68,000,000 ESTATES (not houses)

WHY do these things exist?

I know it's a castle and all, but really, who just shells out 68,000,000 for a house? It's funny that I'd even wonder, because I know a few (very very very few) people who could, but there are so many on the market that there can't possibly be enough ridiculously wealthy people to buy up all those houses. Or are there? Not like I'm poor, but I wonder if I'll ever have enough money to buy (or not to buy, but to be able to consider buying) a castile in Torino?

Probably not.

an elegy: to my _________

:: so i just finished a wicked 6 hour exam, and i just couldn't stand to study for my next one (wednesday) quite yet. i had to take a mind break. so here are a few of my favourite poems. for now at least :) ::

Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild, Wild, Women

Anne Sexton

Perhaps I was born kneeling,

born coughing on the long winter,

born expecting the kiss of mercy,

born with a passion for qui

ckness

and yet, as things progressed,

I learned early about the stockade

or taken out, the fume of the enema.

By two or three I learned not to kneel,

not to expect, to plant my fires underground

where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,

could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,

and let out so many loves, for so many,

and been altogether what I always was—

a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,

I find the effort useless.

Do I not look in the mirror,

these days,

and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?

Do I not feel the hunger so acutely

that I would rather die than look

into its face?

I kneel once more,

in case mercy should come

in the nick of time.

I died for Beauty -- but was scare

Emily Dickinson

I died for Beauty -- but was scarce

Adjusted in the Tomb

When One who died for Truth, was lain

In an adjoining room --

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?

"For Beauty", I replied --

"And I -- for Truth -- Themself are One --

We Brethren, are", He said --

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night --

We talked between the Rooms --

Until the Moss had reached our lips --

And covered up -- our names --

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

William Blake

Plate 5

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough

to be

restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place &

governs the unwilling.

And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive till it is

only the shadow of desire.

The history of this is written in Paradise Lost. & the Governor

or Reason is call'd Messiah.

And the original Archangel or possessor of the

command of the

heavenly host, is calld the Devil or Satan and his children are

call'd Sin & Death

But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.

For this history has been adopted by both parties

It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out. but t

he

Devils account is, that the Messi[PL 6]ah fell. & formed a heaven

of what he stole from the Abyss

This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to

send the comforter or Desire that Reason may have Ideas to build

on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he, who dwells

in flaming fire.

Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah.

But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the

five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!

Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of

Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he

was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it

Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition

John Keats

The chuch bells toll a melancholy round,

Calling the people to some other prayers,

Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,

More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound.

Surely the mind of man is closely bound

In some black spell; seeing that each one tears

Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs,

And converse high of those with glory crowned

.

Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp -

A chill as from a tomb - did I not know

That they are dying like an outburnt lamp;

That 'tis their sighing, wailing ere they go

Into oblivion - that fresh flowers will grow,

And many glories of immortal stamp.

And the sins of the fathers should be

Stephen Crane

And the sins of the fathers shall be

visited upon the heads of the children,

even unto the third and fourth

generation of them that hate me."

Well, then I hate thee, unrighteous picture;

Wicked image, I hate thee;

So, strike with thy vengeance

The heads of those little men

Who come blindly.

It will be a brave thing

air and light and time and space

Charles Bukowski

you know, I've either had a family, a job,something has always been in the

way

but now I've sold my house, I've found this place,a large studio, you should see the space and

the light.

for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and the time to

create."

no baby, if you're going to create

you're going to create whether you work 16 hours a day in a coal mine

or

you're going to create in a small room

with 3 children while you're on

welfare,

you're going to create with part of your mind and

your body blown away,

you're going to create blind

crippled

demented,

you're going to create with a cat crawling up your back while

the whole city trembles in earthquake,

bombardment,

flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space

have nothing to do with it

and don't create anything

except maybe a longer life to find

new excuses

for.

Earth Day :)

life is going great.

friends are going great (although there are those who are missed.)

today was a beautiful day.

(school is terrible and i'm bored, but life is more than that, for sure).

Anyway

Hats off to Earth Day.

And not to be cliche -

But it's probably a good idea

For Earth Day to be one of those continuous holidays?

Like your 21st birthday or

the "last day of exams" :)

To the woody hollows in which we meet / And the valleys of Paradise

For everyone who knows me, it's painfully obvious (even though I try to cover it up) that I'm a bit overly-emotional in most situations. No matter if the emotion is one of happiness or one of sorrow, I think I either feel it more acutely than most, react to the feelings more dramatically than most, or perhaps a combination of both.

So I can imagine I'd probably seem pretty weird as of late, since I've been largely apathetic and placid. Why? Because -

I' ve

Be C o m E

Comfortably

NUMB.

Oh HI, pot smokers.

4/20. National Pot Appreciation Day. I'm dressed for the occasion, although my celebration won't be nearly as exhilarating as some. Mostly, with Earth Day following on its heels, I feel like 4/20 is a day to celebrate the social and cultural atmosphere of America in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Kids, if your parents were living in America during this era, ask them about it. Due to my academic interests and my collegiate infatuation with everything associated with that age, my parents have told me loads of tidbits about what it was like to be alive during that very special period in American History. I think that a passage from Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas does an excellent job of painting a picture of the collected stories, books, classes, and first-hand accounts I've come across:

The Scene: Late night (or early morning, it's not so clear), Raoul Duke is sitting in his Las Vegas hotel room, readying himself to write. He puts his hands to the keys of his typewriter, and a memory washes over him, engulfing him in flashbacks of his experiences over the past few years. . .
"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime, the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time in the world. Whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

So - that is what I'm celebrating today. A time in the history of the United States where so many great ideas were born. Equality for all races. Increased personal freedom in the face of backwards-thinking preservationists. The recognition (and increased toleration) of our many different schemes of religion, philosophy, morality. The birth of Rock and Roll. The loosening of formalisms. The rise of Kerouac's "mad ones." It really was a time unlike any before, and as of now, unlike any after.

Cheers, America.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream?

I need to change my sleeping patterns. Sleep comes disgustingly late, arising too early for my body but too late for the demands of our world. Habits are hard to change. It's not helpful that I hate to sleep. As I enter the space between waking life and dreams, the pockets of muscle tremors that jolt me awake also remind me that there's an experience I could be having instead of laying paralyzed and numb.

The other side of it is that I also love the morning. Due to my late habitual bedtime, there have been a few early-mornings when I've watched the sun rise, the dawn break, and heard the morning birds sing. I can't help but think how nice it would be to get up with the sun after a night's full sleep. The morning hours have an aura of peaceful solitude. It feels like you could actually own those hours of the day; each and every person could have a piece of time at his or her own disposal. The promise of an untouched day like a morning glory, blossomed and dewy, ready to pick: the petals closing around opportunity as the dawn moves West along terrestrial latitudes.

The night feels opposite. Night is for congregation - bacchanalian hours used to release, to explore, and to be enveloped in human interaction. Without this, night is lonely. It's dark, quiet, foreboding and intensely introspective. Alone, night is reflection. Like the moon reflects on a dark body of water, the consciousness reflects against the supertemporal trenches of individual experience.

I really want the birth and not the death of the day.

I do not believe in fairytales. Interesting enough, since I'm watching Chocolat, which, by most peoples' ideas, would be a fairytale in its finest. I also have a less than honest man in my life. I'm not happy.