song of the week: claude debussy, reverie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79UfWizjGiQ
a dream-kiss, that made me at once more solitary, and at once more whole. where is my tired, knowing look now? where is my canny discretion, my wistful smile, my quiescent detachment, my reverie, these able tools of my isolation? oh, c'est la vie, even of me. all the fine music and turgid prose and fantastic adventuring of late cannot easily dispel even such magic-thought. god have mercy, tender mercy.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
XC - a hundred years of solitude
song of the week: coldplay, clocks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbI1FpLd4Vk
there are few books which begin as confusingly to a seasoned reader as this one. there are also few books which have the wherewithal, or some would say the audacity, to reveal themselves to the reader only at its last third or so. but there are truly few books which capture the fleeting and magical essence of human folly and passion as well as this one.
there are few views as pretty in this island as that of the promontory at marina bay, overlooking the river from just after the fullerton bay hotel. there are few spots better to observe the fine towers of glass and metal, the curvature of the bay, and the adjacent, esoteric collection of crafted attractions and regal colonial buildings. there are few spots as intrepidly swept by the wind, or lightly surrounded by calm waters. it was, in all, a very impressionistic afternoon.
and impressionist lucidity often lends itself well to philosophising. i considered my life over every year, to the somewhat more lived-in age of twenty four. it was a bit nostalgic, but also very mysterious, to consider how i came exactly to be me. what sea-changes made me to be the sum of emotions, feelings and justifications i wanted me to be? but the long and short of it was that these were unanswerable questions of which the events had been forgotten. logic and theory often give way, gracefully or not, to rote subsistence and the quiet comfort of non-introspection.
anyway, i only left after being gratified by this line: humanity may require society to flourish and do great things, but it is only in solitude that satisfaction is found.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbI1FpLd4Vk
there are few books which begin as confusingly to a seasoned reader as this one. there are also few books which have the wherewithal, or some would say the audacity, to reveal themselves to the reader only at its last third or so. but there are truly few books which capture the fleeting and magical essence of human folly and passion as well as this one.
there are few views as pretty in this island as that of the promontory at marina bay, overlooking the river from just after the fullerton bay hotel. there are few spots better to observe the fine towers of glass and metal, the curvature of the bay, and the adjacent, esoteric collection of crafted attractions and regal colonial buildings. there are few spots as intrepidly swept by the wind, or lightly surrounded by calm waters. it was, in all, a very impressionistic afternoon.
and impressionist lucidity often lends itself well to philosophising. i considered my life over every year, to the somewhat more lived-in age of twenty four. it was a bit nostalgic, but also very mysterious, to consider how i came exactly to be me. what sea-changes made me to be the sum of emotions, feelings and justifications i wanted me to be? but the long and short of it was that these were unanswerable questions of which the events had been forgotten. logic and theory often give way, gracefully or not, to rote subsistence and the quiet comfort of non-introspection.
anyway, i only left after being gratified by this line: humanity may require society to flourish and do great things, but it is only in solitude that satisfaction is found.
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