such great heights

I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they're perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate that God himself
Did make us into corresponding shapes like
Puzzle pieces from the clay
True, it may seem like a stretch, but
Its thoughts like this that catch my troubled
Head when you're away when I am missing you to death

The Postal Service, an excerpt from Such Great Heights

little miss sunshine

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap -- high school and everything -- just skip it.
Frank: You know Marcel Proust?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered... those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school... those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

A touching scene from Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's Little Miss Sunshine, my number one favorite film of 2006.

it's a wonderful life

George: I know what I'm gonna do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year, and the year after that. I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I'm comin' back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I'm gonna build things. I'm gonna build airfields, I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I'm gonna build bridges a mile long...

George: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.
Mary: I'll take it. Then what?
George: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?

Clarence: Your brother, Harry Bailey, broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine.
George: That's a lie! Harry Bailey went to war -- he got the Congressional Medal of Honor. He saved the lives of every man on that transport.
Clarence: Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry.

Harry: A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town.

first-rate pursuits

It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits -- like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing a beautiful woman, flying through the stratosphere or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits -- involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding -- inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is ever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.

Malcolm Muggeridge

the fountain

Izzi: Remember Moses Morales?
Tom: Who?
Izzi: The Mayan guide I told you about.
Tom: From your trip.
Izzi: Yeah. The last night I was with him, he told me about his father, who had died. Well, Moses wouldn't believe it.
Tom: Izzi...
Izzi: No, no. Listen, listen. He said that if they dug his father's body up, it would be gone. They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds. He said... death was his father's road to awe. That's what he called it. The road to awe. Now, I've been trying to write the last chapter and I haven't been able to get that out of my head!
Tom: Why are you telling me this?
Izzi: I'm not afraid anymore, Tommy.

A scene from Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, my second favorite film of 2006.

postsecret: ii

postsecret

ever get over you

I drink good coffee every morning
Comes from a place that's far away
And when I'm done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say
I don't want you thinking I'm unhappy
What is closer to the truth
That if I lived till I was 102
I just don't think I'll ever get over you
I'm no longer moved to drink strong whisky
'Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew
That if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs
I just don't think I'll ever get over you
Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter's still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years
But I don't want you thinking I don't get asked to dinner
'Cause I'm here to say that I sometimes do
Even though I may soon feel the touch of love
I just don't think I'll ever get over you
If I lived till I was 102
I just don't think I'll ever get over you

Colin Hays, I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

happy holidays

postsecret: i

postsecret

funeral blues

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

(My favorite poem.)

romeo, romeo

Give me my Romeo; and when I shall die, take him, and cut him out into little stars and he will make the face of Heaven so fine, that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Act III, scene ii

the history teacher

The History Teacher

Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.

The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
"How far is it from here to Madrid?"
"What do you call the matador's hat?"

The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.

Billy Collins

trailers

breaking and entering
meet the robinsons
notes on a scandal
copying beethoven

And, recently, I attended a screening of The Queen. Helen Mirren alone is worth the ticket. Director Stephen Frears holds a strong and knowledgable perspective on the Queen's situation, and the depiction of the royal family is remarkable. I appreciated the film's tone, one that was somber and dignified, just like the Queen herself. Everyone grieves in different ways, and being overly dramatic in grief does not make your grief any "better" than quiet grief. One Londoner said that it was "disgusting" that the Queen did not comment, but, to her, the people were disgusting for intruding on a private matter. The movie was interesting, witty at parts, and incredibly well done. Well done, indeed.

ah, what then?

What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in you hand
Ah, what then?

Coleridge

pale blue dot

On the view of earth from 3.7 billion miles away:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home, That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [...] There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

the brave cassandra

From the play The Trojan Women by Euripides:

Cassandra
The Trojans have that glory which is loveliest:
they died for their own country. So the bodies of all
who took the spears were carried home in loving hands,
brought, in the land of their fathers, to the embrace of the earth
and buried becomingly as the rite fell due. The rest,
those Phrygians who escaped death in battle, day by day,
came home to happiness the Achaeans could not know;
their wives, their children. Then was Hector's fate so sad?
You think so. Listen to the truth. He is dead and gone
surely, but with reputation, as a valiant man.
How could this be, except for the Achaeans' coming?
Had they held back, none might have known how great he was.
The bride of Paris was the daughter of Zeus. Had he
not married her, fame in our house would sleep in silence still.
Though surely, the wise man will forever shrink from war,
yet if war come, the hero's death will lay a wreath
not lustreless on the city. The coward alone brings shame.

microphone heartbeats

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their mentrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chanelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of New York City Marathon it would like war.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

umbrellas and orange

inherit the wind

From the play (and film) Inherit the Wind:

Henry Drummond
Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!

cannot fail to love

When you are in love -- you know this, all of you -- you are not yourself. You have no self. The world is a grid of shining correspondences. And the correspondences sing like angels. You cannot defile them with your intentions. You cannot undo that order that is suddenly revealed to you. All you can do is become part of it and move in hallowed light.

Your friends make jokes about your absentmindedness. Your parents tell you you're deluded. All the people around ask you to come back to the person they know. But you are dead to them. The world has no meaning to you. Everything you once cherished is irrelevant, and you are far above it. The only truth you know is the truth around you. And you know, more than that, that whatever you love, you cannot fail to love. You can no more be argued out of your devotion than a compass can be told not to find the north, the tides instructed not to follow their moon.

