Elegance

"This morning I was surprised to discover that I am not who I thought I was"

Portrait by Francoise Nielly

Whispered Words Won't Seem Familiar

Relaxing. Yes.

It is far, far

Made a lil' sumthin' in photoshop earlier today. I love this verse.

It's Too Cold Outside for Angels to Fly

Birdy's cover is too beautiful. How refreshing is her clear voice?

And they screamThe worst things in life come free to usCos we're just under the upperhandAnd go mad for a couple of gramsAnd she don't want to go outside tonightAnd in a pipe she flies to the MotherlandOr sells love to another manIt's too cold outsideFor angels to flyAn angel will dieCovered in whiteClosed eyeAnd hoping for a better lifeThis time, we'll fade out tonight

Watch Ed Sheeran's original video here

Accept all happiness from me

It May Not Always Be so; And I Say
BY E.E. CUMMINGS
It may not always be so; and I say
that if your lips, which I have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as I know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

If this should be, I say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that I may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall I turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

Still from the film Nu

I Exist

A Man Said to the Universe
BY STEPHEN CRANE

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

But I Tell You Who Hear Me:

All Photos from The Protester: A Portfolio by Peter Hapak

Graphics by Me, Anna Webb

You are welcome to share these images, but please give us both credit. 

Particularly Mr. Hapak, as he is brilliant.

TIME's person of the year is The Protestor.

2011 has been an eventful year for human rights across the globe

their bravery and courage is an inspiration to us all

Elegance

"Nothing is harder or more unfair than human reality: humans live in a world where it's words and not deeds that have power, where the ultimate skill is mastery of language."

True Elegance

I Still Ain't Over You

This needs no introduction.

"Love my wash away the blues, but I still ain't over you"

When Thou Art Gone

TO -
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory--
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone
Love itself shall slumber on.

Image from The Dream Walking Society

Alabama Shakes' "You Ain't Alone"

Last week I wrote about music and decided to start a new segment on Of the Thing Sung! Weekly, if not more frequently, I want to feature a musician whose lyrics demonstrate that they understand love of the thing sung, not of the song or of the singing.

The second song I want to feature is by a group called Alabama Shakes. Many people have discovered them through the new, beautiful Zales commercial or because of one Miss Adele. Please share their music with the world, like them on facebook and legally purchase their music. They deserve it. 

"You ain't alone. Just let me be your ticket 

home"

C'est La Vie

"Give your heart and soul to me

and life will always be la vie en rose"

Take a moment. Have a listen.
Images from Fanny Latour-Lambert

Word + Pictures = Inspiration

I found all these from random tumblrs over the years so I don't know who to give credit to. But I love these images!!!

Have a wonderful last hour of November 2011. We will never live it again!

Shakespeare Quote to Live By

I'm not sure if the punctuation is correct, but this is just a little something I made on photoshop. It's becoming one of my favorite quotes. Will Shakespeare was a wise, wise man.

Keats

"I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks; your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute"

- John Keats

Image from Love Trains

And I sunned it with my smiles

A Poison Tree

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears

Night and morning with my tears,

And I sunned it with my smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright,

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine, --

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning, glad, I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

I was messing around on different poetry sites today and this one greatly stood out to me. You don't usually see many poems about revenge. Pain, love, melancholy? Yes. But revenge? No. Thought I'd share it with you all on this rainy night in Georgia!

Photo from Igor + Andre

Fashion Advice Part I

“Good clothes open all doors.”Thomas Fuller 

Errol Flynn

James Dean

“A man should look as if he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, and then forgotten all about them.”

Hardy AmiesQuotes and Images from The Impossible Cool

James Vincent McMorrow's We Don't Eat

I'm having a thought here; on Of The Thing Sung I share poems, quotes from novels and I even sometimes talk about plays, films and book reviews. But what do I not talk about? Music. It's in the very title of my blog and I don't talk about it! Tsk Tsk 

Lyrics have the ability to define generations in the same way that novels do. Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Need I say more? 

