Germany-Argentina----Miroslav Klose kicks ass...

...for that goal...and so does Borowski, for passing the ball to him. The guy deserves some credit. The penalty shoot-outs are just beginning, I'm excited.

Time---1:34 am in the morning


Me again. Time's 1:44 am. Game Over. Germany's won. Jens Lehmann (have I spelt it right?)--German goalkeeper--kicks ass too. He saved TWICE in the penalty shoot-outs, TWO times, you heard me right? Wow!

There was this really ugly, exciting scene with all the Argentinian players harangueing the FIFA officials (the guys in suits) after the match. They obviously weren't happy with something. Unfortunately, our lousy cable TV station cut off transmission just like that. Just when things were really heating up. My dad said they obviously didn't want to show us all the ugly stuff--wish they had. But, really, I guess that's exactly what you buy the ticket for, huh?

A poem:
Monet Refuses The Operation

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolves
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

from http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3133/

World Cup...a little news Spain vs France

I don't know the first thing about football, but I just had to write this. (Well yeah, I'm not supposed to be doing this either. I should be doing my homework--O' Levels this year! Wish me luck.)

Before this afternoon (when we were finally dismissed from school), I thought that Spain would definitely smash France. And, oh god, I was wrong. (But then again, I don't know much about football.) Now the headlines are screaming stuff like : GOLDEN HEROES (I'm for real here, this is straight from our local tabloid, The New Paper--it's atrocious, but this is Singapore...and I actually read it.) and EXPERIENCE WINS OVER YOUTH and GOLDEN OLDIES (no, just kidding, I made that up myself). And before, all of those people had tipped SPAIN to win just yesterday. I dislike that.




Okay. I know this is a lousy post, but I just decided to write this as a memory to keep, so that later on nobody can say that I've missed The Best of '06.

Hey, I can ACTUALLY keep up with the times.

Gwendolyn MacEwen

I barely know a thing about her, but I do know that she's truly awesome (I've read what little bits of her poetry that I could find).

I also spent some time searching her up. Here are some brilliant links:
http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol47/wood.htm

--From The Rising Fire to Afterworlds: the Visionary Circle in the Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen
by Brent Wood

http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/cpjrn/vol28/potvin.htm

--Gwendolyn MacEwen and Female Spiritual Desire
by Liza Potvin

http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol9_1/&filename=Harding.htm


--Iconic Mythopoeia in MacEwen'sThe T.E. Lawrence Poems
by R. F. Gillian Harding

and: http://www.naisa.ca/deepwireless/2002/terror.html a little write-up on her radio play Terror and Erebus.

Some of what I could find:

Flight One.

Good Afternoon ladies and gentleman
This is your Captain speaking.

We are flying at an unknown altitude
And an incalculable speed.
The tempurature outside is beyond words.

If you look out your window you will see
Many ruined cities and enduring seas
But if you wish to sleep please close the blinds.

My navigator has been ill for many years
And we are on Automatic Pilot; regrettably
I cannot forsee our ultimate destination.

Have a pleasant trip
You may smoke, you may drink, you may dance
You may die.
We may even land one day.


And:

Terror and Erebus
Gwendolyn MacEwen
Being an account of the search by Rasmussen for the remains of the Franklin expedition

here:

http://www.alsopreview.com/thecollections/macewen/poetry/terror.htm


Departures from "The T.E. Lawrence Poems" here: http://doctoralmore.spaces.msn.com/Blog/cns!41B67ADE3D607F1D!112.entry



All right. That's all I can unearth now.

Stuff to do with a friend this month; and a poet

I found this cute article in the Sunday Times (a Singapore newspaper):
18-6-2006 Sunday
A song for their World Cup tickets
by Marc Lim

It is amazing what fans will do to keep their World Cup dreams alive.
For Argentinian fans Ignacio Senese (centre, with guitar) and Pablo Rodriguez (right), a dwindling bank account is not going to stop them from extending their stay in Germany.
The childhood friend have resorted to busking to fund their stay in Germany and to buy World Cup tickets.
Said Senese, 29, who works in the retail business in Buenos Aires:"We only had tickets for Argentina's first match against the Ivory Coast.
"Now, we're looking for more. You have one? I'll play any song you want."
The pair have been playing in train stations all over Germany, mostly where the Argentinian team are.
On Friday, they were at Gelsenkirchen's main train station.
Rodriguez, 26, said that on a good day, they can earn up to 100 euros (S$200). They have enough money to last them till the end of the month.
But there is one song that they will not play--Don't Cry For Me Argentina.
Said Senese:"No way. No need to cry. Argentina will win the World Cup."


