It’s Friday the 13th! It’s St. Lucia’s Day! It’s also my birthday! The Hobbit is my favourite book of all time, and in Hobbit-birthday fashion, I wish to give you gifts. So there are giveaways happening, as detailed yesterday -- do enter! But here, in this thread, today, if
Amal darling, mostly I just want to give you A Swedish to go with your lussekatt today. I don't know if you've ever had A Swedish as a drink, and I don't know if it counts as a talisman. It is steamed milk with cinnamon and cardamom and a little maple syrup, whipped cream if you want it. So much love, happy birthday, god Lucia dag.--Marissa
One of my favorite poets is the late Adrienne Rich. Her work is studied for its examination and complication of gender, and that's part of what draws me to it, but what I truly love is how she can distill beauty into something liquid and heady. Here's the ending of Rich's "Planetarium", with all its unusual breaks and spaces maintained from the original:
I've become more aware of some problematicness about T. H. White's _The Once and Future King_ since I first read it. But still, the one line of beloved poetry that came to mind in the morning and comes to mind again in the evening is the line from near the end, where Arthur wants to send his page away before the final battle to keep alive the idea, and wonders if it is acceptable to do that, and
> The child said, with the pure eyes of absolute truth: “I would do anything for King Arthur.”
And it made me cry when I first read it, decades ago, and it's nearly making me cry now remembering it, and it feels a world away from the complexity of 2019, an echo of a simpler and better world where Red and Blue can be one. So: happy birthday, and many happy returns!
Happiest of birthdays Amal. I mentioned awhile back you inadvertently gave me the gift of In Other Lands which helped me come out to myself as bi. Could I return the favor I would give you glass spun with starlight, and fresh breeze and the smell of clean sea air. Of adventure and foresight and confidence. Colored in blue and purple and pink, and always reassuringly weighty, and impossible to lose, and always with warmth.
Thank you for lovely stories, and lovely words, and for helping me find myself. Happy birthday.
*Flees into distance in sappiness and embarrassment*
1. A beautiful thing: The moon is heavy and warm tonight, tinted gold in an overcast sky, and it looks so much like a buttery cookie.
2. I would give you a small glass horseshoe, of a size to ring a finger or be hooked on the handle of a teacup. It is the deep red of pomegranates. Carry fortune in your pocket; pin it to your hair; look at it and remember that it protects strong hooves from being worn down.
Happy birthday Amal! Many, many happy returns! I love the idea of giving you treasured lines of poetry - like little jewels, and it's almost like a sortes vergilianae in a way. The line I'd like to give you is from C.P. Cavafy's "Ithaka", as translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard:
3. your talisman is a small smooth stone with an indentation precisely the size and shape of your thumb. The stone goes into your pocket, and when you are afraid or alone you can smooth your thumb into the indentation, and the stone will be cool if you are safe and warm if you are loved and almost-too-hot if you should *run*. The stone has a name but I don't know it, only you know it, because it is your stone and your thumb and thus it is *your* friend
2. the nape of my best beloved's neck as they tilted their head forward to make it easier for me to shave their back of their head. The hair where their head meets their neck grows in the shape of the letter W and I always try to preserve the crispness of those peaks because they are my favorite secret thing.
This morning when I got to work, as I was leaving the parking garage on my way into the building, I noticed a splash of light on a wall reflected off the window of a car parked there beside it. The curve of the glass made little wisps of the light as it reflected and then hit the wall, which just so happened to be right above a square, corporate-looking sign of rules and regulations for the parking spaces. It looked almost like steam rising from the top of the sign, or like a spirit leaving a cold, blocky, impersonal container and blossoming into something glowing. It was lovely.
Last night I stopped in at Category Is before I went to the election count. The look on Fi and Charlotte's faces was joyful because they had got to vote for someone who was one of theirs, a member of their community. There is hope. It's in communities of people looking after each other and standing up for each other. Happy birthday; I hope that more people look after each other in the years to come.
I put a bunch of ceramic bird sculptures in a crucible of fire last night, and they all came out amazing and shiny and – crucially – literally physically stronger than when they went in. I can't think of anything more talismany than that. 💞 https://www.instagram.com/p/B6BiU-epiUt/
(Bonus that some of them came out with Red shine on one side and Blue on the other.)
Happy birthday! One of my favorite poems is The Mystery by Russian poet and writer Ivan Bunin. The poem is short and individual lines are not really sentences, so this is the opening sentence, which is six lines long -- I hope that is ok?
Amal darling, mostly I just want to give you A Swedish to go with your lussekatt today. I don't know if you've ever had A Swedish as a drink, and I don't know if it counts as a talisman. It is steamed milk with cinnamon and cardamom and a little maple syrup, whipped cream if you want it. So much love, happy birthday, god Lucia dag.--Marissa
A day late (but with the glimpse from the right day):
1) "Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate." (John M. Ford, "Against Entropy").
2) A child laughing gleefully at their first panto.
3) A scallop shell, bound up in a neat package with some favorite impressions and hopes.
