Thank You Universe!

"The bottom line is: You're going to die. You're gonna be dead forever. It's an infinitely longer time than you ever were alive. And it's painful, but of course, the thing is, it's just intensely beautiful, too. Because infinite life, as even dogs in the street know, would be the hell that never ended. So it's this extraordinary, beautiful gift."

I've been fangirling real hard lately. But I don't feel too bad, even Buzzfeed feels her vibe deeply (click here).

Stoner

This is the kind of book that takes you by the wrist at first, but by the end of the book it has you by the throat. 

William Stoner, the main dude, is as real to me as any person that I know and I don't know if I will ever really forget him. That's what a great book does, it lives inside of you. 

Here are a few sneak peaks into this treasure of a book:

"In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart."

This is a goodie too:

"He had, in odd ways, given it to every moment of his life, and had perhaps given it most fully when he was unaware of his giving. It was a passion neither of the mind nor of the flesh; rather, it was a force that comprehended them both, as if they were but the matter of love, its specific substance. To a woman or to a poem, it said simply: Look! I am alive."

This is one of my faves (he is describing his daughter):

"She was he knew-and had known very early, he supposed-one of those rare and always lovely humans whose moral nature was so delicate that it must be nourished and care for that it might be fulfilled." 

Here a completely unrelated painting by Pierre Soulages. Okay bye.  

Anthony Gerace & Carl Sagan

1. “We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.”

2. “If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.” 

3. “It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.”

These collages are beautiful (see more here) and so are these words from Carl Sagan, for that reason alone they can be here together. 

Brain Pickings!

This is my favourite website (click here). It is packed to the rafters with things that make my brain get juicy. 

I am an advice addict. I love reading how other people understand the world and their tried and tested theories of the best path to anything worthwhile. I don't generally mind where the advice comes from, I can ignore it after all, I just find it fascinating to hear or read, because really, in giving advice the person is actually just doling out a slice of nostalgia or regret dressed up as an instruction. 

This website is filled with advice and I am a sponge for shit like this. I especially like this from Zadie Smith (click here) and this from Neil Gaiman (click here).

I tried to think about what advice I have to give to anyone and I pretty much drew a blank. It is strange since in my day-to-day conversations I often say things that must sound like wanker advice but really I'm just bullshitting, I have no idea. I just like to talk, too much and too often. 

Apologies to the countless victims of my ramblings, I am unlikely to change but hey, you never know. 

Frances Ha

If you veer on the hipster side of life, you most definitely know that Frances Ha is going to be thee movie to watch. Shot in black and white, this movie is said to be the cinematic lovechild of Lena Dunham and Woody Allen. Ah shucks, I just made that up but it seems pretty apt. 

I want this one moment. It’s what I want in a relationship, which might explain why I’m single now. It’s kind of hard to- It’s that thing when you’re with someone and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it- But it’s a party! And you’re both talking to other people, and you’re laughing and shining, and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes. But not because you’re possessive or it’s precisely sexual, but because that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad but only because this life will end. And it’s this secret world that exists right there, in public, unnoticed that no one knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us but we don’t have the ability to perceive them? That’s what I want out of a relationship or just life, I guess.

Pretty wonderful, huh? After being forced to watch the latest Riddick movie, I need a palate cleanser. 

That's My Shit: Alain de Botton!

Alain is the kind of writer that articulates the human condition so well that I often feel sheepish reading his observations since they seem to be straight from the part of my brain that must remain undercover if I hope to maintain the guise of normalcy. 

My soul brother Gabriel and I often express this desire to hide our true natures by clicking our fingers frantically. We find this hilarious. 

Back to Alain, I've read two of his books, The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel. Both are amazing books that I often revisit for clever things to say to others (yes, I claim them to be my ideas so boo!) and I've reread The Consolations a few times in the hope that the ideas will seep into my being and leave me wiser. It hasn't worked, I only seem to retain useless trivia and the names of all the cast members of Cheers. I've never watched Cheers. 

Anyway, Alain's Wikipedia page is really interesting too (click here). As a zealot of The Lord of The Internet I now judge people by their Wikipedia page and his is quite a prize. Here's a clue: mad money! But the thing on his page that predictably alarmed me most was the fact that he wrote his first book at 23. No man, Alain. No. Anyway, jealous down, I really feel like his books should be essential reading for all humans. Huge call and probably not well thought out but I'm sticking to it. 

