LouFederer

Untitled

2013-05-05T21:46:00.000+01:00

Stacks of philosophy frame my current ruin.

Drunk on the fumes of

Toxic logic,

Spurned by family faces now disillusioned.

What society can support a city of contemplators?

The course I took failed to forewarn

That its methods would derail my intuitions.

Flout traditions.

How can I convince them of my heart’s worth,

My good will?

Severing the ties between intuition and reason,

Treading the line between virtue and vice.

What is right? How should one live?

Why is this relative?

Subjective?

To seek a unity of values,

Where reason frustrates and painful

Hearts deliberate.

What happens when true love gets

Revised by new-found standards?

I cannot unfind them.

A layperson meets a philosopher –

Like Socrates in the streets of Athens,

Well-intended messenger of the Truth,

Despite knowing only ignorance.

Admit it! Agniology. Feel no shame,

For all of our debates and wrangles

Neither of us really knows, after all.

How do you reconcile two diverging paths

That once crossed, mingled hotly

Without one thought too far?

You cannot unsow these seeds.

They germinate in my mind

Light the path ahead

With blinding blooms

And become me.

Love does not require the mind,

Just feeling.

“Flout the laws of logic, child,

Think not with your head:

Listen to your heart’s counsel!”

Alas,

You thought too much,

Questioned yourself into a regress.

Two philosophers together would be hell.

Perhaps the droll conversation

Of the layman does me good;

An antidote to the prescriptions

Of my Art.

By L.R. Chapman 2013

from Modern Melancholy

Schopenhauer

2013-03-06T19:37:00.000Z

Schopenhauer, O Schopenhauer,
Your words ring truer by the hour,

How fraught with such outlandish strife

Is this absurdity called life.

We move from fully-quenched to thirst,

From failure to a double first,

From hopeless boredom, true ennui:

We suffer never-endingly.

Not least we face the fear of death,

And choking on our final breath;

But even if will simply sleep,

Those left behind shall wildly weep.

And yet to cut our sentence short,

Though tempting as a last resort,

Proclaims a winner this mighty curse

Whose fanfare taunts us in the hearse.

So stare the darkness in the eye,

And listen to its wistful cry:

Do not impart this wretched fate,

On anyone but those you hate.

By L.R. Chapman 2013

from Modern Melancholy

Be Not Afeared

2013-02-13T19:02:00.001Z

I wrote this poem about the crucial importance of rational, clear-headed thinking. I believe we have a duty, as the only fully-rational animals, to employ reason, overthrow emotion, and enjoy the fruit of logical discussion. Nothing breeds more hate than dogma, bigotry and irrational thinking. So supersede emotion, and away with the logical fallacies! Let reason prevail.

Be Not Afeared

Be not afeared of thinking,

Or searching for the truth,

Prepare for the revision

Of dogmas held in youth.

Adopt a new perspective,

Immerse yourself in logic,

And critically assess

The deadly demagogic.

Examine your opinions,

Seek new ones if you please,

Resist indoctrination:

It spreads like a disease.

Let reason be your mentor,

And keep an open mind,

Reflect upon your principles,

Leave prejudice behind.

Read with discrimination,

Let reason reign supreme,

And don’t discount the radical

For being “too extreme.”

For what once seemed preposterous,

To people just like you,

Has now achieved its status

For being clearly true:

The rights and needs of animals;

The move from faith to doubt;

The struggle for equality;

Delusions of the devout.

Be not afeared of voicing

Your disagreeing cry,

Be not too deferential -

Continue asking “why?”

Be not afeared of thinking,

And listen when I say:

“Make strange the dogmas of the past,

Let logic guide your way.”

*

LRC 2013

LouFederer: First, an Artist

2012-12-12T20:49:00.001Z

As you may know, I once identified myself as an artist. I still love Art, specifically the history of the subject; I don't draw or paint that much these days, philosophy essays don't really give you the time (and believe me, some drawings take eons...) I thought I would share with you a snippet of my portfolio, mostly dating back to my early teens, with a few latter-year works thrown in.

Self-portrait in pencil.

Dublin Bay Prawn in Biro.

Still Life with Crystal Jug, Wooden Spoon and Banana in pencil.

Nude male in pencil (after G. Klimt)

Lobster in Biro

Crab in Biro

Self-portrait in pencil.

Acrylic paintings of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Costello.

