The weight of the smoke ...
15 February 2015
13 February 2015
Happy birthday, Wood.
Wood, Spring in the Country, 1941
Grant Wood was born on this date in 1891.
All the really good ideas I've ever had came
to me while I was milking a cow.
Grant Wood
12 February 2015
Led.
John McPhee
Wondered.
We crossed three washes with a foot of water flowing
through. Markers indicated that five feet was not unusual. Flash floods were
frequent.
Mesquite had been brought in for a campfire. Food was being
prepared. The rain stopped. The land dried quickly. A group of us sat on a
hillside and watched the sun sink into the plains -- a sun, round and orange in
a lavender sky.
At dusk, I knelt in the brown clay, dried and cracked, and
rubbed it between my hands -- a healing balm. Desert music of mourning doves
and crickets began. Two ravens flew above the canyon. I looked up and suddenly
remembered O'Keefe. This was her country. Her watercolor Canyon with Crows came
back to me. It was an animated canvas. I wondered if Georgia had knelt where I
was, rubbing the same clay over her hands and arms as I was, some seventy years
ago?
It was time for the fireside.
Nothing's.
Door: “Why it's simply impassible!"
Alice: "Why, don't you mean impossible?"
Door: "No, I do mean impassible ... (chuckles) ... nothing's impossible!”
Lewis Carroll
Maximum.
I would like
to swim against the stream of time:
I would like to erase the consequences of certain events
and restore an initial condition.
But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts
and each of these new facts brings with it its consequences;
so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out,
the further I move away from it;
though all my actions are bent on erasing the consequences of previous actions
and though I manage to achieve appreciable results in this erasure,
enough to open my heart to hopes of immediate relief,
I must,
however,
bear in mind that my every move to erase previous events
provokes a rain of new events,
which complicate the situation worse than before
and which I will then,
in their turn,
have to try to erase.
I would like to erase the consequences of certain events
and restore an initial condition.
But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts
and each of these new facts brings with it its consequences;
so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out,
the further I move away from it;
though all my actions are bent on erasing the consequences of previous actions
and though I manage to achieve appreciable results in this erasure,
enough to open my heart to hopes of immediate relief,
I must,
however,
bear in mind that my every move to erase previous events
provokes a rain of new events,
which complicate the situation worse than before
and which I will then,
in their turn,
have to try to erase.
Therefore
I must calculate carefully every move
so as to achieve
the maximum of erasure
with the minimum of recomplication.
I must calculate carefully every move
so as to achieve
the maximum of erasure
with the minimum of recomplication.
Italo Calvino
Present.
We lived in the present, because that’s what young people
do. When a frigate bird spread its black wings on the wind or a sailfish billed
through a school of bait, when the creek took on the deep delight of greens and
blues that swept in from the ocean, overflowing the flats with fresh water and
food, we didn’t define the moment as anything other than being alive. Dawn was
a pale affair, a triumph of gradualism and the preface to a new adventure;
nights were thick with the sounds of insects and crabs, the pleasures of
exhaustion, and the wonder of dreams.
Imagine a mirror granting every wish, and then imagine
looking into that mirror every single day.
Carissimi, Jephte
Giovanni Antonini conducts the Bavarian Radio Choir and a skeleton crew from Il Giardino Armonico ...
11 February 2015
Wonder.
William Least Heat-Moon
Own.
I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own
fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Essential.
We Americans are trained to think big, talk big, act big,
love big, admire bigness ... but then the essential mystery is in the small.
Jim Harrison
Bach, Mass in B minor, BWV 232
Jordi Savall expertly leads Le Concert des Nations & La Capella Reial de Catalunya ...
Happy birthday, Edison.
Thomas Edison was born on this date in 1847.
Many of life's failures come as the result of people not realizing how close they were to success when they gave up. Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Thomas Edison
Never.
Thank God, I never was sent to a school,
To be flogged into following the style of a fool ...
William Blake
South Bank's documentary on William Blake ...
10 February 2015
Nearby.
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy birthday, Pasternak.
Boris Pasternak was born on this date in 1890.
