my heart gets lost

Earlier today, on my timeline:

Words to live by. http://t.co/L76isdA9p9 via @youtube

— Kate W. (@historiated) June 20, 2015

It doesn't take much to send me down memory's rabbit holes. The dancing at the end of the Taylor Swift video reminded me of "Toi + Moi" ...

"Grégoire - Toi + Moi (My Major Company)" (Watch on YouTube)

... which in turn reminded me of Gregoire's "Ta Main," which, after all these years, I still find arresting. So much story within two people standing still for four minutes:

"Grégoire - Ta main (Clip Officiel)" (Watch on YouTube)

[English translation here

Swift's deliberately imperfect dancing also reminded me of Danse, with its take on the ballerina out of sync with the corps, the trader who at the start seems destined for corporate security... [lyrics]

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/390939.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

my heart gets lost

Earlier today, on my timeline:

Words to live by. http://t.co/L76isdA9p9 via @youtube

— Kate W. (@historiated) June 20, 2015

It doesn't take much to send me down memory's rabbit holes. The dancing at the end of the Taylor Swift video reminded me of "Toi + Moi" ...

"Grégoire - Toi + Moi (My Major Company)" (Watch on YouTube)

... which in turn reminded me of Gregoire's "Ta Main," which, after all these years, I still find arresting. So much story within two people standing still for four minutes:

"Grégoire - Ta main (Clip Officiel)" (Watch on YouTube)

[English translation here]

Swift's deliberately imperfect dancing also reminded me of Danse, with its take on the ballerina out of sync with the corps, the trader who at the start seems destined for corporate security... [lyrics]

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/390939.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

"A Letter to John Donne" [audio]

As I have indicated here before, C. H. Sisson's "Letter to John Donne" is a poem that is not in sync with my personal theology, and yet it grabs me by the collar whenever I revisit it. I happened to peer into my copy of Foster and Guthrie last night for something else, and ended up reading the Sisson aloud to myself.

And so, here is what a youngish Southern U.S. woman sounds like communing with the words of a Tory Anglican from a couple of generations ago:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0_yyKHZ5VqBdGQwUHFsQk9Ecm8/view?usp=sharing

And this link will take you to a recording by Sisson himself:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/c-h-sisson

(Both the reading and writing keep hopscotching up the to-do queue. Ars longa, verse the twenty-first...)

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/391225.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

someone / who knew how to look

[The subject line's from Rilke's "Turning Point," from the June 20 entry of A Year In Poetry (ed. Foster and Guthrie). The poem does nothing for me, actually, but years ago the anthology introduced me to C. H. Sisson's "Letter to John Donne," which I felt like reading aloud, to myself last night and into my microphone earlier today:

I am grateful particularly that you were not a saint
But extravagant whether in bed or in your shroud.
You would understand that in the presence of folly
I am not sanctified but angry.

The rest of my day has been more mellow. The Abbygator was delighted that I prepared baby bok choy for brunch, as she enjoys hoovering up the stubs. I followed the instructions at i am a food blog for preparing and baking the tofu, but instead of the honey garlic sauce, I stir-fried the bok choy with garlic, mirin, soy sauce, and scallions, to end up with this:



The crepe myrtles burst into bloom a few days ago. Some of the tomato vines were nosing near my French books for a couple of nights. Many of the other plantings have not panned out, but there is at last a French marigold blossom in sight (grown from seeds harvested last fall):



And blooms are emerging from the second generation of Christmas peppers (also from seeds I saved) as well:



And I'm hoping the cornflowers in the front yard do the self-seeding thing:



This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/108514.html.

someone / who knew how to look

The subject line's from Rilke's "Turning Point," from the June 20 entry of A Year In Poetry (ed. Foster and Guthrie). The poem does nothing for me, actually, but years ago the anthology introduced me to C. H. Sisson's "Letter to John Donne," which I felt like reading aloud, to myself last night and into my microphone earlier today:

I am grateful particularly that you were not a saint
But extravagant whether in bed or in your shroud.
You would understand that in the presence of folly
I am not sanctified but angry.

The rest of my day has been more mellow. The Abbygator was delighted that I prepared baby bok choy for brunch, as she enjoys hoovering up the stubs. I followed the instructions at i am a food blog for preparing and baking the tofu, but instead of the honey garlic sauce, I stir-fried the bok choy with garlic, mirin, soy sauce, and scallions, to end up with this:



The crepe myrtles burst into bloom a few days ago. Some of the tomato vines were nosing near my French books for a couple of nights. Many of the other plantings have not panned out, but there is at last a French marigold blossom in sight (grown from seeds harvested last fall):



And blooms are emerging from the second generation of Christmas peppers (also from seeds I saved) as well:



And I'm hoping the cornflowers in the front yard do the self-seeding thing:



This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/108514.html.