Monday, October 26, 2020

PABLO NERUDA
"My Dog Has Died"
____________________

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

ELIAS CANETTI
____________________

I am so full of my dead, no else can die, for there is no more room.

A. A. Milne
_____

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
 


Tuesday, October 20, 2020

YUAN MEI
“Wrapped, surrounded by ten thousand mountains“
__________________

Wrapped, surrounded by ten thousand mountains,
Cut off, no place to go….
Until you’re here, there’s no way to get here.
Once you’re here, there’s no way to go.

DR. SEUSS
_____

Remember me and smile, for it’s better to forget than to remember me and cry
.

 

Monday, October 19, 2020

SCHITT'S CREEK
Season Four
E. M. FORSTER
____________________

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.


HELEN KELLER
_____

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Friday, October 16, 2020

Monday, October 12, 2020

Sunday, October 11, 2020

GWENDOLYN BROOKS
"Gay Chaps at the Bar"
____________________

... and guys I knew in the States, young officers, return from the front crying and trembling. Gay chaps at the bar in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York ...
—Lt. William Couch in the South Pacific

We knew how to order. Just the dash
Necessary. The length of gaiety in good taste.
Whether the raillery should be slightly iced
And given green, or served up hot and lush.
And we knew beautifully how to give to women
The summer spread, the tropics of our love.
When to persist, or hold a hunger off.
Knew white speech. How to make a look an omen.
But nothing ever taught us to be islands.
And smart, athletic language for this hour
Was not in the curriculum. No stout
Lesson showed how to chat with death. We brought
No brass fortissimo, among our talents,
To holler down the lions in this air.

Saturday, October 10, 2020


 

DU FU
"Traveling Again"
____________________

This temple: I remember traveling here once.
I recall this bridge that I now cross again.
Rivers and mountains seem to have been waiting,
flowers and willows have been more than unselfish.
The countryside shines vividly through thin mist, the soft sun on the sand is the color of duck.
All of this traveler's sorrows fade away.
Why should I leave this place again.

Friday, October 9, 2020

IRIS MURDOCH
____________________

I think being a woman is like being Irish ... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.

Thursday, October 8, 2020

MARCUS AURELIUS
____________________

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

CONOR O'CALLAGHAN
"The whole island"
____________________

agrees they should be
ashamed of themselves,
whoever they are.

On the late walk
home, I pause
at the top of the road
and make out

between waves
the whispers
of poachers
in a boat

in the stars,
their unwise
laughter that
can’t be helped.

SCHITT'S CREEK
Season One
 

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

SAMUEL R. DELANY
Dhalgren
___________________

Babes, I am so bored here that I don’t think, since I’ve come, I’ve ever been more than three minutes away from some really astonishing act of violence. 

Monday, October 5, 2020


LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH



ALBERT CAMUS
____________________

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Sunday, October 4, 2020

HANNAH ARENDT
The Origins of Totalitarianism
____________________

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Saturday, October 3, 2020

DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS

Harry Kümel
Belgium/France, 1971

STEPHEN KING
The Shining
____________________

This inhuman place makes human monsters.

-

SISTER JUDE
American Horror Story: Asylum
____________________

All monsters are human.

THE VAMPIRE LOVERS

Roy Ward Baker
UK, 1970

Friday, October 2, 2020


 TROG

Freddie Fields

UK, 1970


DEATH LINE (aka RAW MEAT)

Gary Sherman
UK, 1972

Thursday, October 1, 2020


EMILY BRONTË
“Fall Leaves Fall”
____________________

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
EZRA POUND
"In A Station of the Metro"
____________________

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet, black bough.