Saturday, March 31, 2012

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

I've finished A Room of One's Own, which I connected with more intensely than Mrs. Dalloway! 
Reading Liquidation now, by Nobel-Prize winner Imre Kertész.
Anyhow, quotes from the first book are below:

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"Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others."
"Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size."
“The human frame being what it is, heart, body, and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”
“Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
“For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.”
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.”
“Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in it's place?”
“It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road.”
“The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.”
“If we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women...”
"...when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the mind it cannot penetrate within.”
“One holds every phrase, every scene to the light as one reads - for Nature seems, very oddly, to have provided us with an inner light by which to judge of the novelist’s integrity or disintegrity. Or perhaps it is rather that Nature, in her most irrational mood, has traced in invisible ink on the walls of the mind a premonition which these great artists confirm; a sketch which only needs to be held to the fire of genius to become visible. When one so exposes it and sees it come to life one exclaims in rapture, But this is what I have always felt and known and desired! And one boils over with excitement, and, shutting the book even with a kind of reverence as if it were something very precious, a stand-by to return to as long as one lives, one puts it back on the shelf. . .”
“... a book is not made of sentences laid end to end, but of sentences built, if an image helps, into arcades or domes.”

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Fever

Last night I felt the familiar tinge of sharp muscle aches and knew a fever was swiftly dawning. It is the swipe of a sickness that leaves traces of the parts of our body that are more sensitive: the untouched upper arm, stomach, and throbbing mind. Bullied myself into going to school anyway, though. It's receding, thankfully. Nevertheless, a fever in March was an expected event; it has been the case for the past two years.
http://trackcity.net/?p=1263
Anyway, thankfully, blissfully, Arcade Fire have spun up a new, magical song: Abraham's Daughter, for the Hunger Games soundtrack. Love the bass that hits during the crescendo -- this song has grown on me. Regine's voice sounds lovely.

Time is everything



Hugo was a stunningly magical movie -- wonderfully played out in 3D (real 3D, not that 'enhanced' 2D we seem to be getting often). The moment the movie commenced, each particle of snowflakes drifting as in directly before my eyes, I was spellbound. Have never seen such impressive 3D effects. Not to mention it came with a true moral, and a real witty screenplay. The soundtrack was much fun, too -- don't know if Howard Shore can ever go wrong. First Lord of the Rings, and now this. Can't wait for The Hobbit!
Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken.
I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too.
You've tried to forget the past for so long, but it has caused you nothing but unhappiness. Maybe it's time you tried to remember.

Friday, March 2, 2012

The Artist

Feeling uncomfortably hot -- even indoors, a damp humidity lingers. Perhaps it is because I just trimmed my cuticles, or have left my glasses elsewhere, but all is unpleasant to touch.
Anyway, that aside --

I must bashfully swallow my earlier predilection on The Artist. I just returned home from the cinema and it proved to be a rather enjoyable movie. The choreography was excellent, and the colour lighting for a black and white film was splendid. Excellent acting on Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo's parts. Love the dog, as well -- he's probably my favourite character. Was also bounding about in the movie; he almost made me cry in one scene.
It certainly says something, though, to have a black and white film win Best Picture at the Academy Awards in the 21st century. I apologize if any take umbrage at such a statement, but it does ironically present the situation in the movie (won't delve into further detail here, as to not spoil anything). I suppose the movie really did sweep everyone off their feet. I've watched War Horse, and it's hard to say which deserves Best Picture -- War Horse was stunningly filmed, brilliantly coloured, and a wonderful story, yet there is something magically entertaining about The Artist. Being a huge John Williams fan, it hurts to say that I agree with Ludovic Bource taking home the Oscar for Best Soundtrack. It really was lovely, contributing to the film's wonder (as it played almost throughout the entire 2 hours). At one point, I even forgot it was a silent film and spoke aloud - that is bad film-watching...
Anyway, I'm glad I ventured to see it. It's a roasting afternoon, interrupting the cold whiplash of winter wind. The sun's high, yet I do miss a cool breeze.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

March

Why not celebrate the arrival of March with Wordsworth? Always so joyous about nature, he is.


The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The Plowboy is whooping-anon-anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
The rain is over and gone!

by William Wordsworth