circa 1529
Here’s the original manuscript of Martin Luther’s “A mighty fortress is our God”, a paraphrase of Psalm 146. I wonder at how how many tongues have sung these words since the day it was written…
my favorite part is the very last phrase : Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still — his kingdom is forever. amen.
friday night
It ends up being at the strangest of moments that I feel an overwhelming sense of satisfaction and enjoyment of grad school… It’s Friday night and I’m sitting in studio working.
…on a Friday night.
… but I just feel so fulfilled.
gone fishing
for the first time in my life, I’m feeling like there just isn’t enough time .
… I don’t think I ever imagined this happening before I was thirty.
advent begun
a voice cries out: “in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God;
every valley will be lifted up and ever hill made low,
the rough ground will be made level and the rugged places a plain,
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all the flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
happy first week of advent!
(image via eja photo)
homage
La Mort des Amants
Nous aurons des lits pleins d’odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d’étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.
Usant à l’envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux coeurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.
Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous échangerons un éclair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d’adieux;
Et plus tard un Ange, entr’ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes.
— Charles Baudelaire
ballad of the harp weaver
In a madeleine-de-proustian moment this afternoon, I was visited by a vague memory of my favorite childhood book, The Ballad of the Harp Weaver. It was strangely a moving moment for me, first because I don’t think I’ve had a single thought about it in over 10 years, but probably more because such a feeling of sadness came over me as I started to work through my memories to remember the actual story.
It’s a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the story of a mother and her son who love each other so dearly… and when the winter comes and their clothes are not warm enough and they’ve burnt the last of their furniture for firewood, they sit together and hold each other and laugh and sing into the cold night. And as the boy drifts off into sleep, he begins to dream his mother is sitting at their harp, singing and weaving him clothes of bright and luxurious threads… only to awake in the morning to find her frozen dead.
I wonder what a little girl I was to have loved something so sad… And to be honest, I am not sure what moves me more — the story itself, or the thought that a little 8 year-old heart could already be so compelled by such beauty and sorrow.
looking back, rotterdam
Rotterdam, last spring, left me with a strange feeling. It was disorienting and cold, we were weary and wet from the rain, and somehow I just didn’t feel welcome.
But today, something’s drawing me back…
in case anyone is wondering
what I’m spending two years in grad school for:
from the man who brought you Helvetica and Objectified… a new documentary about the planning and designing of cities which pretty much summarizes why I’m so excited about what I’m doing.
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