[oxford] thoughts

He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets whose serried beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued. The lovely creature raised domes and spires into the cloudless blue, and only the ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how evanescent was the phantom, how faint its claim to represent England.

-E.M. Foster, Howards End

Mr. Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

vacuum

i store up so many things
taking, sucking, filling up

with nothing to show
for it.

---
equal parts:
snatching, thinking, speaking.
but what they don't tell you
are the chasms that lie between.

3 kinds of people
able to do one, or both,
rarely three.

some winged sandals
an accelerator of sorts
are what i need.

----

the prodigal son is a story of a father and his TWO sons.

success simply "is."

I wish.

[so many things]

[environmental] thoughts

ok...so i realize that the amount of carbon emitted from this family trip, in addition to the amount of traveling i have done in the past 20 years, is probably outstanding.

so, my plan is to donate money to forest conservation efforts, or to plant my own orchard to offset this carbon.

apples, anyone?

[art] thoughts

from Picasso (Ediciones Poligrafia):
"The modernist objective...was to find a method of representing reality within the superficial condition of painting which has its own coherent, internal logic." (5)

"Thus the painting itself becomes an object, one more element of reality, endowed with specificity and autonomy."

In the Palais de Tokyo, Christina Boltanski's exhibit:
"What remains of a person's existence but a few objects and some unlikely photographs?"

Is this the sole evidence of being?

Also, an interesting piece at the Palais de Tokyo (I forgot to grab the artist's name):

heights

So this is a bit overdue...

but my senses have been on overload, and it's takes time to process.

a curious fusion of antiquity, history, modernity, avant-garde art, fashion and architecture...

the eurotrip was quite a frenzy, but some quality family time was had. we started in blackpool at the uncle's and made our way through the continent.

paris had me at champ elysees and cafe du trocadero. beautiful, posh, the hub of art and fashion... i loved the museums, especially the musee d'orsay and the palais de tokyo. bonnard and vuillard, added to a list of favorites. trying to understand modernism, impressionism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism.

madrid, mature, historical. el retiro a beautiful park in the heart of the city...a real retreat. the reina sofia and the museo thyssen-bornemisza had very comprehensive collections.

and barcelona...bustling and alive. gaudi! so organic - the synthesis of aesthetics and function. his work and his inspiration is striking.

much thought about art, about purpose, about the meaning of words and images.
the fragility of memory and life.
the documentation of existence, of being...

and don't even get me started on the foods... [thought, i must say, nothing lived quite up to the cuisine in italy...] let's just say i enjoyed the wining and dining.

i also now speak "euro" which is a cacophonous mix of italian, french, and spanish. i am amazed at those who have mastered them individually! one day...

so many sights, sounds, tastes, smells, thoughts and memories i'm trying hard to hold on to.
and it doesn't stop, won't stop until i'm sitting on a plane headed for a school in jersey.

so trust that i'm coping, enjoying, missing, and living...

here's a few from the trip: