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February 24, 2007
amélie
On a sparkling evening in July, while on the beaches, holiday hordes relax in the new-found sun and Paris's sweltering denizens gaze at the star bursts of the traditional fireworks.
Amelie Poulain, Godmother of Outcasts, Madonna of the Unloved, finally succumbed to exhaustion. In Paris's stricken streets, a countless throng of mourners lined her funeral route in silence with the measureless grief of newly orphaned children. What a strange destiny for one who gave her all, yet took such joy in life's simplest pleasures.
Like Don Quixote, she pitted herself against the grinding windmills of all life's miseries. It was a losing battle that claimed her life too soon. At barely 23, Amelie Poulain let her young, tired body merge with the ebb and flow of universal woe. As she went, she felt a stab of regret for letting her father die without trying to give his stifled life the breath of air she had given to so many others.
--from Amélie
Posted by ali at 6:01 PM | TrackBack
amélie
Amelie has a strange feeling of absolute harmony. It's a perfect moment of soft light, a scent in the air, the quite murmur of the city. She breathes deeply. Life is simple and clear. A surge of love, an urge to help mankind comes over her.
Let me help you. Step down. Here we go!
The drum major's window!
She's worn his coat since the day he died.
The horse's head has lost an ear!
That's the florist laughing. He has crinkly eyes.
In the bakery window, lollipops.
Smell that! They're giving out melon slices.
Sugarplum ice cream!
We're passing the park butcher.
Ham, 79 francs. Spareribs, 45!
Now the cheese shop. Picadors are 12.90. Cabecaus 23.50.
A baby's watching a dog that's watching the chickens.
Now we're at the kiosk by the metro.
I'll leave you here. Bye!
--from Amélie
Posted by ali at 5:55 PM | TrackBack
February 17, 2007
only like a boy
"i do not know what i may appear to the world; but to myself i seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
--isaac newton, from brewster, memoirs of newton (1855)
Posted by ali at 8:27 PM | TrackBack
February 6, 2007
moby dick
"death is only a launching into the region of the strange untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense remote, the wild, the watery, the unshored..."
"for as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. god keep thee! push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!"
"so man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his god."
"there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. nothing exists in itself."
--herman melville, moby dick