January 2012
27 posts
“truth”
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the...
MX Missiles (2005) (Andrew Bird) [note] [buy]
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.
~Christopher Isherwood [buy]
How Soon Is Now? (1984) (The Smiths) [buy]
(via...
Pain is a message. You are probably going to experience a fair amount of it, so it’s important that you know this. No matter how bad it is, pain is not a judgment, or a punishment, or a weakness: pain is a message, from the part of you that wants to live, telling you that something is wrong.
~Sady Doyle [source]
Akenfield [Davie, part 2] (1969) (Ronald Blythe)...
Akenfield [Davie, part 1] (1969) (Ronald Blythe)...
worried amusement, the only emotion that ghosts are allowed
~Emily Carter [buy]
One’s on the Way (1971) (Loretta Lynn) [buy]
Now it occurs to me that at least some of her resistance to teaching might have had to do with her passion for being a student. She had the habits and the aura of a student all her life. She was also, all but physically, always young. People close to her often compared her to a child (her inability to be alone; her undiminishable capacity for wonder; her strong, hero-worshipping side and her need...
Turn Out the Stars (2009) (Tierney Sutton) [buy]
“Shy Boy”
I wait for my shadow to forget me,
to take that one phantom step that I keep
from taking. I wait for the simple flash
of a dancer’s spat upon this one moon
of stage-light, the mind’s lonely oval
illuminated on the surface of some
windless pond or slew. And the old soft-shoe
practices to get it right, husha-husha-hush
in its constant audition of sawdust....
Martians vs. Goblins (2011) (The Game, featuring...
Sex with men occasionally could be fine. It was their point of view that was troubling.
~Eileen Myles [buy]
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded,...
December 2011
31 posts
Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor (2003) (Gillian...
We stopped having sex, and I bought a king-size bed so we could sleep next to each other without touching.
~Julie Klausner [buy]
Fisherman’s Woman (2005) (Emiliana Torrini)...
“Kicking the Door”
It was midnight one Sunday and we—two friends and I—were looking for a place where we could get a glass of wine. Surprisingly enough, we found one; not only was it open, but it would stay open for another hour. As often happens, the door was locked, so we rang the bell. Nothing. An instant later we rang again. Still nothing. After another minute we decided to knock...
Oil of Angels (1993) (Cocteau Twins) [buy]
He’s the type of man whose name is legion—you see them sitting on barstools on Christmas morning, excusing themselves from their shot of schnapps and mounds of peanut shells to go to a payphone. They return to their vinyl-cushioned barstools, the seats giving in with a sort of sighing surrender to the weight of their asses. He got the bike, they say, or the software upgrade, or the new Doom...
Cracked (1985) (The Jesus and Mary Chain) [buy]
“Christopher Hitchens, Consummate Writer, Brilliant Friend”
The place where Christopher Hitchens spent his last few weeks was hardly bookish, but he made it his own. Close to downtown Houston is the Medical Center, a cluster of high-rises like La Défense of Paris, or London’s City, a financial district of a sort, where the common currency is illness.
This complex is one of...
“VII.”
How it happened it is impossible to say because it came about step by step, unnoticed, but in the third month of Ivan Ilych’s illness, his wife, his daughter, his son, his acquaintances, the doctors, the servants, and above all he himself, were aware that the whole interest he had for other people was whether he would soon vacate his place, and at last release the living from...
El Mole Rachmim fur Titanik (1912) (Cantor Joseph...
As a corollary to the above elaborate statement of the ceremonies proper to be observed at the hara-kiri, I may here describe an instance of such an execution which I was sent officially to witness. The condemned man was Taki Zenzaburo, an officer of the Prince of Bizen, who gave the order to fire upon the foreign settlement at Hiogo in the month of February 1868,—an attack to which I have alluded...