Conqueror Worm Stanza The Third

 It gets so much crazier

That motley drama — oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased forevermore,

By a crowd that seize it not

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

A lot happening here. The motley drama? Must be all the commotion from the second stanza, right? The invisible wo! 

I had this thought later too, what makes wo invisible? Isn't it always invisible? I guess you could see it in someone's expression. I don't know. Also very eldritch. Like you're just afflicted by pure maddening horror or something.

Anyway, I love how Poe gets really dramatic in these first two lines. He goes into this aside to the reader/audience, "oh, be sure!" And then I italicize all these lines but in the text only the word shall is italicized. So he's really selling it. I'll be honest though I don't really know what he's talking about. What was I going to forget again? The wo? It seems like an inside joke that I don't get.

And then he gets real abstract

With its Phantom chased forevermore,

by a crowd that seize it not

So like, the crowd is chasing the Phantom of this motley drama/wo? I think what he's saying is that mankind is stuck in this loop of like agitation and misery and it's almost like this trauma cycle that keeps repeating but no one really understands what's happening (?) That's how I interpret chasing the Phantom but not seizing it. This unending cycle of conflict and drama that doesn't resolve to anything. It just goes around and around. Which is reflected in the next lines

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

It's rotten to the core, essentially. This cycle doesn't go anywhere or lead to anything but back to itself.  

And much of Madness and more of Sin,

and Horror the soul of the plot.

Again, like before, Poe can't stress enough how this stuff like madness and sin and horror are at the very basic level of existence. I love it. He's just doing so much. Did he really think this? The fun thing about Poe though is that he kind of makes it sexy. He's a showman about it. 

Like he's not saying all this stuff in sort of a gritty realistic way that would actually make you reflect on the capacity for cruelty in the average human heart. Or how society makes us uncaring and blind to actual tragedy and horror. I think that kind of mundane horror and wretchedness underpins this poem but that's not what Poe is talking about here. He's talking about a kind of grand cosmic horror and misery and it's kind of like he's dishing gossip

--oh! be sure-- it SHALL not be forgot.

With the veils drowned in tears. And the bewings and the bedights. I mean tis an absolute gala night!

RIP Edgar Allan Poe. You would've loved My Chemical Romance.

But I really do think Poe is a compelling writer. He's got this haunting relentless energy that's undeniable and the man just knows how to turn a phrase.

The Conqueror Worm part 3, Stanza Two

 Now that we're a bit more acquainted with the language and the goings-ons of the poem, we'll try to absorb larger chunks. Here's the full 8 lines of the second stanza:

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly —

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast shadowy things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!

A lot going on here. Maybe we bit off more than we can chew. But let's try! So first up we got MIMES.

And we learn that the mimes are in the form of God on high. So that's quite the contrast, right? The Almighty is represented by these kind of lowly non-speaking characters. And, on top of that, they mutter and mumble low (note the contrast with God on high). So it's just some guys standing around and mumbling. But we also learn they hither and thither fly. They're running around making noises.

The next line tells us that these characters, again--the form of God on high-- are mere puppets who come and go at bidding of vast shadowy things.

So I'm getting some major Eldritch horror vibes. Like the earthly God/Gods that humans know are several tiers below these kinds of cosmic gods that live beyond the Universe. Like Azathoth and the Great Old Ones. Poe predated all that by a fair amount so maybe I'm in the wrong ballpark but what are these vast shadowy things?

They shift the scenery to and fro and flapping from out their Condor wings-- the California Condor has the largest wingspan of any bird in North America (nearly 10 feet!). So these massive dark wings which are kind of hard to imagine in the scene. Like--are they on the edge of the stage? Do they encompass the stage? I can't really see it but maybe that's on purpose because the flapping of the wings spreads

INVISIBLE WO!

And invisible wo seems important here because it's the first time Poe breaks the rhythm of the lines. This feels very punctuated. If I had to guess I'd say that the poem is saying that this shadowy controlling force produces misery. Like that's the purpose and function of this animating force that commands the Gods like puppets. 

