"I am not a great man, but sometimes I think the impersonal and objective equality of my talent and the sacrifices of it, in pieces, to preserve its essential value has some sort of epic grandeur."
(F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), U.S. author. Letter, 1940, to his daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald. The Crack-Up, ed. Edmund Wilson (1945). The words "some sort of epic grandeur" were used by Matthew J. Bruccoli as a title for his 1981 biography of Fitzgerald.)
just endearing...
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
poetry 2: mortality
Spring and Fall: To a Young Child, G M Hopkins
Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
(and how!)
Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
(and how!)
poetry 1: the dunce
Le cancre - Jacques Prévert
Il dit non avec la tête
Mais il dit oui avec le coeur
Il dit oui à ce qu'il aime
Il dit non au professeur
Il est debout
On le questionne
Et tous les problèmes sont posés
Soudain le fou rire le prend
Et il efface tout
Les chiffres et les mots
Les dates et les noms
Les phrases et les pièges
Et malgré les menaces du maître
Sous les huées des enfants prodiges
Avec des craies de toutes les couleurs
Sur le tableau noir du malheur
Il dessine le visage du bonheur.
Il dit non avec la tête
Mais il dit oui avec le coeur
Il dit oui à ce qu'il aime
Il dit non au professeur
Il est debout
On le questionne
Et tous les problèmes sont posés
Soudain le fou rire le prend
Et il efface tout
Les chiffres et les mots
Les dates et les noms
Les phrases et les pièges
Et malgré les menaces du maître
Sous les huées des enfants prodiges
Avec des craies de toutes les couleurs
Sur le tableau noir du malheur
Il dessine le visage du bonheur.
yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
public holiday tomorrow! "assumption day", apparently. god bless roman catholics everywhere cos frankly, i don't see how i'd have held out till friday. ooooo, and ethiopian cuisine for dinner tonight - can't wait for that either.
so... i've been thinking. and it turns out what i need is a P.L.A.N. not exactly a newsflash i know but the thing is, somedays you're just more willing to embrace reality than others. i need to figure out what i'll be doing come next september, and where and - more importantly - HOW? i.e. will it take a bank heist or a hostile take-over of the nikkei or a platinum-exploration dig in my backyard or being adopted into the rockerfeller family... what? plans are everything, you know. and what do i want to study - and why? see, these are just the kinds of questions your average, mentally-stable individual has an answer for, but noooooooooo - not me. no. i must be the one that wanders through life desultorily. and the worst thing about it all is that i DO know what i really (REALLY!) want to do. i do. but i also know that i am soooooo not ready to do that now. maybe after two or three years, i don't know.
oh, and i think my french teacher hates me. not that i blame him - what with me cancelling/ re-scheduling every single session these past couple of weeks. but it's NOT MY FAULT! i mean, if i wrote my own paycheck i could afford to sit these lunch meetings out but life and misfortune being what they are...
now, i know i'm not a lister. not a compulsive one, anyway. not like the friends i have that draw up lists for literally everything - and derive such obvious, palpable glee from it. i make lists only as a matter of expediency. but the funny thing is when it comes to the books i've read and the words i've loved and the thougts i've had and the things i've hated and the ones that baffled me, i feel this need to note it all down. to recount them and then store them away. the thing is though, to what end? i don't get it. but i think i'll try to do it anyway - just for a while. just to see how it goes. so there'll be lots of those on this thing.
here goes...
so... i've been thinking. and it turns out what i need is a P.L.A.N. not exactly a newsflash i know but the thing is, somedays you're just more willing to embrace reality than others. i need to figure out what i'll be doing come next september, and where and - more importantly - HOW? i.e. will it take a bank heist or a hostile take-over of the nikkei or a platinum-exploration dig in my backyard or being adopted into the rockerfeller family... what? plans are everything, you know. and what do i want to study - and why? see, these are just the kinds of questions your average, mentally-stable individual has an answer for, but noooooooooo - not me. no. i must be the one that wanders through life desultorily. and the worst thing about it all is that i DO know what i really (REALLY!) want to do. i do. but i also know that i am soooooo not ready to do that now. maybe after two or three years, i don't know.
oh, and i think my french teacher hates me. not that i blame him - what with me cancelling/ re-scheduling every single session these past couple of weeks. but it's NOT MY FAULT! i mean, if i wrote my own paycheck i could afford to sit these lunch meetings out but life and misfortune being what they are...
now, i know i'm not a lister. not a compulsive one, anyway. not like the friends i have that draw up lists for literally everything - and derive such obvious, palpable glee from it. i make lists only as a matter of expediency. but the funny thing is when it comes to the books i've read and the words i've loved and the thougts i've had and the things i've hated and the ones that baffled me, i feel this need to note it all down. to recount them and then store them away. the thing is though, to what end? i don't get it. but i think i'll try to do it anyway - just for a while. just to see how it goes. so there'll be lots of those on this thing.
here goes...
