calamity ondine and aries the kid

snippets xi-iii

...the collective burden of seven billion cannot be taken on en masse by any individual -- save a few incredible beings of light...

- Mark Morford, SF Gate
Ask me about my agony and despair!

What the heck, I'm overdue for a career change.

whatcha reading xvi

"Thokoza khehla," I say in greeting to the spirits, more out of some residual deference to my mother than anything I might feel myself.

"Thokoza," Dumisani replies and sneezes several times. "My dlozi has told me about you." He waggles his cellphone, a brand new iPhone, significantly. "He tells me you do not want to be here."

"I didn't know the ancestors were SMSing now."

"No, he calls me. The spirits find it easier with technology. It's not so clogged as human minds." He taps his head for emphasis. "They still like rivers and oceans most of all, but data is like water - the spirits can move through it. That's why you get a prickly feeling around cellphone towers."

"And here I thought it was the radiation." I know I'm being disrespectful, but I can't resist. "So is there a spiritworld MTN? What are the tariffs like? I bet you get a lot of 'please calls me's'."

"Hayibo, sisi. So cynical and you with a shavi. What would your mother say?"

- Zoo City, Lauren Beukes

This novel has an interesting premise, but overall I found it bleak and dispiriting.

survival

Go look at (and read) the gallery 'We were made the same as the sand'.

dinner bell

whatcha reading xv

I am not jealous of the saints, or of the martyrs, or of the blessed, or even of the seraphim. The greater I picture to myself to be the love of God for his creatures, and the graces and gifts he bestows upon them, the less am I troubled by jealousy; the more I love him, the nearer to me do I feel him to be, and the more loving and gracious does he seem toward me. My brotherhood, my more than brotherhood with all creatures, stands forth in a pleasing light. It seems to me that I am one with all things, and that all things are bound together in the bonds of love...

...

What! are the favors of Heaven thus obtained all at once? Is it only necessary to present one's self in order to triumph? A friend of mine, a naval officer, used to relate that, when he was in certain cities of America, being then very young, he sought to gain favor with the ladies with too much precipitation, and that they would say to him in their languid American accent: 'You have but just presented yourself, and you already want to be loved. Do something to deserve it, if you are able.' If these ladies answered thus, what answer will not Heaven give to those who hope to gain it without merit, and in the twinkling of an eye? Many efforts must be made, much purification is needed, much penance must be done, in order to begin to stand well in the sight of God, and to enjoy his favors. Even in those vain and false philosophies that have in them anything of mysticism, no supernatural gift or grace is received without a powerful effort and a costly sacrifice.

- Pepita Ximenez, Juan Valera

This is a great book. A++. (The Project Gutenberg version has very few errors - somebody took a lot of care with this one!)

vi-v-xi

backyard camping, then a hike

Slept in the tent in the backyard again last night. Woke with a gasp at 4:00 a.m., in a sweat. I'd been having a nightmare. Not sure if it was a fever dream (the humidity climbs into the 80 percent range at night these days) or the Ben and Jerry's I'd had earlier, but yuck. I considered giving up and going back indoors but I stuck it out. I woke feeling pretty good at 7:00 a.m. when Ondine stomped on my head through the tent wall. (That's two weeks in a row.) After I broke camp we drove to the river and hiked up a dry creekbed, one of the river's feeders. There was still a little water left near where it joins the river, but it's bone dry upstream.

ferns

vi-iv-ix

whatcha reading xiv

We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that "still small" voice. What might it say?

Might it ask us to change?

- The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything, James Martin, SJ

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -
Christ - for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, quoted in the Guide

snippets xi-ii

I remember once, when we were in Austin...this interviewer asked me, "What is the future of rock?" And I said, "Sculpture."

- Patti Smith Interviewed by Thurston Moore (via longform.org).