josh blog

Ordinary language is all right.

One could divide humanity into two classes:
those who master a metaphor, and those who hold by a formula.
Those with a bent for both are too few, they do not comprise a class.

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23 Mar '16 06:45:15 AM

I went to the store last week and bought things I needed, but as I was leaving I felt unsatisfied. So I bought a little bowl.

I set it on a shelf and now I look at it and think, hey, look at that bowl.

I couldn't tell you what will happen next.

23 Mar '16 02:38:24 AM

'Здравствуй! Легкий шелест слышишь
Справа от стола?
Этих строчек не допишешь -
Я к тебе пришла.
Неужели ты обидишь
Так, как в прошлый раз,-
Говоришь, что рук не видишь,
Рук моих и глаз.
У тебя светло и просто.
Не гони меня туда,
Где под душным сводом моста
Стынет грязная вода.'

21 Mar '16 08:24:04 PM

'And yet something about the word "betters" is at odds with the spirit of this film, which Kubrick concludes with this epilogue: "It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now." They are all equal in death; and more importantly, they have all been equalized by the camera. Some of the characters in Barry Lyndon are objectionable. We can say that Quin is smug and cowardly, that Runt is a bloodless toady, that Mrs. Barry is harsh and insensitive; but the experience of the film makes any such judgments sound lame. The film transforms life into something arrestingly unfamiliar. We watch it with curiosity and care, until we sense the inexhaustible nuances of every image and encounter. Barry Lyndon incites us to tolerance by preserving the full integrity of experience, which is always more truthful than the conclusions it inspires. We learn to disregard authority and see for ourselves.'

21 Mar '16 01:57:46 AM

I'm not sure whether the years do.

21 Mar '16 01:57:04 AM

Although the street doesn't go through.

21 Mar '16 01:56:24 AM

But further down.

21 Mar '16 01:55:55 AM

I mean, I do again. I did, then didn't, now do again.

21 Mar '16 01:54:59 AM

I still do. Live on it. The street.

21 Mar '16 01:53:58 AM

Me, to self, walking in the dark down the street I used to live on, coming up to the building where there was a girl who would sunbathe in the front yard:

— I wonder if she…

— Well, it has been fourteen years…