"Those who are truly contemporary, who truly belong to their time, are those who neither perfectly coincide with it nor adjust themselves to its demands. They are thus in this sense irrelevant. But precisely because of this condition, precisely through this disconnection and this anachronism, they are more capable than others of perceiving and grasping their own time." (40)
In any case, whatever the reason may be, the "now," the kairos of fashion is ungraspable: the phrase, 'I am in this instant in fashion" is contradictory, because the moment in which the subject pronounces it, he is already out of fashion. So being in fashion, like contemporariness, entails a certain "ease," a certain quality of being out-iof-phase or out-of-date, in which one's relevance includes within itself a small part of what lies outside of itself, a shade of demode, of being out of fashion." (49)
"Historians of literature and of art know that there is a secret affinity between the archaic and the modern, not so much because the archaic forms seem to exercise a particular charm on the present, but rather because the key to the modern is hidden in the immemorial and the prehistoric. Thus, the ancient world in its decline turns to the primordial so as to rediscover itself. The avant-garde, which has lost itself overtime, also pursues the primitive and the archaic. It is in this sense that one can say that the entry point to the present necessarily takes the form of an archaeology an archaeology that does not, however, regress to a historical past, but returns to that part within the present that we are absolutely incapable of living." (51)
The above quotes are some of the points I found most salient about Giorgio Agamben's essay on the contemporary.
I can say with confidence that reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude for the first time was one of the most profound artistic experiences of my life. I was riding home one day on the 66 bus from Port Authority to my mother's apartment in Montclair, New Jersey, and somewhere along the polluted highway, sitting on a stained bus seat, I had what someone who appreciates the movie Waking Life might call a "holy moment." The profundity of Marquez's words stunned me, hitting me squarely across time and space and language-- simply and matter of factly and perfectly barreling through these barriers which so many other artists try to transcend, and fail at. I got off the bus a few blocks from my mother's home, unlocked the front door, and still shell-shocked, sat down at the kitchen counter in front of my mother, who was cooking dinner. "I think I'm going to have to be an artist," I think I said. My mother nodded and told me to eat.
It's always been hard for me to explain to people why this novel has had such a huge impact on me. I've read the 400+ page book three times in English and once in Spanish so far. One of my favorite aspects of the work is the masterful use of rhythm that Garcia uses to tell a tale that begins in primordial times (when river stones were as big as dinosaur eggs; when the world was so new that at times people still had to gesture at objects in order to indicate those things for which humans had not yet thought up names for) all the way to the modern, of decade-long rainstorms and strange white men looking to plant some banana trees. The irreverent way with which Garcia ties the ends of time together to create a wheel, and the casual voice with each he describes impossible moments-- a child born so beautiful that her very smell drives men to suicide, an ancient jungle in which a wooden battle ship rests, covered in bloody flowers and golden salamanders, blanketing all those who come near in a suffocatingly inexplicable sadness-- earned him the title of the father of magical realism. When interviewed about the ingenuity with which he wove the magical and the real, the ancient and the modern, he replied simply that these were the ways his grandmother always told family stories to him. This to me embodies the exact anachronistic, "out-of-fashion"-ness that makes an art "in" according to Agamben.
There are many ways in which I hope that my work and writing pays homage to or is noticeably influenced by the writer, but more important to me, I feel that I've found a contemporary because even beyond my own creative output and art and what-have-you, I feel that I've found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who affirms many of my own beliefs and life experiences with an old voice. The connection I feel to Marquez each time I pore over his work is one I think is best described by Carl Sagan when he said:
“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”
In any case, whatever the reason may be, the "now," the kairos of fashion is ungraspable: the phrase, 'I am in this instant in fashion" is contradictory, because the moment in which the subject pronounces it, he is already out of fashion. So being in fashion, like contemporariness, entails a certain "ease," a certain quality of being out-iof-phase or out-of-date, in which one's relevance includes within itself a small part of what lies outside of itself, a shade of demode, of being out of fashion." (49)
"Historians of literature and of art know that there is a secret affinity between the archaic and the modern, not so much because the archaic forms seem to exercise a particular charm on the present, but rather because the key to the modern is hidden in the immemorial and the prehistoric. Thus, the ancient world in its decline turns to the primordial so as to rediscover itself. The avant-garde, which has lost itself overtime, also pursues the primitive and the archaic. It is in this sense that one can say that the entry point to the present necessarily takes the form of an archaeology an archaeology that does not, however, regress to a historical past, but returns to that part within the present that we are absolutely incapable of living." (51)
The above quotes are some of the points I found most salient about Giorgio Agamben's essay on the contemporary.
I can say with confidence that reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude for the first time was one of the most profound artistic experiences of my life. I was riding home one day on the 66 bus from Port Authority to my mother's apartment in Montclair, New Jersey, and somewhere along the polluted highway, sitting on a stained bus seat, I had what someone who appreciates the movie Waking Life might call a "holy moment." The profundity of Marquez's words stunned me, hitting me squarely across time and space and language-- simply and matter of factly and perfectly barreling through these barriers which so many other artists try to transcend, and fail at. I got off the bus a few blocks from my mother's home, unlocked the front door, and still shell-shocked, sat down at the kitchen counter in front of my mother, who was cooking dinner. "I think I'm going to have to be an artist," I think I said. My mother nodded and told me to eat.
It's always been hard for me to explain to people why this novel has had such a huge impact on me. I've read the 400+ page book three times in English and once in Spanish so far. One of my favorite aspects of the work is the masterful use of rhythm that Garcia uses to tell a tale that begins in primordial times (when river stones were as big as dinosaur eggs; when the world was so new that at times people still had to gesture at objects in order to indicate those things for which humans had not yet thought up names for) all the way to the modern, of decade-long rainstorms and strange white men looking to plant some banana trees. The irreverent way with which Garcia ties the ends of time together to create a wheel, and the casual voice with each he describes impossible moments-- a child born so beautiful that her very smell drives men to suicide, an ancient jungle in which a wooden battle ship rests, covered in bloody flowers and golden salamanders, blanketing all those who come near in a suffocatingly inexplicable sadness-- earned him the title of the father of magical realism. When interviewed about the ingenuity with which he wove the magical and the real, the ancient and the modern, he replied simply that these were the ways his grandmother always told family stories to him. This to me embodies the exact anachronistic, "out-of-fashion"-ness that makes an art "in" according to Agamben.
There are many ways in which I hope that my work and writing pays homage to or is noticeably influenced by the writer, but more important to me, I feel that I've found a contemporary because even beyond my own creative output and art and what-have-you, I feel that I've found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who affirms many of my own beliefs and life experiences with an old voice. The connection I feel to Marquez each time I pore over his work is one I think is best described by Carl Sagan when he said:
“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”
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