Gershon Hepner
(1938 - )
(1938 - )
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - aha moment
The retina sees green and yellow patches,
but eyes defeat the camouflage;
a lion in the foliage
is recognized, as visual cortex matches
the picture's pattern with a predator,
and tells the limbic system we,
have got to save our lives and flee,
our brain the Aha moment editor.
What eyes find most confusing brains can read.
They recognize the bottom line,
and see intelligent design,
decoding cryptic signals that mislead
by recognizing glimpses of gestalt,
enabling us to see beyond
all apparitions and respond.
with aha to the random and occult.
V. S. Ramachandran was the BBC's Reith lecturer in 2003 and describes what he calls an AHA moment
(http: //www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lectures.shtml) :
Vision evolved mainly to discover objects and to defeat camouflage. You don't realize this when you look around you and you see clearly defined objects. But imagine your primate ancestors scurrying up in the treetops trying to detect a lion seen behind fluttering green foliage. What you get inside the eyeball on the retina is just a bunch of yellow lion fragments obscured by all the leaves. But the brain says - so to speak - 'What's the likelihood that all these different yellow fragments are exactly the same yellow simply by chance? Zero. They must all belong to one object, so let me link them together, glue them together. Oh my God, it's a lion - let me out of here! ' And as soon as you glue them together, a signal gets sent to the limbic system saying: 'AHA, there's something object-like, pay attention here'. So there's an arousal, and an attention which then titillates the limbic system, and you pay attention and you dodge the lion.
And such 'AHAs' are created, I maintain, at every stage in the visual hierarchy as partial object-like entities are discovered that draw your interest and attention. What the artist tries to do is to generate as many of these 'AHA' signals in as many visual areas as possible by more optimally exciting these areas with his paintings or sculptures than you could achieve with natural visual scenes or realistic images. Not a bad definition of art if you think about it.
3/31/06,5/15/07
but eyes defeat the camouflage;
a lion in the foliage
is recognized, as visual cortex matches
the picture's pattern with a predator,
and tells the limbic system we,
have got to save our lives and flee,
our brain the Aha moment editor.
What eyes find most confusing brains can read.
They recognize the bottom line,
and see intelligent design,
decoding cryptic signals that mislead
by recognizing glimpses of gestalt,
enabling us to see beyond
all apparitions and respond.
with aha to the random and occult.
V. S. Ramachandran was the BBC's Reith lecturer in 2003 and describes what he calls an AHA moment
(http: //www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lectures.shtml) :
Vision evolved mainly to discover objects and to defeat camouflage. You don't realize this when you look around you and you see clearly defined objects. But imagine your primate ancestors scurrying up in the treetops trying to detect a lion seen behind fluttering green foliage. What you get inside the eyeball on the retina is just a bunch of yellow lion fragments obscured by all the leaves. But the brain says - so to speak - 'What's the likelihood that all these different yellow fragments are exactly the same yellow simply by chance? Zero. They must all belong to one object, so let me link them together, glue them together. Oh my God, it's a lion - let me out of here! ' And as soon as you glue them together, a signal gets sent to the limbic system saying: 'AHA, there's something object-like, pay attention here'. So there's an arousal, and an attention which then titillates the limbic system, and you pay attention and you dodge the lion.
And such 'AHAs' are created, I maintain, at every stage in the visual hierarchy as partial object-like entities are discovered that draw your interest and attention. What the artist tries to do is to generate as many of these 'AHA' signals in as many visual areas as possible by more optimally exciting these areas with his paintings or sculptures than you could achieve with natural visual scenes or realistic images. Not a bad definition of art if you think about it.
3/31/06,5/15/07
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - ailing
Although life ails much faster than all art,
words often can allay
its failures which, though fouler than a fart,
may cause far less dismay.
Margalit Fox writes an obituary on Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and founder of the mid-20th-century American conservative movement Peter Viereck in the NYT, May 19,2006:
As a poet, Professor Viereck drew mixed, sometimes perplexed, reviews. His work combined lyrical and pastoral preoccupations with a parodic wit that some critics found delightful and others found strained. Here is the opening of 'To a Sinister Potato, ' which sends up Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn':
O vast earth-apple, waiting to be fried.
