Was just at the bookstore today. Saw this and laughed out loud. Scared various passing children.

One Hundred Great Books in Haiku by David Bader.
'Tis full of absolute jewels, jewels I tell you. Such as this little miettes des mots:

The Canterbury Tales

Pilgrimmes on spryng braekke - 
roadde trippe! Whoe farrted? Yiuw didde.
Noe, naught meae. Yaes, yiuw ( Read more... )

Nothing like home, is there.

It's a bittersweet feeling, seeing palm trees through the mist, feeling the airplane judder and looking at concrete blocks and chinese schools through the car window.

O western wind, when wilt thou blow?

I don't think there's a better description for love - or the seeking of love - than Aristophanes' speech in Plato's ( Read more... )

Sometimes we forget what underpins Romeo & Juliet - that lovers are (always) enemies.

I had the funniest feeling watching the play - as if the entire production was not quite real, or hyper-real. Diane mentioned that it was like those paintings that looked like photographs - you're not quite sure where to draw the line between genuine and ingenuity ( Read more... )

Two things that popped to mind watching Chekhov's The Seagull and coming home on the tube -

The miracle of the twenty-first century is that nothing is quite sacred.

The study of literature is like a good joke - there's always the danger of over-explaining the punchline.

Heh!

I have a bad habit, when writing, of alluding to things. There's something about the art of allusion - it's too much like illusion (a cover, a shield, a demurring), yet ... it leaves behind a coded trail: a literary cipher, if you will. Missing footnotes to unlock meaning.

A bit like ancient Chinese puzzle boxes, where each box secrets a smaller one ( Read more... )

A lot of the best books today - or the best thoughts, or ideas, or politics - are a bit like that French Bouillabaisse.

They can't help but hint - ever so slightly - of yesterday's leftovers.


( Read more... )

Words are like spells.

They conjure, evoke, and summon.

They elicit, provoke, and unlock.

Hurt, harm, and heal.

Destruct, create - anew.

I have a secret, she whispers.

I'm sure we all do, he whispers back, nonchalant.

The girl, nonplussed, sits back.

But ... aren't you at all curious?

Why, no, he says, quite disinterestedly. I'm happy enough, without knowing anyone's secrets.

The girl looks at him in irritation.

He continues whatever he is doing.

She tries another tack.

Darling, you ( Read more... )

If languages had pedigrees, English, sadly, would be a mongrel. Its origins range from the clipped Anglo-Saxon of Viking raiders (boat, wood) to the Latinate remains of Roman soldiers (susurrus, alacrity) - to half-caught curiosities from all corners of the empire (patio, amok). It is a phonetic language - meanings are shaped by sounds, moulded by ( Read more... )