Friday, 10 August 2007
TGIF!
i can't waaaaaaaaait FOR THE WEEKEND TO BEGIN...
yay! finally! and omg, i deserve to be shot, getting to work at 10 and leaving after 2 hours. but this is why i'd never be an organizer of any sort cos i kinda suck at it - now i have to run around all over the place for this bday-do tonight which will hopefully go off without a hitch. excitement!
too little time, ALWAYS too little time (for everything!).
yay! finally! and omg, i deserve to be shot, getting to work at 10 and leaving after 2 hours. but this is why i'd never be an organizer of any sort cos i kinda suck at it - now i have to run around all over the place for this bday-do tonight which will hopefully go off without a hitch. excitement!
too little time, ALWAYS too little time (for everything!).
Friday, 3 August 2007
testing... 1, 2, 3
aaaaaaaaand, i'm back!
i've realized i'm a talker - not always an out-and-out talker, sure... but i have this need to say whatever i'm thinking or mulling over or grappling with. i mean, even if not to anyone in particular, i need to get it out of my head and down somewhere else. so that's what this is about. and i want it to be honest. i think sometimes we (i!) narrate our lives to others - and even to ourselves - with exagerrated embellishments. and we feign excitement over areas that we actually found to be quite dull, and abject heartbreak over patches that we navigated with only a moderate amount of bruising. there's this need to make it all seem compelling and interesting and every bit "the next big drama" and that broadway will soon come knocking... and maybe our lives really are that compelling - but then only to us. and that's fine. frankly speaking, i'd find kurt cobain's daily routine of sex, drugs and alcohol fairly prosaic - but that's a relative designation.
("it matters, nel. but only to you." - sula)
("there is fiction in the space between/ you and reality/ you would do and say anything/ to make your everyday life seem less mundane..." - tracy chapman)
i'm not even sure what all that yabbering is about but... there we are.
i want this to be HONEST. that's about the sum total of my expectations , and i hope i don't disappoint.
i'm presently ploughing through "the brothers karamazov", and the bit i read just yesterday made me feel just so... vindicated. this one lady describes how much she's suffering to a priest - and at his prodding, goes on to elaborate that it's from a lack of faith. but not in God, so much as the future life... and just how utterly enigmatic it all is. and how the fact is, NO ONE can solve it. and this segues into a bit about love and some dude who said "the more i love humanity in general, the less i love man in particular." and i just found it really compelling. i worry sometimes that i'm teetering scarily on the edge of full-blown misanthropism. not all the time... but definitely more and more often. and not even the machiavellian aspect of it so much as the general disillusion with people (myself included) and things and time and whatever else. it's all very boring. but that's honestly how i feel - in a real plaguing kind of way. but then i'll get these intense periods of just LOVING everyone... almost. and giving them all the benefit of the doubt - or wanting to, at the very least (good enough, no?). hehe.
ag, well.
back to work.
i've realized i'm a talker - not always an out-and-out talker, sure... but i have this need to say whatever i'm thinking or mulling over or grappling with. i mean, even if not to anyone in particular, i need to get it out of my head and down somewhere else. so that's what this is about. and i want it to be honest. i think sometimes we (i!) narrate our lives to others - and even to ourselves - with exagerrated embellishments. and we feign excitement over areas that we actually found to be quite dull, and abject heartbreak over patches that we navigated with only a moderate amount of bruising. there's this need to make it all seem compelling and interesting and every bit "the next big drama" and that broadway will soon come knocking... and maybe our lives really are that compelling - but then only to us. and that's fine. frankly speaking, i'd find kurt cobain's daily routine of sex, drugs and alcohol fairly prosaic - but that's a relative designation.
("it matters, nel. but only to you." - sula)
("there is fiction in the space between/ you and reality/ you would do and say anything/ to make your everyday life seem less mundane..." - tracy chapman)
i'm not even sure what all that yabbering is about but... there we are.
i want this to be HONEST. that's about the sum total of my expectations , and i hope i don't disappoint.
i'm presently ploughing through "the brothers karamazov", and the bit i read just yesterday made me feel just so... vindicated. this one lady describes how much she's suffering to a priest - and at his prodding, goes on to elaborate that it's from a lack of faith. but not in God, so much as the future life... and just how utterly enigmatic it all is. and how the fact is, NO ONE can solve it. and this segues into a bit about love and some dude who said "the more i love humanity in general, the less i love man in particular." and i just found it really compelling. i worry sometimes that i'm teetering scarily on the edge of full-blown misanthropism. not all the time... but definitely more and more often. and not even the machiavellian aspect of it so much as the general disillusion with people (myself included) and things and time and whatever else. it's all very boring. but that's honestly how i feel - in a real plaguing kind of way. but then i'll get these intense periods of just LOVING everyone... almost. and giving them all the benefit of the doubt - or wanting to, at the very least (good enough, no?). hehe.
ag, well.
back to work.
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