Anne Rice
(1941-2021)
(1941-2021)
Sunday, December 12, 2021
Saturday, December 11, 2021
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed
____________________
He tried to read an elementary economics text; it bored him past endurance, it was like listening to somebody interminably recounting a long and stupid dream. He could not force himself to understand how banks functioned and so forth, because all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaborate, and as unnecessary.
In a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistaken and terrible beauty; in the rites of the moneychangers, where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men's acts, even the terrible became banal.
Friday, December 10, 2021
TOVE JANSSON
Moominland Midwinter
Moominland Midwinter
____________________
There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.
"The Landscape"
____________________
More chasteness to my eclogues it would give,
Sky-high, like old astrologers to live,
A neighbour of the belfries: and to hear
Their solemn hymns along the winds career.
High in my attic, chin in hand, I'd swing
And watch the workshops as they roar and sing,
The city's masts — each steeple, tower, and flue —
And skies that bring eternity to view.
Sweet, through the mist, to see illumed again
Stars through the azure, lamps behind the pane,
Rivers of carbon irrigate the sky,
And the pale moon pour magic from on high.
I'd watch three seasons passing by, and then
When winter came with dreary snows, I'd pen
Myself between closed shutters, bolts, and doors,
And build my fairy palaces indoors.
A dream of blue horizons I would garble
With thoughts of fountains weeping on to marble,
Of gardens, kisses, birds that ceaseless sing,
And all the Idyll holds of childhood's spring.
The riots, brawling past my window-pane,
From off my desk would not divert my brain.
Because I would be plunged in pleasure still,
Conjuring up the Springtime with my will,
And forcing sunshine from my heart to form,
Of burning thoughts, an atmosphere that's warm.
Translation by Roy Campbell
Thursday, December 9, 2021
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
MARY OLIVER
"Snowy Night"
____________________
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
WALL OF VOODOO
Andy Prieboy, Marc Moreland
"Shouldn't Have Given Him a Gun for Christmas"
(aka "A MAGAt's Christmas")
____________________
There's been snow covered Christmases
And ones just of rain
Of smoked hams and warm bread
And shiny toy trains
And though they've always been different
They've all been the best
Yet there's one I remember
More tenderly than all the rest
It all began with Uncle Jack
He made a crack and wouldn't take it back
Dad was drinking, he got sore
There was a flash, and a crash
It took the manger on the floor
Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas
Shouldn't have given him a gun, gun, gun
Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas
Look what Daddy has done, done, done!
He put two slugs into the neighbor's door
And kicked upon a raging scene
The plastic baby Jesus he blew to smithereens
I can't think about the nine year old
Who only seems ten
And how he went on cavelling to the doors of now dead man, oh
Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas
Shouldn't have given him a gun, gun, gun
Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas
Look what Daddy has done, done, done!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum
Wie treu sind deine Biätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum
Wie treu sind deine Biätter!
Of course I could have been pizzas and all that but-
Oooo, yeah!
Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas
Shouldn't have given him a gun, gun, gun
Shouldn't have given him a gun for Christmas
Look what Daddy has done, done, done!
Monday, December 6, 2021
Sunday, December 5, 2021
BERTRAND RUSSELL
____________________
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
JOHN STEINBECK
____________________
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Saturday, December 4, 2021
Friday, December 3, 2021
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Why I Am Not a Christian
____________________
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
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