I want to start a new segment to remedy this problem. Weekly, if not more frequently, I want to feature a musician whose lyrics demonstrate that they understand love of the thing sung, not of the song or of the singing. 

Here's the first, a beautiful song by Irishman James Vincent McMorrow. Endlessly inspiring and nostalgic.

verse 1

if this is redemption, why do i bother at all
theres nothing to mention, and nothing has changed
still i’d rather be working at something, than praying for the rain
so i wander on, till someone else is saved

i moved to the coast, under a mountain
swam in the ocean, slept on my own
at dawn i would watch the sun, cut ribbons through the bay
i’d remember all, the things my mother wrote

chorus

that we dont eat until your fathers at the table
we dont drink until the devils turned to dust
never once has any man i’ve met been
able to love
so if i were you, i’d have a little trust

verse 2

two thousand years, i’ve been in that water
two thousand years, sunk like a stone
desperately reaching for nets
that the fishermen have thrown
trying to find, a little bit of hope

me i was holding, all of my secrets soft and hid
pages were folded, then there was nothing at all
so if in the future i might, need myself a saviour
i’ll remember what was, written on that wall

chorus

bridge

am i an honest man and true
have i been good to you at all
oh i’m so tired of playing these games
we’d just be running down
the same old lines, the same old stories of
breathless trains and, worn down glories
houses burning, worlds that turn on their own

chorus

so we dont eat until your fathers at the table
we dont drink until the devils turned to dust
and never once has, any man i’ve met been
able to love
so if i were you my friend
learn to have just a, little bit of trust.

Advice from Presidents

"Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
- Theodore Roosevelt

Photo by Fanny Latour-Lambert

Knowing, Creating

“Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”- Walker Evans

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”- George Bernard Shaw

Images from booom.com and Molly Steele's blog (which is private at the moment)

Quotes to Live By

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much

- Oscar Wilde

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
- C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters

Images from Fanny Latour-Lamert and Hedi Slimane

Dear American Airlines Review

It's time for another

of Jonathan Miles' novel Dear American Airlines

Here's an excerpt from the book's jacket if you need a little explanation!

Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughter’s wedding when his flight is canceled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O’Hare International Airport, he watches the clock tick and realizes that he will miss the ceremony. Frustrated, irate, and helpless, Bennie does the only thing he can: he starts to write a letter. But what begins as a hilariously excoriating demand for a refund soon becomes a lament for a life gone awry, for years misspent, talent wasted, and happiness lost. Bennie’s writing is infused with a sense of remorse for the actions of a lifetime—and made all the more urgent by the fading hope that if he can just make it to the wedding, he might have a chance to do something right.

This novel is one of my absolute favorites! I've read Dear American Airlines once a year for the past three years and I just adore it. I read it months ago and I still get caught up in thinking about its beautiful moments. 

Like when Bennie's proud Southern mother, Miss Willa, reduced by a stroke to scrawling messages to him on post-it notes, suspects he will commit suicide after his daughter's wedding. As he is preparing to leave for the airport, she hands him a post-it that says only, "no."

And when Bennie tries to win the love of his life, Stella, back by screaming her name at the bottom of their apartment steps. At the time they were living in New Orleans. He immediately stops screaming, realizing the ridiculousness of life.  Brooding and bitter at literature for stealing his scene, for the rest of his life he swears that if she had a different name, he would have won her back.

I love how Jonathan Miles weaves Bennie's past (the stories of his childhood, his love for Stella and their daughter) his present (hilarious anecdotes about the absurdity of airport travel) and his uncertain future (for twenty years he has been living only for walking his daughter down the aisle. When that is done...) all into one LETTER. It's a letter people! GAH Brilliant. Hilarious. Touching. Sad. Loved it.

At just under 200 pages, it's a quick read and would be a perfect airport companion novel (Irony I'm sure Bennie would appreciate). If I were a Hollywood director I would snatch this up. The movie version would have OSCAR written all over it.

