Independence In

I cannot believe, that of all the tv shows in the world, I am now addicted to GILMORE GIRLS.

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Do Go Gentle

".....I feel that I should (that it is an Augean duty, pushed on to me against my will) do my best, with a still hot shovel of overloaded feeling and a lot of windily winding words, to vindicate first Dylan, then me, then both of us together. And hope that the truth that I am trying blindly to say, to find out for myself, will come out through all the literary muddles and faultily not detached attitude. And I hope it is a better truth than Brinnin's."

-- Caitlin Thomas, defending her memory of DylanThomas  

in John Malcolm Brinnin, Dylan Thomas in America.

Why didn't she, then? Such wonderful words.

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Shutting Me Up in Verse

I don't think I'll ever begin to write here till I feel at home. You know, like the colours and the interiors, and figure out a nice cosy spot to just let be at. I was hoping that I don't keep dabbling around with the template because I am kind of compulsive like that; but I think this is going to stick with me for a while.
Emily Dickinson is among my favourite poets; and there were a couple of lines by her I was hoping to personalize here at the blog. She writes about the simpler, and perhaps, the harder things to write about - and makes the most poignant statements with such utter brevity and humility.

So, here's to a new, shiny, sparkly sort of truth :))

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

                                                       ~ Emily Dickinson, Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant

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Where's Waldo?

Sitting in Bonki's room is like a treasure hunt. I keep spotting interesting things at interesting places where I would never hope to find them. Today, after having found an unusually cute pair of yellow octopus ear-rings hanging on the window screen, I suddenly remembered Waldo! So long, it had been since Waldo and me happened. I used to follow Waldo regularly every Tuesday for yeeeeaars.

Since my friends didn't know who/what/what the f Waldo is; it had to be duly googled and would you believe, there is an official Where's Waldo website now? I'm SURE it wasn't there when I followed Waldo. And they have a whole lot of new additions, among them being Welda, and Vanda. But, seriously, who in their right mind wants to look for Wizard Whitebeard when Waldo is around somewhere waving at you in red and white. I spotted Waldo like a miracle. Around half a minute at each scene.

I should just give up law and do the one thing I'm awesome at. Finding Waldo.

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Be Drunk

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

                                                                                    ~ Charles Baudelaire, Be Drunk.

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I am, therefore I get drunk.

If you thirst to know who said, "I think,therefore I am,"
your thirst I will quench;
It was Rene Descartes, only what he actually said was,
"Je pense, donc je suis," because he was French.
He also said in Latin, "Cogito, Ergo sum,"
Just to show that he was a man of culture and not a tennis tramp
or a crackle barrel philosophy bum.

Descartes was one of those who think, therefore they are,
Because those who donot think, but are anyhow, outnumber them by far.
If of chaos we are on the brink
It is because so many people think that they think.
In truth, of anything other than thinking they are fonder.

Because thought requires the time and effort to reflect, cogitate,
contemplate, meditate, ruminate and ponder.
Their minds are exposed to events and ideas but they have
never pondered or reflected on them
Any more than motion picture screens meditate on the images that
are projected on them.

Hence our universal confusion.
The result of the unreasoned, or jumped at, conclusion.
People who think that they think, they secretly think that
thinking is grim.
And they excuse themselves with signs reading THIMK, or, as
Descartes would have said, PEMSEZ, and THINK or THWIM.

Instead of thoughts, they act on hunches and inklings,
Which are not thoughts at all, only thinklings.
Can it be because we leave to the Russians such dull pursuits as
thinking that the red star continues to twinkle so?
I thinkle so.

                                                                        ~Ogden Nash,  Lines Fraught with Naught But Thought.

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All You Who Sleep Tonight

Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.

The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.

                                                                ~ Vikram Seth, Sit.

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Mambo-Tango

I'm really too sleepy to be blogging just now, but I just want to write. Write enough to attain "unconscious competence", as Gogs pointed out to me. I want to achieve my kung fu.

I spend the whole night with MJ and D watching two movies back to back. They were about entirely different times, different characters, two stories that could probably never meet; and I felt the same glowy warm feeling in my heart having watched both. The feeling that the world is good, and what's bad in it, can be sorted out. Needs sorting out.

In the first, a woman in the 1950s tries to change, but realises that change for others is not being true to oneself. In the second, a young terrifically attractive charming young man wants to be useful, somehow.
Not all who wander are aimless. 
People are strange.

I won't blame tonight for my troubles, I promise. I'm so happy. :)

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Quod Erat Demonstradum

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that."; and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.

~Douglas Adams, A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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Venice Queen

I have been a little sad, lately. Chipped in the edges and jaded. I've been talking less, laughing less, and smiling very rarely. And for the longest time, I hadn't even realised. When I did realise - on the rare ocassions - I'd tell myself that I'd tide over that phase of sadness; and be happy again. Except, there have been phases after phases, one after the other; and I just haven't had a happy phase in SO long.

So, today, I've decided to take responsibility for my happiness. And I'd like to thank the Geminid Meteorite Showers for the same. I lay on the terrace today, as I am usually found, and looked up and stars after stars fell away in every direction. Okay, that might be a wee bit exaggerated - but come on, I saw SIX shooting stars; and between us, we saw more. They were like tiny beautiful silver arrows; and there were so many of them. And as I was watching a very beautiful and unusually clear sky, it suddenly came upon me that I've been wasting my life in this whole sadness business.

I have, therefore, decided that I shall not allow my whimsy self to be sad from now on. I am going to smile all the time. ALL the time, and we all know how hard that is. Actually, I feel like slapping people who smile all the time. Nobody has any business smiling all the time. Like babies have no business not being fat. Or even like guys having no business not waiting for girls. Anyway, I have decided that I have no business being sad all the time; because there is this just one life, and we got to live it, and we might as well make the most of it, while we can eh?

I've been so sad for many months now, even though it takes precious little to make me happy. A pretty sky and a few falling stars have made me happy again.

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