Lebensklugheit, or Musing on Herzog — Hair Shirt Chronicles

The poet must not avert his eyes.

There is quiddity run amuck in the work of Werner and the world views it at various times encapsulates. Like an undulating bass line from a Portishead song, or a squiggle from the erudite Virginian Mr. Twombly.

Ask forgiveness, but acknowledge also that not everything that is permitted stands on all fours with what the “ought” contains. I can do it doesn’t mean I should. Exceptions include eating a shoe and walking across a country on a pilgrimage with the faith that she will stay alive for at least as long as it takes for you to arrive at her side. So faith can be medicine. Or sustenance.

I can imagine that a long still shot can be a philosophical statement, even if I can’t quite seem to get captured in that conceptual netting. Slipping through, though, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it. When Werner speaks of the horror, or fire, or survival in the face of epistemic collapse - or take pick of whichever epic, grand subject most moves you - it doesn’t take the needle from the record. That too is an article of faith, not so much on display as enacted in time. Medicine, sustenance, and being able to attain meaning where others, uttering the same words and thinking themselves as having ascended to the same intent, falter and fall short.