And you may say to yourself

My God, what have I done?

μέλαινα χολή

Autumn:

There is a touch of sadness in the air this fall,
Such as recurs to fellows of melancholy:
Memory of its passage out of time
Follows the year's progression,
Ash that settles a twister of flame
On mountaintops.
Autumn is quick to remember
And passes like a sunbeam in the wave.

Norman Macleod.

I, Too, Am Acquainted With Intrusive Thoughts

Stay forever and ever, and ever, and ever. 

Don’t Leave Me Locked in Your Heart

Strange Captivity:

Never will you depart
Though often cast away,
Unburied in my heart
Wraithlike you stray.

First, tenuous and thin,
Then warmer, closer, deep,
You pierce without, within,
You enter in my sleep.

And higher, higher, till
My blood calms all my breath,
Your resolute, strong will
Leaps through the walls of death.

Spectre, whose radiant eyes
Destroy all life in me,
Let me immortalize
My strange captivity

In thoughts that none will read,
In blood that leaves no strain,
Words spoken to the rain,
Devotion none will heed.

Marya Zaturenska.

Someone's got to be oppressed!

Yes, it's all for the best!

Important, Worthy and Complex Stories

The Tiger:

The tiger

He destroyed his cage

Yes

YES

The tiger is out

Nael.

The World Was Different When I Was Twenty

WTC, October Break, 1989.

It happens every day

No matter what you say.

PS - Suddenly reminded that I used to snap my fingers in class to demonstrate timing signals (Physical Layer stuff), then would bust out into the first couple verses of this song.  Yeah, I draw on multiple disciplines in my teaching tech.

frangere

Breakage:

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Mary Oliver.

#throwbackthursday

That tree is in high school now. (2019)

Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern...

You have to look past his little marble goolies.

E allora noi vili

“And then we cowards”:

And then we cowards

who loved the whispering

evening, the houses,

the paths by the river,

the dirty red lights

of those places, the sweet

soundless sorrow—

we reached our hands out

toward the living chain

in silence, but our heart

startled us with blood,

and no more sweetness then,

no more losing ourselves

on the path by the river—

no longer slaves, we knew

we were alone and alive.

Cesare Pavese. 

Happy Bug Day

Phoning it in today:

The Harvard Mark II, also known as the Aiken Relay Calculator, was an electromechanical computer built under the direction of Howard Aiken at Harvard University, completed in 1947... 

The Mark II is also known for being the computer with the first recorded instance of an actual bug (a moth) disrupting its operation. The insect was extracted from the machine's electronics and taped to the log book, with the note "first actual case of [a] bug being found", on September 9, 1947. 

Speaking of bugs, I ran into one trying to upload the picture of the original bug.  So here's a link to it, since I can't seem to embed right now, lol.

Dona nobis pacem

Premiered on this date in '71 as part of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opening (commissioned by Jacky).

PS - Is it just me, or does this sound like the child of Carmina Burana and West Side Story?