in sin and error, pining

a whiter shade of pale

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:46:32 GMT

a man's library is a sort of harem. - ralph waldo emerson

my harem needs more attention.

tonight the bottle let me down

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:28:50 GMT

this is wonderful: "on the dingle peninsula, I asked an irishman, "were you born here?" he thought for a second and said, "no, it was about six miles down the road." when I told him where I was from, a faraway smile filled his eyes, and he looked out to sea and sighed, "ah, the shores of americay." i asked him if he'd lived here all his life. he said, "not yet."

the great enigma

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:44:54 GMT

some postprandial reading nuggets:

eddie condon's empirical test of musical quality: "as it enters the ear, does it come in like broken glass or does it come in like honey?"

te deum

not because of victories
i sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.

not for victory
but for the day's work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.

- charles reznikoff, from seven poems, new york 1951

the chill of autumn charity

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:56:52 GMT

some brief reading notes (quotes):

"... writes the history of how apophatic theology was forgotten in the late middle ages; how rational and then quasi-scientific newtonian theology rose to replace it in early modernity; how, when others were recognizing this as a mistake, fundamentalists tightened their embrace of it; and how, in the wake of the passing of modernity and the failure of both its theism and its atheism, postmodern theology may point toward the recovery of what was lost. a god whose existence you can prove is a god to whom you cannot pray, postmodern theology argues, and prayer -- not proof -- is where religion rises or falls."

"in afghanistan, american soldiers are consistently dying in small batches (under orders from their nobel peace prize-winning leader)"

i am the place where creation is working itself out

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:28:47 GMT

every year i think i like fall a bit better. i enjoy summer, but indian summer is the best, perhaps because it's undeserved and unexpected. summer is warm and open and light and full of life and carelessness, and then fall has a hint of pain to it mixed in with the beauty. the clock is running and somehow it makes the season more poignant. an awareness of the temporality of happiness and mortality of beauty actually increases that happiness.

i was thinking about this line today: if you live alone, whose feet will you wash? i was also thinking that i should post some thanksgiving poems ... not because it's thanksgiving, but because i'm thankful (and because i bought pumpkin butter, which leads to thankfulness and thoughts of thanksgiving).

pied beauty

glory be to god for dappled things—
for skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
for rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
and áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

all things counter, original, spáre, strange;
whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
with swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
he fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

práise hím.

- gerard manley hopkins

to stand up straight and tread the turning mill,
to lie flat and know nothing and be still,
are the two trades of man; and which is worse
i know not, but i know that both are ill.

- ae housman

(ok, so i'm not always thankful for work)

the enchanting soul of the streets

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:44:21 GMT

language is a skin: i rub my language against the other. it is as if i had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. my language trembles with desire. - roland barthes

pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. the really great men must, i think, have great sadness on earth. - fyodor dostoevsky

the question marks began singing of god's being

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:27:49 GMT

vacation by the numbers

km driven: 2600+
km hiked: 75+
times listening to paul simon's graceland: 6
times listening to the very best of roy orbison: 3
dodgy beards grown: 1
pacific ocean skinny dips: 1
emails received in my absence: 60 (plus 107 at work)
percentage of those emails involving online viagra sales or "relationships": 10
clif bars consumed: 24

the mountains shall bring peace to the nations

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:50:12 GMT

it's been a busy weekend so far. i watched a movie, did laundry, helped tear down and rebuild redge's deck (while we smoked a pork shoulder all day), went to a farewell party for emi, went to church, had lunch with my parents/grandparents, had a nap, went for solo coffee/reading, baked muffins, and went running.

the day was perfect today, like a garden of delights. summer days always leave me feeling a bit wistful. now i'm sitting here watching the day die, as the tree-lined street behind me gets still and shadowy and the night creeps up and cools (hopefully) everything down.

you know what i'm sick of? hollister t-shirts, tattoos, and piercings. enough with the tattoos and piercings, people. i'm at least twice as edgy as you all by not having any.

fewer moving parts means fewer broken pieces

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 04:25:32 GMT

i stopped and gawked at an enormous house fire tonight ... perhaps the largest i've ever seen. then, i sat down by the river and read for a while, and listened to a bagpiper, and watched a perfect evening gradually die. even driving home down tree-lined streets and listening to music with the windows down was an immense pleasure. tomorrow i need to figure out what camping gear i still need to buy, so i will be fully prepared to pack, and then prepare to carry my pack in enough time that several days' hiking doesn't end in pain and recrimination.

this week at soccer i had my head rung pretty decently. i don't really remember how it happened, and i've felt mildly whiplashed for a couple days. i guess i will have to start wearing a helmet to soccer, to prevent being further concussed ...

you guys, what are your thoughts on internet dating?

"sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care. balm of hurt minds ... the idea being ... that if things are getting sticky, they tend to seem less glutinous after you've had your eight hours."

- pg wodehouse

the last least taint of a trace

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:27:11 GMT

i went hiking this afternoon to test out my new boots. somehow, a hawk didn't take kindly to my being nearby, as it made a big show of flying at my head. i took the hint and buggered off. talons are scary.

these warm summer evenings leave me feeling wistful and vaguely nostalgic. they're heavy with the scent of summers past, or at least imagined, as though if you lingered long enough your desires would come true. they don't. although, it's hard to be unhappy when you're reading wodehouse, as he's so delightfully sly.

i washed and waxed my car this weekend, and superficially cleaned the upholstery, which accomplishment outweighs my laggardly approach to cleaning the bathroom and several other menial and always necessary tasks. it is the blight that man was born for.

coney island of the mind

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:17:18 GMT

the city was beautiful tonight from nose hill, full of cloud and possibility.

who agrees that we should replace "pardon me" with "what-what"? seriously. what-what?

to be vast and various

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:31:55 GMT

i fell asleep on the floor at my grandparents' today. it was ok, because my grandpa and my dad fell asleep too. happy father's day, i guess. then, in celebration of the longest day of the year i drove around through some old, beautiful residential neighbourhoods and walked around by the river. then i came home and made burgers and had ice cream and tarts and tea and read di lampedusa. solitary happiness.

this week i saw a nice watch in the newspaper in an ad for a jewellery store. i figured it would be too expensive, but i came home and looked it up anyways: $29,000. unfortunately i will not be wearing that any time soon.

the contractors working in our ceiling managed to flood our vault early this week. most of our usd cash was wet, and two days' worth of dehumidifying didn't fix it. counting bundles of damp bills was a bit of a fiasco, but also an adventure (at least, as much of an adventure as i get at work).

the bowers are bare of bay

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:43:13 GMT

yonder see the morning blink:
the sun is up, and up must i,
to wash and dress and eat and drink
and look at things and talk and think
and work, and god knows why.

oh often have i washed and dressed
and what's to show for all my pain?
let me lie abed and rest:
ten thousand times i've done my best
and all's to do again.

- ae housman

i am weary of work. tired. tired. and not just work.

silence sounds no worse than cheers

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:14:09 GMT

At the risk of drastically oversimplifying, I suggest that there are two quite distinct strands that compose the religious consciousness, and that our understanding of religion has suffered from too great an emphasis on one of them. The first strand, which we over-emphasise — this, too, being part of our puritan legacy — is that of belief. The second strand, which is slipping away from modern thought (though not from modern reality) is that which might be summarised in the term "membership", by which I mean all the customs, ceremonies and practices whereby the sacred is renewed, so as to be a real presence among us, and a living endorsement of the human community. The pagan religions of Greece and Rome were strong on membership but weak on belief. Hence they centred on the cult, as the primary religious phenomenon. It was through the cult, not the creed that the adept proved his religious orthodoxy and his oneness with his fellows. Western civilisation has tended in recent centuries to emphasise belief — in particular the belief in a transcendental realm and an omnipotent king who presides over it. This theological emphasis, by representing religion as a matter of theological doctrine, exposes it to refutation. And that means that the real religious need of people seeks other channels for its expression: usually forms of idolatry that do not achieve the refreshing humanity of the cult.

- roger scruton, from standpointmag

past the plunge of plummet

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:05:30 GMT

in the past few weeks i ended up with a screw in my tire, a parking ticket, two cracked ribs, and a number of less desirable events. on the bright side i talked to a bunch of friends, took a mini vacation to victoria, sponsored some orphanage children, and bought about 25 new books. because really, you can never have too many books.

it's finally nice outside. summer gets my sticker of approval. i have soccer this morning so i'm skipping church, and instead i went last night. the service was about marital sex, and renewal of marriage vows. needless to say i had to squint around to find an application. i guess that's what i get for skipping. it's also why i wish we had more liturgical worship and expository preaching.

the moved and the shaken

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:32:56 GMT

i had to do a portion of the pre-show chat at the orchestra last night ... fortunately no one really listens to me anyways. grieg was fantastic live, particularly into the hall of the mountain king. it picks up energy and spirals to the edge of control, and is at once creepy, haunting and sublime. i've heard peer gynt plenty, but the full experience was far superior to hearing it on cd. rodrigo's concierto de aranjuez was also quite good.

"i like to be ignorant of the count of what i have, so as to feel my loss less exactly."

"not being able to rule events, i rule myself, and adapt myself to them if they do not adapt themselves to me."

- michel de montaigne

"my opinion is this, that though a thing is not shameful in itself, still it is not free from shame when it is praised by the multitude."