Sounds fun, huh? Let's hope they get their tickets.
___________________________________________________________________

Gwendolyn MacEwen
She was a Canadian poet, not very well-known outside of Canadian literature but nevertheless a poet of the highest order. I have not managed to find a book of her poems yet, but every one of her poems is charming, witty and a deep wellspring of myth and metaphysics.

Magic Cats
From Magic Animals: Selected Poems Old and NewMacmillan, Toronto - 1974

(With acknowledgements to Susan Musgrave, whose "Strawberry" poems started it all)

Most cats, with the exception of Burmese, do not celebrate their birthdays. Rather, they are extremely sentimental about Palm Sunday and Labour Day, at which times they survive solely on white lace and baloney sandwiches.

Cats on the whole are loath to discuss God.

Generally speaking, cats have no money, although some of them secretly collect rare and valuable coins.

Cats believe that all human beings, animals and plants should congregate in a huge heap in the centre of the universe and promptly fall asleep together.

Of all the cats I have known, the ones I remember most are: Bumble Bee, Buttonhole, Chocolate Bar, Molten Lava and Mushroom. I also remember Tabby who was sane as a star and spent all his time lying on his back in the sink, thinking up appropriate names for me.

Cats see their Keepers as massive phantoms, givers of names and the excellent gravy of their days.

Cats who have been robbed of balls and claws do not lament. They become their Keeper's keepers.

When cats are hosts to fleas they assume the fleas are guests.

Most cats would rather be covered with live fleas than dead ones.

Cats hold no grudges and have no future. They invade nets of strangers with their eyes.

The patron saint of cats is called: Beast of the Skies, Warm Presence, Eyes.

Cats do not worry about the gurgling horrors of the disease listed in catbooks, some of which are Hairballs Enteritis and Bronchitis. But they do become very upset about Symptoms, which is the worst disease of all.

When cats grow listless (i.e. lose their list) they cease to entertain fleas. They mumble darkly about radishes and death. They listen to Beethoven and become overly involved in Medieval History.

When cats decide to die they lie alone lost among leaves beneath the dark winds and broad thunders of the world and pray to the Beast of the Skies, Warm, Presence, Eyes.

Broadly speaking, cats do not read Gothic novels, although they tend to browse through Mary Shelley on the day before Christmas.

The only reason cats do not carry passports is because they have no pockets.

When a black cat crosses your path it usually means that he is trying to get to the other side of the street.

Cats never get baptized. They lose their dry.

Cats only perspire during Lent.

Cats have no memory and no future. They are highly allergic to Prime Ministers, radishes, monks, poets, and death.

Just for fun...

Why I don't like the name "Eugene",

I've never liked that name. It sounds odd, and gives me the impression of something clumsy, never quite grown-up and still somewhat ancient. It also sounds like an accusation: You [unintelligible but nothing nice].

There, I've said my bit for the day.




And this is a poem I wrote quite a long time ago:

Farnese.
Who wore himself to nothing.

Night.
Walked to his room.
Hung up his coat.
The water rose in him.
Out of his eyes.

Meet my new/old best friend

C. P. Cavafy

or, Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis

A short introduction:
I used to read this guy (casually) a few years ago (alright, one? one and a fraction? I'm not very old). Then I stopped as I never bought the book, and it was inconvenient to have to log on to the computer to do my reading, and I also got side-tracked by other things. Well, here he is again...irresistable as ever.

He was regarded as one of the best European poets (he's dead now), he wrote in modern Greek, mainly love poems and "historical" poems.

He's like nothing you've ever seen before.

