FRAGMENTS FROM "STAMBOUL TRAIN"

SENTENCES THAT FACINATED ME -

"If I could sleep, he thought with longing, I could remember more clearly I could remember more clearly all the things that have to be remembered."

"She felt tender towards him, as though he had given her new hope of a life which was not a continuous struggle for one's own hand; perhaps the world she thought, was not so hard."

"She thought for the first time, with happiness: perhaps I have a life in people's minds when I am not there to be seen or talked to."

"I don't think about you, I've got other things to think about."

"When I love, she thought, I do not think of what I owe."

"He said defiantly, 'I don't think about you. I've got other things to think about."

"Faithfulness was not the same as remembrance; one could forget and be faithful and one could remember and be faithless."

"There was nothing in the pockets but a box of mat5ches and a packet of Gold Flake."

"...that the man who, after firing his last shot, was bayoneted outside the sorting-room had been left-handed and a lover of Delius's music, the melancholy idealistic music of a man without a faith in anything but death."

MUSING

“Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence; tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.”

George Santayana

TRUMP

THE HORRORS OF TRUMP

MISOGNY

RACISM

BIGOTRY

ANTSEMITISM

EQUIVACATION

FABRICATION

DELUSION

MORAL BANKRUPTCY 

AND YET REPUBLICANS WILL NOT DENY HIM OR ABANDON HIS HATE

QUI TACET CONSENTIRE VIDETUR

He who is silent gives consent!

GLEANINGS - LYTTON STRACHEY

GLEANINGS FROM LYTTON STRATCHEY

“As I passed up Lord Street on my bicycle I saw that one of the Book Shops had a ‘selling off’ going on and ‘Removal of premises’ etc. I eagerly rushed to see if there was anything decent, though I had not over much ‘cash’ to spare. I saw nothing of interest but a Byron – in fact two Byrons: one large, and probably, I surmised, complete; t’other small, and probably, I concluded extracted. I went in boldly; my surmise was correct. The large one was pub. By Murray 1837 and was called at any rate complete. The small one was a ratlike edition of extracts – foul! I can’t conceive; that is to say to buy an extract and nothing more. I refused the 1/4d and took (rather extravently) the 2/6d.  (Diary 1898)

+

I walked entranced; that feeling of a sudden explanation came upon me – a sudden easy mysterious mysterious explanation of all the long difficult mysterious embroilments of the world. ‘Est-ce que j’ai trouvé le grand Peut-être”?’ I thought ‘Am I I luckier even than Rabelais? -... And I sat down, absolutely comfortable, with a little bank of earth under the hedge for4 my back to lean against, and the charming English prospect before my eyes. I thought of my friends, and my extraordinary happiness. I thought of Death, of Keats and the Ode to the Nightingale, of ‘easeful Death’ – ‘half in love with easeful death’ – and I was convinced, … that if De3ath would onoy come to one in a mood of serene happiness, he would be very welcome. I thought of suddenly dying, painlessly, where I lay. (Diary – Monday June 26^th 1916)

Otherwise a book that I’ve long wanted to have – ‘Ėloges de Madame Geoffrin”, which I discovered in a second-hand bookshop here two days ago – has been entertaining me. (A Fortnight in France – Sept 11^th 1931)

To-day at any rate shall be devoted to absolute drifting – looking at old books and pictures – errand boys and aged whores- gardens and street- corners. (A Fortnight in France – Sept. 15. 1931)

FROM

LETTERS: VIRGINIA WOOLF AND LYTTON STRACHEY

“…and the naked boys run like snipe along the beach, balancing their buttocks in the pellucid air.”

“Why is everything that is satisfactory  in this life impregnated with unsatisfactoriness?”

“The French seem to me a melancholy race – is it because they have no imagination, so that they have no outlets when thy find themselves (as all intelligent people must) vis-à-vis with the horrors of the world? There’s a sort of dry desperation about some of them which I don’t believe exists with the English – even with Swift.”

OF DOSTOIEVSKY-

“Such an anaesthetic view of life.”

“If I could my way, I should go out to dinner every night, and then to a party or an opera, and then I should have a champagne supper, and then I should go to bed in some wonderful person’s arms.”

“Just about this moment, you’re settling down over the fire, having returned from a brisk walk among the Scotch firs in a Scotch mist, and saying (something I can’t spell – it’s French) to the effect that life holds nothing copulation, after which you groan from the profundities of the stomach…”

“My state has long been quite deplorable. I put it down to the Winter-the agony of thick underclothes, etc. etc.; but of course it may be sheer deliquescence of the brain.”

MOTS et EXPRESSIONS

                MOTS ET EXPRESSIONS QUE J'AIME

                                                Rongée   Nous verrons

                                            Délabré   assoupissement   general

                                                   écrasé   deliquescence

                                                        Je suis vaincue  

                                                   J'ai perdu mon mari

                                              Retroussé       Déclassé

IN YOUTH IS PLEASURE - And ANXIETY

IN YOUTH IS PLEASURE

I was reflecting today about some of the pleasures one had as a youth in those distant pre-adolescent days about ages 9-12. When one was ill then it was exquisite pleasure not to have to go to school but be enforced by mum to spend the day in bed. One could read comic books, other silly or frivolous books and eat bisquets etc. whilst in bed and not be chided by one’s nanny for getting crumbs in the bed.

How different being ill as an adult is. There is simply not the same innocent pleasure. We are loath to be absent from work, being idle in bed or idle at all has lost it attractions – bisquets or not. We are wont to read not frivolous things but serious work papers. As an adult, the illnesses we experience are often more serious and distressful compared to those of childhood – measles and chicken pox notwithstanding.

So I mused about a lost age – a lost innocence. 

                                                                 YOUTHFUL ANXIETY

Which is not to say that youth was without anxiety. As delightful as summer days were playing in the garden, going to the park and wading in the brook there were also dangers.  There were bees and wasps - a constant threat to be avoided at all cost.

But some of the worst anxiety was engendered by what we called "Sewing Needles"! A flying insect - a dragonfly -  to be avoided at all cost.

But in recalling this my musing made clear that the anxiety of youth were as nothing compared as to what would follow as we matured.

But one near adult anxiety was engendered by the ubiquitous "WET DREAM".

At the onset of puberty this phenomenon could lead to a good deal of anxiety.

How was one to explain to nanny or mum the odd stain on the sheets! All the pleasure (if any) of the wet dream was dissipated in this rush of anxiety.

But of course this led to a more conscious pleasure - and as it was "In Youth is Pleasure" sometimes self educed!

SOME THINGS I DONT LIKE OR DON'T LIKE TO DO

Not Julie Feskoe!

                                                                                 *

Go to the dentist

Eat Spinach

Eat Liver

Submit to a rectal prostate exam (senseless)

Sit through a boring lecture

Talk to boring people

Wear ill fitting underpants

Suffer the Summer Humidity and Heat

Think about Julie Feskoe

Drink Bad Wine

Travel on Domestic Airlines

Get up late in the morning

Days where there are too many appointment, commitments and events that are back to back.

Get caught in the rain without any rain gear

Sit in Traffic

Ride the T at Rush Hour

Remember Julie Feskoe

Tequila

Absinthe

Not Finding a Bathroom when you really have to pee wicked bad

Trump - Of Course

Mitch Mcconnell

Jared Kushner

Ivanka

Ted Cruz

ALL REPUBLICANS