Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
1. Talk Like a Pirate Day, of course, but that was pointed out.
2. My brother’s birthday Saturday. He got to eat beef and quote lots of Family Guy. And he has an even BIGGER lawn tractor (so big that he likes to drop “lawn” and just say “tractor”), so I think he’s pretty happy.
3. Friday was the anniversary of when Keats wrote his ode, “To Autumn” in 1819. You can read it here.
And today is the equinox. I guess summer is now officially over.
Today is May 1–May Day, International Workers Day, or Beltane, depending on how you choose to celebrate it. Since I’m (usually) struck by how the weather matches the old Celtic holidays, I’ll talk about Beltane:
“The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice…was Midsummer.”
First day of summer, hm? I woke up to snow this morning. I think you failed us, Druids.
Tomorrow is the summer solstice, at 9:36 a.m. In honor of that, don your robes, pick a chant, and go somewhere tonight to watch the sun set. If you’re a local druid, I suggest our own take on Stonehenge, the Spiral Jetty. (Okay, it has nothing in common with Stonhenge except rocks. But it’s all we have.)
I never had a chance to post yesterday, so I’ll make up for it today with some real highbrow literature. This is Virginia Woolf, from the middle section of To The Lighthouse, titled, appropriately enough, “Time Passes.” I think of it whenever, well, time passes.
But what, after all, is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of a wave.
Never made it to the demolition derrby over the weekend. However, there will be chariot races this Saturday and Sunday, at the same arena (Golden Spike). Why we don’t all move to Ogden, I don’t know–they have derbys, chariot races, refineries, trains.