One of my favorite poets is the late Adrienne Rich. Her work is studied for its examination and complication of gender, and that's part of what draws me to it, but what I truly love is how she can distill beauty into something liquid and heady. Here's the ending of Rich's "Planetarium", with all its unusual breaks and spaces maintained from the original:
"I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-
luted that a light wave could take 15
years to travel through me And has
taken I am an instrument in the shape
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
into images for the relief of the body
and the reconstruction of the mind."
Happy birthday! Let me also be there with a gift.
I've become more aware of some problematicness about T. H. White's _The Once and Future King_ since I first read it. But still, the one line of beloved poetry that came to mind in the morning and comes to mind again in the evening is the line from near the end, where Arthur wants to send his page away before the final battle to keep alive the idea, and wonders if it is acceptable to do that, and
> The child said, with the pure eyes of absolute truth: “I would do anything for King Arthur.”
And it made me cry when I first read it, decades ago, and it's nearly making me cry now remembering it, and it feels a world away from the complexity of 2019, an echo of a simpler and better world where Red and Blue can be one. So: happy birthday, and many happy returns!
Happiest of birthdays Amal. I mentioned awhile back you inadvertently gave me the gift of In Other Lands which helped me come out to myself as bi. Could I return the favor I would give you glass spun with starlight, and fresh breeze and the smell of clean sea air. Of adventure and foresight and confidence. Colored in blue and purple and pink, and always reassuringly weighty, and impossible to lose, and always with warmth.
Thank you for lovely stories, and lovely words, and for helping me find myself. Happy birthday.
*Flees into distance in sappiness and embarrassment*
1. A beautiful thing: The moon is heavy and warm tonight, tinted gold in an overcast sky, and it looks so much like a buttery cookie.
2. I would give you a small glass horseshoe, of a size to ring a finger or be hooked on the handle of a teacup. It is the deep red of pomegranates. Carry fortune in your pocket; pin it to your hair; look at it and remember that it protects strong hooves from being worn down.
Happy birthday Amal! Many, many happy returns! I love the idea of giving you treasured lines of poetry - like little jewels, and it's almost like a sortes vergilianae in a way. The line I'd like to give you is from C.P. Cavafy's "Ithaka", as translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard:
"May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbours seen for the first time;"
3. your talisman is a small smooth stone with an indentation precisely the size and shape of your thumb. The stone goes into your pocket, and when you are afraid or alone you can smooth your thumb into the indentation, and the stone will be cool if you are safe and warm if you are loved and almost-too-hot if you should *run*. The stone has a name but I don't know it, only you know it, because it is your stone and your thumb and thus it is *your* friend
2. the nape of my best beloved's neck as they tilted their head forward to make it easier for me to shave their back of their head. The hair where their head meets their neck grows in the shape of the letter W and I always try to preserve the crispness of those peaks because they are my favorite secret thing.
1. and here you are living / despite it all -- rupi kaur
"Blood or lead, a song must outlive its singer"
- "The Watchword" by Sonya Taaffe
This morning when I got to work, as I was leaving the parking garage on my way into the building, I noticed a splash of light on a wall reflected off the window of a car parked there beside it. The curve of the glass made little wisps of the light as it reflected and then hit the wall, which just so happened to be right above a square, corporate-looking sign of rules and regulations for the parking spaces. It looked almost like steam rising from the top of the sign, or like a spirit leaving a cold, blocky, impersonal container and blossoming into something glowing. It was lovely.
Last night I stopped in at Category Is before I went to the election count. The look on Fi and Charlotte's faces was joyful because they had got to vote for someone who was one of theirs, a member of their community. There is hope. It's in communities of people looking after each other and standing up for each other. Happy birthday; I hope that more people look after each other in the years to come.
I put a bunch of ceramic bird sculptures in a crucible of fire last night, and they all came out amazing and shiny and – crucially – literally physically stronger than when they went in. I can't think of anything more talismany than that. 💞 https://www.instagram.com/p/B6BiU-epiUt/
(Bonus that some of them came out with Red shine on one side and Blue on the other.)
I live my life in widening circles/that reach out across the world. I may not complete the last one, /but I will give myself to it. Rilke
Thank you for being in one of my circles, Amal, and have a lovely birthday.
Happy birthday! One of my favorite poems is The Mystery by Russian poet and writer Ivan Bunin. The poem is short and individual lines are not really sentences, so this is the opening sentence, which is six lines long -- I hope that is ok?
Он на клинок дохнул - и жало
Его сирийского кинжала
Померкло в дымке голубой:
Под дымкой ярче заблистали
Узоры золота на стали
Своей червонною резьбой
Or, in my homemade translation:
A breath he cast on blade of steel,
A warm blue veil that soon revealed
Gold script upon his Syrian brand:
Beneath the heat lines shone more brightly,
A filigree entwined tightly
Resting so gently in his hand
Original poem link: http://poesias.ru/rus-stihi/stihi-bunin/stihi-bunin10633.shtml
Have a wonderful day :)