Ep. 2 Sermon On Respiration

Excerpts from Aesthetical Sermons

In episode 2, we will hear a passage from Joris Planck's "Sermon on Respiration."
I hope to provide some pragmatic insight into this passage, but I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you.

Transcription of Joris:

"Grim, grim, and ever grimmer grow the weary days as they assault me with their vulgar passings. And with them go all hope of ever catching my breath. I swear, if the air could grow hands from out of its vaporous nothingness, I'm most certain that those moist claws would reach their awful talons around my wrinkled neck and finally achieve what would seem like a decade long conspiracy of the atmosphere's to suffocate me. Why it seems the very sea and air have switched places, and I am to drown as I stand upon dry land. What have you against me, ye clouds and gases? Why anoint my already disappointing open-eyed hours with invisible hatred? And if you must, then at least offer me sweet flavors in which to drown. May the humid gasps I strain be tinted with peppermint oils and orange blossoms. May I at least drown in purple aster, buttercup, and bluebell. But do not, oh I beg of you, do not mock my profane obsession with liquids by depriving me of their sublimest state."