#man swart | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alexandreaiteiaabronia · 9 months ago

Text

The Lotos-Garland of Antinous

by John Addington Symonds

Behold a vision of the world-old Nile—

Of porch and palace-tower and peristyle

Glassed in the oily current smooth and calm,

With many a fringéd mile of sultry palm

Shimmering in noonday sunlight! O the roar

Of the full-voiced swart-visaged swarming shore,

As the gilt barge, with flash of oars, and cry

Cast on the waters of shrill minstrelsy,

Down the broad tide bears Adrian the king,

Lapped in luxurious ease and winnowing

All husk of hard thought from his heart this day—

So men surmise—to laughter given and play!

Lo the full sails of Tyrian silk out-spread

Like wings of wildest plumage overhead;

The cedar masts with crusted pearl and scale

Of Indian beetle rough; the bellying veil,

Star-sprent, gold-dusted, hyaline in hue,

That tempers like a mist the burning blue

Ofthose bronzed heavens; the heavy-scented flowers,

Plucked from what dim mysterious temple bowers

Deep in the dewy twilight—tuberoses,

Starred jasmines, lotos, crimson chalices

With myrtles woven! Mid that bloomy sea

Are girls, half-seen, reclining dreamily;

Some white as swans unruffled, pure and cold;

Some glowing with the delicate dim gold

Of amber, warm on throat and neck beneath

Black heavy coils of lustrous curls that wreathe,

Snake-like, smooth temples. O the subtle stir

Of laughter and of little feet, the whir

Of fans like night-moths fluttering, mid the wild

Voices of choiring boys, that naked piled

On Persian broidery, to the sound of flute,

Viol and fife and soul-subduing lute,

Make music, piercing shrill and sad and clear

With yearning memories the drowsy ear!

On glides the flashing galley. But the king,

In Roman strength austere, each goodly thing

Serenely reckons. He hath felt the glare

Of shadeless deserts; by the Libyan lair

Of lions hath out-watched the fiery day,

Patiently waiting for his royal prey:

The clash of arms he knows, the thirsty march

O’er sands with wormwood set, where fevers parch

Black lips and tongue, and hollow eyes grow dim:

No Syrian wreath or crown of rose for him

The circlet of the Empire! And behold,

This morn in Theban temples dusk with gold,

While spiry flames from smoking altars flew,

And incense clouds voluminously blue

Sun-proof involved those columned aisles, the seer

Foaming with eyes fixed on the unseen Fear,

A rede of death enwrapped in riddling gloom

Had uttered:—yea, that even for him the doom

Of icy death, unless some spirit free

Of man or boy, unbought, might willingly

Yield life for life, amid the dance and feast,

When hollow-eyed grim Death seems last and least,

Lurked shadow-like. So spake the shuddering priest.

And Adrian heard; yet trembled not, but read

As in a book the doom of Rome dismemberèd:

For on his life alone the Empire hung;

And to his single strength the nations clung,

As clings a vine with leaves and weighty fruit

To some strong pine’s stone-circling massy root.

And none but Adrian heard—save one who stayed

Beside him; one in whose quick pulses played

Fire of free life imperious; a boy

Of nineteen summers, framed for power and joy.

Crisp on his temples curled the coal-black hair;

White myrtle flowers and leaves were woven there:

His eyes had solemn light in them, and shone

Flame-like ‘neath cloudy brows: his cheeks were wan

With passion; and the soul upon his lips,

Smouldering like some fierce planet in eclipse,

Breathed fascination terrible and strong,

As though quick pride strove with remembered wrong.

But oh! what tongue shall tell the orient glow

Of those orbed breasts, smooth as dawn-smitten snow;

The regal gait, processional and grand,

As of a god; the sunny-marble hand,

Grasping a silk-enwoven cedar-wand?

He heard, Antinous! and in his breast

His heart leaped, and his flaming eyes confessed

The fervour of his spirit; still and calm

Standing the while, like some full-fruited palm

Tall by a river-bank. Then forth they went,

The youth divine and royal victim, blent

In silent awe and blind bewilderment.

Down to the Nile they came, and eager men

Pressed round them myriad-voiced with wonder: then

Taking their barge, upon the stream sailed forth,

Downwards all day steering by West and North.

All day the lazy ripple to the prow

Whispered; and all day long by palms arow,

By cities populous with blazing quays,

By tracts of flowering bean and verdant maize,

They glided. Towers and temples sunny bright,

Like mirage in the desert, swam from sight

Behind them; and the wild tumultuous noise

Of nations shouting with a single voice

Grew fainter on the current. All day long,

Lulled to a slumberous symphony of song,

Sails flapped, oars flashed, and boys and maidens made

Cool music in the silken scented shade.