High Fidelity Quotes

A few more quotes from the novel I finished about week ago, Nick Hornby's High Fidelity.

“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss." 

Martin Dimitrievski

A sad song to help that quote make sense...

“Is it so wrong, wanting to be home with your record collection? It’s not like collecting records is like collecting stamps, or beermats, or antique thimbles. There’s a whole world in here, a nicer, dirtier, more violent, more peaceful, more colorful, sleazier, more dangerous, more loving world that I live in; there is history, and geography, and poetry, an countless other things I should have studied at school, including music.”

Record Collection photo from here

I know I always say it, but I'll get around to writing a review of this book! The first week of November will be "Catching up on Book Reviews" week. I'll try to post some poetry for you soon as well!

Invisible Monsters Quotes

Such a great novel! 

Here are a few quotes to spark your interest...

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? The evil Queen was stupid to play Snow White's game. There's an age where a woman has to move on to another kind of power. Money, for example. Or a gun."

"This is the world we live in. We went sailing one time and he wore a speedo, and any smart woman should know that means bisexual at least."


"It's so easy to be honest with a big enough audience. You can say anything if enough people will listen."


"The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our weekend."


I will get a review for you soon! Cannot wait to share more of this novel with you. I just finished reading Nick Hornby's About a Boy so that is coming too!

My Petition for More Space Review

 It's time for another

“For me space gives, derives from, and is peace of mind. One has to make it for himself. 

One has to seek it, strive for it, if necessary fight for it—certainly ask for it.”

The premise of the novel (written in 1976) is that in the near future, we run out of space. It takes four hours to walk to work because streets are congested, cars are no longer allowed, one must live in a space of mere feet, in order to have a child you have to petition the windows, and the only lines longer than at the windows of the petition offices are at the last remaining city park. You have to wait days to catch a glimpse of an empty space through the high windows, but entering the park is prohibited.

The novel's protagonist is a writer, or at least he could be, if he had more space to breathe. The entire novel takes place over the course of a few hours as he waits in line with his petition. There is a young lady in front of him and as they talk, he begins to imagine a life with her. It is illegal to make arrangements with other people waiting in line, but he asks that after they reach the windows, she wait for him. 

Photo from Here

This novel was one of the most original I have read in a long time. Hersey created such a strong mood of intense claustrophobia that as you read, your mind begins to play tricks on you as the characters' do. My Petition for More Space is like most Dystopian novels in that the protagonist must try to maintain an inner peace and steadfastness as those around him cave to the mindless comfort provided by the system.  If you like mind games and that kind of novel (and you know who you are, my 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale fans) then definitely find a copy.

I got agitated at several parts, for instance, when a claustrophobia and frustration induced line fever breaks out and threatens to disrupt all he has waited for (people standing in line just start to scream but cannot move anywhere) and when he finally reaches the windows and must convince the voice behind the glass that he deserves more than his fellow man. 

The novel was quite effective, I just can't help but think how much better the story could have been portrayed through a different medium. A play version of this novel would blow your mind. I would stage it in the round or even in the aisles of a theatre, so the audience becomes part of the throng waiting at the petition windows too. The "line fever" scene I described would take on a whole new meaning.

Just a thought.

Read it! It will take you four hours. It's interesting and thought provoking. Seriously, read it.

I also posted some quotes from the novel here, so check those out if you are so inclined. 

Blue Like Jazz Quotes

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

    

 “The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been. I am the problem. I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.”

- Blue Like Jazz, page 20

Leo from Here

       “For a moment, sitting there above the city, I imagined life outside narcissism. I wondered how beautiful it might be to think of others as more important than myself. I wondered at how peaceful it might be not to be pestered by that childish voice that wants for pleasure and attention. I wondered what it would be like not to live in a house of mirrors, everywhere I go being reminded of myself.”

- Blue Like Jazz, page 22

Image by Smth-Fresh

Loved this book! More quotes and a review on the way!