{"id":36,"date":"2021-05-24T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T14:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/?p=36"},"modified":"2023-02-26T22:25:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T22:25:33","slug":"muffled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/24\/muffled\/","title":{"rendered":"muffled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hammersh\u00f8i (1864-1916).\u00a0Interior, Strandgade<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Ai is hosted at a member of the Orgota elite, with his room warmly \u201c\u2026piled with furs, the rugs, drapes, wrappings, mufflings\u201d. What seemed designed to ensure his comfort becomes, after a brief conversation with Therem Harth, \u201cstuffy and cloddish\u201d. Who might want to\u00a0muffle<\/em>\u00a0Ai?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The above oil painting by the Danish painter Hammersh\u00f8i reminds me of this tension between apparent warmth, and emptiness of loneliness. While I don\u2019t get a sense of foreboding from Hammersh\u00f8i\u2019s room, I do sense a contrast between soft colors and sharp lines, muted light from outside and closed, silent doors. Our envoy seems to be slowly leading himself into a trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gathered Orgoreyn elite are feasting on blackfish, eggs, breadapple. It\u2019s like watching a play, absorbing this formal dinner among the aristocracy, the conversations and insinuations. The envoy shows off his ship, or at least, hints at the idea of his ship. The sky is watching. The ansible is listening. No one seems quite at ease at the party, this ain\u2019t fun. And the line that really tickled my inner aya, when Ai describes the curious un-solid quality of his feastmates: \u201c\u2026as if they did not cast shadows.\u201d aya loves shadows, ever since I studied cognitive science in college. One of my professors, philosopher Dr. Roberto Casati, pointed out to us the difficulty Western art has had in shadow depiction. Shadows are metaphysically bizarre. (I\u2019ll have to catch up on the topic, this seems like a good start: Paulo E. Santos, Roberto Casati & Patrick Cavanagh (2018)\u00a0Perception, cognition and reasoning about shadows<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting off the track, off the rails. Back to the book. Write more frequently. The book is due back to the NYPL, must renew. Miss you,\u00a0Meredith<\/a>. Seeing you in person reminded me how strange to see a friend just once a year. Let\u2019s pay a visit to Arshile Gorky\u2019s former studio near Union Square, light a candle, say a Kharhidish prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Ai is hosted at a member of the Orgota elite, with his room warmly \u201c\u2026piled with furs, the rugs, drapes, wrappings, mufflings\u201d. What seemed designed to ensure his comfort becomes, after a brief conversation with Therem Harth, \u201cstuffy and cloddish\u201d. Who might want to\u00a0muffle\u00a0Ai? The above oil painting by the Danish painter Hammersh\u00f8i reminds… Continue reading muffled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-club","tag-ursulaleguin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}