I Would I Were a Nightingale

2011-06-10T10:34:00.001+01:00

I Would I Were a Nightingale

I would I were a nightingale so high among the trees,
To bend with every chorus line and dance upon the breeze.
To lark about with field-mice on idle summer days,
And bask beneath the setting sun’s delightful golden rays.
To swoop and soar ad libitum with wind beneath my wings,
To revel in the wonderment that Mother Nature brings.
Maintaining anonymity upon my garden seat:
So rarely seen but daily heard; unendingly discreet.
But O! Perhaps there’s more to my desire than meets the eye:
My wish for boundless roaming in a never-ending sky;
My dream for total weightlessness and unencumbered flight,
To sleep amid the canopy for every day and night.
I would I were a nightingale if only for a day,
To look down on this barren world and quickly fly away.

By L.R. Chapman 2011

Writer's Block

2011-06-09T21:02:00.003+01:00

I've recently had trouble with a major writers' block, hence my silence and the arguable lack of quality in the poem I wrote during this time. I feel I am getting my creativity back now (see poem 'Ubi Sunt').

The Writer's Block

When faced with pen and paper
I seem to feel this way:
My head and heart are overwhelmed
With what I wish to say.

The words are streaming in my mind,
Yet no sense do they make:
My strive towards translucency
For all that is opaque.

I lack not inspiration,
Nor willing for the task,
But when I come to execute
It seems too great an ask.

I panic in my impotence,
I curse my feebleness;
And wonder how, when in my youth,
I wrote with such finesse.

I look back on these very lines
And wonder where it went:
My once so-pleasing aptitude
Which now seems all-but spent.

I simply hope that soon enough
My talent will return:
No longer will I struggle so,
No need for such concern!

I'll set my thoughts to verse again
With elegance and flair:
No more dismal half-attempts,
No reasons for despair.

In time I shall reclaim my gift,
Which currently I lack,
So when I write with style again,
You'll know I've got it back.

New Poem: Ubi Sunt

2011-06-09T20:48:00.004+01:00

Ubi Sunt

I miss the things I never had,
And dream in days gone by;
I long for summer nights beneath
An ever-planeless sky.

I want for honest craftsmanship
And knowledge bought for free:
I strive to resurrect such
Unpretentious artistry.

I hunger on the final page
Of every ancient script,
And deconstruct until I breach
Its undefilèd crypt.

I revel in the consciousness
Of such philosophy,
And feel myself transported by
The Hand of History.

But O! The hand becomes a fist,
And from my dream I waken:
Aware again of time and place
And how my soul’s forsaken.

My soul belongs to yesteryear
With Dryden, Keats and Pope:
To live as long, in memory,
Is my sincerest hope.

By L.R. Chapman 2011

*

This is a first draft. I am in the process of writing an anthology.

Clearing the Leaves

2010-11-13T21:56:00.002Z

Clearing the leaves so children can play,

Filling the bin bags with Autumn's decay,

Crab apples falling

And trees growing bare:

A day in the life of a lonely au pair.

One minute poetry series.

LRC

The Modern World

2010-11-07T23:33:00.003Z

The modern world’s a hostile place for artists such as me,

Who want to make a living from progressive poetry,

They tell me, "no one reads it,"

They say, "it’s such a bore,"

"You might as well just give it up and find work as a whore."

LRC

1 minute poetry series.

Life in Paris - A Contradiction of Terms?

2010-10-13T20:50:00.002+01:00

When you think of living in Paris, it is nigh on unavoidable to lose yourself in fantasies of passionate garlic-breathed romances, idle shopping jaunts with continental Monopoly-money, and suckling on a centuries-old teat that oozes Art and Philosophy. What really transpires, however, is a cultural cesspit where these teenage reveries come to die, and the only lingering vapour is that of an ageing sewage system. No really, it smells terrible.

You may think I’m giving it a hard time already, but not without due reason. I have been living in France now for five weeks solid: I am a vegetarian who can now only find edible protein in a Babybel; the pound is so poor against the euro that I can hardly conceive of going shopping without my mind contorting with guilt; as an au pair I earn a third-worldly 3€ per hour, and even when I want to purport culture, the queue for the Louvre is a miserable mile long.