About dreams. It is usually taken for granted that you dream of something that has made a particularly strong impression on you during the day, but it seems to me it's just the contrary. Often it's something you paid no attention to at the time -- a vague thought that you didn't bother to think out to the end, words spoken without feeling and which passed unnoticed -- these are the things that return at night, clothed in flesh and blood, and they become the subjects of dreams, as if to make up for having been ignored during waking hours.
Boris Pasternak
Removed.
Epicurus
Thank You, Jessica.
09 February 2015
Vista.
Chatham, Pale Winter Moonrise, 1997
The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race of races. Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people. To him the other continents arrive as contributions ... he gives them reception for their sake and his own sake. His spirit responds to his country’s spirit ... he incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes. Mississippi with annual freshets and changing chutes, Missouri and Columbia and Ohio and Saint Lawrence with the falls and beautiful masculine Hudson, do not embouchure where they spend themselves more than they embouchure into him. The blue breadth over the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland and the sea off Massachusetts and Maine and over Manhattan bay and over Champlain and Erie and over Ontario and Huron and Michigan and Superior, and over the Texan and Mexican and Floridian and Cuban seas and over the seas off California and Oregon, is not tallied by the blue breadth of the waters below more than the breadth of above and below is tallied by him. When the long Atlantic coast stretches longer and the Pacific coast stretches longer he easily stretches with them north or south. He spans between them also from east to west and reflects what is between them. On him rise solid growths that offset the growths of pine and cedar and hemlock and liveoak and locust and chestnut and cypress and hickory and limetree and cottonwood and tuliptree and cactus and wildvine and tamarind and persimmon ... and tangles as tangled as any canebrake or swamp ... and forests coated with transparent ice and icicles hanging from the boughs and crackling in the wind ... and sides and peaks of mountains ... and pasturage sweet and free as savannah or upland or prairie ... with flights and songs and screams that answer those of the wildpigeon and highhold and orchard-oriole and coot and surf-duck and redshouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white-ibis and indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor and night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends both mother’s and father’s. To him enter the essences of the real things and past and present events—of the enormous diversity of temperature and agriculture and mines—the tribes of red aborigines—the weather-beaten vessels entering new ports or making landings on rocky coasts—the first settlements north or south—the rapid stature and muscle—the haughty defiance of ’76, and the war and peace and formation of the constitution ... the union always surrounded by blatherers and always calm and impregnable—the perpetual coming of immigrants—the wharfhem’d cities and superior marine—the unsurveyed interior—the loghouses and clearings and wild animals and hunters and trappers ... the free commerce—the fisheries and whaling and gold-digging—the endless gestation of new states—the convening of Congress every December, the members duly coming up from all climates and the uttermost parts ... the noble character of the young mechanics and of all free American workmen and workwomen ... the general ardor and friendliness and enterprise—the perfect equality of the female with the male ... the large amativeness—the fluid movement of the population—the factories and mercantile life and laborsaving machinery—the Yankee swap—the New-York firemen and the target excursion—the southern plantation life—the character of the northeast and of the northwest and south-west—slavery and the tremulous spreading of hands to protect it, and the stern opposition to it which shall never cease till it ceases or the speaking of tongues and the moving of lips cease. For such the expression of the American poet is to be transcendant and new. It is to be indirect and not direct or descriptive or epic. Its quality goes through these to much more. Let the age and wars of other nations be chanted and their eras and characters be illustrated and that finish the verse. Not so the great psalm of the republic. Here the theme is creative and has vista. Here comes one among the wellbeloved stonecutters and plans with decision and science and sees the solid and beautiful forms of the future where there are now no solid forms.
