More Hemingway then Hemingway
Please read this:
I love you Letham.
Describing his diet choices from breakfast to dinner: “My tendency, is to go from purity to decadence, like I’m reliving the fall of a great empire.”
vino
I absolutely love wine, it is such an interesting idea when you really think about it. (I’m always surprised about how other people aren’t mesmerized and amazed by everyday things the way I am.) But anyways, I really like what Ray Isle, executive wine editor at Food & Wine, said in his feature for New York Mag’s, “Grub Street Diet”, (my favorite weekend read). Anyways, this is what he said about a lunch time tasting:
“The wines were spectacular. Various vintages, the oldest a 1967. No matter how long I work in the wine business, I still get a kick tasting wines that old. ’67 was the same year the Stones released “Ruby Tuesday.” People were protesting the Vietnam war. And here’s this bottle of fermented grape juice that’s transformed over the four decades since then into something ethereal and extraordinary. I’m biased — I love wine — but I do think that’s sort of mind-blowing.”
The last part of Richard Lovelace’s Poem, “To Anthea, from Prison”
Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty.
“You’ll say that ten thousand more times before we get to Rome.”
http://www.gourmet.com/travel/cityguides/paris/innocence_abroad_pat_conroy
I only read things that I love twice. A gem!
tower, power, flower
you see and then i see…big difference.
“Such passages are especially dear to me; in them I take hold of you, without your feeling it, and therefore without your having to resist. And even if you were to read some of my writings, these little details would surely escape you. But believe me, probably nowhere in the world could you let yourself be caught with greater unconcern than here.”
- Franz Kafka in a letter to Felice
Bibliomania?
I have never heard this term “bibliomania” before, but from this article on it is now a part of my everyday vocabulary. After sharing this article with S, I had to go on to say that “Stealing books is criminal, stealing lingerie is erotic” not that I do either but the latter I can understand.
Anyways, here’s a fun read:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7903230/The-love-of-the-high-end-heist.html
The Library (which all others call the universe)
I just read “the library of babel” last night ( http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html ) and this morning saw these beautiful images. I remember when I was a child I saw “Beauty and the Beast”, after seeing the scene where the Beast reveals his library to her…I’ve always wanted to see a library like this…do you think things would be different if libraries were still made like this?
from curious expectations.org
“Their name is execrated, but those who deplore the “treasures” destroyed by this frenzy neglect two notable facts. One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction of human origin is infinitesimal. The other: every copy is unique, irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles: works which differ only in a letter or a comma. Counter to general opinion, I venture to suppose that the consequences of the Purifiers’ depredations have been exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced. They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical.” - Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel
And mightie proud to humble weak does yield
It fortuned out of thickest wood
A ramping Lyon rushed suddainly,
Hunting full greedie after salvage blood:
Soone as the royall virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily
To haue attonce deuour’d her tender corse:
But to the pray when as he drew more ny,
his bloudie rage asswaged with remorse,
And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse.
(Book 1, Canto III, 5)
…The lyon would not leaue her desolate…
(Book 1, Canto III, 9)
