I think I will forever be in awe of people who can do that - who can just look at life and the world in general and see nothing but black and white, right and wrong, with no gray area.
I used to like the gray areas. Somehow, that was comforting - knowing that if I never found the answers I was looking for, it was okay, because sometimes, there are no right answers.
Now it pisses me off and it's probably the one thing I struggle with the most.
I was going to write more about uncertainty and faith and forcing yourself to adapt to function in the world. And something else about denial and misinterpretation and self-deception and The Talented Mr. Ripley. And about how difficult it can be to change your basic nature and overcome inherent (and sometimes also seemingly irrational) fears and such. But now I really don't feel like it.
I think I'm developing carpal tunnel in my right hand/wrist. Booo.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Yeah, I lied again.
I can't help it. I'm enjoying this book too much.
"I felt physically sick. It was a long time since I had received a letter from my wife. I had forced her to write it and I could feel her pain in every line. Her pain struck at my pain: we were back at the old routine of hurting each other. If only it were possible to love without injury--fidelity isn't enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again--I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower...
"I thought, 'How much you pride yourself on being dégagé, the reporter, not the leader-writer, and what a mess you make behind the scenes. The other kind of war is more innocent than this. One does less damage with a mortar.'
"...There was another half-page, which I didn't read, before 'Affectionately, Helen.' I think it contained news of the weather and an old aunt of mine I loved.
"I had no cause for complaint, and I had expected this reply. There was a lot of truth in it. I only wished that she had not thought aloud at quite such length, when the thoughts hurt her as well as me."
- Thomas Fowler, The Quiet American by Graham Greene
I guess while I'm here, I might as well throw in more lyrics.
----------------
Now playing: Breaking Benjamin - Unknown Soldier
"I felt physically sick. It was a long time since I had received a letter from my wife. I had forced her to write it and I could feel her pain in every line. Her pain struck at my pain: we were back at the old routine of hurting each other. If only it were possible to love without injury--fidelity isn't enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again--I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower...
"I thought, 'How much you pride yourself on being dégagé, the reporter, not the leader-writer, and what a mess you make behind the scenes. The other kind of war is more innocent than this. One does less damage with a mortar.'
"...There was another half-page, which I didn't read, before 'Affectionately, Helen.' I think it contained news of the weather and an old aunt of mine I loved.
"I had no cause for complaint, and I had expected this reply. There was a lot of truth in it. I only wished that she had not thought aloud at quite such length, when the thoughts hurt her as well as me."
- Thomas Fowler, The Quiet American by Graham Greene
I guess while I'm here, I might as well throw in more lyrics.
Taken in context
It's not a bad thing
But when you start to pick it apart
It gets so depressing...
You peel back the layers
And get down to the inside
But sometimes you loose sight
Of what it was you were trying to find
It's that sort of thing
That makes you think too much
It's that sort of thing
That makes you lose your objectivity
So if you made it
Just be glad that you did and stay there
If you ever feel loved or needed
Remember that you're one of the lucky ones
And if it's over
Just remember what I told you
It was bound to happen so just
Keep moving on
There are no perfect endings
No perfect endings...
- Straylight Run, "The Perfect Ending"
It's not a bad thing
But when you start to pick it apart
It gets so depressing...
You peel back the layers
And get down to the inside
But sometimes you loose sight
Of what it was you were trying to find
It's that sort of thing
That makes you think too much
It's that sort of thing
That makes you lose your objectivity
So if you made it
Just be glad that you did and stay there
If you ever feel loved or needed
Remember that you're one of the lucky ones
And if it's over
Just remember what I told you
It was bound to happen so just
Keep moving on
There are no perfect endings
No perfect endings...
- Straylight Run, "The Perfect Ending"
----------------
Now playing: Breaking Benjamin - Unknown Soldier
Last thing, I swear.