The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race of races. Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people. To him the other continents arrive as contributions ... he gives them reception for their sake and his own sake. His spirit responds to his country’s spirit ... he incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes. Mississippi with annual freshets and changing chutes, Missouri and Columbia and Ohio and Saint Lawrence with the falls and beautiful masculine Hudson, do not embouchure where they spend themselves more than they embouchure into him. The blue breadth over the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland and the sea off Massachusetts and Maine and over Manhattan bay and over Champlain and Erie and over Ontario and Huron and Michigan and Superior, and over the Texan and Mexican and Floridian and Cuban seas and over the seas off California and Oregon, is not tallied by the blue breadth of the waters below more than the breadth of above and below is tallied by him. When the long Atlantic coast stretches longer and the Pacific coast stretches longer he easily stretches with them north or south. He spans between them also from east to west and reflects what is between them. On him rise solid growths that offset the growths of pine and cedar and hemlock and liveoak and locust and chestnut and cypress and hickory and limetree and cottonwood and tuliptree and cactus and wildvine and tamarind and persimmon ... and tangles as tangled as any canebrake or swamp ... and forests coated with transparent ice and icicles hanging from the boughs and crackling in the wind ... and sides and peaks of mountains ... and pasturage sweet and free as savannah or upland or prairie ... with flights and songs and screams that answer those of the wildpigeon and highhold and orchard-oriole and coot and surf-duck and redshouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white-ibis and indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor and night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends both mother’s and father’s. To him enter the essences of the real things and past and present events—of the enormous diversity of temperature and agriculture and mines—the tribes of red aborigines—the weather-beaten vessels entering new ports or making landings on rocky coasts—the first settlements north or south—the rapid stature and muscle—the haughty defiance of ’76, and the war and peace and formation of the constitution ... the union always surrounded by blatherers and always calm and impregnable—the perpetual coming of immigrants—the wharfhem’d cities and superior marine—the unsurveyed interior—the loghouses and clearings and wild animals and hunters and trappers ... the free commerce—the fisheries and whaling and gold-digging—the endless gestation of new states—the convening of Congress every December, the members duly coming up from all climates and the uttermost parts ... the noble character of the young mechanics and of all free American workmen and workwomen ... the general ardor and friendliness and enterprise—the perfect equality of the female with the male ... the large amativeness—the fluid movement of the population—the factories and mercantile life and laborsaving machinery—the Yankee swap—the New-York firemen and the target excursion—the southern plantation life—the character of the northeast and of the northwest and south-west—slavery and the tremulous spreading of hands to protect it, and the stern opposition to it which shall never cease till it ceases or the speaking of tongues and the moving of lips cease. For such the expression of the American poet is to be transcendant and new. It is to be indirect and not direct or descriptive or epic. Its quality goes through these to much more. Let the age and wars of other nations be chanted and their eras and characters be illustrated and that finish the verse. Not so the great psalm of the republic. Here the theme is creative and has vista. Here comes one among the wellbeloved stonecutters and plans with decision and science and sees the solid and beautiful forms of the future where there are now no solid forms.
Walt Whitman, from "Preface" to Leaves of Grass
Better.
Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
06 February 2015
05 February 2015
Spirit.
I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure
but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is
against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond
open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over
again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.
Walt Whitman
Drifted.
The Drunken Boat
As I drifted on a river I could not control,
No longer guided by the bargemen's ropes.
They were captured by howling Indians
Who nailed them naked to coloured posts.
I cared no more for other boats or cargoes:
Flemish wheat or English cottons, all were gone
When my bargemen could no longer haul me
I forgot about everything and drifted on.
Amid the fury of the loudly chopping tides
Last winter, deaf as a child's dark night,
Ah, how I raced! And the drifting Peninsulas
Have never known such conquering delight.
Lighter than cork, I revolved upon waves
That roll the dead forever in the deep,
Ten days, beyond the blinking eyes of land!
Lulled by storms, I drifted seaward from sleep.
Sweeter than apples to a child its pungent edge;
The wash of green water on my shell of pine.
Anchor and rudder went drifting away,
Washed in vomit and stained with blue wine.
Now I drift through the poem of the sea;
This gruel of stars mirrors the milky sky,
Devours green azures; ecstatic flotsam,
Drowned men, pale and thoughtful, sometimes drift by.
Staining the sudden blueness, the slow sounds,
Deliriums that streak the glowing sky,
Stronger than drink and the songs we sing,
It is boiling, bitter, red; it is love!
I know how lightening split the sky apart,
I know the surf and waterspouts and evening's fall,
I've seen the dawn arisen like a flock of doves;
I've seen what men have only dreamed they saw!
I saw the sun with mystic horrors darken
And shimmer through a violet haze;
With a shiver of shutters the waves fell
Like actors in ancient, forgotten plays!
I dreamed of green nights and glittering snow,
Slow kisses rising in the eyes of the sea,
Unknown liquids flowing, the blue and yellow
Stirring of phosphorescent melody!
