February 2009
6 posts
“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with...”
– Keats, from “Ode to a Nightingale.”
Les Miserables.
“Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute.”
“Her whole being quivered as though at the unfolding of invisible wings making ready to spread and bear her upward.”
“There utter darkness and here shadow; but a shadow filled with light, a light filled with...
September 2008
18 posts
“Difficult times have helped me understand better than before, how infinitely...”
– Isak Dinesen.
“I have a trunk containing continents.”
– Beryl Markham.
She Walks in Beauty.
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies
One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly...
“He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster. And...”
– Freidrich Nietzsche.
Transcendental.
I read Emerson and Thoreau for the first time in a long time the other day, and remembered how energetic they are, how stoked on life. Reading Emerson especially is like jumping off a pier into a cold lake. Some quotes from him that I love, however soft-ball or “self-help” they may sound:
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and...
I've got a small problem.
I’m sort of sick, in the way that I always get sick: which is to say, only annoyingly so. I’ve got a sore throat and a dry cough that won’t stop. It’s 3 a.m. It’s 3 a.m. and I’ve got a dry cough that won’t stop. I can’t go to sleep. How terrible is it to have a nasty tickle in your throat, acting up at the very minute you lay your head down next to a...
“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in...”
– Thoreau.
“If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram...”
– So thinking about getting allergy shots and getting a cat.
Hello!
August 2008
2 posts
Hello again.
I made it home on the train in one piece. It took four days, though, which felt like an eternity at times. I learned how boring America’s heartland is—America’s heart is evidently made of cornfields and decrepit industrial yards. I saw Chicago. Big place, busy place. I even met a couple people that I could enjoy sitting next to. Of course, I met some people who creeped me out...
July 2008
37 posts
ThisIsSand.com →
Heh. One last thing before I go.
tylerriewer:
Well, there went 20 minutes…
Train ride.
So tomorrow I get on a long train to North Carolina. I’ve packed all my stuff up (except my toothbrush), said goodbye to the people I’ll miss, and boxed my books so my dear mother can mail them for me.
I’m ready to be back—ready to spend time with Brandon again, ready to see my new school, ready to wear dresses instead of the winterish layers that Half Moon Bay...
“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least...”
– George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946.
Neat. →
via 52Books.
“How can you keep up with her, this woman who is always reading another book...”
– Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler (via slaughtered) (via 52books)
The Paper Nautilus.
For authorities whose hopes are shaped by mercenaries? Writers entrapped by teatime fame and by commuters’ comforts? Not for these the paper nautilus constructs her thin glass shell. Giving her perishable souvenir of hope, a dull white outside and smooth- edged inner surface glossy as the sea, the watchful maker of it guards it day and night; she scarcely eats until the eggs are hatched....
A good story.
“One day, she found a cluster of greenish-white crystals sprouting in her armpit. These she tried to prize away, and failed. They were attached deep within; she felt their stony roots stirring under the skin surface, pulling at her muscles. Jagged flakes of silica and nodes of basalt pushed her breasts upward and flourished under the fall of flesh, making her clothes crackle and rustle....
“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem....”
– Captain Moody of British Airways Flight 009, as the plane he is piloting glides without power through a cloud of volcanic ash. As Wikipedia says, a “masterpiece of understatement.” And a tickle at the deep-seated fear I feel whenever I fly.
So, severely restricting your caloric intake is no... →
Dunno what to think about this.
“My throat’s starting to get a little dry. I need some Corona.”
– Very old lady customer.
Since everyone I know is impoverished... →
Here are cheap foods to save moneys. Hint: vegetables.
Too much technology.
Just a few minutes ago I waited on a woman who had been browsing in the bookstore for almost an hour. She bought a couple of cookbooks and asked for directions to the knitting store and, overall, seemed like a pleasant person. Through our whole (small) interaction, though, something was unsettling about her.
It was only when she turned her head to the side and I got a look at her profile that I...
I feel like a terrible person, but... →
this is kind of funny and gross. Um, don’t click it if you are uncomfortable at the thought of midgets having sex.
“They sicken of the calm who knew the storm.”
– Dorothy Parker.
riotrepublic:
What’s the difference between a million, a billion, a trillion? A million seconds is 13 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years. A million minutes ago was - 1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes ago. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ. A million hours ago was in 1885. A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on...
