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daimonclub · 10 months ago

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Quotes about travelling

Quotes about travelling Quotes about travelling, aphorisms, ideas, opinions and quotations about travels, travellers, holidays, tourisms and amazing places to visit around the world. The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret. Fred A. Allen Space travel! Come on, I don't even want to go to Rimini. Carl William Brown We are all pilgrims who seek Italy. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Memories are nothing more than a journey through time, almost always melancholic, nostalgic and painful. Carl William Brown My favorite thing is to go where I have never gone. Diane Arbus The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. Richard Bach I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists. Brigitte Bardot I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it. Sir Thomas Beecham Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? Where should we be today? Is it right to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theatres? Elizabeth Bishop The poor live their adventures, their journeys, their dreams thanks to cinema, theatre, social media, television and literature; the rich thanks to their money. Carl William Brown What childishness is it that while there's breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around? Elizabeth Bishop

Quotes on travels Italy Life is nothing more than a journey through the valleys of the absurd, through the seas of stupidity, when we reach the port of madness there is no one waiting for us, we only then realize that we have traveled in vain. Carl William Brown There is no looking at a building here after seeing Italy. Fanny Burney Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man. John Burroughs I don't like traveling very much, also because having to go to hell often isn't a very pleasant thing. Carl William Brown Travelers are like poets. They are mostly an angry race. Sir Richard Burton I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and of the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an Islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few allies our wars have left us. Lord Byron To understand what morality is, I recommend you read Beyond Good and Evil and then set off towards the boundless confines of stupidity. Have a good trip. Carl William Brown I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears Portuguese, and have got a diarrhea and bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring. Lord Byron The idea that seeing life means going from place to place and doing a great variety of obvious things is an illusion natural to dull minds. Charles Horton Cooley Many times politicians' trips abroad are nothing more than excellent opportunities to do their business with our money. Carl William Brown Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. Italo Calvino The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist see what he has come to see. Gilbert K. Chesterton The travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination. Alexander Cockburn By travelling at the speed of light we would stop time and become eternal. For us it is impossible, for stupidity it is not. Carl William Brown The routines of tourism are even more monotonous than those of daily life. Mason Cooley

Aphorisms on travelling When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels. Edward Dahlberg The personal appropriation of cliches is a condition for the spread of cultural tourism. Serge Daney Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption, is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal. Guy Debord Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen. Benjamin Disraeli Death is nothing more than a journey without suitcases and without return; perhaps for this reason, it will be less boring than the others. Carl William Brown Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will - whatever we may think. Lawrence Durrell Sailing round the world in a dirty gondola oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola! Bob Dylan Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans, is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi. George Eliot No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby-so helpless and so ridiculous. Ralph Waldo Emerson Travel is a fool's paradise. Ralph Waldo Emerson Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. Ralph Waldo Emerson The average tourist wants to go to places where there are no tourists. Sam Ewing It would be nice to travel if you knew where you were going and where you would live at the end or do we ever know, do we ever live where we live, we're always in other places, lost, like sheep. Janet Frame Death is nothing other than the final destination of our stupid earthly journey. Carl William Brown The fool wanders, a wise man travels. Thomas Fuller Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse. Thomas Fuller Traveling is like gambling: it is always connected with winning and losing, and generally where it is least expected we receive, more or less than what we hoped for. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe A wise traveler never depreciates their own country. Carlo Goldoni If time travel existed, we would be inundated with tourists from the future. Carl William Brown A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond. Oliver Goldsmith I would like to spend my whole life traveling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home. William Hazlitt Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up. Ernest Hemingway They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea. Horace To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. Aldous Huxley Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty -- his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. Aldous Huxley Being on tour sends me crazy, I drink too much and out comes the John Mcenroe in me. Chrissie Hynde Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors. Henry James Traveling makes a man wiser, but less happy. Thomas Jefferson As the Spanish proverb says, ''He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.'' So it is in traveling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge. Samuel Johnson In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge. Samuel Johnson He who does not travel slowly dies; However, those who travel often die more quickly! Carl William Brown The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. Samuel Johnson Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see. Samuel Johnson Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, and many goodly states and kingdoms seen. John Keats People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something. Soren Kierkegaard If you look like your passport picture you're too ill to travel. Will Kommen The map is not the territory. Alfred Korzybski Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. Charles Kuralt Without stirring abroad, one can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window one can see the way of heaven. The further one goes the less one knows. Lao-Tzu After the end of humanity, some survivors travel the universe on a spaceship in search of a new planet on which to continue the development of stupidity. For eternity. Carl William Brown Comes over one an absolute necessity to move. And what is more, to move in some particular direction. A double necessity then: to get on the move, and to know whither. D. H. Lawrence We travelers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence. Max Lerner Does this boat go to Europe, France? Anita Loos Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name. Alice Meynell If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. Henry Miller Our organism is a perfect machine that travels for a certain period on the highway of the absurd, so nothing is more noble and heroic than that someone doesn't really like making this stupid journey and therefore tries to damage the vehicle. Carl William Brown A man should ever be ready booted to take his journey. Michel Eyquem De Montaigne Traveling is not just seeing the new; it is also leaving behind. Not just opening doors; also closing them behind you, never to return. But the place you have left forever is always there for you to see whenever you shut your eyes. Jan Myrdal Life, as the most ancient of all metaphors insists, is a journey; and the travel book, in its deceptive simulation of the journey's fits and starts, rehearses life's own fragmentation. More even than the novel, it embraces the contingency of things. Jonathan Raban As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke. Margaret Oliphant If my ship sails from sight, it doesn't mean my journey ends, it simply means the river bends. John Enoch Powell He who has not traveled widely thinks that his mother is the best cook. African Proverb In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion. Robert Runcie Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong Kong. Vita Sackville-West Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs. J. D. Salinger Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog's life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability. George Bernard Shaw Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures. Susan Sontag Journeys end in lovers meeting. William Shakespeare An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys. Iain Sinclair A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. John Steinbeck He travels best that knows when to return. Middleton for my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. Robert Louis Stevenson It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Robert Louis Stevenson To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor. Robert Louis Stevenson Travel is ninety percent anticipation and ten percent recollection. Edward Streeter A solitary traveler can sleep from state to state, from day to night, from day to day, in the long womb of its controlled interior. It is the cradle that never stops rocking after the lullaby is over. It is the biggest sleeping tablet in the world, and no one need ever swallow the pill, for it swallows them. Lisa St. Aubin De Teran Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, "I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station." Lisa St. Aubin De Teran I have been a stranger in a strange land. The Holy Bible Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind. Paul Theroux Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Mark Twain Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. Paul Theroux I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. Robert Louis Stevenson Inter-railers are the ambulatory equivalent of Macdonald's, walking testimony to the erosion of French culture. Alice Thompson Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better. Henry David Thoreau Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision. James Thurber You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist's custom. Mark Twain Every year it takes less time to fly across the Atlantic and more time to drive to the office. Author Unknown If it's tourist season, why can't we kill them? Author Unknown Old men and far travelers may lie with authority. Author Unknown The alternative to a vacation is to stay home and tip every third person you see. Author Unknown The bigger the summer vacation the harder the fall. Author Unknown Those that say you can't take it with you never saw a car packed for a vacation trip. Author Unknown I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train. Oscar Wilde I was disappointed in Niagara - most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life. Oscar Wilde I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience -- and laughter. Susan M. Watkins O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself. Walt Whitman I traveled among unknown men, in lands beyond the sea; nor England! did I know till then what love I bore to thee. William Wordsworth Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation. Elizabeth Drew The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. St. Augustine When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. Susan Heller I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full. Lord Dunsany A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. Anatole France No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. Lin Yutang Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. Seneca The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing." Daniel J. Boorstin It is not down in any map; true places never are. Herman Melville What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road. William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. G.K. Chesterton To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change. Charles Horton Cooley And that's the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind. Dave Barry Travelers never think that they are the foreigners. Read the full article

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angeloparker · 11 months ago

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1, 6, 25!! :)

what song makes you feel better? "You Are The Best Thing" by Ray LaMontagne. I love to listen to it when I'm in the kitchen because it feels like (and probably was) a song that should play in a movie where Meryl Streep or Diane Keaton experienced some sort of new revelation that caused some drama but gave them a new lease on life and it is resolved and their whole family or group of friends is getting together for a big meal with good food and laughing.

6. say three nice things about yourself (three physical and three non-physical).

This is hard. Uh. Physically, I am really happy with my current hairstyle, I have good skin because I spend a lot of time on my skincare routine, and I love the way all my clothes fit me lately. Non-physical, I think I'm intelligent, creative, and am good at making people laugh (or try to be),

25. what’s the best personal gift someone could give you (playlist, homemade card, etc.) My best friend in college has given me some excellent gifts like a collector's edition DVD for one of my favorite movies, a poster inspired by my favorite poet, and a record for a song we both love. But my sister probably wins - for Christmas 2022 she found my grandpa's cologne brand and we sprayed it on the leather jacket of his that became mine after he passed in 2009. It used to smell like him but had faded which I found heartbroken and now it smells like him again.

