Olbermann – Special Comment: Condoleezza Rice Goes too Far

This special comment by Keith Olbermann is brilliant. I think that we, as Americans, really need to understand how the country is going the wrong way with the wrong people in charge. I thought the 2006 elections settled it, but Bushco is doing everything it can it screw things up. How long till the next president?

Walcott goal VS Chelsea (25-2-2007, Carling Cup)

The boy gunners of Arsenal lost the Carling Cup to Chelski, but after seeing this goal, I feel good about the future.

Brazil 1970 World Cup

A Brazilian sunshine for cloudy, dreary, windy February.

Happy Birthday Wystan!

Today is the 100th birthday of the great Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden, but unfortunately he died in 1973. I very much like his poetry, but for some reason I have never gotten a good grasp of his work. However, I have very much enjoyed his translations of Norse poetry, for which he acted as a sort of Bifrost: a rainbow bridge between the primeval Norse to the primeval Modern. Of course, there were others who bridged these two cultures, but it was because of his translations that I grew more interested in the exotic North. Also Auden was key in securing Lord of the Rings some measure of critical success, while others may’ve dismissed Tolkien’s tales out of hand.

Сегодня день рождения прекрасный англо-американский поэт W.H. Auden, но к сожалению он умер в 1973-ом году. Никогда мне не понравился его стихи, но я люблю читать его переводы поэмы старих скандинавских поэтов. И я занимаюсь русский, потому что я читал скандинавских поэмы, я хотел читать больше о севере Европы. Также он любил романы Tolkienа. Без его, мы наверно не читаем «Властелин колец».

Here is a poem of his

In Memory of W. B. Yeats
by W. H. Auden
I He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. But in the importance and noise of to-morrow When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse, And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed, And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom, A few thousand will think of this day As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. II You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth. III Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate; Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.
From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

a tree

Copyright 2005 by Andrew Price, all rights reserved.

February 15

Today pitchers and catchers reported for spring training. Soon birds will sing, and the sun will shine.

Mariner Housewife is also excited about today.

Я Вас любил А.С. Пушкин

Я вас любил: любовь еще, быть можетВ душе моей угасла не совсем;Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,То робостью, то ревностью томим;Я вас любил так искренно, так нежно,Как дай вам бог любимой быть другим.

I loved you once: perhaps that love has yetTo die down thoroughly within my soul;But let it not dismay you any longer;I have no wish to cause you any sorrow.I loved you wordlessly, without a hope,By shyness tortured, or by jealousy.I loved you with such tenderness and candorAnd pray God grants you to be loved that way again.

(Translation from Ends to the Beginning)

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

If my current mood keeps up, I ‘ll post “The Flea.” I think this is the first V-Day that I’ve felt single. It’s alright; I’ll take your pity, but now for more morbid love interests is Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”

Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side.
Should’st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster then Empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast.
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv’d Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to durst;
And into ashes all my Lust.
The Grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning glew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow’r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

The Relic by John Donne

When my grave is broke up again

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn’d that woman head,

To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

Will he not let’us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their souls, at the last busy day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then he, that digs us up, will bring

Us to the bishop, and the king,

To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I

A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;

And since at such time miracles are sought,

I would have that age by this paper taught

What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First, we lov’d well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what we lov’d, nor why;

Difference of sex no more we knew

Than our guardian angels do;

Coming and going, we

Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;

Our hands ne’er touch’d the seals

Which nature, injur’d by late law, sets free;

These miracles we did, but now alas,

All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was.

Contest Update

The queen has sent me a very good list of names (though incomplete), so since there seems to be actual competition between the queen and … uh… I don’t know who else, I’ll announce what the prize will be.
The prize will be an Edge paper doll, which will be made by myself and will be playing a Gibson Explorer guitar. If that won’t make you more competitive, I don’t know what will.

Yes, the contest is still going on.