling in his able to simply write when introducing a character: impostors, would he while recounting the events be traits.” Having survived the encounter with the alien ease with which he was managing to churn out “por the end of these entries how surprised he is at the ostensible sister is not his sister, etc. He remarks at is not her mother, from one acquaintance that his plaints from one friend that her ostensible mother such “portraits” as he began to hear alarmed com he penned in his journal before he ceased writing simply by reproducing the sort of “portrait” entries going to start his account of the anomalous events begin with the diegetic writer indicating that he is from their alien impersonators. The book would eschew making emotion what distinguishes humans vive, and I would make him the narrator. I would also novel, I would first allow the diegetic writer to sur ditional portraiture. Were I to write a remake of that given both of them pause as to the adequacy of tra when their subject matter, impostors, should have continue to describe people, make their portraits, the nonchalance with which Finney and his narrator ity of portraiture. There is something strange about head-on the extreme difficulty, if not the impossibil be a defense mechanism against having to face narrator who is not a writer—nor an artist—would Finney as a writer, then his recourse to a fictional the diegetic writer. Were one to provisionally treat drawn by the protagonist, a doctor, rather than by rated and the portraits of the other characters are portraiture. In Finney’s novel, the events are nar ------

203 Jalal Toufic On Portraits 204 I apologetically declined her request, because I was around the time a friend asked me to do her portrait. take my mind off his haunting usurping portrait. To to repeatedly protest, ‘That is not me,’ and that it ask is that it not induce in me so strongly the urge portrait of me to resemble my mirror image. All I am not an uncultivated person: I do not expect your restore my image by painting me. You know that I minimally, the portrait he did of me. I want you to has proven powerless to make me forget, however first time. The recognizable image I see in the mirror which I was plunged on seeing the portrait for the having insulted him while in the state of shock in ments for this transaction; I cannot myself do that, buy it. I want you to make the necessary arrange don’t want it to circulate. Towards that, I intend to painting he did of me is definitely not my portrait. I Notwithstanding his assertion to the contrary, the the ‘favor’ of sending me to your eccentric friend. that he do a portrait of her. “You owe me this for later, she returns to the young painter and insists painter he admires, Francis Bacon. A few weeks He arranges for her to have her portrait done by a experiencing extreme difficulty doing portraits.” be narrated by a young painter. agreed to be part of it, I would have had the events Snatchers filmic remake of Finney’s novel to accomplish it. nonetheless frequently been one of the main means The Picture of Dorian Gray mirror) and/or evincing a dread of it (Oscar Wilde’s the nonappearance of the vampire’s image in the ing its apparent impossibility (for example through while problematizing the portrait (doubles), exhibit its portraits or avoids portraiture altogether. Even Had I been given the opportunity to do a when Francis Bacon was still alive and he , etc.), the horror genre has Invasion of the Body 211 “It all started - - ascertain ascertain that I am not being unjust to your friend, I more like him.” with what Michel’s head is really like, and yet it looks long and thin, that head in fact has nothing to do in fact, and this is long and narrow.… Being rather you think about Michel’s head, it’s rather globular, Michel is that it does look more like him and yet, if him. What is curious about that particular one of less literally like him is in fact more poignantly like two paintings of Michel Leiris, the one I did which is writer, Michel Leiris; Bacon, “I think that, of those were discussing two paintings Bacon did of another in the company of a writer. The host and his guest ushered by a servant to the library, where Bacon was drove as scheduled to Bacon’s house. They were ent. Following yet another frustrating session, they were to visit Bacon to buy the portrait was no differ would persuade him to persevere. The night they felt unsatisfied. Each time her desperate insistence he would tell her that they should desist, that he sessions dragged on for several weeks. Repeatedly invaded by extraterrestrial impostors. The portrait after, and unbeknownst to him, the city began to be Bacon?’” He started working on her portrait. Soon ated in my head: ‘How can one make portraits after overcome yet. For months, this refrain reverber painting into a crisis—one which I don’t think I’ve ent. Second, it was his portraits that plunged my then I would be unable to do something differ “It may nonetheless strike me as definitive, and changing, so how could it be a definitive portrait?” to be elementary, indeed obvious, I am constantly I told you it is not me. Anyway, and this seems to me me as definitive …” “Were you at all listening to me? see the one he did of you. First of all, it might strike ing.” “No. If I agree to do your portrait, I cannot go suggest you visit him and see for yourself the paint 212 Shortly after greeting his two - - - -

205 Jalal Toufic On Portraits 206 it to his guests. The young painter was disconcerted. reluctant permission of the model, Bacon exhibited be allowed to have a look at it. After receiving the writer, although usually reserved, insisted that they back with the wrapped portrait of the woman. The new guests, the host went to his studio and came we live. The successful portrait of a mortal is one in trait as mortals, that is, as already dead even while ful, artistic, or literary portrait has to draw our por date. But—so long as we have no will—the thought as people who are moving toward death at a future golden age of portraiture. emulations; we could thus be on the threshold of a and thus derivatively from his clones and computer that differentiates the person from himself/herself, who emulations, the portraitist is going to be someone ing at the portrait. In the era of cloning and digital painter when he or she was not working or look of one who fooled mother, sibling, husband, and the the most sensitive detector of the impostor—even tion a criterion for a valid portrait: that it prove to be age of feasible genetic cloning and/or digital emula everyone except … the portrait. This could be for the inadequate. The extraterrestrial impostor could fool front of him made the painting as a portrait look the painting and the globular one of the woman in between the long and narrow face of the figure in painted weeks earlier, because ing in front of him was not the female model he had the portrait, Bacon realized that the woman stand as a portrait, did not render her. While looking at young painter felt that the painting was inadequate had he not felt that it was a fine work. And yet, the that the latter would have destroyed the painting He fully trusted Bacon as a painter and was certain discovers through creation Chronological time fashions our “portrait” the crucial detail now the discrepancy - - - - - front of which he or she acknowledges: “It’s me!— funeral twice on the day he wrote these words].” name in history is I as someone who can feel, at least at times, and of the complementary half of the face of Alma half of the face of Elisabeth [played by Liv Ullmann] close-up where the compound face is composed of to her while inebriated; and then fully through the some of the private information the latter confessed husband, describing the nurse, and incorporating preliminary manner in a letter she addresses to her Persona at the approach of a valid portrait. (In Bergman’s of her past and identity: as a symptom of unease he feels encouraged by her defensive reaffirmation Notwithstanding that he doesn’t really listen to her, edly, be able to draw a more faithful portrait of her. he would come to know her better and thus, suppos might “think”: she is acquainting him with herself so returned since the portrait sessions started. One the fever she was afflicted with in those days has she attended, where she was frequently ill; that that his studio reminds her of the boarding school she do then? She begins to tell him about her past: think that she has taken charge. But what does and assumes a particular pose on them. You would the mattress and the sheets on which she is to lie studio’s sparse furniture, decides where to place presence, she takes the liberty of rearranging the in his studio by the time he arrives there. In his that they continue. The next morning she is already after, he declares that he is giving up. She insists valid portrait, tells her to defend herself. But shortly the painter Frenhofer, feeling the imminence of a do. After doing a number of sketches of Marianne, noiseuse Have you seen Jacques Rivette’s film , Elizabeth draws the portrait of Alma: in a , 1991? If you haven’t, I recommend that you [Nietzsche, who had attended his every La belle -

207 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 208 The Universe not yet a writer. This does not preclude her becom on are her memories, indicates clearly that she is of herself against the portrait, that all she falls back dren’s book, does not mobilize writing in her defense sessions that she is a writer, and who wrote a chil lover asserted prior to the beginning of the portrait presumably accomplished. That Marianne, whose …] imply this.) Indeed, such a portrait is soon after are and of recounting her past [sexual encounters measures of restating who she is and what her plans longer distinguish the two? Alma’s prior defensive a portrait of Alma rather than Elisabeth if we can no distinguish the two women’s heads. Why would it be trait of Alma, even while it is no longer possible to [played by Bibi Andersson]—this shot is a great por portrait is being made of you, you would be better were you to find yourself in a situation where a valid tous if you are studying literature or art, so that enrolled at New York University. It would be felici portraits. She mentioned that you are presently had provided me with an occasion to think about had watched Robert Leacock’s portrait entombed again behind a wall of words?). over, the portrait of herself she wrote (the painted it. And they will probably hear over it, as a voice- (they didn’t in trait, then the film’s spectators will at long last see it the meantime managed to actually paint such a por hands we see as Frenhofer is shown painting, has in then walled up. If the painter Bernard Dufour, whose search of the portrait that painter did of her and and her subsequent visit to the Frenhofer home in writer, her production of a textual portrait of herself, would chronicle her progress toward becoming a film that would complement ing one later on. This could be the subject of a later When I next saw my student, I told her that I La belle noiseuse La belle noiseuse Catwalk ) when she retrieves and that it . It - - - - - the form of the immobilization and flattening at the an intuition that it already existed in the universe, in some urge to arrest the moment, but partly owing to Was photography invented not so much to assuage whelming gravity in the vicinity of the black hole. to the infinite dilation of time produced by the over horizon do not undergo any events, being frozen due because from our reference frame the entities at the communicate back with us this side of it, but also once an entity crosses it that entity can no longer of a black hole is an event horizon not only because can invoke relativity. The Schwarzschild membrane freezing in dance and undeath, under silence-over; I agree with this assertion, I do not have to invoke the assertion that “in reality time does not stop.” To dis with this Rodin view generally, I do not agree with his is abruptly suspended.’” conventional than the scientific image, where time for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less sion of a movement which takes several moments and if the artist succeeds in producing the impres tography which lies, for in reality time does not stop, Rodin, ‘it is the artist who is truthful and it is pho cal testimony, he evidently alters truth.’ ‘No,’ replied photography, which is an unimpeachable mechani of movement he [the artist] completely contradicts “[Paul Gsell:] ‘Well, then, when in the interpretation portraitist, for example, me. you better equipped for the confrontation with a exchange could become a training that would make dence to issue from this letter, such an epistolary equipped to produce a different valid portrait in the process of defending yourself. Photographer: The Universe A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic 214

While I tend to concur 213 Were a correspon ------

209 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 210 The Universe time-being ( and frozen at the horizon.” up—and Goulash’s computer—similarly flattened hole, including the original matter that made it also see all the material that ever fell into the black tion of motion. More strangely, Windbag should will see the other as being flattened in the direc persons move fast with respect to each other, each into a thin layer. Einstein also showed that if two down, but his body looks as if it is being squashed halt.… In fact, not only does Goulash seem to slow horizon, Windbag sees Goulash’s motions slow to a he appears to be moving ever more slowly; at the he falls, the latter shakes his fist at Windbag. But Windbag sees a strangely lethargic Goulash. As will run slowly compared with one in empty space. in addition, a clock that is near a massive object each other, each sees the other’s clock slow down; found that if two persons are moving fast relative to increases until it approaches that of light. Einstein As Goulash falls toward the black hole, his speed other probes, to better keep an eye on Goulash. horizon a cable equipped with a camcorder and acting in a bizarre way. Windbag has lowered to the spaceship safely outside the horizon, sees Goulash event horizon? “Windbag, watching Goulash from a its spacetime, a moment that has vanished? Both relativity, with photographs induce nostalgia because they show event horizon, in a sort of paradigmatic farewell. Do astronaut’s photograph as he crosses its border, the black hole. The universe automatically takes the three-dimensional person who crossed into the sion of motion—a photograph—of the still moving has at the event horizon a flattening and a suspen of the astronaut approaching the black hole, one reference frame of the outside observer and that uji 216 ), 217 and Zen master Dōgen, with his tell us that that moment has not 215 By superimposing the - - vanished. I rather think that this gloomy nostal which … I have discerned human figures for a long the window is coated with a brownish varnish in protected by a cast-iron grille.… The wood around a tiny narrow oblong window near the top, its pane ing the door behind me, a heavy wooden door with three-dimensional and undergo events (“I am clos perspective, interior to the radical closure, they are and the objects are frozen and flat; but from another tive, exterior to the radical closure, the protagonists sons. In Robbe-Grillet’s universe, from one perspec crossed that boundary as three-dimensional per from their local reference frame they have gradually and frozen, turning into quasi photographs; but those at the black hole’s event horizon are flattened From the reference frame of an outside observer, crossing both does not happen and is continuous! but if two reference frames are provided, then the the other side without having been introduced there; in other words, is missed, one finding “oneself” to such a closure happens in a lapse of consciousness, exclusive frame of reference, then the crossing into so slowed it comes to a standstill. zon not only is the person flattened, but also time is ing of him in the Rodin manner, for at the event hori horizon is less conventional than an artistic render observer, a photograph of the astronaut at the event of him; but from the reference frame of an outside less conventional, more truthful, than a photograph the astronaut at the event horizon might very well be frame, an artistic rendering in the Rodin manner of been thus photographed. From a local reference irretrievable loss to the universe of the one who has naturally occurring photographs, which signal the man-made photographs with the aforementioned gia is linked to an intuition of the resonance of the If the radical-closure work presents only one, ------

211 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 212 The Universe the right.… He walks toward the bound girl” white doctor’s coat appears in the foreground from its cast-iron grille. But now a silver-haired man in a through the thick pane of the oblong window with scream, if the girl were screaming, would be audible must be distended by some kind of gag.… Besides, a tion; the mouth, which has been wide open too long, an interrogation.… Yet it cannot be an interroga of light has been carefully directed, as though for the frame spreads a cone of harsh light … : the shaft ing me, apparently naked.… From the left part of time: a young woman lying on her left side and fac be once again looking from outside the radical clo again accompanied by a flattening, the reader would the narrative, there is a subsequent freezing that is that irrupted in his novels ( vre the paintings, ostensibly by others (Magritte …), photographer, one has to include as part of his oeu and filmmaker by Robbe-Grillet the painter and complement one’s view of Robbe-Grillet the writer in which she later appears. Similarly, in order to denly appear on the sidewalk, to Laura Palmer, and handed by the old woman and the child, who sud and Highway it without being shot by anyone within it to a radical closure: the photograph that irrupts in pening to either side of the event horizon? the narrator than to be able to report on what is hap what could be a clearer sign of an omniscience of the traditional novelist, but truly accomplished it: not relinquished the ubiquity and omniscience of sure. This would indicate that the fiction writer has in exhibitions and/or published, should include not only those that were shown one to want to list David Lynch’s photographs, one Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me There is a sort of photograph that is specific ’s photograph of the two look-alike women, La Belle Captive 221 ’s photograph but also 219 . 220 …), Lost 218 Were ). If, in 222 -

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- - - - closures is presented simultaneously in Bacon’s consecutively in Robbe-Grillet’s novelistic radical two-dimensional in the right one (what is presented the figure is three-dimensional in the left panel, but after Muybridge Portrait 1982 at that radical closure’s border, as in sure, the fashioning of the figure into a photograph from a reference frame external to the radical clo graphs than from models”), in the process allowing, because I very much prefer working from the photo humans (“I’ve had photographs taken for portraits graphs of them taken by other, camera-wielding painted not directly from models but from photo surveys of photography. Francis Bacon frequently The Shining dle-aged man sometime in the 1970s, in Kubrick’s Hotel, where he apparently first arrived as a mid July 4th ball that took place in 1921 at the Overlook of Jack Torrance among the other guests at the Walk with Me Lies Year at Marienbad section on the photographs in Robbe-Grillet’s absence of any mention of, let alone a separate irrupted, making the latter a mixed media work. The photographs do not fit fully in the film in which they the radical closure presented by the film, these and the photographs that resulted from the freez- Eliot)—her husband? even “the third who walks always beside you” (T. S. at Marienbad and that was taken by no one, not her to convince her they met the previous year ple, the photograph that the woman’s suitor hands as well as those that irrupted in his films, for exam gateless gates of radical closures in his novels ing and flattening of various characters at the ; the photographs in Lynch’s is a significant omission in historical ,

and 1984, , 1988, and Lost Highway , L’Immortelle Study from the Human Body 223 While made possible by Triptych ; and the photograph , and Twin Peaks: Fire , 1991, where Study for Self The Man Who Last

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213 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 214 The Universe artistic artistic radical closures); one, radical closure of a photograph not taken by any a warning really necessary in this peculiar case? If, spaceship, he would feel dissociated. But was such indeed by merely knowing of its existence in his tograph in his spaceship beyond the event horizon, able. which his freezing and flattening would be observ frame, at a distance from the event horizon, from back at the event horizon; and in the reference inside the black hole, where he would actually be; three places at the same time: in the spaceship have the impression of being at two places or even which he was excluded, warning him that he would that could exist only in a frame of reference from look at a photograph that uncannily reproduced one thinker cautioned him that it would be unsettling to side the event horizon. A few psychiatrists and a graph, he would still feel himself to be virtually out event horizon. Supposedly, by looking at this photo be suddenly audible as the spaceship crossed the neer had even arranged for the click of a camera to ing him at the event horizon. Some perverse engi with a convincing simulation of a photograph show when he had gone beyond the Schwarzschild radius the main computer on the spaceship to provide him from their reference frame), and had programmed redder as he got ever closer to the event horizon tograph (that would look increasingly dimmer and appear, from an outside reference frame, as a pho was almost at the event horizon, as he would asked the astronaut to take a fitting pose once he and Dyer, Self-Portrait, Portrait of Lucian Freud wall ( Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne 225 226 Three Portraits: Posthumous Portrait of George The scientists at the space program had often in the form of a portrait hung on the They cautioned him that by seeing this pho 224 or the irruption in the , 1967). , 1973, ------as Bergson avers, memory is not localized and pre actual,” cloud … [and] from the virtual state passes into the “little by little it comes into view like a condensing general, then, in a certain region of the past” where history, we … replace ourselves, first, in the past in recover a recollection, to call up some period of our tence of the past, and if “whenever we are trying to served in the brain, but presupposes the subsis the black hole as a radical closure. (Similarly, to the be an unworldly, ahistorical entity that irrupted in amnesiac—and because such a photograph might him or her because he or she would have become the astronaut would not elicit any nostalgia from event horizon of a black hole, a photograph showing horizon he has just crossed). To the other side of the from the spacetime to the other side of the event verse, loses memory (as a result of being separated is taken at the event horizon, as it were by the uni graphed by humans, the person whose photograph while we still have our memories when photo turn at the edge of the universe, the event horizon: this other photograph into which he or she would photograph taken by a human using a camera, and is thus a weighty difference between the traditional an automatic, instantaneous loss of memory. There starting at the event horizon the astronaut suffers who crossed that boundary, my contention is that event horizon is no longer available to the astronaut he crosses it. But, since the spacetime outside the special at the Schwarzschild membrane or just after hypothetically the astronaut would not feel anything aside the intensifying gravitational tidal forces, Thorne, Paul Davies, and other physicists, setting spacetime to the other side? According to Kip S. crossing it he becomes disconnected from the event horizon continue to have his memory if by 227 how can the person who crosses the - - - -

