An Inconvenient Patriotism

"The Conservatives, who had long claimed a monopoly of patriotism, were thinking of their social and economic privileges, not of the national interest."

This sentence comes from the French history book I'm reading (France: A Modern History by Albert Guérard), concerning the period where Leon Blum was in his first stint as Prime Minister, and defeated (in 1937) by conservative thinking that saw things in terms of communism versus fascism, both on the rise in Europe at the time. The Conservatives unhesitatingly preferred fascism: "Rather Hitler than Blum!"
We see now what a grave mistake, and a grossly immoral stance that was.

Reminds me of what we're going through now, where people making over $250,000 don't want to agree to Obama's plan to give up more of their money to fund healthcare reform, even though these same Republicans claim to love their country above all else. I just thought that was interesting.

Who will remember our time when we are gone

"what are future generations gonna say about us?"
don't ask yourself this question too loud
(they'll say nothing. live for you, live for now)


so many people
are living and burning
but cannot breathe
and cannot livingly
burn like a candle
whose light is perfect
in the darkness of the night

think of
music that hums in a low tone
rumbling - the sound of art and rain
the sound of silence
and love move
back and forth through a tunnel
where we lose control
and are sad
and sorry
for the rain that made us fall.


but
somewhere
there is trust
when your eyes are closed
like lips that kiss in mist
of sprinklers in the park
summer mornings where birds are
white with orange feet

here,
have no illusions
assholes populate every part of this earth
on both sides of this screen
in your home and mine
but sometimes we are good
and graceful and we give
maybe we can remember that time
when it is gone.

Audrey Hepburn

The loveliest lady that ever lived in a set of rare photos by Bob Willoughby (which I found out about via The English Muse)

This one's my favorite of the set, though there are many close contenders.

Einstein's Expanding Darkness

"As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." -- Albert Einstein

Malibu

some flicks I took up at Malibu last night.




































































George Duke's "Malibu"

"...the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides."

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides.”--Artur Schnabel, Austrian classical pianist.

You Who Never Arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke

another stolen poem. Great posting by Brian Fellows at Poem of the Week

You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced
upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...


--Translated by Stephen Mitchell