Some of my favourite poems by him:

As Much As You Can
Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,
at least try this
as much as you can; do not debase it
in excessive contact with the world,
in the excessive movements and talk.
Do not debase it by taking it,
dragging it often and exposing it
to the daily folly
of relationships and associations,
until it becomes burdensome as an alien life.


But Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things
Because gods perceive future things, men what is happening now,
but wise men perceive approaching things.
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7.

Men know what is happening now.
The gods know the things of the future,
the full and sole possessors of all lights.
Of the future things, wise men perceive
approaching things. Their hearing

is sometimes, during serious studies,
disturbed. The mystical clamor
of approaching events reaches them.
And they heed it with reverence. While outside
on the street, the peoples hear nothing at all.


Caesarion
Partly to verify an era,
partly also to pass the time,
last night I picked up a collection
of Ptolemaic epigrams to read.
The plentiful praises and flatteries
for everyone are similar. They are all brilliant,
glorious, mighty, beneficent;
each of their enterprises the wisest.
If you talk of the women of that breed, they too,
all the Berenices and Cleopatras are admirable.
When I had managed to verify the era
I would have put the book away, had not a small
and insignificant mention of king Caesarion
immediately attracted my attention.....
Behold, you came with your vague
charm. In history only a few
lines are found about you,
and so I molded you more freely in my mind.
I molded you handsome and sentimental.
My art gives to your face
a dreamy compassionate beauty.
And so fully did I envision you,
that late last night, as my lamp
was going out -- I let go out on purpose --
I fancied that you entered my room,
it seemed that you stood before me; as you might have been
in vanquished Alexandria,
pale and tired, idealistic in your sorrow,
still hoping that they would pity you,
the wicked -- who whispered "Too many Caesars."


Candles
The days of our future stand in front of us
like a row of little lit candles --
golden, warm, and lively little candles.
The days past remain behind us,
a mournful line of extinguished candles;
the ones nearest are still smoking,
cold candles, melted, and bent.
I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,
and it saddens me to recall their first light.
I look ahead at my lit candles.
I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder
at how fast the dark line lengthens,
at how fast the extinguished candles multiply.


Days Of 1903
I never found them again -- the things so quickly lost....
the poetic eyes, the pale
face.... in the dusk of the street....
I never found them again -- the things acquired quite by chance,
that I gave up so lightly;
and that later in agony I wanted.
The poetic eyes, the pale face,
those lips, I never found again.


Oh dear, too many I think; the computer is having trouble copy-pasting the poems. And I haven't even finished the first page of plagiarist.com!

Now look for your favourites on http://plagiarist.com/poetry/poets/80/!

What goes on in a Boy's Home

My father told me this funny story about the Boy's Home some time back. he said it was something that some one else had told him.

At the Boy's Home (this place where the courts put delinquent boys whom their parents are unable to control), the inmates do woodwork. So they use turpentine as thinner for the paint, since turpentine is a spirit, it contains alchohol. So, in order to make liquour (to drink, of course), they buy hack's sweets and dissolve it in the turpentine so as to give it a flavour.

However, this is dangerous as turpentine is poisonous (or at least not beneficial to one's health).

Bad Behaviour

No no, this isn't anything about Tara Reid or Colin Farrell--the title of this post means what it says: Bad Behaviour, from teenagers (children?--I'm talking mental age here). All part of my observations at a "Literature Seminar" I attended today.

Preliminaries (since I've never told you very much about myself, ever):
I take Literature as a subject in my secondary school and one of the books I'm studying is the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. I personally like literature (the subject and the noun) and it's very important to me that I do well in it this year as I'm taking my O'Levels.

The seminar is the sort of "thing" where (groups of) students from different schools (which are studying the same book) come over and do a presentation of their "takes" on the subject and the audience are a couple of teachers and many (a few hundred perhaps) students from all the schools invited. I thought that it might be useful and so I jumped at the chance to attend.