215 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 216 The Universe the robot embodies only one available to the robot, indeed the one that sori-motor systems organized by habit, “the bodily memory, made up of the sum of the sen which] is … a quasi-instantaneous memory” event horizon. To appease him, some scientists suddenly becoming amnesiac just as he crossed the event horizon of a gargantuan black hole than of effects or the singularity to the other side of the hensive of being shredded by the gravitational tidal by Bergson’s views, the astronaut was less appre the entity that crosses the event horizon? Convinced their outline, their colour and their place in time” memory-images which picture all past events with nisms which make use of it; on the other, personal two extreme forms: on the one hand, motor mecha (“The past appears indeed to be stored up … under two forms of memory that Bergson differentiates is it possibly because they intuit that only one of the his reader’s concern by sparing the human astronaut, ences” hood of the horizon and transmit back his experi and get a volunteer robot, to explore the neighbor up close. So with pangs of conscience you ask for you. Never before could you observe a spinning hole (Kip S. Thorne: “The spin of the [black] hole intrigues happen to the entity that crosses the event horizon resort to robots in their description of what may irrupted in the radical closure.) Many physicists because it is an unworldly, ahistorical entity that only because she has become amnesiac but also Marienbad does not elicit any nostalgia from her not the woman and that shows her in the hotel in Marienbad in Resnais and Robbe-Grillet’s other side of the gateless gate of the radical closure semblable 228 ); is this merely to allay the empathetic , the photograph her suitor presents to , death by gravitational shredding? Or 232 —continues to be available to Last Year at 230 [and 231 —the - 229 - - - - ), “explained” to him that since the brain is the locus never never pass on.” at the same time as present, the present would once and at the same time. If it was not already past present and past, still present and already past, at that it is the present. Thus the image has to be at the same time as it is present, at the moment ent to arrive, and it is for clearly necessary it to pass for clearly necessary it to pass on for the new pres present it.replaces But this is meaningless. It is past becomes when it no longer is, when a new changes or passes. We can always say that it intact?”memory Deleuze on Bergson: “The present beyond the end of the universe and one’sconserve He was not convinced, exclaiming: “Can one cross cannot be separated from it by a border in space.” between the two: “If time is unextended, then you tended time of Bergson, and that he had to choose in especially its Minkowski rendition, and the unex between the largely time of spatialized relativity, told philosopher him that there was a conflict ory up to its death by tidal forces;enormous and a other side of the event its horizon mem maintains plex organ,biological the that entity to passes the a to of series the modifications circuits of that com where the traces of the past are through preserved which which “is bypreserved itself, automatically,” of a consequences present divested from the past, ence with regard to a black hole the manifest two served, thus an astronaut that not only is amnesiac crossed the horizon, the present that is not pre from the reference frame of the astronaut who well as any object whatever; the inside black hole, pass, in the form of the freezing of the astronaut as of an observer,outside the present that does not zon of the black hole, and from the reference frame which allows the present to pass: at the event hori 233 The two frames different of refer 234 and and ------

217 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 218 The Universe (“each created monad represents the whole information in the universe past, present, and future unfoldings of the monad, which contains all the have around the event horizon is the ever-increasing cone, many absolute borders, for example, relativity’s light modern physics is not Leibnizian, since it contains is being recurrently created. While of the view that bly disappear, this would be only because he or she he or she does not at some point suddenly percepti but also irrupted fully formed ahistorically, so that if spacetime region that is radically closed. or go out” ( has “no windows, by which anything could come in extreme closure to another: from the monad, which event horizon, there is an abrupt switch from one sibly imploded or fell into the black holes. At the tric charge, and angular momentum of what osten effects, enfolded in the monads, of the mass, elec side of the event horizon only indirectly, through the ible, light, to escape, one that can be detected this given that black holes do not allow what renders vis the event horizon, there is an external world, but, its expression by the incorporeal monads; beyond event horizon, there is no world out there, but only borders it: invisible black holes. This side of the the monads, but what is external to the world, what real monads is not the world, which is enfolded in expression of monads. What is outside the incorpo the event horizons of all the black holes as the monad. One could consider the world delimited by the border of the black hole in case he were a nonetheless wondered what would happen to him at ple of the identity of indiscernibles, the astronaut Einstein condensate, it contradicts Leibniz’s princi since, as is made clear by quantum physics’s Bose- the plenum” ( 235 which makes “the connexion of all matter in Monadology Monadology #7), to the black hole, a #62) impossible; and 236 What we ------universe” [ tographer, the universe: vicinity of the event horizon is also that of the pho entity’s camera-less photographic portrait in the future” [ that happens in the universe, past, present and substance … expresses, although confusedly, all his own face” patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of short time before he dies, he discovers that that rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, “A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go Borges wrote in the “Afterword” to human being, is an apocalyptic event. Jorge Luis ostensibly crosses the event horizon, but certainly a From this perspective, any monadic entity that at the event horizon, all the universe’s events unfold. reportedly flashes before one, at the universe’s end, last moments before one’s death, one’s whole life the baroque photograph of the universe. While in the infinite unfolding of what he, as a monad, enfolds, freezing, into a photograph; but also, through the rate, the astronaut turned, through flattening and a photograph of the astronaut, or, to be more accu horizon, we have, from an external reference frame, unfolds traces the lineaments of provinces, and died in his local reference frame indefinitely time before the latter crossed into the black hole into which the face of the monadic astronaut a short his or her reference frame, that the labyrinth of lines outside observer discovers, as the years go by from Then some extremely long-lived patient futuristic Years go by as he travels to the nearest black hole. event horizon. “A man sets out to draw the world. regarding a monadic astronaut in the vicinity of the Discourse on Metaphysics Monadology 238 ; one can paraphrase his words thus #62], in other words, “every 237 in the vicinity of the event , IX]). A monadic The Maker (1960), - -

219 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 220 The Universe that not only all that had happened or would ever cafe, he felt they were two monads, windowless, and same.’ ‘I believe you’? Sitting at nearby tables at the We haven’t anything to say to each other. We are the ‘There’s no need for us to go any further, you and I. dance with you to know you. You know that.’ ‘Yes.’ over, with Anne-Marie Stretter: ‘I didn’t need to Leibnizian truth during his conversation, in voice- vice-consul of Lahore Leibnizian or enunciating a lowing letter: “In Duras’s “Shanna!” A couple of days later, he wrote the fol program. She turned when someone called: imploded in a Big Crunch or endured a Heat Death. world, according to numerous scientists, would have the hole’s gravitational grip” that some of them “take forever long to climb out of shift, keep rapidly increasing, with the consequence magnetic signal, which undergo gravitational red to do so fully since the wavelengths of the electro closer the event horizon would take an infinite time frame, as the monadic astronaut approaches ever universe that unfolds, from an outside reference contain these.’ themselves plants or fish, yet they nevertheless water which is between the fish in the pond, are not which lies between the plants of the garden, and the such a pond’; and that ‘although the ground and air drop of the fluids within it, is also such a garden or of a plant, every member of an animal, and every plants and like a pond full of fish’; that ‘every branch matter may be conceived as like a garden full of minutest particle of matter’; that ‘every portion of beings, of animals, of entelechies, of souls, in the that ‘there is a world of created things, of living rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals; kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, He had first seen her in a cafe at the space 239 ” To be precise, the portrait of the India Song 240 —by which time the , is the French - - - happen to her is plicated in him, albeit as quite con together until the end of the world.” And indeed at approached the black hole. He told her: “We will be of his body that he would suffer as his spaceship difference of the gravitational pull on various parts quence of the quick increase in the excruciating his interest as the fate awaiting him as a conse ion from a religious point of view. It rather captured (1962). Like Bacon, he was not interested in crucifix to Bacon’s triptych made gravity visible. He was particularly attracted Bacon paintings, since for him that painter’s work surrounded himself with reproductions of Francis in 1811 in a suicide pact with Henriette Vogel. He could find of Heinrich von Kleist, who shot himself avidly reading any biographies and letters she into the black hole as a double suicide. She began lovers. They quickly came to view that coming trip black hole. Along the training process, they became were soon after chosen for the first mission to a up mailing or giving in person the letter to her. They a confused, unconscious manner?” He did not end expressed her past, present, and future, though in both to be monads, with the consequence that he totally unknown to him? Or never to meet her but for and know that whole zones of her life will remain did he prefer: to meet her in the former kind of world Shanna included, past, present, and future? Which monad, himself included, expresses the universe, in which he never meets her, a world where each intercourse? Or, rather, to express a Leibnizian world aparté vation, writing that receives through creation the world where one learns about others through obser his advances. Which did he prefer: to meet her in a happen to him was folded in her who might refuse fused perceptions, but also that all that would ever , French kisses, slips of the tongue, in short, Three Studies for a Crucifixion -

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221 Jalal Toufic A Hitherto Unrecognized Apocalyptic Photographer: 222 The Universe that irrupted fully formed. Moreover, to the other indeed were possibly, ahistorical, unworldly entities them: they presently gave the impression of being, on the spaceship, no longer feeling any affinity with the event horizon, but also with the other travelers was not only with the universe to the other side of had to accept inside the supermassive black hole monads “outside” the black hole. The separation he all the information is enfolded in each of the other crosses the event horizon, and because anyway black hole, because the astronaut monad. In which case, no information is lost to the is no longer enfolded in one, that one is no longer a but also the universe exits one, in the sense that it crossing the event horizon one exits this universe, no longer a monad, no longer enfolds the world. By to the other side, but also because he or she is then the world, not only because he can no longer cross The one who crosses the event horizon is divested of alien were the other astronauts in his spaceship. horizon, but the first things that he encountered as exotic kinds of matter to the other side of the event ing himself to possibly encounter alien beings and far as one is alive, intermingled. divested from all the others with whom one is, inso between oneself and one’s double, who is oneself separation that might be equivalent would be that living humans were ever separated. The only kind of frame, separated from each other as no two sane the event horizon they were, in their own reference observer, a photograph. But immediately beyond became, from the reference frame of some outside graph with him at the event horizon since they both photographed, he could not refuse her a photo of the world; notwithstanding his aversion to being frame of an outside observer, together until the end the event horizon, they were, from the reference 241 He was prepar as a monad never - - - Leibnizian letter Leibnizian to her he preferred—by far. which of the two he alternatives had listed in his perceive it only in a way).confused He realized now in such a that manner for the most he part could whatever to happened her was folded in him (albeit macy was gone since it was no longer the case that with gradually getting her,acquainted but the inti crossed into the black massive hole, he was again the same totally alien?” Some time after they had and three and dimensional, ostensibly although a gateless gate and doesn’t, is two dimensional event horizon: “What is it that crosses conjointly now an astronaut, a riddle different at a black hole’s Ingres of sphinx Bacon’s felt that she is as alien as a sphinx. I the envision crossed to the other side of the event horizon, he alien to each other. Looking at his beloved as they ence, they, no longer monads, became immediately event horizon, and from their local frame of refer expressed the universe; but to the other side of the be less and less distinguishable, since they both they appeared from reference outside frames to approached the event horizon, unfolding ever more, side side of the event horizon, the astronaut, now no ties ties that were irrupting in the black hole. longer a monad, could notice all the unworldly enti own own company at the most basic level express. As monads, enfolding the same world, that irrupt do not belong to the world all monads us,Leibniz considered monads, and the entities are in localized black holes or we because are what black holes) could be such because either entities (in the form of of the the singularities Big Bang and in a world that physics tells us has ends absolute do not perceive the irruption of unworldly entities , 1983, asking Oedipus,a twenty-first-century . 243 As they, monads, ever so closely Oedipus and Oedipus the after Sphinx we we are always only in our 242 That we - - -

223 Jalal Toufic Natural Apprehension at Human Burial 224 nature from it. While alive, we remain, as spiritual be able to fully contain the spiritual in us, shielding rather because as long as we are alive, we seem to not because spirit interacts weakly with nature, but as spiritual beings as long as we are alive. This is for nature to accommodate. Nature disregards us Listen, I want to tell you something”) is a challenge body of his dead mother: “You can hear me. I know. lingers in such a body (the son addresses thus the recently dead body. Even the trace of spirit that film shows nature’s accommodation to take in the nist, a son trying to bury his dead father. The second is complicated by the poverty of the film’s protago administrative procedures, the execution of which the deceased to rest,” this requiring many legal and ments on the part of humans to symbolically “lay and Son Sokurov films: Son it is resting is that of the late (Sokurov’s that butterfly already senses that the body on which when one moves the hand on which it is resting, for prognosis of a butterfly that does not fly away even Sentence who never departed (Maurice Blanchot’s turns one into a posthumous creature, a revenant nosis was a performative that, past the deadline, in others, it is ill-advised to do so, since that prog taken (Thomas Bernhard’s months, to live,” the prognosis proving to be mis doctor’s prognosis giving one “only weeks, or at best While in some cases, it is felicitous to disregard a ties passing undetected through nature. It is only beings, like neutrinos, weakly interacting enti ). Burial is dealt with in two complementary Natural Apprehension at Human Burial , 1997. The first deals with the arrange ). One is also ill-advised to disregard the The Second Circle Wittgenstein’s Nephew , 1990, and Mother and Death Mother - - - - ); - while dying or when we have just died that nature contain the spiritual in it, the human body triggers recently dead or dying, thus no longer able to fully long as, alive, it can contain its spiritual life, once Insignificant in relation to the vastness of nature as that tarries in it, nature into extreme distortions. through its inability to contain the trace of spirit which as matter slightly curves spacetime, twists, endowed with spirit. The recently dead human body, of what was earlier the living body of someone would not feel any such apprehension at the burial being interred in it—a nature devoid of the spiritual sion of the trace of spirituality in the human body that nature envelops is implied by its apprehen point of contact with it. The modicum of spirituality their recently dead physical body, their intensest body into the realm of undeath; and, in the guise of projection in the form of a mental/Imaginal/subtle humans’ separation from nature—leading to their spiritual in him. Human death is simultaneously Lazarus was resurrected and could contain the momentarily relieved must nature have been when this.” “In your dream?” “Yes, in my dream”)—how her continuation of the sentence concurrently with never extends to the outer world … [ ing in my soul, affects only my consciousness. He awake terror-stricken, covered in sweat. God, dwell lines?” “‘I am seized by a suffocating nightmare. I “He asked you to remind him of several lines.” “What him why he was following me. Guess what he said.” following me.… Finally I turned around and asked time, I was walking along a path and someone was to her son: “Last night I had a dream.… For a long Son no longer contain the spiritual in us (in becomes disturbed by us as spiritual beings, for we ] to the course of things …’ I saw and heard all of , the dying mother’s dreams become permeable he utters the Mother and - -

225 Jalal Toufic Natural Apprehension at Human Burial 226 world, this persistence of life itself experienced as disaster that one considered to be the end of the with the continuance of life after an immense ter to, a shielding from the traumatizing encounter is less obvious in harsh winter, when many animals case of nature, by disappointed, if not horrified that vast catastrophes and surpassing disasters, we are divested of spirit, nature resumes its indifference. this period. Thenceforth, the corpse having become ing to which nature is subjected last no longer than likely that these effects of elongation and twist body, and the time it takes for the soul to fully separate from the many societies, forty days is conjointly the assumed that clings to the recently dead body. Given that in and strong enough for that remnant of spirituality and its power, during a storm, is not large enough vastness, in long and aerial shots of mountain cliffs, to contort and elongate, as if nature, shown in its theless forces that tree, but also the mountains, falling, so that it has to lean against a tree, none so sick and frail it is, that cannot stand still without once placed in a given position tends to remain in it remark, “But how small you are, my little one!” that This dying human body that elicits from the son the latter’s attempt to deal with it and accommodate it. extreme convolutions on the part of nature in the ous link, apposition, phrases are connected with the barest, most tenu the “modern” sensibility to the event, where the decompose more quickly” [Peter Handke]). Could mer (“Like the fear of dying in summer / when you lines of Paul Celan’s confidently / regale me with snow” say the opening hibernate and many plants are dormant (“You may Especially during and in the aftermath of customary

the latter’s indifference, which 244 Breathturn be viewed as already a coun period of mourning, it is ), but glaring in sum life goes on in the - - - - - a disaster? Does one end up preferring the anxiety also from this perspective: what the spiritual in ture as psychosomatic symptoms, can be viewed as miraculous happenings and in the clinical litera and that are considered in the religious literature deformations that the bodies of saints undergo, paralyses, and/or other kinds of alterations and the death and burial of Jesus Christ. The stigmata, and reached a cataclysmic, incredible level with the recently dead human body is that of a saint, strange. This agitation is much more intense when recently dead human body and apprehends it as dying—the old woman’s; nature is agitated by a afraid of dying.” Nature too is apprehensive of tered by a similar one in him. because such power is, unbeknownst to him, coun rock behind the bench on which she is sleeping— spiritual power she contains—one that twists the fragility, remaining unconscious of the incredible for her as a pillow), but that he is aware only of her on the garden bench, he gently places his hand a book to read to her, and finding her already asleep mother, it is not that he is not tender (returning with son is characterized as a head person by his dying wreaking on it. If in Sokurov’s than by the ecocide human societies are apparently turbed by one dying or freshly dead human body in the fields of Rwanda. Nature is even more dis of bodies buried collectively or left unburied to rot the spiritual in and elongated to accommodate the remainder of of grass appearing on mass graves …) as twisted to reveal to us this nature that goes on (in the form ing disaster? It takes an intensely spiritual person life goes on that there might be no next event to the trauma that The moribund old mother confesses: “I am despite the catastrophe or surpass each of the hundreds of thousands Mother and Son the - - - -