Also for my benefit, and I guess for posterity in general, haha, because I've been forgetting this lately (despite it being posted on my wall right near my desk):
"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing, and there was this electricity in the air - you can almost hear it, right. And this bag was just . . . dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That's the day I realized that there was this . . . entire life behind things. And this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember. I need to remember. Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in..."
- Ricky Fitts, American Beauty
Damnit. There was something else I wanted to stick here too.
Oh well.
----------------
Now playing: Ingrid Michaelson - Overboard
"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing, and there was this electricity in the air - you can almost hear it, right. And this bag was just . . . dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That's the day I realized that there was this . . . entire life behind things. And this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember. I need to remember. Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in..."
- Ricky Fitts, American Beauty
Damnit. There was something else I wanted to stick here too.
Oh well.
I've got a habit of looking up
At the sky, to stay rooted
‘Cause souls don't die, I don't think,
They all just get diluted
It's true and
Everyone is lookin’ around
Askin’, “What am I supposed to do
With the information? –
Just give me back my youth.”
And baby, your eyes are cold and jaded
Come with me, live unpremeditated
And even though you might lose control
Of what you meant to try to be
It's only vanity
You blame sinners and cigarettes
But you'd better just get over all that
It’s the TV – it’s been real busy
Makin’ subtlety extinct
Were we wiser, maybe if we knew
What starts the souring of a view
Then we wouldn't all drink so much
To relax away the kinks
And baby, the party makes me feel jaded
So lonely and premeditated
And even though we might lose control
Of what we meant to try to be
It's only vanity
And it’s only vanity
It's not what you mean
Or how you dream
About the life you’re meant to lead
It’s all forgotten, for the way it seems
Lookin’ out on a summer day
Is better when it's on the way
Than in retrospect, when intellect
Tells you what you've forgotten
Side effects you can't prevent
Like where April through August went
And how we ripened, and were left
There bruised and cold and rotten
And baby, slide on into bed ‘cause you've made it
Walk and sleep, and the risk is eradicated
And now you know that you won't lose control
Of what you meant to try to be
And it's only vanity
…
- Chris Ayer, "Vanity"
At the sky, to stay rooted
‘Cause souls don't die, I don't think,
They all just get diluted
It's true and
Everyone is lookin’ around
Askin’, “What am I supposed to do
With the information? –
Just give me back my youth.”
And baby, your eyes are cold and jaded
Come with me, live unpremeditated
And even though you might lose control
Of what you meant to try to be
It's only vanity
You blame sinners and cigarettes
But you'd better just get over all that
It’s the TV – it’s been real busy
Makin’ subtlety extinct
Were we wiser, maybe if we knew
What starts the souring of a view
Then we wouldn't all drink so much
To relax away the kinks
And baby, the party makes me feel jaded
So lonely and premeditated
And even though we might lose control
Of what we meant to try to be
It's only vanity
And it’s only vanity
It's not what you mean
Or how you dream
About the life you’re meant to lead
It’s all forgotten, for the way it seems
Lookin’ out on a summer day
Is better when it's on the way
Than in retrospect, when intellect
Tells you what you've forgotten
Side effects you can't prevent
Like where April through August went
And how we ripened, and were left
There bruised and cold and rotten
And baby, slide on into bed ‘cause you've made it
Walk and sleep, and the risk is eradicated
And now you know that you won't lose control
Of what you meant to try to be
And it's only vanity
…
- Chris Ayer, "Vanity"
----------------
Now playing: Ingrid Michaelson - Overboard
I couldn't help it.
A passage from The Quiet American. Recorded mostly for my own benefit and convenience. (But still worth reading nonetheless!)
"'Have you had a lot of women, Fowler?'
'I don't know what a lot means. Not more than four women have had any importance to me--or me to them. The other forty-odd--one wonders why one does it. A notion of hygiene, of one's social obligations, both mistaken.'
'You think they are mistaken?'
'I wish I could have those nights back. I'm still in love, Pyle, and I'm a wasting asset. Oh, and there was pride of course. It takes a long time before we cease to feel proud of being wanted. Though God knows why we should feel it, when we look around and see who is wanted, too.'
