Your Desk is Your Head: The Inner Sanctum {Loren Goodman}

October 20, 2009

Your Desk is Your Head: The Inner Sanctum {Loren Goodman}

SEOUL, Korea, October 19 --

From time to time these words from Sonny Mishra come to mind.

“The nature of prose is to perish…”

Looking for these words of Paul Valery, I find others:

“Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to”

and others:

“At times I think and at times I am.”

Pirooz says something that strikes home: strike out and there’s no home run. Then he says this: “Your desk is your head.” Or “Your room is your mind.” I forget. We spend the majority of baseball practice stealing home.

Which suits you best?

A desk of one’s own.

A desk with a view.

This desk enwraps me; love requited, passion attained. But I am conscious of a desk more mysterious than this.

When you ask me to speak about women and poetry I sit down on the banks of a river and begin to wonder what words mean. If my desk is my head, what are my feet? This room has a mind of its own.

What is this?

“Shah + oo + uh + tah + or” = Shower Towel.

I’m proud of my modest Korean language skills.

And so begins Jongno Fall Cleaning, 2009: EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Flight to Japan is delayed an hour, so I eat grilled mackerel and get a foot massage. Good combo. Note to self: next time try the grilled feet & mackerel massage. Feels nice to get the legs all lubed up, lying back, towel over eyes (tall Texan next to me: “don’t y’all have any woman massagers?”). Masseuse stabs toes and soles, scraping down the arches. “Too hard!” Masseuse responds: “It is painful for everyone. No pain, no gain.” Masseuse jabs tip of big toe, other foot-parts in succession: “This is your brain… your brain is ok… this is your stomach… your stomach is not so good… this is your liver… this is your right shoulder—a little stiff… this is your right neck… are you under stress?” It makes sense. As he pinpoints body parts through the other foot, I ask for the map: “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?”

Here’s to Feng Shui Reflexology!

If a desk is a mind, then I’ve come to mine. Time to start dig-drillin’!

Let’s see what we uncover:

Stack Cross-Section (projected from seismic & geothermal readings)

Even the crust is rich: an essay from graduate student Gu Jaun, awaiting comments, accompanied by the following note: “Recently I read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I got a better understanding on how original short story and two "Fly" films partly come from Stevenson's novel (Especially on the notion of body as a suit of clothes: "fleshly vestment" and "the veil of flesh").”

Anyone know of any other literary antecedents?

Black gold: Tao's book. Thar she blows! It’s a literal geyser.

Map of Suidobashi in Tokyo. Paleontologists take note: there's a Uni-Qlo in La Qua, but no fresh fruit.

Just past the upper mantle--a remarkable find! Lovin' it. Thanks to "The Razor" (Stuart), ten signed copies of Dead Cars in Managua have made their way to Seoul; we'll be using them in class soon.