ODES ONE-ELEVEN

Don’t you go bothering yourself, it’s not our department, the endings the gods

Have in store for me and for you, Martha my dear, and leave those bloody

Horoscopes alone. Best you can, whatever it is, get on with it. There may be more winters,

This may be the last, all obstinate rocks and punishing sea. Now, be a good girl,

Open the wine, life is too small to let hopes grow untrimmed. Too much talk, the moment has

Gone, fickle bastard: today’s the day, don’t rely too much on getting a sequel.

I'm trying to translate quicker, going heavily on the bits of the original that appeal most strongly to me, maybe at the expense of getting slightly creative with the elements that don't.

Horace Walpole

“Hello”, he said to the pretty, slim 32 year old in all white. He smiled a dazzling smile and looked straight into her moist and dancing eyes. He acted like he was in love but his heart was elsewhere.

You see, Horace was a unique medical specimen.

He had an artificial heart.

Later on in the same party, Gilbert sniffed his martini took a sip and contemplated its taste. He looked around, saw a pretty, slim 32 year old in all white, downed the drink and proceeded to her.

“Hello”, he said with a dazzling smile and looked straight into her moist and dancing eyes. He thought he was in love but his head was somewhere else.

You see, Gilbert was a unique medical specimen.

He had an artificial brain.

The party went on. Things happened. People came, people drank, people left.

The party ended.

The pretty lady in white went home with him.

I go in fits and spurts with my blogging, just with my writing. Why is that? I think about blogging and I think about writing...I incubate both a lot, to tell the truth, but there is just something not as appealing as sitting my ass in the chair and putting words to the page.

And yet, the funny thing is, once I start putting words to the page it all flows out so I don't know why I ever hesitate in the first place.

So here is the roundup of what is going on with me, writing and otherwise.

• My favorite quote of the moment: ""No poem was ever written by a drinker of water." ~ Horace    I'm not sure how true that actually is but I would guess that for the most part, it tends to be true. We're talking complete teetotalers here...
• Somewhere nearby there are fireworks going off. I'm not sure why. Some town must be having a celebration of some sort. But on a Monday?
• I am completely rewriting my book in omniscient POV. It's going terribly in my mind, but that's what editing is all about, right? I'm ready to start rewriting chapter 7 of 13 already complete--the 13th chapter had me about halfway through, I think. It's been daunting but I will persevere.
• I've been listening to Christopher Paolini's Eragon as a book on tape. This has its pluses and minuses. The narrator actually does the voices, which sometimes work and sometimes fail (his voice for the dragon is awful IMHO), so that is a big drawback. I'm used to forming my own voices and this one just doesn't match up. But I like the idea of listening in the car on my way to work and I do find that it resonates. No, I haven't seen the movie and I probably won't since it was panned so horribly.  The book is amazingly good and yet amazingly not good.  The not good--predictable in the sense that it draws upon all the old tired fantasy cliches of orcs (ahem, urgols), elves, shades, dragons and their riders, etc. It tends to explain a lot...the training of young Eragon is a bit tedious sometimes. I also find myself questioning things that should be obvious to the characters but don't seem to be (especially when Eragon was wondering questions about his new dragon and for some bizarre reason just doesn't ask her directly but has to wait for his aged, magical mentor Braun to answer them). But I have to echo what everyone else always says--if he wrote that when he was 15/16...wow.  The good--I've learned a LOT about voice and description. It's made me think quite a bit about how my own novel is structured and given me good ideas about the rewrites. Paolini has a real gift for these things and I cannot help by feeling jealous that I didn't have the same talent when I was his age. I find myself very much looking forward to the next book but even more so the future books. If he could write like that at 16 think of what he can do at 25 or 30 or older!
• I have discovered the wonderfulness of a novel critique group. There are only four of us and we strive to get together every other week. Schedules are sometimes tricky but we are dedicated to getting together and talking over our novels be it a chapter, a query letter or synopsis. The feedback is completely invaluable and the moral support is absolutely priceless.  We're all writing very different things, ranging from literary fiction, chick lit, historical fiction (15th c. India) and my lovely Roman gourmand. Fun, interesting and extra educational.
• I'm reading:
  • War and Peace  -Tolstoy
  • Sister Carrie  - Theodore Dreiser  (a gift from a dear friend and wow, what a surprise!)
  • Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World by Peter D'Epiro and Mary Desmond (this is the current bathroom book... a gift from my 2nd gen Italian mother-in-law)
  • Carl Sandburg - Collected Poems
  • Lavinia (talked about previously) is waiting in the wings!
    
