January 7, 2006
-
Strange Attractor
(See also the star as a
“spider” symbol in the
stories of Fritz Leiber.)For Heinrich Harrer,
who died today…
Harrer was one of the 1938 team that first climbed the north face (the Nordwand, also called the Mordwand, or “death” face) of the Eiger.Wikipedia on the north face of the Eiger:
“A portion of the upper face is called ‘The White Spider,’ as
snow-filled cracks radiating from an ice-field resemble the legs of a
spider. Harrer used the name for the title of his book about his
successful climb, Die Weisse Spinne (translated… as The White Spider).”“Connoisseur of Chaos,”
by Wallace Stevens,
from Parts of a World (1942):III
After all the pretty contrast of life and death
Proves that these opposite things partake of one,
At least that was the theory, when bishops’ books
Resolved the world. We cannot go back to that.
The squirming facts exceed the squamous mind,
If one may say so . And yet relation appears,
A small relation expanding like the shade
Of a cloud on sand, a shape on the side of a hill.
V
The pensive man . . . He sees that eagle float
For which the intricate Alps are a single nest.
Related material:
- Trevanian on “the meadow” in Shibumi,
- Trevanian on “the meadow that tilts up toward the north face” in The Eiger Sanction,
- Johnny Mercer on the meadow (Dec. 18 and 20, 2005), and
- Nine is a Vine, Christmas Eve, 2005.