#ask game: soft asks

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questinwitchface · 1 year ago

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I’m considering taking a modern poetry course. Do you have any poets you like or any poetry writing sources?

Ooh that's exciting! If you end up taking the class, I hope it's a fun one.

As for poets I like, well, there's a lot, and I don't have time to list every single one of them here, so I'll just give you those that I consider to be my top five, though it pains me to leave so many wonderful poets off the list. In birth order, they are:

Langston Hughes - One of the big names of the Harlem Renaissance. I love him because he wrote about things that mattered in very accessible language, like when you read his work, you get what he was saying the first time, and then you can dissect all the interesting little intricacies from there.

Allen Ginsberg - One of the big names of the Beat Generation. I love him because he writes so bombastically. I don't know how to explain it in a way that makes sense necessarily, but try reading "Howl" (probably his most famous work), and I think you'll get what I mean.

Anne Sexton - Famous for her confessional style poetry. I love her because her subject matter - mental illness, gender, family relationships, etc. - is very relatable to me, and she has such a deeply personal style that when I read her, I feel like I'm talking to a friend about what they're going through.

Diane di Prima - Also a part of the Beat Generation, though not as well-known as the men. I must've read her book "Loba" (the 1998 version) fifteen times or more. She writes about femininity as powerful, and her work has often been compared as the "feminine counterpart to Ginsberg's 'Howl'" which I don't think is very fair to her because her work stands by itself. But anyway, she's amazing, and I really adore her work.

Nikita Gill - The only person on this list still alive and writing today. She's got a way with weaving poetry and narrative together that just makes me so enamored. Highly recommend "The Girl and the Goddess."

For poetry writing sources, I'm sorry to say I don't have much. Like I've said previously, I was really discouraged by my poetry professor in university, so I gave away all of my poetry writing books. That said, if you're just getting started writing poetry, I suggest googling "poetry forms" and reading about different ones, like the lantern poem, the ballad, the triolet, etc., and give writing them a try. Often, these will force you to write in a way that you normally wouldn't, and it'll feel kind of frustrating at times, but through that, you can learn a lot about poetry itself and about your own preferences. For instance, I absolutely hate writing villanelles because I find the form itself too constricting. I love writing lantern poems, though, because the limitations of the form makes finding the perfect words so incredibly important. It's a good place to start to figure out what kinds of poems you're into writing and why you like those things, and that's a foundation that you can build from.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to babble on about my favorite poets. Again, I really hope your poetry class is fun if you choose to take it, and I hope your teacher/professor is better than mine was lol.

#my answers #poetry recs

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blueberryshelves · 1 year ago

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Book Review

Title: Plath: Poems Author: Sylvia Plath

Compiler: Diane Wood Middlebrook Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series

No. of Pages: 256

ISBN: 9780375404641

Synopsis:

Sylvia Plath’s tragically abbreviated career as a poet began with work that was, in the words of one of her teachers, Robert Lowell, “formidably expert.” It ended with a group of poems published after her suicide in 1963 which are, in the nakedness of their confessions, in their black humor, in their ferocious honesty about what people do to one another and to themselves, among the most harrowing lyrics in the English language—poems in which a magnificent, exquisitely disciplined literary gift has been brought to bear upon the unbearable. In these transfiguring poems, Plath managed the rarest of feats: she changed the direction and orientation of an art form.

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What did I think of the book?

Plath: Poems by Sylvia Plath My rating: ⭐⭐ 2 of 5 stars This is the first time I’ve read works from Sylvia Plath, I’d never even heard of her name before finding this book in the bookstore. Her poetry was complex and rhythmic, and explored many different subjects. They had me thinking hard at times about what was happening in her life, and what was going through her mind when she wrote them. I enjoyed the first few sections of poems from Juvenilia to 1958 compared to the rest of the book. Many of the poems after 1958 were really difficult for me to grasp and understand, and became harder and harder as the pages went on; it almost had me giving up reading this one. By the section of 1963, the poems changed a bit in style, and they became more enjoyable to read again. At the back of the book, there is a section of notes on some of the poems, which I’m very grateful for as these helped my understanding hugely. However, I wish these were at the front of the book so I could have read them first before diving into this poetry collection. Favorite poem/s: Spider, page 38-39 Fiesta Melons, page 37 Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea, page 21-22 Epitaph in Three Parts, page 23-24 Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbor, page 65-68 Words, page 234 What drew me to this book? It was the smallest poetry book on the shelf with just PLATH across the cover. It intrigued me. Stars: 2/5 because some of the poems were a miss for me, and many I couldn’t understand. Unfortunately, one of the pages was misprinted in my copy, so some of the longer lines were cut off. View all my reviews

#booklr #poetblr #book review #poetry review #sylvia plath #poetry #poetry collection #poetry and poems #book blog #books #bookish #bookworm #books and reading #book photography

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milfjinart · 3 years ago

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Hi there!

I keep forgetting to make a little intro post, but now that I have more followers on here I figured I should get around to it! especially since I’m kind of a luddite and I can’t be assed to figure out how to make a caard or whatever.

I’m Heidi (she/they), and up until like February of this year I was mostly a traditional nature artist. But to get myself out of a long ass artblock, I taught myself how to draw people/clones and now I’m a Star Wars fanartist! I also do some writing on the side, including poetry, creative nonfiction, and fanfiction, but I haven’t published any of my fics here or on ao3 yet.

You can find my art on this blog (milfjinart) under the #my art tag, or on Instagram @/milfjaster (previously nejohaasketches).

My favorite Star Wars subject to draw is the clones, especially Cody and my boy Fives. I have a few ocs but haven’t done much art of them yet (again, because i only started drawing people/fanart in February and i’ve been super busy with work recently so i don’t have as much time to draw as i’d like). I also love drawing Togrutas and incorporating landscapes and plants into my fanart!

My inbox is open if y’all wanna talk to me or ask me anything, but since I’m so busy i am not currently doing art trades or commissions at all :(

Fun facts about me:

I collect Star Wars pins and love to talk about them

My favorite sw characters are Fives, Ahsoka, and Jyn Erso, and basically all sw milfs :)

I have several types of synesthesia - chromesthesia, grapheme-color, spatial sequence, and number form.

my favorite animals are goats and my favorite color is green!

I have been vegan for like 5 years and I love baking and cooking! if you want tasty recipes hmu

I love reading poetry! some of my favorite poets are Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Sasha Banks, Diane di Prima, Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, and Rebecca Elson.

related to that last point: feel free to send me an ask if you want me to share one of my favorite poems with you! I keep a google doc of them + I have a bunch of books of poetry and i love sharing :)

Besides my terminal star wars brainrot, I enjoy:

The X-Files and Lucifer (which you can find a hodgepodge of on my main blog, 1998scully)

Astronomy (NOT to be confused with astrology dear god please). I used to teach astronomy programs at a science center I worked at, and I currently work part-time for a local astronomy tour company and love it!

All things outdoors - hiking, river running, slacklining, camping, backpacking, etc.

Gardening and foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants!

Lastly:

I’m anticapitalist, antiracist, antifascist, and politically aligned with anarchism.

Black lives matter and we need to return Indigenous lands to Indigenous people.

I do not under any circumstances take shit from TERFS, homophobes, islamophobes, ableists, or whitewashing apologists.

If you have a problem with any of this, a) rethink your life, and b) if you engage with me in bad faith i will block you.

be kind to people and the earth. it’s not that hard. <3

#personal #idk how many people will actually read this but i figured i might as well make it!#hello everyone :-)#welcome to the shitshow

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valhallanrose · 4 years ago

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Diane Young

In which Miriyam meets Cadenza.

2.6k words. No CWs apply. Cadenza belongs to @arcanecadenza

Good things came in threes, Miriyam had always been taught, but she wasn’t entirely sure how much she’d believed that until she met Cadenza.

She’d seen her first one morning in the marketplace, with a passing glance that made her do a double take to look at her - really look at her - and seared her face into Miriyam’s memory. In moments she knew every wild curl, every freckle, the dip of her furrowed brow and the slight purse of her lips as she curtly informed the butcher that no, she would not be paying twice what she did the last time she bought lamb from them for half the product. Miriyam didn’t know why, but even the lilt of her voice, accent and all, drew her in and begged her to just find out more.

It took her a few moments, but she shook it off, the crowds blessedly thick enough to keep her from being caught gawking like the useless lesbian she was - but for hours after the fact, the raven-haired woman seemed to have her mind in a vice grip.

Miriyam thought she’d shaken that grip by the time the following morning came and went and the impending storm sent the residents of Vesuvia scattering for cover, but she quickly found out how wrong she was.

The cozy little tea shop was near packed as it began to drizzle, but Miriyam found an empty seat and dropped unceremoniously into it. After pulling her well-worn sketchbook from its place tucked into her waistband, Miriyam had barely pulled her pencil from its place behind her ear when her eyes landed on the woman seated near the window of the shop in question.

