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Aleksandr Isayevitch Solzhenitsyn, dead at 89

Winner of Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1970) and author of The First Circle, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and The Gulag Archipelago.  He died of heart failure in Moscow.  In regards to literature, Aleksandr was my first true love.  

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” –The Gulag Archipelago

today

there is a breeze & there are cars,

& this is the world i live in.

trash blows with the leaves, &

students wear form-fitting billboard tees.

a dad smokes a cigarette; his daughter

breathes it in – and this is

somehow okay in the world i live in.

but, there is still a breeze.

 

a man without virtue is frightening.

a man without vice is both dull and frightening.

a man without either? well, he’s no man at all.

my old man, by charles bukowski

16 years old
during the depression
I’d come home drunk
and all my clothing–
shorts, shirts, stockings–
suitcase, and pages of
short stories
would be thrown out on the
front lawn and about the
street.

my mother would be
waiting behind a tree:
“Henry, Henry, don’t
go in . . .he’ll
kill you, he’s read
your stories . . .”

“I can whip his
ass . . .”

“Henry, please take
this . . .and
find yourself a room.”

but it worried him
that I might not
finish high school
so I’d be back
again.

one evening he walked in
with the pages of
one of my short stories
(which I had never submitted
to him)
and he said, “this is
a great short story.”
I said, “o.k.,”
and he handed it to me
and I read it.
it was a story about
a rich man
who had a fight with
his wife and had
gone out into the night
for a cup of coffee
and had observed
the waitress and the spoons
and forks and the
salt and pepper shakers
and the neon sign
in the window
and then had gone back
to his stable
to see and touch his
favorite horse
who then
kicked him in the head
and killed him.

somehow
the story held
meaning for him
though
when I had written it
I had no idea
of what I was
writing about.

so I told him,
“o.k., old man, you can
have it.”

and he took it
and walked out
and closed the door.
I guess that’s
as close
as we ever got.

An Avocation

Updated on 10 July.

I am in need of a hobby.  Recently, I realized that I could use some help when it comes to being normal.  And, it seems that most normal people have some sort of hobby or recreational diversion.  So, I’ve decided to pursue one.

I am going to collect old books.  

Specifically, I will focus on books published between 1880 & 1920.  This period of history has particularly attracted me because it reminds me so much of the Present.  Between William James and Oscar Wilde, van Gogh and Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse and James Joyce, there was a complete upheaval of every facet of the establishment.  Philosophy, physics, psychology, painting, literature, sexuality – seemingly impossible changes were taking place everywhere!   No dark corner of society or science would go unscathed by the passions of this era’s thinkers.  So, this collection is basically me living vicariously through them (or, if I’m lucky, being inspired by them).

We’ll see how this goes…

some online sellers I’ve been perusing:

AbeBooks

Alibris

Biblio

Update:

I have purchased three rare/out-of-print books so far!  They are:

Henry James‘ A London Life & Other Tales.  This is the first edition/printing from 1889.                        

This copy has a blue cloth binding and gold gilt lettering around the edges.  It is 366 pages long, and includes the short stories, “The Patagonia,” “The Liar,” and “Mrs. Temperly.”

William James‘ Human Immortality.  This is the first edition/printing from 1898.

This copy has a maroon cloth binding with small gilt lettering on the spine.  It is a slight 70 pages, and its full title is: “Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.”

Oscar Wilde‘s The Portrait of Mr. W.H..  This is the first edition/printing from 1921.

This copy has a charcoal-black cloth binding with small gilt lettering on the spine.  It also has a facsimile signature of Wilde’s autograph on the front cover.  It is 133 pages long, and is from a limited printing of the full manuscript (it is #407 out of 1,000 copies printed in 1921).

“A Satire Against Reason and Mankind” by John Wilmot

“Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I’d be a dog, a monkey or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal
Who is so proud of being rational…” (lines 1-7)

i love a girl imperfectly

janneane is puzzle & i love every piece of her.

sometimes i mix her up and put the sky where the grass is, then put the grass where the stars are; then we’ll pull the moon down into our room just to give us light.

its all quite lovely, really.

 

I feel, once again, like this man,

leaning on the threshold of eternity,

perpetually hoping that a cure

for living will be discovered…