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Category: art & literature
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Jan 16 2012
Steinbeck on Falling in Love
Something for all of us to remember…whether we’ve already found love or are still waiting for it to find us.
Originally posted at Brain Pickings:
“If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”
Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (1902-1968) might be best-known as the author of East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, but he was also a prolific letter-writer. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters constructs an alternative biography of the iconic author through some 850 of his most thoughtful, witty, honest, opinionated, vulnerable, and revealing letters to family, friends, his editor, and a circle of equally well-known and influential public figures.
Among his correspondence is this beautiful response to his eldest son Thom’s 1958 letter, in which the teenage boy confesses to have fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan while at boarding school. Steinbeck’s words of wisdom — tender, optimistic, timeless, infinitely sagacious — should be etched onto the heart and mind of every living, breathing human being.
New York
November 10, 1958Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
via Letters of Note
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Oct 28 2011
Love
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.”
— from 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/10/love/
Oct 27 2011
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
I’ve been on a bit of an Americana/Roots kick lately. So when I heard one of the songs off of this album on KCRW recently I had to look it up.
The album comes from lyrics found in four notebooks found in a briefcase with him when he was found dead in his Cadillac on New Year’s Day 1953. They’ve been stored in a vault at his record company (and its successive owners) ever since.
In the mid-70s, his son Hank Williams Jr. recorded some songs based on the lyrics found, however by and large the lyrics had remained in storage. Under the guidance of Bob Dylan, 12 artists have taken these unfinished lyrics and created songs from them.
I’m loving this album (despite its inherent sadness and loneliness).
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/10/the-lost-notebooks-of-hank-williams/
Oct 20 2011
Moon
Moon
I am so delighted
With you, because I know you
And I know you
Came down to me, answering.
I walked up hill
After you went all the way down.
I hadn’t seen too,
But I believed in you,
And I believed you were dividing three cones
Of sky down beyond
The left shoulder of the white oak
In Warnock,
Ohio, and I remember and I pray
Come down to me love and bring me
One panther of silver and one happy
Evening of snow,
And I will give you
My life, my own, and now
My beloved has come to me and we have gone walking
Below you beside the East
River in the snow, all
Three of us, leaving
Six prints of panther, kind
Woman, and happy
Man,
And I love you,
Sky full of laurels and arrows,
White shadow of cities where the scars
Of forgotten swans
Waken into feathers
And new leaves.
—James Wright
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/10/moon/
Oct 18 2011
Love in a Warm Room in Winter
Love in a Warm Room in Winter
The trouble with you is
You think all I want to do
Is get you into bed
And make love with you.
And that’s not true!
I was just trying to make friends.
All I wanted to do
Was get into bed
With you and make
Love with you.
Who was that little bird we saw towering upside down
This afternoon on that pine cone, on the edge of a cliff,
In the snow? Wasn’t he charming? yes, he was, now,
Now, now,
Just take it easy.
Aha!
— James Wright
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Sep 08 2011
The Skin I Live In
A new film from Almodóvar and the return of Antonio Banderas to a leading role in one of his films:
I’m looking forward to seeing this when it comes out Oct 14th. Looks like a good creepy thriller from a great director. Official Site
(view the post on my site if you can’t see the video above)
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/09/the-skin-i-live-in/
Aug 23 2011
OK Go & The Muppet Theme Song
The Muppet Theme Song interpreted by OK Go (both visually and musically):
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/08/ok-go-the-muppet-theme-song/