I am of the opinion that some places should just be kept as holiday destinations, and Paris is no exception. On your inaugural visit, as I can testify, there is a grand sense of experiencing the magic you had only previously heard about. The initial (and brittle) glamour of walking into a postcard scene is hugely impressive: you might stay for a week, come back having only scratched the surface of the place, upload your predictable photos onto Facebook, and tell everybody how your life will never be the same again. I should have known better. When you’ve done Notre Dame, dragged your heavy legs around the many-aisles of the Louvre, seen the Eiffel Tower by day (and night – from a river cruise – while sipping Beaujolais – whilst listening to an accordion-player), the city suddenly appears for what it really is. Maybe it would be harsh to say Paris is all style and no substance, but even as an Art History aficionado, my admiration for the place has thinned inoperably. What actually remains after Printemps has mugged you for all you are worth, and you’ve exhausted your cultural capacity with all the Art in the world? A sense of curiosity and the question: why all the hype?

I suppose it’s just the thing to do, really. If you haven’t ‘done’ Paris, you’re considered some kind of cultural deviant, although I’m now starting to think you can even ‘overdo’ a city like this. Arguably, if I weren’t doing such a life-denying job over here, I’d be a little more light-hearted about the affair. However, after five days of working with the brattiest parents (and children) in Europe, the mere conception of being packed like a sardine onto the Metro and having to waddle down every boulevard without room to swing your elbows, dashes any remote crumb of glamour from the set-up. Just like any city that has become prey to mega-tourism, Paris seems to have lost its heart – and mine.

But don’t get me wrong, Paris isn’t all shit - although the smell might lead you to that conclusion. The Architecture is truly among the greatest in France, and the trains often run on time. But, quite frankly, that’s as far as my praise will/can stretch. Even French yoghurt is appalling – who knew incisors were needed for its consumption? I feel woefully disillusioned, as though ensnared by a fair fool whose charms all but vanished upon critical inspection. Unfortunately, my work contract lasts until July, so I need to fall in love with this city or I am going to have a dismal nine months ahead of me. Or perhaps my complimentary Bupa cover will provide some free tranquillisers? Or a lobotomy? Ok, sorted.

LRC 2010

Ode To Fruit (written when I was 13!)

2010-06-01T22:56:00.005+01:00

Ode to Fruit.

The grape, why does he have no pie?
No crumble, no jam – we must ask why.
‘Moet et Chandon’ his place remaining,
But still his musty taste is waning.
The grapes are quite a fruitful bunch,
Drink liquidized in any lunch,
But still, a pieless sphere is he,
A novice to fruit snobbery.

Or how about the citrus fruit,
The marmalade, their attribute,
But as with grapes, they have no pies,
But on the fish the lemon lies.
So oranges have marmalade,
And lemons have their lemonade,
What’s left for limes now those are taken?
Its dignity is now forsaken.

Or passionfruit, now what a name,
A parvenu to class and fame,
Whose meek shell warns the fruit elite,
To cower from his flesh so sweet.
‘Exotic, yes, but who could care?’
Say passionfruits in mock-despair,
They know what envy they impose,
All other fruits are now their foes.

So why is there no mango crumble,
No starfruit in a pie so humble,
No jams, no curd for those with pride,
Fruit snobbery, how it won’t subside.
A petty thing, is this dispute,
With jam, ham, and passionfruit,
Such hate is felt without our knowing,
In depths of fruitbowls foes are foeing…

The final verse, a legacy,
An end to all fruit snobbery,
Not one can win, these fruits so sage,
Who ripen or mould as they do age.
Self satisfied, I’d like to feel,
A mutual love with rind or peel,
The end draws in to this dispute,
We must just give the ode to fruit.

**
LRC - 2003

A Stay in Paris

2010-05-31T13:46:00.003+01:00

The Henley College French department rose early to depart for Paris that Thursday morning, sporting berets and beaming smiles, we were already filled with Gallic joie de vivre (although already longing to be filled with rustic baguettes and Beaujolais). Arriving at our hotel, we made haste in getting ready for a cold Paris evening; biting winds may have shaken even the most heavily-sprayed coifs, but nothing could rattle the spirits of our group. We saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle in the reflection of the Seine, and a river cruise provided ample photo opportunities. As we strolled down boulevards, past bijou boutiques and provocative patisseries, we eyed up what we fancied for the following day’s shopping extravaganza.

Printemps exerted its majesty over Boulevard Haussmann, bewitching us all with its luxurious window-displays of Haute Couture; Galeria de Lafayette dazzled us all with its interior of Rococo decadence, and ceiling of exuberant nymphs and satyrs. Not only was Paris proving to be the ‘city of lights’, but moreover, the city of life – every street throbbed like a heart drunk on pure adrenaline and a mind enraptured by colours and perfumes.

