Walking along the small yellow-leaved streets between University and Whyte Ave, cold air, blue sky, paper cup of instant apple-cider in my hand and the tall trees by that hotel like red lights against light-red brick, I think, I wish to live forever, and foolishly wish a moment to last eternally. Which is a fool's desire, of course. One thing, I love this season. One thing, this season and bright air quickly fade. One thing, things fall apart, and that's what makes them lasting in the always-vanishing heart. Did I rhyme? Let it go. Today, everything is well-shaped and fitting.
Reading: What I loved most about Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai was how the film so strongly differed from my expectations toward it. I don't recall what I expected from that movie, since I knew zip all about it aside from the poster. And, let's face it, posters are the pressed-fibre enemies of the audience, always devious, always betraying, paper quislings on the theatre wall. I offer no evidence of this two-facedness, by the way, except the evidence, the disappointments endured, which you store in your own hearts. That, and the poster for any Dennis Leary movie ever. Cripes! How can Leary's television be SO GREAT, and his movies so everlastingly blowing? Cripes! I'm digressing. What I really love about some books is how different from my expectations their contents can develop. This can be bad, sure (any Salman Rushdie novel, if that's the word, after Satanic Verses, anyone?) but it can be so unmeasurably positive, too. Folks, for instance, who've grown up on Disney's Winnie The Pooh have a beautiful surprise in store if they open Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. The original outmatches the modern interpretations of it on every front. I was cleaning out my closet the other day—"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries": Milne—and came across a book I'd read within the past twelve months, but which I immediately reread again. Anything to avoid cleaning. It's a solid book, a strong book, a book which Jim Jarmusch may one day make a movie out of, as he made a movie out of Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. But this book is much more than an instruction manual; actually, this book contains no instruction whatsoever, unless it is practical directions for climbing mountains. What this book offers is what Thoreau offered in Walden—a persuasive glimpse at another world. These authors fool you (they fool me) with eloquent phrasing and better description of this world, their world, the rock and trees and trains and stations of life. But their words for this world are actually descriptions of the worlds within themselves, their hearts, their minds, the step-by-step construction of careful thought. What these men teach is appreciation, a supreme virtue, surely. A supreme book, too. Starlight And Storm + Gaston Rebuffat
Listening: I know you're probably tired of hearing about her, but look at the weather outside. What a day to listen to Feist. I was going to go back to this spring (last spring?) and post a link to just about anything off of Sunlandic by Of Montreal, and I would have, too, if Feist didn't exist, but she does, and that's so good. So what if the last words I wrote about her are still on this page? I'll write about someone new next time. For now, it's Feist. For now, the weather is crisp and all fitting-black-sweatery. Let's all wear dark jeans and quote Wordsworth and Rainer Maria Rilke. Let's listen to my favourite song of the past six months (the one at the bottom of the page), "It's Cool to Love Your Family" + Feist
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