In case one can rely on the saying I derived comfort from last year, I ought to be very worried ...
Monday, September 15, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Another Last Night
Same procedure as every year.
As I just watched this year's 'Last night of the Proms', I thought you might also like a musical bed-time sweets.
Voilà, enjoy.
As I just watched this year's 'Last night of the Proms', I thought you might also like a musical bed-time sweets.
Voilà, enjoy.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Two days after
Just in case anyone's conCERNed and fearing - or exulting - I might have been swallowed by a Black Hole.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Mrs. Bloom's 105th 33rd
I'd not easily offer links twice. However, exceptions exist to be made. And today there is a good reason to make one.
It's Mrs. Bloom's 138th birthday, thus she's now 100 years older than her husband uses to be since June 16th, 1904.
'Uses to be'? Well, in a most vivid dialogue I had the pleasure to witness some time ago, Mr. Bloom vehemently insisted on still being 38. Being asked to give evidence he said: 'cause June 16th 1904 I became immortal.
Thus, de facto the eternal Mrs. Bloom today is celebrating her 105th 33rd.
Happy birthday then, Lady Molly, and may I say: You're looking younger than ever. Younger than ever. :)
Molly Bloom's Soliloquy
Part I
Part II
It's Mrs. Bloom's 138th birthday, thus she's now 100 years older than her husband uses to be since June 16th, 1904.
'Uses to be'? Well, in a most vivid dialogue I had the pleasure to witness some time ago, Mr. Bloom vehemently insisted on still being 38. Being asked to give evidence he said: 'cause June 16th 1904 I became immortal.
Thus, de facto the eternal Mrs. Bloom today is celebrating her 105th 33rd.
Happy birthday then, Lady Molly, and may I say: You're looking younger than ever. Younger than ever. :)
Molly Bloom's Soliloquy
Part I
Part II
Sunday, September 07, 2008
In praise of ...
...
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbed
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rotted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy neat the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbed
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rotted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy neat the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Eros and the God of the little things ...
... could also have been the title of the previous post.
Means, there was no need of mocking about poor Mr. Phelps. On the other hand I thought, his joyless face in the perhaps greatest moments in his swimming career would give a nice contrast to my (our) joyful faces about such jerkwater muscular efforts like weeding between the cracks of a courtyard and planting a row of strawberries.
Anyway, utterly determined to not throw the title above into the vortex of oblivion, I take it for this post, and I am quite optimistic finally you will agree that it makes some sense.
Alright then.
At about seven we went upstairs, took a shower, prepared a lasagne and a little salad, enjoyed both together with a glass of red, talked about this and that, and around midnight, when Mrs. J. had gone to make herself bed-fine - 'sich bettfein machen' is an uncommon German idiom :) - I went on balcony to feed my lungs-worm.
What a sky. I could not remember to ever have seen so many stars with naked ... alright, spectacled eyes. Amazing. Beautiful. Really a bit excited I felt.
And so, when, after she had shared my delight for two or three minutes, Mrs. J. felt drawn to the warmth of the feathers, I switched off all lights, even the candles - yes, yes, the candles I 'switched off' by using a match to dip the wicks into the wax - and sat down on balcony staring into the past, which is our planet's future.
Ah, yes! It must be fascinating to live such a night inmidst a desert.
Ha ha, even in such wonderful seconds human beings tend to think of that it could be better - somehow, somewhere. :)
Well, at 1 a.m. the street-lights went off, I put my Aran on, tiptoed downstairs through the cellar into the garden, took a chair, carried it to the middle of the lawn (which is in fact a meadow) sat down, and watched what I got offered in my open-air planetarium. Ahh ...
... and ... I started to think of what - in a way - has already been subject of the previous post: those little 'things' around us that we'd often take for granted without appreciating them.
Why? Why would I? Due to education? Experience? Teaching myself? Or is it just a gift? Perhaps. Perhaps a 'mixture' of all.
All these stars up there. And down here, this tiny cosmos existing of apple-, plum-, hazelnut- and cherry-trees, red-currant, black-currant, Josta - a cross-breeding (Jo for Johannisbeere = currant, sta for Stachelbeere = gooseberry), ... ah ha ha - would take too long to list all. Did I write tiny cosmos? :)
All these stars up there. Chaos?
All the chaos-corners in this cosmos down here.