He's a sad guy, this Poe. I mean he's really not a happy fella. If you thought the band was sad, just what til you see what they've got God doing! He's had to invent a tier beyond the unknowable and beyond the beyond to fully articulate how much pain and suffering is at the center of existence. Maybe. This is the play of hopes and fears. Anyway we'll leave it there for now. Things are going to get crazier.

The Conqueror Worm part 2

 To review, sad celebration occurring. Vaguely mystical and apocalyptic.

Lo! ’tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years —

A mystic throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils and drowned in tears,

Then we get, completing the thought, 

Sit in a theatre to see

A play of hopes and fears,

The most straightforward line we've read so far. Now we know where we are and what's about to happen. Then we get the last two lines of the stanza,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

There's music playing in a kind of stuttering, halting, unsteady way. The last line, "the music of the spheres" is a line I first heard said by Patton Oswalt when he was talking about this class he had to take at William and Mary called "Physics for Poets". 

"Put on some pantaloons and a scarf and take a bracing shot of absinthe and skip on down through a field of gilly-flowers to the Physics department, where we'll teach you about the music of the spheres!"

Music of the spheres refers to this idea found in Pythagoreanism that in the same way that different strings produce different notes based on their length and gauge or whatever, the planets also produce different hums or frequencies based on their orbits. 

All that to say, things are cosmically bad and unstable at the present moment in the Conqueror Worm. 

I just love how over the top ol' Eddie Poe is. 'Drowned in tears'. You think he really liked the macabre or was that just the water he was swimming in? 

'Hey guys, here's another regular poem. 'Even the band is about to die.'

It's like that song, Ballroom Blitz. 

reflection of climbing training with little importance beyond my own reference

 Conqueror Worm part 2 tonight! glad you liked it crab!

My numbers for pulling on a 20mm edge have been lower than they've been in the past and at first I thought it was because I was just climbing more but I think they might have been higher last year because I was doing more heavy barbell work with weightlifting. I was doing a little bit of deadlifting and also heavy weighted pull-ups and I didn't think that that would translate much to grip strength because I was already climbing but maybe there was something to it. I'd assumed that any work done with a bar or on a big hold wouldn't really translate to crimps because it's not specific enough. I'm not sure what a good analogy would be. Maybe it's like thinking you shouldn't train on a track for cross country because obviously you can go faster on a track but you can't go that fast on a hilly grass cross country cross so why bother. 

Absolute speed built on a track obviously carries over to a cross country course. Yeah you'll slow down but so will everyone else and you'll still most likely be faster with specific training built in. Same thing with hanging on a bar and pulling on a small edge. I guess I thought it would look silly to hang on a bar with heavy weight when everyone else trains on small edges. But that's why I go to the gym in the middle of the day when no one is there. Hehehe.

Oh but part of the reason I had the insight was because over the weekend I did heavy weight pull-ups and then I went to pull on block with the 20mm weight and it felt way lighter than usual. That made me think there was something to it.

So now my new warm-up routine consists of heavy one arm hangs for 20s on the bar or the hangboard jugs and then I'm also trying out doing drops on the rungs of the campus board. So like I'll start on the third rung on the jugs and then drop down to the first rung and then hop my hands back up to the third and repeat. Or today I stuck the drop from the 4th rung to the 1st rung. I've been seeing a lot of success with depth drops and depth jumps to improve my jumping and sprinting and it seems like fast eccentric loading could help with grip strength as well. Based on Jay Schroeder's methods as seen in Freak of Training.

The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allen Poe

 In honor of the month of October, the month of my anti-birthday, my second and actually my first favorite month, I'll be discussing the poem The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allen Poe.

https://poemuseum.org/the-conqueror-worm/

You can read it yourself here. I'll summarize as best I can.

