marginalia

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil --
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet --
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

Billy Collins, from the flawless poem Marginalia,
about notes found within the margins of library books.

softened by Time's consummate plush

Softened by Time’s consummate plush,
How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhood’s citadel
And undermined the years!

Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
We envy the despair
That devastated childhood’s realm,
So easy to repair.
Emily Dickinson

everything is illuminated ii

Alex: You make sex often with American girl?
Jonathan: Not really.
Alex: What is mean by "not really?"
Jonathan: I'm not a priest, but I'm not John Holmes either.
Alex: I have heard of this John Holmes. He has premium penis.
Jonathan: Yes, he did.
Alex: Everyone in Ukraine has penis like that.
Jonathan: Even the women?
Alex: You make joke, yes?
Jonathan: Yes.

From the movie Everything is Illuminated,
based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer.

become your truth

The artist within must fight the battle for Meaning with pen on paper, or brush on canvas, or chisel in wood and stone. But his Way, as that of Everyman, leads from ignorance, delusion, folly, self-inflation and phoniness to truth and authenticity . . . The point of practicing an art is less to discover who you are than to become your truth, to be able to shed all sham, imposture and bluff in relation to yourself and others. True art is not an indulgence of the little self, but a manifestation of the Self.

Frederick Franck, Art as a Way
Art: "When It Rains..." by Butterfly

song remembers when i

"Vibrant Blossom" by Gosia
Music is a Catch-22. It helps us get through the hard times, and it places memories on the fun times. But sometimes -- often -- music reminds us of the things we've tried so hard to forget. I, myself, have music playing in the background any chance I get... as I'm getting ready in the morning, when I'm driving, when I'm walking from class to class, when I'm sitting at the park reading, when I'm riding my bicycle... and the list goes on. And sometimes, often, a song comes on the radio or on my iTunes list and it surprises me. Edwin McCain's "I'll Be" takes me back to the eighth grade when I wasn't the cool kid, and all of the popular girls were talking about how much they loved that song -- my favorite song -- and, just for a moment, I didn't think I was all that uncool. Dashboard Confessional's "Bend and Not Break" takes me back to senior year of high school, where I drove twenty minutes to get to my boyfriend's house, listening to this song on repeat, only to discover that he and I were not going to make it much further. And Eric Clapton's "Layla" brings to me to the age of seven, when I listened to this song -- for the first time, I swear -- and I already knew the words and the melody. I thought I was a child prodigy of music... that, or someone stole the song from inside my head.

The good and the bad -- songs remember for us. I can't imagine a life without music, and, honestly, I don't want to imagine a world without it.

song remembers when ii

"Dandelion II" by Gosia
The Song Remembers When
Performed by Trisha Yearwood

I was standin' at the counter
I was waitin' for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start
It was like a lighted match
Had been tossed into my soul
It was like a dam had broken in my heart

After taking ev'ry detour
Gettin' lost and losin' track
So that even if I wanted
I could not find my way back
After drivin' out the mem'ry
Of the way things might have been
After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when

We were rolling through the Rockies
We were up above the clouds
When a station out of Jackson played that song
And it seemed to fit the moment
And the moment seemed to freeze
When we turned the music up and sang along

And there was a God in Heaven
And the world made perfect sense
We were young and were in love
And we were easy to convince
We were headed straight for Eden
It was just around the bend
And though I have forgotten all about it
The song remembers when

I guess somethin' must have happened
And we must have said goodbye
And my heart must have been broken
Though I can't recall just why
The song remembers when

Well, for all the miles between us
And for all the time that's passed
You would think I haven't gotten very far
And I hope my hasty heart
Will forgive me just this once
If I stop to wonder how on earth you are

But that's just a lot of water
Underneath a bridge I burned
And there's no use in backtrackin'
Around corners I have turned
Still I guess some things we bury
Are just bound to rise again
For even if the whole world has forgotten
The song remembers when

Yeah, and even if the whole world has forgotten
The song remembers when

if you were coming in the fall

If you were coming in the fall,
I ’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I ’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I ’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.
Emily Dickinson
Art: "Dandelion" by ThisYearsGirl

an evening for you and me

"An Evening for You and Me"
by MelyannaM

85: the scrabble edition

Countdown to London: 85 days!

time traveler's wife

I stand in front of the sheet of paper, holding a white pastel. The paper is vast, and I begin in the center, bending over the paper though I know I would be more comfortable at the easel. I measure out the figure, half-life-sized: here is the top of the head, the groin, the heel of the foot. I rough in a head. I draw very lightly, from memory: empty eyes, here at the midpoint of the head, long nose, bow mouth slightly open. The eyebrows arch in surprise: oh, it's you. ... The points of measurement are like stars in the indigo highlights and the figure becomes three dimensional, a glass vessel. I draw the features carefully, create the structure of the face, fill in the eyes, which regard me, astonished at suddenly existing. The hair undulates across the paper, floating weightless and motionless, linear pattern that makes the static body dynamic. What else is in this universe, this drawing? Other stars, far away. I hunt through my tools and find a needle. I tape the drawing over a window and I begin to prick the paper full of tiny holes, and each pin prick becomes a sun in some other set of worlds. And when I have a galaxy full of stars, I prick out the figure, which now becomes a constellation in earnest, a network of tiny lights. I regard my likeness, and she returns my gaze. I place my finger on her forehead and say, "Vanish," but it is she who will stay; I am the one who is vanishing.

Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

battlestar galactica love

I'm a tad bit embarrassed to admit this, but... I have a slight obsession with the Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galactica. I'm embarrassed because my mother loves sci-fi (namely bad sci-fi), and I always ridicule her for it. The bad costumes. The unrealistic plots. The ridiculous characters. But Battlestar is a cross between Orwell and Lucas. What would happen if humanity was obliterated in the future, and only 40,000 humans survived? How would we conduct the new world? There would still be racism and a division of social classes. Affairs would still take place, and so would murder. It's a very realistic take on our own possible future...

And now for some fantastic fan art.

Art by Dylan Meconis
(no connection with The Simpsons)
Art by Grant Gould
Art by Ratscape
Art by Stewart McKenny

listening and looking

Is it possible to meet each other or to meet the flower, the bird, or the new day without anything interfering? And if the past does come up, to see that it is memory coming up? And not be ruled by it, not be compelled and narrowed down by it? To see it and to wonder whether it has to interfere? Whether perhaps there is an energy of meeting, of listening and looking, which can disconnect the belief that we think we know what he, she or it is?

Toni Packer

When you are here, bring back your light towards the inside.
Enlighten the surroundings.
Open your hands and refuse nothing.

Fuyo Dokai

march of the peguins

I will be out of town for a week, so here are some friendly faces to tie you over...







Images from March of the Penguins,
an inspiring documentary about my favorite animal,
by Jordan Roberts and Luc Jacquet.

once

Trailer for Once

katharine hepburn

I'm a personality as well as an actress. Show me an actress who isn't a personality, and you'll show me a woman who isn't a star.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get -- only with what you are expecting to give -- which is everything.

Once a crowd chased me for an autograph. "Beat it," I said, "go sit on a tack!" "We made you," they said. "Like hell you did," I told them.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for each other.


Katharine Hepburn, the very definition of class,
and, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

lady of shalott

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale-yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse--
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance--
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right--
The leaves upon her falling light--
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Excerpt from one of my favorite poems,
The Lady of Shalott by Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Painting: The Lady of Shalott, John William Waterhouse, 1888.
In fact, it's my favourite painting.

zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

To doubt the literal meaning of the words of Jesus or Moses incurs hostility from most people, but it's just a fact that if Jesus or Moses were to appear today, unidentified, with the same message he spoke many years ago, his mental stability would be challenged. This isn't because what Jesus or Moses said was untrue or because of modern society is in error but simply because the route they chose to reveal to others has lost relevance and comprehensibility. 'Heaven above' fades from meaning when space-age consciousness asks, Where is 'above'? But the fact that the old routes have tended, because of language rigidity, to lose their everyday meaning and become almost closed doesn't mean that the mountain is no longer there. It's there and will be there as long as consciousness exists.

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Photograph by Ansel Adams, Nevada Desert Road

everything is illuminated

Alex, a Ukranian in his early twenties, writes a letter to Jonathan, a Jewish American of the same age, who hires Alex as a guide so that Jonathan can find a woman who saved his grandmother from the Nazis. Alex does not have a very good grasp of the English language, and he has a younger brother named Little Igor. The following excerpt comes soon after Alex admits to Jonathan that he spends a large part of his life lying about himself and pretending to be someone he's not to impress other people.

I think this is why I relish writing for you so much. It makes it possible for me to be not like I am, but as I desire for Little Igor to see me. I can be funny, because I have time to meditate about how to be funny, and I can repair my mistakes when I perform mistakes, and I can be a melancholy person in manners that are interesting, not only melancholy. With writing, we have second chances. You mentioned to me that first evening of our voyage that you thought you might have been born to be a writer. What a terrible thing, I think. But I must tell you, I do not think that you understood the meaning of what you said when you said that. You were making suggestions of how you like to write, and how it is an interesting thing for you to imagine worlds that are not exactly like this one, or worlds that are exactly like this one. It is true, I am certain, that you will write very many more books than I will, but it is me, not you, who was born to be the writer.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

the lives of others

My favorite movie of this year.

the good and true

Drawrling by my friend, Alli Brooks,
who I really hope becomes a children's author one day.

such is the privilege

Hyde Park Speakers' Corner, London, September 2004
You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world. You also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues.

Richard Dawkins, from a lecture called "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder"

Sketch by Leonardo da Vinci, obviously
The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realize that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.

McDonald: Now a lot of people find great comfort from religion. Not everybody is as you are -- well-favored, handsome, wealthy, with a good job, happy family life. I mean, your life is good -- not everybody's life is good, and religion brings them comfort.
Dawkins: There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting -- it might be more comforting, for all I know. But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.

Richard Dawkins, from an interview by Sheena McDonald

predatory wasp of the palisades

Thinking outrageously I write in cursive.
I hide in my bed with the lights on the floor.
Wearing three layers of coats and leg warmers,
I see my own breath on the face of the door

Oh, I am not quite sleeping...
Oh, I am fast in bed...
There on the wall in the bedroom creeping,
I see a wasp with her wings outstretched.

North of Savanna we swim in the palisades.
I come out wearing my brother's red hat.
There on his shoulder, my best friend is bit seven times.
He runs washing his face in his hands.

Oh, how I meant to tease him...
Oh, how I meant no harm...
Touching his back with my hand I kiss him,
I see the wasp on the length of my arm.

From Sufjan Steven's beautiful song,
The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!