η απορια του μη ησυχαζειν

Insomniac passing anhypnic nights in writing, translation, music, mathematics, programming and whatever else captures my attention or alleviates agrypnia. This consists mostly of quotations of things that stand out to me or reflect what's on my mind; occasionally I also post original, often more personal, content as well, which may be found under the "personal" tag. Anything posted under "translations" is also original work and may broadly be taken as personal as well as I seldom tackle a work that does not speak to or for me in some way. My music usually appears under the tags original compositions and original arrangements, though I've occasionally been known to post a piece with neither. Other originals I've bothered to tag, here and there, are photos and various, fumbling attempts at art. Though it isn't updated nearly as often, I sometimes indulge my fascination with mathematics here.

[naturaekos]

I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

Life Of Pi (via naturaekos)

[anhypnic]

Last self-portrait (?). Probably; we'll see. (Taken with instagram)

[anhypnic]

I carry a deep sadness of the heart which must now and then break out in sound.

Pianist & composer Franz Liszt speaking to biographer Lina Ramann, quoted in Alan Walker, Franz Liszt, The Final Years (1861–1886).

[lifeinpoetry]

There is hope, but not for us.

Franz Kafka to his friend Max Brod (via lifeinpoetry)

[hellanne]

I drink to paradise and death and the lie of love.

Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 (via hellanne)

[anhypnic]

Les vieillards aiment à donner de bons préceptes, pour se consoler de n'être plus en état de donner de mauvais exemples.Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.

La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 93 (J.W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell translation)

[anhypnic]

Je rêve d'une langue dont les mots, comme les poings, fracasseraient les mâchoires.I dream of a language whose words, like fists, would fracture jaws.

E.M. Cioran, Le Mauvais démiurge, "Pensées étranglées" (1969; The Evil Demiurge, "Strangled Thoughts", the Richard Howard translation)

[riptoyoubutimlazarus]

You are just a murky shadow, a hard kernel of indifference, a neutral gaze avoiding the gaze of others. Speechless lips, dead eyes. Henceforth you will be able to glimpse in the puddles, in the shop windows, in the gleaming bodywork of cars, the fleeting reflections of your decelerating life…Your memory is slowly penetrated by oblivion. Nothing has happened. Nothing will ever happen. The cracks in the ceiling trace an implausible labyrinth.

Georges Perec, A Man Asleep (1967)

[anhypnic]

This is what happens. You piss blood one day and it somehow makes you think that maybe your life isn't taking shape the way it's meant to and, at thirty-two years old, if you're going to be making any changes, you had best be making them quick. So you give it a whirl, and it's like trying to make a ninety-degree turn in a speeding boat, and the whole thing just flips over, and you're submerged in the frigid, churning waters, bobbing roughly in your own broken wake. And no matter which way you turn your desperate gaze, there's absolutely no land in sight, which is strange, because you didn't think you'd gone out that far to begin with.

Jonathan Tropper, Everything Changes (2005)

[anhypnic]

And, lastly, the album's finally available on Amazon. It seems my choice to employ Greek, Cyrillic and other alphabets in track titles delayed its appearance; I was unaware Amazon's software is seemingly still pre-Unicode. On the album page, you may see several track titles listed as "????", etc.; I'm assured by the distributor that the correct titles are still embedded in the files and will display in one's music player, and it's only Amazon's display code that's failing to show them.

For reference, the official track list is:

Η Αυτόχειρας

Nevroză

בלעדיך

Mi canción de atardecer

Ἐρατώ

Alejandra Leaving

Soy feo (sin ti)

Nimicnicia m-a prins

Allein

Quem me dera ir embora

Наука Расставанья

Of course, as per the previous posts in this series, the album is also available via iTunes, Google Play and Spotify.

[anhypnic]

Continuing the iTunes and Google Play Music posts from earlier, the album is now live on Spotify here. Though the release is available currently, I was told by Spotify yesterday that it may be 2–4 weeks before my account is converted to an 'artist account' and integrated with the releases, so until that point I won't be able to properly interact with followers or respond to messages there, so if you connect or follow, please bear with me as they get things sorted out.

This leaves only Amazon to go, but I don't have an ETA for it as I was under the impression it would appear there before either Spotify or Google Play.

[pierre-du-soleil]

And when someone takes my picture and they tell me to smile, I still think of you.

Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You (via pierre-du-soleil)

[anhypnic]

My new album discussed in the previous post is now available on Google Play & Google Play Music as well as the original iTunes link; I'll update once it's on Amazon and Spotify. I'm not sure what anyone else thinks of the disc as a whole yet, but so far Google's being immensely flattering with its "Related Artists"! (If they're too small to see in the screenshot, from left to right: Frédéric Chopin, Ludovico Einaudi, Claude Debussy, George Winston, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dustin O'Halloran, Harold budd, Ólafur Arnalds and Franz Liszt.) If it's but a fraction so good as some of those, I'll be happy with it.

[anhypnic]

Omnia Fert Ætas by Daniel Dockery

For those interested, an album of some of my solo piano compositions has just gone live on iTunes at the above link. Unfortunately, I have no say over where or when in each track the sample preview begins, so some of them start on discords or other awkward spots. Ideally, it should also turn up on Google Play Music, Amazon and Spotify at some point over the coming week, but I can't say exactly when.

A few have appeared here in the past, and some are new recordings of others that have, along with a few otherwise unreleased works, eleven in all. As loss in one form or another, whether death or separations, whether of friends, family or lovers, has been a primary inspiration in many of these pieces, the album has been titled for a line in Virgil's Eclogues (which I translated in part here), "Omnia fert ætas", "Time takes away all things".

If it goes over well, I may release more material in the future; for those of you who have been following a while or who have browsed my original compositions tag, if you have a favorite piece, let me know and I will add it to the list of candidates for potential release.

[anhypnic]

Happiness is the communicable form of stupidity.

Fernando Pessoa

[anhypnic]

Mrs. Brown at Shrewsbury used to keep a tray of spoiled tarts which she sold cheaper. They most of them looked pretty right till you handled them. We are all spoiled tarts.

Samuel Butler, Notebooks: Selections (via Laudator Temporis Acti)

[derelictor]

As to futility & work—I have come to the comfortably elderly condition of not caring a rap whether I do anything or not!

H.P. Lovecraft, age 37, in a letter to C.A. Smith, Oct. 15, 1927