All the world's asleep, drifting to the sea
Actually the all-afternoon rehearsal wiped me out for the evening and I fell asleep on the couch while trying to write and had nightmares with sleep paralysis and am now awake at a counterproductive hour, so outside of music today really feels like a scratch. I tried to stave off a spiral by reading the internet for distraction and instead this development in the saga of Amanda Palmer vs. the Guardian set off the landmine in my head about the ex-partner who thought they could bully me into loving them and tried for several years to do so. I know a lot of my landmines are close to the surface right now, but I didn't need an extra reason to feel terrible, you know? On the bright side, the otherwise predictably appalling news of Ivanka's misattributed paraphrase gave me an excuse to yell to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch, "ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE SAYS SOMETHING IN FRENCH THAT NONE OF US CAN TRANSLATE."
The other night I was rewatching The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), a movie I still love in parts even though a lot of the rest does not really work for me. The part I love most is still the frame-story fiction I remembered from childhood, especially Laurence Harvey cast against type as an A-number-one luftmensch, the dreamer who can never quite stick to his dull vital job, irresponsible with everything but a story. Karlheinz Böhm was playing the grammar nerd, but his charming disaster of a brother was the one who stayed with me. I assume he told me something important, like a love of stories being not just a valid but a noble calling, worth staying alive for in the face of hard luck and self-inflicted catastrophe. That may be true enough, but it struck me suddenly that I am not that sort of person at all. I have been demonstrably for years the kind of person who can hold down a job and support a household despite adverse circumstances and precipitous health (and the constant fear that my health will crash so badly that I'll lose everything, like I did once before). I don't think I have a knack for it. Does anyone? But it had to be done, so I burnt up a lot of the rest of myself to do it, and here we are. Naturally I resent it in the extreme. If left to myself in anything resembling a state of stability I would write a lot more.
Courtesy ofhandful_ofdust: a fourth-century BCE mirror from the Bosporan Kingdom featuring Skylla in battle. I like that sort of thing.
spatch, "ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE SAYS SOMETHING IN FRENCH THAT NONE OF US CAN TRANSLATE."The other night I was rewatching The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), a movie I still love in parts even though a lot of the rest does not really work for me. The part I love most is still the frame-story fiction I remembered from childhood, especially Laurence Harvey cast against type as an A-number-one luftmensch, the dreamer who can never quite stick to his dull vital job, irresponsible with everything but a story. Karlheinz Böhm was playing the grammar nerd, but his charming disaster of a brother was the one who stayed with me. I assume he told me something important, like a love of stories being not just a valid but a noble calling, worth staying alive for in the face of hard luck and self-inflicted catastrophe. That may be true enough, but it struck me suddenly that I am not that sort of person at all. I have been demonstrably for years the kind of person who can hold down a job and support a household despite adverse circumstances and precipitous health (and the constant fear that my health will crash so badly that I'll lose everything, like I did once before). I don't think I have a knack for it. Does anyone? But it had to be done, so I burnt up a lot of the rest of myself to do it, and here we are. Naturally I resent it in the extreme. If left to myself in anything resembling a state of stability I would write a lot more.
Courtesy of
handful_ofdust: a fourth-century BCE mirror from the Bosporan Kingdom featuring Skylla in battle. I like that sort of thing.
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Thank you.
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People: So, Jacob (that would be the Karlheinz Böhm brother) is a bit, err, fanatic about books, and very sharp tongued, Wilhelm, isn't he? Does he love anyone?
Wilhelm (aka Laurence Harvey): You misunderstand him. If our house burned down, Jacob would save me first, then his copy of the Edda.
Self, when reading through the correspondance containing this statement: Actually, you'd probably rely on your sister Lotte to kick you both out of the library, she was the practical one in that family.
Also, while no house burned down with Wilhelm inside it, the palace library of the princely residence in Kassel (aka Jacob's place of work back then) did while Kassel was under French rule and governed by Napoleon's little brother Jerome. And Jacob did not only run inside to save as many books as he could - the fire broke out in the middle of the night - but organized as many French soldiers as he could badger into it to save books and manuscripts as well (and not just other valuables). Jacob Grimm/Books = OTP.
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That is extremely relatable and I am glad to know it.
(As noted in my original review of this movie, biographical fidelity was only so-so on its list of priorities.)
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I doubt anyone has a knack for it, but life under capitalism makes it necessary for all too many people. (I was going to write "life makes it necessary," but that's not really accurate.)
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That sounds right to me. (And yes: there's no reason for life per se to do it to them. The way we live is not an unmarked state.)
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Speaking of music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AMMb9CiScI&feature=emb_logo
also, this generational picture: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/24/leonard-cohen-adam-thanks-for-the-dance-interview#img-2
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There was music! I just went into the rehearsal knowing I was exhausted and I came out the other side even more so.
also, this generational picture
That is an excellent picture. I'll listen to the music.
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TW needs a buddy for the holidays. I will see about ordering one of those African marsupial mine-proofing rats.
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HE COULD RIDE IT EVERYWHERE.
*hugs*
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As a bonus they, like TW, are fully nocturnal.
Autolycus and Hestia will be THRILLED.