'You don't think there is anything wrong of me, do you Thomas?'
'No, Pyle.'
'It doesn't mean I don't need it, Thomas, like everybody else. I'm not--odd.'
'Not one of us needs it as much as we say. There's an awful lot of self-hypnosis around. Now I know I need nobody--except Phuong. But that's a thing one learns with time. I could go a year without one restless night if she wasn't there...One starts promiscuous and ends like one's grandfather, faithful to one woman.'
'I suppose it's pretty naive to start that way . . .'
'No.'
'...You know, Thomas, it's pretty good being here, talking to you like this. Somehow it doesn't seem dangerous any more.'
'We used to feel that in the blitz,' I said, 'when a lull came. But they always returned.'
'If somebody asked you what your deepest sexual experience had been, what would you say?'
I knew the answer to that. 'Lying in bed early one morning and watching a woman in a red dressing-gown brush her hair.'
'Joe said it was being in bed with a Chink and a negress at the same time.'
'I'd have thought that one up too when I was twenty.'
'He's fifty.'
'I wonder what mental age they gave him in the war.'
'Was Phuong the girl in the red dressing-gown?'
I wished he hadn't asked that question.
'No,' I said, 'that woman came earlier. When I left my wife.'
'What happened?'
'I left her, too.'
'Why?'
Why indeed? 'We are fools,' I said, 'when we love. I was terrified of losing her. I thought I saw her changing--I don't know if she really was, but I couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer. I ran towards the finish just like a coward runs towards the enemy and wins a medal. I wanted to get death over.'
'Death?'
'It was a kind of death. Then I came east.'
'And found Phuong?'
'Yes.'"
There's quite more to their conversation, in a watch tower one night with two young guards, where they sit hoping the Vietmihn don't try to attack their particular tower as they sit there essentially weaponless. Including Pyle subtlely and sulkily accusing Fowler of not loving Phuong, having been with 40+ women, because of his understanding of the way the young Vietnamese girl "loves." And a discussion of what it means to be a virgin. It's really interesting. I like the simple, straightforward sincerity of it. Old English Fowler, young American Pyle, both stuck in a watch tower and in love with the same Vietnamese woman.
----------------
Now playing: Straylight Run - The Perfect Ending
"'Have you had a lot of women, Fowler?'
'I don't know what a lot means. Not more than four women have had any importance to me--or me to them. The other forty-odd--one wonders why one does it. A notion of hygiene, of one's social obligations, both mistaken.'
'You think they are mistaken?'
'I wish I could have those nights back. I'm still in love, Pyle, and I'm a wasting asset. Oh, and there was pride of course. It takes a long time before we cease to feel proud of being wanted. Though God knows why we should feel it, when we look around and see who is wanted, too.'
'You don't think there is anything wrong of me, do you Thomas?'
'No, Pyle.'
'It doesn't mean I don't need it, Thomas, like everybody else. I'm not--odd.'
'Not one of us needs it as much as we say. There's an awful lot of self-hypnosis around. Now I know I need nobody--except Phuong. But that's a thing one learns with time. I could go a year without one restless night if she wasn't there...One starts promiscuous and ends like one's grandfather, faithful to one woman.'
'I suppose it's pretty naive to start that way . . .'
'No.'
'...You know, Thomas, it's pretty good being here, talking to you like this. Somehow it doesn't seem dangerous any more.'
'We used to feel that in the blitz,' I said, 'when a lull came. But they always returned.'
'If somebody asked you what your deepest sexual experience had been, what would you say?'
I knew the answer to that. 'Lying in bed early one morning and watching a woman in a red dressing-gown brush her hair.'
'Joe said it was being in bed with a Chink and a negress at the same time.'
'I'd have thought that one up too when I was twenty.'
'He's fifty.'
'I wonder what mental age they gave him in the war.'
'Was Phuong the girl in the red dressing-gown?'
I wished he hadn't asked that question.