• I just created a book for my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary using Blurb.com. The book is done and will be delivered in a week or so but WOW, what a cool service. We're already coming up with great ideas for xmas presents...cookbook anyone?
  
• I'm going to be starting a third blog soon...yes, I'm crazy. The third blog will be focused on social media and in particular, B2B social media and how companies are breaking through the mold to do interesting things. I'm trying to figure out if I should aggregate my sites--that one for my work, this one for my writing and the other for my casual, fun, social blogging. Perhaps I need a portal after all, with a bio, entrance page, etc., that runs from crystalking.com and links to this site and the others. The thought cracks me up--that I write so much drivel that I may actually need a portal. ;-)
• And...I'm twittering if anyone wants to add me:  http://www.twitter.com/crystallyn

I'm going to make a better effort to be around these parts, especially as I plow through more of my novel. Always good to be reporting progress and to stay connected to other writers!

Atque inter silvas Academi quaerere verum.

Setting: A dark tavern where men come to drown their sorrows and order 'stewed prunes' (latin in joke i'm afraid, the code for "i want a prostitute" in unlicesened brothels in Pompeii). Enter Catullus and Martial talking about their love lives:

Catullusl: oh i don't know what to do about Lesbia! i'm so confused with all the love and the hate tormenting me!

Martial: Like me too! My girl is somehow difficult and easy going!

Catullus: Dude, the harsh c-sounds of your words (difficilus facilis) totally emphasise the pain of being in love!

Martial: Love brings so many harsh decisions man, i can live neither with her or without her!

Catullus: At least your girl isn't a total skank.

Petronius enters, naked and confused from all the wandering around in the road, orders a stiff drink. Nods to Catullus and Martial, yet ignores them as he is on a mission to find babes so damn cupid will let him rest.

Catullus: She may be a whore, but i need her. I need as great a number of kisses as the number of sand which lies between the Oracle of sultry Jupiter and Battus' ancient tomb

Martial: Cyrene sure is a great, silphium-producing place...

Catullus mumers in agreement. Horace enters

Martial: Dude! We haven't seen you in here since you hung up the metaphorical a votive tablet at the temple!

Horace: I saw her with another man, not even a man, an inexperience boy drenched in much rose perfume

Catullus: Tough break dude...

End scene because i am damn tired

So yeah, that is how i believe it would go. They are utterly pathetic.

(But then again, i so wouldn't mind being there)

All are saying that life is meant to be vibrant and fully lived, and we have only the certainty of the present moment to do it. I agree, yet I often find carpe diem troubling. I celebrate the idea of living fully each day with acute awareness and gratitude as if it were my last, as Ecclesiastes urges. In fact it encapsules the life lesson I am trying to master: "recognizing the present duty in the present moment." More often, though, poets, philosophers, rebels and most of us in our teens and twenties invoke it as a license to do whatever we want, no matter how selfish, excessive or destructive, and do it defiantly. In "Dead Poet's Society," it was a rallying cry to wake up to life and resist those still asleep who would pressure us to conform. This is heady stuff, even needed stuff at times . . . but as the film soon reveals, it is a charge vulnerable to inspiring choices that can tragically curtail time and invite death. Having personally seen too much tragic waste of young lives in the pursuit of being "merry" carpe diem has come to feel like the equivalent of telling my kids to play in the street.

