R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 127

A "Clip": Graham Greene's "Quiet American"

Unfortunately Kindle erases the breaks. Oh, well ...

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We played for the division of matches and then the real game started. It was uncanny how quickly Vigot threw a four-two-one. He reduced his matches to three and I threw the lowest score possible. ‘Nanette,’ Vigot said, pushing me over two matches. When he had got rid of his last match he said, ‘Capitaine,’ and I called the waiter for drinks. ‘Does anybody ever beat you?’ I asked. ‘Not often. Do you want your revenge?’ ‘Another time. What a gambler you could be, Vigot. Do you play any other game of chance?’ He smiled miserably, and for some reason I thought of that blonde wife of his who was said to betray him with his junior officers. ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘there’s always the biggest of all.’ ‘The biggest?’ ‘“Let us weigh the gain and loss,”’ he quoted, ‘“in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing.”’ I quoted Pascal back at him—it was the only passage I remembered. ‘“Both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault. They are both in the wrong. True course is not to wager at all.”’ ‘“Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked.” You don’t follow your own principles, Fowler. You’re engagé, like the rest of us.’ ‘Not in religion.’ ‘I wasn’t talking about religion. As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I was thinking about Pyle’s dog.’

Michigan Goodbye: Downtown Detroit

Michigan Goodbye: O Young Buck

Baudelaire's Poem: "Invitation to The Voyage"

L'invitation au voyage

Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l'ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l'âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l'humeur est vagabonde;
C'est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu'ils viennent du bout du monde.
— Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D'hyacinthe et d'or;
Le monde s'endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

— Charles Baudelaire

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Invitation to the Voyage

My child, my sister,
Think of the rapture
Of living together there!
Of loving at will,
Of loving till death,
In the land that is like you!
The misty sunlight
Of those cloudy skies
Has for my spirit the charms,
So mysterious,
Of your treacherous eyes,
Shining brightly through their tears.
There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.
Gleaming furniture,
Polished by the years,
Will ornament our bedroom;
The rarest flowers
Mingling their fragrance
With the faint scent of amber,
The ornate ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The oriental splendor,
All would whisper there
Secretly to the soul
In its soft, native language.
There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.
See on the canals
Those vessels sleeping.
Their mood is adventurous;
It's to satisfy
Your slightest desire
That they come from the ends of the earth.
— The setting suns
Adorn the fields,
The canals, the whole city,
With hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep
In a warm glow of light.
There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

 

Graham Greene's "The Quiet American"

Started dipping into it just this morning. A friend told me it was a pretty good read. Graham Greene (IMHO) always feels like he's writing for the silver screen. Not necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, the beginning -- slants on love, opium, political intrigue, Baudelaire -- have piqued my interest. We' ll see how that goes.

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The snippet from The Quiet American:

‘Don’t worry. He’ll come. Make me another pipe.’ When she bent over the flame the poem of Baudelaire’s came into my mind: ‘Mon enfant, ma soeur …’ How did it go on? Aimer à loisir, Aimer et mourir Au pays qui te ressemble.

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A Short Walk around A-squared

Gallup Park (Ann Arbor)

Last day of PLTW. Different venue for the final send-off: Huron High School (The River Rats). Stopped at Gallup Park (stumbled onto) around sunrise for a short walk. Back to CA and Long Beach either Tuesday or Wednesday. School starts Aug. 13th.

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EMU + Two Michigan Sunrises

PLTW. I'm pretty good at the math (that's what I've been doing for 28 years), but I thus far suck at the nuts, bolts, and wires. I.e., there's room for growth.

I get to the Bucks on Zeeb Road between 5:30 and 6. Coffee and a walk around the Meijer's (not to be confused with Fred Meyer's). Then off to school. At lunch I have a usual walk, but occasionally I venture out. And I dip into Forster sporadically.

One day I walked in a wonderful summer rain.

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Two Poems Every Child (Past the Age of 18) Should Read

The first is a poem fragment (from Shelley's Epipsychidion) I picked up from reading E M Forster's The Longest Journey. Perhaps I'm not "forcing on it" the exact same thoughts that Shelley or Forster did, but I nevertheless find something that says "Carve out a Spiritual Life for Yourself." 

Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dareThe second is a silly/serious poem from Philip Larkin. Again, I may have a slightly different understanding than Larkin himself had. But that's OK.


This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

""Clip" from Forster's Longest Journey

Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his union should have been emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway of the world and fears, like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment for granted. But as the term passed he knew that behind the yearning there remained a yearning, behind the drawn veil a veil that he could not draw. His wedding had been no mighty landmark: he would often wonder whether such and such a speech or incident came after it or before. Since that meeting in the Soho restaurant there had been so much to do — clothes to buy, presents to thank for, a brief visit to a Training College, a honeymoon as brief. In such a bustle, what spiritual union could take place? Surely the dust would settle soon: in Italy, at Easter, he might perceive the infinities of love. But love had shown him its infinities already. Neither by marriage nor by any other device can men insure themselves a vision; and Rickie’s had been granted him three years before, when he had seen his wife and a dead man clasped in each other’s arms. She was never to be so real to him again.