'No,' I said, 'that woman came earlier. When I left my wife.'
'What happened?'
'I left her, too.'
'Why?'
Why indeed? 'We are fools,' I said, 'when we love. I was terrified of losing her. I thought I saw her changing--I don't know if she really was, but I couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer. I ran towards the finish just like a coward runs towards the enemy and wins a medal. I wanted to get death over.'
'Death?'
'It was a kind of death. Then I came east.'
'And found Phuong?'
'Yes.'"
There's quite more to their conversation, in a watch tower one night with two young guards, where they sit hoping the Vietmihn don't try to attack their particular tower as they sit there essentially weaponless. Including Pyle subtlely and sulkily accusing Fowler of not loving Phuong, having been with 40+ women, because of his understanding of the way the young Vietnamese girl "loves." And a discussion of what it means to be a virgin. It's really interesting. I like the simple, straightforward sincerity of it. Old English Fowler, young American Pyle, both stuck in a watch tower and in love with the same Vietnamese woman.
----------------
Now playing: Straylight Run - The Perfect Ending
'The Quiet American' by Graham Greene.
“Death takes away vanity—even the vanity of the cuckold who mustn’t show his pain.”
“...From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had always longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness... Death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again for ever. I envied those who could believe in a God and I distrusted them. I felt they were keeping their courage up with a fable of the changeless and the permanent. Death was far more certain than God, and with death there would no longer be the daily possibility of love dying. The nightmare of a future of boredom and indifference would lift. I could never have been a pacifist. To kill a man was surely to grant him an immeasurable benefit. Oh yes, people always, everywhere, loved their enemies. It was their friends they preserved for pain and vacuity.”
"It is odd how reassuring conversation is, especially on abstract subjects: it seems to normalize the strangest surroundings."
All of those are Thomas Fowler, the narrator of the book. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, given that it's for 20th Century American Foreign Policy, my hell course this semester. I'm particularly enjoying the contrast between the characters - Fowler's older, experienced, worldly, and hard. Emotionally he's restrained to a crippling point, and he knows it. And then you have his view of the eponymous Alden Pyle, a young innocent man whose idealistic visions and impossible standards haven't yet crumbled. Set in Vietnam in 1955, I think it is, it's very interesting. They're vying for the heart of the same girl, Phuong (whose name means "phoenix"), in very detached ways - the love that all three involved feel is really interesting.
On a completely separate note, I just remembered something I wanted to mention. I've been listening (almost obsessively, really) to a bunch of songs by Chris Ayer and Ingrid Michaelson lately. I love the Ingrid Michaelson ones for their lyrics, but also for how different they are, musically, from a lot of stuff I usually hear. I love Chris Ayer's stuff for his lyrics and his simple, folksy music - really, though, his lyrics are amazing. The guy can write a song. And sing it in a manner where you can understand everything he's saying. AND he can write a good tune that's not about love, which is wonderfully refreshing. To me, at least. But yeah. That's what I wanted to note: a great relatively unknown singer/songwriter who writes touching songs that aren't all about love.
That's all.
“...From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had always longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness... Death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again for ever. I envied those who could believe in a God and I distrusted them. I felt they were keeping their courage up with a fable of the changeless and the permanent. Death was far more certain than God, and with death there would no longer be the daily possibility of love dying. The nightmare of a future of boredom and indifference would lift. I could never have been a pacifist. To kill a man was surely to grant him an immeasurable benefit. Oh yes, people always, everywhere, loved their enemies. It was their friends they preserved for pain and vacuity.”
"It is odd how reassuring conversation is, especially on abstract subjects: it seems to normalize the strangest surroundings."
All of those are Thomas Fowler, the narrator of the book. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, given that it's for 20th Century American Foreign Policy, my hell course this semester. I'm particularly enjoying the contrast between the characters - Fowler's older, experienced, worldly, and hard. Emotionally he's restrained to a crippling point, and he knows it. And then you have his view of the eponymous Alden Pyle, a young innocent man whose idealistic visions and impossible standards haven't yet crumbled. Set in Vietnam in 1955, I think it is, it's very interesting. They're vying for the heart of the same girl, Phuong (whose name means "phoenix"), in very detached ways - the love that all three involved feel is really interesting.
