In the darkness of the winter, in the light of lamps there shine the art deco lineaments of the accordion: its shape and decorations, its curves and diamonds, its modernity and luxury, its simplicity and ornamentation. It is like those times: the lavish life of the 19th century and the streamlining effect of mechanization. On [...]
All posts for the month November, 2008
Two Rays of Light
Posted by unknowing on November 29, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/two-rays-of-light/
In the Beginning Is Our End
The things we were thinking of doing at some point and time and never did we still remember when we mention them in passing, some days. And then we think of them perhaps, or perhaps we think about how there are such things as the things we were thinking of doing and, of course, no [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 27, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/in-the-beginning-is-our-end/
Intended for Distribution for the Dissemination of Knowlitge
I have completed my researches and I think I have all the right fonts, so if you would like to pass this on to curious persons that you know who are of the temperament and inclination conducive to learning worthwhile things, feel free. How the Accordion Came to Man: A Story without Quotation Marks.
Posted by unknowing on November 26, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/intended-for-distribution-for-the-dissemination-of-knowlitge/
Useful Quotation Found on a Blog
“A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 26, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/useful-quotation-found-on-a-blog/
Some Fish
Prefacing the section of the complex that traffics in the density of bones, of living bones, where I was waiting is an awaiting room with an aquarium and with no TV. I was sitting by the tank since it appeared away, out of the way, and planning to delight myself by reading, but the fish [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 25, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/some-fish/
Eureka
N. Gogol
Posted by unknowing on November 24, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/eureka/
Words, Words, Words
While Dissidens in Texas is posting songs of Autumn, here in Minnesota we know Autumn only as that which has most recently and definitely gone out of style. The days of three hour walking are under threat as winter starts to grip us like ice on all our waters. And yet not quite like ice [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 24, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/words-words-words/
My Kind of Post
Ten Random, Politically-incorrect Thoughts by Victor Davis Hanson
Posted by unknowing on November 23, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/my-kind-of-post/
A Letter from Prison
Conrad Black is in jail and has some things to say about the US justice system.
Posted by unknowing on November 22, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/a-letter-from-prison/
The Draft Horse
With a lantern that wouldn’t burn In too frail a buggy we drove Behind too heavy a horse Through a pitch-dark limitless grove. And a man came out of the trees And took our horse by the head And reaching back to his ribs Deliberately stabbed him dead. The ponderous beast went down With a [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 22, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/the-draft-horse/
If You Have a Large Monitor
And even if you don’t, you might enjoy some of the photography from this site on your desktop (and there are things there you might not enjoy . . . but then again, perhaps you will, such as the body builders, or better yet, the body building women). Lakes – Alpine Lake for instance, Chapel [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 21, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/if-you-have-a-large-monitor/
The Creaking of the Ice
On this night in which the cold comes down upon our city, when the lights all glitter in the darkness we renewed our friendship with the Institute of Arts. The Institute of Arts, my friends, is endless. It seems a thing for winter too, that large, bright, dark and varied treasure house. A cluttered shop [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 20, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/the-creaking-of-the-ice/
Glad Times
Winter is here. I started a story on Saturday evening and ended it this morning. Thinking about the story early on Monday morning (1AM) I was depressed by it. I had written half of it on Saturday evening in a fit of glee, and Monday morning it was stupid. Monday night I was feeling the [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 18, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/glad-times/
The Underworld
The winter sunlight shows the curled and rootless leaves scattered by the exhaust from the bus: exhausted leaves, forsooth! Mysterious music on the radio sounds, feeding this nostalgia that shines like candles in my midnights, my developing nostalgia for the 20th century working backwards into regions I thought once were dank and dark, in which [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 17, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/the-underworld/
Little Exercise, by Elizabeth Bishop
For Thomas Edwards Wanning Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily like a dog looking for a place to sleep in, listen to it growling. Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys lying out there unresponsive to the lightning in dark, coarse-fibred families, where occasionally a heron may undo his head, shake [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 17, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/little-exercise-by-elizabeth-bishop/
Winter Meditations of the Unexamined Life
I wonder why the ducks haven’t gone yet. How cold does it have to be for them? The swallows are gone. The turtles and the carp are nowhere to be seen. No more crickets or bugs making loud the underbrush; not much underbrush, come to think of it. Shingle Creek is very clear, you can [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 15, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/winter-meditations-of-the-unexamined-life/
The Three Sailors’ Gambit
I aint no hand at chess as I am no hand at games in general, and I suspect it of being mathematical and I am no hand at such things, especially music, though I think the pieces can be elegant if the board is rather abstract. But this is a good little tale by Lord [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 13, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/the-three-sailors-gambit/
Of Bibliophilia and Biblioclasm
Theodore Dalyrmple is much in demand. He is published in The New Criterion, in the City Journal and, of course, in the New English Review with which he appears to have a special connection, and probably in other equally fine places. His books come out rather frequently it seems. I was recently surprised to hear [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 12, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/of-bibliophilia-and-biblioclasm/
A Day for Looking Down
A day for looking down, not up. A damp day and with cold that the bones know. A day for meek geese pecking at the lawn and glancing around but not above. Above, the gaze swims in an evasive sky which is all light without distinction, with varieties one cannot seem to see; a sound [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 12, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/a-day-for-looking-down/
Some Discretion
In an effort to reduce the number of volumes around here (from 1000 to 300 is the goal) that I am unlikely ever to consult again (one never knows, but the thing is, one never really knows and how can one go on that?) I have been walking into Half-Wit with five or six books [...]
Posted by unknowing on November 11, 2008
http://unknowing.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/some-discretion/
For He willeth we know that the least thing shall not be forgotten
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The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works
Preparation of heart is the unlearning the prejudices of evil converse
If we cannot write with the beauty of Mozart, let us at least try to write with his purity
