Attention

Although I'm on vacation, I'm still at work. I've recently been editing a piece on Olson, a process that has proven extremely instructive thus far. I first discovered Olson's work nearly fifteen years ago, and I doubt that I've ever understood his project more thoroughly than I do today. Hopefully, I'll be able to say the same t'morrow.

I'm at work on other projects as well and, although I won't disclose either who wrote the following or where the text comes from, I will at least share this:

" 'Attention' -- permit me to quote here a phrase by Malebranche, via Walter Benjamin’s essay on Kafka 'Attention is the natural prayer of the soul'."

Also, in mention of Kafka, noted as an epigraph in American Ones: "I am on the hunt for constructions."

I take such a "hunt" as meaning research, not in the academic sense but rather in the post-literary or non-literary writing sense, perhaps as Olson may have taken the word. Such a "hunt" or writing/(re)search is, to my ear, the epitome of "attention." The natural or vernacular prayer of the object of soul is the (re)search both of and for "constructions." And, you know, I'm not considering "soul" as an epistemic consequence here, perhaps not thoroughly at odds with Benjamin's own considerations.

Adieu.