eros, logos: Janus

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Janus

Janus is the Roman god for whom January is named: god of doorways, crossroads, entrances and exits, depicted with two faces, one looking forward and one backward. January is an appropriate month for him, coming as it does on the hinge of the calendar when one year swings shut and another opens. Each of us now stands similarly poised, looking back over the year and looking ahead to the one that will come.

He was also god of doorhinges and handles, opening and closings, beginnings and endings. Supposedly he gave the nymph Carna power over doorhinges and handles after he'd raped her, which might be a sign that he has a cruel and rather crude sense of humor. Being literally two-faced must have been a help. Nothing so significant or powerful as beginnings or endings, or even crossroads for her. I imagine the gift as a kind of sneer while presenting her with the face that smiled; he gives her a gift which symbolised not any sort of power but memorialises the lack of it. Thanks to him, she can preside over the essential workings of portals she has no power to close, and is made the avatar of the very means which allow all gates and doors to be opened at will by anyone.

One notices he doesn't give her power over locks, for example. Still less keys.

Janus is typically depicted with a key in his right hand. What will he open this year, for you or for me?

I have a lot of old posts, written long ago but never public, which I'll be posting now. Some of them are very ugly and uncomfortable, to read and to write. Old calendar pages flying by. I think of it as cleaning the system and in some ways I left out many parts of the story I was telling. It's difficult to accurately record emotion while it's happening; it's still more difficult to make it public, and there I failed.
So this blog will be similarly poised for a while yet: posts looking backward, and a few, very few, about now.

Happy New Year to you all, especially those of you who continue to check in and read whether I write or don't. I'm very grateful and it's why I'll be writing now.

I hope no one is in too much pain this morning, but I fear I would be remiss in my role as soi-disant sex blogger if I did not point you in the direction of Kingsley Amis's cure for a hangover -- it begins with sex, of course, with some caveats. Read it all.

He's also written the best description of a hangover I have ever read:

He [Jim] stood brooding by his bed…The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim

And finally, on metaphysical drunkenness, some Baudelaire:

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

Labels: doorhandles, hangovers, Janus, metamorphoses

posted by O @ 13:19


5 Comments:
At 01 January, 2009, Anonymous said… and to you, O. All the best in the new year. Maybe you'll come and visit us at our new home? Cheers. At 01 January, 2009, O said… I did. It's beautiful! I updated my links and left a comment thanking you for your kind words to me. One question: will you be importing your archives or should I keep up the link to your old site too? Right now I have both to be safe. Happy new year to you and your beloved, O At 02 January, 2009, Anonymous said… Scroll down a bit, the archives are all there, my dear. be well At 02 January, 2009, O said… Fantastic. I'll be keeping both links anyway as long as you keep the old site up. For auld lang syne. At 02 January, 2009, The Other Woman said… I love the intellectual side to your posts... Happy New Year.
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