227 Jalal Toufic Natural Apprehension at Human Burial 228 The dead body of the saint is not raised to Heaven in focus and manifest as such in the anamorphosis. that affects everything else as the skull becomes The Ambassadors skull undergoes in Holbein’s anamorphic painting have undergone either the sort of distortion the ing) would not have remained unaffected, but would tomb (the only part of the world visible in that paint decaying body shown in Holbein’s painting, then the case that Christ’s spirit had already totally left the the rocks split” (Matthew 27:51). Were it not the spirit totally left the dead body, “the earth shook, alongside him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be (Jesus Christ said to one of the two men crucified to Heaven before his dead body began to decay body putrefying) or were his spirit not to be raised Christ in the Tomb (Hans Holbein the Younger’s fied Christ’s dead body not to remain uncorrupted Martha, would have sensed that were the cruci for example, the resurrected brother and Mary and looking distorted was already a miracle. A Christian, modate the divine nature of Christ without explicitly receptacles. That the body of Jesus could accom an inordinate effort of accommodation from their saintly or divine is to the human body; both require the recently dead human body is to nature, the right then. at a gravitational singularity) would be actualized corpse—a convulsion even more intense than that of the divine Life passing into it from Jesus Christ’s undergone in its effort to accommodate even a trace the world (from the infinite convulsion it would have 23:43–46]), his words about the imminent end of When he had said this, he breathed his last” [Luke voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ with me in paradise,” then he “called out with a loud 245 For the minimal delay before Christ’s , 1521–22, shows the dead Christ’s , 1533, or the reverse deformation The

Body Body of the Dead - - - like that of Christ, but through not decomposing it short short time it will be as rare as a life of one’s own” of one’s own is becoming more and more rare. In a a factory, of course.… The desire to have a death in a few beds. Now there are 559 beds to die in. Like King Clovis people were dying here [the Hôtel-Dieu], of the age of the masses (“Already in the time of demanded that, contrary to the spreading tendency ment each other across almost a century. Rilke (1910) and Sokurov’s ies are spiritualized.” it is that that world is in its entirety one where “bod by dying (before dying), are not surrounded by halos, imāms and Sufi masters there, who reached them not twisted and elongated although the bodies of al-khayāl shield for nature; if in the Imaginal World ( rounding the divine and the saintly is an additional have decomposed after their deaths. The halo sur 1400 and 1900, at least twenty-two are said not to saintly: of the forty-two saints who lived between otherwise undergo in its attempt to incorporate the spares nature the cataclysmic deformation it would have “ and continuously that the dogs, which at first had ing, it screamed and groaned, it howled so long and which “when night had come … began scream Christoph Detlev, but to Christoph Detlev’s death,” which introduced a voice that “didn’t belong to some dying of Chamberlain Christoph Detlev Brigge, nothing more to do),” the people; and the sick person has, so to speak, fatal endings belong to the sicknesses and not to are well known, it is also known that the various to the sickness you have (for since all sicknesses and of science of assuming a death “that belongs inside Rilke’s ), gardens and other environments are you as a fruit has its core” The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge 247 Mother and Son you undergo the death you (1997) comple 248 : the awe ‘ālam 246 - - - ) - -

229 Jalal Toufic Natural Apprehension at Human Burial 230 Detlev Brigge had ever been.” during that time it was master, more than Christoph come for ten weeks, and for ten weeks it stayed. And and which “refused to let itself be hurried. It had howled along with it, fell silent and … were afraid,” able to accommodate the film? time but also six or seven extra dimensions?) to be three dimensions of space and one dimension of gated in all dimensions (not only the “well-known” Mother and Son ema theater during my second viewing of Sokurov’s element, the spiritual? to take in that mostly (although not radically) alien empathy with a dying woman, but in panic of having heard the scream of nature, in Sokurov’s film, not in life that lingers in the freshly dead body. Have you the incredible power in even the trace of spiritual Sokurov’s film is not death as much as spiritual life, P.S.: Did the one other spectator in the cin see me become contorted and elon 249 What is glorified in - - Ecce Homo 1889, to Jacob Burckhardt. In the introduction to his seemingly straightforward question: “Where are we now?” mirror?). But lo and behold, what hypnotizes us is rather this who is not distracted by his image since he has none in the into one’s eyes (isn’t such a vacant concentration that of one cal look in vampire films: eyes wide open and staring deeply us. Many believe that they would do it with their stereotypi have the apprehension that the dead would try to hypnotize “Where are we now?” or better: “Where are you now?” We him about the realm from which he comes only to be asked: I can well envision Hamlet following the ghost to question where they are, but the dead who would ask us where we are. ask the dead, lost in the labyrinthine realm of undeath, Brion Gyson. I suspect that it is not we, the living, who would hypnotic one of the great American films of the 1960s, Anthony Balch’s repeatedly ask a similar question, “Where are we now?” in a PDF file at: [Berkeley, CA: Tuumba Press, 2003; available for download as early—that is, not too late” (Jalal Toufic, “Whitman knew how to stay just long enough to leave too http://www.jalaltoufic.com/downloads.htm Apollo Press, 2003; available for download as a PDF file at: in Film Books, 2007), 21.

This expression appears in Nietzsche’s letter of January 5, 5 “Where are you now” William Burroughs? Didn’t Burroughs 4 This presents another way in which to understand 3 Jalal Toufic, 2 Notes Bram Stoker, 1

, revised and expanded edition (Sausalito, CA: Post-

The Cut-Ups , 1888, one of the greatest philosophico-literary http://www.jalaltoufic.com/downloads.htm (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead Dracula , made in collaboration with him and , revised edition (London: Penguin Distracted ), 18. , 2nd ed.

], 14). -

231 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 232 Every name in history is I.” venture to say that I am also Lesseps.… I am also Chambige.… to Jacob Burckhardt: “I am Prado, I am also Prado’s father, I “The Crucified”; and he will write in a January 5, 1889 letter a January 4, 1889, letter to his friend Georg Brandes with after finishing writing his book self with a foreboding of what is to befall him, he is telling only the potential readers of his books, but also himself: me for someone else For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake of my instincts, revolt at bottom—namely, to say: have a duty against which my habits, even more the pride portraits, Nietzsche writes: “Under these circumstances I in Film but as already dead then. not guilty of the horrors that were taking place at that time— war that we, mortals, were all guilty—I and many others were selves as solely alive! It is not as living people during the civil sense, that is, dead while (physically) alive, but view them these people do not consider themselves mortals in my in books, plays, films, or conversation, “We’re all guilty.” Yet were adults during the Lebanese civil war assert, whether & Stratton, 1979), 49. Many times have I heard people who interpretation by Marguerite Sechehaye (New York: Grune names yet not through transmigration of souls—have killed. people since the initiation of mortality they—under different qualms; having died before dying, some discover how many large number of people without feeling the least ethical enemy whose radars were rendered inoperative, killing a Jalal Toufic, 9 Ibid., 47–48. 8 7 Some fly their B-52 warplanes and drop bombs on an 6 not to mistake himself for someone else. Around a year Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl

, revised and expanded edition, 254. Daniel Paul

(Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead .” The addressees of that plea are not The Anti-Christ , with an analytical , he will sign Hear me! him - - Schreber, who, according to the medical expert’s report to the credits of my copyright to the Munīr Bashīr music piece that is listed in and Magritte’s paintings, they look external to the theater. similarities in form and material to the ones in Lynch’s films ing to do with a return of the repressed; moreover, through the stage for his play Undead in Film edition of my book book on Raymond Roussel. the Undead in Film expanded edition of my book [New York: New York Review Books, 2000], 75 and 328). translated and edited by Ida Macalpine and Richard A. Hunter of My Nervous Illness could still be saved, etc., etc.” (Daniel Paul Schreber, together into a single sun, that perhaps only the Pleiades Cassiopeia (the whole group of stars) had had to be drawn solar system would now have to be ‘disconnected,’ that the that even Venus had to be ‘flooded,’ at another that the whole group of stars had to be ‘given up’; at one time it was said in from all sides that even this or that star or this or that soluble connection between God and myself. Bad news came approaching predominated in recurrent nightly visions the notion of an the court, “thought he was dead,” wrote: “Very early on there While I would find it legitimate were the holder of the These curtains irrupt on stage in a modality that has noth 14 Foreman placed a glass wall between the audience and 13 See section “Counterfeiting” in the revised and expanded 12 Death and the Labyrinth 11 See the section “Counterfeiting” in the revised and 10

end of the world . Credits Included: A Video in Red and Green (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the . , introduction by Rosemary Dinnage; What Did He See? is the title of Michel Foucault’s , as a consequence of the indis (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on Memoirs

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233 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 234 There is nothing more useless than an organ. / When you will anatomy.… / Man is sick because he is badly constructed.… / “again, for the last time, on the autopsy table to remake his what Antonin Artaud would demand years later: placing man the world” (ibid., 333), intuitively attempted to actualize dead” (ibid., 328) and believed that “he is called to redeem ing to Dr. Guido Weber’s report of 1899, “thought he was 144–145. From the quote, it looks like Schreber, who, accord (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), #125. and G. H. von Wright; trans. Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe editor: Robert Hughes (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 15–18. film by Alain Resnais, translated by Richard Seaver; picture poral as well as of the spatial boundary of the work. continuation, thus effecting an overdetermination of the tem this modality, it signals conjointly the end of the play and its tional one that one expects at the end of a play. Because of cal closure, and thus cannot solely be viewed as the conven somewhat the modality of something that irrupted in a radi resurrected or irrupt in their works. by other writers and artists and that, respectively, become pay for images and texts that appear to be identical to works Belle Captive may irrupt fully formed (for example, in Robbe-Grillet’s what looks like paintings or texts by other artists or writers nor artists and writers who create radical closures, in which disaster, for example, Borges’s fictional character Menard; rect artistic and literary works withdrawn past a surpassing I think that neither artists and writers attempting to resur drawn as a result of a surpassing disaster, to demand a fee, (1995) but is not part of its sound track, since it was with Daniel Paul Schreber, 18 Ludwig Wittgenstein, 17 Hiroshima mon amour 16 In this appendix to the play, the front curtain itself has 15

,

the ahistorical Magritte-like images), should On Certainty Memoirs of My Nervous Illness , text by Marguerite Duras for the , ed. G. E. M. Anscombe La , ------it is still addressed to a human audience. Orpheus’s music liberates inhuman forces and sides of the human listener, procedures, and screaming, fine experimental music often have made him a body without organs, / then you will have Francisco: North Point Press, 1985), 136 and 138. ed. Kazuaki Tanahashi; trans. Robert Aitken [et al.] (San (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002), 267 and 373. edited, with introduction and notes, by Michael L. Morgan Howard (San Diego: Harcourt, 1981), 86–87. www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/474079/pratyahara. PMC2928409/ 2010): 317–322, Episode of Micropsia,” of a Child with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome During an L. Robbins, David B. Granet, and Tracy Love, “Functional MRI Press, 1988], 570–571). Sontag and Don Eric Levine [Berkeley: University of California translated from the French by Helen Weaver; notes by Susan Writings Done with the Judgment of God,” in Antonin Artaud, delivered him from all his automatic reactions …” (“To Have Ibid., 128. While through its incorporation of noise, chance 25 Daniel Paul Schreber, 24 Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen 23 Spinoza, 22 Virginia Woolf, 21 “Pratyahara,” 20 Kathleen Brumm, Matthew Walenski, Frank Haist, Shira 19

, edited, and with an introduction, by Susan Sontag; Complete Works . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ Encyclopædia Britannica Online Mrs. Dalloway Journal of AAPOS Memoirs of My Nervous Illness , translations by Samuel Shirley; , foreword by Maureen 14, no. 4 (August ,

http:// Selected , , 99.

235 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 236 guard against potential reprisals by the Palestinians); or on the 450 Israeli Jewish settlers in their midst (arguably to the city’s Palestinian population of 130,000 rather than on (aka, al-Khalīl) in the West Bank, a curfew was imposed on tens of praying Palestinians in the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron February 25, 1994, by Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist, of say, in response to the news that following the massacre on sion of dying of laughter was triggered in this case and not, Hollingdale (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1961), 201. Everyone and No One 2001), 208. James Grauerholz and Barry Miles (New York: Grove Press, mented them. underworld, the undead were relieved of the voices that tor to Orpheus’s music. While Orpheus played his music in the the objects was that of tening”). Even more impressive than the hushed silence of / Falls at his feet …” [Ovid’s a stone, / Which, by the sound subdu’d as soon as thrown, (“Another [of the female Bacchanals], for a weapon, hurls listening” [Rilke, or craftiness were they [animals] so quite then / but to be to animal ears (“and it so came to pass that not from fear / it produced a hushing of the interior monologue), but also because it was addressed not only to human ears (in whom forces and sides of the human listener but also and mainly was not merely human not only because it liberated inhuman

It is still unclear to me why it was that this apprehen 30 Friedrich Nietzsche, 29 William S. Burroughs, 28 Ibid., 95. 27 Ibid., 145. 26

Sonnets to Orpheus , translated with an introduction by R. J. the voices Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Naked Lunch: The Restored Text Metamorphoses , which proved sensitive ]), and even to objects ]—“to ]—“to be lis - - , ed. - coming across an article in the ing—said I must finish my lessons first.… I’ll vex her finely, The nasty cross thing—wouldn’t let me go and play this morn are www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1307180/]): “‘What of Journal Medicine Occurrence and Use in Differential Diagnosis,” Cummings and Bruce L. Miller, “Visual Hallucinations: Clinical ences to describe Alice’s dramatic changes in size” [Jeffrey L. tale by Lewis Carroll who called on his own migraine experi been called the ‘Alice-in-Wonderland’ syndrome, after the and micropsia, may also occur. Such sensory distortions have plex, formed scenes. Visual distortions, including macropsia image from simple unformed lines and spots to highly com have migraines may experience every variety of hallucinatory well-known cause of visual hallucinations.… Patients who at least during one of his migraine episodes (“Migraine is a rhetorical question, “Have we not dimensions?” with a no, ten by an author who could have answered the seemingly can weep” (Andrew Marvell, “Eyes and Tears”). animal. and No One know Erbil was then and still is one of the cities of Iraq. and_politics/the_gist/1996/09/the_kurds.html)—as far as I the Kurdish city Irbil” (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_ bombed Iraq in retaliation for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kurds,” that starts with: “Early this month, the United States and a September 28, 1996, article in Invasion of Kurdish Zone Must Be Met with U.S. Response,” 3, 1996, titled, “Saddam Hussein Again Iraq’s Machinations: you doing there, Bruno?’ I said. ‘Spoiling Sylvie’s garden.… Here’s a dialogue from 34 “For others too can see, or sleep, / But only human eyes 33 See Aristotle’s influential definition of man as a rational 32 Nietzsche, 31

, 94. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone 146, no. 1 (January 1987): 47–48, http:// Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie Baltimore Sun Slate magazine, “The , a book writ book a , of September Western - - - -

237 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 238 supported by: “‘Revenge.… Come! Try to pronounce it, Bruno!’ eralized revengefulness around (the latter interpretation is an example of an experiment in evading or undoing the gen novel kind of revenge, rather than in the previous footnote as from we’ll get up all the weeds in her garden …” should the quote man! … I’ll teach you quite a splendid kind of revenge! … First, ‘That’ll do nicely.…’” in response to his interlocutor’s “my little his eyes, and he said, with quite a new meaning in his voice, symptomatic “At last there came an odd little twinkle into Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions, 2008), 352–353. Alexander Woollcott; by illustrations John Tenniel et al. (Ware, The Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll by down brook—’ the ful of bed violets ‘Oh, let’s fetch ’em!’ …” flowers does in his voice, ‘That’ll do nicely.…’ ‘… and then—what kind of twinkle into his eyes, and he said, with quite a new meaning another good stare at me. At last there came an odd little That’ll have a very pretty effect.’ Bruno turned round and had divisions between the different kinds of flowers, you know. we put in some of those coloured pebbles—just to mark the a bit!’ ‘Won’t it?’ I said, innocently. ‘Then, after that, supposethe way—’ ‘What that tall nettle—it’s so close to the garden that it’s quite in walks want sweeping a bit; and I think you might cut down see it’s getting quite dry and dusty.… Then after that … the ing the remark, ‘we’ll water this highest bed—up here. You won’t vex her!’ said Bruno. ‘After that,’ I said, notic without a good many at this end—quite hiding the flowers.’ ‘But First, we’ll get up all the weeds in her garden. See, there are little man! … I’ll teach you quite a splendid kind of revenge! … right shape for words of that kind.… ‘Well, never mind, my … But Bruno … said he couldn’t; that his mouth wasn’t the I explained: ‘revenge.… Come! Try to pronounce it, Bruno!’ ous thing!’ ‘River-edge?’ said Bruno.… ‘No, not river-edge,’ know that’s revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, danger though!’ ‘Oh, Bruno, you shouldn’t do that!’ I cried. ‘Don’t you right shape for words of that kind”)? … But Bruno … said he couldn’t; that his mouth wasn’t the Heeding the chapter’s title, “Bruno’s Revenge,” and the 35 Sylvie and Bruno

