December 2009
291 posts
“‘But let me just tell you,’ I screamed at God. ‘You better be real, because if...”
– Stephen Baldwin (via danielholter)
Clocks and Clouds
ekstasis:
enormousair:
…You can’t build clouds. And that’s why the future you dream of never comes true.
Before airplanes existed people dreamed of airplanes and of what the world with them would look like. But just as the reality was not at all like what they dreamed, so we have no reason to think that the future will really develop in the way we dream now. For our dreams are covered in...
(I know, I cheated for a second there, and melded Beckett’s original with his English “translation,” which is really a rewriting. The two are very interesting side by side, because in numerous spots one or the other sounds much better; frequently they are quite different, and in several cases an entire exchange or action exists in one and not the other, such as that whole echange...
En attendant.
msodradek:
enormousair:
msodradek:
enormousair:
msodradek:
enormousair:
VLADIMIR: I don’t understand.
ESTRAGON: Use your intelligence, can’t you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
VLADIMIR: (finally). I remain in the dark.
—Beckett, WfG
ESTRAGON: And all that was yesterday, you say?
VLADIMIR: Yes of course it was yesterday.
ESTRAGON: And here where we are now?
...
En attendant.
msodradek:
enormousair:
msodradek:
enormousair:
VLADIMIR: I don’t understand.
ESTRAGON: Use your intelligence, can’t you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
VLADIMIR: (finally). I remain in the dark.
—Beckett, WfG
ESTRAGON: And all that was yesterday, you say?
VLADIMIR: Yes of course it was yesterday.
ESTRAGON: And here where we are now?
VLADIMIR: Where else do you think? Do...
Yes! Beckett-off!
msodradek:
enormousair:
VLADIMIR: I don’t understand.
ESTRAGON: Use your intelligence, can’t you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
VLADIMIR: (finally). I remain in the dark.
—Beckett, WfG
ESTRAGON: And all that was yesterday, you say?
VLADIMIR: Yes of course it was yesterday.
ESTRAGON: And here where we are now?
VLADIMIR: Where else do you think? Do you not recognize the...
You can’t build clouds. And that’s why the future you dream of never comes true.
—Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (U of C, 1984), 41.
This is a deeper, more intricate idea than first appears…
My life.
VLADIMIR: I don’t understand.
ESTRAGON: Use your intelligence, can’t you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
VLADIMIR: (finally). I remain in the dark.
—Beckett, WfG
tesslynch:
david byrne — glass concrete and...
“La mode se démode, le style jamais.”
– Coco Chanel (via guilbep & atestu) (via pegobry)
“… the familiar double standard of philosophy since its debacle: upholding one...”
– Susan Sontag, “Thinking Against Oneself”: Reflections on Cioran. (via msodradek)
—Zing!
“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand...”
– Franz Kafka, diary excerpt from 19 October 1921 (via ontheborderland)
This is brilliant.
I’ve read these diaries. How could I have missed this??
“This is not my favorite setting to talk in. I think it would be much more...”
– Charles White, lecture at Columbia University, February 10, 1975 (via thecusp)
“Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don’t know when it will arrive...”
– Paul Bowles, “The Sheltering Sky” (via thecusp)
Vic Chesnutt, “Bakersfield.” From...
I say we all reblog the fuck out of Rilke until he’s just a sentimental cliche.
Oh wait. We’ve already done that.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
“If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”
– Anatole France (via frost-at-midnight)
poetbabble:
enormousair:
Hey poetbabble, hey otb—see you’re on here.
Merry Christmas. The stockings are hung by the chimney, etc, and I’m off to bed soon…
Merry Christmas Eve! I’ll make a big breakfast tomorrow, and there’s plenty of Bailey’s left. Bring a fork. ;)
shit, sorry I missed this. rain check on the irish coffee?
Words That Don't Exist in the English Language
msodradek:
enormousair:
msodradek:
bellavita:
colleenlouise:ryanalexandersincere:justan:
L’esprit de l’escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”
this is one of my faves, tho maybe “staircase wit” is a little better.
merrie christmas, odrie.
Yes,...
Words That Don't Exist in the English Language
msodradek:
bellavita:
colleenlouise:ryanalexandersincere:justan:
L’esprit de l’escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”
this is one of my faves, tho maybe “staircase wit” is a little better.
merrie christmas, odrie.
Hey poetbabble, hey otb—see you’re on here.
Merry Christmas. The stockings are hung by the chimney, etc, and I’m off to bed soon…
“Wenn der Schnee ans Fenster fällt,
Lang die Abendglocke läutet,
Vielen ist der...”
– Georg Trakl, Ein Winterabend. (via the floating bridge of dreams) (via msodradek)
Breaking Update: Winter Break, Day 3
petitchou:
Bowls of homemade (oh, to be retired) Kit Kat ice cream consumed: 2
Conversation witnessed between my mother and a movie theater vendor:
Vendor: That will be $3.50, ma’am. Mom: But that sign says $2.00 for hot tea. Vendor: Yes, but you have a large cup. Mom: This is the cup you gave me. Vendor: A large is $3.50. Mom: Let me get this straight: you want me to pay over a dollar extra...
“…when a female cabbage butterfly lays her eggs on a brussels sprout plant and...”
– This NYT article suggests that the complexity of plant life -and specifically its capacity for sophisticated responses to stimuli- might ethically problematize eating vegetables.
There are ways of problematizing almost any stance on the consumption of life, a point Will and I discussed long ago and...
“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust,...”
– Douglas Adams (via nihilnoetia)
Prison hostage crisis in Brazil (2006) and the Pieta Rondanini of Michelangelo. (Sources here and here.)