Well...
___________________________________________________________________

The seminar did not provide any really useful information. Of the three "talks" (because I can't call them lectures) I attended, I asked questions at the end of the first two and I didn't at the end of the third and last as the kids were so eager to close shop and leave that they were just like: Any questions?...Nobody's got questions...right? OK, let's leave for the closing speech and just GO--for about thirty seconds. And I was still sifting among my papers for the questions I wrote down less than five minutes into their presentation. By the time I finally got hold of it, everyone was standing up to leave and so I got up and left too. I got a bit shirty asking my other two questions and I knew that I sounded really peevish, but I couldn't help it as I thought that the people presenting their stuff obviously had not thought to make the right connections and think really deeply about things. But now, I know that it was pretty rude of me to act like that, so, to any of them out there: I'm very sorry. I hope I didn't make you too uncomfortable. And I also hope that I didn't seem odd or anything. Heaven knows what everyone thought of me there (for reasons I shan't discuss now), but it's over and I'm not going to see any of them again, so it doesn't really matter at all.

Now that (above) was really all stuffing and an introduction. Here's the juice:
Whenever the presenters paused, or ended their presentations, and especially when someone asked a question, everyone in the audience started tittering. I know we've all done that at one point of time or another, and maybe some of us still do, butI feel that it's really rude. People should know when they should talk and when to keep quiet, like when someone is trying to address them. Most of the students were terribly unappreciative of the effort the host school (students) and the presenters had made, and they obviously couldn't wait to talk as they obviously had something more important to say. Most people think they're really smart, most people think that other people aren't worth listening to, and thus they don't learn anything. Plus, we should be kind to the presenters: it's very stressful to be standing in front of a crowd of people who are supposed to be paying attention but are instead, so self-absorbed that they're ignoring one. And it's frustrating too.

During the closing speech (which was a rather odd, ironic one), some of the kids (not from the host school obviously) were practically jeering. The speech went this way: ...and now all good things must come to an end..., referring to the seminar and they just yelled: What! This is a good thing! It's astounding how moronically brave and rude they were.

After the seminar ended, we filed out of the room/hall by a single corridor, and so all of us passed by this rubbish bin, and sticking out of it was the file and notes given out to us by the host school. Needless to say, all the girls (from that school) were really insulted. Whoever threw it in had an utter lack of appreciation, tact, as well as consideration for the environment. That file was a plastic file, plastics are non-biodegradable, and so, the enitre sheaf is going to end up at some landfill and cause more pollution. There are so many constructive things he/she could have done with that file and the notes if he didn't want it. He could have given it away to a classmate, he could have handed it back, he could have kept the file to keep his other stuff in and put the paper in a recycling bin. Or else, he could have just pushed the thing right into the bin so that nobody would see it. But he didn't.

I know that I'm no saint myself, but at least I try to be civil and considerate. These people just make others miserable.

Michelangelo: Dear to Me is Sleep

DEAR TO ME IS SLEEP
Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone.
While pain and guilt still linger here below,
Blindness and numbness--these please me alone;
Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Besides being a sculptor and a painter, Michelangelo was a poet as well. His poems are, of course, not as brilliant as his more famous works. But still, I find the poem above captivating in it's gentle melancholy, and it's slight allusion (or is it?) to his main passion--the "stone". Although alot of other people use this ("being made of stone") as a metaphor for death, I'm still singling it out as I find it's use special since the man worked with stone.

Michelangelo the man
Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly unsatisfied with himself, thought that art originated from inner inspiration and from culture. In contradiction to the ideas of his rival, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo saw nature as an enemy that had to be overcome. The figures that he created are therefore in forceful movement; each is in its own space apart from the outside world. For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor is to free the forms that, he believed, were already inside the stone. This can most vividly be seen in his unfinished statuary figures, which to many appear to be struggling to free themselves from the stone.

(from Wikipedia)

I do not know when Michelangelo wrote this, but I still find this a very moving, mournful and somewhat wistful contemplation of death. He seems rather accepting of death, only "blindness and numbness...please me", and it sounds as if his life and time past bring him more grief, being "pain and guilt", and he wishes to turn away from them. Michelangelo is all weariness and resignation as he turns away from the "voices" of us, the readers--perhaps later people, who will talk of him and judge him and wonder what he was thinking when he was alive.



Does anyone understand the phrase "here below"?