Sylvie like best?’ … ‘Violets’ … ‘There’s a beauti is oo talking about? … All that won’t vex her be placed here, as an example of a , with an introduction by that - - - -

this election, one were to call by the Derrida’s response to that statement: “Unless, in the logic of number of his statements. Even more disturbing is trembling Derrida to know that he must have trembled while writing a Abū Ṭāhir al-Jannābī’s ṭīs.Qarma I have enough respect for example, the exigency of the slaughter of the pilgrims by I have trembled while writing many an idea in my books, for Yerushalmi did not tremble while writing such a statement? such a statement?” Why and how does Derrida presume that Jacques Derrida asks: “How can one not tremble in front of remember felt as a religious imperative to an entire people,” Zakhor 1996), having quoted Yosef Yerushalmi’s statement in his Eric Prenowitz [Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press], Maktabat al-Muthann ā/Beirut: Maktabat al-Ma‘ ārif, 1968), 25. al-tanbīh wa’l-radd ‘alā ahl al-ahwā’ wa’l-bida‘ also Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Abū’l-Ḥusayn Mala ṭī (d. 987), (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 139–140. See Mystic and Martyr of Islam Shi‘ism. the tenth century the imām has been occulted in Twelver through unmediated experience, and then notes that since Islam one reaches the esoteric through the imām rather than Twelver Shi‘ism if one remembers that in that branch of downloads.htm for download as a PDF file at:

that invokes Yerushalmi, the author of …” (77). What a disconcerting solution from Derrida in a book ognize themselves in this anticipation and in this injunction all the places and all the peoples who would be ready to rec book On page 76 of 39 Quoted in Louis Massignon, 38 One can appreciate the intense tone of withdrawal in 37 36 See “Voice-over-witness” in the second edition of my Over-Sensitivity

, “Only in Israel and nowhere else is the injunction to

). Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (Forthcoming Books, 2009; available , vol. 3, trans. Herbert Mason http://www.jalaltoufic.com/ The Passion of al-Hallāj: unique From Spanish Court to name of Israel (Baghdad: (trans. Kitāb

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239 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 240 University Press, 1973), 278. 1626–1676 word by Elie Wiesel (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1988). enact this illegitimacy and promulgate it). Unfortunately, demanding that the then Israeli government of Netanyahu sions performed by Conservative and Reform rabbis, indeed dox Jews vehemently contesting the legitimacy of conver contentious issue for Jewry, many Orthodox and ultra-Ortho convert was at the time Derrida wrote those words quite a the circumstance that the question of who has the right to tion of the performativity of that Derridean gesture is due to induces in me the queasy sense of a threat (my qualifica other presently existing, or yet to exist peoples certainly rhetorical and quasi-performative conversion forced on some as a result of the US-imposed UN sanctions does. But this make me tremble—the deaths of over 576,000 Iraqi children conversion of the Jews of Portugal! Such a response does not University Press, 1971), a book that dwells on the forced mass Marranism and Jewish Apologetics Italian Ghetto; Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century sort of conversion. mer turn out to be Jews: Kafka, Benjamin, Celan), or some Lyotard lists three pairs of “jews” and Christians, all the for those who are usually designated without such marks (when ones who are designated with the quotation marks to solely qualifications and disclaimers, into either a restriction of the as is virtually always the case, quickly degenerate, despite other peoples, is loathsome to me even when it does not, tion marks, of designating by the unique name of one people use “shi‘ites”—except the logic and structure of these quota hostage to an unconscious affection. I could respond: why not he is writing not only about the Jews but also about those “jews” half of the twentieth century. In his book of otherwise admirable French philosophers of the second such a kind of statement is not exceptional among a number Gershom Scholem, 41 W. Gunther Plaut, 40

, Lyotard writes that he is using “jews” to indicate that

, trans. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton: Princeton The Man Who Would Be Messiah Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, (New York: Columbia Heidegger and the , fore ------use the term ter, one should by now, over half a century after the Shoah, the former acts of injustice as anti-Semitic but only the lat being unjustly attacked, is a hypocrite. If one does not protest dishing the accusation of anti-Semitism only when Jews are Palestinians, who are Arabs, and therefore Semitic, bran condones, or even encourages the injustice inflicted on the Babylonian, and the Arabic), and who either fails to protest, great Semitic civilizations have flourished (the Assyrian, the barbaric sanctions imposed on Iraq, the land where three of the Kaaba past a surpassing disaster. drawal, implied by its sacking by the ṭīs,Qarma of the holiness be in the heart of the believer, but a response to the with tion of the exoteric pilgrimage, whereby the Kaaba would now be not a consequence of an internalization and spiritualiza could do so in the locale in which one happened to be would Muslims one did not have to actually travel to Mecca but then his view that to perform the pilgrimage incumbent upon ing ṭī Qarma affinities. If such an accusation was legitimate, Liadain Sherrard (London: Kegan Paul International, 1986). Contemplation the Secret of the Spiritual Life,” in Henry Corbin,

Books, 1995), 121–123. Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality Mahāyna (Great Vehicle) Buddhism. ing not only all humans but also all sentient beings, as in vidual as in Sufism? I feel it is neither, but universal, affect communities during the Great Resurrection, etc.), or indi Anyone who has not protested vehemently against the 46 Ḥallāj was accused of being a ṭī,Qarma or at least of hav 45 See “The Configuration of the Temple of the Ka‘bah as 42 44 Gershom Scholem, 43 Is enlightenment communal as in messianism (the Nizārī

anti-Jewish , trans. Philip Sherrard, with the assistance of The Messianic Idea in Judaism and . The Anti-Defamation League, (New York: Schoken Temple and ------

241 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 242 International, 1983). Corbin, cannot be fully explained just by the sociological, historical, Wang, 1993). the Holocaust 393). [Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996], by R. J. Hollingdale, with an introduction by Richard Schacht look at the tree he shook” ( as the fruit was ripe. Do you think this too little? Then take a is a hero who has done nothing but shake the tree as soon average human life span was then significantly shorter) … years had passed since the purported birth of the imam (the fifth of the Shi‘ite’s earnings due to the imām; seventy-five claimants to the deputyship, partly over disposing of the lematic: conflicts were beginning to arise among the various made the continuation of the Lesser Occultation quite prob political, and economic conditions at that point, ones that Semitic countries. anti-Arab bigotry is Israel, the latter is one of the major anti- US, France, or Israel. Indeed since one of the main loci of when Arabs are slandered and discriminated against in the since it never considers that there is an anti-Semitic attack act hatred, prejudice and bigotry,” is actually one of its loci anti-Semitism through programs and services that counter the self-proclaimed “world’s leading organization fighting See “Cyclical Time in Mazdaism and Ismailism,” in Henry 51 See Gershom Scholem, 50 Friedrich Nietzsche: “ 49 The ushering in of the Greater Occultation at that time 48 See Tom Segev, 47

Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis , trans. Haim Watzman (New York: Hill and The Seventh Million: The Israelis and This, too, is worthy of a hero Human, All Too Human Sabbatai Sevi (London: Kegan Paul , 41 and 53. , translated .—Here

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education minister Yossi Sarid told Egypt’s in the Sinai desert after the fighting had stopped.… Former Eliezer’s unit killed 250 unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war compiled by journalist Ran Edilist. It claimed that Ben- 1 aired Six Day War killed 250 prisoners of war.… Last week, Channel claim that the reconnaissance unit he commanded during the political officials currently under investigation, following a Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of Labor may be joining the long list of atrocity if it is confirmed: “National Infrastructures Minister during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (including in the following an accomplice in any crimes perpetrated by Israeli soldiers said these words, a Nobel Peace Laureate (!), to be ethically profound respect” ( feel something towards them, the child-soldiers in Israel, it is dead, talking in their name(s)]. They became sad.… And if I from someone who assumes the role of the emissary of the that? But one should not be surprised by such a statement does Wiesel, who moreover was living then in the USA, know Six-Day War the Jewish fighters did not become cruel [how feel incredible revulsion at lines such as these: “During the Journal of Palestine Studies of Israel Shahak’s Both pieces were translated in the October 1995 edition Then Shot by Israeli Army,” and Gabby Bron, “Egyptian POWs Ordered to Dig Graves, “Mass Murder in the 1956 Sinai War,” on Egyptian and Syrian war prisoners (See Ronal Fisher, disclosures about massacres perpetuated by Israeli soldiers any war quickly becomes have to get acquainted with the even the barest clue as to what a brutal, unjust phenomenon for dirtying it with such references. Does anyone who has her to such poisonous material, and my apology to my book 1990), 137–150. My apology to the reader for exposing him or Rothschild (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, Philippe-Michael de Saint-Cheron, Random House, 1978), 33–39 and 101–113; Elie Wiesel and Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Library, 1985), vol. 2, 171–218, and vol. 3, 139–143; selected and edited by Irving Abrahamson (New York: 52 See

Ruah Shaked

Against Silence: The Voice and Vision of Elie Wiesel

A Jew Today From the Hebrew Press Against Silence [The Spirit of Shaked], a documentary , trans. Marion Wiesel (New York: Yedi’ot Aharonot 99 [Spring 1996]: 148–155) to , 195)? I hold the one who Evil and Exile Maariv and reprinted in Al-Ahram , August 17, 1995. , August 8, 1995; , trans. Jon that ,

243 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 244 that lord Krishna teaches his disciple Arjuna ( masters of Japan, and the karma-yoga, the yoga of action, the attitude of detachment of the Samurais and of the sword I would appreciate their irony. In any case, I infinitely prefer and acknowledged the withdrawal of the Torah (of decent Frankist or Dönme adherent, people who have sensed with tainted at least some soldiers, certainly among the victors, ten” by Wiesel is that no war, at least no modern war, has not by Wiesel to the Rashi Center, Paris)—no, what is “forgot ten” (quoted on page 145 of single soldier is acting with joy or pleasure. But that is forgot what he’s doing? I am ready to swear on the Torah that not a “Do you think that there is a single Israeli soldier who enjoys Probe into ‘IDF massacre,’” that Israeli forces had committed such acts” [“Egypt Wants … he had not seen the documentary, but that he was aware Saarbrücken side of the stones: book that makes available the names chiseled on the under on the part of Gerz to have accepted the publication of a and made available again such information, it was a mistake withdrawal due to the surpassing disaster has resurrected Summit Books, 1985), 142. (New York: Summit Books, 1990), 16. to sadness. Unless this monument acknowledging and presenting the 57 Elie Wiesel, 56 Ibid. 55 Elie Wiesel, 54 See pages 58–61 of the present book. 53 jouissance

(Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, 1993). . Had the aforementioned words come from a The Fifth Son From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences 2146 Steine Mahnmal Gegen Rassismus Jerusalem Post Evil and Exile , trans. Marion Wiesel (New York: from an address , March 3, 2007]). Bhagavad-Gita beriah - ), - - ), section, was shot to death by a sniper while attempting Aida Buturovi, a librarian in the National Library’s exchanges days; it was reduced to ashes with most of its contents.… alist positions across the river, the library burned for three Bombarded with incendiary grenades from Serbian nation umes, including over 155,000 rare books and manuscripts.… and burned. Before the fire, the library held 1.5 million vol 1992, Bosnia’s National and University Library … was shelled East Studies Association Bulletin of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” front of which he or she happens to stand. impressed by the absence of the undead from the mirror in Tarkovsky of amour despised horror films, Duras (the author of failed to materialize. these things have happened” (Matthew 24:21–34), ostensibly you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. from the sky,

ened, [And] of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.… would then be “great distress, unequaled from the beginning 24:24) when, following his crucifixion, his prophecy that there and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew and false prophets [who] will appear and perform great signs eyes of some of his followers as one of the “false messiahs ability underwent a withdrawal and was discredited in the the process, surreptitiously replaced by a double in all prob thorough manner that no one ever felt that the latter was, in András Riedlmayer, “Erasing the Past: The Destruction 61 The library’s design dates from 1975. 60 I have the feeling that although in all likelihood they 59 58 The one who reportedly resurrected a man in such a

immediately after the distress … ‘the sun will be dark /

and the filmmaker of

and the moon will not give its light;

The Sacrifice /

and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ would have nonetheless been Le camion , July 1995: “On 25 August , etc.) as well as the

the stars will fall Hiroshima mon

Truly I tell Middle

Then - - - -

245 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 246 edly, been forgotten by now, 2013. Negotiating —— plethora of books,1990s mostly anthologies, with the title (2000), I was, through the term cally include the non-Japanese film spectator? No. formal. it is revenants; simply in instances, and yet other and victims) reproduces a stereotypical image of the dead as specialized review of crime stories and which are of assassins photographs of his of-focus in some other instances (for example, some of the 1994), 103. of the repressed. pressure, could easily be misunderstood in terms of a return rash on the world, but as a violent or sudden release of some wanted, as an indicator of tone, namely the breaking out of a irruption entities in radical closures. I now prefer and use the term eruption was targeted; adjacent buildings stand intact to this day.” ments of the Ottoman era.… In each case, the library alone Slavic written in Arabic script) … and 200,000 other docu scripts in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Aljamiado (Bosnian grenades and burned. Losses included 5,263 bound manu ments in Southeastern Europe, was shelled with phosphorus of Islamic and Jewish manuscript texts and Ottoman docu Sarajevo’s Oriental Institute, home to the largest collection to rescue books from the flames. Three months earlier When I wrote these words in the first edition of the book 66 Does the “You have seen nothing in Hiroshima” automati 65 Certainly in the voluminous work of Boltanski, the out- 64 Lynn Gumpert, 63 In the first edition of 62

to describe the sudden appearance of unworldly since eruption, if considered not in the sense I . Most, if not all of these books have, deserv Christian Boltanski Detective Over-Sensitivity , 1972–73, which were cut from a negotiating (Paris: Flammarion, , I used the term , referring to the - - - - -

that were counterfeit, but rather, pending its resurrection, Menard of Borges’s “Pierre Menard, Author of eighth chapters of part 1 of drawal of the irruption of unworldly entities in it, that all is not all. ties in it: the radical closure is all, but, as is made manifest by structural eventual irruption of fully formed ahistorical enti (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008). Alenka Zupanči, the author of be some (comic?) rigorous reformulation, for example by or any abstract reaction; what I would appreciate would of such formulation. I have no patience for a reflex reversal, tout”). Some women might feel oversensitive to and wary tragédie. Elle peut le gêner, l’agacer. Elle peut le tuer. C’est beaucoup nuire à un homme. Il porte en lui-même toute sa vol. 3 [Paris: Albin Michel, 1931]: “Une femme ne peut pas L’amour c’est beaucoup plus que l’amour Godard’s Press, 1953), 318. Interpretation of Dreams Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Psycho-analysis, 1957), 296. Alan Tyson (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of laboration with Anna Freud; assisted by Alix Strachey and under the general editorship of James Strachey, in col and Other Works (1914–1916 of the Psycho-analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology, Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud 67 Past some surpassing disaster that caused the with 71 This is clear also in the case of a radical closure and the 70 These words appear, neither quoted nor attributed, in 69 Sigmund Freud, 68 Sigmund Freud,

New Wave Don Don Quixote ; they are from Jacques Chardonne’s The Standard Edition of the Complete The Standard Edition of the Complete , it was not the ninth and the thirty- , 1st part (London: The Hogarth Don Don Quixote ), translated from the German The Odd One In: On Comedy , vol. 4 (1900), , vol. 14, written by the ( Œuvres complètes Don Don Quixote On the History The - - ”

- ,

247 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 248 Press, 1983), 131. V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University edited and translated with introduction and notes by Howard the stopping of the mind at the matter requiring its attention. to the sword master, constantly impeded by attachments and culation is, as Zen master Takuan Soho indicated in his letter the strange attractors that are the traumas, etc., and its cir choanalysis has shown, often determined by and sucked into Sergei Eisenstein does), for its “free associations” are, as psy ize the interior monologue only or even mainly by fluidity (as the arms are useful” (19–22). It is misleading to character It is because the mind is not detained at one place that all a bow, the other nine hundred and ninety-nine will be useless. sand arms on its one body, if the mind stops at the one holding Considering that the Thousand-Armed Kannon has one thou the next man comes, the right action will have slipped away. one of these men, though you parry his striking sword, when action for every one of the ten.… But if the mind stops before go from one to the next, you will not be lacking in a proper each sword without stopping the mind at each action, and with a sword, come at you with swords slashing, if you parry the mind is being detained by some matter.… If ten men, each abiding place two, the place where the mind stops at one thing is called the there are said to be fifty-two stages, and within these fifty- Kodansha International, 1986). “In the practice of Buddhism, to the Sword Master Soho, Takuan talgia and of noticing identical recurrence. would involve discovering whether they are capable of nos was resurrected. ished chapter 22 of part 1 of Cervantes’s book. I would think that by the time Menard fin Søren Kierkegaard, 74 See “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom,” in 73 Answering the question as to whether animals can will 72

. Abiding signifies stopping, and and stopping, signifies Abiding . The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master , trans. William Scott Wilson (New York: York: (New Wilson Scott William trans. , Fear and Trembling Don Don Quixote , Cervantes’s book & Repetition stopping means means , -

- - - - - most expensive tools there is: but he belongs in the hands wrong a thousand times over)—he is certainly one of the blooms all the way (after things have gone partly or wholly expresses the scientific instinct as it finally blossoms and of our gratitude.… The objective man … , the spirit … nevertheless, in the end we even have to be cautious com/pdf/article_255.pdf. contemporary-is-still-forthcoming/ no. 28 (October 2011), Minnesota Press, 1988). Foucault On the Death of Man and Superman,” in Gilles Deleuze, Foucault. On “the death of man” in Foucault, see “Appendix: account to another.” by a lateral movement from one room to another, from one presentation. A hotel room cannot be known by scrutiny, but in the first room but wasn’t mentioned during the earlier of information about the presence of an item that was also room: a replica of the other one. The manager drops a piece to a different floor. The manager shows him around his new ager shows him around his room. A few days later, he moves

in the different sense developed in my book Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1968), 3. Nietzsche, 1887–March 1888, to “However gratefully we might approach the 80 “The Contemporary Is Still Forthcoming,” 79 The italicized words are a borrowing from Michel 78 75 Cf. Jalal Toufic, 77 I am using “distracted” here in its common sense, and not 76 From an entry in the projected preface, dated November

, trans. Seán Hand (Minneapolis: University of The Will to Power Distracted The Will to Power http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the- , trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. , 2nd ed., 10: “The hotel man ; http://worker01.e-flux. . See Friedrich Distracted ideal e-flux journal objective scholar who .

