Partial update (two entries, the last two) 12.11.23 Updated 6.21.21. Updated 12.9.19. Updated 6.23.17. In the course of thinking about...
In the early 1970s I discovered that "Kubla Khan" had a rich, marvelous, and fantastically symmetrical structure. I'd found myself intellectually. I knew what I was doing. I had a specific intellectual mission: to find the mechanisms behind "Kubla Khan." As defined, that mission failed, and still has not been achieved some 40 odd years later.
It's like this: If you set out to hitch rides from New York City to, say, Los Angeles, and don't make it, well then your hitch-hike adventure is a failure. But if you end up on Mars instead, just what kind of failure is that? Yeah, you're lost. Really really lost. But you're lost on Mars! How cool is that!
Of course, it might not actually be Mars. It might just be an abandoned set on a studio back lot.