The intoxication continued with a cultural cocktail in the form of a tour around the Musée d'Orsay. We enjoyed oeuvres stretching from French Academic painting, through to progressive post-Impressionist wonders by Gaugin and Cézanne; our guide captivated us over the ambitions of Pissarro, while other group members were more easily seduced by Manet’s Olympia (and not to mention the aromatic espressos of the gallery coffee-shop). A few gift-shop postcards later and we had collected nearly all the physical souvenirs we could – what remained was a desire to taste Parisian nightlight at its finest: bonsoir la Bastille!

To encapsulate this truly enchanting city, Paris can only be said to have spell-binding powers: every bistro becomes a seductress, every boutique beguiles you with its windows of charms and potions; Paris is a narcotic you take with all your senses, and you will, sans aucun doute, be rendered insatiable.

LRC

Revision and Distraction

2010-05-31T13:46:00.001+01:00

So here I am, sitting with a gap year laid out in front of me like Manet’s Olympia, although not half as seductive or beguiling, suffering a mélange of motivation and drowsiness - my head longing to concentrate but my eyes lacking the ability to focus on anything bar the contents of my confectionary drawer. I suppose it was a good idea really, the gap year – having the pressure of a conditional offer might have laboured me, but I cannot help but feel that the added strain of an offer might have encouraged me (slash psychologically bullied me) into working much harder. It’s come to the stage now that I have to write harsh and intimidating statements of ‘encouragement’ on my hand in all number of inks – the most helpful being black permanent marker with effusive underlines and exclamation marks – to fuel a desire to succeed that never really leaves me, but sometimes becomes eclipsed by the fripperies of modern life.

I find that during times of revision, I cannot help but eat chocolate. In the library, a “no drinking [student welfare?] and eating” policy reigns – however, I have sufficient skills in stealth that I carry a pencil-case length (and often width) chocolate bar in the receptacle, and break bits off at intervals, while the librarian with the electric-shock badger-bouffant walks towards a group of chattering plebs and gives them what for.

My caffeine intake has also rocketed during this time. I am averaging three cans of diet Coke per day (sometimes Pepsi if I fancy the less-sweet sister), two cans of Red Bull and any number of teas and coffee, which have the added perk of body-warming. It seems that I do as much revision as I do snacking – taking in as much caffeine, taurine and theine, as I do knowledge. I hope this doesn’t lead to ‘state-dependent’ recall. I read somewhere that if you learn something in a certain state of physical stimulation (or depression, if you’ve popped a few sleeping pills or are imbibing), then your ability to recall the information depends on you being in that same state. The only problem with being high on caffeine during my exams, is that it is a devilish diuretic – although that could provide ample opportunities to visit the toilet and read any gems of knowledge I have penned on my thigh.

Furthermore, during these laborious days of information osmosis, I find that my bedroom looks increasingly more untidy. As my to-do list lengthens, so do the cobwebs seem to build and every fibre of a different hue to my carpet looks ready and eager for the plucking. I have even found myself cleaning beyond the realm of my dorm – I found myself earlier today polishing up the kitchen granite, and scouring the sink with a Brillo-pad and bleach. All the while, however, the throb of guilt from my revision-centric conscience, (and not to mention the look of reproach dealt by the goading words on my hand) made me curtail my kitchen cleansing and sit back on my stool: my gluteus muscles disappointed not to continue their flexing, and my eyes glazed over, staring miserably into the Functions page of my maths textbook.

But it is a means to an end. For all the stolen moments I have had with the darkest vertices of my snack cupboards, and the nigh-on OCD hours of domestic cleansing, I know that my desire to learn never leaves me. I just hope that today’s choice of sleep over College does not spell the beginning of the end for me – I call it ‘giving something back’, although others may just call it ‘giving up’. I’m at sixes and sevens – well, I hope to be on July 5th at any rate.

*

Being Sporty Where I Live

2010-05-31T13:45:00.002+01:00

Exercise and I have had quite a fraught relationship historically. At primary school, I was as fit as a fiddle, lean as a whippet, and every other idiom to suggest my swiftness of gait. Throughout secondary school, however, I felt like an athlete stripped of her gold medal, relegated to the group that didn’t quite pass the drug-test, proved positive for physical ineptitude. Perhaps it was my adolescent self-consciousness, or purely the fact that nobody was that bad at sport in primary school, so any fortune that befell me in my younger years was merely by grace of dodgy stop-clock keeping by student teachers implemented onto playing-field finish lines. Either way, my fitness in my teens left, well, everything to be desired.