- ,

249 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 250 coincidences—at least not in the laws of nature. Einstein … tion into a kind of coincidence. But Einstein didn’t believe in makes the fact that all bodies fall with the same accelera Nor does it appear to depend on anything else. This, however, eration with which a body falls doesn’t depend on its mass. tion decreases proportionally to that mass, then the accel force increases proportionally to the mass but the accelera the less acceleration it receives from a given force. If the of force to acceleration ( mass. But ‘mass’ is defined, more fundamentally, as the ratio universal force that pulls on every object proportionally to its tion. What did Newton do with this clue? Newton posited a discovery that everything falls with a constant accelera and 39–40. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1967), 36 Nietzsche, 97–99. (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman; trans. Judith Norman Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future presque rien the most sublime type of slave) but nothing in himself,— evil.… He is a tool, a piece of slave (although, without a doubt, a distance to have any basis for choosing between good or underestimated! … In general, he puts himself at too great Leibniz: that méprise presque rien He does not command; and neither does he destroy. ‘ soul … does not know how to affirm or negate any more. than that of knowing, of ‘mirroring forth.’ … His mirror-like anything that wants to be known, without any other pleasure is a of someone more powerful. He is only a tool, we will say: he Lee Smolin: “Why do things fall? … A big clue is Galileo’s 83 Genesis 2:16–17 (King James Version). 82 “‘Good and Evil’ and ‘Good and Bad,’” in Friedrich 81 mirror

, … he is used to subordinating himself in front of On the Genealogy of Morals [almost nothing]!” Friedrich Nietzsche, presque ’ [I despise almost nothing], he says with [almost] should not be overlooked or F = ma ), so the more massive a body, , trans. Walter , ed. Rolf- Beyond Je ne - - - - cially since his or her capacity to be affected is reduced to a (espe vampire the for Dracula, while Operation will the realize someone with a proper name. as death with the achievement of the will; the ity, would disappear as a consequence of the abolishing of posited that falling is the natural state.… Falling is not what willing the eternal recurrence of the events one desires. loathes is smaller than the chasm between the former and and loves, and the aversion to be with those one despises and Poetry City.” long as the will has not been achieved, “could only happen in “paradisiacal” unbearable lightness of being, one that, as Richard Foreman’s that this novel does not come close to exemplifying its title. alone of being willed to be read eternally). It is disappointing are unworthy of being read twice [and therefore once], let ings on Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence (these inane musings by Milan Kundera, which appropriately begins with mus wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Relativity-appendix-2.pdf). up on us, keeping us from falling” (http://timereborn.com/wp/ force of gravity, it is the force of the floor or the chair pushing feel gravity because we are not falling. The only time we don’t feel a force is when we’re falling. when we are standing—the force pulling us to the ground.… is unnatural, it requires a force, and indeed we do feel a force requires explanation.… But standing (say) does. If standing al-Mahdī It would be quite inappropriate to call the operation to 88 Proper names, insinuated with the introduction of mortal 87 The gap between desiring to be with those one admires 86 The Unbearable Lightness of Being 85 Oxford Dictionary of English 84

and the Messiah No-Body , 1997, exemplifies a bearable, ) is not the common name of , 3rd edition, 2010. What we feel is not the is the title of a novel overman (as well We - - -

251 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 252 eternally. Hell is the endless compulsion to repeat what one being forced to repeat, and therefore cannot be willed to recur ated with a compulsion to repeat, and thus a displeasure at associ is inextricably evil that of evil. think I rather recurrence then the Antichrist would be the figure who wills the eternal is,If there willed? but is not compulsive of that evil repetition he can never will these events to recur eternally. Is there a [Jalal Toufic, of an image exerts on the look of the other, reflected person” can be detected by the attraction such a hypnotic absence ror: “The vampire is not visible in the mirror, mir the in but image hishis of presence absence the through but by willpower control yet another indifferent victim (a hypnosis working not ning with the compulsive resorting to hypnosis to subdue and light) compulsively repeats similar dark events nightly, begin in the atmosphere announcing the ominous coming of day few parameters, for example, proximity of blood and changes is going to be indicated by other, still undiscovered aspects. theory, then that the universe is the outcome of a “dice throw” Addison-Wesley, 1997). The quote is from pages 12–13. Origins Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic York: Columbia University Press, 1990). Lester with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (New of things. See Gilles Deleuze, relation to the incorporeal events rather than to the states is, exceptionally, not an injunction to nihilism in case it is in ing the eternal recurrence of the events of his repetitive ordeal. Sisyphus belonged ceased before Sisyphus could end up will cannot Were these values to be deducible from some future 92 “The Ultimate Free Lunch,” in Alan H. Guth, 91 Demanding 90 It appears that the epoch to which Zeus, Hades, and 89

, with a foreword by Alan Lightman (Reading, MA:

ever will to recur eternally. (Vampires) amor fati , revised and expanded edition, 115]), 115]), edition, expanded and revised , before the will has been established The Logic of Sense The , trans. Mark - - - - - Doubleday, 1994), 225. Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead

torical things that may irrupt fully formed in a radical closure. mathematical proof mentioned in his story is one of the ahis lutionary principle only if it is limited to relative closures: the plex regularity in the initial data.” I agree with Deutsch’s evo regularity in the observed universe that attribute it to com ism, and more generally we reject all explanations of complex principle we reject such antirational doctrines as creation lutionary or rational processes. In adopting this evolutionary the Universe, i.e., as initial data, but emerge only through evo that the solutions of problems do not spring fully formed into that valuable information from the other. proof? No one, since each of the two participants obtained by the time traveler before setting out. Who thought of the ematician goes on to publish the proof, which is then read had later been recognized as the first to prove it. The math the proof of an important theorem to the mathematician who lowing history: A time traveler goes into the past and reveals particularly page 3201: “The difficulty is illustrated by the fol Physical Review D Deutsch, “Quantum Mechanics Near Closed Timelike Lines,” Lane, 1997), especially chapter 12, “Time Travel”; and David Parallel Universes—and Its Implications ferent from Artaud’s seemingly identical one in “Here Lies.” my mother, and myself,” his statement would be radically dif You Zombies—” could have said, “I … am my son, my father, [short story]” entry). While the protagonist of Heinlein’s “All is his own mother and father” ( the offspring of that union, with the paradoxical result that he (before he underwent a sex change); he thus turns out to be time and tricked into impregnating his younger, female self “a young man (later revealed to be intersex) [is] taken back in 93 See 95 “It is a fundamental principle of the philosophy of science David Deutsch, 94 In Robert Heinlein’s short story “All You Zombies—” (1959)

Frank J. Tipler, 44, no. 10 (November 15, 1991): 3197–3217, The Fabric of Reality: The Science of The Physics of Immortality: Modern Wikipedia (New York: Allen ’s “All You Zombies (New York: ------

253 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 254 high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was until she vanished into thin air [“She was now only ten inches while giving the impression that she could go on dwindling Wonderland little girl, who as the eponymous idol of the greatest as far as his desire was concerned, was the better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, the greatest without doing so (for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and extinguishing?—(Lacan’s) object small a (aka the will, while one can be great without encountering—and when said of the great and the greatest. In the absence of ‘good’” [Nietzsche]), of the same concept ‘good.’ But it is and ‘evil’ are, although they are both apparently the opposite noble or the be understood differently when set against the greatest!” one would have to bear in mind that as notes by Graham Parkes (New York: Oxford University Press, Everyone and Nobody nothing but thus prove that a human being is a finite state machine, and firmly based on the central laws of quantum mechanics. They these bounds. But these bounds are nevertheless finite, and the actual numbers of states and changes are much less than are of course enormous, and as a matter of fact I’m sure that advanced for a human being, he continues: “These numbers a finite number of states” (ibid.). Regarding the numbers he physics, everything in sight is a quantum system—have only who “showed that quantum systems—and, according to 2005), 192. As for the confirmation of Nietzsche’s “All-too-small the 99 Frank J. Tipler, 98 Friedrich Nietzsche, 97 Ibid., 31. Tipler bases himself here on Jacob Bekenstein, 96 object a

a finite state machine” (ibid.). at times shrinks and becomes too small, all the , the “object-cause of desire”), one cannot be the evil for slaves (“how different these words ‘bad’ The Physics of Immortality small , translated with an introduction and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for is to be understood differently not the same concept Alice’s Adventures in , 1. , objet petit a bad object a good for the is to , now the right size for going through the little door into that this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move” you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to they can be moved only by faith: “Truly I [Jesus] tell you, if in Christianity mountains do not move on their own and that 1975], 181). Unlike in Islam and Zen Buddhism, it seems that of Islam ān (Qur’ 27:90)” (Annemarie Schimmel, mountains—you think them firm, yet they move like clouds’ performed their whirling dance, is famous: ‘You see the Nūrī, who objected to his sitting quietly while the Sufis Carl Bielefeldt); and “Junayd’s answer to the enthusiastic [ sense this, do not know it” (“Mountains and Waters Sutra” faster than ‘swift as the wind,’ those in the mountains do not walking.…’ Although the walking of the blue mountains is the assembly, saying, ‘The blue mountains are constantly selves. Dōgen wrote: “Preceptor Kai of Mt. Dayang addressed camera movement but is rather that of the mountains them that the jerkiness of the latter shots is not caused by any be jerky handheld shots of a mountain range. I would think tain, while outside, on a big screen, one sees what seems to monitor showing what appears to be a static shot of a moun 1983, through an opening in a black cubicle one can see a tiny (New York: Random House, 1967), II 9, 255. Cat, leaving even a grin]?). air [without, like What is the small a orous people who have encountered and extinguished a candle looks like after the candle is blown out.…”]—all rig should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of self, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I vous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to her see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little ner lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to Sansui kyō In Bill Viola’s installation 101 Friedrich Nietzsche, 100 have fancied some variant of the following paradox:

[Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ], in object small a Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Ecce Homo like after it has dwindled into thin Room for St. John of the Cross , trans. Walter Kaufmann Mystical Dimensions ’s Cheshire , trans. object , - - - - -

255 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 256 her paintings are either to be left untitled, since at any time disjunctive relation between the image and the title, his or theses). Unless the radical-closure painter subscribes to a (the indication of the models appearing only within paren Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 1997 were finished. All five of Toba Khedoori’s paintings shown at Los allowing entities to irrupt in the painting even after it is and a blank that functions as the border of a radical closure, the potentiality from which the rest of the painting issued www.jalaltoufic.com/downloads.htm Books, 2009; available for download as a PDF file at: the second edition of my book essay on my concept Mulholland Dr. out turned to be a of description Lynch’s film,subsequent (and which comments was left unaltered in this edition) in the first of edition were made! For the instance text on after their release, I have also written on others before they Press, 1993), 53. trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I mountains obey their plea; he did this out of Christian love: “If and an incarcerated saint (the author of ‘Cover us!’” (Luke 23:30). When Jesus’s words came to pass, would “say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ warned that there would come a terrible day when people (Matthew 17:20). On his way to be crucified, Jesus Christ There is a radical difference between a blank that shows 105 For (the revised version of) the initial, more elaborate 104 While, like so many others, I’ve written on some films 103 Quoted in Giorgio Agamben, 102 Dark Night of the Soul

(2001).

Forthcoming Forthcoming radical closure ?) made, through his faith, the Over-Sensitivity The Coming Community (2000) that (2000) this footnote Ascent of Mount Carmel , see “Radical Closure” in Lost Highway Highway Lost ), 105–154.

and to the hills, (Forthcoming (1997) (1997) http:// untitled , -

He tried to gulp down a liter of turpentine that was on his some mistral was blowing, which may have made him irritable. literature, socialism. In the evening he was a little tired. A fear de térében rentrer à l’hospice”de (All day long he talked to me of d’essence painting, litre un thine même qui seà trouvait sur la table boire de la chambre. Il étaitvoulut temps Il l’énerver. peu fatigué. Il faisait un coup de mistral effroyable qui a pu parla peinture, littérature, socialisme. Le soir il était un Vincent Van Gogh credits sequence. children, the attacking birds thus appearing to come from the school building and their subsequent attack on the school to shots from the scene of the birds’ irruption from behind the and accompanied by electronic sounds is cut on movement showing the electronic birds flying in an indeterminate plane shots from Hitchcock’s Bandaged Sense Organ fully formed entities may still irrupt in them, or he or she, appearance of the bird-like figures from these paintings. (1983), take out insurance against the eventuality of the dis Movement ing by Francis Bacon, a radical-closure painter, bottom illegitimate (Francis Bacon). by explicitly leaving it to the gallery to add it, thus making it at leave it untitled (Khedoori); or distance himself from the title (which is the case in at least some of Magritte’s paintings); the disjunction between title and model/subject matter spectator for such an eventuality by training him to accept finished radical-closure paintings, the artist may prepare the unknowability of what may sideration whatever may irrupt in the painting. Aware of the or her death, has to keep revising the title to take into con while still alive, or a representative of him or her, following his Here are Signac’s words as quoted in Gustave Cocquiot’s 108 My mixed-media work 107 I also suggest that the owners of the following two paint 106

(1976) and (1923), page 194: “Toute la journée il me

Oedipus and the Sphinx after Ingres (1997) includes a loop of reedited The Birds Radical-Closure Artist with yet irrupt in his or her ostensibly (1963): the credits sequence Figure in -

- - - -

257 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 258 May 1889. See http://vangoghletters.org/vg/documentation. vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let752/letter.html#n-1. bedroom table. It was time to go back to the hospital), http:// of sculptures? The change from an inanimate image to film is initially as an illustration in a newspaper, or a frieze, or Robbe-Grillet’sa series novels: the animation of what was presented to start filmmaking one that is recurrently encountered in Alain 123–124. vol. 3 (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1959), Reproductions of All the Drawings in the Correspondence documentation.html#id8May1889. France, May 9, 1889. See http://vangoghletters.org/vg/ York; London: Da Capo, 1987), 43. else saw it? between the death of Van Gogh and the first time someone the time Van Gogh died? Did they rather irrupt in it sometime Wheatfield with Crows html#id8May1889. Isn’t the experience that decided the painter David Lynch 116 Chris Rodley, “David Lynch,” 115 The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, with 114 Le grand registre de l’asile de Saint-Rémy, Arles, 113 The italicized words are a borrowing from Francis Bacon. 112 Pierre Cabanne, 111 Were there crows in the painting we presently know as 110 Le grand registre de l’asile de Saint-Rémy, Arles, France, 109

Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp

(who gave the painting this title?) by Icon , no. 1 (April 1997): 67. (New

,

vraies comme le jour d’ici” (Antonin Artaud died to trouble non comprises dans le calendrier de ce monde-ci—quoi[que] occupent l’espace de plusieurs journées intercalaires mais nuit blanche comme celles dont parle Dostoïevsky et qui cadavre a été sorti de Ville-Évrard pendant la durée d’une peine et de douleur à Ville-Évrard au mois d’Août 1939 et son the Man Suicided by Society”: “Antonin Artaud est mort à la Ferdière dated February 12, 1943, the title, “Antonin Artaud, Mystic and sacred origins …”) could have given his letter to Dr. I did But that’s not why I spoke of it, and the name of Nalpas, it is … the maiden name of my mother.… some of the letters ascribed to Artaud were signed: “As for Society” (1947)—Antonin Nalpas (it was under this name that of Antonin Artaud’s texts, “Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by ear as it lies in the grass. unworldly sounds audible when the camera zooms into the doing so himself, in a desperate attempt to stop the kind of him, it is likely that the kidnapped man would have ended up he was painting. Had Frank not cut off his hostage’s ear for because it was jarring the composition of a self-portrait character in his film with bandaged ear than Kurosawa, who makes the Van Gogh certainly knows more about the two Van Gogh self-portraits that blue velvet robe and says, “Do it for Van Gogh!” Frank with Me of the red curtain in Lynch’s later film, as a radical border of the world is even clearer in the case were overlaid on it (that a certain type of curtain functions cating the end of the world when the film’s opening credits wife, whose blue velvet dress functioned as a curtain indi cuts off his ear; then he has intercourse with the hostage’s into the photograph that Laura Palmer places on the wall. presented by the film allowed the irruption of animated figures Fire Walk with Me present within one of Lynch’s films, his sixth feature, The quoted words are a borrowing from the title of one 118 The Frank of David Lynch’s 117 . Because this name has, on the other hand, Legendary,

); then he places in his hostage’s mouth a piece of (1992), this time because the radical closure Dreams

explain that he cut off his ear Blue Velvet I am greatly surprised that Twin Peaks: Fire Walk kidnaps a man and Twin Peaks: Peaks: Twin -

259 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 260 here) ( calendar of this world—though they are true as the day from span of several intercalary days that are not included in the night like those Dostoevsky talks about and that occupy the his cadaver was removed from Ville-Évrard during a sleepless and of pain in Ville-Évrard in the month of August 1939 and the manner of the (quantum) tunneling of the undead and An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film the form of aphorisms separated by blanks. In tered throughout my books. In every second, everywhere.” tinuing world: “Look at the end of the world, all the time, at Duras’s film words through which, for different reasons, the woman of self-sufficient, could, indeed might have, said the same believed in the ever-renewed creation of a world that is not lection of Zen koans.

