um.wow.
poan:
Before They Were Lady Gaga of the Day: Footage of some nobody named Stephanie Germanotta performing a medley of songs at a 2005 NYU talent showcase surfaced recently on the Internet.
Let me be the first to say, this lady sure can sing. I really hope she makes it.
she is possibly my favorite artist at the moment. i know. weird.
school.
Nothing is nothing, although
he would call me that, She was nothing.
Those were his words, but his hand was lifting
cigarettes in chains and bridges
of ash-light. He said he didn’t want his body to last.
It wasn’t a year I could argue
against that kind of talk, so I cut the fowl
killed on the farm a mile out—brown and silvery, wild—
and put it over butter lettuce, lettuce then lime.
I heated brandy in the saucepan, poured a strip of molasses
slowly through the cold, slow as I’d seen
a shaman pour pine tincture over the floor
of my beaten house.
She seemed to see my whole life
by ordinance of some god
who wanted me alive again.
Burnt sage, blue smoke. Then sea salt shaken
into the corners of violent sadness.
She wrote my address
across her chest
to let everything listening know
where my life was made.
We waited, either forgetting what we were
or becoming more brightly human in that pine,
in her trance, in the lavender I set on the chipped sills,
not a trance at all but my deliberate hand cutting
from the yard part of what she required.
Now wait longer, she said, and I did as I would
when the molasses warmed over the pot enough
to come into the brandy,
to come into the night
begun by small confessions—
that this was just a rental, and mine just a floor,
that the woman he loved was with another man,
his mother mad, his apartment haunted in the crawl space.
Then I told of the assault at daybreak between
the houses. Heat, asphalt, all of it and my face toward
the brick school where the apostolate studied first-century script
and song. There must have been chanting,
as it was on the hour.
What we said was liturgy meant only for us
and for that night. Not for anyone else
to repeat, live by, believe. Never that.
Our only theories were inside of our hands,
flesh and land, body and prairie.
I reached to smoke down his next-to-last,
which he lit and made ready.
The poultry like a war ration
we ate all the way through.
What we wished, we said.
What we said, we found that night
by these, and no other,
means.
Katie Ford, The New Yorker
“Under The Weather”
Under this national rain cloud
I’m getting soaked to the skin
Trying to find my umbrella
But I don’t know where to begin
And it’s simply irrational weather
Can’t even hear myself think
Constantly bailing out water
But still like I’m gonna sink
Coz I’m under the weather
Just like the world
So sorry for being so bold
When I turn out the light
You’re out of sight
Although I know that I’m not alone
Feels like home
You say you feel like a natural person
You haven’t got nothing to hide
So why do you feel imperfection
Cut like a sword in your side
Coz you’re under the weather
Just like the world
And I need somebody to hold
When I turn out the light
You’re out of sight
Although I know that I’m not alone
Feels like home
Coz I’m under the weather
KT Tunstall
So many books I want to read, will have to wait until winter break…
- Better, Atul Gawande
- Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof/ Sheryl WuDunn
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (must finish, been on page 200 since the semester started)
- The Worldly Philosophers (pertinent to class I’m currently taking)
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig (Have heard great things about this book…)
- Oh and that little book called War and Peace that I started and told myself I would finish over the summer. hah. I’m so funny.
ooph. my little pile of readings in my little aquamarine folder looks so unassuming, until I realize that it takes me 10 minutes to read a single page. oh where oh where has my attention span gone?
interesting staging. beckett writes so well, even in translation.
“Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens.) But habit is a great deadener.”
I spent two months the summer after my freshman year working at an amazing little NGO in Delhi, India. Mostly, the time I spent there was marked with a lot of frustration measured evenly against hope, and determination in the face of dire circumstance. Admittedly, at the end of the experience, I felt a certain sense of relief to be able to leave behind what seemed like an unsolvable mess of malcontent and return to my relatively straight forward life - get good grades in school, look for good job, plan for medical school, etc. etc. none of which includes anything resembling - search for your daughter who was kidnapped and sold into prostitution, look for a doctor to treat your recurrent stomach pain despite the fact that you can’t pay for it, run away from the in laws who insist that you cursed their son and caused his death. The experience put me fully out of my comfort zone, but there was great value in that fear and discomfort, and I felt grateful for the opportunity to spend two months of my life, with each day solely devoted to the goal of helping these people. It was in the sweltering heat of Delhi that I realized the truth of - it is in giving that we receive. Now, over two years later and thousands of miles removed from their reality, its a struggle to retain the sense of urgency that I felt while I was there. But life sends certain small reminders. I got an email from the directors of the NGO yesterday, penned in their own version of English that I remember so well. They assured me that they were doing well and inquired about my studies. I promised I would return after I became a real doctor.