On a completely separate note, I just remembered something I wanted to mention. I've been listening (almost obsessively, really) to a bunch of songs by Chris Ayer and Ingrid Michaelson lately. I love the Ingrid Michaelson ones for their lyrics, but also for how different they are, musically, from a lot of stuff I usually hear. I love Chris Ayer's stuff for his lyrics and his simple, folksy music - really, though, his lyrics are amazing. The guy can write a song. And sing it in a manner where you can understand everything he's saying. AND he can write a good tune that's not about love, which is wonderfully refreshing. To me, at least. But yeah. That's what I wanted to note: a great relatively unknown singer/songwriter who writes touching songs that aren't all about love.
That's all.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Un poème.
mouths open
gasp for air
bright eyes tear
breath reeks
( parmesan cheese )
( garlicky cold pizza )
exhaling melody
...livejournal
On a completely separate note, I really hate 1) the Optimum online commercial, the one on the beach with the mermaids...you know which one I'm talking about... and 2) the freecreditreport.com commercial with the guys in the car. They're effing obnoxious and I now even more deeply resent the advertising/marketing industry because of them.
Life:
a cup drawn to your lips
filled sweetly but with a drop of bitterness
or a bitter drink with but a drop of sweetness?
what do you taste?
filled sweetly but with a drop of bitterness
or a bitter drink with but a drop of sweetness?
what do you taste?
Monday, March 24, 2008
Inspired by: 'Not Quite What I was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure'
I try but don't know how.
I always look better on paper.
Hahaha. I'm going to keep adding to this as I think of more. Care to share if you come up with any yourself. : D
Life is . . . funny. Really fucking funny.
I used to know me. Now . . . ?
To live by revelation = a gift.
Time is not on our side.
I always look better on paper.
Hahaha. I'm going to keep adding to this as I think of more. Care to share if you come up with any yourself. : D
Life is . . . funny. Really fucking funny.
I used to know me. Now . . . ?
To live by revelation = a gift.
Time is not on our side.
Another new one. No, two new ones.
peace in an image
reflect
freckled details
finely formed
evidence of light
life
contrary to outward image
reflection
...
livejournal
So apparently writing poems inspired by pictures is my new thing.
I guess that's okay. I mean, writing a poem is a way of conveying an image and a feeling, a mood and tone, and ideas. A photograph is a way of using an image to convey all that without words. So I guess that works.
It shall have to, because I like doing it. Haha. It makes me feel peaceful.
Can you guess what photo I was inspired by for this?
It's on Facebook, and it's one of my favorites. It's kind of old. It's not hard to figure it out. It's pretty obvious, actually. But that's alright.
( :
Also, should I start naming these? Or just number them? Or what? Suggestions, please.
<33
P.S. Second new one...I don't like. I'm putting it up anyway for the hell of it. It's different. Also it's not even decent.
reflect
freckled details
finely formed
evidence of light
life
contrary to outward image
reflection
...
livejournal
So apparently writing poems inspired by pictures is my new thing.
I guess that's okay. I mean, writing a poem is a way of conveying an image and a feeling, a mood and tone, and ideas. A photograph is a way of using an image to convey all that without words. So I guess that works.
It shall have to, because I like doing it. Haha. It makes me feel peaceful.
Can you guess what photo I was inspired by for this?
It's on Facebook, and it's one of my favorites. It's kind of old. It's not hard to figure it out. It's pretty obvious, actually. But that's alright.
( :
Also, should I start naming these? Or just number them? Or what? Suggestions, please.
<33
P.S. Second new one...I don't like. I'm putting it up anyway for the hell of it. It's different. Also it's not even decent.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Oh Blogger, why dost thou hate me?
outside tinted windows
blue steel world
whirl of activity
twisted wire valley
overwhelming clouds
suffocating masses
...Livejournal, again.