It was her.

Later she’d be a little embarrassed at how shameless she was, but with her knee braced against the edge of the table and her sketchbook on her thigh, Miriyam found herself quickly pulling her pencil across the page to capture the woman’s likeness. Occasionally her eyes flickered upwards to observe a detail, but her features were so scorched into Miriyam’s mind that they might as well have been tattooed on her forehead.

Dark curls, wilder than she’d remembered, hanging loosely around her shoulders and framing freckled cheekbones. Her gaze was cast somewhere beyond the pane of glass, teacup raised thoughtfully against her lips and her other hand spread over the pages of the book she’d been reading to keep it open. She looked so serious that Miriyam had to bite back a smile at the contrast of her pastel attire, the patterned fabrics so light and colorful and airy and somehow just right for someone like her.

In all her musing and sketching, she didn’t notice the woman’s head turn, but she certainly noticed the way her eyes narrowed when Miriyam lifted her head to look at her again. She paused, then waved somewhat sheepishly, lowering her gaze back to the page in question to sketch out a few more lines before a voice made her nearly jerk her pencil across the page.

“Do I really have that many freckles?”

Miriyam floundered for a moment under the depth of the woman’s gaze, entirely unexpecting her approach and how much lovelier she was at such close proximity, before she managed to clear her throat and glance down at her page.

“I thought so.” Miriyam idly picked at the corner of the paper, feeling a bit of heat rise in her collar at the intensity of those dark eyes. “I’m sorry, I hope I’m not being rude. I was just...inspired.”

“Hm.” The woman nodded, watching for a moment longer before dropping neatly into the seat across from Miriyam. “Well then. Carry on.”

Miriyam stared for a long, long moment, trying to process what had just happened, before she nodded and lowered her gaze to the paper again. She wasn’t sure her pencil had flown faster than it did in that moment, putting the woman’s likeness to paper as she lowered her gaze to her book and began to read again.

That would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. As she neatly pulled one of the drawings from her sketchbook - the one of the young woman seated across the table, elbow propped on the surface and chin resting in her hand as she read - Miriyam gave her a smile that perhaps was a little flirtier than she intended.

“Thank you.” She said after a breath, pushing her hair back from her face. “The purple suits you rather well, by the way. I would have added it, but I didn’t bring my whole pencil set.”

The woman nodded nonchalantly, a hand spread over her book to keep the pages open. “Thank you. That’s why I’m wearing it.”

“Of course.” Miriyam felt her lips quirk up into a smile as she slid the drawing across the table, getting up from her seat as she did so. “Well...I should be going. Rain’s passed. But thank you for playing muse for a little while.”

The dark haired woman nodded loosely, fixated on her book, and Miriyam thought that was that as she left. But the next few days, she found herself struggling to shake those honey-brown eyes from her thoughts, sometimes looking for them when she passed the tea shop on city patrol in hopes she’d catch a glimpse of her looking out that window again.

But a brief time passed, and Miriyam had almost forgotten about the intensity of those eyes save for the occasion she flipped through her sketchbook and found herself lingering before finding a blank page.

* * * * *

The second time she met her, perhaps two weeks later, Miriyam was out walking the streets - broken collar in hand, searching for her cat to make sure she was alright. Sappho’s collar was designed to break, but only if she got caught on something - and she was worried when she hadn’t seen her. It wasn’t unusual for Sappho to spend the night roaming, or come and go before Miriyam woke, but she hadn’t touched the food or water that had been left out in the kitchen.

So she walked for a while, beginning in Sappho’s usual haunts and then stretching beyond, until she heard a loud meow come from behind the shop she was walking past.

Miriyam paused, picking her way carefully to the back street to see the source of the meow - even if it wasn’t her cat, she still wanted to check on them - but low and behold, that fuzzy bastard was sitting on someone else’s doorstep.

She didn’t necessarily process who was with the cat so much as she zeroed in on Sappho herself, happily chowing down on the food in the dish they set out, and she let out a sort of laugh as she approached with her hands shoved in her pockets.

“Oh, you little shit -”

“Excuse me?”

Miriyam paused mid step - mentally and physically - as she realized that she was damn near eye to eye with the person who had taken over a significant portion of her thoughts. She floundered for a moment before she realized what she’d said, then looked down at the cat who had stretched up to paw at the edge of her jacket. She laughed nervously, scratching the back of her head as the woman folded her arms across her chest and her brows lowered.

“Not you...no, definitely not you. I’m so sorry, that came out wrong. I was calling my cat a shit.”

She dared hope the woman’s lip twitched up in amusement, but if it had, it was so quick that it was likely her imagination.

“This cat is a sweetheart.”

“Yeah, because she’s found someone to sucker into spoiling her.” Miriyam bent down, scooping Sappho up and smiling a little as she walked up her arm and coiled around Miriyam’s shoulders. “Somebody’s just cranky because the market’s been out of her favorites when I go shopping after work.”

Miriyam spat out a bit of cat hair as a large, fluffy tail swiped across her face, but didn’t particularly mind as Sappho began to play with the dangling earrings she wore. “Thank you, though, for taking care of her. I was worried she’d gotten into trouble, but I’m glad she found somebody kind enough to look out for her.”

Sappho meowed quietly as Miriyam dug in her pockets, scribbling down an address on a scrap of paper - not noticing the woman stepping closer until she saw her hand move past her peripheral to scratch beneath Sappho’s chin.

“It’s no trouble. She’s pleasant company.”

It took Miriyam a second to realize she had been spoken to - her keen sense of smell picking up on the strong scent of lemon, ginger, and something floral she couldn’t name that clung to her palms - before she stammered out an answer, clearing her throat awkwardly.

“She is. I’ve had Saph pretty much since I came to Vesuvia - she’s a loyal friend. Always around when you need her.”

The woman’s brow lifted, her fingers wrapping around one of Sappho’s outstretched paws and playing with the pads of her feet as the cat purred her contentment. “Short for Sapphire? I suppose that makes sense, she does have very blue eyes…”

Miriyam flushed a little, realizing exactly how much of a useless lesbian she was in this very moment as she floundered under the proximity of someone who she found undeniably attractive. “Ah...no, actually, it’s short for Sappho.”

“Oh, the poet.” The woman nodded and released the paw in question, stroking her fingers through Sappho’s fur one last time. “A fair name.”

Miriyam nodded slowly, reaching up to pet Sappho herself - then remembering the paper she’d written her address on and quickly extending it.

“Well, she’s certainly food motivated - honestly, she might come looking for you now that you’ve fed her. If she’s ever a pain or lurking around too much, here’s my address.” Miriyam adjusted Sappho on her shoulders, feeling her start to make biscuits on the smooth fabric of her jacket as she spoke. “She’ll get the message if you drop her off there. I let her roam during the day since she was an alley cat when I took her in and she likes her freedom, but she’s got all her comforts inside.”

The woman looked at the paper for a moment, then nodded, folding it and tucking it neatly into her pocket. “Alright. I don’t mind her around, but if it starts getting late, I’ll see her home.”

Miriyam gave her a relaxed sort of smile, extending a hand to the woman in question. “Thank you…”

“Cadenza. She/her.” She reached out, taking Miriyam’s hand and giving it a firm shake.

“Miriyam. Also she/her. And you know Sappho.”

Cadenza nodded, the bounce of her curls making Sappho’s head bounce in time with them. “I do. I hope to see her again. I find I liked having her company for dinner.”

“I’m sure you will.” Miriyam chuckled, giving Sappho a scratch behind her ear as she swatted at the open air to try and reach Cadenza’s hair. “She wouldn’t have come back if she didn’t like you.”

“Well, she’s always welcome.” At that, Cadenza really did seem to smile a bit - an upturn of her lips, not a full one, but a smile nonetheless - but she turned and began to walk up the steps, picking up the empty dish Sappho had happily cleaned. “Enjoy your night.”

“You as well.” Miriyam called, and as the door closed, she gave Sappho a massive side eye - the cat all too pleased with herself as she dragged a sandpaper tongue across Miriyam’s scarred brow.

“You know, the only reason I’m not mad at you is because I got her name, but if you do that ‘running away because you’re not making the dinner I want’ shit again you’re getting your catnip toys revoked.”

* * * * *

The third time she met Cadenza, she was getting off patrol and was walking home herself when she happened across her in the market. Her arms were full of boxes - likely for her shop - that seemed rather precariously balanced as she dug in her pocket for something she needed. They leaned, and Miriyam leapt forward, balancing them before she got a good look at the face of the person carrying them.

“Whoa, okay, that’s definitely a recipe for disaster. Are you alri - oh, hey, Cadenza. You doing okay?”

Cadenza huffed a piece of hair out of her face, nodding briefly. “I’m fine. Just on my way home - I didn’t want to make two trips.”

“Right.” Miriyam watched her for a moment, seeing her struggle to get a good grip on the boxes, then snorted and reached forward - pausing before grabbing them. “May I? It’s the long way home for me, but I can help you bring these to your place. I really don’t see you making it home without dropping these.”