Of all life's starers the most many-eyed.
What furtive purpose hatched you long ago
In Indiana or in Idaho?
But he was also known for serious verse, notably 'Archer in the Marrow' (Norton,1987) , a book-length cycle that took 20 years to complete. In 1995, Professor Viereck published 'Tide and Continuities: Last and First Poems,1995-1938' (University of Arkansas) . Much of the collection dealt with the ravages of time:
Though life ails just a day faster than art allays,
Though age rots art before it can learn to sing true,
Sing anyhow. Continue.
5/19/06
words often can allay
its failures which, though fouler than a fart,
may cause far less dismay.
Margalit Fox writes an obituary on Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and founder of the mid-20th-century American conservative movement Peter Viereck in the NYT, May 19,2006:
As a poet, Professor Viereck drew mixed, sometimes perplexed, reviews. His work combined lyrical and pastoral preoccupations with a parodic wit that some critics found delightful and others found strained. Here is the opening of 'To a Sinister Potato, ' which sends up Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn':
O vast earth-apple, waiting to be fried.
Of all life's starers the most many-eyed.
What furtive purpose hatched you long ago
In Indiana or in Idaho?
But he was also known for serious verse, notably 'Archer in the Marrow' (Norton,1987) , a book-length cycle that took 20 years to complete. In 1995, Professor Viereck published 'Tide and Continuities: Last and First Poems,1995-1938' (University of Arkansas) . Much of the collection dealt with the ravages of time:
Though life ails just a day faster than art allays,
Though age rots art before it can learn to sing true,
Sing anyhow. Continue.
5/19/06
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - aimez-vous brahms?
Asked what he did yesterday,
Johannes Brahms replied:
"In the morning I made hay,
and put a note inside
my symphony, an eighth it was,
but then I had a doubt,
and checking after noon for flaws
I took the eighth note out."
3/3/06
Johannes Brahms replied:
"In the morning I made hay,
and put a note inside
my symphony, an eighth it was,
but then I had a doubt,
and checking after noon for flaws
I took the eighth note out."
3/3/06
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - al-andalus
Al-Andalus not only proves
two cultures, Jewish and Islam,
can coexist-whatever moves
the branch that came from Abraham
can move the branch from Ibrahim-
but that this made them share the fate
of exile, victims of the whim
of men who wished to expurgate,
as from a book, all people in
the land who thought God had no son.
Despite their common origin,
convivienca was undone
exiled from Andalus, and now
its memory is mere mirage,
while to a different God they bow,
one by a Wall, one on a Haj.
Gabriel Josipovici reviews Peter Cole's book The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain ("Found in Spain, " TLS, November 23,2007) . Josipovici quotes from several poems, and concludes his review with an explanation of the book's title:
Peter Cole and Gabriel Levin both live in Jerusalem and are joint editors of the flourishing little press called Ibis Editions, which has its aim to bring to the English-speaking reader the best literary work coming out of the Middle East, be it in Hebrew, Arabic, Turksih, French, or English. The title of Cole's anthology is taken from a remark by the leading Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: "Andalus%u2026might have been here or there, or anywhere%u2026A meeting place of strangers in the project of building human culture..It is not only that there was a Jewish-Muslim co-existence, but that the fates of the two people were similar%u2026Al-Andalus for me is the realization of the dream of the poem." One need not be a starry-eyed idealist to say: Hear, hear!
12/3/07
two cultures, Jewish and Islam,
can coexist-whatever moves
the branch that came from Abraham
can move the branch from Ibrahim-
but that this made them share the fate
of exile, victims of the whim
of men who wished to expurgate,
as from a book, all people in
the land who thought God had no son.
Despite their common origin,
convivienca was undone
exiled from Andalus, and now
its memory is mere mirage,
while to a different God they bow,
one by a Wall, one on a Haj.
