At Woodward's Garden by Robert Frost

A boy, presuming on his intellect,

Once showed two little monkeys in a cage

A burning-glass they could not understand

And never could be made to understand.

Words are no good: to say it was a lens

For gathering solar rays would not have helped.

But let him show them how the weapon worked.

He made the sun a pinpoint on the nose

Of the first one, then the other, till it brought

A look of puzzled dimness to their eyes

That blinking could not seem to blink away.

They stood arms laced together at the bars,

And exchanged troubled glances over life.

One put a thoughtful hand up to his nose

As if reminded--or as if perhaps

Within a million years of an idea.

He got his purple little knuckles stung.

The already known had once more been confirmed

By psychological experiment,

And that were all the finding to announce

Had the boy not presumed too close and long.

There was a sudden flash of arm, a snatch,

And the glass was the monkey's, not the boy's.

Precipitately they retired back-cage

And instituted an investigation

On their part, though without the needed insight.

They bit the glass and listened for the flavor.

They broke the handle and the binding off it.

Then none the wiser, frankly gave it up,

And having hid it in their bedding straw

Against the day of prisoners' ennui,

Came dryly forward to the bars again

To answer for themselves:

Who said it mattered

What monkeys did or didn't understand?

They might not understand a burning-glass.

They might not understand the sun itself.

It's knowing what to do with things that counts.

by Robert Frost (1936)

from: http://foundsf.org; they have a picture of the Woodward Garden Entrance... you might want to check it.

- I was somewhat in the middle of reviewing my OB book during the time that the urge to suddenly open my Robert Frost book at a random page. It might not really be what the poem was trying to say but I thought the poem meant that it did not matter whether I truly understood all the stuffs I'm cramming or trying desperately to read, it's knowing what to do with the stuff that matters most. It was a little comforting during the time. 

-Yes... I considered myself to be the monkeys and someone superior to me who flaunt their superiority to be the boy.

Kafka on Shore

I just finished reading Kafka on the Shore, one of the best reads I've ever had for ages. It really had been a long time since I last took a thick paper back book, sat, read and finished the whole thing. I did not finish it in one sitting though, it took me the whole summer to finish just this one book. I think I've lost my affinity to lengthy novels since the last novel I successfully finished was Peter Pan -- that was good too, after all, I am in love with Peter Pan and the thought of there being a real Peter Pan; anyway this particular novel needs to be talked about in another blog -- so going back, yeah, my affinity for thick, lengthy novels have dwindled down to almost nothing.

At the end of each chapter, I felt that connection to the characters, that odd experience of a metaphysical level was definitely there however underplayed it was in my life at that time... it was undeniably there. Oddly so, at first I felt that this book might not have been for me, it lacked the sheer excitement that I got from Anne Rice and her vampires and odd little action scenes. It lacked the feel of being thrown into the realities of another person's life which I got from Paulo Coelho, or that warmth and pain you feel in love from Nicolas Sparks. Yeah, I have such a small and cliched  repertoire of authors. But they are the ones I read.

I was almost to the half of the book thinking, this is not doing it for me, I can't seem to really enjoy it. Not that he wasn't good at telling his story or that the plot was a bore, I just felt like I wasn't excited, that's all. But I read on, thinking that if I always stopped reading in the middle because nothing excited me, my view of the whole thing would always be incomplete, like how I did with Pullman's The Golden Compass. So a little touch of maturity on my part (yehey for me). And true enough, the book proved to be more for me than what I first thought of it. 

I was somehow in the same situation when I read this. The same feeling like wanting to run away from something and start over somewhere else. And the story kind of grew on me, not like the feeling you get from watching strong big waves crushing against the rocks, but more like how you come to like the gentle breeze of a warm day, that neither blows through your hair or sweeps up your skirt, just a silent blow as gentle as a whisper. Anyway, my metaphor's bad so I'll put up something that helped me through that weird situation I was in. 

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. 

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. 

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about." 
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

Allan Popa

I still have my senior's copy of Morpo by Allan Popa and was leisurely reading it today... gosh it's too hot today. Anyway, here's one of the many good pieces in the collection.