Cadenza eyed her for a long moment before she eventually nodded, and Miriyam picked up the upper boxes easily before nodding for Cadenza to lead the way.

They walked in comfortable silence down the lamp lit paths, Miriyam occasionally stealing glances toward an indifferent Cadenza - who surprised her by breaking the silence between them.

“What did you mean when you said you were inspired?”

Miriyam balked slightly, nearly fumbling her hold on the boxes, her head whipping toward Cadenza to meet her gaze with a raised brow.

“At the tea shop. You said you were inspired when you were drawing me.”

Miriyam cleared her throat awkwardly, drumming her fingers on the bottom of the box. “I did, didn’t I?”

Cadenza nodded, having an easier time retrieving her keys as they approached her shop door. “I want to know what you mean by it.”

“Well, I feel like that’s pretty obvious.” Miriyam muttered, her collar growing a little hot the longer she was stared down. “I think you’re rather lovely. Beautiful, in fact, but that felt a little forward to say to someone I’d just been caught drawing.”

Cadenza’s brow lifted as she dropped the boxes inside her shop door, pushing them out of the way before she reached for the boxes Miriyam held. “But you don’t know me. And I don’t know you, but that’s expected.”

“I know you’re Venterrean, the accent makes that obvious - I speak a touch of it but not nearly enough to try and talk to you without making a fool of myself. And I know you’re a musician. Probably something in the strings family, your left hand is calloused more than your right if what I saw while I was drawing is anything to go by. Plus, Sappho’s a pretty good judge of character, so if she likes you I find that I can’t argue with her opinion.” Miriyam shrugged, smiling a little as she passed the boxes over. “It’s just...observation. I can’t say I know you fully, but I know some of you, and I’d like to know more.”

“Ah, right, Captain - you are the watchful sort, I suppose.”

Miriyam quirked a brow. “I thought you didn’t know me.”

Cadenza smirked, stepping down and gently flicking the Vesuvian crest pinned on Miriyam’s jacket - making her cheeks flush in turn.

“The same tea shop is fine. They steep theirs long enough for me to taste when I ask. Saturday, three o’clock?”

Miriyam blinked once - twice - then grinned, nodded as Cadenza turned back to head up the stairs. “Yeah...three’s good. I’ll see you then.”

And this time, she supposed, that good things came at three.

#i know i've joked about this before #but the wedding night existed even though their first meeting didn't lmao #UNTIL NOW #miriyam von helvig #cadenza #cadenza x miriyam

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tabloidtoc · 4 years ago

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Entertainment Weekly, November

Cover: The Oscar Race Begins -- Jennifer Hudson stars as Aretha Franklin in a new biopic

Page 1: Contents, Jennifer Hudson

Page 2: Sound Bites

Page 4: Editor’s Note, EW is releasing a special digital cover and tribute book for Chadwick Boseman and rereleasing the Guide to Supernatural just in time for the series finale on November 19

Page 6: The Must List -- The Trial of the Chicago 7, Q+A with Aaron Sorkin

Page 8: Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077

Page 9: There’s No Such Thing as a Fish podcast, The Nolan Variations by Tom Shone

Page 10: This Far from Sade, American Utopia

Page 11: Let Him Go, Q+A with Diane Lane and Kevin Costner

Page 12: Belushi, To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss, Virgin River

Page 13: My Must List -- Tracee Ellis Ross

Page 15: First Take -- The White Tiger -- Ramin Bahrani’s Netflix adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s novel featuring Priyanka Chopra-Jonas in a rare gloss-free role will roar its way into the Oscar race at the end of the year

Page 19: Barack Before Obama by David Katz

Page 20: Cover Story -- Amazing Grace -- as Aretha Franklin in the Oscar-buzzy biopic Respect Jennifer Hudson takes on the role of a lifetime; good thing she was anointed by the Queen of Soul herself

Page 28: The Awards Race Begins -- Kate Winslet in Ammonite

Page 31: Anthony Hopkins in The Father

Page 32: Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Page 33: Steven Yeun in Minari

Page 34: Michelle Pfeiffer in French Exit

Page 35: 3 questions for Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal, Winston Duke in Nine Days

Page 36: The cast of Let Them All Talk -- Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen

Page 37: Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman

Page 38: Daniel Kaluuya in Judas and the Black Messiah

Page 39: Sophia Loren in The Life Ahead

Page 40: Glenn Close in Hillbilly Elegy

Page 42: Regina King in One Night in Miami

Page 44: Denis Villeneuve of Dune

Page 45: Paul Greengrass of News of the World

Page 46: Chloe Zhao of Nomadland

Page 47: George Clooney of The Midnight Sky

Page 49: Your Fall Preview

Page 50: Movies -- Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis and director Clea Duvall take us behind the scenes of Happiest Season, their jolly holiday rom-com with a queer twist

Page 52: Sylvie’s Love

Page 54: Moved But Not Forgotten -- 2020′s biggest blockbusters got off to a late start and we’ll be honest, we still don’t know for sure when we’ll be able to see some of them but we’re getting closer -- No Time to Die, Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, Soul, Free Guy

Page 55: Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, Lovers Rock

Page 56: TV -- Netflix’s Selena: The Series is a show fit for a queen -- of Tejano music -- celebrating one of the most influential Mexican-American entertainers of the 20th century

Page 57: Big Sky

Page 58: A Teacher, Truth Seekers

Page 59: Equal

Page 60: Supermarket Sweep superfan Leslie Jones is just as excited to be host of ABC’s reboot as the contestants playing for $100,000

Page 61: Despite the never-ending pandemic new holiday TV movies will start piling up under your tree before Halloween; to help guide you through the blizzard of choices we present you with a few trends that are lighting up the 2020 slate

Page 62: Previously On...how did recent seasons of your favorite shows end? What’s to come this fall? Here’s a look at six returning shows -- His Dark Materials

Page 63: Superstore, black-ish

Page 64: The Crown, This Is Us, Station 19 and Grey’s Anatomy

Page 66: Music -- facing exhaustion and a scary bout of tinnitus the shutdown offered a welcome pause but Brothers Osborne are ready to press play on a new album

Page 68: Busta Rhymes

Page 69: Kylie Minogue

Page 70: News + Reviews -- One hundred years after Agatha Christie’s debut novel the British author is still the biggest name in mystery on the page and stage and screen

Page 73: Actor-director Kenneth Branagh is Agatha Christie’s biggest modern evangelist

Page 74: Movies -- his roles as ghostbuster and groundhog chaser and royal tenenbaum have charmed and confounded us for nearly 50 years but will Sofia Coppola’s new film On the Rocks finally bring Bill Murray an Oscar?

Page 75: Sofia Coppola reveals her own road to inspiration

Page 76: Making the Scene: Rebecca -- director Ben Wheatley breaks down the tense Manderlay face-off from his lush take on Daphne Du Maurier’s classic 1938 novel

Page 77: Ammonite, High Anxiety with Vanessa Williams -- the star of Hulu’s Bad Hair tells us what freaks her out

Page 78: TV -- even a pandemic can’t stop the Winchesters -- the Supernatural cast Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki and crew talk returning to set to finish their 15-season run

Page 79: The Undoing

Page 80: Unaired Pilots -- 35 years after Lynda Carter’s debut and five years before Gal Gadot NBC lassoed Adrianne Palicki for its Wonder Woman pilot

Page 82: TV drama has lost its chill -- Fargo and Ratched are the latest shows to fall victim to narrative hysteria

Page 84: From superspy to Game of Thrones scene-stealer Diana Rigg paved the way both on and off screen for strong female characters and pop culture heroines everywhere

Page 87: What to Watch

Page 94: Music -- Juicy J -- the Three 6 Mafia member has been dropping hits for 20 years; ahead of his new solo effort he shares some of his music-making secrets

Page 96: Ty Dolla $ign -- the multi-hyphenate on the artists and sounds that inspired his new album Dream House

Page 97: 3 questions with Sasha Sloan, three years after his death one of Tom Petty’s most pivotal albums gets the respect and the reissue it so richly deserves

Page 98: Matt Berninger -- we asked The National frontman and newly minted solo artist about his famously brooding baritone

Page 100: DaBaby -- he may not know the TikTok dance to his own hit song Rockstar but he knows his musical influences

Page 101: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

Page 102: Books -- Former tech exec Susie Yang enters the literary fray with White Ivy a delightfully dark debut with a protagonist who refuses to let the privileged class of the hook

Page 104: Martin Amis -- in a hefty new book he dubs novelized biography a literary lion offers his Inside Story on love and loss and mortality

Page 107: Pop Culture of My Life -- Bryan Washington -- the Houston native and breakout author of 2019′s Lot and the upcoming Memorial reveals his cultural and culinary inspirations

Page 108: In Red Comet Sylvia Plath expert Heather Clark presents a definitive biography of the poet observing her oft-examined life through a new lens

Page 109: Biographer Scott Eyman paints a complex portrait of Hollywood’s original leading man in Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise, the essential Cary Grant

Page 112: The Bullseye

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ohmykittenholy · 4 years ago

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lumberjanes week day “three”: favorite brotp & otp (at once!!)