crows over the field. the irruption of the unworldly (electronic and shadowless) since it undercuts the radical closure of space that allowed is a faux pas on Kurosawa’s part since it is impossible and lel to the horizon! This continuation beyond the gateless gate Wheatfield with Crows through the field beyond the point where in his painting Dreams Marie Dubuc (1935–1937) (1943–1946) et autres Discontinuity, whether stylistic or thematic, is encoun 123 An Ash‘arite theologian or an Ibn al-Arabi disciple, who 122 121 Did she then actually leave her radically-closed apartment? The italicized words are a borrowing of the title of a col 120 Near the end of the “Crows” section in Kurosawa’s 119 Nouveaux Écrits

, Van Gogh is presented as continuing his walk Le Camion

textes inédits, suivis de Six lettres à the path radically ends in a line paral

avers the end of the ostensibly con de Rodez : Lettres au docteur [1977]). Distracted , it is encountered in , it basically takes (Vampires):

Ferdière - - - - some distance behind some the behind distance hive, then the newly freed bee the bee has back been to imprisoned the hive and place it stands in relation to the sun.… If we … take the box in which of the hive to find food it registers the in direction which it taken [ honey runs out of the bee from behind.… The bee is simply sucking, a bee will simply carry on regardless even while the if its [the bee’s] is abdomen carefully cut away while it is Press,University 1995), 242–247: “It has been that observed McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude teleportation, as well as the “counterintuitive” side effect of (2005): 470–472. International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE),” by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and the Jr., “Epileptic Seizures and Epilepsy: Definitions Proposed Christian Elger, Pierre Genton, Phillip Lee, and Jerome Engel, sufism of Ibn al-‘Arabī. of Islam according to the theology of the Ash‘arites and the encountered mainly in the mode of the atomic temporality dance projects a subtle version of the dancer. And here, it is movement, body, silence, music, space, and time into which and the empty space-time zones in the realm of altered fully formed unworldly entities that irrupt in radical closures, Sensitivity consciousness but also, more radically, of being. In zones of the labyrinth, which produce lapses not merely of one’s motor ability”); over-turns; and the empty space-time be removed, objects that put one in a trance, depriving one of barriers will be objects that for no apparent reason cannot ness where there is no discernable barrier. Many of these obstacles will spring up everywhere, resulting in motionless side of] perceptible barriers, is that unexpected, invisible of which one moves through [or finds oneself to the other rier (“One of the tolls for tunneling or teleportation, by means these, motionlessness in the absence of any discernable bar 125 Robert S. Fisher, Walter van Emde Boas, Warren Blume, 124 Martin Heidegger,Martin hingenommen

, it is encountered in the guise of the ahistorical

] ] by its food.… When the bee flies out The Fundamental Concepts of Concepts The Fundamental , trans. William Epilepsia 46, no. 4 Over- - -

261 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 262 [ animal … is taken [ being able without to grasp of either these as such is things, like the hive, the place feeding and so on. The bee tion. The bee does not at itself all towardcomport particular this out direction regard of to itself—without the destina Rather it is by absorbed a direction, is driven to produce prescribed for it by the place in which it has found itself. of position the hive. It does not strike out in a given direction tion over regard without distance a to pre-established the once [The again.… bee] flies back in direc a pre-established relatively nearby, and it does so for the appropriate distance find the hive from the place,feeding even the though hive is flies in the in direction which it would have to fly in order to who recurrently creates it. away from the linear “action” toward nothingness/the Being ance of entities, including atoms, the atom recurrently faces tion of recurrent appearance, disappearance, then appear Scott Palmer [New York: Zone Books, 1988], 36), in a concep Matter and Memory throughout the immensity of the universe” (Henri Bergson, which pass, in every direction, the modifications propagated equal and contrary reaction, to be, in short, merely a road by the whole of what it receives, to oppose to every action an its points upon all the points of all other images, to transmit to a necessity “which obliges it to act through every one of like whatever “is not a center of indetermination,” is subject God does not subsist for longer than an instant. because the accident of duration ( clapping?” benommen simply given simply over While for Bergson, the philosopher of duration, an atom, 128 In Ash‘arite atomism, atoms revert back to nothingness 127 Zen master Hakuin Zenji: “What is the sound of one hand 126

] by things.” hingenommen to the sun and to the of period its flight , trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and William

], taken and captivated baqā’ ) imparted to them by .… .… The - - - - 5.391 Judgment? her either to come back fully to life or to die until the Day of rects the dead—meets a revenant and commands him or incident where Christ—who heals the possessed and resur (the exoteric) God to do that on the Day of Judgment. selves settle an outstanding symbolic debt, not leaving it to

film Wilson’s theater production of garde filmmakers and theater artists, for instance in Robert of words and images in the work of a number of avant- Cunningham; as well as the separation and independence artwork of dance, in the collaborative work of Cage and traditionally be viewed as the components of an organic ferent dancers or groups of dancers, that is, of what would design, but also of the dance phrases performed by the dif they perceive the they progress along the spiritual path (to the state in which photisms that Sufis perceive in a suprasensuous manner as depiction of an earthly body tinged by the various colored ( actually either a realistic presentation of an Imaginal World color-wise, to be an unrealistic depiction of an earthly body is Calder by Angus time should be reached at the Planck time, ( ‘ālam al-khayā l T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence, E. T. 132 Why is it that nowhere in the New Testament is there an 131 Revenants: creatures who have the presumption to them 130 129 The separation and independence of dance, music, and 134 In some other Muslim miniatures, what may appear, 133 According to quantum physics, the indivisible unit of Agatha

06(32)

, should in principle not be difficult to appreciate

x

10

(London: Wordsworth Editions, 1997), 22–23. ) embodied spirit or Intelligence, or a realistic -44 black light Seven Pillars of Wisdom s.

[ nūr-e siyāh Hamletmachine ]). , with an introduction Gh and in Duras’s / c 5 ) 1/2

= - - -

263 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 264 favor of a custom of God, is alien to reflexivity?” temporality and mode of linking, with its denial of a nature in the basic apparatus, if the occasionalism connected to this linkage that is akin to the medium of cinema at the level of explore and experiment with this mode of temporality and “If so, Jalal, why are at least some Muslim filmmakers to other and of the latter. adhere to the bodies and atoms are independent of each mutakallimīn occasionalist standpoint of the Ash‘arites or indeed of the for someone who has an affinity with or subscribes to the

the existence of its like …” Ibn Al ‘Arabi, moment of the nonexistence of a thing is the very moment of no lapse of time. Similarly with the renewal of creation … the same as that of its shaking. He says ‘then,’ although there is the spear, then it shook.’ Now the time of its quivering is the specific situations, as the poet says, ‘Like the quivering of thumma do not say ‘then,’ which implies a lapse of time, for the word Solomon, by virtue of the renewal of creation.… Therefore appearance from its place is the same as its presence with the lack of proper nature and characteristics of entities. materials?—had to yield to their implicit more basic view of be more sensitive than artists to the difference of styles and various styles, media, and materials—and who could possibly and materials. But this discernment of the difference of the ferent and of characteristics properties styles,various media, that Muslim artists were at one level quite sensitive to the dif completely from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, shows variant, which, except for certain titles, replaced Kūfic almost ration, and the cursive Naskh ī script, especially the thuluth the twelfth century the only script utilized in epigraphic deco rectilinear and angular forms and its monumentality was up to 136 Here’s a suggested question to some future interviewer: 135 “The moment of its [the Queen of Sheba’s throne’s] dis 137 The differentiation between the Kūfic script, which with its

in Arabic implies a process of cause and effect in in general, where the different accidents that

The Bezels of Wisdom - - - , University Press, 1987), 71. Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard translated and introduced by R. W. Austin, preface by Titus the form of Āṣif b. Barkhayā? firm, yet they move like clouds.” York Press, 1989), 115. Metaphysics of Imagination C. Chittick, sites together.’ Then he recited this Koranic verse.” William God?’ He answered, ‘Through the fact that He brings oppo Sa‘īd al-Kharrāz was asked, ‘Through what have you known Last, the Manifest and the Nonmanifest’ (Koran 57:3). Abū tion ( the World of Imagination … is the closest thing to a denota 76–77. Painting renewed creation. of Lale; and one implied by the arabesques, that of ever- ances out of nothing: one in the set radical closure, that in Turkey, there is a resonance between two sorts of appear Burckhardt (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 193. Roman Jakobson, 144 Ibn Al ‘Arabi, 143 Or was it really Khadir, or else the angel Gabriel assuming 142 ān 27:90:Qur’ “You see the mountains—you think them 141 “The imaginal faculty ( 140 François Cheng, 139 In Robbe-Grillet’s 138 dalāla

, trans. Michael H. Kohn (Boston: Shambhala, 1994), The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s ) of the Real. For the Real is ‘the First and the The Bezels of Wisdom Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese

L’Immortelle Language in Literature al-quwwat al-mutakhayyila (Albany: State University of New , whose events take place , 193. , ed. Krystyna ) and - - -

265 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 266 version of the script of Meridian Books, 1957), 28. Form and The Film Sense the basic element of Japanese representational culture.” Nevertheless the principle of montage can be identified as The Japanese cinema is completely unaware of montage. cinema.… Cinematography is, first and foremost, montage.… traits of Japanese culture that lie outside the Japanese tion of—its cinema. This essay is on the cinematographic ematographic traits, strewn everywhere with the sole excep a country that has, in its culture, an infinite number of cin a country that has no this essay has contrived to write a book about the the pamphlet [ out cinematography. And yet the author [Naum Kaufman] of exist. There is, for example, no such thing as a cinema with have written a pamphlet on something that in reality does not cinematic title derived from Beckett: Middle East and Transcaucasia; one could give it an alternate, Paradjanov’s lation of the cinematic to painting. It is rather, along with that should not, for other reasons, be viewed as a capitu induces is first and foremost to itself. singularity consists in this: that the creatural association it but only like itself cannot afford such associations, since its for example, metaphors; but what is ontologically not itself able, that which cannot be replaced even by himself/herself. itself? One should go further: is unique, and thus irreplace Al-Azhar University objected to Youssef Chahine’s first 149 Cf. Sergei Eisenstein: “It is a weird and wonderful feat to 148 Sohrab Shahid Saless’s 147 What is itself can afford associations away from itself, 146 Can one say: is unique what can be replaced only by 145

Sayat Nova Japanese Cinema

cinematography The Emigrant , one of the greatest films of the , ed. and trans. Jay Leyda (New York: Still Life (Moscow, 1929)] preceding (1974) is another film because the protagonist Stirrings Still—Life . About the cinema of cinema - . - of Film - - - the answer of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani, a and symbols appear on a film or TV screen, or at the theater?” (may God be pleased with them all), or holy historic figures upon him), or the preceding prophets, or the infallible imams in which the prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of God sentation, if only during the crucifixion. them like (Jesus)”]) that would seem to allow for his repre shubbiha lahum of ān,the Qur’ John Medows Rodwell, a clergyman, avers that unto them [ Allah’s messenger] not nor crucified him, but it appeared so another (“They slew him [the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, representation, in Islam it is his episodic replacement by was ostensibly modeled on and represented the prophet ers, including Azerbaijani ones, feel most affined. onward, created the films to which (many) Muslim filmmak this Armenian born in Tbilisi, Georgia, who, from or elsewhere, it is salutary to have the example of Paradjanov, whether in Transcaucasia, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, ancient Egypt was shown). words, that none of it was over the crassness with which hibition of the representation of ānic a prophet,Qur’ in other circles was all about the possible transgression of the pro I was not that surprised that the uproar in certain Egyptian in Egyptian culture around the time of the release of the film, Chahine won his appeal (given the widespread degeneracy court’s decision. The film was subsequently rereleased after to court and his film was pulled from theaters pending the revised version and screened it in Egypt, he was soon taken Joseph. When Chahine filmed an apparently insufficiently To the question, “Is it permissible to film or direct a scene 153 While in Christianity his incarnation allows for Christ’s 152 Ibn Al ‘Arabi, 151 In this bigoted age of religious and ethnic civil wars, 150

shubbiha lahum literally means “one was made to appear to The Bezels of Wisdom

]” ān [Qur’ 4:157; in his translation , 100–101. Sayat Nova

- - -

267 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 268 souls—it may be that the qualities and particularities of with regard to their honorable statuses and holy images in but only if that does not give offense—even in the future— sent through acting their characters (Peace be upon them), believer?” Sistani’s answer was: “It is permissible to repre is that it is permissible, is it required that that actor be a case of the imams (Peace be upon them)? 2) If the answer be upon him and his family)—and does the same apply in the family), appearing before the public as the Prophet (Peace the character of the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him and his upon them). 1) Is it permissible for an actor to impersonate (Peace be upon him and his family) or the imams (Peace be tors make a historical film about the Prophet and his family souls, there is no objection.” To the question, “Some direc include any offense to their holy images in the spectators’ the requirements of veneration and reverence and does not marja‘ taqlīd buried Leah (49:30–31). Since at no point are we told that old Joseph to bury him in Canaan in the same spot where he had they did not recognize him.” appeared in the same form as in waking life. reason to inquire in what guise he appeared in the dream: he Charlton Heston. in the 1923 version, Theodore Roberts; in the 1956 version, which the mature Moses is played by two different actors: filmmaker of two versions of defense mechanism of dissociation is Cecil B. DeMille, the php?p=525390&id=291 some influence in this matter” ( the actors who play their roles (Peace be upon them) have We are told in Genesis that years later Jacob asked 157 Cf. Genesis 42:8: “And Joseph recognized his brothers but 156 Only in the case of the prophet Muḥammad is there no 155 In comparison to Buñuel, how slow and prone to the 154

(source to emulate/follow) was: “If it observes

). The Ten Commandments http://www.sistani.org/index. , in - - Pierrot the interviewer observed, “There is a good deal of blood in Jacob visited Canaan during his stay in Egypt, the implication Zaphenath-Paneah.” 328. “Osiris Ani” has here been replaced by “Osiris 1967), 326. the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani their death”). quoted by Sufi authors: “Men are asleep; they awaken at (the prophet said in Muhammad a frequently tradition then on dying the prophet Joseph, the dreamer, awakened Hitchcock’s this to a hysteric, for example, to the eponymous heroine of Wisdom Light in the Word of Joseph” in Ibn Al ‘Arabi’s expression is and raised (Dan and Naphtali)? still sterile and who gave birth to two sons that Rachel named sen by Rachel to be a surrogate mother for her while she was Rachel’s maidservant (and half-sister?) Bilhah, who was cho trated to Joseph as his mother in Egypt in life-as-a- ing themselves before him. Was then the woman who pros of Joseph’s raising of his parents on a dais and their prostrat son in Egypt, i.e., that she was already dead during the scene is that he must have buried her before he headed to meet his See Chapter CXXXIII, in Budge 162 Plate XXI, Chapter XV, in E. A. Wallis Budge 161 If one wants to remain strictly the within context,Islamic 160 When in an October 1965 interview in 159 The expression “dream within a dream” (the Arabic 158 [

le fou (121). Marnie ],” manām fī ām man

Godard retorted: “Not blood, red”—try saying !

(New York: Dover Publications, ) appears in “The Wisdom of , The Book of the Dead Cahiers du cinéma, The Bezels of , The Book of dream , -

- -

269 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 270 ster at the landslide section of a remote hill. just sixteenth of an inch from him with a giant winged mon of the family tion, the narrator confusing the insect of the genus revolve around a mistake with regards to distance and loca about as thick as the body of an ordinary elephant”? … [its] proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and in length “to be far larger than any ship of the line in existence (Poe) someone who considers a creature sixteenth of an inch 1st part, 163. of Sigmund Freud Book of the Dead at thy feet, by reason of the writing thou hast” (Budge come unto thee bowing down even to the ground in adoration Nephthys holdeth converse with thee, and the shining ones extracts from the pyramid of Pepi I: “Isis speaketh unto thee, will I be greater than thou” [Genesis 41:40]), are the following unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne raoh had said: “Thou shalt be over my house, and according behalf of Zaphenath-Paneah, aka Joseph (to whom the pha Alternatively, what the lector priest could have recited on film spectator). the camera is placed is specifically looking at each individual he has no image and to the other side of whose empty frame across media (in a film, the vampire facing the mirror in which undead, who has no mirror image and thus gazes at you you even as you stand in front of it; and that of the vampire/ undead: that of the ancient Egyptian statue, which disregards It is therefore quite on the mark for Poe’s 167 Is it surprising to encounter in a tale titled 166 The following are two unsettling sorts of looks of the 165 The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works 164 See Chapter CXXIV, in Budge 163

Crepuscularia , lxxvii). , vol. 4 (1900),

, on the spider web at the window The Interpretation of Dreams , The Book of the Dead The Sphinx The Sphinx Sphinx , The , 331. to

, - - - ,

rising above the natural world—at any price, even dying and master should be so defined. What fully defines the master is his willingness to risk his life for recognition: only the living cease. The mortal master should not be defined solely by sequently become an undead, rather than merely biologically only the willingness to risk one’s life, but also that one sub would indicate one’s going beyond given, natural being is not 1969], 45). I would qualify (Kojève’s exegesis of) Hegel: what the French by James H. Nichols, Jr. [New York: Basic Books, by Raymond Queneau; edited by Allan Bloom; translated from Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit the Slave” (Alexandre Kojève, that he knows to be World in general and over everything that knows itself and cal existence, over ( riority by risked his is the man who went all the way in a Fight for prestige, who risks his life for recognition in life and the world. “The Master and who is aware of that and who nonetheless, incredibly, — One who is a mortal, that is, dead while (physically) alive, age or determination.” of the meaning, informal, of the word “gutless”: “lacking cour them attempt—unsuccessfully—to turn back, but because tainted with a stain of cowardice not because virtually all of without intestines, … without a bladder,” are gut-less, is cally) dying, which was “for a long time without a stomach, that of Daniel Paul Schreber during his dying before (physi latter by rebirth. The courage of the dead, whose bodies, like in the bardo of becoming, since he or she can escape from the himself or herself in the hell concocted by mind-projections the mainstream Christian or Muslim hell—he or she can find himself or herself neither in a labyrinth, nor in undeath, nor in ardice past the point of no return. A coward can enter or find in situations from which one can escape; there is no cow ahead. (Un)death is not for cowards. Cowardice applies only over-turns in the undeath realm, even turning back is forging words, to be an undead, is already a form of courage: owing to bewährt 168 In terms of a gradation of courage, one descends from: Is it possible that only a few die? To be dead, in other