TAGPO

Nagsalubong ang dalawang landas.
Saglit na nag-atubili.
Iwas sa kaliwa. Iwas sa kanan.
Kambal-hadlang ang pagbibigay-daan.
Nauudlot ang mga hakbang.
Magkabilang akmang
mga panaklong sa tagpo.
Pagkaraan, kapwa huminto.
Naghihintay sa udyok ng direksyon.
Iiwanan sila ng panahon

Haruki Murakami

I recently started reading Haruki Murakami. I came across this author from my best friend's sister, when she decided to sell her old books as she has already bought a "kindle". I bought all her Murakami books. I have heard the author somewhere before, I just couldn't remember where... So far I'm halfway done with his Kafka on the Shore and so far, it's a good read. The story for me somehow started quite slow and easy. I like the fact that he used such subtleties in introducing his plot twists and concentrated on the scenes that he was building in every chapter. I guess that's the genius of it. It is quite amazing how he could put out so much social issues without it coming off as offensive. anyway.. that's it for now. :)

Missing out

My summer has not been progressing as how I'd want to. I'm already halfway into my vacation and little has progressed with my art exploration, I haven't gone into learning any new violin techniques, and up until, I'm only halfway through my reading of Neil Gaiman's book. I haven't even gone swimming it just feels like summer sucks.

So You Think You Can Dance

So You Think You Can Dance does so much than just putting on a show. It does so much to educate people on dance and the diversity of it. And I love so much how they set up the show. Got me back on track with my art immersion summer. Kind of got lost while playing sims 3.

Well, here are some of my favorite.

I love Mia Michels... She makes one of the best choreographies. Just absolutely brilliant.

And I was especially captivated with Sonya's work after this.

Of the dance techniques, my favorite has always been ballroom. I had no clue of any other techniques. Now I have new favorites: Contemporary and Broadway. And I have found new respect for hip hop. I have to say, my most favorite ballroom dance has to be pasadoble. It's just overwhelmingly powerful.

Jean Hans Arp

After two lengthy reading of Tristan Tzara's take on Dada and a lengthy discussion on Dada with my best friend and with another friend of mine... I started looking up Jean Hans Arp.

I have to say... most of the artists of those time did not focus on just one art form. They explored and used different mediums which kind of says a lot about this generations artists... not that I'm belittling our generations artists because they are great and wonderful as well, or maybe I just haven't met a lot of artists who are not just writers and are not just painters but are a mesh of these different realms of art. Artists that are both poet and painter, both fictionist and musician. But maybe, it was because those were post-WWI artists and as we all know, tragedy brings inspiration. No matter how morbid it sounds, it inspires. Tragedy inspires one to write, to protest, to assess one's life; it drives people towards either self actualization or to complete utter destruction. Happiness does inspire, but for me, it does not inspire as strongly as tragedy does.

Back to Jean Hans Arp, he is a French sculptor, painter, collagist, printmaker, and poet of German birth. Although he is more known for his paintings and sculptures. He is said to be one of the founders of Dada in Zurich. But since I am more interested in his poetry and I had to read other Dada writers to get what this movement is about, -- plus, I wanted to distract myself from studying and feel like I did something I liked -- I went on to search some of his poems and then came across this particular piece: The Plain.


The title is actually really representative of the work. It was plain, simple that is which I've always liked in poems. I never really thought I'd like Dada because I'm always at my wits end trying to decipher whether they mean more than what the purport to present... but this particular piece gives me hope that maybe I'd find more pieces from Dada literature that will make me more inclined to explore this movement and eventually come to understand it.


The Plain

I was alone with a chair on a plain Which lost itself in an empty horizon. The plain was flawlessly paved. Nothing, absolutely nothing but the chair and I were there. The sky was forever blue, No sun gave life to it. An inscrutable, insensible light illuminated the infinite plain. To me this eternal day seemed to be projected -- artificially-- from a different sphere. I was never sleepy nor hungry nor thirsty, never hot nor cold. Time was only an abstruse ghost since nothing happened or changed. In me Time still lived a little This, mainly, thanks to the chair. Because of my occupation with it I did not completely lose my sense of the past. Now and then I'd hitch myself, as if I were a horse, to the chair and trot around with it, sometimes in circles, and sometimes straight ahead. I assume that I succeeded. Whether I really succeeded I do not know Since there was nothing in space By which I could have checked my movements. As I sat on the chair I pondered sadly, but not desperately, Why the core of the world exuded such black light. Jean Hans Arp Poem source: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-plain/