I'm on a role. : D
P.S. Based on this picture:
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Two in a row! Sweet!
doo wop
woah
sweet bluesy blowsy blustering
flustered
flutterin
...Blogger screwed it up again.
Livejournal it is.
No borrowing this time. Well, not such direct borrowing.
( :
I've been reading too much Kerouac, I think.
A Story A Poem
i's all one or the other
(or both)
LIFE
a story of poems
a mess of lines
a song
rhythm n beat
n blues
sucrose pop
operatic tragedy
child’s ditty
DAMNIT. Okay, there's more to it than that.
But Blogger won't let me keep my original spacing.
It's so much better the way I spaced it.
Bastards.
And I don't quite like the beat.
But I hate revision / editing.
Final drafts usually = first drafts.
Well, it's something. I guess.
Well, it's partly something, plus a lot of stolen somethings.
Hahaha.
YES. Livejournal lets me space it properly.
"Well played livejournal," as Tracy would say. Hehe.
Okay. Good night.
i's all one or the other
(or both)
LIFE
a story of poems
a mess of lines
a song
rhythm n beat
n blues
sucrose pop
operatic tragedy
child’s ditty
DAMNIT. Okay, there's more to it than that.
But Blogger won't let me keep my original spacing.
It's so much better the way I spaced it.
Bastards.
And I don't quite like the beat.
But I hate revision / editing.
Final drafts usually = first drafts.
Well, it's something. I guess.
Well, it's partly something, plus a lot of stolen somethings.
Hahaha.
YES. Livejournal lets me space it properly.
"Well played livejournal," as Tracy would say. Hehe.
Okay. Good night.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Woo sleep deprivation.
Haha. Well, I'm screwed.
I could have told you most of the stuff that's in this article already, though. The memory/attention/reaction stuff. The sleep "micro-lapses." The eating thing. The mood swings. Now I just feel worse about failing to fix this stuff. Haha.
I could have told you most of the stuff that's in this article already, though. The memory/attention/reaction stuff. The sleep "micro-lapses." The eating thing. The mood swings. Now I just feel worse about failing to fix this stuff. Haha.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Poet, not a fool
"...The remote source of [the Prefect's] defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools."
"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two brothers, I know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet."
"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect."
"You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.
"...The mathematicians, I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra...The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation --of form and quantity --is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example.
...I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fall to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action..."
So. Sorry for the wicked long intro. I read this for the first time in years (Wishbone!) for Crime: Fiction and Film a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed the outrageous nature of C. Auguste Dupin's suppositions and "rational logic" nearly as much as I liked the hardboiled Sam Spade, though not as much as the great Philip Marlowe. This was my favorite observation of Dupin's, though: that the greatest geniuses are masters of both mathematical reasoning and the poet's creativity and human understanding.
And I gotta run. Will finish later.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Random quotes floating through my mind.
Barbara: Fuck love, what a crock of shit. People can convince themselves they love a painted rock.
(August: Osage County)
Karen: I'm not defending him. He's not perfect. Just like all the rest of us, down here in the muck. I'm no angel myself. I've done some things that I'm not proud of. Things you'll never know about. Know what? I may even have to do some things I'm not proud of again. 'Cause sometimes life puts you in a corner that way. And I am a human being, after all.
(August: Osage County)
Astrov: A human being should be entirely beautiful: the face, the clothes, the mind, the thoughts. Your step-mother is, of course, beautiful to look at, but don't you see? she does nothing but sleep and eat and walk and bewitch us, and that is all. She has no responsibilities, everything is done for her--am I not right? And an idle life can never be a pure one.
(Uncle Vanya)
Yelena: The truth, no matter how bad, is better than an uncertainty.
Sonya: Not knowing is better, because then there is still hope.
