Quote of the Day (AKA "Nothing Much has Changed")

"'Very true,' said Henry, 'and this is a very nice day; and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh, it is a very nice word, indeed! - it does for everything. Originally, perhaps, it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement; - people were nice in their dresss, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.'"

From Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Quote of the Day

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

Vincent van Gogh

Quote of the Day

"With his hands clasped in his lap he let his eyes swim in the wideness of the sea, his gaze lose focus, blur, and grow vague in the misty immensity of space. His love of the ocean had profound sources: the hard-worked artists's longing for rest, his yearning to seek refuge from the thronging manifold shapes of his fancy in the bosom of the simple and vast; and another lure, for the unorganized, the immeasurable, the eternal -- in short, for nothingness. He whose preoccupation is with excellence longs fervently to find rest in perfection; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?"

From Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (translation by Helen Tracey Lowe-Porter) 

I'm not going to the ocean. But I am off to the lake.

Quote of the Day

"Passion is like crime: it does not thrive on the established order and the common round: it welcomes every blow dealt the bourgeois structure, every weakening of the social fabric, because therein it feels a sure hope of its own advantage."

From Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (translation by Helen Tracey Lowe-Porter) 

Quote of the Day

"To live with purpose,
To say the courageous thing,
To celebrate the simple gift,
To follow your dreams,
This is a happy life."

Wayland Henry

Quote of the Day

"A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man. They are sluggish, yet more wayward, and never without a melancholy tinge. Sights and impressions which others brush aside with a glance, a light comment, a smile, occupy him more than their due; they sink silently in, they take on meaning, they become experience, emotion, adventure. Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd."

From Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (translation by Helen Tracey Lowe-Porter) 

Quote of the Day

"Unless you love, your life will flash by."

From The Tree of Life (2011)

Quote of the Day

"I look a girl in the eye, and it was a very long love story with thunder and kisses and lightning. I live fast."

Kafka

Quote of the Day

"In the struggle between yourself and the world, side with the world."

Kafka

Quote of the Day

"There are countless hiding places, but only one salvation; but then again, there are as many paths to salvation as there are hiding places."

Kafka

Quote of the Day

"They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph."

Pierre-August Renoir

I know a tree is more than that too. You can read about what I saw of the Impressionists (and a night at the opera) on my other blog, Ars Borealis.

Quote of the Day

"According to the established rites,
wine and water are brought
with less ceremony than before.
There are no fresh glasses
and the waiter does not pour
a specimen measure.
But the first courses
arrive soon after -
ravioli annointed with butter,
carpaccio with a chrism of oil -
and the condiments are distributed:
parmesan shaved
from a nubbly, fulvous block,
a sesquipedalian peppermill waved
by the nimble attendant of the kitchen hatch in final blessing.
He watches, and his companion
watches him watch,
the flexing of supple back
and sturdy haunches
as the waitress raises
and twists the head
of the wooden phallus,
scattering seed.

They scarcely need
the waiter's intoned
Buon appetito."

From the book-length poem, The Song of Lunch by Christopher Reid. This has been filmed, and I am gnashing my teeth in desire to see this.

If you've ever loved, have ever lost, or left, met again, shared lunch, or anything that sounds remotely similar, I suggest you read this pointed, funny, sad look at two lovers meeting again years after their relationship ended. Of course, it's hard not to read without imagining Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson in the roles, but that's no problem at all. And check out Emma Thompson - the woman gets more beautiful with every passing year.

Quote of the Day

"Seldom, very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken."

Jane Austen, Emma

Here's a little disclosure... I'm blogging remotely from a train en route to Montreal for a weekend of much-needed pleasure and relaxation. And I've just started reading The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.

Quote of the Day

"It takes a certain type of woman to wear a backless dress with a Beretta 70 strapped to her thigh."
Daniel Craig as Bond, James Bond, in Skyfall (2012).

Want to read what I thought of it? Visit my new blog to find out!

Quote of the Day

"May you never go to hell, 
But always be on your way."

My hip flask (and maybe someone else, I don't know)


Was it coincidence that the week I purchased my first whiskey flask, I learned that Cardhu was back on sale in Canada? It is. And here's my flask, bearing the witty quote from above. I was standing on the platform waiting for a train last Wednesday evening when I saw a poster from the LCBO's new whisky campaign. Except... what the hell is with that colour? Cardhu doens't look like that! See below for what it does look like. Hey! LCBO! I'm willing to photograph your stuff for you, if you pay me in the good, single-malt stuff. Heh heh.

Quote of the Day

The more one judges, the less one loves.

Honoré de Balzac

(Picture taken in the Kawarthas this summer)

Quote of the Day

"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."

Albert Camus

Quote of the Day

"There's no sense in nonsense, especially when the heat's hot."

Aubrey Plaza as Darius in Safety not Guaranteed (2012).

Easily my favourite film of the year so far. More in the next post.

Best Sensations

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”

Freya Stark

It was a hectic spring, working, spring spring cleaning, decluttering, getting the yearly appointments out of the way (eyes, doctor, taxes, etc.) and so, as I stretch out my toes to find a cool spot in a comfy hotel room, it's with a delicious sense of freedom.

Freedom. Nothing like it.

As for being alone, not quite. I'll be catching up with an old friend, meeting up with an old friend, and doubtless making some new ones.

Hols

“Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.”

The Dhammapada

Ready, Bruce?