But Adrian dreaming lay, and at his side

Antinous with large eyes blank and wide

Lay dreaming. Thus adown the sleepy tide,

As in a trance toward Lethe through still air,

Lost to the joy of living did they fare.

But now the sun who all day long had driven

His glittering chariot o’er the enamelled heaven,

Began to wester. Level smote his rays,

A furnace-fire of splendour; and the blaze

Burned upon stream and city: in its fire

The pillared shrine and solitary spire,

Tall cypress or thick tamarisk-tangle, swam

Like clouds you scarce can see amid the flame

Of sunset; and the whole vast concave through,

Across the light-irradiate airy blue,

Ran conflagration. Then, ere day was dead,

The slaves who had that service came and spread

The Emperor’s table; and Antinous rose,

For his it was before the banquet’s close

To bear the wine-cup, at his master’s knee

Like Ganymede serving imperially.

He rose, and from his shoulder’s ivory

The veil fell fluttering to his rounded thigh:

Naked he stood; then on his forehead set

A crimson wreath of lotos, cool and wet,

Fresh from the tank, with ivy mixed; and bound

Roses about his breast; and from the ground

A tendril-tangled thyrsus raised, and flung

The quivering leaves aloft that clasped and clung.

Next half the lustre of his limbs he hid,

Like some night-reveller or Bassarid

Fresh-flown from Indian thickets, with the fur

Of panthers streaked and spotted, sleek with myrrh

And musky-fragrant. In his hand a bowl,

Carved of one beryl, soft as if a soul

Throbbed in its flush, he took, and called his crew.

They to their Bacchus with loud laughter flew,

Tossing flame faces, twinkling tiny feet

In measured madness to the timbrel’s beat—

Wild hair behind them flying, loosened zone,

And flowers about their flanks for girdles strewn.

Girls were they, girls with vine-leaves garlanded,

Or jasmines white as their own maidenhead!

Boys too; ye gods, the beauty of those boys,

Lithe as young leopards! the soul-thrilling noise

Of their shrill voices!—Bells are at their feet,

And silver armlets, tinkling as they meet,

Make the air mad.

Behold, in such wild glee,

With dance and music and with witchery,

Paced forth the youth, for whom it seemed that all

His life to come might be one festival.

Yet in his soul was sadness. Well he knew

That ere those lotos-flowers had lost their dew,

He forth would fare upon the dismal way

Of dying.—Thus of many thoughts that day

This one had triumphed: he would die to shield

Adrian from death, if so the doom revealed

By god-sent oracles might be withdrawn

From that great head.—Like Phosphor in the dawn,

Solemn he was and tender; larger eyed,

Of more majestic stature; and his wide

Bare bosom swelled with nobler weight of thought

Than e’er within his heart had yet been wrought,

Since from his fields Bithynian and the play

Of childhood, on a lustrous night of May,

He had been borne by pirate hands, and woke

To weep his mother.

Through the awning broke

The clear-voiced choir; but Adrian in good sooth

Rose from his pillowed couch to greet the youth,

So proudly paced he: and the dying sun,

Shooting that moment from low vapours dun,

Transfigured all his face; and in the glow

The ruddy lotos-flowers upon his brow

Blazed ruby-like, and all his form divine

Blushed into crimson, and the crystalline

Bowl of the gleaming beryl flashed, and dim

With dusky gold the fur that mantled him,

Spread tawny splendour. So he stood and smiled,

Bending his crowned head, like a god who, mild

To mortals, will be worshipped. Such a sight,

So framed, so sphered in music and sunlight,

Had ne’er in court or theatre or grove

Fashioned by Nero for his insolent love,—

Nay ne’er in Syrian valleys where the Queen

Mourns for her lost Adonis, on the green

Of Daphne or of sea-girt Tyre been seen.

He spake: ‘To thee, in semblance of a god,

To thee supreme, who Jove-like with thy nod

Scatterest states and kingdoms, lo! I come

Bearing strong juice of Bacchus. See the foam

Leaps in the crystal for thy lips, and red

As rose or maiden in her bridal bed,

Glows for thy kisses! Health for thee, my king,

Health and long life within the cup I bring.

