Lanced Hearts of Lovers & Martyrs

An Afternoon at the Opera

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:13:55 -0400

I don’t know how it happened, I’m still in some euphoric haze over it all, but unless I’m dreaming, I think just bought 3 box-level seats to the Detroit Opera House’s final performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio for 17 bucks.

So come this Sunday, I’ll be donning my top-hat, banding with the most suave of all the college friends I have—a rag-tag gang looking straight out of La Boheme—, dressing as petit-bourgeois as humanly possible, and storming the D like its the Tullieries on a Parisian revolt. And spending the afternoon with the Romantic of all Romantics, Beethoven.

A Prelude to Spring

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:35:00 -0400

First day of the year it truly feels like Spring, through and through.

Celebrated by popping the sunroof, rolling all my windows down, and proceeding to blare Tchaikovsky as loudly as possible through town all the way home from work.

Neighbors appreciated it, I bet.

A Song for Holy Saturday. Jonni Greth

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:30:31 -0400

A Song for Holy Saturday. Jonni Greth

Hey, they wrote a comic about me. ;) Ok, I’m actually...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:31:00 -0400

Hey, they wrote a comic about me. ;)

Ok, I’m actually pretty rusty on my syntax… Ever man’s got his flaws.

"In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is..."

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:31:27 -0400

“In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. I do not think that at any rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil. Satan fell. In my myth Morgoth fell before Creation of the physical world. In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit.* In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about ‘freedom’, though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour. The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants;† if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world.

* Of the same kind as Gandalf and Saruman, but of a far higher order.

† By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. When Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. By the end of the Second Age he assumed the position of Morgoth’s representative. By the end of the Third Age (though actually much weaker than before) he claimed to be Morgoth returned.”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters, #184 (via stoneofthehapless)

I’m moving, moving out of my old place,’Craiglockhart’, as I’ve come to call it; that mental ward...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:08:46 -0400

I’m moving, moving out of my old place,’Craiglockhart’, as I’ve come to call it; that mental ward the two war poets Owen & Sasasson met. Good riddance, I say. A bit liberating to be out. My friends’ condo’s been made into somewhat of a limbo for me; a place to stay between now and the next few months that I figure things out for University.

First on the list of packing was to mobilize my emassed library of second hand books I’ve collected through the years. My car’s filled right now with nearly half the novels I’ve ever come to own.— It’s quite literally a literary vessel as epic as Odesseus’ (he himself’s somewhere in there, too) carrying within her the cargo of thousands of years of man’s thought and verse, not to mention one young boy’s own life’s worth of stories. Were it to go down now in some Atlantic street wreck, King Phillip II’s lost ships of Aztec gold wouldn’t buffer the losses my childhood’s reading pleasure would suffer. But in just being melodramatic. These days ahead look pretty bright. I’m glad to be off to a new home.

"It is true I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile."

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:53:06 -0400

““It is true I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.””

- G.K. Chesterton (via larien-vardamir-arcamonel)

colourthysoul: Gabriel Ritter von Max - Tannhäuser (ca. 1878)

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:21:06 -0400

colourthysoul:

Gabriel Ritter von Max - Tannhäuser (ca. 1878)

Pacem, Dei Munus Pulcherrimum

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:58:43 -0400

White smoke rises as the world burns.
& up from the ashes of the Suicide of our century’s World,
a phoenix to our souls cries “Peace” against the War.
But not a sound breaks the thunder or the shells,
Or the deaf-tone cheers of olden hearts,
set for glory no further than our external shore.

Tribute to Benedict XV, Vicar elct. 1914.

fuckyeaharthuriana: 23rd May 2013. anyone else as excited as...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:24:49 -0400

fuckyeaharthuriana:

23rd May 2013.

anyone else as excited as I?

Where my Books Go

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:26:03 -0400

All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Til they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken’d or starry bright.

-W.B.Yeats

Fun-fact of my life: For the past 2 years I’ve styled my...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:39:00 -0400

Fun-fact of my life: For the past 2 years I’ve styled my beard after Tzar Nicholas II. And for no other reason than the fact that I like his parenting style.