For months I watched the surge of the sea,
Hysterical herds attacking the reefs;
I never thought the bright feet of Mary
Could muzzle up the heavy-breathing waves!
I have jostled - you know? - unbelievable Floridas
And seen among the flowers the wild eyes
Of panthers in the skins of men! Rainbows
Birdling blind flocks beneath the horizons!
In stinking swamps I have seen great hulks:
A Leviathan that rotted in the reeds!
Water crumbling in the midst of calm
And distances that shatter into foam.
Glaciers, silver suns, waves of pearl, fiery skies,
Giant serpents stranded where lice consume
Them, falling in the depths of dark gulfs
From contorted trees, bathed in black perfume!
I wanted to show children these fishes shining
In the blue wave, the golden fish that sing -
A froth of flowers cradled my wandering
And delicate winds tossed me on their wings.
Sometimes, a martyr of poles and latitudes,
The sea rocked me softly in sighing air,
And brought me dark blooms with yellow stems -
I remained there like a woman on her knees.
Almost an island, I balanced on my boat's sides
Rapacious blond-eyed birds, their dung, their screams.
I drifted on through fragile tangled lines
Drowned men, still staring up, sank down to sleep.
Now I, a little lost boat, in swirling debris,
Tossed by the storm into the birdless upper air
- All the Hansa Merchants and Monitors
Could not fish up my body drunk with the sea;
Free, smoking, touched the violet haze above,
I, who the lurid heavens breached like some rare wall
Which boasts - confection that the poets love -
Lichens of sunlight, and snots of bright blue sky;
Lost branch spinning in a herd of hippocamps,
Covered over with electric animals,
An everlasting July battering
The glittering sky and its fiery funnels;
Shaking at the sound of monsters roaring,
Rutting Behemoths in thick whirlpools,
Eternal weaver of unmoving blues,
I thought of Europe and its ancient walls!
I have seen archipelagos in the stars,
Feverish skies where I was free to roam!
Are these bottomless nights your exiled nests,
Swarm of golden birds, O Strength to come?
True, I've cried too much; I am heartsick at dawn.
The moon is bitter and the sun is sour…
Love burns me; I am swollen and slow.
Let my keel break! Oh, let me sink in the sea!
If I long for a shore in Europe,
It's a small pond, dark, cold, remote,
The odour of evening, and a child full of sorrow
Who stoops to launch a crumpled paper boat.
Washed in your languors, sea, I cannot trace
The wake of tankers foaming through the cold,
Nor assault the pride of pennants and flags,
Nor endure the slave ship's stinking hold.
They were captured by howling Indians
Who nailed them naked to coloured posts.
I cared no more for other boats or cargoes:
Flemish wheat or English cottons, all were gone
When my bargemen could no longer haul me
I forgot about everything and drifted on.
Amid the fury of the loudly chopping tides
Last winter, deaf as a child's dark night,
Ah, how I raced! And the drifting Peninsulas
Have never known such conquering delight.
Lighter than cork, I revolved upon waves
That roll the dead forever in the deep,
Ten days, beyond the blinking eyes of land!
Lulled by storms, I drifted seaward from sleep.
Sweeter than apples to a child its pungent edge;
The wash of green water on my shell of pine.
Anchor and rudder went drifting away,
Washed in vomit and stained with blue wine.
Now I drift through the poem of the sea;
This gruel of stars mirrors the milky sky,
Devours green azures; ecstatic flotsam,
Drowned men, pale and thoughtful, sometimes drift by.
Staining the sudden blueness, the slow sounds,
Deliriums that streak the glowing sky,
Stronger than drink and the songs we sing,
It is boiling, bitter, red; it is love!
I know how lightening split the sky apart,
I know the surf and waterspouts and evening's fall,
I've seen the dawn arisen like a flock of doves;
I've seen what men have only dreamed they saw!
I saw the sun with mystic horrors darken
And shimmer through a violet haze;
With a shiver of shutters the waves fell
Like actors in ancient, forgotten plays!
I dreamed of green nights and glittering snow,
Slow kisses rising in the eyes of the sea,
Unknown liquids flowing, the blue and yellow
Stirring of phosphorescent melody!
