DIABOLIQUE
Henri-Georges Clouzot
France, 1954
Friday, December 31, 2021
MARK DOTY
Heaven's Coast: A Memoir
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And, I think, this greening does thaw at the edges, at least, of my own cold season. Joy sneaks in: listening to music, riding my bicycle, I catch myself feeling, in a way that’s as old as I am but suddenly seems unfamiliar, light. I have felt so heavy for so long. At first I felt odd- as if I shouldn’t be feeling this lightness, that familiar little catch of pleasure in the heart which is inexplicable, though a lovely passage of notes or the splendidly turned petal of a tulip has triggered it. It’s my buoyancy, part of what keeps me alive: happy, suddenly with the concomitant experience of a sonata and the motion of the shadows of leaves. I have the desire to be filled with sunlight, to soak my skin in as much of it as I can drink up, after the long interior darkness of this past season, the indoor vigil, in this harshest and darkest of winters, outside and in.
Thursday, December 30, 2021
RAINER MARIA RILKE
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And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
ANNA AKHMATOVA
"Song Of The Final Meeting"
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My breast grew helplessly cold,
But my steps were light.
I pulled the glove from my left hand
Mistakenly onto my right.
It seemed there were so many steps,
But I knew there were only three!
Amidst the maples an autumn whisper
Pleaded: "Die with me!
I'm led astray by evil
Fate, so black and so untrue."
I answered: "I, too, dear one!
I, too, will die with you…"
This is a song of the final meeting.
I glanced at the house's dark frame.
Only bedroom candles burning
With an indifferent yellow flame.
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Monday, December 27, 2021
Sunday, December 26, 2021
JAMES BALDWIN
"A lady like landscapes (for Simone Signoret)"
"A lady like landscapes (for Simone Signoret)"
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A lady like landscapes,
wearing time like an amusing shawl
thrown over her shoulders
by a friend at the bazaar:
Every once in a while she turns in it
just like a little girl,
this way and that way:
Regarde.
Ça n'était pas donne bien sûr
mais c'est quand même beau, non?
Oui, Oui.
Et toi aussi.
Ou plutôt belle
since you are a lady.
It is impossible to tell
how beautiful, how real, unanswerable,
becomes your landscape as you move in it,
how beautiful the shawl.
Saturday, December 25, 2021
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
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I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:
Money's scarceTimes are hardHere's your fuckingXmas card
I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Why I Am Not a Christian
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That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world.
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, "This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children." Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.
That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is to not make people happy.
Rejected Teachings of Jesus 101
MATTHEW 25:31-46
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31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.
32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
35 "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 "I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
37 Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 "When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 "When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"
40 The King will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
41 Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 "For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 "I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."
44 They also will answer, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"
45 He will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
Friday, December 24, 2021
"Carolina Christmas"
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What's that up on the roof?
The snow is falling down
Up in some northern town
But a Carolina Christmas
Is still the best around
Wrap up your teddy bear
Hang your stockings up with care
It's a Carolina Christmas
We're chillin' in our underwear
Well Old St. Nick's got a bag of tricks
And he's comin' 'round after 'while
This must be his favorite haunt
'Cause we always do it up in style
Grandma's got the fiddle
And Grandpa's got the bass
When it's Christmas in Carolina
It's Christmas all over the place
Grandma's got the fiddle
And Grandpa's got the bass
When it's Christmas in Carolina
It's Christmas all over the place
Yes boy, get that stocking out of yer mouth
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