"[Janie] was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid." - Zora Neale Hurston

i like sealing wax...

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."— Jim Jarmusch

( I happened upon this quote while reading a "pending friend's" page on facebook. I thought it was both rotten and lovely...thus having to steal it and post it directly...delighted-especially loved the word devour.)

Grandma Casey's Pancakes

INGREDIENTS

(INGREDIENTS IS A STRANGE WORD ISN'T IT. PONDER IT FOR A WHILE.)

2 c. flour

3 Tbs. sugar

5 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/3 c. oil

2 c. milk

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg; mix until smooth.

2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or fying pan over medium heat. Pour the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. (This measurement did not come from me, neither the the No.1 direction, as I do not believe that constructing a good pancake takes instruction, however I have included important notes in my parenthesis, and have graciously included someone elses, thereby plagarizing an innocents directions, "just in cases".

(Smother the finished golden pancake in an absorbent amount of butter, much too much than what would be considered a healthy breakfast, do not under any circumstances subsitute white bleached flour for buckwheat, and please use real maple syrup.)

a note from the editor: please enjoy responsibly!

I am belated in my entry, but ever so thankful that the feeling has not gone away. It has suffered and sat with me still…forcing me to acknowledge the very idea that it exists, patiently and ever so kindly for the instant of which I might bear witness. Beyond the means of my previous existence…where do I take this? Without consideration of another, of any other, for the very first time in my recollected history, I cannot breathe easy, for I feel as if I might explode from the understanding I now have. I am free and I can live, not just this, for there is more, so much more. I live and I am free but what is more, I believe that I deserve this, to live to be free to be alive, and all of it, all of it, every single miserable existence might help to send me to a place that will bring me happiness that I might never had noticed had I not suffered first. Not that suffering exactly isn’t living because this two sat waiting to be noticed, that is to say, that the very suffering that caught my soul still would release me to be brighter than ever was possible without this. It is, and has always been for the sake of living. Even the pain, the deadliest pain that cuts of my life from its breathe has helped me to breath easy again, for now I can see.

I haven’t written for so long in the script…
”the brushing of our shoulders…we had a life together…all this in a brief stare ...and I like to think of your face…of your name”…
lying next to you…I felt so real and you were already gone…I am hopeless and reckless and only my heart does not hear me screaming…where shall I end this very misery I allowed to contort...not in this way...in this obsessive disposition…I wait for nothing to come because nothing was promised nothing was spoken. These are not my early years of salvation…but rather the very decaying of my virtue which I had but held in high esteem until now…I cannot want for expression for it was not invited only advanced….and at this I did allow myself to take hold…of what devilish scheme did intoxicate my ears and therefore my fiendish and much too ignorant heart…he speaks for as long as he wants to hear himself and then quits for better dreams...how am I to invite anything further...whilst I am passed recognition and civility I am not calm I am hasty and all my courageous smiles have but left me entirely…I sat in perfect contemplation all the while waiting for something more.,…more to rejoice than my own empty tears…perhaps something red gilded with gold and fixed with lace and hearts designed for my receiving….
01/12/09 I sit by myself and can hear the echo of my breathe in my ears…I wish it were in his…I wait still.
01/12/09 James Russell Lowell who wrote, “the highest of all sciences and services the government.” …is a moron!
01/12/09 Unsympathetic ugly separatist world where artist come wholly and pure and out of love for this world with godly like passions they dare to compare themselves and yet they can see deep into the tragedy of the world they are this special…
01/12/09 And…I have yet to be lost for words…for this idea keeps me better than any further understanding. I lay and am of habit to consider…there is no union so unholy as this one…but what ping I place in holy is quite without determination…for beauty in what has been given that is only the idea to recognize gifts, even or especially when the very giver of these gifts did not mean or does not understand that they are blessed even to be in existence…what???? I know not sense. I surely never claimed for that…my eyes are watering…who ever said lotion does anyone any good. Safe to say tonight it blots out my vision and gives me all the illusion to tears without the very healthy glow that accompanies it. If I had any actor friends I would recommend the trick...but as I do not…I will lend myself a healthy scripter of ideas in reference shall I ever need them in the future…I laugh at myself as I know you do as well…my dearest one….if you ever read after my blogs you’d be sure to laugh now for you have the deepest understanding that I hardly need inducement for tears…something pretty to speak f…I cannot remember this just yet…and I was so hoping for a good beginning…it seemed to have all the promise but so it always seems this way. At least I can breathe.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient thee rised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] It is perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin?. . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.. . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.”. . . . . No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.