For months I watched the surge of the sea,
Hysterical herds attacking the reefs;
I never thought the bright feet of Mary
Could muzzle up the heavy-breathing waves!
I have jostled - you know? - unbelievable Floridas
And seen among the flowers the wild eyes
Of panthers in the skins of men! Rainbows
Birdling blind flocks beneath the horizons!
In stinking swamps I have seen great hulks:
A Leviathan that rotted in the reeds!
Water crumbling in the midst of calm
And distances that shatter into foam.
Glaciers, silver suns, waves of pearl, fiery skies,
Giant serpents stranded where lice consume
Them, falling in the depths of dark gulfs
From contorted trees, bathed in black perfume!
I wanted to show children these fishes shining
In the blue wave, the golden fish that sing -
A froth of flowers cradled my wandering
And delicate winds tossed me on their wings.
Sometimes, a martyr of poles and latitudes,
The sea rocked me softly in sighing air,
And brought me dark blooms with yellow stems -
I remained there like a woman on her knees.
Almost an island, I balanced on my boat's sides
Rapacious blond-eyed birds, their dung, their screams.
I drifted on through fragile tangled lines
Drowned men, still staring up, sank down to sleep.
Now I, a little lost boat, in swirling debris,
Tossed by the storm into the birdless upper air
- All the Hansa Merchants and Monitors
Could not fish up my body drunk with the sea;
Free, smoking, touched the violet haze above,
I, who the lurid heavens breached like some rare wall
Which boasts - confection that the poets love -
Lichens of sunlight, and snots of bright blue sky;
Lost branch spinning in a herd of hippocamps,
Covered over with electric animals,
An everlasting July battering
The glittering sky and its fiery funnels;
Shaking at the sound of monsters roaring,
Rutting Behemoths in thick whirlpools,
Eternal weaver of unmoving blues,
I thought of Europe and its ancient walls!
I have seen archipelagos in the stars,
Feverish skies where I was free to roam!
Are these bottomless nights your exiled nests,
Swarm of golden birds, O Strength to come?
True, I've cried too much; I am heartsick at dawn.
The moon is bitter and the sun is sour…
Love burns me; I am swollen and slow.
Let my keel break! Oh, let me sink in the sea!
If I long for a shore in Europe,
It's a small pond, dark, cold, remote,
The odour of evening, and a child full of sorrow
Who stoops to launch a crumpled paper boat.
Washed in your languors, sea, I cannot trace
The wake of tankers foaming through the cold,
Nor assault the pride of pennants and flags,
Nor endure the slave ship's stinking hold.
Arthur Rimbaud
Beyond.
Birds Again
A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.
I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they’re roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.
I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they’re roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.
Jim Harrison
Finding.
This is a video by Utah NOW and KUED TV in Salt Lake City
about the finding of artist, poet and adventurer Everett Ruess in 2009.
He was lost, but so far not found in the desert of Utah in
November 1934. Or was he lost? We shall see.
04 February 2015
Elsewhere.
All day I think about it,
then at night I say it.
Where did I come from,
and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere,
I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
Where did I come from,
and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere,
I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
Rumi
Change.
Riprap
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
Sing.
Ruess, Grand Canyon, Undated
Wilderness Song
I have been one who loved the wilderness
Swaggered and softly crept among the mountain peaks
I have listened long to the seas brave music,
I have sung my songs above the shriek of desert winds.
On canyon trails when warm nights winds were blowing,
Blowing and sighing through the star tipped pines,
Musing, I walked behind my placid burro,
While water rushed and broke on pointed rocks below.
I have known a green seas heaving,
I have loved red rocks and twisted trees and cloudless
turquoise skies,
Slow sunny clouds and red sand blowing.
I have felt the rain and slept behind the waterfall.
In cool sweet grasses I have lain and heard the ghostly
murmur of regretful winds,
In aspen glades where rustling silver leaves whisper wild
sorrows to the green gold solitude’s,
I have watched the shadowed clouds pile high.
Singing, I rode to meet the splendid shouting storm,
And fought it’s fury until the hidden sun foundered in
darkness,
And the lightning heard my song.
