Commercial Helotry

We may say broadly that free thought is the best of all safeguards against freedom. Managed in a modern style, the emancipation of the slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of the slave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he will not free himself. Again, it may be said that this instance is remote or extreme. But again, it is exactly true of the men in the streets around us. It is true that the negro slave, being a debased barbarian, will probably have either a human affection of loyalty, or a human affection for liberty. But the man we see every day - the worker in Mr. Gradgrind's factory, the little clerk in Mr. Gradgrind's office - he is too mentally worried to believe in freedom. He is kept quiet with revolutionary literature. He is calmed and kept in his place by a constant succession of wild philosophies. He is a Marxian one day, a Nietzschite the next day, a Superman (probably) the next day; and a slave every day. The only thing that remains after all the philosophies is the factory. The only man who gains by all the philosophies is Gradgrind. It would be worth his while to keep his commercial helotry supplied with skeptical literature. And now, I come to think of it, of course, Gradgrind is famous for giving libraries. He shows his sense. All modern books are on his side. As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of Earth will be exactly the same. No idea will remain long enough to be realised. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.

G.K. Chesterton, "The Eternal Revolution"

Evocation to le Objet Petit 'a...

Rene Magritte, "The Lovers"

Bending the Notes...

The Rock Star's Gaze - Woman as an Instrument to be Played...

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May not fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

- Robert Frost, "Birches"

No Where to Go

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

- William Butler Yeats, "The Song of Wandering Aengus"

Battling Minotaurs

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

1789 Ca ira mon amour

1789 - It'll Be Fine My Love

This fear that undresses me
For having risked your name on my skin
And these tears that wash away your make-up
Come to carry away my senses beneath the waves

Despite everything
The looks that pierce
Near us
The banner that waves
After everything
Who cares, cares, cares, cares...

[Chorus]
It'll be fine my love
Ah! It'll be fine forever
Let us lovers go proclaim our
Forbidden oaths

It'll be fine my love
We will forget the drums
On all the walls, I swear I will write Freedom, dear

I dreamed our bodies, touching each other
Caressed the spirit of our ideas
I put my tongue in your mouth
To savor the essence of your every word

Despite everything
Desire is fragile
Near us
Pleasure in peril
After everything
Who cares, cares, cares, cares...

[Chorus]
It'll be fine my love
Ah! It'll be fine forever
Let us lovers go proclaim our
Forbidden oaths

It'll be fine my love
We will forget the drums
On all the walls, I swear I will write Freedom, dear

My love
It's your life that I'm marrying
On this day
Studded with red roses
Let us lovers go
We have to laugh and dance
See this spring... it's free

It'll be fine my love
We will write on the big day
I will offer you my nights for life
It's a promise

[Chorus]
It'll be fine my love
Ah! It'll be fine forever
Let us lovers go proclaim our
Forbidden oaths

It'll be fine my love
We will forget the drums
On all the walls, I swear I will write Freedom

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