Pico Iyer, Abandon

samson

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
The bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first , I loved you first
Beneath the stars came falling on our heads
But there just soft light, there just soft light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
He told me i was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors and the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
and kissed me till the morning light, the morning light
and he kissed me till the morning light

Samson came back to bed
not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

Regina Spektor, Samson

heracles to admetus

From the play Alcestis, by Euripides:

Heracles
Come here, I will tell you something that will make you wise.
Do you really know what things are like, the way they are?
I don't think so. How could you?
Well, then, listen to me.
Death is an obligation which we all must pay.
There is not one man living who can truly say
If he will be alive or dead on the next day.
Fortune is dark; she moves, but we cannot see the way
Nor can we pin her down by science and study her.
There, I have told you. Now you can understand.
Go on, enjoy yourself, drink, call the life you live today your own,
But only that, the rest belongs to chance.

Alcestis is about a man, Admetus, who has to die young. But, because he is the utmost hospitable host for Apollo, the god allows Admetus to live into old age if he is able to find someone to die in his place. His mother and father say no, even though they are old, but his young wife, Alcestis, is willing to die for him. At first, the play seems to be about Alcestis's dignity and honor, for she is one of the few Greek women who is portrayed in a good light. However, Alcestis dies halfway through the play, and the audience is left with Admetus crying and lamenting her death, only to proclaim, "I wish I were dead!" One should ask -- not how can a wife a die for her husband, but -- what kind of a man would let his wife die for him? The thought that he could die himself never even crosses his mind.

After the above conversation with Admetus, Heracles goes to fight Death. He brings Alcestis back from the dead. The painting above is by Lord Frederic Leighton, and it is called Hercules Wrestling Death for the Body of Alcestis.

most wonderful time of the year

I love everything about this time of the year. The cold weather. The Christmas carols. Roasting marshmallows in the fire. Bundling up with my favorite blanket and reading myself to sleep. Giftwrap and ribbons. Penguins and snowmen. I love the Christmas lights and the hot cocoa. I, myself, have never ice skated, but I do love the idea of it. For many, the holiday season is a time for shopping, for last-minute gifts, for "Oh, crap, I forgot about Jane" on Christmas Eve. And I feel sorry for those people because they are missing out on the season. Religion aside. Family and friends aside. This is a season for joyous celebration.

Some celebrate the birth of Jesus. Growing up in a non-Christian household, I wondered why my family celebrated Christmas. I did not comprehend the phrase "I just like Christmas trees" that my mother would say. I would ask why -- did she like the pine needles on the floor, or did she just like the arduous task of setting up and taking down the tree -- and she would always smile in response. Originally, I thought she was crazy. I thought she just needed a task to keep her busy. But, as I've grown older, I realized that the Christmas tree is so much more than just a tree. It's a reason to celebrate.

I, for one, love to celebrate the season in three ways. One, I love ornaments. I love the round old-school ornaments that remind me of movies like It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas. I love the glitter and the colors -- the whites, the silvers, the reds, and the golds! -- and the idea that memories surround each ornament. I love that each ornament is a world in its own, with its own thoughts and memories and favorite carols. Two, I love decorations, especially lights. I love fireworks and lights on houses and wreaths on front doors and cars. I love street lamps that are covered with red and white candy cane striped ribbons. I love mistletoe and cinnamon-scented candles. I love getting into a cold car and waiting frantically for the heater to warm up the car, and the sight of my breath on the window is enough to warm my heart. I love smiling faces. People are much more likely to smile during winter than they are during summer, and I propose it's because they know how far a little smile can go. And yes, smiles are part of holiday decorations!

And three, I love watching old movies. They don't even need to be holiday related. I just love sitting in front of my TV, hot cocoa with marshmallows in hand, and letting my mind release into a magical world that I never knew. Of course, there are my typical holiday favorites -- It's a Wonderful Life, The Sound of Music, and A Christmas Story, all of which I watch every Christmas Eve on my birthday -- but I have many others. During winter time, I have nothing else to do. No work of any sort. I just have "Me" time, and I can spend my time doing anything I please. I especially love watching old movies with friends, wondering if they'll laugh at the same moments that I will, or wondering if they'll get crushes on Jimmy Stewart or Gene Kelly too.

I hope that everyone is able to find the little things this season that make their life worth celebrating. Whether it be family or friends, christmas lights or a roaring fire, I hope that everyone remembers that this is a season for love and joy.

sea of mists

From Sandman, Sea of Mists, by Neil Gaimon:

The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths. However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness.

The garden of Destiny. You would know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long, and even in death there is no ending to them.

For Delirium was once Delight. And although that was long ago now, even today her eyes are badly matched; one eye is a vivid emerald green, spattered with silver flecks that move; her other eye is vein blue. Who knows what Delirium sees, through her mismatched eyes?

good fortune

Don't compare yourself to anyone, and learn to keep from building expectations. People develop at different rates, with different results, and luck is also involved. Your only worry for yourself should be did I work today? Be happy for the successes of your friends, because good fortune for one of us is good fortune for all of us . . . You will never write anything worth keeping if you allow yourself to give in to petty worries over whether you are treated as you think you deserve, or your rewards are commensurate to the work you've done. That will almost never be the case, and the artist who expects great rewards and complete understanding is a fool.

Richard Bausch