Actually, there's a lot going on. Maybe over the course of the entire month of October I will do a line by line analysis of Poe's Worm poem.

It starts with the line:

Lo! 'tis a gala night

So right off the bat we've got the exclamation 'Lo!' Which is an old expression meaning 'Look!' or 'Behold!'

Pay attention! Edgar is telling you. AH! he says.

'Tis a gala night.

He's saying it's a festive, celebratory night. A special occasion. In other words,

HEY LOOK EVERYBODY THEY'RE THROWING A PARTY!

Then he says

Within the lonesome latter years--

So he's like subverting the first line a little bit. It's a special occasion but it's also lonesome somehow. And 'latter years' I feel like refers to the end of something. You might imagine some ghost town or soon-to-be ghost town. Like how in Salt Lake City the lake is evaporating and it's releasing all these heavy metals and junk so it will probably eventually be uninhabitable. That's something my sister told me once. But anyway we've got this celebration of sorts in this place and time where things are on their way out, so to speak. A last hurrah, perhaps!

Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years--

A mystic throng, bewinged, bedight

in veils and drowned in tears,

Here's one thing that always gets me about this kind of analysis, I imagine ol' Edgar Allan Poe wanted to be understood in real time, ya know? Like he's speaking in a poetic mode obviously but I don't think his intention was for people to have to look up these words. I don't know. And like, I can make enough sense of the words to know what's going on but to really understand it and make sure I'm not missing something, I gotta look up a lot of this stuff. 

Anyway this group of people is a mystic throng-- so it's like some sort of magical crowd. Or an gathering of people with esoteric knowledge. A mystic throng is just a great phrase, in my opinion. Then he says they are 'bewinged, bedight'. He's suggesting they're wearing wings some sense and then he says they're dressed in veils and drowned in tears.  

I'm not exactly sure what he's saying this crowd looks like. It seems like it's supernatural in some way and they're also sad. Deeply sad. Mournful veil sad. Drowned in tears, even. Boo-hooing. Absolute boo-hooery. What are they so sad about? Their society collapsing? But it's a party.

And that's where we'll leave it for tonight. Tune in tomorrow. To learn the next 4 lines that make up the second half of the first stanza. Weird stuff going on.

something I think about a lot and have talked about before but will talk about again

 I was far from great at running but I was/am pretty good. One of my favorite parts of college was going to the small running club of people who liked to run hard/fast and knowing I was good. I really enjoyed that and it was a big part of my identity. I so badly want to be that person with climbing. I see those people at the gym. I really want to be that person. 

I think I'm doing the things that can get me there and I know I'm getting better. It's just going to take time.

That's all.

response to crab's response to my reaction to playing a video game again

 Go read his response first or don't and just read this and try to fill in the gaps yourself. Was going to comment this and then figured it deserved a post.

Very good points and I really appreciate your response. This was a raw first impression and after a couple days my attitude has definitely shifted a bit. I agree that it is good to have things to look forward to. In hindsight, my reaction feels like a bit much but it really did hit me hard in the moment. And I think you're very much correct that that feeling is a special thing. I suppose I was skeptical of it because it felt so overwhelming. Happy to report that my life has not fallen apart even as I continue playing the game. Some other observations

- I have this feeling between my eyes somewhere and I think I'm staring at the screen too intently so that's probably something to watch out for.

-One vivid memory I have from my early childhood, especially between like 8 and 12 or so, was having this really intense inner monologue and imagination. I feel like I spent a lot of free time just being outside and watching my thoughts play like a movie or a show. I also remember getting older and feeling like I lost that and it's something I miss. I'll try sometimes and it just doesn't happen. Anyway, I feel like something about the game has turned that part of my brain on again. Maybe it's the dopamine. It's not like a craving to play the game and it's kind of nebulous but something is activated that wasn't before and it's not a bad thing.

One thing I've learned is that I really value being regulated and I think that's good but it also limits the kinds of experiences I have and seek out.