I went for a jog earlier, though. I am 20 years old, I am unfit, and although slim, it seems that I am trying to remarry an unfit body with a fervent desire for health. To my ageing and aching body, the marriage is as forced as any in Islam and divorce would ensue even after the first gym-trip.

Honestly, today’s jog was terrible. I was looking quite sporty when I left my house. The golfers (I live on Flackwell Heath Golf Course) gave me interested (though not admiring) looks and I felt that since I had become something of an immediate spectacle that I should show some of my peacock-plumage. In a moment of mistaken flattery, I tried to sprint until there were no more golfers in sight, and oh, the stitch, THE STITCH. Even being a keen chemist, I could not intuit how a twenty-second spurt could incur such a lactic acid backlog. It felt like phenol had been introduced intramuscularly into my abdomen. To add insult to injury (I use the phrase without idiom), my shorts were falling down. The golfers were hardly admiring my sporty endeavours, rather they were regarding the cheese-wire catastrophe that was my vibrant orange thong.

I would like to say I ran home, but that would be rich. Instead, I took a walk of shame. I circumnavigated the whole of Flackwell Heath, down its quietest thoroughfares in the vainest attempt to avoid all human eyes. I even sacrificed possible admiring looks for my American Apparel sweatbands for the grace of my cul-de-sac credit.

I don’t know if there is really a panacea for my thwarted [laughable understatement] tales of sporting endeavour, but I will not give up. I will, within the next week, invest in a pair of running shorts (not these baggy Nadal-style three-quarter-length jobbies from the €5 shop in Brussels); however, it might require a little bit more staying power than I am happy to expend. If you are lucky enough to live in this small and humble village, I would appreciate it if you just tolerate my presence on your road.

And to the boys who threw stones at me in the park, I’m telling your Mothers.

LRC

The Cynics' Guide to Reading Festival

2010-05-31T13:45:00.001+01:00

There was an era, decades in the past from now, where festival-goers were spiritual, edgy and carefree. The skunk-stained upholstery of their VW Camper Vans bore witness to philosophical debate, the recital of Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’, unbridled (and unprotected) sex, all accompanied by the haunting melodies of Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. This was the zeitgeist of un-self-conscious merriment, where no photograph taken on that cumbersome Panasonic Polaroid would require ‘de-tagging’ later on Facebook.

What a bleak picture the modern-day festival-goer paints: droves of girls clad in Jack Wills gilets, scowling through impractical side-fridges and sloshing flirtatiously through be-weeded mud in try-hard wellies that can be ‘put in the bin afterwards.’ It seems that the current breed of festival-goer is that kind of super-preened bed-head, who considers £190 for a weekend in a Berkshire bog a fair price to pay for the best part of 3 bands they have heard of, and the kudos of having photos to prove their stay.

For the novice Reading Festival pilgrim, the experience is something of an inauguration into ‘scene’ life; where everything from bonnet to boot becomes irrevocably smeared with the stench of campfire smoke, the vomit of light-weight GCSE graduates and the urine of passing tramps who made it in without a wristband/eternal bracelet. And if you’re lucky, you might even get laid by somebody 3-days-unwashed (or at best, Baby-Wiped and Dry Shampooed.)

The pilgrimage to Reading every August is not something that appeals wildly to me. Don’t get me wrong, however, the line-up occasionally boasts some class acts (for example, The Living End, Less Than Jake, and NOFX), but for nigh-on £200, I would expect to enjoy over-half (at least) of the music, and to lodge in something other than a tepee (which, ironically, will become a place ‘to pee’). It seems that since the early 90s, Reading Festival has become the haunt of the Abercombie & Fitch generation, where a degree of scruffiness is the new sexy and paying £190 for a noise-filled garden seems like the steal of the century. Oh who are you kidding.

So, when you find yourself at Reading Festival this summer, try your best to wade through knee-deep disciples of Topshop, sulking through their Ray Bans and pouting onto Lambrini bottle-tops. If you have charitably come to support your favourite band, I respect you; if you have come to sport your backcombed bouffant and sullied UGGs, jog on. In fact, jog home. I hope it’s far away, too.

But don’t let me rain on your parade. I know what you’re thinking, "but it’s the atmosphere, Lou, THAT’s what makes it what it is" – very well, amen to your black lungs and cirrhotic livers. But let’s just say that for the price of a ticket, I can afford to see my favourite band play eleven shows in London without having to endure the pong of piss. I win, you lose. And I really hope it rains.

LRC