Gabriel Josipovici reviews Peter Cole's book The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain ("Found in Spain, " TLS, November 23,2007) . Josipovici quotes from several poems, and concludes his review with an explanation of the book's title:
Peter Cole and Gabriel Levin both live in Jerusalem and are joint editors of the flourishing little press called Ibis Editions, which has its aim to bring to the English-speaking reader the best literary work coming out of the Middle East, be it in Hebrew, Arabic, Turksih, French, or English. The title of Cole's anthology is taken from a remark by the leading Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: "Andalus%u2026might have been here or there, or anywhere%u2026A meeting place of strangers in the project of building human culture..It is not only that there was a Jewish-Muslim co-existence, but that the fates of the two people were similar%u2026Al-Andalus for me is the realization of the dream of the poem." One need not be a starry-eyed idealist to say: Hear, hear!
12/3/07
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - alarmed
Insecure, and though alert, alarmed,
the infidels no longer can ignore
the war cries of believers who have harmed
the fabric of society. At war
with all who don't believe in Allah, they
attack the infidels who ride a bus,
and though they have the time five times a day
to pray, they say there's nothing to discuss,
because their war is really not about
ideas, oppression, economics, race:
it is an intifada against doubt
which, though unwilling, infidels now face.
the infidels no longer can ignore
the war cries of believers who have harmed
the fabric of society. At war
with all who don't believe in Allah, they
attack the infidels who ride a bus,
and though they have the time five times a day
to pray, they say there's nothing to discuss,
because their war is really not about
ideas, oppression, economics, race:
it is an intifada against doubt
which, though unwilling, infidels now face.
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - alibis
The evening should not be judge of day,
and day should not become the judge of night;
don't emphasize the end when you replay
events whose alibis are quite airtight.
Colm Tóibin writes about Tennessee Williams's Notebooks, edited by Margaret Bradham, in the NYR, December 20,2007 ("The Shadow of Rose") :
The entries we have begin when Williams was twenty-five and living with his family, struggling under considerable pressures to find a voice as a poet, short-story writer, and playwright. These pleasures might explain the tone of slef-obsession, self-pity, and despair. The entries seem to have been written at night and he himself became alert to their morbid self-indulgence, quoting Nietzsche: "Do not let the evening be the judge of the day."
12/16/07
and day should not become the judge of night;
don't emphasize the end when you replay
events whose alibis are quite airtight.
Colm Tóibin writes about Tennessee Williams's Notebooks, edited by Margaret Bradham, in the NYR, December 20,2007 ("The Shadow of Rose") :
The entries we have begin when Williams was twenty-five and living with his family, struggling under considerable pressures to find a voice as a poet, short-story writer, and playwright. These pleasures might explain the tone of slef-obsession, self-pity, and despair. The entries seem to have been written at night and he himself became alert to their morbid self-indulgence, quoting Nietzsche: "Do not let the evening be the judge of the day."
12/16/07
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - alien
The alien, inconceivable,
is often more believable,
than those whose blood is mixed with soil,
and may become the fluent foil
of those who're proud they were conceived
but can't speak words that are believed
outside the circle that is squared
by alien people who have dared
to think that it's achievable
to reach the inconceivable.
Christopher Hitchens, writing about Saul Bellow in the WSJ on September 25,2005 ("For he's a jolly good Bellow") writes:
When I first wrote about Bellow's undoubted masterpiece, The Adventures of Augie March, I began by citing Henry James's shock at what he found after returning to New York. In The American Scene, published in 1907 and written in part in the third person, he expressed revulsion at having 'to share the sanctity of his American consciousness, the intimacy of his American patriotism, with the inconceivable alien.' James didn't much like seeing all those Scandinavians and Italians, but there is no doubt which new group he felt most uneasy about. On the Lower East Side, he detected 'the hard glitter of Israel.' In a place rather oddly named the Cafe Royale, a center of Yiddish-speaking authors and actors, he found himself in one of the 'torture rooms of the living idiom.' He asked himself: 'Who can ever tell, in any conditions, what the genius of Israel may, or may not, really be `up to'? '
9/25/05
is often more believable,
than those whose blood is mixed with soil,
and may become the fluent foil
of those who're proud they were conceived
but can't speak words that are believed
outside the circle that is squared
by alien people who have dared
to think that it's achievable
to reach the inconceivable.
