January 2012
“When you have just been told that the girl you love is definitely betrothed to...”
– P. G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning (via ayjay)
“In India today we do share, entirely unawares, a great stock of symbolism and...”
– A.K. Ramanujan. Via Anirudh on Facebook and Neha Viswanathan. (via actuallyaisha)
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“on cupid’s bow how are my heartstrings bent,
that see my wrack, and yet embrace...”
– - philip sidney, sonnet 19, astrophel and stella. i think of wyatt’s character in his poems as a level-headed, essentially sober man with a great talent for love, and the voice of shakespeare’s sonnets as belonging to a ferociously clever, infinitely subtle imagination residing in an...
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“nam sibyllam quidem cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum...”
– the satyricon of petronius; an english translation by alfred r allinson for the panurge press, new york (1930), “(not) intended for other than private circulation among adult collectors of erotica.”
i have seen with my own eyes the sybil at cumae, hanging in a jar, and when the boys...
the greatest. →
“kanye west’s epic 1,600 word twitter rant: the complete text, neatly organized for your reading pleasure.”
(dear vh1, fyi: that is not a rant. you’re welcome.)
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bollywoodcore →
tomorrow’s cover story: how the alternative scene is making its peace with bollywood. i also wrote a related story, a profile of assamese folk-rock singer papon.
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“why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
and make me travel forth without...”
– shakespeare, sonnet 34. my best-loved, hard as it is to choose. others have more ambitious conceits and dazzling footwork, but this one has such mood and verve. “‘tis not enough that through the cloud thou break / to dry the rain on my storm-beaten face / for no man well of such a salve...
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“be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
my tongue-tied patience with too much...”
– sonnet 140, shakespeare. because i was reading wyatt’s adorable, clever sonnets which are nonetheless beaten absolutely hollow in retrospect.
land - suheir hammad
his approach to love he said was that of a farmer most love like hunters and like hunters most kill what they desire he tills soil through toes nose in the wet earth he waits prays to the gods and slowly harvests ever thankful
(via hereshe)
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“instead of the white jasmine
we proclaim the acacia as our national tree
it...”
– “our national tree,” by afzal ahmed syed, translated from the urdu by musharraf ali farooqi.
December 2011
russia’s d’artagnan →
not reblogged just for title, really.
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““o people stunned with the icy terror of dying,
why do you fear the styx?...”
– ovid, from metamorphoses
(book XV, the teachings of pythagoras)
when are you going to make something people like? →
as the merce cunningham company prepares for its final farewell, alma guillermoprieto, cunningham’s one-time student, pays tribute.
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“my galley charged with forgetfulness
thorough sharp seas in winter nights...”
– a good time of year for the poetry of thomas wyatt.
the lovely sea →
“in the 1960s, the syr darya and the amu darya rivers were diverted by the soviet union to irrigate cotton plantations. deprived of its two main tributaries, the shores of the aral sea, which spanned from the north in kazakhstan to uzbekistan at its southern tip, began to recede.”
nadia shira cohen on a small town at the northern edge of the world’s fourth-largest fresh-water...
“Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it...”
– Harold Pinter, as quoted by Maria Popova. Ah yes, the old “the one truth is that there is no one truth” line. How many times have we heard that one?
Whenever I think of Pinter, I think of this story: He had for many years given generous financial support to the Comedy Theatre in London — so much so...
eric beard: the best of football writing in 2011 →
w00t! thank you, a football report.
you cannot be serious. →
so many things to say, but let me start with the implication that calcutta and madras do not have glorious histories in national politics? really? REALLY? the city from which the british had to move their capital because it got too hot to handle? the city that shaped language politics in independent india is provincial?
please.