Somewhere deep down inside,— although I don’t really run too big a risk of getting shot in the head by Bolshevik revolutionaries any time soon—-, I’ve felt that I’m gonna be a father, a husband, and a man, a lot like Nicky was someday. For better or for worse.

An Old Love Song

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:21:22 -0400

Love at last has finally freed me,
Once 7-years’ chance from a death at sea.
A light of love, unending, outshining pale-star’d skies,
I find there dawning in the glimmer of your eyes.

They can lay my life unto the ground,
but love will take to soar,
For my soul, eternal, shall find your arms once more.

Photo

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 12:31:15 -0400

ianbrooks: Street Lit Putting a message on a wall can be a...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:42:45 -0400

William Carlos Williams, "Red Wheelbarrow" photo by Mark LaFlaur

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "The Little Prince" photo via mes-hautes-montagnes.com posted by ianbrooks.me

Edgar Allan Poe, "A Dream Within a Dream" photo by mermaid99's flickr

George Orwell, "Animal Farm" photo via windshoes.khan.kr

William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" photo via baddogwhiskas' flickr

J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Fellowship of the Ring" photo by Gary L. Quay

Kurt Vonnegut, "Slaughterhouse Five" photo by devianarts posted by ianbrooks.me

Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" photo by Dan Allison

"Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song" from Edmund Spenser's Prothalamion photo via rosetintdesign.com

J. R. R. Tolkien, "The Fellowship of the Ring" posted by ianbrooks.me

ianbrooks:

Street Lit

Putting a message on a wall can be a much more effective way to reach the masses than expecting them to go find a book and learn it themselves. Some men just want to watch the world learn, regardless of medium. This collection of street arts details some memorable lines from famous books, hit the pictures to see which author and title, if you didnt already recognize them immediately.

(via: BuzzFeed)

Here in the cross-roads town of Port Huron, MI where I call...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:08:00 -0400

Here in the cross-roads town of Port Huron, MI where I call home, and where the dying auto-industry and economy’s left without a pretty penny, there’s a tiny little shop that’s sprung up against the storefronts of our downtown. It’s called Art for Good, and it’s been my stomping grounds since the first day I stumbled in on a winter day when they were preparing their grand opening. Been a part of their work and efforts to brighten the dwindling city ever since.

Art for Good’s a non-profit pretty much held together by a man and his wife with one heart set on art and the city we live in. It’s an art shop, a cafe, a hopeful sanctuary for all starvings artists. They sell art supplies, handmade crafts, and showcase local artists, as well as offer Fair-Trade coffee and goods made from around the globe, from places as diverse as the Congo, Honduras, and Thailand, all made by good hands and honest labour (that’s more than can be said of Folgers, Hershey’s and the like, if you do your homework). All-in-all, it’s just a good place to hang out.

I’m heading a poet’s club within their cafe. We’re so-far one member strong, beside myself (we got room to grow, at least…) Just picture it like the Dead Poets’ Society, except just a college kid blogger and a middle-aged alcoholic who’s been writing half a long as he’s been drinking, and still been writing longer than I’ve been alive…. makes for some good times.

If you’re ever in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by.

NPR: Pope Francis I Loves Opera

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:08:55 -0400

NPR: Pope Francis I Loves Opera:

I got a feeling I’m going to be liking this new guy.

Blessings to you, Father.

"Tis said of Love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another;..."

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:43:24 -0400

“Tis said of Love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into Ice, and sets a fourth in a Flame: It wounds one, another it kills: like Lightning it begins and ends in the same Moment: It makes that Fort yeild at Night which it besieg’d but in the Morning; for there is no Force able to resist it.”

- Miguel de Cervantes (via saucypedanticwretch)

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo Vol 3, Book 5 M. Mabeuf just...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:31:13 -0400

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

Vol 3, Book 5

M. Mabeuf just might be my favorite character in Les Misérables.

"A man of any worth does not save his life by sacrificing his ethical values and living an unjust..."

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:42:06 -0500

““A man of any worth does not save his life by sacrificing his ethical values and living an unjust life””

- Socrates (via hellenistic-beauty)