- mt cicero

if pain were money

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:39:44 GMT

i've been far too tired lately. not enough sleep, or not enough good sleep, seems to sap me of ambition for life beyond work. this includes enough exercise, enough cooking, enough projects, and particularly enough reading, writing, and fun in general.

my parent's dog got into a package of licorice while they were away. he ate nearly twenty 18-inch strands. needless to say, he was pretty unhappy for the next two days, although it hasn't put him off licorice. if there's a lesson in there, i'm not sure what it is.

it feels as though i make my way
through massive rock
like a vein of ore
alone, encased

i am so deep inside it
i can't see the path or any distance:
everything is close
and everything closing in on me
has turned to stone

since i still don't know enough about pain,
this terrible darkness makes me small
if it's you, though -

press down hard on me, break in
that i may know the weight of your hand,
and you, the fullness of my cry.

- rilke

shakin' the hard times loose

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:58:11 GMT

you are the future,
the red before sunrise
over the fields of time.

you are the cock's crow when night is done,
you are the dew and the bells of matins ...

you are the deep innerness of all things,
the last word that can never be spoken.
to each of us you reveal yourself differently:
to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.

- rilke

centralized swindling machine

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:23:27 GMT

pomegranates should be easier to peel. i guess maybe that's their adaptation against being eaten ... at least by lazy people.

today i almost had to speak at a reception for the alberta children's hospital foundation. apparently there was a mixup with the invitations, so i was the highest ranking person attending from the bank. fortunately i didn't have to, as we only discovered this about 45 minutes before the event.

my friend vernon wrote "i’m really not enjoying the feeling of being a bag of money to be bled out. i suppose many people here don’t enjoy the feeling of extreme poverty. it’s a circular thought that can really make you want to go home." i like that. you can read the rest of her various travel musings here.

i guess i should update more frequently. in any case, here's a poem i like:

manifesto: the mad farmer liberation front

love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. want more
of everything ready-made. be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
and you will have a window in your head.
not even your future will be a mystery
any more. your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
when they want you to buy something
they will call you. when they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

so, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. love the lord.
love the world. work for nothing.
take all that you have and be poor.
love someone who does not deserve it.
denounce the government and embrace
the flag. hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
give your approval to all you cannot
understand. praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

ask the questions that have no answers.
invest in the millenium. plant sequoias.
say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
call that profit. prophesy such returns.

put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
expect the end of the world. laugh.
laughter is immeasurable. be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
so long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
ask yourself: will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

go with your love to the fields.
lie down in the shade. rest your head
in her lap. swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
as soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
practice resurrection.

- wendell berry

the music from the strings no one touches

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:03:55 GMT

books read in 2009:

the kabir book - kabir, trans robert bly
memoir in two voices - françois mitterand and elie wiesel, trans richard seaver and timothy bent
in search of lost time vol 1: swann's way - marcel proust, trans ck scott moncrieff et al
homage to catalonia - george orwell
books v cigarettes - george orwell
my first seven years (plus a few more) - dario fo, trans joseph farrell
we won't pay! we won't pay! and other plays - dario fo, trans ron jenkins
johan padan and the discovery of the americas - dario fo, trans ron jenkins
fernando pessoa & co: selected poems - fernando pessoa, trans richard zenith
basic christianity - john rw stott
t zero - italo calvino, trans william weaver
how to think about god: a guide for the 20th century pagan - mortimer j adler
rilke's book of hours: love poems to god - rilke, trans anita barrows and joanna macy
the bridge on the drina - ivo andrić, trans lovett f edwards
other colors - orhan pamuk, trans maureen freely
foreign affairs and other stories - sean o'faolain
the round & other cold hard facts - jmg le clézio, trans c dickson
the scorpion god - william golding
oranges are not the only fruit - jeanette winterson
herland - charlotte perkins gilman
the year of magical thinking - joan didion
days of wrath - andré malraux, trans haakon m chevalier
ghost town - patrick mcgrath
one man's destiny - mikhail sholokhov, trans hc stevens
collected poems - ae housman
darkness at noon - arthur koestler, trans daphne hardy
the leopard - giuseppe di lampedusa, trans archibald colquhoun
selected poems - eugenio montale, trans ben belitt, et al
selected poems - robinson jeffers
how right you are, jeeves - pg wodehouse
monsignor quixote - graham greene
blisters and bliss: a trekker's guide to the west coast trail - david foster and wayne aitken
fire and ice - johannes v jensen, trans ag chater
the cimbrians - johannes v jensen, trans ag chater
the flâneur: a stroll through the paradoxes of paris - edmund white
florence, a delicate case - david leavitt
rio de janeiro: carnival under fire - ruy castro, trans john gledson
love had a compass: journals and poetry - robert lax
child's history of england - charles dickens
the christian book of mystical verse - aw tozer
steppenwolf - hermann hesse, trans basil creighton
snow - orhan pamuk, trans maureen freely
the great enigma: new collected poems - tomas tranströmer, trans robin fulton
three plays - sean o'casey
exiles - james joyce
the stranger - albert camus, trans matthew ward

lists from previous years: 2008; 2007; 2006; 2005

above the ashes spirits still hover

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:47:39 GMT

the person who invented statutory holidays is a genius! today i'm getting paid to do nothing, because it's a new year. i can learn to live with that.

