The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
 he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
 because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
 and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
 and read it to his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
 took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
 with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
 and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
 he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"
 because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
 and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
 because of its new paint
And the kids told him
 that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
 with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
 when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
 his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
 when he cried for him to do it.

Once on a paper torn from his notebook
 he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
 because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
 and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
 because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
 of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister
 making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
 or even talked
And the girl around the corner
 wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her
 but he kissed her anyway
 because that was the thing to do
And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed
 his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
 he tried another poem
And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
 and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
 because this time he didn't think
 he could reach the kitchen.

~Taken from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky 

Work isn't the word

“I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.”

― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution (via- TheIdealist)

Quotus memorabilus

"Sometimes you meet someone, and it’s so clear that the two of you, on some level belong together. As lovers, or as friends, or as family, or as something entirely different. You just work, whether you understand one another or you’re in love or you’re partners in crime. You meet these people throughout your life, out of nowhere, under the strangest circumstances, and they help you feel alive. I don’t know if that makes me believe in coincidence, or fate, or sheer blind luck, but it definitely makes me believe in something."

(Unknown) via - quozio.com 

Life, The Universe & Everything, By Douglas Adams

"The robots aren't enjoying it, sir."
"What?''
"The war, sir, it seems to be getting them down. There's a certain world-weariness about them, or perhaps I should say Universe-weariness.''
"Well, that's all right, they're meant to be helping to destroy it.''
"Yes, well they're finding it difficult, sir. They are afflicted with a certain lassitude. They're just finding it hard to get behind the job. They lack oomph.''
"What are you trying to say?''
"Well, I think they're very depressed about something, sir.''
"What on Krikkit are you talking about?''
"Well, in the few skirmishes they've had recently, it seems that they go into battle, raise their weapons to fire and suddenly think, why bother? What, cosmically speaking, is it all about? And they just seem to get a little tired and a little grim.''
"And then what do they do?''
"Er, quadratic equations mostly, sir. Fiendishly difficult ones by all accounts. And then they sulk.''
"Sulk?''
"Yes, sir.''
"Whoever heard of a robot sulking?''
"I don't know, sir.''
"What was that noise?''
It was the noise of Zaphod leaving with his head spinning.

 

I like you calm as if you were absent

Neruda is not a poet any more. He has become the permanent poster on the literature-world's page-3. He is like the minx shawl that everybody loves to flaunt, yet very few can afford. Economies of scale have forced an aura of affordability on him, he has entered via the route of liberalization, a luxury brand we take pride in saying is available next door. And by that, we, or at least a lot of us, seem to diminish him. He is mentioned much more than he is understood. He is invoked much more than he is truly appreciated. But then...

Neruda is the poet. He who always wrote in green ink. He didn't need the allegory. He was destined to be evergreen from the moment he wrote "Under your skin, the moon is alive.."  or even before that. I don't know which side of the previous paragraph I belong to. I guess I usually take solace in the fact that if I can keep looking at him thus mesmerized through the veils of translation, I'd have been much more taken without it.

I like you calm, as if you were absent,

and you hear me far-off, and my voice does not touch you.

It seems that your eyelids have taken to flying:

it seems that a kiss has sealed up your mouth.

Since all these things are filled with my spirit,

you come from things, filled with my spirit.

You appear as my soul, as the butterfly’s dreaming,

and you appear as Sadness’s word.

I like you calm, as if you were distant,

you are a moaning, a butterfly’s cooing.

You hear me far-off, my voice does not reach you.

Let me be calmed, then, calmed by your silence.

Let me commune, then, commune with your silence,

clear as a light, and pure as a ring.

You are like night, calmed, constellated.

Your silence is star-like, as distant, as true.

I like you calm, as if you were absent:

distant and saddened, as if you were dead.

One word at that moment, a smile, is sufficient.

And I thrill, then, I thrill: that it cannot be so. 

(Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto aka Pablo Neruda)

Quote of the Day

“We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’ And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” ― Terence McKenna

I DO I WILL I HAVE - Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash - what a brilliant satirist! Here's his fabulous take on marriage: :)

I DO, I WILL, I HAVE

How wise I am to have instructed the butler to instruct the
first footman to instruct the second footman to instruct
the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and
a woman who can't sleep with the window open.

Moreover just as I am unsure of the difference between flora
and fauna and flotsam and jetsam
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people one
of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never
forgetsam,

And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
window sill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all
right, it's only raining straight down.

That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.