May. 1st, 2012

Historians

May. 1st, 2012 09:00 am
monk222: (Default)
“History is not fascinating, and indeed has no reason for being, until some supremely great poetic liar—a Shakespeare, a Hugo, or a Dumas—recreates it for us; or until some seer blows into its body a fictitious soul which he calls a philosophic theory. The historian must have a migratory imagination. He puts clothes on ghosts. He is the tailor of dead men. The past is his clinic and he demonstrates over his own Frankensteins.”

-- Benjamin De Casseres, "History"

Historians

May. 1st, 2012 09:00 am
monk222: (Default)
“History is not fascinating, and indeed has no reason for being, until some supremely great poetic liar—a Shakespeare, a Hugo, or a Dumas—recreates it for us; or until some seer blows into its body a fictitious soul which he calls a philosophic theory. The historian must have a migratory imagination. He puts clothes on ghosts. He is the tailor of dead men. The past is his clinic and he demonstrates over his own Frankensteins.”

-- Benjamin De Casseres, "History"
monk222: (Mori: by tiger_ace)
“Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there’s only death.”

-- Michel Houellebecq, "The Elementary Particles (2001)"

Sure, sometimes you just have to cry, or fall into a nadir of despair and depression. But humor and irony can help one to make the most of what we have to face. Of course, there is no answer that will allow one to skate blissfully through life. Life is obviously more than that.
monk222: (Mori: by tiger_ace)
“Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there’s only death.”

-- Michel Houellebecq, "The Elementary Particles (2001)"

Sure, sometimes you just have to cry, or fall into a nadir of despair and depression. But humor and irony can help one to make the most of what we have to face. Of course, there is no answer that will allow one to skate blissfully through life. Life is obviously more than that.
monk222: (Christmas)
We have finally gone through Casanova's own personal preface, and we take up chapter one of the memoirs, which is about his family pedigree and childhood.

Of course, it is only appropriate that Casanova’s life should spring from wild, romantic, passionate beginnings. His father, Gaetan-Joseph-Jacques, was a dancer and then an actor, and it is about him that Casanova is writing.

_ _ _

Whether from fickleness or from jealousy, he abandoned the Fragoletta, and joined in Venice a troupe of comedians then giving performances at the Saint-Samuel Theatre. Opposite the house in which he had taken his lodgings resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome Farusi, with his wife Marzia, and Zanetta, their only daughter - a perfect beauty sixteen years of age. The young actor fell in love with this girl, succeeded in gaining her affection, and in obtaining her consent to a runaway match. It was the only way to win her, for, being an actor, he never could have had Marzia’s consent, still less Jerome’s, as in their eyes a player was a most awful individual.

The young lovers, provided with the necessary certificates and accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves before the Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage ceremony. Marzia, Zanetta’s mother, indulged in a good deal of exclamation, and the father died broken hearted.

I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs
monk222: (Christmas)
We have finally gone through Casanova's own personal preface, and we take up chapter one of the memoirs, which is about his family pedigree and childhood.

Of course, it is only appropriate that Casanova’s life should spring from wild, romantic, passionate beginnings. His father, Gaetan-Joseph-Jacques, was a dancer and then an actor, and it is about him that Casanova is writing.

_ _ _

Whether from fickleness or from jealousy, he abandoned the Fragoletta, and joined in Venice a troupe of comedians then giving performances at the Saint-Samuel Theatre. Opposite the house in which he had taken his lodgings resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome Farusi, with his wife Marzia, and Zanetta, their only daughter - a perfect beauty sixteen years of age. The young actor fell in love with this girl, succeeded in gaining her affection, and in obtaining her consent to a runaway match. It was the only way to win her, for, being an actor, he never could have had Marzia’s consent, still less Jerome’s, as in their eyes a player was a most awful individual.

The young lovers, provided with the necessary certificates and accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves before the Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage ceremony. Marzia, Zanetta’s mother, indulged in a good deal of exclamation, and the father died broken hearted.

I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

Boy-Speak

May. 1st, 2012 09:00 pm
monk222: (Noir Detective)
He was my “friend.” He knew I was lonely and didn’t have anyone at school I was close to, that I was desperate for attention. He spent months buying me lunch, taking me to the movies, until one day he invited me over to his house to “watch a movie.” I should have known what that meant in boy-speak. He told me it would feel good, that the girls he’d dated said it did. I never said yes, but I never outright said no. I felt like I couldn’t.

-- Survivor Stories

Boy-Speak

May. 1st, 2012 09:00 pm
monk222: (Noir Detective)
He was my “friend.” He knew I was lonely and didn’t have anyone at school I was close to, that I was desperate for attention. He spent months buying me lunch, taking me to the movies, until one day he invited me over to his house to “watch a movie.” I should have known what that meant in boy-speak. He told me it would feel good, that the girls he’d dated said it did. I never said yes, but I never outright said no. I felt like I couldn’t.

-- Survivor Stories

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