Two recent films have reminded me that carpe diem is essentially neutral, and it can look very different than a heedless pursuit of pleasure. The mandate is to live today fully and know it. It doesn't say how, but insists the how matters. Nothing brings that more into focus than unexpected tragedy or a near miss with death. Each of us must decide how we will live our moments, both in action--ignore it, embrace it or resist it--and in attitude--apathy, anger or appreciating how precious it is. 

"Things We Lost in the Fire" portrays a family and best friend's wrenching struggle to come to terms with unexpected loss and urges us to learn to "Accept the good." Life at its darkest still has grace-notes of love, compassion, humanity and laughter, and if we will receive them--when we can again receive them--they can bring healing. As a whole, the film had the makings to be more powerful than it was in execution, but it was deeply perceptive about how human beings often react when in searing pain. When we most desperately need help we are often the least willing and/or able to receive it. Benicio del Toro gives a subtle performance ranging from quiet despair to exquisite sweetness as he learns to believe that he, too, deserves to "accept the good" and inhabit the present moment as a gift.

But it is the HBO movie "My House in Umbria" in its complex simplicity that illustrates the power in "Fire"'s mantra, "Receive the good," and Herrick's recycled "Gather ye rosebuds." I don't think I've ever been so inarticulate about a movie. The sum of the individual parts should not so excel them. Rarely is the storyteller's "Show not tell" followed so scrupulously to such revealing effect. How can a movie so absent in dramatic moments or commanding emotions be so unforgettably wise? It is the story of four people who survive an explosion in their train compartment.

As the survivors gather at the title house of Maggie Smith's Emily Delahunty in order to heal and remain accessible to the police investigating the explosion, each of these complex, flawed, grieving people is presented with the challenge of not only receiving the good, but choosing it. The central question the film asks from multiple perspectives is whether choosing the good is simply an escape, or worse, a denial of the way things really are: we are each capable of pettiness, foolishness, and despicable acts, and life can be capriciously, devastatingly inexplicable. Or might it simply be an act of survival, possibly even courage? Might it be the better portion?

As seen through the eyes of romance novelist Delahunty the story unfolds. It is a strange journey. In turns one is ready to dismiss the narrator as an unreliable dreamer only to stop short at her frequent perception of uncomfortable realities. Her pathetic neediness and pretensions alternate with generosity and a rare gift for nurture. Maggie Smith is the master of all her character's colors, sometimes all at once, but quietly so. It is an amazing performance, not least for it's deceptive simplicity.

In the final scene Chris Cooper's character Riversmith sends Emily Delahunty a precious gift, but with no guarantees that any day, tomorrow or years from now, he might not insist upon the gift's return. She turns from her gardening and says," I doubt Mr. Riversmith will ever come back for [it]."

The General, her fellow survivor, warns, "He may come back next month."

"I may be dead in a month. The moon may crash into the earth. Who knows what dreadful things may happen. In this moment I am happy . . ."

"Carpe diem," the General replies. When Emily Delahunty admits she's never really understood what that means, he adds, " . . . Embrace the present; enjoy life while you've got the chance."

"Carpe diem. I'll remember that." She smiles as if she has swallowed all the happiness in life in a single gulp, the sweetness made all the more precious by a lifetime's tragedies and desperate lies. Without words Smith's glance says, "We have back what we thought never to have again. It is too rare a gift. I will not diminish it with what ifs. This is a moment of pure sunlight without any shadow. I will be only here. I will give it its full due. I choose love, holding nothing back, come what may."

So, carpe diem. This is our moment to choose. What will it be?

And then there's the whole Chosen One story---Richard (one of the Others) is at the hospital the day Locke is born---and checks on him as he's growing up---so is there a prophecy, an expectation of reincarnation, what? The fact that young John is drawing smoke monsters attacking people seems to lend itself to a reincarnation theory. His foster mother apparently expects bizarre behavior from him (kind of like the Dursleys and Harry Potter)---what weird things happen around young John? And why did Richard apparently want John to choose The Book of Laws??? As an indication that he is just?

