____________________
Valentin Serov
Portrait of the Artist Konstantin Korovin (1891)
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Post-Punk/Pre-Grunge Seattle
____________________
-
“Before mass media wanted to pigeonhole Seattle as having a “sound”, this was music from bands who only knew of one sound: the Puget one. Historical? Maybe, but it’s good times represented by good sounding music from an era that pushed others to get off their asses and rock out, before coffee and binary codes dominated our (un)consciousness.”
- John Book
%20copy.jpg)
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
REBECCA SOLNIT
____________________
The Thousand Year Reich did not last two decades; the Soviet Union lasted three quarters of a century; Idi Amin ruled for eight years; the Confederacy didn’t make it to kindergarten; Argentina’s Dirty War lasted six years; Pinochet dominated Chile for sixteen years; nothing lasts forever, even the worst things. Hitler killed himself; Stalin and Franco lasted too long but ultimately dropped dead and last year Franco’s body was exhumed from its grand prison-labor-built monument and dumped in a municipal cemetery; Pol Pot died in prison; Mugabe had to step down; Putin is not immortal.
Every day under these monstrosities was too long, and part of the horror of life under a corrupt and brutal regime is that it seems never-ending, but nothing lasts forever. And believing that something can end is often instrumental to working toward ending it; how the people in Eastern Europe dared to hope that their efforts might succeed I cannot imagine.
,%20Bathhouse%20on%20the%20Lake,%201939%20copy%202.jpg)
Monday, January 9, 2023
%20copy.jpg)
MASHA GESSEN
New York Times Review of Books, Nov 26, 2016
____________________
Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: Humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable.
Sunday, January 8, 2023
CHRISTINE ANN LAWSON
Understanding the Borderline Mother
____________________
Laura explained that her mother “went on tirades.” Something could set her off and she would whirl around the house like a cyclone. The warning signal was “the look.” The look was a piercing, threatening glare that meant “I could kill you.” When Laura was a child, her mother actually said it, with no awareness of the power of her words ....
Therapists hear horrifying stories of child abuse that never make the headlines. The media seem drawn to stories about children who die, as if the suffering of those who survive is any less terrifying.
-
MERRILL MARKOE
____________________
More than any other personality trait, my mother seemed to be ruled by anger and sadness. She seemed to hate being a mother. Watching her unhappiness as I grew up made me conclude that the answer was to try and be as unemotional as I could, which many therapists have taught me is a bad idea. It also made me want to avoid marriage and having children.
Saturday, January 7, 2023
%20copy.png)
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910
____________________
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.
Friday, January 6, 2023
%20copy.jpg)
Thursday, January 5, 2023
%20v1%20copy.png)
%20v2%20copy.png)
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
____________________
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime. The kind of peak that never comes again.
San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing you were there and alive, in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The Blithedale Romance
____________________
Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad. She seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a flickering bit of sunshine, and mistaking it for broad and eternal summer. We sometimes hold mirth to stricter accountability than sorrow; it must show good cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily.
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
"The Death of the Old Year"
____________________
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend and a true truelove
And the New-year will take ’em away.
Old year you must not go;
So long you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.
He froth’d his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho’ his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho’ his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I’ve half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.
He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o’er.
To see him die across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he’ll be dead before.
Every one for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.
How hard he breathes! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro:
The cricket chirps: the light burns low:
’Tis nearly twelve o’clock.
Shake hands, before you die.
Old year, we’ll dearly rue for you:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.
His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone,
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
And waiteth at the door.
There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.
Monday, January 2, 2023
%20-%20Village%20Scene%20copy.jpg)
Sunday, January 1, 2023
%20copy.jpg)
NITYA PRAKASH
____________________
Grow up! The new year is not going to change anything. Things will get worse. You can change the year, not the mentality of people.
-
MOKOKOMA MOKHONOANA
____________________
Some people are disguising some of the effects of their having wasted money during the festive season as some of their New Year's resolutions. New Year’s resolutions are a consolation for it being impossible for us to really start our lives afresh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)