意向

David Ferry在Slate的一首詩”The Intention of Things”:

The death that lives in the intention of things
To have a meaning of some sort or other,

That means to come to something in the end,
It is the death that lives not finding the meaning

Of this or that object as it moves among them
Uncertainly, moving among the shadows,

The things that are like shadows, shadows of things,
The things the shadows of shadows, all in the effort

To put off the death that we are coming to.
The intention makes its way among its moments,

Choosing this object or that, uncertainly,
Somebody’s cock or cunt, or the leaves of a tree

On a summer night in a landscape somewhere else,
Under which something happened that made it different;

It is seeking to find the meaning of what they are.
But it moves uncertainly among them, the shadows,

The things that are like shadows, putting off
The death that is coming, that we are coming to.

It is the death that lives that makes the flower
Be what’s it’s going to be and makes it die,

And makes the musical phrase complete itself,
Or fail to complete itself, as Goethe said,

Writing a friend whose son had died in the Army:
“So you have had another terrible trial.

It’s still, alas, the same old story: to live
Long is to outlive many; and after all,

We don’t even know, then, what it was all about.
The answer to part of the riddle is, we each

Have something peculiarly our own, that we
Mean to develop by letting it take its course.

This strange thing cheats us from day to day, and so
We grow old without knowing how it happened or why.”

It is the death that lives in the intention of things
To have a meaning of some sort or other;

Implacable, bewildered, it moves among us
Seeking its own completion, still seeking to do so,

But also putting it off, oh putting it off,
The death that is coming, that we are coming to.

還是第一次聽詩人讀詩.

P

“群雄”

赤壁 Trailer

(3 min)

總統競選連任提出新能源的政策, 但他反對動阿拉斯加地下的石油 (民主黨嘛). 他先由動詞字眼入手: 有關石油的事不會用explore這個字的, 麥哲倫才是explore. 石油是drill的. 這樣說來真的中性一點. (The West Wing, S3 Ep17)

“一定要掃蕩群雄”?

討厭劉備, 討厭他打著皇叔旗號招搖撞騙; 討厭孫權, 討厭他身為忠臣之後據地稱霸. “群雄”? Are you kidding me? 私下煮酒說甚麼是一回事, 誓師的speech不是賈詡就是荀彧寫的吧.

傳說美國人不懂看文戲. 不知他們有沒有聽過一套電視劇叫The West Wing, 集集talk and walk做足七季. 問題是編劇懂不懂得寫, 而且字字斟酌. (學下CJ!)

出師有名. 如果曹操說中文, 很簡單, 他一定會叫他們做: ”賊”. 正如之前朝廷稱呼黃巾; 正如共產黨國民黨稱呼對方.

“We are going to hunt the heroes,” 曹操說, 直譯的話… 真是的.

孫權劉備應該叫曹操做traitor; 曹操會叫他們做, um, terrorists.

P

日蝕

(Photo: David Gray/ Reuters/ NY Times)

居庸關的日全蝕.  NY Times說“rishi”的中文意思是”eaten sun”.  ai, 不知是中共字還是錯別字.

(Photo: Aly Song/ Reuters/ NY Times)
甘肅日蝕.

(Photo: Associated Press/ NY Times)
巴基斯坦Islamabad的grand Faisal mosque.

P

9 Crimes

(4 min)

Stanley慢慢穿過木無表情的眾人. 在看見他的妹Bonnie倒在血泊之前, 背景響起Damien Rice的9 Crimes. And is that alright, yeah? 當Bonnie轉身逃走時, 大家也以為她跟恐怖片的公式女角一樣. 誰知她進屋便橫起一支獵槍, 守在她哥未婚妻藏身的房間前. 貫徹了這TV drama: 美式小鎮的氣概.

P

生字

Gregory Cowles的讀者在他的blog留的flavor:

Callipygous: having finely formed buttocks
Eleemosynary: the giving of alms or charity

P

講書

那麼賣不成書也不要緊了. 寫美國總統史的Doris Kearns Goodwin一場演講酬金可以高達US$40,000, 有些季節可以有一星期一場. 她的其中一本書Team of Rivals有關林肯的政治手腕. 她跟NY Times說有時她會以這本書作商業教材, “there are lessons to be learned from his skills in dealing with people, putting rivals into his cabinet, that have implications for people in managerial terms.”

有些演講更加是寫作的良性循環. Lawrence Wright的The Looming Tower說是Al Qaeda的冒起. 他最近一場在開羅演講的Q&A吸收了不少寫作資料. “one of my best audiences was 3,000 marines at Camp Pendleton,” Wright說. “Of course, they were ordered to attend.” 不過, 他們的提問還是 “much more pointed and urgent than most of the questions I got on the road.”

P

雨天

(1)
Don Paterson在The New Yorker 的一首詩 “Rain”

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one long thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a rain-dark gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign,
and I’d read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood—
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

怎麼最後幾行要斜體?
怎讀也讀不明白.

(2)
沒有孫燕姿的孫燕姿MV

(5 min)

究竟是
你能體諒我有雨天
你能體諒, 因為我有雨天
你能體諒, 我有雨天
你能體諒: 我有雨天

楊宗緯的live

(6 min)

還是
你能體諒, 即使我有雨天
你能體諒, 不過我有雨天
你能體諒, 所以我有雨天
你能體諒. 我有雨天.
怎聽也聽不明白.

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絕色

起碼是第三次了, 我想.

百多頁的pdf也可以在mon上讀完, 偏偏每星期日讀他的一篇篇散文就魂遊四海. 可能是節奏問題: 突然間由browse mode轉成read mode. 只好買他談rare book包裝得像rare book的散文集. 我沒有像梁文道般的迷戀這疊dead tree, 而且不改browsing的速度, 只消兩回便讀完了.

不如寫點中文吧, 讀完之後我想. 數不清多少次了. 當年還是明窗為他出版”文字集”的. 今日還會一讀再讀的中文作家也只有他了.

寫甚麼也好, 寫點中文吧, 我想.

P

Joshua Radin’s The One You Knew

(4 min)

“You’d have faith,” Stone said. The bg music is exactly this one.

Pleasure and Comfort: The Allure of Chocolate

Feb 2007

(50 min)

Prof. Jordan Le Bel, School of Hotel Administration, presents:

Chocolate is king among comfort foods. Long interested in the relationship that people have with the foods they eat for comfort, Professor Le Bel will explore the history of chocolate consumption from its earliest roots among the Olmec Indians of Mexico to the current frenzy for all things chocolatey.