And still - it's (also) this chaos that I love. A contradiction that I'd call myself an aesthete? What is beauty? What's perfect?
The imperfectness ... sometimes ... let me feel: This is a perfect place.
A place that is mirroring the chaos in my head ... my heart? :)
Only those having chaos in their heart will be able to give birth to ... Oh dear, Nietzsche, is this true? Am I pregnant with a dancing star?
:) Has to be. All my faults, all my mistakes. Do I regret? Yes. And no, as without all my strange 'decisions' I had (very probably) not made all those experiences which - looking back - let me become what now I am.
Time to deliver the 'baby'. Otherwise I might not have enough time to enjoy watching it dancing.
What will my star look like? This "something" that I do love without having seen it, yet, of which I do not even know that it exists / will exist; that does exist / will exist, though, because I feel it.
Don't know why, suddendly I remembered this photo of Asteroid Eros.
courtesy NASA/Reuters
The potatoes! According to the forecast this Sunday would be the last of a two days lasting rainless summer-period.
Thus, time to put my head on the pillow.
Mind you, I had better 'little things' to dream of than ... (digging) potatoes. :)
Means, there was no need of mocking about poor Mr. Phelps. On the other hand I thought, his joyless face in the perhaps greatest moments in his swimming career would give a nice contrast to my (our) joyful faces about such jerkwater muscular efforts like weeding between the cracks of a courtyard and planting a row of strawberries.
Anyway, utterly determined to not throw the title above into the vortex of oblivion, I take it for this post, and I am quite optimistic finally you will agree that it makes some sense.
Alright then.
At about seven we went upstairs, took a shower, prepared a lasagne and a little salad, enjoyed both together with a glass of red, talked about this and that, and around midnight, when Mrs. J. had gone to make herself bed-fine - 'sich bettfein machen' is an uncommon German idiom :) - I went on balcony to feed my lungs-worm.
What a sky. I could not remember to ever have seen so many stars with naked ... alright, spectacled eyes. Amazing. Beautiful. Really a bit excited I felt.
And so, when, after she had shared my delight for two or three minutes, Mrs. J. felt drawn to the warmth of the feathers, I switched off all lights, even the candles - yes, yes, the candles I 'switched off' by using a match to dip the wicks into the wax - and sat down on balcony staring into the past, which is our planet's future.
Ah, yes! It must be fascinating to live such a night inmidst a desert.
Ha ha, even in such wonderful seconds human beings tend to think of that it could be better - somehow, somewhere. :)
Well, at 1 a.m. the street-lights went off, I put my Aran on, tiptoed downstairs through the cellar into the garden, took a chair, carried it to the middle of the lawn (which is in fact a meadow) sat down, and watched what I got offered in my open-air planetarium. Ahh ...
... and ... I started to think of what - in a way - has already been subject of the previous post: those little 'things' around us that we'd often take for granted without appreciating them.
Why? Why would I? Due to education? Experience? Teaching myself? Or is it just a gift? Perhaps. Perhaps a 'mixture' of all.
All these stars up there. And down here, this tiny cosmos existing of apple-, plum-, hazelnut- and cherry-trees, red-currant, black-currant, Josta - a cross-breeding (Jo for Johannisbeere = currant, sta for Stachelbeere = gooseberry), ... ah ha ha - would take too long to list all. Did I write tiny cosmos? :)
All these stars up there. Chaos?
All the chaos-corners in this cosmos down here.
And still - it's (also) this chaos that I love. A contradiction that I'd call myself an aesthete? What is beauty? What's perfect?
The imperfectness ... sometimes ... let me feel: This is a perfect place.
A place that is mirroring the chaos in my head ... my heart? :)
Only those having chaos in their heart will be able to give birth to ... Oh dear, Nietzsche, is this true? Am I pregnant with a dancing star?
:) Has to be. All my faults, all my mistakes. Do I regret? Yes. And no, as without all my strange 'decisions' I had (very probably) not made all those experiences which - looking back - let me become what now I am.
Time to deliver the 'baby'. Otherwise I might not have enough time to enjoy watching it dancing.
What will my star look like? This "something" that I do love without having seen it, yet, of which I do not even know that it exists / will exist; that does exist / will exist, though, because I feel it.
Don't know why, suddendly I remembered this photo of Asteroid Eros.
courtesy NASA/ReutersThe potatoes! According to the forecast this Sunday would be the last of a two days lasting rainless summer-period.