Yea, were it mine, this youth thou thinkest fair,

(Fair in thy thought, for verily whate’er

Thine eyes have praised, is fairest,) were it mine,

Brief as it is, scarce worth one thought of thine,

(For lo, it blooms to-day, to-morrow dies,

Nay even now is fading, as the skies

Fade after sunset)—were it mine to give,

Thinkest thou, king and master, I would live?

Were it not well to die for thee, and know

There in the scentless myrtle bowers below,

That thou wert living this new life? What breath,

How sweet soe’er, were sweeter than such death?

Nay, Lord, I flatter not. This is no smile

Of hollow semblance on false lips to wile

Kind speech from thee, much prized by us who serve

For could I, from this will I would not swerve!’

Thus spake Antinous, and the table round

Murmured approval; for the honeyed sound

From those calm lips on idle ears like dew

Fell with fresh fragrance and a pleasure new.

Sophists were there, whom Adrian fed, and they

Clapped loud applause, averring the long day

Had kept till eve her flower of perfect speech:

For such fine flattery, like the perfumed peach

Most subtly flavoured, could no palate cloy.

Thus clamoured they, wine-wanton; but the boy,

Bending his lilied brow beneath the wand,

And kneeling to his master, with one hand

Lifted the cup:—a lotos falling stirred

The wine refulgent; then, without a word

Or smile, he raised the sunlight of his face.

But Adrian drank, keeping the flower to grace

His wreath; and bade Antinous take the bowl

Of beryl. Then he turned with graver soul

To some grey counsellor beside him placed;

And the cup-bearer with his revel passed

Forth from the tent imperial.

Lo, the West

Bathing with liquid lustre brow and breast—

Lustre of orange, amber, green and blue,

Glassed on the waves, and gemlike in the dew

Of heaven translucent; the cool breeze that flew

Past silken sail and tent-roof; the black bars

Of palm-groves and of porches; shimmering stars,

And the low moon to eastward, pearly pale

Mid roseate refluence! In one woven veil

Of varied hues the universal world

Seemed by some hand omnipotent enfurled,

Where in the midst the barge, a moving spark

Herself of light, yet mid such splendour dark,

Slept on her shadow. And was this the night,

Centre of all things fair, for thee to blight

Thy blossom with cold frost of death—to die,

Sweetest of all sweet things beneath the sky?

The decks were vacant, as at even-tide

Of chills and sudden dew-fall. Free and wide

The sandal planks thick-matted with bright wool

And furs and flowered embroideries beautiful,

Spread for his pacing; and the lazy plash

Of rippling waves that round the galley wash,

Cooled the clear air. He went as in a dream

Forth to the prow, land o’er the luminous stream

Leaned; and behold, a golden lamp up-borne

By Isis (on her brow the sacred horn,

And at her waist the lotos, leaf by leaf,

And flower by flower, twined in a jewelled sheaf

Of lilies) cast a glimmer pure as pearl

On the veined marble of the watery swirl.

Here stayed Antinous, while the darkening west

Deepened from crimson into amethyst,

From fire to blood-red orange thin and still,

Under faint streaks of tenderest daffodil

Which faded. Soon, as drops of fiery dew

Gleam on a withered primrose, so there grew

Forth from this pallor the intensest glow

Of Hesper’s love-star: tremulous and low,

Poised o’er the palms, he panted; and his beam

Danced like a living lamp upon the stream.

Then spake Antinous: ‘My hour is nigh!

Night cometh, and the guardians of the sky

Illume their cressets!’ So he rose and spread

The panther skin and thyrsus, and the red

Wreath of dead lotos laid upon the ground:

Next in his hand the bowl of beryl, crowned

With roses, from a gleaming golden jar

He rilled; and gazing at the level star,

Thrice made libation, crying: ‘Father Nile,

And Isis and Osiris! ye who smile

On mortal births and burials! lo, I give

My life for Adrian’s! Wherefore should I live?

Have I not learned to trail my manhood’s pride

In the world’s golden gutters?—Like a bride,

Sumptuous with sacrifice and pomp and choir,

Forth from the doors I issued; and the fire

Of Flamens shone to light me: now, alone,

With saffron veil unbound and broken zone,

My blossom withered, lo, a wanton’s doom

Awaits me, or the purifying tomb!—

Nay, even now I weary. Day by day

It irks me to consume the hours with play;

Hearing soft speeches, propped on pillowed down,

To gather smiles; or, when I choose to frown,

Drink womanish tears. Better I ween were strife

With lions than this fulsome flower of life!

And when the flower is faded, what remains?

Yea, heaven, I thank thee: lo, the little pains

Of dying bring me guerdon of great gains!

