At what time did I look straight ahead?

On Some Motifs in Baudelaire Illuminations Walter Benjamin 

V

The sonnet To a Passer-By takes on a goddess that is left out of the Greek pantheon--she is the embodiment of the nebulous crowd. She stimulates but also brings pain from her vanishing. Benjamin notices this mythologising of city crowds and alienation in Baudelaire's work and it relates to what he spoke of earlier in the essay regarding memory, experience, and consciousness. The setting of the crowd as a myth keeps it from being datafied and clumped in a way that can be easily ignored.

We also know that Baudelaire isn't only known for describing crowds but also sexualizes it and an air of unavoidable vice. Baudelaire suggests this is cultivated and that Baudelaire was so surrounded by sleaze that he doesn't even register it like a foul smell on one's body. He contrasts Baudelaire's relation to the Parisian crowd with Hegel's impression while visiting. Hegel simply suggests that the people are the same as in Germany but more in number without any insinuation with vice and immorality. Also in this sense, maybe Hegel has a mechanism to feint the terror caused by a mob of people. He describes them in rational terms as in their number and is not aroused by them. He is conscious of them but not experiencing them as Benjamin would posit.

At this point of the essay some of the themes Benjamin spoke of earlier are present but not spoken plainly much like the mythologising of Baudelaire's crowds. The terms of memory and conscious slip into our unconsciousness as we lead to this visceral realizations of Baudelaire's haunting, erotic crowd.

Abraham Yaakov of Sadagora Tales of the Hasidim Later Masters Martin Buber

The Wandering Light

This passage deals with people who are promised a sense of salvation that coinsides with particular dates that have passed. And the rabbi's reply is slightly condescending and states that this redeeming light exists at eye level and every one is looking down. 

The use of light and vision is interesting and suggests that his sense is important in plainly observing things without much intuition other than directly looking at something and knowing where to look. In this case all that is needed is a posture that conforms to an upright person and we further see the theme that God offers this simple guide to salvation and idea of heaven on earth. It also implies our despairs are often when we lose our basic human form or don't see much value in cultivating it. These rabbis are suggestors of this.

This message does mirror church homilies I've heard in the past. However it is packaged in this book that implies this surly notion of opening eyes. The front cover shows this figure looking up but straining. One eye is open and the other is grimacing and nearly sliding off his face. The message of the writing seems to mask sadness and make us feel guilty being in despair in a situation where despair might be reasonable based on our life situations. Possibly adding more burden to what is already making us look down. But the illustration makes plain he struggle of opening our eyes and how gnarly it can be.it now seems like a blues song and a sadness that feels good.