Pink Heels

These heels are made for walking* (sadly, not all over the pier)

Spacebar, these are the scraped pink heels after the walk on the pier.

* gratuitous link – check.

Maybe not Gelassenheit

so back to our good German, Rilke,

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished the existence of the individual; the relationship between one human being and another has also been cramped by it, as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in Poe’s stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us. We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we hold still we are, through a happy mimicry, scarcely to be distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

— Letter 8, Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke.

many things

key phrases: my complete inability to get punctuation right, meeting elitist bloggers, fascinating concepts I don’t understand, graphic novels, the unbearable lightness of dreams

The dream:

Regular readers of this blog might recall that I once had a very vivid dream. In it, I spent a good 20 minutes parallel parking my crocodile. thanks to a picture posted by Spacebar.

Well, it has happened again.

Yesterday, I saw a ballet performance in my dream. It was the Maus reimagined as a ballet. Mikhail Baryshnikov was Vladek Spiegelman. I can describe every costume ,the set and, if I could talk about music, that as well. But you would had to be there to see the young Mr.Baryshnikov fly. mmm..

The concept:

Gelassenheit or even negative capability, as John Keats explains,

“when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

Experiencing mystery and doubts without irritability – I would like to order a dollop of that please. thank you.

The graphic novel:

A new book by Guy Delisle! Go read the new Chroniques Birmanes. Also look up Pyongyang and Shenzhen while you are at it. (His Drawn & Quarterly preview page).

now, most importantly, meeting The bloggers:

Met TR, Anasuya and their lovely friend T. The Prof, quite evidently, is the rock star (atleast was that evening). We even suggested he wear a pair of sunglasses and a trench coat at 7pm, so he could avoid being mobbed by fans.

We enjoyed a great dinner, with the star footing the bill. I would have said they all hate their vegetables, but a side order of brussel sprouts snuck in. so there. There was a walk on the Embarcadero and some non-PC remarks about Asian children and what they grow up to be. Fun was had.

If I did not feel elitist enough for liking Obama, hanging out with these 3 has made me Über-Elitist. There is no looking back now.

*$@!ing punctuation:

why can I never get it right

Now to go around the Moon

Countdown to the launch at Sriharikota. Good luck ISRO! (watch the launch here)

UPDATE: So far, so good. Live on the NASA website.

10-cent Haiku

…wished in my pocket

and pulled out a dime.

This is my 10-cent Haiku.

Shiny silver friend,

I will never let you go.

Look, an ice cream truck

From Calef Brown’s wacky collection of poems and illustrations for children, Flamingos on a Roof.

Sigh!

I would like to begin this morning by reading you a little weather report:
“… dirty water and black snow pour from the dismal air to …the putrid slush that waits for them below.”

Now that is not a description of Boston, Chicago, New York, or even Washington, D.C. It is from Dante’s “Inferno,” a 600-year old vision of damnation.

But doesn’t it sound familiar?

Isn’t it a forecast that fits almost any large American city today?

— Lyndon Johnson, Remarks Upon Signing the Air Quality   Act of 1967.

Drill Baby! Drill!

— McCain-Palin Energy Policy, 2008

Adiga wins

Another Indian wins the Man Booker Prize. Born in Chennai, lives in Mumbai and dedicates the book to “the people of New Delhi“.

Ah! He almost sounds like an answer to some question posed at a Miss India contest.

xkcd improves our lives… once again

In true fangirl fashion I must report that xkcd has changed the world again.

A Few Dog Lives

Dog 1: Gets Chiropractic Adjustments, Acupuncture and Chinese Alternative Medicine to stay happy and healthy.

Dog 2: Is stuck in a custody battle between the owners and the neighbour who took care of it for a couple of days.