(Uncle Vanya)
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
(A Farewell to Arms)
(August: Osage County)
Karen: I'm not defending him. He's not perfect. Just like all the rest of us, down here in the muck. I'm no angel myself. I've done some things that I'm not proud of. Things you'll never know about. Know what? I may even have to do some things I'm not proud of again. 'Cause sometimes life puts you in a corner that way. And I am a human being, after all.
(August: Osage County)
Astrov: A human being should be entirely beautiful: the face, the clothes, the mind, the thoughts. Your step-mother is, of course, beautiful to look at, but don't you see? she does nothing but sleep and eat and walk and bewitch us, and that is all. She has no responsibilities, everything is done for her--am I not right? And an idle life can never be a pure one.
(Uncle Vanya)
Yelena: The truth, no matter how bad, is better than an uncertainty.
Sonya: Not knowing is better, because then there is still hope.
(Uncle Vanya)
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
(A Farewell to Arms)
Yum. Stewart's Orange n Cream soda. A bit o' heaven in a glass bottle.
I was just randomly wondering about something:
I feel like I know a lot of people who consider themselves to be relatively selfless. As in, they give a lot to others, put their loved ones before themselves, and always take on everyone else's problems with their own. And these people, not unlike myself, generally feel like they're the ones who always are catching everyone else when everyone else is falling, but then there's no one there to catch them.
If this is the case, then why don't we all catch each other?
Might be misguided late-night logic, but I'm failing to see how this doesn't work.
Oh wait. Unless some of those "selfless" people aren't as generous with themselves as they think. Mmm.
That's all.
I was just randomly wondering about something:
I feel like I know a lot of people who consider themselves to be relatively selfless. As in, they give a lot to others, put their loved ones before themselves, and always take on everyone else's problems with their own. And these people, not unlike myself, generally feel like they're the ones who always are catching everyone else when everyone else is falling, but then there's no one there to catch them.
If this is the case, then why don't we all catch each other?
Might be misguided late-night logic, but I'm failing to see how this doesn't work.
Oh wait. Unless some of those "selfless" people aren't as generous with themselves as they think. Mmm.
That's all.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Barbara: You're never coming back to me, are you Bill?
Bill: Never say never, but . . .
Barbara: But no.
Bill: But no.
Barbara: Even if things don't work out with you and Marsha.
Bill: Cindy.
Barbara: Cindy.
Bill: Right. Even if things don't work out.
Barbara: And I'm never really going to understand why, am I?
(Bill struggles . . . it seems as if he might say something more, but then:)
Bill: Probably not.
(Silence. Bill heads for the door. Barbara watches him go and sobs.)
Barbara: I love you . . . I love you . . .
(He stands for a moment, his back to her. He exits. Barbara stands, alone.)
I guess it's about time I really accept that there are certain things that have happened that I will never understand. Questions that, no matter how much I deserve ["deserve"?] answers, will never get answered. I feel like that's admitting defeat, but I guess I'm just going to have to get over it.
Sylvia: Look, I adore Jocelyn, but . . . ah ha, if, "Loving is letting go," then whoever wants Jocelyn is going to have to pry her fingers loose, one by one.
Barbara: But no.
Bill: But no.
Barbara: Even if things don't work out with you and Marsha.
Bill: Cindy.
Barbara: Cindy.
Bill: Right. Even if things don't work out.
Barbara: And I'm never really going to understand why, am I?
(Bill struggles . . . it seems as if he might say something more, but then:)
Bill: Probably not.
(Silence. Bill heads for the door. Barbara watches him go and sobs.)
Barbara: I love you . . . I love you . . .
(He stands for a moment, his back to her. He exits. Barbara stands, alone.)
I guess it's about time I really accept that there are certain things that have happened that I will never understand. Questions that, no matter how much I deserve ["deserve"?] answers, will never get answered. I feel like that's admitting defeat, but I guess I'm just going to have to get over it.
Sylvia: Look, I adore Jocelyn, but . . . ah ha, if, "Loving is letting go," then whoever wants Jocelyn is going to have to pry her fingers loose, one by one.
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