audacity of hope

i bought it also. 2 books to read. yay!

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by langston hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers



yeah. i haven't been doing that lately. im a little bored tonight. im trying to think of something interesting to talk about.

the last sentence was actually repeated several times in soul mountain. it was a bit of a theme and a bit of a weak point to the novel, accenting the stream of consciousness aspect and the idea that even the best storytellers grow a little uninterested in their tales but also bringing attention to the fact that the author had to use repetition to drive home a point that couldve been a lot more understated and just as effective.

hooray for bullshit literary criticism i came up with on the fly.

freakonomics

i need to buy it.

this blog

like all others ive attempted... is slowly dying.

its technically sunday, my room is really fucking hot, and ive found myself dwelling on a whole lot of nothing: reading old emails, looking through peoples' facebook friends, starting little tirades in my head that im never conscious enough to finish. i havent written anything in a very long time. that refers to both recreational and bloggish writing, mostly out of apathy.

come on. anyone reading this knows i have little better to do with my life.

i learned how to tie a 4-in-hand not from an online video. so that was pretty awesome. and i honestly cant think of anything else to say. i dont want to go to sleep just yet. i dont want to do much of anything.

have you ever wondered if there was some way to live without sleep in some sort of semiconscious haze where nothing gets accomplished but you always feel like youll have enough time? i called that my freshman year of high school, and thats one of the things i most miss about it. something im only partially feeling now, staring at a computer screen typing up some random shit.

did you ever sacrifice anything because of your moral compass before you really knew about the world? in all of my memories of childhood, i seem like a selfish little prick who didnt see a need to apologize for stealing or breaking rules unless it was just to evade gettin my ass beat. i suppose it makes sense. we always praise kids when they act selflessly. im sure its because they dont do it very often. you dont have to answer that one.

are you someone's favorite person? ill admit i stole this from a little independent video i saw online. but my immediate reaction was... yes of course. but when im really honest with myself, im probably not. im most certainly not. plenty of people enjoy my company. plenty of people hate my guts. but i cant think of a single person who would stand up and say theres no person id rather spend all my time with than this guy. oddly enough. that makes me feel comfortable. maybe its the lowered expectations or maybe its the simple insignificance the question shines on my life. i dont know.

i cannot for the life of me finish things. so ill leave this open...






...

i like new words

this one comes from esha (via wikipedia)

Suzerainty is a situation in which a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which allows the tributary some limited domestic autonomy to control its foreign affairs. The more powerful entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the head of state of that more powerful entity, is called a suzerain. The term suzerainty was originally used to describe the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and its surrounding regions. It differs from sovereignty in that the tributary has some (limited) self-rule. A suzerain can also mean a feudal lord, to whom vassals must pay tribute. It is similar to the notion of hegemony.

Although it is a concept which has existed in a number of historical empires, it is a concept that is very difficult to describe using 20th- or 21st-century theories of international law, in which sovereignty either exists or does not. While a sovereign nation can agree by treaty to become a protectorate of a stronger power, modern international law does not recognize any way of making this relationship compulsory on the weaker power.

no pressure

if i write, i write. this is edit day! but i still have to try to memorize another poem.

Tulips by sylvia plath

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.




yeah. im not typing out the entire thing.
here is a link if you want it.

i know

i always say theres no way im going to do the 1200, but seriously... this time... im really not sure. methinks you will like today's poem esha.

Ah, Sunflower by William Blake

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time.
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

A Singer's Breath

im posting the second half here. mostly because i will probably scrap it, and i wanted it posted somewhere.

ii.

Meredith approached the makeshift dock stretching off the too-small patch of land Allison's family owned. Tied to what could best be describe as the most uneven pillar was a little dinghy with some scribbled Vietnamese characters on its side.

He never bothered to actually learn the language, or even enough to jot down some poetry. Allison simply picked up a pamphlet discussing music at an airport the week before and tried his best to jot down the symbols. It was not actually written in Vietnamese. The pamphlet Japanese, promoting a young woman's choir course. The words he copied translated roughly to "A singer's breath."

