September 2010 Archives
“The oranges were more plentiful than usual that year. They glowed in their arbours of burnished green leaf like lanterns, flickering up there among the sunny woods.”
—Lawrence Durrell, Clea, 1960.
—Lawrence Durrell, Clea, 1960.
“Letitia Klein’s hair was fiery red, hence her nickname, ‘Red.’ In fact, now that I let my eyes roam over the heads of my poetry students, all their hair ran the gamut of red, from shades of golden-red to glowing embers. I am a lucky teacher. To have inherited, in my last semester of spreading the impossible affliction of poetry, a room full of red! I thank you Poe!”
“Clara pointed everything out to Gauna: the sunset, the various shades of green, the wild flowers.
He said to her: ‘It’s as if I’d been blind. You’re teaching me to see.’ ”
—Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Dream of Heroes, 1954.
“Then he found himself among trees, surrounded by people, absorbed in the flickering quicksilver reflection of the moon on his knife, inspired, fighting with Valerga because of some quarrel over money.”
“The moon goddess [Chang'e] was mentioned in the conversation between Houston Capcom and Apollo 11 crew just before the first moon landing:
Houston: ‘Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill for immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is only standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not recorded.’
Collins: ‘Okay, we'll keep a close eye for the bunny girl.’ ”
—Wikipedia, Chang'e.
Houston: ‘Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill for immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is only standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not recorded.’
Collins: ‘Okay, we'll keep a close eye for the bunny girl.’ ”
—Wikipedia, Chang'e.
“The night seems to fade
But the moonlight lingers on
There are wonders for everyone
The stars shine so bright
But they’re fading in the dawn
There is magic In Kingston Town”
— Lord Creator, “KIngston Town”, 1970.
“[W]e’ve moved, with everything we possess, to the moon . . . we’ve lost ourselves for the sake of having a home on the moon.”
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
“Isn’t every word a strain on the nerves of both writer and reader?”
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
“The suicide is the prisoner who sees a gallows erected in the prison yard, mistakenly believes it is for him, breaks out of his cell during the night, goes down and hangs himself.”
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
“During break the boys had to stay either in the classrooms or in the corridors, which were bedecked with such sayings as ‘Speech is silver, silence is golden’. ”
— Ronald Hayman, K: A Biography of Kafka, 1981.
— Ronald Hayman, K: A Biography of Kafka, 1981.
“The smoke from the death-plants in the Louisiana chemical corridor used to be black and sooty, just the way it came out, then one day they put something in it to make it white, to look like steam, to make you think that you’re in heaven instead of hell, where you really are.”
—Andrei Codrescu, quoted in “Lessons from The Poetry Lesson — Mark Spitzer interviews Andrei Codrescu about his new book”, August 31, 2010.
“Even the greatest parental love is, as an educational factor, more selfish than the slightest love of the paid educator. . . . Whereas parental love is animal, mindless and incapable of distinguishing between the child and the self, the teacher has concern for the child, and educationally that is incomparably more, even when no love is involved.”
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.
—Franz Kafka, quoted in K: A Biography of Kafka, by Ronald Hayman, 1981.