‘There are readings- of the same text- that are dutiful, readings that map and dissect, reading that hear a rustling of unheard sounds, that count grey little pronouns for pleasure or instruction, and for a time do not hear golden or apples. There are personal readings, that snatch for personal readings, I am full of love, or disgust, or fear, I scan for love, or disgust, or fear. There are-believe it- impersonal readings, where the mind’s eye sees the lines move onwards, and the mind’s ear hears them sing and sing.
Now and then there are readings which make the hairds on the neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and tremble, when every word shines bright and hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stone of fire, like points of stars in the dark- readings when the knowledge that we shall know the writing differently or better, or satisfactorily, runs ahead of any capacity to say what we know or how. In these readings, a sense that the text has appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost immediately, by the sense that it was always there, that we , the readers, knew that it was always there and have always known it was as it was though we have now for the first time recognised, become fully cognizant of our knowledge.’
-A.S Byatt, ‘Possession’.
12:57 pm • 14 March 2010
Buttercup: Westley. Oh, Westley darling!
[Buttercup kisses Westley passionately]
Buttercup: Westley, why won’t you hold me?
Westley: Gently.
Buttercup: At a time like this, that’s all you can think to say. Gently?
[Buttercup continues kissing Westley and lifts up his head]
Westley: Gently!
[Westely’s head falls and he winces]
Westley: Ughhhh!
-The Princess Bride
12:50 pm • 14 March 2010
‘By necessity, I suppose, it is difficult for me to explain in English exactly what i mean. I can only say that an incendium is in its nature entirely different from the feu with which a Frenchman lights his cigarette, and both are very different from the stark, inhuman pur that the Greeks knew, the pur that roared from the towers of Ilion, or leapt and screamed on that desolate, windy beach from the funeral pyre of Patroklos.
Pur: that one word contains for me the secret, the bright, terrible clarity of anciet Greek. How can I make you see it, this strnage, harsh light which pervades Homer’s landscapes and illumines the dialogues of Plato, an alien light, inarticulable in our common tongue? Our shared language is a language of the intricate, the peculiar, the home of pumpkins and ragamuffins and bodkins and beerthe tongue of Ahab and Falstaff and Mrs Gamp; and while i find it entirely suitable for reflections such as these, it fails me uttery when I attempt to describe in it what I love about Greek, that language innocent of all quirks and cranks, a language obsessed with action, and with the joy of seeing action mutliply from action, action marching relentlessly ahead and with yet more actions filing in from either side to fall into neat step at the rear, in a long straight rank of cause and effect toward what will be inevitable, the only possible end.’
-Donna Tartt, ‘The Secret History’.
12:47 pm • 14 March 2010 • 1 note
“‘Your true love lives. And you marry another. True Love saved her in the Fire Swamp, and she treated it like garbage. And that’s what she is, the Queen of Refuse. So bow down to her if you want, bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescence. Boo. Boo. Rubbish. Filth. Slime. Muck. Boo. Boo. Boo.”
— the ancient boo-er, The Princess Bride
12:37 pm • 14 March 2010
“But to be included in Dick Diver’s world for a while was a remarkable experience: people believed he made special reservations about them, recognizing the proud uniqueness of their destinies, buried under the compromises of how many years. He won everyone quickly with an exquisite consideration and a politeness that moved so fast and intuitively that it could be examined only in its effect. Then, without caution, lest the first bloom of their relation wither, he opened the gate to his amusing world. So long as they subscribed to it completely, their happiness was his pre-occupation, but at the first flicker of doubt as to its all-inclusiveness he evapourated before their eyes, leaving little communicable memory of what he had said or done.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night.
11:35 pm • 16 December 2009
“The arsonist stood up in court and said”
I am not an arsonist. I dreamt
the building was a phoenix
and needed my help. Before sticking me
in a sentence, like a four-syllable word
with only one meaning, consider
what becomes of the ashes: see
how after smearing a palm-full
hair grows on a bald man’s scalp, how
just a sprinkle makes irises sprout through
sidewalk cracks. You call me sick,
but have you ever seen a suicidal
parakeet, a homeless butterfly?
You want to know how you go crazy?
One marble at a time. It’s the law
of your language that dictates mess
is the precursor for messiah. You don’t
understand my logic to the hmph degree.
Your style of math is forty-three floors
beneath me. But you should have seen
the fire, a symphony of mayhem, people
leaping from windows, like lightning
bolts somersaulting out of a terrible cloud.
Jeffrey Mcdaniel
7:37 pm • 29 October 2009
“Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of his species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simple to make love in a field of violets.”
8:39 pm • 9 October 2009
How It Will End
We’re walking on the boardwalk
but stop when we see a lifeguard and his girlfriend
fighting. We can’t hear what they’re saying,
but it is as good as a movie. We sit on a bench to find out
how it will end. I can tell by her body language
he’s done something really bad. She stands at the bottom
of the ramp that leads to his hut. He tries to walk halfway down
to meet her, but she keeps signaling Don’t come closer.
My husband says, “Boy, he’s sure in for it,”
and I say, “He deserves whatever’s coming to him.”
My husband thinks the lifeguard’s cheated, but I think
she’s sick of him only working part-time
or maybe he forgot to put the rent in the mail.
The lifeguard tries to reach out
and she holds her hand like Diana Ross
when she performed “Stop in the Name of Love.”
The red flag that slaps against his station means strong currents.
“She has to just get it out of her system,”
my husband laughs, but I’m not laughing.
I start to coach the girl to leave the no-good lifeguard,
but my husband predicts she’ll never leave.
I’m angry at him for seeing glee in their situation
and say, “That’s your problem—you think every fight
is funny. You never take her seriously,” and he says,
“You never even give the guy a chance and you’re always nagging,
so how can he tell the real issues from the nitpicking?”
and I say, “She doesn’t nitpick!” and he says, “Oh really?
Maybe he should start recording her tirades,” and I say
“Maybe he should help out more,” and he says
“Maybe she should be more supportive,” and I say
“Do you mean supportive or do you mean support him?”
and my husband says that he’s doing the best he can,
that he’s a lifeguard for Christ’s sake, and I say
that her job is much harder, that she’s a waitress
who works nights carrying heavy trays and is hit on all the time
by creepy tourists and he just sits there most days napping
and listening to “Power 96” and then ooh
he gets to be the big hero blowing his whistle
and running into the water to save beach bunnies who flatter him
and my husband says it’s not as though she’s Miss Innocence
and what about the way she flirts, giving free refills
when her boss isn’t looking or cutting extra large pieces of pie
to get bigger tips, oh no she wouldn’t do that because she’s a saint
and he’s the devil, and I say, “I don’t know why you can’t admit
he’s a jerk,” and my husband says, “I don’t know why you can’t admit
she’s a killjoy,” and then out of the blue the couple is making up.
The red flag flutters, then hangs limp.
She has her arms around his neck and is crying into his shoulder.
He whisks her up into his hut. We look around, but no one is watching us.
-Denise Duhamel
7:16 am • 1 October 2009
