Today, at a time of year when I spend too much time looking backward, a WORD ripe for rehabilitation.
WORK
"Try a first-person story and forget John Updike and Nadine Gordimer. Forget the results, the markets. Love only what you do, and make. Learn German. Don’t let indolence, the forerunner of death, take over. Enough has happened, enough people entered your life, to make stories, many stories, even a book. So let them onto the page and let them work out their destinies.
In the morning light, all is possible; even becoming a god."
—Sylvia Plath
—from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
WORD(S)
musard. noun. A dreamer, muser, vagabond, fool. From Middle French musard (fool, idler) and Modern French muser (to loiter, trifle). See also, of course, muse.
“Thou her watchest at the gate, With speare in thyn arest alway; There muse, musard, al the day.” (Romaunt Rose)
WEB
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Best book covers of the year roundup: Book Depository | Bookish | Bustle | BuzzFeed | The Casual Optimist | Co.DESIGN | FlavorWire | Houston Chronicle | Huffington Post | New York Times | Paste | PRINT | Read it Forward
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A complete (over 3 hours long) reading of Christopher Smart’s “Jubilate Agno”, an anaphoric (list) poem many have heard of because of the famous section about his cat Jeoffrey. A good track to listen to while working or for meditation.
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Rhodri Marsden attempts to answer the question “Why do we like making lists?”.
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Fascinating marginalia: Dostoevsky draws Shakespeare.
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Today in 1869, artist Henri Matisse, is born. Best known for his paintings, Matisse was also an expressive sculptor and a fantastic cut-out artist.
“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.” (Henri Matisse)
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
- Reader W. writes: “Thank you for the introduction to Tomaž Šalamun. Late, for me, but never too late.”
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