oh the unspeakable things.

Think of a place I would go,

I’m daydreamin’,

Where the sycamore grow,

I’m daydreamin’,

And oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Where the air was so clear,

Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Anywhere but here.

Oh now look to the east,

Great mountains remember me,

Oh I wound around you for miles,

I sat down right there and stretched my bones.

And oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

You would see, too.

Oh the unspeakable things,

It’s land I can see for miles,

With only the wind whispering,

Land I can see for miles,

With only the wind whispering,

Oh land I can see for miles,

With only the wind whispering,

Oh I’d run as fast as I can

Land I can see for miles

Oh I’m searching,

With only the wind whispering,

Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

You would see, too.

Oh the unspeakable things,

Oh the unspeakable things,

Oh the unspeakable things,

Oh the unspeakable things.

Dark Dark Dark – Daydreaming.

the ultimate truth.

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell, (Harper, 1954) at pp.12-13.

 

**

May the bridges I burn light the way.

shashank kumar

is an artist at heart. and detests the decay of lying.

All the lonely people.

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain – and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night

…

Funeral Blues

W. H. Auden

[…]

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can come to any good.

…

And this small wheel in the grand scheme of things creaks again.

Thanks to the Penguin Book of the Twentieth Century in Poetry (Viking, 1999) for this.

euro.

The boy hurriedly climbed down the stairs, taking two at once. He then glided across the wooden floor. Half way through, he stumbled, somersaulted, spilled his pint of beer, caught it, caught himself, apologized to the recpetionist and pulled the glass door open to feel the Viennese winter. And that first sigh you see when you exhale in the winters. Life seemed to come in aphoristic drops dancing to Thelonious Sphere Monk.

Dancing to Sphere Monk, seeing Adolf and Benito poke Josef with a stick.

content.

reading Crome Yellow after a trip to the Parvati Valley.

Later. Way later.

a precise post

Its changed. Taken a one-eighty all over again in a new direction. Yes, kind of like those Formula one drivers spin, and keep spinning, just not three-sixty but one-eighty. One trip to the Valley of Gods and its all so Aldous-ly again. David Gray plays. Crome Yellow smiles. The ochre, Oh! so ochre light. I have little to say and a lot to see. A lot to just witness, stare and get astonished at. Astonished; the imaginary-eye-brow raise astonished. I’ve been reading Aristotles’ life and square sonnets. Also that book on Comparative Competition Law to finish. Work. Good.

The trip was fun. 1700 KMs, three Royal Enfields, engine oil, roaring river valleys and little else. Photos up on Flickr when I move my lazy bum to unpack the SD Card. Trip-log shall also be posted, for the benefit of Traveler-brethren, hopefully. Lazyness, damn. 

Oh, and Im in the philosophical mood again. Cynical to be precise. It’s so easy to hate us, I see now. Humans are islands. Insular. Self-contained and self-obsessed. Obviously, we suck.

I need new war books. Fiction. Yes. And to decide between Stalin or Lenin, who was cooler? A new dictionary was a delightful find over this weekend. Websters Unabridged 2008 Revision exactly. Pretty good reading and a useful index at the back.

Well, thats that for now. A precise post.

poyetree

21.

By Bob Dylan

death silenced her pool
the day she died
hovered over
her little toy dogs
but left no trace
of itself
at her
funeral

**

and that was it.

random spots of shit appear on the windshield. Go wiper.

I am generally feeling really nice today, having had my cynical predictions proved right. Which really goes on to show how normal, those so-called cycnical thoughts were. All you people, you do not disappoint. Finally, I can get on with my life, more. What was that, you should never underestimate the predictability of human stupidity, hm, maybe. Anyway, alls’ well that ends’ well, and this was benissimo.

Job interview! Yes, J-O-B! People want me to work for them. Sure? I ask. Anyway, it’s always pleasant listening to British english, and so an hour of the Lock Stock like experience chatting over arbitration clauses, M&A, and BITs was okay, it did feel like paddle treatment by Hatchet Harry at times, in the hateful sense.

Personally, life’s become a little gratifying (and I know this will change as soon as I publish this sentence) and I think we are more than just good.

Im happy for Vettel, the guy’s an year elder to me,  and won at Monza. A nice, deserving win. He drove an almost perfect race from pole. Hamilton’s an asshole, what with all the things he did to Glock and Webber. But then again, if they beatified Schumacher then Hamilton’s okay, I suppose. Villeneuve would agree.

And as I sit here again, to continue writing this post after leaving it in the middle eight hours ago, Moby flows. Thinking of a knee-wrecking experience. people who should know, would know. Ah. The long drawn out sigh like “Ah”.  

Thom York, what-o-what is wrong with you? Is it not a crime to make such music. Listenin’ to a band called Radiohead. These are mellow days friends, spent largely with Coldplay, Radiohead, Morcheeba and Beck. On a musically serious note: Radiohead’s Nude; Jigsaw Falling into Place; and Climbing up the Walls, are better than the LHC experience.

There’s a rumour of a bike ride to distant lands. Secret plans, Im told, so I’d stay shut till wheels start rolling. Bike ride means photography, losts and lots of photography for the hungry 40D.

 

yours,

shashank

 

P.S. Remember, more than the inverse of the life time of a Higgins particle, that’s how much i like it.