December 5, 2009

“ Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.

Les Brown (via shonpapri)

December 4, 2009

“ Writing a book is a bit like surfing. Most of the time you’re waiting. And it’s quite pleasant, sitting in the water waiting. But you are expecting that the result of a storm over the horizon, in another time zone, usually, days old, will radiate out in the form of waves. And eventually, when they show up, you turn around and ride that energy to the shore. It’s a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you’re lucky, it’s also about grace. As a writer, you roll up to the desk every day, and then you sit there, waiting, in the hope that something will come over the horizon. And then you turn around and ride it, in the form of a story.

Tim Winton (via bookspaperscissors) (via booklover)

booklover:lotusohm:mustanggina:(via Liz & Mabel)

booklover:lotusohm:mustanggina:(via Liz & Mabel)


shonpapri: still and move [15s] ~ guen-k ~ Flickr

shonpapri:

still and move [15s] ~ guen-k ~ Flickr


fuckyeahdavidbowie:honeydont: my daily dose of Bowie :) A spoonful of Bowie makes the medicine go down.

fuckyeahdavidbowie:honeydont:

my daily dose of Bowie :)

A spoonful of Bowie makes the medicine go down.


It’s the birthday of writer Samuel Butler, (books by this author) born near Bingham, England (1835). He didn’t get along with his family, and as soon as he was old enough, he wanted to get as far away from them as possible. So he moved to New Zealand and worked as a sheep farmer. He moved back to England, but his experience in New Zealand was the inspiration for one of his most famous works, Erewhon, which was published anonymously in 1872. It was a utopian novel satirizing Victorian society. But his true attack on the Victorians was his novel The Way of All Flesh, which he based on his own painful childhood, and which he considered too critical to publish during his life. Samuel Butler died in 1902, and the novel was found and published in 1903.

It’s the birthday of writer Samuel Butler, (books by this author) born near Bingham, England (1835). He didn’t get along with his family, and as soon as he was old enough, he wanted to get as far away from them as possible. So he moved to New Zealand and worked as a sheep farmer. He moved back to England, but his experience in New Zealand was the inspiration for one of his most famous works, Erewhon, which was published anonymously in 1872. It was a utopian novel satirizing Victorian society. But his true attack on the Victorians was his novel The Way of All Flesh, which he based on his own painful childhood, and which he considered too critical to publish during his life. Samuel Butler died in 1902, and the novel was found and published in 1903.


It’s the birthday of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, (books by this author) born in Prague in 1875. He was a delicate boy, born prematurely. The year before he was born, his mother had given birth to a girl who died after a week, and she wanted her son to fill that place. Rainer’s given name was René, and his mother dressed him in dresses, braided his hair, and generally treated him like a girl. Later, he wrote, “I think my mother played with me as though I were a big doll.” But his mother also encouraged him to read and write poetry, and made him copy out verses before he even knew how to read. At his father’s request, he went to military school, then to the university. He fell in love with an older married woman, and she introduced him to many of the intellectual and literary stars of the day. He lived in an artists colony, and then went to Paris and worked for Auguste Rodin, and was inspired by the sculptor’s commitment and discipline. Rilke managed to live all over Europe for free, thanks to his wealthy connections and patrons. For a while, he lived in a castle in Italy, the home of a princess, and it was there that he took a walk along the cliffs and suddenly heard the voice of an angel say: “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?” This became the first line of the first of his “Duino Elegies,” his masterpiece. Another of his patrons, Werner Reinhart, let him live in his castle in Switzerland, and there Rilke composed his “Sonnets to Orpheus.” He died from leukemia in 1926, at the age of 51.

It’s the birthday of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, (books by this author) born in Prague in 1875. He was a delicate boy, born prematurely. The year before he was born, his mother had given birth to a girl who died after a week, and she wanted her son to fill that place. Rainer’s given name was René, and his mother dressed him in dresses, braided his hair, and generally treated him like a girl. Later, he wrote, “I think my mother played with me as though I were a big doll.” But his mother also encouraged him to read and write poetry, and made him copy out verses before he even knew how to read.

At his father’s request, he went to military school, then to the university. He fell in love with an older married woman, and she introduced him to many of the intellectual and literary stars of the day. He lived in an artists colony, and then went to Paris and worked for Auguste Rodin, and was inspired by the sculptor’s commitment and discipline.

Rilke managed to live all over Europe for free, thanks to his wealthy connections and patrons. For a while, he lived in a castle in Italy, the home of a princess, and it was there that he took a walk along the cliffs and suddenly heard the voice of an angel say: “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?” This became the first line of the first of his “Duino Elegies,” his masterpiece. Another of his patrons, Werner Reinhart, let him live in his castle in Switzerland, and there Rilke composed his “Sonnets to Orpheus.” He died from leukemia in 1926, at the age of 51.


shonpapri: Georgia O’Keeffe photographed by Michael A. Vaccaro, ca. 1960

shonpapri:

Georgia O’Keeffe photographed by Michael A. Vaccaro, ca. 1960


December 3, 2009

“ There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.

Viggo Mortensen (via thoughtsdetained)

Quarantine

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

“Quarantine” by Eavan Boland, from Against Love Poetry. © W.W. Norton & Co., 2003.


I now know of what I am going to die.

Death by toddler. Today he has ransacked my purse (at least I caught him before he put my driver’s license down the heater vent), figured out how to get down the paper letters that spelled his name that I so painstakingly decorated his room with and torn them to shreds (he used the changing table pad that I naively left within his reach), climbed on top of the toilet to get to the sea shells, torn the pom-poms out of the sweater that my grandmother made for baby Page, and pooped in the bath tub among other things.

One day soon I’m going to simply disintegrate into a neat little pile of Stacy-atoms, like the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay. No, more like a replicator that’s been hit by an ARG.

I’m going to ask DH to bring home a box of Merlot.


It was on this day in 1926 that the mystery novelist Agatha Christie disappeared from her home in Berkshire, England. Her abandoned car was found in a chalk pit seven miles from her house. The whole country was fascinated, and the story got lots of media attention. Police and ordinary citizens alike organized huge search parties. Then, 11 days later, Agatha Christie was found in a luxury hotel. She was staying under a different name, and she claimed that she couldn’t remember a thing. It had been a hard year for Christie — her mother had died, and her husband had left her for his young mistress. To this day, no one knows if she had legitimate amnesia, or if it was a publicity stunt to raise book sales, or a way to publicly expose her husband’s infidelity. But all the media attention made her even more famous, and she ended up as one of the best-selling authors of all time.

It was on this day in 1926 that the mystery novelist Agatha Christie disappeared from her home in Berkshire, England. Her abandoned car was found in a chalk pit seven miles from her house. The whole country was fascinated, and the story got lots of media attention. Police and ordinary citizens alike organized huge search parties.

Then, 11 days later, Agatha Christie was found in a luxury hotel. She was staying under a different name, and she claimed that she couldn’t remember a thing. It had been a hard year for Christie — her mother had died, and her husband had left her for his young mistress. To this day, no one knows if she had legitimate amnesia, or if it was a publicity stunt to raise book sales, or a way to publicly expose her husband’s infidelity. But all the media attention made her even more famous, and she ended up as one of the best-selling authors of all time.


Classic Sesame Street



Love Poem with Toast

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

“Love Poem with Toast” by Miller Williams, from Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems. © University of Illinois Press, 1999.