Hotel register 2014.004
The mode is high-eighties tropes fighting each other in full de Man style, but as with high-eighties drum machines, they can be turned to good ends. I learned quite a lot about the Odes (or Classic of Poetry), and the chosen translations are, at least, impeccable English poems.
Observe the rat, it has its skin;
A man without manners,
A man without manners,
Why doesn't he die right away?
Or else:
The pine boat lurches
On the current's flow.
I am wide awake
As with a secret pain.
Not that I lack wine
To divert myself with.
My mind is not a mirror:
It does not assimilate.
True, I have brothers,
But I cannot rely on them.
[...]
My mind is not a stone:
You cannot roll it about.
My mind is not a mat:
You cannot roll it up.
My demeanor has been strict:
You cannot take exception to it.
The Hegel citations about bones being the dead core of animal life confirm Hegel's status as a stoner who stayed up too late.