For in my bloom I perish, having bought

Unending honour. What I give, is nought

But a mere piece of boyhood thrown away:

While he, the Emperor, lives. Even so. This day

Dates a new aeon in the age of Rome;

Wherethrough, a name for ever, in the dome

Of people’s praises, I shall pace, and be

Equalled with heroes in mine infamy!

Nay, what on earth more godlike? I have heard

Of soldiers dying at a general’s word;

Of patriots who drained their hearts to save

A nation: they beside their fathers’ grave,

Before their city walls and smoking shrines,

Fell on the long resounding foeman’s lines

And perished: this was easy; yet they bore

Victorious crowns and hymns for evermore.

But I, what city or what home have I?

What duty, dear or sacred, bids me die?

A slave—the toy and bauble of a king,

Picked from the dust to play with—a cheap thing,

Irksome as soon as used—a cup to sip,

Then fling with loathing from the sated lip!—

Therefore I die more nobly. Where are ye,

My father and my mother, and the glee

Of brothers and of sisters, who were dear

Far off in years forgotten? Not one tear

Shall your calm unfamiliar eyes let fall

For me.—How like a gilded dream is all

The life that I have lived in glorious Rome!

How like a dream it leaves me!—Lo, I come,

Ye awful, soul-exacting, pitiless Powers!

Prepare your laurels and the moony bowers

Of myrtles! Not ignoble, not a slave,

I perish, but of mine own will, to save

The Father of the Empire.—I have seen

In Roman theatres the dying queen

Of weak Admetus, pale Polyxena,

Cheiron, Menoikeus; and the people, ah!

The people how they shouted! Tears and cries

Greet even an actor when he nobly dies:—

Will not the people of the unnumbered dead,

Showering their pallid crowns upon my head,

Nobly receive me noble, dying thus,

Calm in my strength, young, proud, luxurious,

Not torn by pangs, not wasted, not outworn,

But in my splendour?’

As he spake, a horn

Shrilled through the twilight; and he saw the tower

Of Besa, where that night they tarried, lower

Dusk o’er the champaign. Speechless from the bark

He dropped: she onward glided o’er the dark

Breast of the glimmering Nile with lamp and light:

He through the mirrors of the cool black night

Unruffled, dying drifted; and his death

Was seen by no man. Nay, there lingereth

Old legend in the town Antinoë,

Called by his name, a fair town and a free,

How that a flight of eagles from the sky

Down swooping, bore him, rosy breast and thigh

Lustrous like lightning on their sable plumes,

Up to the zenith, where, a star, he blooms

In that bright garden of the grace of Jove,

The martyr and the miracle of love.—

Of this the truth we know not; but we know

That in the town of Besa, where the flow

Of Nile is stayed upon the eastern bank

With wattles and with osiers, for a tank

That draws therefrom through sluices deep and wide

The living waters of the sacred tide,

There in the morn was found as though asleep,

The perfect body of the boy; and deep

Around him, known not till that day, there grew

Great store of lotos flowers, red, white, and blue,

But mostly rose-red, flaming in his hair,

And o’er his breast and shoulders floating fair,

And with his arms enwoven, pure and cool,

Screening his flesh from sunrise. Thus the pool

Burned with a miracle of flowers; but he,

Raised on their petals, pillowed tenderly,

And curtained with fresh leaves innumerous,

Smiled like a god, whom errands amorous

Lure from Olympus, and coy Naiads find

Sleeping, and in their rosy love-wreaths bind.

https://paganreveries.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/the-lotos-garland-of-antinous-by-john-addington-symonds/

Picture: My Antinous

10 notes · View notes

b-skarsgard · 1 year ago

Text

–How involved were you with casting, and what led to Bill Skarsgård getting the lead?

FITZJOHN: We were completely hands-on on all things, including casting. The usual suspects were thrown around by the sales agent saying, “We need to look at…” I won’t mention any names, but we did talk to some of the big A-league boys. I think it was Roy Lee who suggested, “What about Bill Skarsgård?” and when we first heard that, to be honest, that didn’t really strike us. You know, he’s not exactly a boy, he’s 6-foot-4–a pretty significant man. And then the irony of that was it got us talking about, “This kind of reminds me of that story about the baby elephant that’s tied to the stake and pulls and pulls and pulls and can’t get away. And then by the time it’s a big bull elephant, it doesn’t even try to pull the stake, which it could probably do in no time.” And that’s essentially Boy’s story, the way he’s been so programmed by Shaman. He should be the champion, but he cedes the king role to Shaman, who’s about half his size by the time he’s grown up. So it just felt right.