Christopher Hitchens, writing about Saul Bellow in the WSJ on September 25,2005 ("For he's a jolly good Bellow") writes:
When I first wrote about Bellow's undoubted masterpiece, The Adventures of Augie March, I began by citing Henry James's shock at what he found after returning to New York. In The American Scene, published in 1907 and written in part in the third person, he expressed revulsion at having 'to share the sanctity of his American consciousness, the intimacy of his American patriotism, with the inconceivable alien.' James didn't much like seeing all those Scandinavians and Italians, but there is no doubt which new group he felt most uneasy about. On the Lower East Side, he detected 'the hard glitter of Israel.' In a place rather oddly named the Cafe Royale, a center of Yiddish-speaking authors and actors, he found himself in one of the 'torture rooms of the living idiom.' He asked himself: 'Who can ever tell, in any conditions, what the genius of Israel may, or may not, really be `up to'? '
9/25/05
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - alienation
Umfrendung is the alienation
you'll find in plays of Brecht-it's German;
some feel it in a railway station,
and most do when they hear a sermon.
Creating distances between
yourself and those who read or hear you
provides you with a moral mien
deterring them from coming near you,
enabling you to speak your mind
despite the fact it may be feeble,
because it's clear your works are signed
as enfant who is most terrible.
Should it appear you're unconnected
emotionally you won't provoke
the people whom you have rejected
with irony disguised as joke.
Inspired by a review of the Brecht summer festival in Berlin (A. J Goldmann, 'Echt Brecht: A Festival in Berlin, ' WSJ, August 23,2006) :
Although Brecht shied away from it himself in later years, his technique of Verfremdung (alienation) continues to inspire and provoke. It is a tool to make the audience think critically about what it is watching on stage, but not to the exclusion of emotional attachment. 'The audience of a Brecht play is emotionally connected' before that connection is severed through emotional means.
Goldmann writes:
The director Peter Brook once said, 'Brecht is the key figure of our time, and all theater work today at some point starts or returns to his statements and achievements.' Brecht's dismantling of classical dramatic form is seen overtly in the work of Tony Kushner, whose ''Angels in America' has a very Brechtian structure, ' Prof. Weber says.
Although Brecht himself shied away from it in later years, his technique of 'Verfremdung' (alienation) continues to inspire and provoke. It is a tool to make an audience think critically about what it is watching on stage, but not to the exclusion of emotional attachment. 'The audience of a Brecht play is emotionally connected' before that connection is severed through ironic means, Prof. Weber says. Strategies such as hanging explanatory placards onstage and leaving stage machinery visible have inspired artists as varied as Trevor Nunn, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Wilson, Peter Handke and, more recently, the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. Despite this influence, Brecht's reputation in the West was for a long time tainted by his commitment to communism. Prof. Weber is glad for the greater embrace of Brecht's varied body of work since the end of the Cold War. 'His plays have been liberated, ' he says.
8/24/06
you'll find in plays of Brecht-it's German;
some feel it in a railway station,
and most do when they hear a sermon.
Creating distances between
yourself and those who read or hear you
provides you with a moral mien
deterring them from coming near you,
enabling you to speak your mind
despite the fact it may be feeble,
because it's clear your works are signed
as enfant who is most terrible.
Should it appear you're unconnected
emotionally you won't provoke
the people whom you have rejected
with irony disguised as joke.
Inspired by a review of the Brecht summer festival in Berlin (A. J Goldmann, 'Echt Brecht: A Festival in Berlin, ' WSJ, August 23,2006) :
Although Brecht shied away from it himself in later years, his technique of Verfremdung (alienation) continues to inspire and provoke. It is a tool to make the audience think critically about what it is watching on stage, but not to the exclusion of emotional attachment. 'The audience of a Brecht play is emotionally connected' before that connection is severed through emotional means.
Goldmann writes:
The director Peter Brook once said, 'Brecht is the key figure of our time, and all theater work today at some point starts or returns to his statements and achievements.' Brecht's dismantling of classical dramatic form is seen overtly in the work of Tony Kushner, whose ''Angels in America' has a very Brechtian structure, ' Prof. Weber says.