), realized, and revealed his another life in order to be man.… Thus, he ‘brought to light,’ proved his bound

biological existence, over the natural to this World, in particular, over recognized Introduction to the Reading of superiority in his absolute supe , assembled over biologi ------

271 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 272 the natural world. He had won so many fights to the death for ing some variant of “Here Lies —— [his name while alive],” to rounded by mourners then buried under a tombstone indicat undead thus revealing that he is still bound, as a corpse sur world, but later merely ceases to live rather than becoming an risks his life for recognition and is thus freed from the natural for recognition yields, we have the Hegelian master, who fully life for recognition. In case the other man in the duel to death merely going to physically die in the future, and who risks his (physically) alive, since, like (most other) animals, he is — One who is not really a mortal, that is, not dead while unaware of the undeath realm. courageous than the mortal slave merely because he was death” fight, the future Hegelian master proved to be more ment—at least not fully—but is warranted: in the “life and for some masters is therefore not to be ascribed to resent the duel for recognition, a master. Some slaves’ contempt his life for recognition, becoming, in case he does not die in but who is unaware of that and thus more disposed to risk — One who is a mortal, that is, dead while (physically) alive, dead is not) and the calls of others. (while the courage of the living is psychological, that of the overturned by over-turns) notwithstanding the terror ahead advance, ostensibly not turning back (his turn was repeatedly in the realm of death: he, so cowardly while alive, continued to from the natural world. Such a slave is doubly unrecognizable ural world; but later “finds” “himself” in undeath, thus freed ing man, revealing thus that he is, as living, bound to the nat struggle for recognition with another mortal or not mortal liv is someone who did not go all the way in the “life and death” his life for recognition, ending up a slave. The mortal slave and who is aware of that and who consequently fails to risk — One who is a mortal, that is, dead while (physically) alive, that they mistook another for him. answer their calls, they ended up coming to the conclusion to his misrecognition by them since, failing repeatedly to not only to his lack of recognition by the other dead, but also despite his terror, and thus in his projection of courage, led in the (un)death realm, which resulted in his forging ahead nition of other living humans, the over-turns he underwent and) himself. While his courage in life brought him the recog thus being misrecognized by everyone, including (the voices ------than one of its ostensible parts: “[Edwin] Hubble was able to calculating an age of the universe that would make it younger the earth he was ostensibly no longer in touch with. and, like psychotics, was penetrated by everything, including daylight, but when he emerged at night from his frozen state earth not when he lay, frozen, on dirt in his coffin during the Youssef Chahine two fine ones, maker of only one superb film, embassy he was guarding. the whereabouts of the Yemeni embassy, he indicated the me that when a person inquired of the sentry there about an acquaintance who worked at the Lebanese embassy told sons, but frequently a sort of dissociation from the buildings: pure prestige that he began not only to feel but also to brag: courageous. undead, then that would mean that we are all fundamentally then, as a corpse, to the natural world. undead, but merely ceases to live, thus continues to belong struggle for recognition, and he does not later become an he does not go all the way in the Hegelian “life and death” is fully a slave since he is doubly bound to the natural world: fails to unreservedly risk his life for recognition. Such a man merely going to physically die in the future, and who, afraid, while (physically) alive, — One who is not really a mortal, that is, who is not dead he, not really a mortal, did not die the surprise of everybody, he unexpectedly expired—and yet “I cannot die.” The others grew to believe him. But one day, to This was not the first instance of one or more scientists 172 An undead, he was in touch with and penetrated by the 171 With over thirty films to his name, he remains the film 170 In humanist Cairo, there is a suffocating mixing of per 169 If we rather discover that we all die, that is, become

Alexandria … Why? ( al-Qāhira minawwara bi-Ahlaha

since, like (most other) animals, he is The Earth , 1978, and for [the] ( al-Arḍ real Cairo as Told by . ), 1968, and ), 1991. - -

273 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 274 (London: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 11–16. Rather Than Nothing M. Krauss, to find that the Earth is older than the universe.” Lawrence than 3 billion years. Now, it is embarrassing for scientists the evidence was already clear … that the Earth was older approximately 1.5 billion years ago. Even in 1929, however, rate itself.… From this estimate … the Big Bang happened They … also gave a quantitative estimate of the expansion tionship between recessional velocity and galaxy distance.… relationship, now called Hubble’s law: There is a linear rela … he announced the discovery of a remarkable empirical Mount Wilson [Observatory] staff member, Milton Humason, by which they were moving away. In 1929, with the help of a axies … with [Vesto] Slipher’s measurements of the velocities compare his observations of the distance of these spiral gal many more faces, because each person has several of them. faces there are. There are multitudes of people, but there are “For example, it never occurred to me before how many I said it before? I am learning to see,” and continues with, learning to see.” And the following entry begins with, “Have oldest stars. (ibid.). Such a universe is older than the estimated age of its and older universe of 15 perhaps to billion 20 years”billion Hubble and constant so of a much more slowly expanding the great Edwin P. Hubble,” is foremost “the of defender a low the-universe.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm astronomers-debate-conflicting-answers-for-the-age-of- 1994, Data on Age of the Universe,” The fourth entry in Malte’s notebooks begins with: “I am 176 Antonin Artaud, 175 Dr. Allan R. Sandage, “who his learned astronomy under 174 John Noble Wilford, “Astronomers Debate Conflicting 173 http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/27/science/

A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Selected Writings , with an afterword by Richard Dawkins

New York Times , 499. , December 27, .

- - There are people who wear the same face for years; naturally mirror image includes the ability to turn around to answer a front of it. only face one when one utters an express call of oneself in the image in the mirror), to stop, then the mirror image would less call of oneself (which is inaudible to anyone other than 1960), 286–287. in prayer, but with its whole body, including the dress. Paola as a Hermit ing in prayer in Emmanuel Maignan’s fresco the previously dissimulated figure of Saint Francis kneel exit of the church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti, Rome, 1983], 5–7). Brigge that on” (Rainer Maria Rilke, shows through, the non-face, and they walk around with places as thin as paper, and then, little by little, the lining last one is worn through in a week, has holes in it, is in many this. They are not accustomed to taking care of faces; their their last one. There is, to be sure, something tragic about ply; but when they are barely forty years old they come to them out. At first, they think they have an unlimited sup happens that their dogs go out wearing them.… storage. Their children will wear them. But sometimes it also wonder what they do with the other ones. They keep them in cleaned.… Of course, since they have several faces, you might plicated people; they never change it, never even have it gloves worn during a long journey. They are thrifty, uncom it wears out, gets dirty, splits at the seams, stretches like The child’s anticipation of motor control through the 180 Were the interior monologue, which includes one’s voice 179 Robert Graves, 178 Similarly, when one turns one’s head backward near the 177 “Other people change faces incredibly fast … and wear , trans. Stephen Mitchell [New York: Random House,

, 1642, looks at one not with its eyes, closed The Greek Myths

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids , vol. 1 (London: Penguin, Saint Francis of - - - -

275 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 276 this mere one-hundred-and-eighty-degree physical conver place in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By Assuming that the theoretical scene I have imagined takes monplace everyday police (or other) hailing: ‘Hey, you there!’ and which can be imagined along the lines of the most com precise operation which I have called individuals into subjects (it transforms them all) by that very among the individuals (it recruits them all), or ‘transforms’ the ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way that it ‘recruits’ subjects Apparatuses twelve years after Magritte painted as Formative of the Function of the I,” published in 1949— Phase” in 1936, nor, more disappointedly, in “The Mirror Stage call neither in Lacan’s oral presentation “The Looking-Glass was no longer in the Rilkean Open? day the human child in the mirror turned toward himself, and ever in the Rilkean Open? Is it legitimate to advance that one Historicists 2007), 236–237. and Andrew Tomlinson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, Jean Piaget, animism is … a primary datum in the child’s consciousness.” All activity is regarded as necessarily conscious.… Diffuse external movement is regarded as necessarily purposive.… tendency of children to confuse the living and the inert.… All Althusser, really him that the hail was ‘really’ addressed to him, and that ‘it was sion, he becomes a Is anyone who has the potential to undergo an over-turn 184 Joan Copjec, 183 “We shall give the name of 182 Althusser writes in “Ideology and Ideological State 181

who was hailed’ (and not someone else)” (Louis On Ideology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 32. The Child’s Conception of the World

(Notes towards an Investigation)”: “Ideology Read My Desire: Lacan against the subject.

[London; New York: Verso, 2008], 48). Why? Because he has recognized diffuse animism Reproduction Prohibited interpellation to the general , trans. Joan or hailing, - - . H. N. Abrams, 1977), 118. Magritte: Ideas and Images picture ‘This is a pipe,’ I’d have been lying!” Harry Torczyner, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, discrepancy in the painting: “The famous pipe. How people cinéma du visage,” in (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986). Image Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Scientific American Presents common name, “man,” at that point. does not make the same mistake, translating the knowledge of good and evil; the New International Version to dying before physically dying upon partaking of the tree of already when the man is told to give names to animals, prior it translates the Hebrew York: Random House, 1982), 193. Stephen Mitchell; with an introduction by Robert Hass (New Magritte provides a variant rationale for the apparent 191 Pascal Bonitzer, “Bobines ou: le labyrinthe et la question 190 Chapter 6 of Gilles Deleuze’s 189 185 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, 188 See Gordon Gallup, Jr., “Can Animals Empathize? Yes,” 187 The King James translation of the Bible is flawed when 186 The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke , trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma/Gallimard, 1982).

Le Champ aveugle: Essais sur le réalisme au

‘āḏām , trans. Richard Miller (New York: , translation and foreword by Brian 9, no. 4 (Winter 1998). as Adam, a proper name, Cinema 1: The Movement- A Thousand Plateaus: , ed. and trans. ‘āḏām as a

277 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 278 to the face is straightaway ethical.” Levinas,Emmanuel the look is knowledge, perception. I think rather that access wonder if one can speak of a look towardturned the face, for what appears.describes since phenomenology So, too, I not know if one can speak of a ‘phenomenology’ of the face, sist in and what is its purpose?” Levinas:Emmanuel “I do of what when happens I look at the Other face to face, con of does the this face,phenomenology that is, this analysis length of the face. It is one of your frequent themes. What to manifest its director. equacy of of this dismissal the name would have become following a disaster,surpassing but a human, then the inad a neither flower nor a theater play that withdrawn became of (Joseph Arimathea?). Had Godard’s film tried to resurrect into who humans were solely and fully alive a needed name alive, to be resurrected by Jesus Christ, the life (John 11:25), the were living as mortals, that is, as dead while physically out!” (John 11:43); and those who then though still among physically need (and a otherwise) name: “Lazarus, come Dead name. Thou hast been resurrected” ( “Arise.… Thou shalt not perish. Thou hast been called by died physically a needed name so they could be resurrected: are they who need a name to exist?” who Egyptians Ancient need a name to resurrect even a animal. so-and-so “Who ply reattached to it in backward motion. One also does not flower in Godard’s film:aforementioned its petals are sim name is invoked the during of resurrection that so-called one need a name to resurrect that flower? so-called No; no see thy beauty?” My answer to this is:question “No.” Does over a shot of a flower,so-called asks: “Do I need a name to Godard asserts: “I am not interested in names,” and then, gether with the name. In have of the anew,naming opportunity or to alto dispense the goal of reaching this condition:pre-name towhether 129–130. There is on an Godard’soscillation regarding part Sterritt (Jackson: Press University of Mississippi, 1998),

Philippe Nemo: “In 193 Jean-Luc Godard, Godard, Jean-Luc 192 ); physically who dead are mortals to be resurrected

Jean-Luc Godard: Jean-Luc Interviews Totality and Infinity King King Lear , the character played by Egyptian Book of Egyptian the you speak at great , ed. David - - - - essay on dance, see “The Subtle Dancer” in the second Ideology Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” in ing away from her. Ethics and Ethics Infinity: with Nemo Philippe Conversations Dick, what his comprehended mind refused to accept” K.(Philip of their own volition, refused to carry him farther. His body toward the caller. “He had gone only two steps when his legs, the opposite direction, he that assumed he must be moving to being called and that he did not any experience turn in the edited film. Given that the in turned undead response line camera, not in shooting master shots, crossed the the experience reversal of his or her turn. Or it is as if the film the character he is playing, a dead or mad person, did not while the actor the second,experienced turn,non-diegetic opposite direction, then, after the latter did, said, “Action”: director said, “Cut,” the then actor commanded to turn in the in with accordance the director’s prior instructions, the the dead or mad (that is, dead before character dying) turned cinema. It is as if a during film shoot, after the actor playing tion with hyphenated another “over,” “voice-over,” and thus My of hyphenation “over-turn” is to evoke, through associa as rienced a turn, that indeed is not experienced but discrete, a turning,turn without a turn that is not expe University Press, 1969), 202. Exteriority 1985), 85. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Press,University Duquesne For (the revised version of) my initial, more elaborate 197 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State 196 The The over-turn is a turn since paradoxical it is not gradual 195 Emmanuel Levinas, 194 , this in resulting the reversal of the character’s turn in Eye in the Sky the in Eye

, 48. , trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne ): his back still to the caller, he was mov

Totality and Infinity: An Essay on tout court On imaginary imaginary , trans. trans. , - - - .

279 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 280 moreover has a fractional dimension—where he or she that the dancer before them is not fully in the space—which through bringing to mind cinematic mattes, the impression encountered in that realm, they, as backdrops, maintain, dance’s realm of altered movement, space, and time; once seeing how closely the film matched what I had written. when I first watched his closure in the first edition of my book manner with David Lynch through the section on radical 2009), 79–105. edition of my book space. The figures of Berkeley are not real dancers and above the performers intimates their inability to create picture plane through the placement of the camera straight immobility. freezing state, which would affect the shoes themselves with stop these auto-mobile slippers, the dancer can enter the The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger’s of the dancers, is exemplified by that of the dancer’s shoes movement, which is made possible by the immobilization but also into the past from which the film detached him. ment disappearing in the future in relation to the streetcar that gradually recedes in the distance is by the same move boy in the back of the car that precedes the streetcar and footage taken from a streetcar in San Francisco in 1905, the ostensibly is. In Busby Berkeley’s films, the frequent flattening of the 202 The auto-mobility of objects in dance’s realm of altered 201 In 200 Monochromatic intense colors facilitate suction into 199 Similarly, even though I had collaborated in an untimely 198 Eureka

(1974), a film in which Ernie Gehr used archival fails to show or imply that although unable to Over-Sensitivity

Lost Highway The Red Shoes (Forthcoming Books, Over-Sensitivity , 1997, I felt anxiety on ) and the ground. , 1996, - therefore do not cross into mirrors or other flat surfaces, but realm of altered body, movement, space, and time into which partner are doing so across the two separate branches of the horse. When dancing together in the streetcar, Astaire and his ing the carriage), hints at auto-mobility by not showing the we saw and in later shots we are going to see the horse pull ostensibly not showing auto-mobility (since in earlier shots and his partner dancing in the moving carriage, although Walters’s show such auto-mobility in more subtle manners. In Charles body, silence, music, space, and time, the director can then ceiving it to be a facet of dance’s realm of altered movement, manifestation of the auto-mobility of objects in dance, per than one dancer participates. avowal is required for any dance of this kind in which more movement, space, and time, a modicum of fetishistic dis bodies in separate branches of dance’s realm of altered body, shows is the case whenever dancers are projected as subtle I act as if she is.” But since what this scene in that she is not here with the other dancers, but all the same well, but all the same …,” more specifically: “I know very well ence must be the fetishistic one of disavowal: “I know very red shoes, as well as of the other dancers, and of the audi state of the dancer who hands the inexistent ballerina the pal ballerina moments before the parting of the curtain, the the performance despite the unexpected death of the princi movement (thus this space creation is rarely noticed). moves in the latter by creating space at the pace of his or her has a dimension of two, to dance’s fractional space, and remain at their border. The dancer crosses the mirror, which Once the audience has had a chance to witness an obvious 206 Ibid., 6. 205 Gilles Deleuze, 204 When in 203

The Belle of New York The Red Shoes Cinema 1: The Movement-Image

the other dancers go ahead with , the medium shot of Astaire The Red Shoes , 4. - - - - -

281 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 282 able to directly link non-contiguous spaces-times. Modeling Agency, 142 Green Street, New York, NY 10012. one ostensibly pulling or pushing these objects. by dance provides an occasion for a manneristic motion of the pulling the carriage. The auto-movement of objects allowed the dance, being detached from the horse that is ostensibly consequence of the auto-mobility of the carriage allowed by dance projected subtle versions of them, all the while, as a be be certain.” According to the yaā united manently with and the will Liberation Dharma-K and, … one’srecognizing own self [thus], one per becometh to naked be consciousness as recognized the Clear Light; very Reality, … the All-good Buddha,” this “will cause the into as anything regards or characteristics colour, … is the that his intellect, “present in real nature void, not formed Clear Light of Pure Reality the dead man it recognizes and the bardo of the of moment death ( of of Radiance the “the Clear Light of Pure Reality” in the as she is in heaven like somewhat functions the experience a shot that shows her in heaven. This of vision Margarete are evant questions followed by a shot luminous of her face, both of them a chance—to have grace? And lo, these irrel a man?learned Or is it that she that intuits she should give house. Is she of embarrassed to credulous appearing such she asks him in objects about instead various questions his he whether is the one who killed her brother; stammering, tant to ask him, with whom she is infatuated,becoming hastens to visit him. But then, at his place, she proves reluc one that Faust is the one who killed her brother, Margarete Margarete in his film to Isolda Dychauk, the actress who played the role of you’re going to look like in heaven,” it was SokurovAleksandr If someone If could someone have said to a woman, “This is what 209 Dancers did not have to wait for digital telepresence to be 208 This letter was sent to Christy Turlington, care of Ford 207 Bardo Thodol