Thus, time to put my head on the pillow.
Mind you, I had better 'little things' to dream of than ... (digging) potatoes. :)
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
The difference between Mr Phelps and me
Those who do know me a little would still sometimes be surprised that I could do things, which most people would consider most boring, such as weeding and chipping wood, for hours and hours.
Actually it surprises me, myself, now and then as I am pretty sure I could happily live without.
So, why would I do it, then? It has to be done.
Why would it - sometimes - take hours? Simply because I am too lazy doing it every day. :)
Anyway, while being busy with hunting weeds, I can let my thoughts travel, contemplate, connect dots, dive into the ocean of my fantasy or even stop thinking; not seldom out of this nothing an idea would appear.
In any case, after hours I can see the result of what my hands have been doing. :)
Exactly this is why Sunday evening I wrote: This month ended like it began - august.
And I added: More in September.
So here's for a start. Saturday, after a marvellous breakfast I got struck by the idea of weeding between the cracks on the courtyard (if that's the proper word).
About 90 minutes later, returning with the empty bucket I thought: This is, again, one of those things, once they are done noone would notice except of oneself.
People / Neighbours rather tend to take notice of things which 'ought to be done', would you agree? :)
Thus, I took my cellular and - a photo.
And another 90 minutes later a second one.
Done. :)
Nothing special. Still I felt pleased.
- Wow, like new, Sean!
Mrs. J. who had been busy with planting a new row strawberries smiled. I smiled. A hug, some kisses, eyes sparkling ...
- Seems what I've done is better than winning gold-medals in Doping.
- Of course, Sean. :) And surely you will tell me why.
- Well, did you see the gentleman with the speed-yogurt in his fridge ever showing joy and happiness in the seconds after his triumphs?
- Usaine Bolt?
- No, the water-bolt, Mr. Phelps.
- Ah, no. If one had not seen him winning in world-record time, one could have thought he had become eightth.
Later, while digging up potatoes Mr. Phelps reappeared in my mind. Probably eight terrible years lying ahead. And any day 'they' may find the magic ingredience in his probes.
Probably? How political incorrect. Perhaps. Perhaps! Presumption of innocence. Ha ha, what a curiously shaped potatoe. I picked it up, showed it Mrs. J., and both we laughed.
Somehow I felt pity with Mr. Phelps.
Actually it surprises me, myself, now and then as I am pretty sure I could happily live without.
So, why would I do it, then? It has to be done.
Why would it - sometimes - take hours? Simply because I am too lazy doing it every day. :)
Anyway, while being busy with hunting weeds, I can let my thoughts travel, contemplate, connect dots, dive into the ocean of my fantasy or even stop thinking; not seldom out of this nothing an idea would appear.
In any case, after hours I can see the result of what my hands have been doing. :)
Exactly this is why Sunday evening I wrote: This month ended like it began - august.
And I added: More in September.
So here's for a start. Saturday, after a marvellous breakfast I got struck by the idea of weeding between the cracks on the courtyard (if that's the proper word).
About 90 minutes later, returning with the empty bucket I thought: This is, again, one of those things, once they are done noone would notice except of oneself.
People / Neighbours rather tend to take notice of things which 'ought to be done', would you agree? :)
Thus, I took my cellular and - a photo.
And another 90 minutes later a second one.
Done. :)
Nothing special. Still I felt pleased.
- Wow, like new, Sean!
Mrs. J. who had been busy with planting a new row strawberries smiled. I smiled. A hug, some kisses, eyes sparkling ...
- Seems what I've done is better than winning gold-medals in Doping.
- Of course, Sean. :) And surely you will tell me why.
- Well, did you see the gentleman with the speed-yogurt in his fridge ever showing joy and happiness in the seconds after his triumphs?
- Usaine Bolt?
- No, the water-bolt, Mr. Phelps.
- Ah, no. If one had not seen him winning in world-record time, one could have thought he had become eightth.
Later, while digging up potatoes Mr. Phelps reappeared in my mind. Probably eight terrible years lying ahead. And any day 'they' may find the magic ingredience in his probes.
Probably? How political incorrect. Perhaps. Perhaps! Presumption of innocence. Ha ha, what a curiously shaped potatoe. I picked it up, showed it Mrs. J., and both we laughed.
Somehow I felt pity with Mr. Phelps.
Monday, September 01, 2008
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