“In the philosopher’s picture, the good life is won through direct assault. Heroes use reason to separate virtue from vice. Then they use willpower to conquer weakness, fear, selfishness and the dark passions lurking inside. Once they achieve virtue they do virtuous things.
In the psychologist’s version, the good life is won indirectly. People have only vague intuitions about the instincts and impulses that have been implanted in them by evolution, culture and upbringing. There is no easy way to command all the wild things jostling inside.
But it is possible to achieve momentary harmony through creative work. Max has all his Wild Things at peace when he is immersed in building a fort or when he is giving another his complete attention. This isn’t the good life through heroic self-analysis but through mundane, self-forgetting effort, and through everyday routines.
Appiah believes these two views of conduct are in conversation, not conflict. But it does seem we’re in one of those periods when words like character fall into dispute and change their meaning.
”
Ella Fitzgerald - I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)
Sit back and enjoy your chilly, rainy autumn Sunday evening. A mug of mulled cider with a slug of apple brandy added comes highly recommended.
“Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.”
A couple of nights ago I had a dream about Christmas trees, snow storms, Santa hats, and Mistletoe…presents under the tree and carols playing on repeat. Ah the bliss of hot chocolate and winter break and endless quantities of my Mother’s cooking.
Unfortunately my reverie was cut short, severely disappointed upon waking up, faced with the reality of another dreary Tuesday morning Physics lecture…But then as I forced myself to get out of bed, dreading all the work that needed to be done, it suddenly struck me as odd - how much emphasis we place upon the not-now. I suppose I can only speak for myself and my obsession with time - nostalgia for the past and anticipation for the future.
I dream about Christmases of my childhood, of snowman building, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Cleveland Orchestra Concerts, massive puffy coats and mismatched scarves and hats. I miss the snowdays and the Saturday cross country races almost as much as I worry about where I’ll go to medical school, what job I’ll get after graduation, who I’ll love, and where I’ll live. But after a string of conversations with peers infinitely more wise than myself, its become clear to me that I have to make a conscious effort to live more in the present. today. this moment. Tomorrow will come regardless of whether I bother to anticipate it.
It all sounds so simple, and we hear it so often that its almost a truism. But its so much harder to actually apply day in and day out. I have to catch myself and bring my mind back from daydreaming about the day when I turn twenty-five…and limit the time I spend looking through pictures from elementary school. Lets start with the reading that must be done for Monday and the Midterm that I have to take on Tuesday, and put off the 5 year planning…just to buy myself a little bit more sanity, and a little more perspective.
Paranoia >.<
love october.
I’m in Atlanta for fall break…at a Barnes and Noble writing a philosophy paper while Mark is at work. In certain moments as I’m driving down Peachtree St. I almost forget that I have to go back to Duke tomorrow.
I should go read some self help books on improving my ability to follow through. And not freak out every time I do not so hot on an exam that I was completely capable of doing well on. And not have ridiculous fights with my parents.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
(via tweexcore)
“Sweet hope is in his heart,
Nurse and companion to his age.
Hope, captain of the ever twisting
Minds of mortal men.”
I’ve posted some variation on this, someplace, once every year for a number of years now. Guess I’ll keep it going for a while longer.
Tribute In Light, 9/11/03 (Brendan Loy)Not that anyone has asked, but you know what I’d like to see as the 9/11 memorial in NYC? Basically nothing, 364 days a year.
In New York City, few things are more rare or striking than empty space. Record the names, make the space beautiful, have it open to all, but leave it empty. No museum, no interpretive center, no tourist destination.One day a year, every year, bring in the tribute in light.
So much time and so much anger has gone into the discussion about what should be at “ground zero” that it’s easy to lose sight of the key:what is no longer there.Let emptiness be emptiness.
Lost in the debate of healthcare and healthcare reform is the concept of health.
According to the World Health Organization, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Does the “healthcare” industry in America look out for your “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”? Does it even focus on the absence of disease or infirmity?
Or does it focus on fixing your failed health?
Is the goal to reform the business of ensuring a nationwide state of complete physical, mental and social well-being? Is that what Washington is talking about?
No. They are talking about reforming who pays for failed health.
There is no money in “health” given the current business model of healthcare in America. All the money resides in treating your lack of health. Follow the money and we’ll all quickly realize that the current debate in America is not about healthcare, it’s about who pays for sickness.
Real healthcare reform would turn the current business model of sickness in America on its head. We should be discussing the business model for optimizing health— the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.
There really is no way to win this battle no matter what kind of reform happens. The core of treating and paying for sickness is fundamentally flawed. As our country gets sicker, more money will be made off sickness. It’s a losing battle. Public option. No public option. It doesn’t matter. As long as the sickness industry is paid based on the incidence of sickness in our country, when sickness increases, the cost of paying for sickness increases. It doesn’t matter where that money comes from.