Uh so I lost my entire perception of time, as you do, so here’s my Diane and Molly brotp and Mally otp fic three hours after the day has ended.

Context is Molly and Diane have been getting pretty close (headcanons in other post basically apply) until Molly shows her her Greek Mythology fanfic and Diane makes fun of it a bit bc she has her own family and identity issues going on and Molly ends up really really internalizing it as she should be going to sleep, and Mal is on the bottom bunk trying to comfort her.

Trigger warning for self harm mention but no actual act, major anxiety/RSD and self hate, also it’s very very dark bc they’re in the woods so i talk about that a bunch

Sometimes Diane is an amazing friend. Sometimes Molly feels like her presence just lights her up, inside and out, her teasing and Molly’s awkward teasing back is a comfort when every word you say to everyone else is so calculated, so filtered, so...

Molly is tired of herself sometimes.

Tired that she thought she was strong enough for a new friendship like this, tired that it hurts so much after just a couple strings of words, maybe five, and a glance she keeps replaying and replaying and replaying in her head, she doesn’t want to be that girl.

This girl.

Whatever.

She’s tired that she thought she was made of the same light at the pantheon’s hearth, tired of her hopefulness that comes with daily archery practices at dawn and the zing and comfort of inside jokes and dizzyingly faster banter, almost indecipherable to anyone else. But then:

Icarus.

Wings.

She’s tired of having a heart that hurts this much, that stretches everything bad people say into painfully bright technicolor.

“Mol,”Mal asks softly, “you still up?”

“Y-yeah,” Molly whispers back. It’s pitch black in the Roanoke cabin, stars just barely peeking through the window and Molly automatically squints to find constellations, and then winces at the impulse and digs herself back into her sheet.

Luckily for them, everyone else sleeps deeply. Or pretends to, and hears Molly and Mal rambling to each other almost every night, and that’s a terrifying possibility Molly tries to block out.

She’s tired, and the other thoughts tangle incoherently in her head and it’s so much easier to focus on Mal’s voice.

“You didn’t talk much at dinner,” Mal says, like it’s a question, but it’s not.

Sometimes it hurts that she notices.

“Yeah no, um, not really.”

There’s a long, long, anxious pause.

“Can I come up there?” Mal asks, and Molly immediately feels the warmth of a blush on her cheeks.

“It’s- it’s really dark, I- you could hurt yourself trying to climb.”

“I thought you said I was brave, huh?”

It’s a joke, Molly knows it’s a joke, that Mal doesn’t mean it but...

“Mol. I would like to come up. If you’re comfy with it.”

“And I would like a girlfriend with all her limbs intact,”Molly says, her words gone wobbly, tears starting to catch in her eyelashes.

“Well I. Would like to comfort my girlfriend, and hopefully hold her hand, and that ladder is pretty stable and... this is not the first time we’ve done this, babe.”

“Okay,” Molly relents, heart twisting and twisting with the other girl’s words. She needs to stop being so sensitive, she needs to let this go, she needs-

There’s a Mal sounding creak on the other side of her bunk.

“Wow, yeah it really is dark out here,”Mal says quietly. “It’s never complete darkness in the city. You don’t think about that until you’re forced to, I guess. Spooky.”

“Comforting.”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

“You said hopefully we would...”

She’s too embarrassed to finish the rest.

“Oh. Yeah, hey, reach out your hand.”

Molly sits up and puts her hand in the void in front of her, feeling Mal’s wave around near it and then catching it and intertwining.

She thinks she’ll almost start crying again with how good it feels, but she just makes a little choked sound.

“Mol?”

“Do you ever wish you could take out your heart?” she says suddenly, their words interlapping.

“Molly,” Mal says back, her voice sounding so intently concerned it makes Molly curl up further in the dark.

“Not. It’s not about self harm. It’s a... metaphor. Do you wish you could... dial yourself back sometimes?”

“Yeah, me, of course. But never you.”

Molly doesn’t know how to begin with that, and the silence starts spooling around them again until Mal starts.

“Just... it’s like this. You still like me, right? Even though I don’t love the forest the way you do, and I’m always going to be terrified of the water and also a lot, a lot of other things, and even though I ramble to you constantly about bands you don’t care about.”

“I liked Beach Bunny!”

“Junk yeah! But, like you still-”

“It’s not even an “But I still like you.”” Molly interrupts, “I just like you. Those things are part of who you are.”

“Exactly,” Mal said, and Molly makes the sound of someone who had just walked into an obvious trap to make her feel better, and squeezes Mal’s hand.

“I’d never want you to take out your heart, Mol. I like you. So much, the whole person you are, and your feelings are so real and so valid. Someone who doesn’t understand that isn’t worth your time of day.”

“But it’s more complicated than that,” Molly starts and then stops, her point fuzzy with sleepiness.

“Sure. But it also sometimes it just isn’t.”

Molly squeezes her hand again.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, you know?”

“Whyareyousogreat...”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, I just. I really like you.”

“I really like you too,”Mal says, and Molly can picture the smile sprouting on her face, and it makes her feel a little lighter.

She knows basically where Mal’s cheek is.

She has an outline in her head.

She kisses it, it smells like forest and the lemon face wash she uses and just Mal, and she lets it wash over her.

Catalogues it, a library of memories she wants to pull out later for when she’s not here.

“Oh,” Mal says.

“Was that okay?” Molly whispers.

“Yeah. I mean, of course. I mean- sweet Sappho.”

Molly doesn’t know how to respond to that, except start talking about Greek poets, which leads Mal to say a collection of words that are painfully familiar and has to-

“You’re quoting my fanfic?! Mal!!”

“I finally found it!”

“It took you weeks.”

“I had to use contraband phones! No one wants to share those! Unless you have an emergency and somehow according to Feryal “finding the most nerdy way to flirt with your girlfriend” is not that.”

“That sounds very hard,” Molly said, playing up the sympathy.

“I know, it’s a miracle I survived. My presence, truly a gift from the gods.”

“All of that,” Molly affirms, a smile creeping up on her face.

There’s a quick silence and a worry takes her under again. What if she thinks about my writing like how Diane did???

“Did you... did you like it?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I did! You’re the best writer, I’m always telling you! You’ve got to teach me that play on words you did with “ichor” and how you figured that out, I need something like that for the song for the talent show. And the way you described everything! You should write song lyrics! Or poetry.”

“Mal.”

“What?”

“You’re not messing with me?”

There was a silence and then Molly felt just a small breath of a kiss on her cheek, and tried to contain her little gasp.

“Never,” Mal replied, and it was dark, darker than any city kid could fathom, but it was theirs and they could feel each other’s wide smiles like twin spirits in the pitch black night.

#lumberjanes week #lumberjanes #lumberjanes fan fic #mally #molly #mal yoo #my fic

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scarletwelly-boots · 5 years ago

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Books Read 2019

It’s time again for my annual books read post (a little earlier than usual, but I couldn’t wait). I read 24 books in 2019, 4 books more than last year, though two are in progress and I expect to finish them by the new year.

It is year four of the reading challenge from Popsugar. There were 48 categories this year, so I got 50% again. Unlike last year, I did not change any categories, but I may have taken liberties with some again, we’ll see. So, without further ado, let’s begin the list. [Under the cut]

1. How to Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell (A book becoming a movie in 2019). Okay, so there have already been two movies in this series, but the last one (*sob*) came out this year, so it counts. I read this book and a few of the others in the series a few years ago, but revisited the first one this year. It’s really good, but don’t go into it expecting it to be like the movies. The character names are the same, but that’s about it. If you can get your hands on the audiobook version, it’s read by David Tennant, which is excellent. Definitely recommend; it’s just as good as the movies.

2. Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (A book that makes you nostalgic). This is another reread. My dad read the whole series aloud to my sister and I when we were barely older than Laura is in the first book. It was the series he read before the Harry Potter books came out, and we both got sucked into that series. So yeah, very nostalgic. This is a series of semi-autobiographical stories chronicling Wilder’s pioneer childhood, and this is the first in the series. Some of the language doesn’t really age well, but for the most part it’s a delightful book.

3. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green (a book you think should be turned into a movie). Holy. Shit. I was very, very pleasantly surprised by Hank Green’s debut novel (and yes, John Green is his brother). This is a mysterious book about first encounters and internet fame, with a queer young adult (like, really YA, as in post-college) protagonist. She’s kind of shitty sometimes, but I would argue all twenty-somethings are shitty sometimes (I mean, I literally typed “*sob*” two entries up, like I’m channeling my 2009 self, and I didn’t delete it.). I would highly, highly recommend. And apparently, SOMEDAY, there’s supposed to be a sequel, thank GOD.

4. Loki: Agent of Asgard, by Jason Ewing (a reread of a favorite book). I could actually get away with a reread for this one! I love this graphic novel series. I love how they depict Loki, how he finally gets a goddamn redemption arc. It’s a really fun read. Check it out.