Say that I was tired and weary,
Burned and blinded by the desert sun,
Footsore, thirsty sick with strange diseases, lonely
And wet and cold,
But that I kept my dream.
Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness.
Swaggers and softly creeps among the mountain peaks.
I shall listen long to the seas brave music.
I shall sing my songs above the shriek of desert winds.
Everett Ruess
Everett Ruess
Dave Alvin, "Everett Ruess"
Thank You, Jessica.
Thank You, Jessica.
See.
Church, Sky at Sunset, Jamaica, West Indies, 1865
“Why don’t they live in Illusions?” suggested the Humbug.
“It’s much prettier.”
“Many of them do,” he answered, walking in the direction of
the forest once again, “but it’s just as bad to live in a place where what you
do see isn’t there as it is to live in one where what you don’t see is.”
“Perhaps someday you can have one city as easy to see as
Illusions and as hard to forget as Reality,” Milo remarked.
“That will happen only when you bring back Rhyme and
Reason,” said Alec, smiling, for he had seen right through Milo’s plans. “Now
let’s hurry or we’ll miss the evening concert.”
They followed him quickly up a flight of steps which
couldn’t be seen and through a door which didn’t exist. In a moment they had
left Reality (which is sometimes a hard thing to tell) and stood in a
completely different part of the forest.
The sun was dropping slowly from sight, and stripes of
purple and orange and crimson and gold piled themselves on top of the distant
hills. The last shafts of light waited patiently for a flight of wrens to find
their way home, and a group of anxious stars had already taken their places.
“Here we are!” cried Alec, and, with a sweep of his arm, he
pointed toward an enormous symphony orchestra. “Isn’t it a grand sight?”
There were at least a thousand musicians ranged in a great
arc before them. To the left and right were the violins and cellos, whose bows
moved in great waves, and behind them in numberless profusion the piccolos,
flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, and tubas were
all playing at once. At the very rear, so far away that they could hardly be
seen, were the percussion instruments, and lastly, in a long line up one side
of a steep slope, were the solemn bass fiddles.
On a high podium in front stood the conductor, a tall, gaunt
man with dark deep-set eyes and a thin mouth placed carelessly between his long
pointed nose and his long pointed chin. He used no baton, but conducted with
large, sweeping movements, which seemed to start at his toes and work slowly up
through his body and along his slender arms and end finally at the tips of his
graceful fingers.
“I don’t hear any music,” said Milo.
“That’s right,” said Alec; “you don’t listen to this
concert—you watch it. Now, pay attention.”
As the conductor waved his arms, he molded the air like
handfuls of soft clay, and the musicians carefully followed his every
direction.
“What are they playing?” asked Tock, looking up
inquisitively at Alec.
“The sunset, of course. They play it every evening, about
this time.”
“They do?” said Milo quizzically.
“Naturally,” answered Alec; “and they also play morning, noon,
and night, when, of course, it’s morning, noon, or night. Why, there
wouldn’t be any color in the world unless they played it. Each instrument plays
a different one,” he explained, “and depending, of course, on what season it is
and how the weather’s to be, the conductor chooses his score and directs the
day. But watch: the sun has almost set, and in a moment you can ask Chroma
himself.”
The last colors slowly faded from the western sky, and, as
they did, one by one the instruments stopped, until only the bass fiddles, in
their somber slow movement, were left to play the night and a single set of
silver bells brightened the constellations. The conductor let his arms fall
limply at his sides and stood quite still as darkness claimed the forest.
Norton Juster, from The Phantom Tollbooth
Norton Juster, from The Phantom Tollbooth
Brahms, Cello Sonata No. 1, Op. 38
Ophélie Gaillard performs with Louis Schwizgebel-Wang (no offense) ...
03 February 2015
Come.
Come, whoever you are!
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times,
still, and yet again, come!
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times,
still, and yet again, come!
Rumi
02 February 2015
Brain-to-brain.
One day, in a few decades, when our grandchildren surf the
Net just by thinking, or a mother donates her eyesight to an autistic kid
who cannot see, or somebody speaks because of a brain-to-brain bypass, some
of you will remember that it all started on a winter afternoon in a
Brazilian soccer field with an impossible kick.
Eternal.
Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this
vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.
William Blake
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