Although Brecht himself shied away from it in later years, his technique of 'Verfremdung' (alienation) continues to inspire and provoke. It is a tool to make an audience think critically about what it is watching on stage, but not to the exclusion of emotional attachment. 'The audience of a Brecht play is emotionally connected' before that connection is severed through ironic means, Prof. Weber says. Strategies such as hanging explanatory placards onstage and leaving stage machinery visible have inspired artists as varied as Trevor Nunn, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Wilson, Peter Handke and, more recently, the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. Despite this influence, Brecht's reputation in the West was for a long time tainted by his commitment to communism. Prof. Weber is glad for the greater embrace of Brecht's varied body of work since the end of the Cold War. 'His plays have been liberated, ' he says.
8/24/06
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - all my trials
All my trials, lord, soon be over,
Peter, Paul and Mary sang.
Wish that I would be in clover!
Till then, lord, I won't harangue
angels, rebbes or attorneys,
but with my own force will fight,
till you meet me on my journeys
and you tell me: "You were right! "
just as Judah told Tamar
who he thought was whitest trash.
Be in touch now from afar,
but don't ask me yet for cash!
Inspired by Peter, Paul and Mary's "All My Trials"
All my trials lord, soon be over.
I had a little book was given to me,
And every page spelled liberty.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
If religion were a thing that money could buy,
The rich would live and the poor would die.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
Too late my brothers, too late, but never mind.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
There is a tree in paradise
The pilgrims call it the tree of life
All my trials lord, soon be over.
Too late my brothers, too late, but never mind.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
6/21/05
Peter, Paul and Mary sang.
Wish that I would be in clover!
Till then, lord, I won't harangue
angels, rebbes or attorneys,
but with my own force will fight,
till you meet me on my journeys
and you tell me: "You were right! "
just as Judah told Tamar
who he thought was whitest trash.
Be in touch now from afar,
but don't ask me yet for cash!
Inspired by Peter, Paul and Mary's "All My Trials"
All my trials lord, soon be over.
I had a little book was given to me,
And every page spelled liberty.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
If religion were a thing that money could buy,
The rich would live and the poor would die.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
Too late my brothers, too late, but never mind.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
There is a tree in paradise
The pilgrims call it the tree of life
All my trials lord, soon be over.
Too late my brothers, too late, but never mind.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
All my trials lord, soon be over.
6/21/05
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - almond pickers
When in the Californian almond groves the pickers
are gathering almonds they must shake the trees
like women whom men shake to make them dropp their knickers
and bring them to their backs and on their knees.
Some women are, like almonds, very hard to crack,
they play their games and only want to man-tease,
such women must, before they join you in the sack,
be shaken, or they will not dropp their panties.
Todd S. Purdom writes about Californian almonds in "Where the Mountains are Almonds" (The New York Times, September 6,2000) . He says:
Time was, workers walked the groves tapping trees with tall poles to shake the fruit to the ground. Now an armada of diesel-powered mechanical shaking machines (one leading model is the Shock Wave Shaker) grip trees with rubber-coated hydraulic pincers, creating custom-made mini-earthquakes of trembling trunks and branches and hailstorms of falling nuts up and down the orchard rows. 'What do you compare that to? ' asked Stacey Kollmeyer, the communications manager of the Almond Board of California and a third-generation almond hand, as the ground rumbled and a tornado of dust rose from a shaking Sonora almond tree on the Woolfs' farm here the other day. 'It's like the tree's being electrocuted.'
9/6/00
are gathering almonds they must shake the trees
like women whom men shake to make them dropp their knickers
and bring them to their backs and on their knees.
Some women are, like almonds, very hard to crack,
they play their games and only want to man-tease,
such women must, before they join you in the sack,
be shaken, or they will not dropp their panties.
Todd S. Purdom writes about Californian almonds in "Where the Mountains are Almonds" (The New York Times, September 6,2000) . He says:
Time was, workers walked the groves tapping trees with tall poles to shake the fruit to the ground. Now an armada of diesel-powered mechanical shaking machines (one leading model is the Shock Wave Shaker) grip trees with rubber-coated hydraulic pincers, creating custom-made mini-earthquakes of trembling trunks and branches and hailstorms of falling nuts up and down the orchard rows. 'What do you compare that to? ' asked Stacey Kollmeyer, the communications manager of the Almond Board of California and a third-generation almond hand, as the ground rumbled and a tornado of dust rose from a shaking Sonora almond tree on the Woolfs' farm here the other day. 'It's like the tree's being electrocuted.'
9/6/00
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