What's the deal with Abaddon? People on Lostpedia think he's a good guy because he sat by the white chess pieces---but he's still kind of creepy. And his remark to John that 'someday you'll owe me one'---is that a reference to Boone's sacrifice? Personally, I get a little irritated at John's 'the Island demanded a sacrifice' philosophy---I'm also annoyed at the 'how do we protect the Island?' question---what about 'how do we protect the people on the Island?' I suppose I should assume that John was including the people in the question but it just bothers me that he's more concerned with the Island than the people. Yeah, I know, the Island is special . . . . But back to the question---what's the deal with Abaddon? Both he and Richard apparently want Locke to go the Island---but do they have the same reasons? Richard is an Other---who's Abaddon with?

Several people on Lostpedia have theorized that Ben and John are brothers . . . interesting. I don't think Locke's meeting with his 'mother' disproves that---John never knew her growing up and his dad wouldn't have hesitated to hire someone to impersonate her.

Horace freaked me out---not because he's dead---he just freaks me out.

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page

ODE XXXVIII

Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,
displicent nexae philyra coronae,
mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum
sera moretur.

Simplici myrto nihil adlabores
sedulus, curo: neque te ministrum
dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta
uite bibentem.

*

Son, I hate Persian fanciness,
those lime-tied garlands vex me.
Stay, don’t look all over
for a lingering rose.

Fervently make sure the plain myrtle
remains unchanged: it disgraces neither you
the servant, nor me as I drink
beneath this narrow vine.

So the formatting is off a little and I couldn't present it exactly as I had wanted, but this is it. It's nothing major, nothing that other people haven't done before, but it's good practice and quite a bit of fun. I have translated three others thus far, as well as a couple short prose pieces. I may attempt another if I can find the time this weekend.

In other news, I finally received a copy of The Society 2008 from St. Peter's College. I have three poems in this issue and was delighted to see them.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards are just around the corner. I'm looking forward to reading the winning entries and seeing what has been created in the province this past year.

Grazie a Subsfactory per i sottotitoli.

Click en la imagen para acceder al artículo

Ode 9, to Thaliarchus:

You see how Soracte stands out white with deep snow, and how the labouring woods no longer support their burden, and how the streams are frozen by the sharp cold.

Dispel the cold by piling wood liberally over the hearth, and bring out, O Thaliarchus, the more generous wine, four years old, from the Sabine jar.

Leave the rest for the gods; as soon as they lay to rest the winds struggling violently with the seething ocean, neither the cypresses nor the old ash-trees are tossed about.

Avoid asking for what may happen tomorrow, and set down for profit whatever of days Fortune gives, nor, being a boy, despise sweet loves or dances -

while from you, youthful, hoary old age is absent. Now let there be sought again and again both the plain and the city square, and the gentle whispers just before night at the agreed hour,

now also the charming laughter from an inmost corner, betrayer of a lurking girl, and the token snatched from arms or a finger pretending to hold fast.

As I said, there's so much in this poem, but what grabbed me particularly was the reverence that pervades it. The vignette of winter in the first stanza, the warmth and domesticity of the second, the hint of "final rest"* in the third, and the intimacy of gentle whispers and the token snatched in the last two stanzas - they prevent the poem from being too busy, even though we are presented with so many different images.

Furthermore, the descriptive words Horace uses in the last stanza to describe the encounter with the girl - proditor, "betrayer", male pertinaci, literally "badly holding fast" - reinforce a view of love that is one step removed from the very personal and emotional love that can be found in Catullus, for example. Ode 5 in Book I also reinforces this Horatian attitude, as it concludes with what in modern parlance might read "been there, done that".

So Horace is describing something that deserves reverence, deserves to be loved, and that is youth itself. He warns us that there are risks to this epicurean approach, but nevertheless he urges us on to seize the opportunities which only youth holds.

Any thoughts? Corrections to my translation?

* NB: Cypresses and ash-trees are found in graveyards.

The CTV version is significantly different than the ABC version this week, so I posted both for your enjoyment. Go Canada!

ABC version

Recognize that guy who's been dead for 12 years? (Thanks Michele!)