one of my staff bought me crystal brandy glasses for christmas. i've been making them ring, and each time it makes me happy.

i was going to post a photo of my new nephew next to a pop can (he's over two pounds now, but was down to 700 g for a while), but apparently uploading photos is more work than i thought.

haste, haste to bring him laud

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:28:10 GMT

it's cold and snowy outside. i love it! the cold makes everything seem more real, somehow. food is warm and nourishing, friends are more cheery, warmth gets inside you better, lights are brighter, gifts are more precious. i've posted this before, and i'll post it again: "it is so cold, but, of course, it's christmas. the cold has a way of waking you up to reality. and the reality is, we are very lucky."

music gets better around christmas. the radio is filled with lovely choral music. it's too bad i have to work and i can't just read and drink coffee and enjoy. a departed livejournal friend told me that if you have time to sleep you have time to read, but lately i haven't had time to sleep properly.

... so that before the end, the eightieth christmas
(by 'eightieth' meaning whichever is the last)
the accumulated memories of annual emotion
may be concentrated into a great joy
which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
when fear came upon every soul:
because the beginning shall remind us of the end
and the first coming of the second coming.

my new nephew is about 800 grams now. i bought him a christmas present today, although it will be a while before he can play with the lovely sorts of toys. it feels deeply virtuous to shop at a place named livingstone & cavell, and i like looking at model trains and tin soldiers and other precious archaic toys, all handcrafted and delightful.

on page, stage, and canvas

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:44:31 GMT

this morning i had the breakfast of champions: oatmeal and coffee. except, i think that champions typically wake up before 11 am.

on the weekend i went to faust with my sister and brother-in-law. in front of us was a man in his middle forties who was clearly having an affair with a girl who looked to be about twenty. if you're not familiar with the story of faust it's like this: faust makes a deal with the devil to be young, in order to seduce a young woman. as you might expect, it ends badly, with marguerite killing her child, and faust dragged off to hell. the couple in front of us seemed unaware of that irony.

stolen from tatianalarina: "but the reason for church is that we are troubled, and we are going to die. so it's not really as much fun as the mall. we are here now and we have money; that is the forward-thinking proposition on which the existence of malls is based."

- cary tennis, in salon

a sumptuous abundance

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:49:24 GMT

i have not updated for so long ... i suppose that means that all the things i could have written are lost possibilities. well, perhaps i will be more diligently literary going forward.

last night i arrived home from boston (new york, maine, vermont, rhode island, new hampshire, connecticut), minus one item of luggage, and decided not to go in to work today. groceries, laundry, voting, errands, and light housecleaning seemed more precious. it's always sad when the possibilities of different lives and different world merge back into the mundane world of work and routine that i'm all too accustomed to.

i marked these lines yesterday from mario vargas llosa, during my air transit reading:

"this thread has now been broken and intelligence has a very precarious existence today. the united states might now be without rivals in the military and political spheres but culturally it is a giant with feet of clay. the pseudo-cultural products of mass consumption - which people try to make presentable with the tag of 'popular culture', but which are a base and vulgar form of human invention - have almost completely displaced genuine creativity.

... the university has abdicated its obligation to defend culture against fraud. ... the humanities have fallen into the hands of falsifiers and sophists of every hue, who pass off ideology as knowledge and intellectual snobbery as modernity and who make young people feel an indifference or a disgust for the life of books. through the fault of the pharisees without and the philistines within, the great classic tradition of literature and philosophy which made modern liberal society possible is sweetly dying in the campuses of north american academe, with their impeccable gardens and well-stocked libraries."

as a result, we "have enshrined in the cloisters an aesthetic and ethical relativism in which all ideas are equal, and where there are no hierarchies or values," making literature "a mere entertainment, or a form of snobbery for a precious few, which has deprived literary endeavour of ambition, depth, and vitality."

i'd trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday

kubilai9@hotmail.com — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:37:33 GMT

on friday i left a book on the toilet tank, and accidentally knocked it into the bowl. that was bad enough, but it's worse that the toilet was already occupied.

think while you are alive

friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
jump into experience while you are alive!
think ... and think ... while you are alive.
what you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

if you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

the idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
what is found now is found then.
if you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the city of death.
if you make love wtih the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
so plunge into the truth, find out who the teacher is, believe in the great sound!
kabir says this: when the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the guest that does all the work.
look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

- kabir