SWART: When we spoke to Bill, he was so excited about playing a true action role. He’s a massive martial arts fan, and so capable. He was like, “Yeah, I want to do the training, and as many of my own stunts as you guys will let me.” We said, “Well, that’s great, Bill, but remember, your character has no lines, you have no dialogue.” And he said, “Yeah, that’s what really gets me about this role.” He studied the old Charlie Chaplin silent movies; he not only prepared his body and learned the martial arts part, but if you look at the range of emotion on his face, there are some little homages to classic Chaplin as well.

The rest of the ensemble was very much the same, finding the right people to bring these wacky characters to life. When we interviewed the actors, as well as our heads of department, we told them, “Wave your crazy flag! However you bring these characters to life, just lean into your creative inspiration.”

FITZJOHN: Getting back to Bill, if you see what he does under all the prosthetics in IT, you still know what he’s thinking and feeling. He’s one of a kind, and if Hollywood hasn’t recognized that he’s a big star yet, I believe they’re going to after this movie.

What went into getting Skarsgård in shape and choreographing his fight scenes?

FITZJOHN: That was a pretty significant task. Our stunt coordinator, Dawid Szatarski, is incredible in terms of how he thinks. He thinks in movement. Dawid basically invented a fighting style for Bill, given his lankiness; he wanted him to move with big sweeping motions, and they spent quite a bit of time in Berlin doing the training. We also hired a really good fitness/strength coach, a nutritionist, who basically lived with Bill for about nine months getting him ready. I didn’t stay too far from Bill during production, and I would watch him do a 12-hour shoot and then go and do a two-hour calisthenics workout on the roof. I mean, the guy would work out during lunch breaks. He never stopped; I’d never seen anything like that commitment. He became Boy.

SWART: Dawid was also our 2nd unit director. I think he has three or four credits on the movie; he actually has a great cameo as VDK Dawe, the one soldier who just won’t go down. Bill’s relationship with Dawid was very special, and there were times when Dawid would go to Bill saying, “So, do you think you can do this stunt?” and Bill would go, “Of course I can do this stunt,” and we were like, “No, you can’t do this stunt!” There were many moments when I would have to tell Bill, “No, no, you’ve got to use a double for this, because if you twist your ankle or something at this stage of the shoot…” But Bill was up for anything; he was like, “Well, then don’t challenge me,” you know? “Don’t dare me.” And we were like, “We’re not daring you!”

FITZJOHN: If we’re honest, Bill did the bulk of it; it’s not a battle we won in the end. Outside of the stupid, crazy stuff, like when we were throwing Boy down from a double-story balcony, he pretty much did everything.

I’ve heard that Skarsgård originally did Boy’s voiceovers himself, before H. Jon Benjamin came in and took over. Can you talk about the reasons and that process?

FITZJOHN: It was always going to be H. Jon Benjamin. I mean, Moritz called it at the same time, when we were casting. The short had this Marlboro Man voiceover that just doesn’t match with Boy. And even with Bill’s versatility, we needed to explore something like that. He did an amazing job, but the audiences wanted the almost bipolar nature of it.

SWART: It’s the absurdity of his inner voice, right? So in the short it’s the Marlboro Man, and Boy gets his voice from an old cigarette commercial. For the feature, we recorded Bill, which did give us a great connection to his character, but we found that we lost the absurdity of where his inner voice comes from. It took something away from the physical performance and the storytelling.

FITZJOHN: And also, given the nature of the story, the humor of H. Jon Benjamin gives us a reprieve, in a good way, from a pretty dark, dramatic and violent story.

#bill skarsgard #bill skarsgård #boy kills world #article #interview

18 notes · View notes

juliansummerhayes · 5 days ago

Text

Canto I by Ezra Pound And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward Bore us out onward with bellying canvas, Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller, Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end. Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean, Came we then to the bounds of deepest water, To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever With glitter of sun-rays Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven Swartest night stretched over wretched men there. The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place Aforesaid by Circe. Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus, And drawing sword from my hip I dug the ell-square pitkin; Poured we libations unto each the dead, First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour. Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads; As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods, A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep. Dark blood flowed in the fosse, Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides Of youths and of the old who had borne much; Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender, Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads, Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms, These many crowded about me; with shouting, Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts; Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze; Poured ointment, cried to the gods, To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine; Unsheathed the narrow sword, I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead, Till I should hear Tiresias. But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor, Unburied, cast on the wide earth, Limbs that we left in the house of Circe, Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other. Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech: “Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast? “Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?” And he in heavy speech: “Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe’s ingle. “Going down the long ladder unguarded, “I fell against the buttress, “Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus. “But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied, “Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed: “A man of no fortune, and with a name to come. “And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.”

