Miscellany. Enjoy!
Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.
My god may not be your god.
And frankly, it doesn’t matter.
I can only know mine.
We’re tied to the hip like that.
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is Rilke’s only novel. He wrote it while living in Paris as a young writer. It contains autobiographical content and was inspired in part by the expressionistic movement.
From Book One
My God, if any of it could be shared! But would it be then, would it be? No, it is only at the price of solitude.
Reflection
This is an expression of one of Rilke’s recurring themes, an idea that preoccupied him, that we are truly alone. That all of our innermost perceptions—the beauty we see in the world, the diaphanous rays of the morning sun through a casement window, light crystals flashing on ocean waters, the breeze on our faces, almost wet with renewal—that how we perceive these things, how they make us feel, that only we alone can feel them that way, and because of that, we are utterly alone with the world and with our God. We may try to write them down, or paint them on a canvas. But it is just a futile attempt, a desperate attempt, to hide ourselves from this awful, unalterable truth.
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is Rilke’s only novel. He wrote it while living in Paris as a young writer. It contains autobiographical content and was inspired in part by the expressionistic movement.
From Book One
I am lying in my bed, five flights up, and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a dial without hands. As a thing long lost lies one morning in its old place, safe and well, fresher almost than at the time of its loss, quite as though someone had cared for it—: so here and there on my coverlet lie lost things out of my childhood and are as new.
Commentary
This morning
Is like a place I’ve never been before.
The coolness of it laps over my feet buried in wet sand. It feels like silk.
Back and forth. Reaching for my senses.
Such joy these waters of day fold and unfold again.
It blinds me with happiness. There should be no more thoughts.
From Book Two:
Finally, the intelligence. Think of it this way: You are an old man. Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.
My Commentary:
Seven thousand times.
Each time a tiny blister.
The soul callouses over.
The monkey face hardens.
The monkey face howls.
Why not just one time,
Embrace your own humanity,
And turn like a man?
Turn toward the consuming sun
And all her singing angels,
Like a small child that may become a man.
Miss L., the Monkey, and I went to Normal, IL on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It’s a small college town. Kinda cool, but not super cool. Most of these pictures were taken there. Enjoy!
Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.
I grabbed my bike and drove to Louisville, KY. Honestly, it’s a bit of a dump. If you don’t drink (like me), there isn’t a whole lot to do. The new Big Four bridge is pretty cool. Enjoy!
Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.
The world was black and closed. The curtains were drawn. Rod did not know if it was day or night, whether or not the sun or moon shone. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to care. A gnawing rot of hate burned a hole in his belly. It was the only thing he could feel or cared about.
He sat upright on the edge of the bed. He dabbed a needle in an ink-filled Mason’s jar lid on the bedside table and poked his forearm. He winced. The tiny wound swelled slightly. He had filled the room’s ice bucket with ice. When he was done, he would use the ice to reduce the swelling. He poked himself again. He looked at the ragged visage in the mirror across his hotel room and breathed deep the frozen air-conditioned air. This is going to take a while, he thought. He put the needle down and picked up the smoldering cigarette cradled in a glass ashtray and sucked on it until there was no tobacco left to burn. Back to work. Poke. Poke. Poke …
He wouldn’t forget her name. He was etching it on his skin. Maria. Maria. Maria, why didn’t I see it coming? Her suffocating death at the hands of his partner. His big calloused hands like a vise around her swollen purple neck. It seemed predestined now. How could it have unfolded otherwise? God drew it up just so on his fucking blackboard. Why didn’t he read it? Why did he choose not to read it? It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. He would’ve been powerless in the face of the ugly mudslide of events.
He thought back. When was it? Two, maybe three days ago. It was hard to know. A drop under High Bridge. Four bricks of coke. It should’ve just been Rod and Jelly, but Maria always wanted to tag along. She didn’t have to, but she always did. It had been that way for a month or more. Jelly didn’t like it, but Rod made the rules. Rod was the smart one. Jelly was his partner because he was the biggest, meanest motherfucker the boss could find.
He remembered that night in Jelly’s garage. Maria was high on ice and shaking. Worse than usual, but she never interfered. Just sat in the back of Jelly’s car and scratched her skin until it bled. They drove an hour or so to the bridge. Nobody said anything. Just the city, a radio sax, and white static.
But the drop went bad. The mark didn’t have the money. He brought big guns and some friends instead. Shots were fired that cracked the hum of the of the highway overhead. Boom, boom, boom. Jelly caught a bullet in his arm but had the sense to gun the car. The tires spewed dirt and gravel into the air. The mark lost them as the black muscle car fishtailed and rocketed away.
Then the stupidest thing happened.
Maria grabbed one of the bricks and threw it out the window. What in the hell was she thinking, Rod thought. Maybe she was scared. Maybe in her doped-up brain she thought she was helping out. But there was no way in hell they could go back and get it. Free coke for a crooked mark. Jelly went berserk, twisted in the driver’s seat while the car sped on a wide city street, caught Maria by the neck with both hands and squeezed the life out of her. Rod punched him in the head, but the blows bounced off him as if he were made of granite.
The rest of the night tumbled out of the car like a fractured nightmare. Rod hadn’t seen Jelly since. But he would find him. And he would kill him.
Even more cats. Yes, it’s completely ridiculous. It’s as if my whole life revolved around them, which of course, is an utter absurdity. Enjoy!
Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.
In this special edition, I’m posting pictures taken by the Lovely Miss L. She used her iPhone.
Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.