5. The Beast Within, by Serena Valentino (a book inspired by mythology, legend, or folklore). A companion novel to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I don’t really remember much about this book. It was weird. But like, it plays with the timeline and the curse a little bit, where the beast gets cursed but doesn’t become a beast immediately. He slowly transforms as his behavior gets worse and more cruel. Apparently he used to be friends with Gaston, but Gaston forgot about him once he finally transformed. Really weird. If you’re obsessed with this fairytale like I am, give it a shot. If not, it probably won’t be that interesting.

6. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (a book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie). Another reread. I know it’s a classic, but I seriously just love this book.

7. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diane Wynne Jones (a book about someone with a superpower). Another reread of a favorite book, what can I say. The movie is my favorite movie, but the book is better.

8. Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell (a book told from multiple character POV’s). Okay, listen. I had to reread this book, because it had been a few years and the sequel came out this year. Think of this as generic brand Harry Potter if Draco was a vampire, was Harry’s roommate, and helplessly in love with Harry. I’m serious, it’s generic brand. But damn if I don’t love it. @JKR, this could be us but Harry had to be the jock that married his high school sweetheart and grew up to be a cop. Definitely read.

9. Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger (a book with no chapters/unusual chapter headings/unconventionally numbered chapters). My brother got me this book for my birthday. Before this I had only read Catcher in the Rye, which I started out hating when I was fourteen but turned into loving when I was nineteen. Honestly I think this novel is better than that one. I really loved it. Highly recommend. What’s it about? Who the fuck knows? But to quote my brother: “At its core, I think this book is about a smart brother and a smart sister. I think we can relate.” So read it and buy it for the smart brother or sister or sibling in your life.

10. 1916, by Tim Pat Coogan (read a book during the season it is set in). This is an Irish history book about the Easter Rising of 1916 and (what I didn’t know when I started reading it in April) everything that came after that can trace its cause back to the rebellion, all the way to the centennial of the Rising. The Easter Rising was the catalyst of Irish freedom. It was like the Boston Tea Party of Ireland, rather than the Battle of Yorktown (as in it kickstarted the War for Independence but didn’t immediately result in freedom), that is, if the instigators of the Boston Tea Party were rounded up, imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, and a week later almost all executed by firing squad. It’s a tedious read if you’re not into Irish history or history in general, but I enjoyed it.

11. Loki: Where Mischief Lies, by Mackenzi Lee (a book set in space). Okay, technically it takes place on Asgard and Earth, but those are planets, and planets are in space, so it counts! I’m still reading it, but I really like it so far. (Honestly I maybe just like the idea of Loki in knee high black boots marketed towards women and black nails. I never promised not to be gay.)

12. Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman (a book set in Scandinavia). I’m sorry! I read this book every year. Neil Gaiman is an amazing writer, and we all know I’m gay as shit for some good Loki tales.

13. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer (a book that takes place in a single day). Okay, I know people love this fantasy series, and since it’s Irish I fully expected to, too. But I didn’t like any of the characters enough to read the rest of the series, least of all Artemis himself. I struggle to enjoy stories if I don’t like the main character, and Artemis was kind of a shit. Sorry, I did not like this one.

14. Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy (a debut novel). I just started this one, too, but I really like it already. I think the audiobook is read by the same guy that read Artemis Fowl, but already this is way better than that one. The characters are likable, for one (god, the bar is so low for fantasy books for me right now). It’s a mystery and a fantasy, and the main-ish character is literally an anthropomorphic skeleton detective. It’s excellent. I’m going to read the whole series. (I have to; my mom accidentally got me the 12th installment for my birthday.)

15. Red, White, and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston (a book that’s published in 2019). I read this twice. It’s so beautiful. I really expected it to be a shitty YA novel, but it wasn’t! It was very romantic (once they stopped “hating” each other), and gay. The premise sounds far-fetched: First Son of the United States falls for the Crown Prince of England. But, guys, it’s soooo gooooood. Highly, highly, highly recommend.

16. The Wisconsin Road Guide to Mysterious Creatures, by Chad Lewis (a book featuring an extinct or imaginary creature). I mean, you can make your own decision whether these cryptids are real or imaginary. This is a travel guide to cryptids in Wisconsin, which I got on vacation earlier this year. I liked it, but reading a road guide for pleasure is admittedly kind of weird. Recommend if you’re planning a road trip through Wisconsin and want to stop at some cryptid, ghostly, or Nessie-like hotspots. Or if you just want to fuck Mothman, like me. (Dustybae’s not in this particular travel book though.)

17. Take Me With You, by Andrea Gibson (a book recommended by a celebrity you admire). Okay, so it was by a celeb I admire, not recommended by. This is a very quick read, of quotes from Gibson’s poetry. They are a queer spoken word poet with some really good pieces. They’re on spotify and apple music, probably among other sources. Recommend their work, but the book is very short, so maybe only purchase if you enjoy their work.

18. This is How it Always Is, by Laurie Frankel (a book about a family). This book was really, really good. It was passed around the aunts in my family until it got to my mom and I, which was really kind of a magical thing. It’s about a family navigating the challenges and gifts of raising a trans child. I cried a couple times, and it was so good. It’s written by a parent of a trans child, so it came from a place of understanding, and it was interesting to read this type of narrative from a parent’s perspective, when usually being genderfluid myself, I tend to consume media that is from the perspective of trans characters themselves. I had some very interesting conversations with my aunts and mom about it, and I really think this book changed my family a little bit, and I didn’t expect it to change me, too. Highly recommend.

19. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Suzanne Clark (a book that includes a wedding). So the wedding is at the very beginning, and sadly not between Strange and Norrell. But it’s really good. Lots of magic, lots of regency-era Britishness. The book is huge, but there is a miniseries on Netflix based on the novel and that’s really good too. Highly recommend, and still in love with my man John Childermass. Hnng.

20. Wayward Son, by Rainbow Rowell (a book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter). Sequel to Carry On. Sheer madness. I loved it. Think of it as generic brand Harry Potter post-DH, if Harry sprouted dragon wings during the final battle, is gay as shit for Draco, and a year later Harry, Draco, and Hermione are set loose on America with .5 seconds of research, severe culture shock, one cell phone between them, and a half-assed plan to rescue Ginny who may or may not want to be rescued. Shit show, but well done and I’m fully invested and ready for the third installment.

21. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman (a book with a two-word title). I’m sorry, I need to shift to caps for this. GUYS I FUCKING LOVE THIS STORY YOU HAVE NO IDEA IT IS THE GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER COME INTO MY WORLD! I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE WATCHED THE AMAZON SERIES THIRTEEN TIMES TO DATE AND IMMEDIATELY DEVOURED THE BOOK IN THREE DAYS. You don’t know what it’s about? Where have you BEEN?! An angel and a demon who are gay as shit for each other and love humanity way more than either of their respective sides. One downside is that as the miniseries came out like twenty years after the novel, my two favorite parts were only written for the series, and are not in the novel. But the book is still very, very good. 15/10.

22. Dumplin’, by Julie Murphy (a book revolving around a puzzle or game). I took game to mean competition, so this is about a beauty competition. I watched the Netflix movie first. I honesty thought I was not gonna like it, but holy shit it was amazing. Admittedly I think the movie was better (despite having Jennifer Aniston in it), but the book was really good, too. Recommend.

23. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (your favorite prompt from a past Popsugar reading challenge; a book with a queer protagonist). God, please read this book. This has been up there in my list of favorite books since I was fourteen. Oscar Wilde is a master storyteller, and Dorian Gray is intriguing and despicable and beautiful. I’ve already read this, but I love it too much not to.

24. Terrible Queer Creatures, by Brian Lacey (a book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent). Okay, so it’s not set there for the whole book, but gay monks and nuns are things. This was another birthday present, and an absolute hit. Combining two of my favorite things: Irish history and queer history. I had no idea a book like this existed. I’m still really excited about it. The only issue I have is that most of the one chapter dedicated to gay women involve biographies of people that were actually probably trans men, like Dr. Barry. They could have probably had a separate chapter and then a chapter of the clear lesbians and bisexual women (including trans women, of course). Lumping them in with the women in a chapter specifically dedicated to queer women did not seem particularly inclusive. But overall I really enjoyed the book.

Top Ten Books of 2019 post will be forthcoming.

#books #Book Recommendations #book recs

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rustbeltjessie · 27 days ago

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End of the Year Book Asks! 3, 6, 14, 20

3 - What were your top five books of the year?

You get thirteen, because it’s impossible for me to pit fiction against nonfiction against poetry, so I had to separate them all into their own categories. (By the way, these weren’t all released this year—though many were—but they’re all books I read this year.)