CTV version

Someone needs to whup Keamy's ass already.

P.S. The Episode 10: Something Nice Back Home recap is live.

In Living to our Fullest Potential we wrote about Dario Bernazza's list of the 30 major issues which – he argues - we must necessarily face (and solve) in the best possible way in order to diminish life sufferings and live a fruitful life. After no. 1 in his list (Defining a purpose in life) we will here consider no. 2 and no. 3, namely:

2. Keeping ourselves in good health
3. Serenity of soul

(Above a so-called Seneca, a Roman bronze at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy. Picture by Massimo Finizio, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Italy. Here the Wikimedia source file)

Good health

According to Bernazza (I am summarizing his thought freely) health is more precious than wealth or power. It is a prerequisite for a fruitful and happy life. “It is the condition without which the edifice of happiness cannot be built or, if it is already in place, its falling apart cannot be avoided”. Better to be an unknown man who is in good health, than being a successful man who is sick. Good health is a way of delaying old age and fighting back death.

We should abstain ourselves from intemperance and dissolute living, because the pleasure of wellbeing is by far greater than that of revels (of any kind) that will later make us sick and will endanger our health. Bernazza condones a few exceptions (like - it is my thought - our civilization always did: from Roman Saturnalia to modern Carnivals), so here we can quote – since Bernazza doesn't – the Roman poet Horace who teaches to “mingle a little folly with your wisdom: a little nonsense now and then is pleasant.”

Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem:
Dulce est desipere in loco.

(Horace: 4 Odes, xii. 28.)

(I do not know who translated Horace's verses into English. Now and then makes good rhythm and is fine to me as a concept, though probably it is not a good translation of in loco, which should be “at a proper time”).

As a conclusion, a minimum advice from Bernazza on how to keep our good health: a walk at a good pace of 2-3 km every day in a park or green area.

Serenity of soul

Attaining serenity of soul is an effective weapon against life liabilities, namely all the sufferings that life inflicts upon us without mercy. But how can we attain it? We first have to understand something about life sufferings. Physical sufferings can be diminished if we take care of our health, as we said before – argues Country Philosopher (this is how we like to call Dario Bernazza). As regards psychical sufferings, some originate from the consequences of our bad choices, others from events we do not have control over, like the death of someone we love, for example, or people's bad actions.

As regards both physical and psychical sufferings, learning how to control nervous overexcitability can be of enormous benefit - argues CP – and especially its negative side, which is anger (the positive side of overexcitability being joy). The less we get angry (and generally overemotional, in a negative sense), the less we suffer. The more we get angry (and overemotional), the more we suffer.

Is it possible to always avoid anger and nervous overexcitement? Only the strictest stoics and the strictest oriental religious gurus think it possible – argues CP. But that would mean to have the psyche of a corpse, which is not possible, unless we really are a corpse. What we can do is limiting our nervous overexcitement to such an extent that real negative overexcitement is not possible any more. “This means reaching a status of psychic calmness more or less unalterable, thence a substantial serenity of soul.” It is an immense, invaluable benefit, it is clear – argues CP – because in this way we can highly diminish psychic sufferings which are the sufferings that mostly plague our life.

“But how can we possibly attain this? Socrates - argues Bernazza - teaches us how: through exercise, because exercise creates a habit, any habit. And how long must this exercise last? Until the day we really get into the habit of not getting angry and overemotional any more. It is a long exercise, it is not an easy one and it cannot but last some years.” But, even if we fail and get now and then overemotional let us remember never to give up, this being highly important, since perseverance will certainly allow us to attain our positive result. There is no doubt about it, there is really no doubt (I told you CP always repeats this phrase).

Ψ

PS
Here is a list of our writings on Dario Bernazza:

Country Philosopher
Ethical Confusion & Ancient Teachings
Assets and Liabilities in Life
Living to Our Fullest Potential
Health and Serenity of Soul

And here a post on anger (a bit on the wild-soliloquy side, I'll admit):
Force & Anger. Ghosts in the Mind