"Hello Meredith," the recent college drop out shouted from a reclining plastic chair on board his mighty vessel.

"Hello Allison," she quipped back with visible frustration. "What the Hell are you doing out there?"

"Why, I'm getting ready to for a trip around the state."

Meredith was the kind of girl Allison needed, sharp-tongued and responsible. But this little boat was a bit too much for her, another step in his awkward march toward the bizarre.

"Well... I'm going to my aunt's house for the weekend. I thought you might want to say goodbye to me."

"You're not going to your aunt's house. You're going to sail the Seven Seas with me."

He was right about one thing. She wasn't going to her aunt's house. She was leaving him. It wasn't, at that time, much of a surprise for most folks. When a young man leaves school and leaves his future in the middle of a relationship, any young lady would need to think hard about the change, would need to ponder whether it was reasonable to stay. But Allison's was not a rational mind.

She walked away. He muttered some little tune about the sea to himself.

A week passed and Allison got the news, through a letter on his kitchen table. Dalton handed it to him and watched a light go out in his brother's eyes.

"I'm sorry, man," Dalton almost whispered.

His brother responded with a bit of a smirk. "No worries. I had an affair too. And the horizons themselves made the place where we could meet again."

Allison drug his feet a little as he walked to his closet and picked out a silk dress-shirt. And he slipped outside and to the dock and to its end and sat in his little reclining chair.

"Haudure haudure sun-tawn yet conshiun," he sang until the sun tripped over itself into nightfall.

its only noon but

i feel like im not going to finish my 1200 words today. maybe ill start writing right after i type this. that happened last time. but until i come up with a decent direction to go in, i shall blab on here.

so...what shall we catch up on? i wish there were a few more people reading, even if they were jackasses so i could level some criticism their way. thats always a good way to get yourself ranting. but alas, im nearly alone on this crappy little blog.

grrr. i cant even write a fucking blog. this must just be one of those really dry days where nothing will come out of me; maybe there arent any words left out there. yup. thats what it is. all the words are gone today so theres no way i couldve written anything in the first place.

i know what youre thinking. why wont he just put himself out of his misery? why doesnt he just stop writing on this thing. why was there not a question mark at the end of the last question? i dont have answers for any of those questions. THE WORDS ARE GONE.

help me find them, maybe?

memorizing time. yesterday's was the first stanza of e e cummings' thy fingers make early flowers




The Negro Speaks of Rivers by langston hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

i cant get to sleep, so...

you, my one loyal fan, shall get the utmost privilege of a significantly lengthier blog post.

there are too many crickets here, with varying rhythms and pitches of chirp. i hear them in my dreams sometimes; i wonder if there is any actual communication going on, if the (one would assume) different varieties of a similar species can communicate. i would have to assume they can, even insects. hell, ive been able to use simple intuition to gather that a mouse was hungry. surely there is some sort of universal language that defies even species itself. ponder that one. tell me the extent to which you think animals can intuit what the other is trying to communicate (or if they can communicate at all). *wait. that parenthetical is already covered in the main text. oh well. i dont do second drafts.

on a topic somewhat related to communication, after watching a documentary i can only assume is based on norman solomon's war made easy, i find myself very intrigued by the very notion of bias. is, as one may take the assertion of this thesis to be, there more safety in presenting a point counter to what you personally believe and the people you are telling wish not to hear? would it be ok to defend hitler? honestly, im a little unsure on the matter.

on the one hand, you have propaganda meant to directly interfere with free thought of the individual. and on the other you have this notion that any argument must be given a certain amount of weight, even if one knows it is untrue. i personally enjoy playing devil's advocate, but i am still a little hesitant to say the role must always be filled.

honestly, i think im a little too tired to really be making many points or arguments or what have you, so i will leave this with a few simple tasks for myself:

1-find a copy of norman solomon's war made easy
2-take the day tomorrow to not stress over politics and whether youve cauhgt up with the reading you havent been doing
3-remember to meditate after your shower
4-write esha a letter

an introduction

im rex. i hate blogs. heres my blog.