the meaning you make

Anywhere Out of this World
by Charles Baudelaire

Life is a hospital where every patient is obsessed by the desire of changing beds. One would like to suffer opposite the stove, another is sure he would get well beside the window. It always seems to me that I should be happy anywhere but where I am, and this question of moving is one that I am eternally discussing with my soul.

“Tell me, my soul, poor chilly soul, how would you like to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you would be as blissful as a lizard in the sun. It is a city by the sea; they say that it is built of marble, and that its inhabitants have such a horror of the vegetable kingdom that they tear up all the trees. You see it is a country after my own heart; a country entirely made of mineral and light, and with liquid to reflect them.”

My soul does not reply.

“Since you are so fond of being motionless and watching the pageantry of movement, would you like to live in the beatific land of Holland? Perhaps you could enjoy yourself in that country which you have so long admired in paintings on museum walls. What do you say to Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts, and ships that are moored on the doorsteps of houses?”

My soul remains silent.

“Perhaps you would like Batavia better? There, moreover, we should find the wit of Europe wedded to the beauty of the tropics.”

Not a word. Can my soul be dead?

“Have you sunk into so deep a stupor that you are happy only in your unhappiness? If that is the case, let us fly to countries that are the counterfeits of Death. I know just the place for us, poor soul. We will pack up our trunks for Torneo. We will go still farther, to the farthest end of the Baltic Sea; still farther from life if possible; we will settle at the Pole. There the sun only obliquely grazes the earth, and the slow alternations of daylight and night abolish variety and increase that other half of nothingness, monotony. There we can take deep baths of darkness, while sometimes for our entertainment, the Aurora Borealis will shoot up its rose-red sheafs like the reflections of the fireworks of hell!”

At last my soul explodes! “Anywhere! Just so it is out of the world!”

comic theorist scott mccloud discusses the evolution of comics and adds a new dimension (or two) to literary criticism.

hemroyed: thanks for ted, my new best friend.

a david foster wallace exposé on the reality of baton twirling competitions.

here is a depressing poem for your enjoyment:

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder
by A. E. Housman

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
And went with half my life about my ways.

“thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird” by wallace stevens

“It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.”

william carlos williams was not the most likely of poets. as a pediatrician and obstetrician he ran a full-time practice, but managed to become an accomplished and influential poet alongside contemporaries ezra pound (a former classmate) and t. s. eliot.

“this is just to say” is one of my favorites. it disguises itself as a little p.s., a seemingly innocent household communication that is really saying: i ate your plums even though i knew you wanted them (maybe because you wanted them), and they were good.

here is a performance of it by matthew macfadyen.

This is just to say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

if you are not familiar with david sedaris, please do yourself a favor and watch this:

I have recently aquired posting power. I can’t think of a better first post for this budding blog. This is one of the better TED talks that I’ve come across, and I find it very appropo for this site that is just throbbing with restless gjinis and geniouses.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Seems that every one of your cycling quotes on the side fit perfect with this talk. Specially this one:

margaret atwood is a canadian writer, most famous for her novels but also an amazing poet. aside from creating fascinatingly intricate worlds, she constructs such lifelike characters who are each designed with their own complex histories, phobias, neuroses, and motivations.

this is a sound clip of atwood reading my favorite of her poems:

variations on the word sleep

here are a couple of her novels i enjoy. when searching for the handmaid’s tale, a link directed me to a banned book list (that means it’s good).