Fiction

I Was a Teenage Slasher, by Stephen Graham Jones

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories, by GennaRose Nethercott

The Woods All Black, by Lee Mandelo

Some Strange Music Draws Me In, by Griffin Hansbury

I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both, by Mariah Stovall

Nonfiction

Breaking the Curse: A Memoir about Trauma, Healing, and Italian Witchcraft, by Alex DiFrancesco

Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders, by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

First Love: Essays on Friendship, by Lilly Dancyger

Lou Reed: The King of New York, by Will Hermes

Watch Your Language: Visual and Literary Reflections on a Century of American Poetry, by Terrance Hayes

Poetry

Refusenik, by Lynn Melnick

Romantic Comedy, by James Allen Hall

Modern Poetry, by Diane Seuss

6 - Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

Oh, so many things. My to-be-read list is neverending. Some things I meant to read in 2024 but never got to include:

Care Of, by Ivan Coyote

Too Much Too Young: the 2 Tone Records Story: Rude Boys, Racism and the Soundtrack of a Generation, by Daniel Rachel

Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters, by Allyson McCabe

Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar, by Cynthia Carr (I started that one, but didn’t have time to finish it before I had to return it to the library)

Country & Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival, by Mark Guarino

Who’s Afraid of Gender?, by Judith Butler

14 - What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

The four I’m currently reading:

A Termination, by Honor Moore

Art Monsters, by Lauren Elkin

Familiar, by Matt Hart

Death Prefers the Minor Keys, by Sean Thomas Dougherty

20 - What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

To be honest? It was Diane Seuss’s Modern Poetry. It…very nearly lived up to my expectations. I had really high expectations because Diane is high on my list of favorite living poets, and though I wasn’t expecting the same exact style in Modern Poetry as in her previous books (one thing I love about her is that she can write about the same topics over and over but make them feel fresh each time), I was expecting to love it as much. And I didn’t, quite. It’s an excellent book of poetry, and I will definitely reread it at some point, but it didn’t knock me out the way her two previous releases, frank: sonnets and Still Life With Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, did.

#replies #end of year book asks #books #reading #2024 #thank you!

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despertara · 6 years ago

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Hey! I really really like your taste in prose (based on the quotes you reblog!) and I was wondering if you had any prose/poem/book recommendations?

omg hi!!! thanks!!! wild!!! i’d love to throw a list together for you!!!

disclaimer that i read whatever i want so this. is totally a mixed bag featuring commentary no one asked for lmao but here are some pieces i’ve (re)read recently and are close to my heart!!

poetry

fugue for other hands, joseph fasano | fasano is....... one of my top 5 fav poets. he captures this really complex sense of desperation and simultaneous resignation in his writing which ig is another way to say ‘regret’. really spacious but also really specific and intimate. concise and really like... surprisingly violent (in a sense) diction at times like it’s intense and resounding but also an old, dull pain that can’t hurt you more than it’s meant to. i have too many thoughts abt fasano so to cut it short: this is a beautiful, poignant, genuinely stunning collection

the vixen, w.s. merwin |and really any merwin? merwin is also one of my top 5 and he died earlier this year which i’m still processing but. definitely read him. read everything he’s ever written. i don’t cry when i read fasano but even before he left i have cried reading merwin. everything he writes has this soft golden hour cast to it. big bloom. soft focus. very real but not sharp at all, very gentle

cat town, hagiwara sakutaro|technically prose but i have the version that also has the entirety of howling at the moon and blue cat which are all poetry so whatever!!! i.... am going to say that these poems are super surreal because unlike a lot of western poetry that is about unspooling specific memories and making the accompanying feelings accessible, like literally unpacking thoughts and feelings, hagiwara’s work is like looking at someone else’s photo album without them there to explain context to you. just snapshots of a life you can’t fathom or properly relate to, but is all the more compelling for it. he really effects a sense of nostalgia you couldn’t possibly have so you sit and wonder what he must have been thinking of when he wrote this or that

self-portrait in a convex mirror, john ashbery |i originally had this above hagiwara but then i wrote like an entire stream-of-consciousness mini thought piece on hagiwara?? so i moved it underneath ajdlfsdj but only so i could reference my photo album analogy. hagiwara is looking through someone’s photo album without the illumination of their commentary, but ashbery is like reading someone’s travel journal. when i read ashbery i always feel like he’s saying ‘hey remember when’, like there’s a sense of familiarity and the imprecision that comes with telling a story we both already know. it’s like reminiscing

other fav poets: mary oliver always, raymond carver, bassho, jane hirschfield, franz wright, joanna klink, kenneth rexroth

prose

the thirteen clocks, james thurber | this is an actual children’s book but similar to le petit prince it is better written than the bulk of everything i’ve ever read ever. literally i am trying to elaborate but it’s hard like it’s just a master class in telling a story like i reference this book when i feel stuck w my own writing and it never fails me

and i darken / the conqueror’s saga, kiersten white | INSANE. if you like historical fiction (it is set in the ottoman empire and it is WILD) w devastating and endearingly violent female leads you will love this. well-written, extremely round characterization, compelling. wholeheartedly recommend the entire series

the city of brass + the city of copper, shannon chakraborty |READ THESE!!!!! BOOK 2 WAS EXACTLY LIKE BEING STABBED REPEATEDLY IN ALL VITAL ORGANS AND I SUSPECT BOOK 3 (TO DROP IN 2020) WILL GENUINELY KILL ME

uprooted, naomi novik|this has been circulating as A Ridiculously Good Book for a while now but seriously it is a ridiculously good book with some of the most masterful and concise worldbuilding i’ve ever seen. spinning silver by the same author is also Incredible

lockwood & co series, jonathan stroud |if you liked the bartimaeus trilogy........... you will love these. i read this series twice, all five books, within the last 3mos. it’s a middle-grade novel but i wouldn’t have known that if someone hadn’t told me because beyond the premise (teenage ghosthunters fix everything by ruining it first) it’s so well done? like bartimaeus wasn’t poorly written at all and lockwood is imperfect in several regards but to plan out five novels without overworking your own plot/characters is no small feat

honorable mentions

his dark materials by philip pullman is my favorite set of books, full stop.

you also can’t go wrong with diane wynne jones and if you’ve seen howls’ moving castle but haven’t read it... read it and the next two books in the series, and also the spellcoats

peter s. beagle’s the last unicorn............. will change your life

also 100 years of solitude by gabriel garcia marquez

also sprach zarathustra by friedrich nietzsche will knock your socks off if it hasn’t already like no matter how you feel abt the dude, the base quality and style of the writing?? is insane???

corny but i’m also a heart of darkness apologist. this and the crucible were the high school pieces that really stuck with me which. is telling lmfao

if you like me are indiscriminate about good writing then you have to read arakawa’s fullmetal alchemist because it sincerely puts 99.999999% of traditional novels to SHAME

please read everything by mary oliver, who is also top 5 for me. i love you mary and i miss you

#Anonymous #I Got Carried Away but thanks for the ask anon this was super cute!!!#i literally can't stop editing this when do i stop #q

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zayntoxicateme · 6 years ago

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30 QUESTION CHALLENGE

30 Questions Challenge Rules: - tag the person who tagged you (I was tagged a long long time ago and I just now found this in my likes) - answer the questions - tag 20 people

I tag: @bubblyxbrunettexo @gigglytommo @hoeharry @seb-styles @tornbytomlinson @rainymist

1: How tall are you? -5′6″

2: What color and style is your hair? - medium brown with natural red and blonde highlights, it’s very very long and wavy

3: What color are your eyes? - hazel. sometimes they’re brown and most of the time they are green

4: Do you wear glasses? - nope

5: Do you wear braces? - I did when I was young

6: What is your fashion style? - I don’t really have one. I like things that are comfortable. Large oversized sweatshirts, leggings, some jeans, sweat pants

7: Full name - Rebecca Diane

8: When were you born? - May 9th

9: Where are you from and where do you live now? - I’m from Blair, Nebraska and I now live in Omaha, Nebraska

10: What school do you go to? - none

11: What kind of student are you? - I was a terrible student

12: Do you like school? - hated it

13: What are your favorite school subjects? - English and creative writing were my favorite

14: Favorite TV shows - My So-Called Life, Gilmore Girls, Big Bang Theory

15: Favorite movies? - so so many... Grease, Threesome, The Breakfast Club, Basil, Bohemian Rhapsody, Dallas Buyers Club, Dead Poet’s Society, A River Runs Through It, Armageddon, The Adjustment Bureau, We Bought a Zoo, Dunkirk, and the list could go on.

16: Favorite books? - Words By Heart by Ouida Sebestyen

17: Favorite pastime? - listening to music, cleaning, spending time with my kiddos, tumblin’

18: Do you have any regrets? - nope

19: Dream Job? - I always wanted to be a dance or a singer, but I basically suck at both so....

20: Would you like to be married some day? - I am and I won’t be for long

21: Would you like to have kids someday? - I have two, the greatest things to ever happen to me. They are the sole reasons I wake up and plug through each day.

22: How many? - I wanted 3, I have 2 and I am done having babies

23: Do you like shopping? - no, not really

24: What countries have you visited? - I’ve only traveled in the United States, though I have been to almost all of the states.