And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban, Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first: “A second time? why? man of ill star, “Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region? “Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever “For soothsay.” And I stepped back, And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus “Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas, “Lose all companions.” And then Anticlea came. Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus, In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer. And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away And unto Circe. Venerandam, In the Cretan’s phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite, Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, orichalchi, with golden Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. So that:

#ezra pound #cantos

2 notes · View notes

enelea · 9 months ago

Text

Wanda Swarts knows that no one understands why she would marry such an old man but she fell in love with the twinkle in his eye, the warm smile and kindness he shows to everyone he comes across. He is nurturing and that was what she wanted in a man. She wanted financial stability for her future children and has enough money of her own but she knew that together Julio and herself would be able to provide well for a family of their own. They now have two young children of their own and she hopes that Julio can live a long and healthy life to watch them grow and develop into wonderful children and later adults to be proud of. If only Gregory would stop trying to flirt with her. He really isn't half the man his father is and she finds it difficult to treat him respectfully at family events. Hopefully his new marriage isn't a sham and helps him 'grow up' a bit. She really doesn't have time for his nonsense.

#sims 2

2 notes · View notes

unknownjpegs · 1 year ago

Text

switching shifts

The guard is falling asleep. Has to keep jerking upright as he stands at the door. It doesn’t usually distract Benny, who can rarely be pulled out of what he’s doing if he’s properly engaged, but he’s annoyed. Communications from above sea level have been going dark—not that he cares much about above sea level, not anyone he’s left on dry land whose waiting for him. But that puts shipment behind by a whole week, and Benny’s flask is running awfully dry. His cigarettes are starting to run low. Two a day only kind of deal. Benny is not a two a day only kind of smoker.

Swart flinches and then knocks his boots together to stand at attention, like he’s back in basic training and a drill sergeant is going to threaten to shove something up his ass. All about making them better soldiers, the ass shoving threats, Benny is sure. Something, something, the homoerotic nature of military and all.

“Need a stim, Swart?” Benny asks in a dry voice as he rifles through his notes. He works better with pen and paper, even though his laptop is sat open in front of him. The graph displays data he needs to puzzle through, put together by some analyst who works on the other side of the facility. He doesn’t trust analysts, so he’s puzzling it together himself.

“Boring fuckin’ detail, Doc.”

“You ha-have my deepest sympathies,” Benny replies, shuffling more of the paperwork. Then he snorts. Deep. Underwater. Get it? He almost says to the guard, because he’s admittedly used to someone else, who would enjoy a joke like that. Benny turns back to his work. His pen scratches across the paper in his messy, tiny script. He taps it a few times and then Swart has to snap himself up right again.

“Can usually switch my shift with Giarrizzo. But he’s on another detail tonight,” Swart yawns into a fist. His pen goes wide on an ‘s’, marks across the page. Benny glances over to the guard, chin tucked over his shoulder.

“Giarrizzo-Cohn.” He holds his hands up. Then slowly pushes them together. “It’s hyph-ph-phenated.” Swart always gets this look in his eyes when Benny starts stuttering. This ‘who made this fucking guy the scientist?’ look. It’s equal parts awkward as it is annoyed. Benny might be used to it, but still makes his skin itch. He puts his pen down, scratches a hand through his hair, looks at the puzzled together data instead of the soldier.

“Man, who cares? See—this is why no one wants to be in this lab with you, Doc. Hoity fucking toity.” Swart scuffs a boot, nose wrinkled in annoyance. Must be tough to be him, a soldier on guard for Benny, a guy with a stutter who makes three times more than his pay grade.

“Except Maran,” Benny points out.

“Maybe the fucking guy likes fish?” Swart gestures to the tank in front of him, with a snide and condescending curl to his lip. Benny swivels on his stool.

“Margot is an octopus,” he says. She clings to her coral rock bed, which Ben had painstakingly made himself to ensure she felt properly at home. The water filter bubbles a bit, ambiance in his lab to go along with the whir of computers. Pen scratches, when he’s ignoring the computers.

“So?”

“Octopuses are cephalopods.”

“I hate this fucking job,” Swart mumbles under his breath, eyes upward to avoid looking at either the octopus or her owner.

