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The Grey

"Once more into the fray
Into the last good fight I'll ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day."

Joe Carnahan, director/writer.


The lines appear in the movie "The Grey", which I highly recommend. Reminiscent of Shakespeare's Henry V ("Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; / Or close the wall up with our English dead." III, 1, 1-2) and of Tennyson's The Last Charge of the Light Brigade.

Interesting spin-off: Rudyard Kipling's much overlooked The Last of the Light Brigade (I'm root-quoting, dudes, so Kipling's poem has little to do with the subject I started with).

Stones

A pebble the shore yielded, I put in my pocket.

A rock the mountain gave, I stored in my satchel.

A stone my hand let go, I picked up again.

When I bent down its weight was that of a mountain.

Some stones I discarded. Some I threw as far as I could.

Some I skimmed across the ponds and lakes

During my peregrinations.

Some pebbles I assembled in towers for the dead.

Some rocks I quarried with my bare hands.

Some I polished on my skin.

There are stones which need not be hewn to build a house –

They lie on the tussocky plains, waiting to be pieced together.

Gemstones indeed are uncovered. No stone is heavier than them.

None more coveted. None more trenchant.

There were stone beads arranged in a pendant

Which lasted millennia. Mine were attached to a weak string:

They fell back into a river.

There are rocks which we use as pedestals, stairs, gallows.

There are rocks which shimmer at night.

Others are darker, and cover us in cold slabs.

Each older than all our ages added up.

Meandering near the Mouth of the Cow

Or down Khutumsang's ravine,

I have carried two obsidian pebbles,

A chunk of flint and one of fool's gold.

Stones always bear marks of a kind.

Pebbles always wash up for a reason.

Rocks always shape a path.

Go clubbing

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."


John Griffith "Jack" London, American writer, adventurer, sailor (1876-1916)

I know that I know (next to) nothing

"Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure.""


H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Inner spirit

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."


Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965) 

Lost and found

Here's a haiku I found in one of my notepads. It is dated November 8th, 2011, morning, Orchha, India.


Warm feeling of homeliness
Far away from kin and fatherland
So much happens over tea


Twenty-four hours later, my life took an entirely different turn. So much happens over tea.

Hunter

Hunting bears I will
Hone my blade on my instinct -
Sentry in the wild

12 Last Known Speakers Of A Language

Quite interesting article.

12 Last Known Speakers Of A Language

Another quiet night in Tours

Terrains de sport de l'île Aucard 

 Quai Paul Bert

Vue de la bibliothèque municipale et du pont de fil, du pont Wilson 

Rue Briçonnet 

Jardin Saint-Pierre le Puellier 

Place Plumereau 

Rue Colbert 

Passage du Coeur Navré 

Cathédrale Saint-Gatien, vue de la place Grégoire de Tours 

Rue Manceau 

Angle des rues Racine et de la Bazoche