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July 27, 2006

the experience of great art

The experience of great art disturbs one like a deep anxiety for another, like a near escape from death, like a long anesthesia: it is a massive blow from which one recovers slowly and which leaves one changed in ways that only gradually come to light.

Jacques Barzan - The Use and Abuse of Art

Posted by amin at 5:02 PM

July 25, 2006

nine requisites for contented living

There are nine requisites for contented living:

HEALTH enough to make work a pleasure;
WEALTH enough to support your needs;
STRENGTH enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them;
GRACE enough to confess your sins and overcome them;
PATIENCE enough to toil until some good is accomplished;
CHARITY enough to see some good in your neighbor;
LOVE enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others;
FAITH enough to make real the things of God;
HOPE enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

Goethe

Posted by amin at 6:49 AM

July 17, 2006

famous blue raincoat

It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton street all through the evening.

I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?

Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You'd been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody's wife.

Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane's awake --

She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.

If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear

-- Sincerely, L. Cohen

Posted by amin at 3:59 PM

July 9, 2006

the greatest single creation of the human imagination

If there is no God, then God is incalculably the greatest single creation of the human imagination. No other creation of the imagination has been so fertile of ideas, so great an inspiration to philosophy, to literature, to painting, sculpture, architecture, and drama. So beside the idea of God, the most original inventions of mathematicians and the most unforgettable characters in drama are minor products of the imagination: Hamlet and the square root of minus one pale into insignificance by comparison.

Anthony Kenny - Faith and Reason

Posted by amin at 6:48 PM

July 5, 2006

as other men hurry to their mistress...

I go to my work as other men hurry to their mistress and when I stop, I take with me into the solitude of my home, or abroad when I go in search of distractions, a delightful memory that bears no relation to the lover's uneasy pleasure.

Eugene Delacroix

Posted by amin at 6:14 PM