, if the of while Radiance experiencing the

Faust (2011). Having been told by some Bardo Thodol chikhai bardo chikhai , if the dead man man dead the if , ). According to - - - - as as of judgment. limited aesthetic feels towardrepulsion it, is not to be criticized automatically herself in one of the figures of a Bacon triptych, but even the world. Therefore, a model who not only cannot recognize and hence no longer enfolds everyone else and in everything cal closure as an alien since he or she is no longer a monad other cases still Bacon’s of illustration the model in the radi in the radical closure he constructed through painting, and in irrupted fully formed, of outside any direct action of Bacon, who irrupted in the radical closure, and in other cases what ing to similar the worldly model of the unworldly imposter figure is in some cases Bacon’s of illustration the becom universe at the radical closure’s event horizon; and the third is Bacon’s of illustration the model’s made byportrait the vous system,” illustration; short-circuiting the figure second that concentrate would “come across directly onto the ner modes:different one figure is the model to compacted a present the of and following three self-portraits portraits in entities the latter. The three figures in Bacon’s triptychs novel deal with radical closure and the irruption of unworldly of Invasion the Body Snatchers Bacon would have been a to artist fitting direct a remake of evil of Dracula.” you loved. It’s only her shell, possessed and corrupted by the Helsing warns Arthur Holmwood: “This is not Lucy, the sister fails fails to be liberated this during stage and the related follow killed him.” “Was it you who killed my brother?” And he answers, “Yes, I them as they were before this rapture and she now asks him: as she is in heaven, and so the next shot is back to both of Faust fails to to respond felicitously the of vision Margarete bardo Clear the Light,secondary then he will undergo the ing one of the In my book 211 In Terence Fisher’s 210 , when appear.the apparitions karmic In Sokurov’s film,

chikhai bardo chikhai Over-Sensitivity

Horror of Dracula , which during he experiences , for both his work and that , I proposed that Francis (1958), Doctor Van chönyid chönyid - - - -

283 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 284 greatly improved” (the quoted words are from Dr. Urpar’s lum doctor’s diagnosis that Van Gogh’s “condition has which could not be countered simply by invoking some asy Bandaged Ear Portrait with Bandaged Ear Van Gogh, who cut off his ear the next day, painted of Paul Gauguin ‘It is certainly I, but it’s I gone mad’” ( [ still-life he loved so much—some ploughs. When the portrait me to do his [Van Gogh’s] portrait while he was painting the Bacon relativity, which denies any absolute, universal significance startling conclusion stems directly from his special theory of and future are only illusions, even if stubborn ones.’ Einstein’s pletely stopped” (100). horizon; and right at the horizon, the flow of time will be com centimeter height above the hole’s horizon than far from its the Sun, then time will flow 6 million times more slowly at 1 tion is enormous: If the hole weighs 10 times as much as W. Norton, 1994): “Near a black hole gravitational time dila and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy gravitational time dilation, see also Kip S. Thorne, Paradox,” 75–76. of Paul Gsell by Romilly Fedden (New York: Horizon, 1971), vg/documentation.html). certificate of May 7, 1889, http://www.vangoghletters.org/ Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers David Sylvester, “Albert Einstein … wrote to a friend, ‘The past, present 216 Leonard Susskind, “Black Holes and the Information 215 Auguste Rodin, 214 Paul Gauguin writes in his journals: “The idea occurred to 213 212 , 3rd ed. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 146.

Scientific American as a defense against Gauguin’s valid portrait, [London: KPI, 1985], 12). I would think that Rodin on Art The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis

and Pipe 276, no. 4 (April 1997): 55. On ] was finished, he said to me: , translated from the French and/or The Intimate Journals Self-Portrait with (New York: W. Black Holes Self-

- - - Novel Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen are present, time does not go away” (“The Time-Being” [ you were present. Time is not separate from you, and as you At the time the were mountains and climbed the rivers crossed, distant from me as heaven is from earth.’ It is not that simple. already passed them.… Those mountains and rivers are as arms.… Even though the mountains and rivers still exist, I have time-being does not understand buddha-dharma may hear the words heads and eight arms’ is time.… Yet an ordinary person who all being is time. A golden sixteen-foot body is time.… ‘Three body.…’ ‘For the time being’ here means time itself is being,and eightand arms. / For the time being an eight- or sixteen-foot on top of the highest peak.… / For the time being three heads to the present moment. According to the theory, simultane [September 2002]: 41–42). Davies, “That Mysterious Flow,” short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow” (Paul cally turn future events into present, then past, events. In moment as the present or any process that would systemati of nature is anything that singles out a privileged special to as block time. Completely absent from this description located there together. It is a notion sometimes referred analogous to a landscape—with all past and future events prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety—a timescape, that both past and future are fixed. For this reason, physicists exist in the fixed past. The most straightforward conclusion is to be in the as yet undecided future might for you already you and I were in relative motion, an event that I might judge ent moment, for whose ‘now’ does that moment refer to? If mockery of any attempt to confer special status on the pres moments if viewed from another. Such mismatches make a observed from one reference frame may occur at different ity is relative. Two events that occur at the same moment if Alain Robbe-Grillet, 218 217 Dōgen: “An ancient Buddha said: ‘For the time being stand (New York, Grove Press, 1972), 1–3.

this way: ‘For a while I was three heads and eight

Project for a Revolution in New York: A Scientific American , 76–77). , 287, no. 3 Uji ], in the - - -

285 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 286 hole’s event horizon). no camera, of the astronaut frozen and flattened at the black may show the same image as the “photograph,” also taken by graph, taken by no camera, that irrupts inside the black hole that irrupt “in” it (by horizon; and the photographs, shot by no one and no camera, to it: the freezing and flattening at its there are two sorts of possible photographs that are specific the Mystery Man, standing next to Fred Madison, hands the is why, while being unsettled, I am not surprised that when (his double’s?) irruption into the shot of the highway (that flees his pursuers not farther along the highway but through cannot be used to flee somewhere else—unless the person a cinematic shot from an earlier film rather than a road, it from the earlier one. Since the highway of 1997, was not filmed for the latter film but irrupted in it opening credits sequence and the ending of first seen in lines illuminated by the headlights of a moving car, which is tracking shot of the highway at night, with the yellow broken in the radical closure. Similarly, it is quite possible that the the house—the videotape, unworldly, shot by no one, irrupted camera served to take the new video shots of the inside of of the entrances of the house, and, consequently, that no alarm sound, that no unlawful entry took place through any alarm) he did so, and, moreover, since he does not hear the that (unlike in the script, where he again fails to activate the forth activate his alarm system. Therefore we can assume tives who come to investigate the case ask Fred to thence who then took these shots with a camera. The two detec an unlawful entry through the door or window by someone house leaves open the possibility that they are dealing with anonymous videotape showing shots of the interior of their the alarm system on the day preceding their reception of the stance that Fred Madison and his wife twice omitted setting anyone within it. In David Lynch’s closure: the video that irrupts in it without being shot by 220 If one considers a black hole as a radical closure, then 219 And there is a sort of video that is specific to a radical

Blue Velvet objective chance

, 1986, and which accompanies the Lost Highway the unworldly photo gateless gate Lost Highway Lost Highway , the circum , the event is - - , - - Bacon’s work. the act of a taking photograph, are in exceptional Francis is shown a holding camera next to its face, in presumably the flattening the of flattening the figure (from the reference frame of so much in a self-reflexive but manner through with dealing least its addresses not medium being a two-dimensional he establishes. an at observer) outside the border of the radical closures veracity and of historicity photographs, their function. indexical absence of generation loss it makes possible) to question the wounded man on the desert sand a portable pocket televi his recurrent imagery). the process introducing singularly unfamiliar elements amid bly those of others (Magritte, Rauschenberg, etc.) irrupted (in produced radical closures in which images that are ostensi to make the films or the silkscreens; and Robbe-Grillet, who front of it until the end of the film roll, or else assigned others who simply turned on the camera and let it shoot what was in Institució Valenciana d’Estudis i Investigació). (Valencia; Sala Parpalló: Edicions Alfons el Magn Scala, Mayo 12–27, 1991; and Touko Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, January an image). pocket television while standing next to Madison, that is, as sion, that monitor shows the Mystery Man handing a portable Paintings such as such Paintings 225 224 In In Francis Bacon’s work, foregrounds painting or at One did not have to wait for digital technology (with the 223 Here are two examples of the artist as producer: Warhol, 222 For example, David Lynch’s “Paintings and Drawings,” 221

– Junio 1992, Diputación Provincial de Valencia David Lynch: Sala Parpalló

Triptych March 1974 , where the figure figure the where , – Palau dels à nim,

-

-

287 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 288 in an ever renewed present” (ibid., 150–151). marking its date, truly moving in the past and not, like the first, they occur, leaving to each fact its place and, consequently, alongside of each other all our states in the order in which its image. The other is the true memory.… It retains and ranges than memory, it acts our past experience but does not call up nascent, but always more or less appropriate. Habit rather tions that are sometimes accomplished, sometimes merely actions to which we are subject prolong themselves into reac us to adapt ourselves to the present situation; through it the reply to the various possible demands. This memory enables gently constructed mechanisms which ensure the appropriate the organism, is nothing else but the complete set of intelli two memories which are profoundly distinct: the one, fixed in ally, “The Two Forms of Memory.” Cf.: “There are, we have said, Outrageous Legacy dimensional figure. also inside the radical closure, where he would see the three- from which he would see the two-dimensional figure, but ence frames simultaneously: outside the radical closure, at it the spectator finds himself paradoxically in two refer it the painter had to mentally place himself and when looking sented and viewed from two reference frames, when painting Human Body the juncture of the panel in Francis Bacon’s Ibid. 231 Ibid., 152. 230 Henri Bergson, 229 Kip S. Thorne, 228 Henri Bergson, 227 While the figure that is seemingly divided into two at 226

, 1981, is not actually dislocated but just repre Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Matter and Memory , 52. Matter and Memory

, 88, and, more gener more and, 88, , , 134. Study from the - - - - - lie on or inside the past light cone of E would also be the set faster than light, … for a given event E, the set of events that Company, 1911], 4–5). rized translation by Arthur Mitchell [New York: H. Holt and that which can give tion or further the action now being prepared—in short, only threshold only that which can cast light on the present situa almost the whole of this past, and to admit beyond the nism is arranged just so as to drive back into the unconscious probably, it follows us at every instant.… The cerebral mecha the past is preserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, the past upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, mittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of even, properly speaking, a faculty, them in a register. There is no register, no drawer; there is not ulty of putting away recollections in a drawer, or of inscribing

to prove [ there is no limit to its preservation. Memory, as we have tried advances. And as the past grows without ceasing, so also the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it but the present.… Duration is the continuous progress of replacing another; if it were, there would never be anything Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (London: Continuum, 2005), 76. received” (ibid., 155; my italics). which prolong into an appropriate reaction the stimulation scious ing his life instead of truly representing it to himself: a con this memory with all that it begets would be continually act past history. And, conversely, the man who should repudiate at each moment the infinite multitude of the details of his instead of living it would no doubt thus keep before his eyes Since “signals and other causal influences cannot travel 235 232 Henri Bergson: “Our duration is not merely one instant 234 Gilles Deleuze, 233 Henri Bergson: “A human being who should dream his life automaton

Matter and Memory , he would follow the lead of useful habits Cinema 2: The Time-Image useful

work” ( , chapters 2 and 3], Creative Evolution

for a faculty works inter , trans. Hugh

is not a fac , autho ------

289 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 290 netic netic field is quantum … undergoing little negative-energy uncertainty. All over the electromag spacetime quantum black holes emit radiation? … The answer lies in quantum found that black holes actually How emit radiation.… can of theory quantum near black electromagnetism holes, he ( cone of E cannot influence or be influenced by E in relativity” enced by E. Events which lie neither in the past or future light tains all the events that could potentially be causally influ from the position and time of E, so the future light cone con also be the set of events that could receive a signal sent out of events that lie on or inside the to reach E and influence it in some way.… Likewise, the set of all events that could send a signal that would have time Hurley (New York: Viking, 1998), 327. it goes in.” Bernard F. Schutz, makes to a the contribution negative mass of the hole when this is that the hole loses mass: photon the negative-energy falls in, photon. freeing the positive-energy The net result of to out inside zon from radiation. In this picture, on its own. It … one becomes of the photons of the Hawking inside, and outside that partner leaves its positive-energy have total negative energy. So such a photon can just stay sible to find for trajectories photons the inside horizon that and cross into it. Once inside, it is actually viable: it is pos hole, it is for possible such a photon to form the outside hole pear as quickly as they form. But near the horizon of a black fluctuations. … Normally photons disap the negative-energy universe. 304 (my italics). (Cambridge; New York: Press,University Cambridge 2003), Wikipedia “When British physicist “When British Stephen … Hawking the studied 236 Jorge Luis Borges, 238 This is the case if we consider the black hole part of the 237

’s “Light Cone” entry).

. Instead, photon the negative-energy Collected Fictions nothing actually crosses the hori Gravity from the Ground Up future light cone of E would , trans. Andrew -

- - - - - ogy ogy (triptychs and diptychs have in monadic ontology a raison aligned across the various panels suggest a monadic ontol figures (other than dancers) whose gazes or gestures are at least are aware of each other. Triptychs or diptychs with aligned, suggesting that the figures perceive each other or although sharply separated by the panels’ frames, are and of the right panel’s seated human figure looking left, figure looking right, of the center panel’s recumbent couple, Attendants ment from others and the rest of the world” (173–174). bereave its with of death is and a experience, premonition world. That is why encountering the double is such a desolate alone with the alone even in a crowded public place, I feel I am alone with him, divested of all others. That is why whenever I encounter him, the cathexis of the world).… The double is not the other, but I is because they are no longer composites (the withdrawal of people who have become not merely uglier, but alien, and that states of altered consciousness, though, we see the dead, alien, and that is why they too do not find us alien. In certain That is why we do not find others or for that matter ourselves each of us is part of the composite that constitutes the others. those who lived erstwhile and who are long dead, and because because each of us is a composite of all the others, even of ments, becoming alien. Each of us is common, not alien, both most of them uglier than the original one, then into ele first into separate subunits that are themselves composites, as-undeath or during some states of altered consciousness “The living person is a composite that dissociates in death- my book Outrageous Legacy

In Bacon’s triptych 242 Cf. “Composites” in the revised and expanded edition of 241 239 Kip S. Thorne, 240 Leibniz,

(Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film , 1968, the gazes of the left panel’s seated human Monadology Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s , 33. 33. , ; he embodies the divestment from the

Two Figures Lying on a Bed with § 66–68. - - - :

291 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 292 Brigge 2001), no. 166, 135. Del Caro (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, Williams; trans. Josefine Nauckhoff; poems trans. Adrian in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs entities that irrupt in a radical closure. cal closure; and there is interaction between the unworldly monadic figure and the unworldly entity that irrupts in a radi that enfold the same world; there is no relation between the closure. There is intra-action among the monadic figures monad, though allowed by that expressed world’s radical entity, thus incompossible with the world expressed by the visible to us in the same panel, for the latter is an unworldly human figure does not at all perceive the bird-like creature d’être). In the aforementioned Bacon triptych, the left panel’s and since “God raised him up unto Himself” (4:158). crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them” (4:157) [Christ, Jesus the son of Mary, the Apostle of God] not, nor comma, or nothing.” and assuring the same paratactic function, there can be a of Not-Being which opens between phrases.… Instead of if, then their succession does not obey a categorial order ( Conjoined by of ‘modern’ style, paratax, as opposed to classical syntax. [Erich] Auerbach [in the apposition of one term with the other, nothing more. and Minnesota Press, 1988), no. 100, 65–66: “The conjunction trans. Georges Van Den Abbeele (Minneapolis: University of Rainer Maria Rilke, 246 This is not an issue in ān the since Qur’ “They killed him 245 Jean-François Lyotard, 244 Friedrich Nietzsche, 243 ( and so forth , 8–9. ;

in order to and , , phrases or events follow each other, but and so on ; although Mimesis

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids The Gay Science: With a Prelude ) … signals a simple addition, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute …). Paratax … connotes the abyss ] turns this into a characteristic , ed. Bernard because and ; - , ,

247 Ibid., 13–15. 249 Ibid., 10. 248 Ibid., 9.

293 Jalal Toufic is a thinker and a mortal to death. He of the DAAD. a guest in 2011 of the Artists-in-Berlin Program (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); and he was (Whitechapel Gallery …) and “Six Lines of Flight” Documenta 13, “Art in the Auditorium III” Sharjah Biennial 11, the Shanghai 9th Biennale, com. He was most recently a participant in the PDF files from his website: http://www.jalaltoufic. Forthcoming Books, are available for download as his books, most of which were published by before dying in 1989 in Evanston, Illinois. Many of was born in 1962 in Beirut or Baghdad and died

295 Jalal Toufic Forthcoming (Second edition) 296 from the author’s website: www.jalaltoufic.com. This book is available for download free of charge (as a PDF) www.sternberg-press.com D-10243 Berlin Karl-Marx-Allee 78 Caroline Schneider Sternberg Press www.e-flux.com/journal For further information, contact [email protected]. Kloepfer-Ramsey-Kwon Design Max Bach, Kaye Cain-Nielsen, Rachel Ichniowski Copyediting and proofreading Kaye Cain-Nielsen, Mariana Silva Managing editors Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle Series editors Sternberg Press Publisher part in any form. reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in © 2014 Jalal Toufic, e-flux, Inc., Sternberg Press. All rights ISBN 978-3-95679-055-3 First edition published in 2000 by Atelos. Second edition Forthcoming Jalal Toufic

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