Without Lifting A Finger

I am nauseated by their lying drivel about pure men and pure women and spiritual love and love for ever: blatant lying in the face of the truth. I don’t know much about the ‘saince’ of the subject but I presume there are very few mortals in Europe who are not in danger of waking some morning and finding themselves syphilitic. The Irish consider England a sink: but, if cleanliness be important in this matter, what is Ireland? Perhaps my view of life is too cynical but it seems to me that a lot of this talk about love is nonsense. A woman’s love is always maternal and egoistic. A man, on the contrary, side by side with his extraordinary cerebral sexualism and bodily fervour (from which women are normally free) possesses a fund of genuine affection for the ‘beloved’ or ‘once beloved’ object. I am no friend of tyranny, as you know, but if many husbands are brutal the atmosphere in which they live (vide Counterparts) is brutal and few wives and homes can satisfy the desire for happiness. In...

Walked in Downtown Long Beach again this morning. Love is the answer. Or at least part of the ingredients. Buy the book: Woodhenge. It has the rest of the recipe. Last day for the Kindle eBook freebie is tomorrow: July 8. After that the eBook skyrockets to $2.99. You'll have to dig deep for the paperback: $5.99. @Amazon  @rl_swihart #woodhenge #love #poetry Best, R L Swihart *

Think whatever you like of Tolstoy. Late Tolstoy: old crank, crackpot, seer? A little bit of everything, like all of us. Still, one thing he saw clearly: we are a mess. I was having a hard time "settling in" to the next read: then I landed in Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata . Though a bit dated -- what would he have turned his attention to now? -- much of it still rings true. I fall for almost anything beginning or ending with a train.:) * Two bits: "Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful history,--yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than the outcome." He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and began:-- "To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning. It must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my marriage. First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman of the steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University pupil, a gra...

STRANGER. So you're here? TEMPTER. I'm always everywhere, where it smells of quarrels. And in love affairs there are always quarrels. STRANGER. Always? TEMPTER. Always! I was invited to a silver wedding yesterday. Twenty-five years are no trifle -- and for twenty-five years they'd been quarrelling. The whole love affair had been one long shindy, with many little ones in between! And yet they loved one another, and were grateful for all the good that had come to them; the evil was forgotten, wiped out -- for a moment's happiness is worth ten days of blows and pinpricks. Oh yes! Those who won't accept evil never get anything good. The rind's very bitter, though the kernel's sweet. STRANGER. But very small.

Because I for my part would never leave you, not even if it were my lot -- worse things could happen to me -- to have with you an inner relationship that corresponded to an outer circumstance such as having nothing to do but wait forever outside the side entrance to your house, while you passed in and out through the front door.

She deserves special mention. Fell in love with her the last time I was at the Getty and she starred in a poem. How do we know she's a girl? I think it's the Bermuda Triangle. So much for love.             

The tradition of love padlocks is only slowly catching on in the U.S. Someone (literally "one pair of lovers") would like it to catch on in Belmont Shore. The Lewis D. Reese Bridge is a good candidate, though only certain types of locks will work. Here's to the effort.           

I certainly didn't remember seeing them in Paris the last time we visited, so I thought: Either I missed something, or it's a new deal. Last night I was watching a travel show on PBS and they were showing a similar phenomenon (lovers, locks, and a shackled bridge) in Wroclaw, Poland. The host also seemed to say it was a "tradition," which of course made me think: Originating where? *** Here's Wiki's take on the tradition, apparently rather new:   History There are varied explanations for the origin of love padlocks. In Europe, love padlocks started appearing in the early 2000s. [ 2 ] The reasons love padlocks started to appear vary between locations, and in many instances are unsourced. However, in Rome , the ritual of affixing love padlocks to the bridge Ponte Milvio can be attributed to the book Three meters above the sky by Italian author Federico Moccia , who later made it into the film-adaptation Tre metri sopra il cielo . [ 3 ] [ 4 ] Similar...

Spent much of the morning reading Flaubert's letters (arranged chronologically). Just a couple bits I gave the Hogarthian line to: To his sister Caroline:      You are expecting details about Victor Hugo. What can I tell you? He is a man who looks like many another, with a rather ugly face and a rather common appearance. He has magnificent teeth, a superb forehead, no eyelashes or eyebrows. He talks little, gives the impression of being on his guard and not wanting to give himself away; he is very polite and a little stiff. I greatly like the sound of his voice. I enjoyed watching him from close by; I looked at him with astonishment, as I would at a casket of gold and royal diamonds, thinking of everything that has come out of him -- that man who was sitting on a little chair beside me; I kept looking at his right hand, which has written so many splendid things. To Alfred LePoittevin:      Two days ago I saw Byron's name written on one of...

The band was making a great din, and Harry, leaning over the table so as not to have to shout, said mysteriously and in a low voice: "Love is a matter of distance; here are two people, and each is on a separate star, and neither can know anything of the other. And then suddenly distance is annihilated and time is annihilated, and they have flown together, so that they have no separate awareness of each other or of themselves, and feel no need of it. That is love."