Seasons II

By AntichristSuperstar

Winter: My Secret

Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.
(...)
Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.
- Christina Rossetti

• Winter - Tori Amos
• Summer Breeze - Selas and Crofts

Seasons

by Betty

Summer is Ended (I)

Summer is Ended
To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose,
Scentless, colourless, this!
Will it ever be thus (who knows ?)
Thus with our bliss, If we wait till the close?
Tho' we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.

(II)
Wreathe no more lillies in my hair,
For I am dying, Sister sweet:
Or, if you will for the last time
Indeed, why make me fair
Once for my winding sheet.
(...)

- Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

• Winter - Rolling Stones
• Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

Fade into you

I wonder how many people remember Mazzy Star with their hit Fade Into You. Or more like Fade Into Obscurity as more and more of the 90s bands are doing. I remembered it suddenly two nights ago. Not only is this song so very lovely and nostalgic but it has such a great video and the sort of poorly written Cranberries-ish lyrics that can make a lot of sense in its non-clarity.

• Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

Ageless Lolita

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.

My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.

- Humbert's poem (from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov)

Nabokov's beautiful, disturbing work stands as one of the most impressive displays of language in American literature, as well as an awesome dissection of the complex anatomy of love. The sheer joy of its sentences, the nuance of its evocations, are certainly the main reasons it has endured and why it seems assured of a readership another 50 years from now. But it is worth exploring another aspect of that masterpiece, a moral examination that would have prompted Nabokov, who championed aesthetics above all, to incinerate with a laser glare any fool who poked round such a topic. (...)

(there is an article here that Blogger won't show, for whatever reason. Click on the line to see the article.)

- From: San Francisco Chronicle

I would really like to get my hands on Kubric's 1962 adaptation of Lolita. The best I could do for now is the 1997 re-make which I enjoy even though Lo is too old.

Way across some cold neurotic sea

by Chix0r

You were my mad little lover
In a world where everybody fucks everybody else over
You who are so far from me
Way across some cold neurotic sea
Far from me

There is no knowledge but I know it
There's nothing to learn from that vacant voice
That sails to me across the line
From the ridiculous to the sublime
It's good to hear you're doing so well
But really can't you find somebody else
That you can ring and tell?
Did you ever care for me?
Were you ever there for me?
So far from me

• So Far From Me - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Drown - The Smashing Pumpkins
• So Far Away - Dire Straits

because tomorrow you may have become pure light

by Masha

"Love generally but do not commit yourself to a particular love. You will become
known as sympathetic friend and faithful lover because you never really permit
these roles to seize your heart, you can practice and perfect them. But the
heart is guarded, kept free and untarnished by any simple human affiliation so
that it will reflect in glorious accuracy all the charts of the stars which the
clouds one day will part to reveal. The important thing is not to approach
anyone too close because tomorrow you may have become pure light."
-Leonard Cohen

• New Age - Tori Amos (A Velver Underground cover)
• When the Day is Short - Martha Wainwright

More on Mrs. Parker

I finally tracked down Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle which isn't very easy to gain access to, it being an obscure choice today. I'm not sure I loved Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dottie but it captured the 20s and the blues quite nicely. Anything set in the 20s is fun, and if you're a fan of Dorothy Parker then you really must find this film and watch it.

• Dorothy Parker Blue - Real Tuesday Weld

I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
Dorothy Parker, Here Lies (1939), "The Little Hours"