darling, dearest, beloved—,

from earth we rose, at light's end, to hear them sing.

[thesilicontribesman]

Ilton Temple near Masham, Yorkshire, 20.10.18.

Some lovely Autumn light and colours…

[zeinfeld]

visiting fields of flowers as a form of self care

[violetline]

“The centre of every poem is this: I have loved you. I have had to deal with that.”

— Letters from Medea, Salma Deera

[m-l-rio]

One real benefit of reading I rarely hear anybody mention is how much more interesting life becomes when you read a lot. It depends what you’re reading, of course, but most (good) books will teach you something you didn’t already know, and even if you have to give the book back to the library, you get to take that much with you. A lot of people talk about things they wish they’d studied in school–I’ve done it, too–but it’s a nice consolation prize that you can always pick up a book and learn something new. And as that library in your brain collects more volumes, everything around you gains new resonances, new context, and new connections which make your lived experience richer. In quarantine alone I’ve read about religion and politics and history and evolution and computer science and astrophysics without even leaving my house and it’s already a more interesting world. 

[antigonick]

—not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes, history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claw.

Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian (via existential-celestial)

[ossuariies]

Madness and witchery… are conditions commonly associated with the use of the female voice in public, in ancient as well as modern contexts. Consider how many female celebrities of classical mythology, literature and cult make themselves objectionable by the way they use their voice. For example there is the heartchilling groan of the Gorgon, whose name is derived from a Sanskrit word garg meaning “a guttural animal howl that issues as a great wind from the back of the throat through a hugely distended mouth.” There are the Furies whose highpitched and horrendous voices are compared by Aiskhylos to howling dogs or sounds of people being tortured in hell. There is the deadly voice of the Sirens and the dangerous ventriloquism of Helen and the incredible babbling of Kassandra and the fearsome hullabaloo of Artemis as she charges through the woods. There is the seductive discourse of Aphrodite which is so concrete an aspect of her power that she can wear it on her belt as a physical object or lend it to other women. There is the old woman of Eleusinian legend Iambe who shrieks and throws her skirt up over her head to expose her genitalia. There is the haunting garrulity of the nymph Echo (daughter of Iambe in Athenian legend) who is described by Sophokles as “the girl with no door on her mouth.” Putting a door on the female mouth as been an important project of patriarchal culture from antiquity to present day. Its chief tactic is an ideological association of female sound with monstrosity, disorder and death.

The Gender of Sound, Anne Carson (via hagiographiies)

[digitalsnail]

lunar tango

[writingdotcoffee]

“A story should entertain the writer, too.”

— Stephen King

[mystical-knight-dragon]

I used to think it was a “bad habit” to write what I’d want to read. It’s hammered into your skull to write “with your audience in mind.” Let me tell you, I’ve had much more success with the stories I write for myself–because I’m genuinely enjoying what I’m writing, and the audience can tell.

[feral-ballad]

The full moon is light insomnia: numb and drowsy like after love. And I had decided to go to sleep so I could dream,

Clarice Lispector, tr. by Stefan Tobler, from Água Viva

[antigonick]

I flipped through the pages—when you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.

Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian (via antigonick)

[theafictionado]

There are characters you like but then there are characters you end up thinking about in the middle of the night with a cosmic ache in your chest because they resonate with you so much

[yuyuuyuyuu-deactivated20230726]

“ur so chill” thanks i am completely disconnected from reality right now

[alanturng]

solar eclipse moving toward totality, with a pink filter, captured from the natgeo livestream

[existential-celestial]

“Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like a night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”

— C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

[binghsien]

more stuff in the style of literarystarbucks

Hikaru Genji goes up to the counter and orders a lavender mocha. Nine months later, the barista gives birth to a son.

[unsnarled]

Mother, mother, I’ve got the blues again. Forget-me-nots / are spilling out of me and flooding the roads outside. / I take a rowboat along the streets to buy some bread and everybody avoids my eyes. / I am suffocating this town. / I read a story about a man so cold he ate the sun. / The petals outside make me shiver. The sky is covered in them now, too, and threatens to fall. / Mom, I don’t want to drown. I’m sorry I keep writing like this. / Will you cradle me until the sun comes back to dry the ground? / Until I’m ready to grow again?

I’m sad, mom, but I can only write about it

[slideofthetimes]

June 1969 // landscape // Pacific Northwest