Hergest Ridge

It isn’t an ID that defines a writer, but what he has written! How can you know what ideas are fermenting in my brain? — Korovyov in Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

Bulgakov is a master. I imagine him a conjurer whose words have the inborn ability to turn the world into new arrangements, like a turning kaleidoscope – what ever the chaos in the shifting of the pieces, it all just falls into place.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? – Kurt Vonnegut

We have art in order not to die of the truth. ― Nietzsche

That above is the only piece of art in my flat – a friend drew it. Out of a stack of drawings that I asked her to show me one eve, this one struck me and she told me I should keep it. That eve we were sitting and listening to music, talking about books, drinking tea, and smelling the outside rain stirred with cigarette smoke.

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. ― Mark Twain

I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, “I’m going to pee..”’ hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carrying on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95.

– Bukowski

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Hitch: Try looking that up in a “modern” version of the New Testament (Philippians 4:8) and see what a ration of bland doggerel you get. I shall never understand how the keepers and trustees of the King James Version threw away such a treasure.

The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on – only henceforth in my absence. (It’s the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.

Hitch 22 Excerpt, Christopher Hitchens
Photo credit: New Statesman

“They’d be surprised, to hear that for long, chance toyed with them. Still not fully ready to turn into fate, it drew them close, and then distant again.”

In memory of Wisława Szymborska, 1923 – 2012.

Oboje są przekonani,
że połączyło ich uczucie nagłe.
Piękna jest taka pewność,
ale niepewność piękniejsza.
Sądzą, że skoro nie znali się wcześniej,
nic między nimi nigdy się nie działo,
A co na to ulice, schody, korytarze,
na których mogli się od dawna mijać?
Chciałabym ich zapytać,
czy nie pamiętają -
może w drzwiach obrotowych
kiedyś twarzą w twarz?
jakieś “przepraszam” w ścisku?
głos “pomyłka” w słuchawce?
- ale znam ich odpowiedź.
Nie, nie pamiętają.
Bardzo by ich zdziwiło,
że od dłuższego już czasu
bawił się nimi przypadek.
Jeszcze nie całkiem gotów
zamienić się dla nich w los,
zbliżał ich i oddalał,
zabiegał im drogę
i tłumiąc chichot
odskakiwał w bok.
Były znaki, sygnały,
cóż z tego, że nieczytelne.
Może trzy lata temu
albo w zeszły wtorek
pewien listek przefrunął
z ramienia na ramię?
Było coś zgubionego i podniesionego.
Kto wie, czy już nie piłka
w zaroślach dzieciństwa?
Były klamki i dzwonki,
na których zawczasu
dotyk kładł się na dotyk.
Walizki obok siebie w przechowalni.
Był może pewnej nocy jednakowy sen,
natychmiast po zbudzeniu zamazany.
Każdy przecież początek
to tylko ciąg dalszy,
a księga zdarzeń
zawsze otwarta w połowie.

Another bitter-cold day pushes on the windows and walls outside, its fingers prying every gap. In the warmth that is inside I explore my new treasure; a library of hundreds of books. The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde is a fine place to start.

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair.

For they starve the little frightened child
Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity’s machine.

(Excerpt)