“See how the roses burn!
Bring wine to quench the fire !
Alas! the flames come up with us,
-We perish with desire.”
Adsched of Meru
(Source: rwe.org)
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Venus, which most people think is the next closest planet to the sun, is not always closer, and besides, it is the planet of greatest mystery because of its cloud cover. “I know what lies underneath those clouds,” Miss Ferenczi said, and waited. After the silence, she said, “Angels. Angels live under those clouds.” She said that angels were not invisible to everyone and were in fact smarter than most people. They did not dress in robes as was often claimed but instead wore formal evening clothes, as if they were about to attend a concert. Often angels do attend concerts and sit in the aisles where, she said, most people pay no attention to them. - Gryphon, Charles Baxter
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Laura completed my life-long flirtation with linguistics. We’re a couple now (me and linguistics). Send vocab gifts.
Also: today’s word of the day: you:
princess lointaine
PRONUNCIATION:
(PRIN-ses/sis LWAN*-tayn)
*this syllable is nasal
MEANING:
noun: An ideal but unattainable woman.
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You were last seen walking through a field of pianos. No. A museum of mouths. In the kitchen of a bustling restaurant, cracking eggs and releasing doves. No. Eating glow worms and waltzing past my bedroom. Last seen riding the subway, literally, straddling its metal back, clutching electrical cables as reins. You were wearing a dress made out of envelopes and stamps, this was how you travelled. I was the mannequin in the storefront window you could have sworn moved. The library card in the book you were reading until that dog trotted up and licked your face. The cookie with two fortunes. The one jamming herself through the paper shredder, afraid to talk to you. The beggar. Hat outstretched bumming for more minutes. The phone number on the bathroom stall with no agenda other than a good time. The good time is a picnic on water, or a movie theatre that only plays your childhood home videos and no one hushes when you talk through them. When you play my videos I throw milk duds at the screen during the scenes I watch myself letting you go — lost to the other side of an elevator — your face switching to someone else’s with the swish of a geisha’s fan. My father could have been a travelling salesman. I could have been born on any doorstep. There are 2,469,501 cities in this world, and a lot of doorsteps. Meet me on the boardwalk. I’ll be sure to wear my eyes. Do not forget your face. I could never.
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Walking home he felt an itch in his collar and it was the tiny head of a rose caught inside. It was tight like a little umbrella, with no smell because it was still shut. He split it open with his nails and felt the hundreds of pink, silky layers, like a little body not born. - The Wizard, C.S. Godshalk
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n. a kind of melacholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life, a mood whose only known cure is the vuvuzela.
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everything blooms coldly.
- Dear One Absent This Long While, Lisa Olstein
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Dreamt we were vomiting flowers. Dreamt of berries leaking blood. Dreamt of trees with hard crystalline leaves, rough and uncut.
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The term “kiss” comes from the Latin for “mouth war,” so remember to treat your kissing like Vietnam and make it long, violent, and pointless. (Vice)
The dead man’s wife arrived … and then she collapsed. (Guardian)
The Iranian actress, blacklisted in her country for not wearing the veil on the red carpet in Hollywood, now lives in exile in Paris. (Justice For Iran)
In Kabul, children played on a frozen lake. (Lens/NYT)
And she smiled like a knife. (partial quote posted on The Murder Mile)
Meanwhile the peace here in our town remains uneasy, and we await with trepidation the turning of the leaves. (J. Robert Lennon, Eight Pieces for the Left Hand)
China: Dissident author flees to US. (NYT)
Sparsile - of a star, not included in any constellation.
Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody. (JD Salinger)
P.S. Of course I will come to you, wherever whenever you wish, Freyda! (Joyce Carol Oates, The Cousins)
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A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.