Take a look at these gems:

“Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.” 

“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.” 

& this too

“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.” 

I've blogged about Mr. De Botton before (click here) but it was his tweets (click here) that impelled me to do this post, on Twitter (and in life) I come across as a semi-literate Japanophile while he manages to spit inspiration daily. He has a very weird head though, that's my consolation. 

P.S. More unrelated photos. But, c'mon, the sky was pregnant with clouds. 

Best Friend, Boyfriend & Haruki Murakami!

This is a very happy time for me because yesterday my best friend celebrated her birthday and tomorrow my boyfriend attempts to celebrate his. My scorpio tribe take up so damn much of my heart that I barely have space left for Conan O'Brien, receiving money for nothing and baby pug gifs. 

Both Tommy and Tumelo are bound to be richessful (rich and successful) so I'm hoping that they'll keep me around or else I will be penning their unauthorized biographies with photos, ya dig? Nonetheless, I got mad love for my two T's and this wouldn't be my self-indulgent blog if I didn't attempt to praise their wonder and all-around amazingness.

In other news, this is a gift from the internet (click here). I engage in delusional thinking on the regular and one of my classic bitches-be-crazy daydreams is that Haruki Murakami is my homeboy. I usually just text him or he invites me for a beer in a dingy bar somewhere. I don't drink beer but that's wholly irrelevant. His writing just inspires that kind of intimacy, well, that's my reasoning anyway. Read this and follow it up with some of this (click here).

 “It’s strange, isn’t it?” the woman said in a pensive voice. “Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it. . . . But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”

Haruki Murakami, Samsa in Love.

One last thing:

"If we are the same person before and after we love, that means we haven’t loved enough."

Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love.

P.S. I realize that these photos are completely unrelated but I took them and I like them so that's all there is to say about that. 

Henry Miller Says

"Let us do our best even if it gets us nowhere."

Secret Lives

I'm reading this collection of short stories and it is haunting my dreams so much so that I see it everywhere.

I found the picture above on Tumblr and it reminded me of the cover. 

"She fought life with dreams... She dreamt of lovers who would come for her in sleek Mercedes sports cars made for two. She saw herself linking hands with such a lover, walking in the streets of Nairobi and Mombasa, tapping the ground with high heels, quick, quick short steps. And suddenly she would stop in front of a display glass window, exclaiming at the same time; Oh darling, won't you buy me those...? Those what, he would ask, affecting anger. Those stockings, darling. It was as an owner of several stockings, ladderless and holeless, that she thought of her well-being. Never again would she mend torn things. Never, never, never. Do you understand? Never." 

From Minutes of Glory

Oh Ngugi, you're too much. 

Three Things That I Love Right Now

1. This article.

Click Here & Love Malcolm Gladwell Even More

2. This piece of ass(piration).

3. These words from the indomitable Nizar Qabbani.

Fashion & Words!

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."

David Foster Wallace

Fail Safe By Debbie Millman

I love this. 

Three Things That I Love Right Now

1. This book. Sigh. Whelp. Smile. It has it all! Everyday is made better by this bedside companion. 




2. This in my belly. Banana bread is crazy underrated right now. See my love for banana bread here...

3. These words. So true it hurts. 

Letters To A Young Poet

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.” 

Rainer Maria Rilke.

Fashion & Words!

So, it's plain to see that I love clothes and I love words. And I'm heck tired and all outta witty things to say (I have a daily quota)... So, from this day forth I will just smoosh (that's a real word) them together and be pleased with my damn self. 

So here it goes: 

"I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge."

Neil Gaiman. M Is for Magic.

Three Things That I Love Right Now

1. This video. Boobies, Spanish and the Cosmos! If I ever made a music video I hope that it would be just like this. 

2. This woman. GQ Korea's Fashion Director Jeeyong Kang. I love a woman who can suit up. She looks calm and confident while exuding a polite "fuck you". 

3. These words. Come alive. 

Atlas Shrugged

Dan Burgess

I'm rereading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand because of words like these:

“Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values-that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others-that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human-that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay-that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live-that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road-that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up-that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.” 

Thursday Thought!

Lou Ros

 "My past is everything I failed to be." Fernando Pessoa.

Leh!

I took this photo while we were in Leh, the sleepy lunar capital of Ladakh. 

It reminded me of the Ernest Hemingway flash of brilliance "For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn".