Florence, Tuscany - Italy (© Giuseppe Torre)
The exceeding brightness of this early sun
Makes me conceive how dark I have become.—Wallace Stevens, opening lines to “The Sun This March” from The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and Play (Alfred A. Knopf, 1971)
“As of today, I’ve spent more than 11 years in Guantánamo Bay. To be precise, it’s been 4,084 long days and nights. I’ve never been charged with any crime. I’ve never been allowed to see the evidence that the US once pretended they had against me. It’s all secret, even the statements they tortured out of me.” - Shaker Aamer, held in Guantánamo prison since 2002, cleared for release six years ago. Aamer has been on hunger strike for 70 days. Read his op-ed.
Something within her refused to grow. Something endless, eternal. Something bold. Something warrior-like. She looked up at the stars, she could feel, she felt as if she could pluck them one by one and send them spinning into the world, like small beautiful elastic mercurial weapons. Now too, the time is coming.
“
| — | Patti Smith’s beautiful tribute to Virginia Woolf, who took her own life on March 28, 1941. (via explore-blog) |
On March 25, my stepfather went to the emergency room after experiencing chest pains. It was determined that he’d suffered a heart attack. Doctors immediately performed double bypass surgery, which lasted for 5 hours. During that time, my mother and I sat in the waiting room of the hospital…
pronunciation | “so-frO-‘sU-nA
Greek script | σωφροσύνη
note | To everyone who is thinking “I want to get there” and also to everyone who is thinking “I’ll never get there”—you will. Even if it’s a battle, keep fighting, because you are good and strong and valuable, and your happiness is worth it.
[All is not as it seems. I am not as I seem.
Your soft limbs hide the outline of wings.
At the verge of thirteen, your toes grip the edge.]
Beneath your feet, a wind you dare not predict.
Your soft limbs hide the outline of wings.
At the verge of thirteen, your toes grip the edge.]
Beneath your feet, a wind you dare not predict.
“
| — | Andy Jackson, from “All is not as it seems” (via the-final-sentence) |
School is really important: Reading, writing, arithmetic. But what they tend to do is teach you reading, writing, arithmetic…then teach you reading, writing, arithmetic again. Then again, then again, just making it harder and harder just to keep you busy. And that’s where I think they messed up. There should be a class on drugs. There should be a class on sex education. No, REAL sex education class, not just pictures and illogical terms…There should be a class on scams, there should be a class on religious cults, there should be a class on police brutality, there should be a class on apartheid, there should be a class on racism in America, there should be a class on why people are hungry, but there’s not, their class is on…gym….Their class is like Algebra. we have yet to go a store and said, “Can I have X Y + 2 and give me my Y change back, thank you.” You know?…Like foreign languages. I think that they are important, but I don’t think it should be required. Actually, they should be teaching you English, and then teach you how to understand double talk, politician’s double talk. Not teaching you how to understand French and Spanish and GERMAN. When am I going to Germany? I can’t afford to pay my rent in America! How am I going to Germany?
—Tupac, Age 17 On the Topic of Education, 1988.SO MUCH TRUTH.
