(no subject)
A quick tip in case you have an overweening need to drain all the remain joie de vivre from your existence: discuss with a professional or partner the following --
1. Your mental health, with undertones of the other party refusing to acknowledge the validity of a diagnosis which has been made and reaffirmed repeatedly throughout your life, on the basis of one and a half sessions and a potted history leaning more strongly towards your other condition, purely because the first is inconvenient and cannot be treated with the services they have available to them.
2. Mortgages! Especially in London!
A follower on Tumblr pointed me towards the works of this man - she is Greek, and therefore gets to read him without the muddying influence of translations:
GOD ABANDONS ANTHONY
by K. P. Kavafis
Translated by Alex Moskios
When suddenly at midnight
An invisible troupe is heard passing by,
With exquisite music, and great voices -
Your good luck that just abandoned you,
Your failed work, your life's plans that
Proved to be illusions, do not uselessly bemoan.
Like one prepared for so long, like a brave man,
Bid farewell to Alexandria that leaves you.
Especially do not be fooled, do not say that
It was a dream, that you have not heard right -
Such vain hopes do not befit one like you.
Like one prepared for so long, like a brave man,
You who were equal and deserved such a city,
Walk with steady foot to the window,
And listen with emotion, but not with
Timid entreaties and unseemly grief,
As your last pleasure, to the sounds,
The great organs from that mystic band,
And bid farewell to Alexandria you are losing.
-- I feel that this might be the basis from which Leonard Cohen drew "Alexandra Leaving" from his more recent albums? I do know that he set one of Lorca's poems to music ("Take This Waltz") and that it was entirely beautiful, and I think he has an excellent ear for the arrangement of the music in words to the music in instruments. It would not entirely surprise me if he had. Anyway, I have added a book of his poetry to my wish list on Amazon, because one can never have too many unread books of poetry sitting about the house and nagging one.
I returned briefly to War of the Worlds in the waiting room today. It continues to be gripping, stirring, traumatic stuff. I wish I had read it as a child. Otherwise: I finished How I Escaped My Certain Fate, which was delightful, and am slogging onward through "The Lucifer Effect", which continues to make grim reading. I know it was written to address a specific set of circumstances - the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib - but I would like it to return to more general applications of systemic/situational "evil" now as there's only so many mixed feelings about the US Military that I am capable of entertaining.
1. Your mental health, with undertones of the other party refusing to acknowledge the validity of a diagnosis which has been made and reaffirmed repeatedly throughout your life, on the basis of one and a half sessions and a potted history leaning more strongly towards your other condition, purely because the first is inconvenient and cannot be treated with the services they have available to them.
2. Mortgages! Especially in London!
A follower on Tumblr pointed me towards the works of this man - she is Greek, and therefore gets to read him without the muddying influence of translations:
GOD ABANDONS ANTHONY
by K. P. Kavafis
Translated by Alex Moskios
When suddenly at midnight
An invisible troupe is heard passing by,
With exquisite music, and great voices -
Your good luck that just abandoned you,
Your failed work, your life's plans that
Proved to be illusions, do not uselessly bemoan.
Like one prepared for so long, like a brave man,
Bid farewell to Alexandria that leaves you.
Especially do not be fooled, do not say that
It was a dream, that you have not heard right -
Such vain hopes do not befit one like you.
Like one prepared for so long, like a brave man,
You who were equal and deserved such a city,
Walk with steady foot to the window,
And listen with emotion, but not with
Timid entreaties and unseemly grief,
As your last pleasure, to the sounds,
The great organs from that mystic band,
And bid farewell to Alexandria you are losing.
-- I feel that this might be the basis from which Leonard Cohen drew "Alexandra Leaving" from his more recent albums? I do know that he set one of Lorca's poems to music ("Take This Waltz") and that it was entirely beautiful, and I think he has an excellent ear for the arrangement of the music in words to the music in instruments. It would not entirely surprise me if he had. Anyway, I have added a book of his poetry to my wish list on Amazon, because one can never have too many unread books of poetry sitting about the house and nagging one.
I returned briefly to War of the Worlds in the waiting room today. It continues to be gripping, stirring, traumatic stuff. I wish I had read it as a child. Otherwise: I finished How I Escaped My Certain Fate, which was delightful, and am slogging onward through "The Lucifer Effect", which continues to make grim reading. I know it was written to address a specific set of circumstances - the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib - but I would like it to return to more general applications of systemic/situational "evil" now as there's only so many mixed feelings about the US Military that I am capable of entertaining.