Englishness, n.

“I am writing … a short novel about a man who liked...

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 21:16:24 -0400

“I am writing … a short novel about a man who liked little girls—and it’s going to be called The Kingdom by the Sea…”
~Vladimir Nabokov to Edmund Wilson, letter, April 1947

The work expanded into Lolita during the next eight years, and was first published in Paris in 1955.

madebyabvh: Animated Dobrosav Bob Živković #14Frantic days of...

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 02:53:53 -0400

madebyabvh:

Animated Dobrosav Bob Živković #14

Frantic days of Discworld

Original illustation by Dobrosav Bob Živković

woodsmokeandpumpkins: In Marblehead, Massachusetts, just...

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 02:39:31 -0400

woodsmokeandpumpkins:

In Marblehead, Massachusetts, just southeast of Salem.

"What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than..."

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 02:05:42 -0400

““What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.”

- David Foster Wallace (via abrutalkind)

quote-book: — Brett Elizabeth Jenkins (via helplesslyamazed)

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 01:58:56 -0400

quote-book:

— Brett Elizabeth Jenkins (via helplesslyamazed)

This print and other lit-inspired fine art illustrations are...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:26:58 -0400

This print and other lit-inspired fine art illustrations are available from the artist’s store, Obvious State.

Ani DiFranco reads Judy Grahn’s poem “Detroit Annie,...

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:47:33 -0400

Ani DiFranco reads Judy Grahn’s poem “Detroit Annie, hitchhiking”:

Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken artery
and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat with great
dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances
off the end of it, simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very
cool and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she’s a fish, but they’re all
fools. She figured out that the only way
to keep from being frozen was to
stay in motion, and long ago converted
most of her flesh to liquid. Now when she
smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline, and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you don’t mind.
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine.

‎”Whereas the world is merely the fantasy through which...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:30:57 -0500

‎”Whereas the world is merely the fantasy through which thought sustains itself—‘reality,’ no doubt, must be understood as a grimace of the real.” - Lacan

"I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:41:36 -0500

“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.”

- Wislawa Szymborska

green man, n.

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:23:44 -0500

OED:

1. a. In outdoor shows, pageants, masques, etc.: a man dressed in greenery, representing a wild man of the woods or seasonal fertility.

1. b. A supernatural being connected with nature and fertility, and often viewed as a personification of the woodland or forest.

2. A raw recruit or inexperienced man; spec. (in fishing and whaling) a man who has not been to sea before.

Hey you, Pious Ejaculation!

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:47:35 -0500

Hey you, Pious Ejaculation!:

Puritan names for contemporary babes.

Skee-Lo meets Schoolhouse Rock on subjects and predicates.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:39:11 -0500

Skee-Lo meets Schoolhouse Rock on subjects and predicates.

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:23:42 -0500

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem...:

…you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

"He called her: golden dawn She called him: the wind whistles He called her: heart of the sky She..."

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:28:45 -0400

“

He called her: golden dawn
She called him: the wind whistles

He called her: heart of the sky
She called him: message bringer

He called her: mother of pearl
barley woman, rice provider,
millet basket, corn maid,
flax princess, all-maker, weef

She called him: fawn, roebuck,
stag, courage, thunderman,
all-in-green, mountain strider
keeper of forests, my-love-rides

He called her: the tree is
She called him: bird dancing

He called her: who stands,
has stood, will always stand
She called him: arriver

He called her: the heart and the womb
are similar
She called him: arrow in my heart.

”

- “Paris and Helen” by Judy Grahn

"Barefoot" by Anne Sexton

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:07:16 -0400

Loving me with my shows off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. Intricate nubs,
my toes. No longer bound.
And what’s more, see toenails and
all ten stages, root by root.
All spirited and wild, this little
piggy went to market and this little piggy
stayed. Long brown legs and long brown toes.
Further up, my darling, the woman
is calling her secrets, little houses,
little tongues that tell you.

There is no one else but us
in this house on the land spit.
The sea wears a bell in its navel.
And I’m your barefoot wench for a
whole week. Do you care for salami?
No. You’d rather not have a scotch?
No. You don’t really drink. You do
drink me. The gulls kill fish,
crying out like three-year-olds.
The surf’s a narcotic, calling out,
I am, I am, I am
all night long. Barefoot,
I drum up and down your back.
In the morning I run from door to door
of the cabin playing chase me.
Now you grab me by the ankles.
Now you work your way up the legs
and come to pierce me at my hunger mark.

"The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And..."

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 23:43:39 -0400

“The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.”

- Terence Mckenna

Photo

Tue, 10 May 2011 04:36:10 -0400

fridayreads: Reblog to participate in Friday Reads, a global...

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 23:04:59 -0400

fridayreads:

Reblog to participate in Friday Reads, a global reading event that brings together readers all over the world. Not only that, but you’ll also entered to win awesome prizes! This week we’re offering copies of Robin Black’s IF I LOVED YOU, I WOULD TELL YOU THIS.

Don’t forget to tell us what you are reading when you reblog. Sharing the reading love - that’s what this is all about, right?

Reading If Not, Winter by Anne Carson, The Abortion: An Historical Romance by Richard Brautigan, and Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to..."

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 04:45:58 -0400

“Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives… and to the ‘good life,’ whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

"Total communication equals peace. And it will eliminate ignorance, apathy and hatred."

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:11:04 -0500

“Total communication equals peace. And it will eliminate ignorance, apathy and hatred.”

- Yoko Ono