—

Maran leans over the open topped tank, his hand lazily drifting through the water. He keeps the other propped up, a fist to rest his chin on while he looks at the octopus as she does her fast crawl across the rock bed. One of her arms occasionally swings up, wraps around his fingers, then drifts away. His face is lit up by the water, a little pattern across freckles and tan skin. The lighting in the lab is usually stark and white, but Benny has a headache so he’s turned it down. Dimmed everything except what was necessary for him to look at under the microscope he’s supposed to be paying attention to.

And of course, the little lights in Margot’s tank, so that he can see Maran’s face better.

“Roll your s-sleeve up a bit,” Benny comments. Maran startles, because it’s the first thing he’s said in an hour or so. He pulls his arm from the tank and blinks at Benny. “The chemicals fr-from your shirt might mess with the tank water.”

“Shit,” Maran starts shoving at the tight fabric of his black shirt. The material rolls up to his sleeve, exposing strong forearms that make Benny’s mouth dry. He watches the tendons in his wrist flex, the appearance of a vein in Maran’s hand. His eyes drift from that up, to where he’s pinched a tongue between his teeth as if concentrating. Maran’s own eyes flicker up and his face goes pink under Ben’s cold blue eyed stare.

“Didn’t hurt her, did I?”

Her and not it. Was one of the first things Benny had noticed about Maran. Maybe Swart wasn’t necessarily wrong. Maybe Maran liked animals; he even looked at the sea snails with admiration and sometimes did, admittedly, press too close to the tank of fish to watch them dart around in a makeshift school.

He never looked out the windows though. Into the dark beyond. Benny shuttered them when Maran was around.

“C’mere,” he says instead of answering the question. He stands from his stool and gestures to the microscope. Maran crosses the lab over to him. The sound of his booted foot steps is loud and Benny’s eyes flicker to them. They rise up from laces, to the way his dark tactical pants wrap tightly around his thighs. His belt and then up more until Benny is once again drawn to that pretty face.

Benny was never that shy about checking people out. Usually he did so with open gazed sleaze—he didn’t pretend. It worked in his favor, because the people he attracted usually liked that about him. But Maran’s face begged for attention and Benny’s roaming eyes could never stray far from those features. Strong nose, freckles, high cheek bones. Such a gorgeous mouth. Maran swings his arms out, bracing his hands against the lab table, smiling toothily.

“What is it today?”

“Sample fr-from the scorpion,” Benny says, patting the stool he was just occupying. Maran lowers himself slowly, scooting forward. He’d had no idea how to use a microscope before Benny had showed him, but now his hands sort of move there expertly. Benny stares at those hands for a long moment.

“Scorpion?”

“It’s wh-what we’re calling the creature. The one th-that almost made a snack out of Father Wolffe.”

“You said it was crustacean though.”

Benny’s heart makes a painful squeeze, a little palpitation. He rubs hard at his sternum, wondering if the nicotine withdrawal was going to start killing him. The headache was certainly still there, pulsing behind his ears, crawling up the back of his head. Benny looks at the stretch of Maran’s shirt over his shoulder blades, the taut line of it where it clings between the two.

He flattens his hand there and Maran jumps, so he slides his hand up to cradle the nape of his neck. Keep him looking at the scorpion sample. His skin is as soft as Benny had imagined it would be. His fingers curl just slightly, as though he can’t help it. Maran’s hand slaps onto the desk in reflex.

“Maran, do y-you switch shifts to work in my lab?”

“Uh,” Maran breathes out the word rather than just saying it. He turns slightly, so Benny increases the bit of pressure in his hand. Maran makes a sound then that is even breathier. Spots appear in front of Benny’s vision, little dots of white that he has to blink away. His muscles feel constricted and flexed, his body tensed. His breathing feels difficult. But the heat is the worst, this twitching hot curling sensation that sits in his lower stomach. “Maybe?”

“Why?”

His hand relaxes and Maran turns, twists himself on the stool. His hand on the lab table brushes over paperwork that scatters to the floor—and neither men pay attention to it. Benny is leaned over him, his hand moving from Maran’s neck to the front of his throat, to tuck fingers into the top of his shirt, to feel more skin. Maran’s eyes are glassy as they look up at him. They swerve upward, to the ceiling and Benny cannot look at the roll of his eyes like that. His gaze falls to Maran’s plush lips, as they part just a bit.

“Uh,” Maran repeats and then his lips curve into a smile that Benny absolutely cannot continue looking at. “I like you, Ben.”

