Without Lifting A Finger

How exquisite this steely water is!" said Sergey Ivanovitch. "These riverside banks always remind me of the riddle — do you know it? 'The grass says to the water: we quiver and we quiver.'" "I don't know the riddle," answered Levin wearily. &&& Some background info on the Russian traditional riddle (via Google AI): No, they do not all speak in the excerpt from Anna Karenina , but yes, they all speak in the full traditional riddle that Tolstoy was referencing. [ 1 ] When Sergey Ivanovich quotes the riddle to Levin in the novel, he only recites the very last line: "The grass says to the water: we sway and we sway" (or "we quiver and we quiver" depending on your translation). [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] However, Tolstoy included the complete, unabridged folk riddle in his 1872 ABC Book ( Азбука ) , where each of the three elements gets a speaking part: [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] The River says: "We will run and run." The Banks say: ...

At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would answer mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless. So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception. "Possibly I was mistaken," said he. "If so, I beg your pardon." "No, you were not mistaken," she said deliberately, looking desperately into his cold face. "You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his mistress; I can't bear you; I'm afraid of you, and I hate you…. You can do what you like to me." And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexey Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept looking straight before him. But his whole fac...

Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and irrational, and did not know what was to be done. Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself. All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived. For the first time the question presented itse...

In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.

Another old poem I just found on the Net in Right Hand Pointing: "Heart." Had totally forgotten it. Not sure whether it ever made it into one of my books. Heart 1. Words. Symbols. Sums. What fraction of reality gets into them? The commerce of the hordes, he thinks. The earth-dwellers.  Those with the hubristic screech and scrawl. 2. Heart is playing at the Hollywood Bowl tonight ( Crazy on You ). He is tooling  about trying to get the right combination of nibbles and bits:  Pinot noir,  brie, fresh figs, etc.  Leaving TJ’s, he flinches, then grabs a few plastic  knives and forks from their holsters on the wall.  Sorry, he thinks.  We’ve done this to ourselves. We’re doing it.  Stopping  isn’t an option.          

An old poem of mine that my AI kicked up tonight (from my book Matman & Testudo): "Surface Tension." I had almost forgotten it. LAUSD was "restructuring" and my principal said, "Don't worry, you'll land somewhere. You're a good teacher." I landed somewhere, then somewhere else. Etc. Stressful but fun -- exploring many places I had no idea about, even teaching some simple science. Anyway, here's the poem (inspired by my drive in the morning, over the two bridges to and through San Pedro CA). Surface Tension If the paperclip doesn’t float on the water’s surface, first lay a thin piece of paper on the water, then lay the clip gently on the paper * He’s not drowning. The nearest body of water is the bottle of water in the back of the car, wedged between two Blue Ice Blocks in his Igloo. Still, he sits behind the wheel taking in little fish gulps, as though staving off the big gulp that would take him under  *  The way to his new job takes h...