cell phone self-portrait

cell phone self-portrait
things are looking up

Monday, January 28, 2008

A Not Ungrateful Theme

"Since my young days of passion --- joy, or pain,
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
I would essay as I have sung to sing
Yet, though a weary strain, to this I cling;
So that it wean me from the weary dream
Of selfish grief or gladness --- so it fling
Forgetfulness around me --- it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme."

Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto The Third, #4

Life is good and blessed this morning. I studied Byron in grad school and like to pull his words out now and again. He's good for brooding or reflecting. I also like to see my old notes from class in the margins. From this page in the book, for example, I have:

"not a sum of things --- always losing, gaining, touching other things."

"not based on linearity"

"genres of public being in speech"

"the theory of reversibility"

"esoteric theory"

"emphasis on natural environment"

AND

"The act of writing creates the self."

Tuesday, January 22, 2008