25: The scariest nightmare you’ve had? - several years ago I had a dream that a man broke into our house in the middle of the night and locked himself in my daughter’s bedroom with her and was raping her and I could not get into her room as he had blocked me into my own bedroom. I could hear her screaming and crying for me. It was absolutely awful!

26: Do you have any enemies? - oh I am sure I do

27: Do you have a s/o? - I guess

28: Do you believe in miracles - yeah

#tag thingy #get to know me #30 question challenge #ask me stuff #fill my ask

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poem-today · 3 years ago

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A poem by Diane Thiel

Memento Mori in Middle School

When I was twelve, I chose Dante's Infemo in gifted class — an oral presentation with visual aids. My brother, il miglior fabbro , said he would draw the tortures. We used ten red posterboards. That day, for school, I dressed in pilgrim black, left earlier to hang them around the class. The students were impressed. The teacher, too. She acted quite amused and peered too long at all the punishments. We knew by reputation she was cruel. The class could see a hint of twisted forms and asked to be allowed to round the room as I went through my final presentation. We passed the first one, full of poets cut out of a special issue of Horizon. The class thought these were such a boring set, they probably deserved their tedious fates. They liked the next, though — bodies blown about, the lovers kept outside the tinfoil gates. We had a new boy in our class named Paolo and when I noted Paolo's wind-blown state and pointed out Francesca, people howled. I knew that more than one of us not-so- covertly liked him. It seemed like hours before we moved on to the gluttons, though, where they could hold the cool fistfuls of slime I brought from home. An extra touch. It sold in canisters at toy stores at the time. The students recognized the River Styx, the logo of a favorite band of mine. We moved downriver to the town of Dis, which someone loudly re-named Dis and Dat. And for the looming harpies and the furies, who shrieked and tore things up, I had clipped out the shrillest, most deserving teacher's heads from our school paper, then thought better of it. At the wood of suicides, we quieted. Though no one in the room would say a word, I know we couldn't help but think of Fred. His name was in the news, though we had heard he might have just been playing with the gun. We moved on quickly by that huge, dark bird

and rode the flying monster, Geryon, to reach the counselors, each wicked face, again, I had resisted pasting in. To represent the ice in that last place, where Satan chewed the traitors' frozen heads, my mother had insisted that I take an ice-chest full of popsicles — to end my gruesome project on a lighter note. "It is a comedy, isn't it, " she said. She hadn't read the poem, or seen our art, but asked me what had happened to the sweet, angelic poems I once read and wrote. The class, though, was delighted by the treat, and at the last round, they all pushed to choose their colors quickly, so they wouldn't melt. The bell rang. Everyone ran out of school, as always, yelling at the top of their lungs, The Inferno fast forgotten, but their howls showed off their darkened red and purple tongues.

Diane Thiel

More poems by Diane Thiel are available through her website

#diane thiel #american poetry #moment mori in middle school #dantesinferno

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ulfwolf · 4 years ago

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My Precious Library -- Musing 185

Paging through my library— I know I am the richest soul on Earth

I know that among the four hundred and fifty books, along with the two hundred and thirty-four “Paris Review” Interviews with writers (which appear on the Kindle as documents rather than books) housed on my Kindle reader, I will find the answers to all of my questions, especially my main one.

Okay, perhaps a small lie that, for I also know that the actual answer, the Truth Actual and Ultimate will not emerge from books but will one day arise form an immeasurable depth during meditation. Still, the path to that wonderful illumination is paved with the many books I’ve found and chosen to buy and place in my, yes, precious library.

A brief orientation perhaps is in order: I love the number eight.

And, as a consequence, I love the number sixty-four (i.e., eight times eight or eight to the second power, i.e., squared) eight times as much. So, not surprisingly, I have created sixty-four Kindle Collections to facilitate navigation. Collections are like bins where you store likeminded books or documents.

Most of these collections are by author—some of which, in no particular order: Nadeem Aslam, David Loy, Joan Didion, Jack Kerouac, Mary Oliver, Mavis Gallant, Rebecca West, John Crowley (of Little, Big fame), John Le Carré (who, by the way, is one of the best writers on the planet—don’t for a second pigeon-hole him as a spy-thriller author, he is so, so much more than that, even if most of his novels roam that genre), John Berger, Paul Auster, Diane Ackerman, Ursula Le Guin, Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Mary Robinson, Siri Hustvedt, and Eduardo Galeano.

The balance of these collections are by subject, e.g., Zen, Bhavana (meditation), Dhamma (writings on, mainly, Pali Buddhism), Poetry, Haiku, His/Sci (History and Science), Emptiness (the Ultimate Truth), Words (my many dictionaries), Craft (of writing), Language (more on English and writing), Paris Review (which contains 243 Interviews with Writer as published over the years in the “Paris Review” magazine), Dhammapada (four translations of this Buddhist classic—my favorite one by Thomas Byrom; perhaps not the most accurate but certainly the most poetic), et cetera.

In addition to the 450 books housed on my Kindle, I have more than that again in the Kindle cloud—the number of publications on my Kindle cloud (including my downloads and Paris Review documents) reads 1,234: yes, admittedly I have a thing for numbers. Not that I consider them magical or anything, or that I steer my little craft by them, I just love them as ornaments, I enjoy their sparkle.

The collection name “Story” houses 44 books, mainly stories or story collections by writers such as Martin Amis, Mark Helprin, Kurt Vonnegut, Chekhov, Robert Pirsig (“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), Dostoevsky, Doris Lessing, Gene Wolfe, Richard Powers, David Mitchell, John Cheever, Alice Munroe, Grace Paley, Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver, V.S. Naipaul, William Faulkner, Anthony Doerr, Benjamin Black (aka John Banville), Thomas McGuane, Margaret Atwood, Nabokov, Hemingway, Eudora Welty, Lydia Davis, Stig Dagerman to name just about all of them; along with collections of Grimm’s fairy tales, and those by Hans Christian Andersen, as well as a good translation of “The Arabian Nights”.

Lucy Ellmann finds herself in the “Story” bin as well—I’m currently reading her “Ducks, Newburyport.”

The collection named “Phil/Rel” (Philosophy and Religion) houses, yes, eight (64/8) works: “The Perennial Philosophy” by Aldous Huxley, “The Life of the Mind” by Hannah Arendt, “The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” as translated by Edwin F. Bryant, “History of Western Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell, “Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues” by George Berkeley, “My View of the World” by Erwin Schrodinger, “Brave New World Revisited” by Aldous Huxley, and Thomas Traherne’s “Centuries of Meditation”.

It was Traherne who wrote: “You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.” One of the most beautiful statements of Truth I have ever come across.

When, each morning as I being my meditation, I express my heartfelt thanks for all their help I thank firstly, Buddha Gotama for his brilliant path, and secondly and embracingly, my Sangha, my “support group” as it were, which to me includes all those religious figures, writers, poets, philosophers, historians who have sincerely pondered the Great Unknown, the big, the ultimate questions, and shared their conclusions either as story or as essays and the like.

The robust ignorance of this planet springs a leak now and then. Some of these leaks we call Saints, some we call Poets, some Writers, some Painters, and so on. This both temporal and spacial archipelago of wisdom-lights is what I view as my Sangha, and I thank them all each day.

Since I’m now practicing Zen, the majority of my Sangha are Buddhists, both Pali and Zen, both ancient and current. Some are meditation teachers, some are philosophers. A not very partial list, in no particular order: Dogen, Dan Leighton, Red Pine (excellent translator of Chinese scriptures), Sheng Yen, Edward Conze, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Shohaku Okumura, Robert Aitken, John Blofeld, Gary Snyder, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kazuki Tanahashi (excellent translator of Japanese scriptures), Rabindranath Tagore, Kosho Uchiyama, Hee-Jin Kim (amazing analyst of Dogen’s work), Hakuin, Gil Fronsdal, Eknath Easwaran, and last, but certainly not lease the Dalai Lama.

Between them the above Sangha has read and reflected a thousand times more widely and deeply than I have, and that they have all shared their very real “finding” is my very real blessing.

Yes, I know, I really do, that there are many, many more philosophers and teachers and writers and so on out there who are as well read, as good, and would be as helpful to my search as those I’ve listed here. But I also know, with the same certainty, that they would not be better, or more helpful—if he or she exists, I would have run across them by now: I have been looking for teachers for as long as the Internet has been in existence, and an amazingly brilliant light would have appeared on my screen by now. But, yes, I’ve missed not a few, of this I’m sure.

Still, I know that with what I now own, both on my Kindle and in the cloud, I have as much help as I am ever going to need, no one will help me better (unless in person, of course, but considering my age and location I have more or less ruled that option out; in other words, I plan to complete this journey via books, via “long distance” assistance, as it were.

If for no other reason than to prove that it is possible.

So, that’s why when, every now and then I page through my Kindle library, I say to myself, I am the richest person on the planet.

P.S. If you like what you’ve read here and would like to contribute to the creative motion, as it were, you can do so via PayPal: here.

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