Maran makes a noise when Benny crashes down to kiss him. Something that he will memorize and repeat later, listen to, laying in his bed. A noise that is half surprise and pleasure that Benny swallows up with his mouth. His hand cups Maran’s jaw, lips parting to kiss him as hungrily as he’s been for him. Weeks of this soldier standing in his lab, to approaching his tanks, to coming to stand by him while he works. To asking questions. To remembering things he says. Benny’s mouth opens wider, feels Maran chase upward with tongue.

One of Maran’s hands seems to find a place on Benny’s thigh, curling around it. His other hand reaches up but Benny’s snatches it and shoves it down onto the table. That makes Maran moan. Their tongues touch, slide together messily as Maran’s knees knock wider and Benny’s body crowds into his space. The lean can’t be comfortable, the way Maran is curved back against the lab table. But he doesn’t protest, doesn’t stop the kiss upward, his head moving to a new angle.

Benny thinks to memorize the way he tastes, the feel of the lips he’d often stared at. But then, thinks, no need to memorize. They’re not going to stop kissing. Not until it becomes hard to breathe—and when it does, when they’re both open mouth panting against each other, rather than fully kissing, that’s when Benny pulls away.

A string of spit connects their mouths for a moment, until Maran’s tongue flicks out, runs over his bottom lip and catches it.

Benny moans so loudly that even Maran seems startled out of reverie by it. His hand squeezes Ben’s thigh, almost as if on accident. His pretty brown eyes flicker there and then back up and then there again and back up. Benny can’t help his grin, his tilted, slice of a smile across his face. His tongue runs over his teeth, head tilted, chest heaving in and out with air. Benny’s knee wedges hard between Maran’s thighs and the soldier gasps. I need to fuck you, I need to fuck you so hard, I need you.

“Maran, I—”

Water splashes against him from behind, making him jump. He nearly crashes both of them to the ground at the icy sensation. Benny spins and looks at the tank, his sunglasses clattering to the floor from where they’d perched on the top of his head. Margot slinks innocently across the wall of the tank, her long arms inching her along.

“Margot,” Benny snaps, stomping toward the tank. “Don’t be f-fu-fucking rude. I will put the top on this tank—” He sputters as water is splashed up against him again, stumbling backward.

Maran’s loud laughter behind him makes him jump even higher. He turns on a heel, but whatever nasty retort he’d have to the laugh is immediately cut off. Maran’s on the stool, leaned back, elbows on the lab table, his head tilted. His cheeks are flush dark red, all the way to his throat, and his lips are shiny. His knees are still widened from how he’d been all but crushed against by Benny’s body. The scientist’s eyes flicker to the stretch of tac pants and then back up, blinking owlishly.

“Forgot we had company, yeah?” Maran jokes, one of his legs swinging on the stool. His combat boot makes a tap, tap, tap sound against the metal bar. Benny’s dry mouth suddenly floods with the thought of his tongue on the tip of that boot.

“Saying we sh-should go somewhere alone, Mar?”

The confident look on his face drops to be replaced with something startlingly shy. Benny’s insides claw at themselves, his brain screaming again (fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck) as he does a slow approach. His now wet shirt clings to him and he slowly shrugs out of his lab coat, tossing it onto the table. Maran’s eyes blink at the sudden reveal of tattooed arms and then his eyes swivel right back up to the ceiling.

Benny catches him by the chin and slowly tilts his head down to force his gaze back to him.

“I like you too, Maran.”

#writing #hj #underwater au #jlb #mgc #mgc x jlb

2 notes · View notes

queerstuffonscreen · 1 year ago

Text

Moffie (2019)

103 min.

Country: South Africa, UK

Genre: Biography, History, Drama

Language: Afrikaans, English (stream with English subtitles)

Based on André Carl van der Merwe’s book, Moffie (a derogatory Afrikaans term for a gay man) follows the story of Nicholas van der Swart: from a very young age, he realises he is different. Try as he may, he cannot live up to the macho image expected of him by his family, by his heritage. At the age of 19 he is conscripted into the South African army and finds his every sensibility offended by a system close to its demise, and yet still in full force. Set during the South African border war against communism, this is a long overdue story about the emotional and physical suffering endured by countless young men.

Watch or rent when available

#moffie #Biography #History #Drama #G #gay #gay movies #gay films #lgbtq movies #lgbtq films #queer movies #queer films #lgbt #lgbtq

3 notes · View notes

festivepuppetryy · 4 months ago

Text

Shuffle your "on repeat" playlist, post the first 10 tracks, then tag people to do the same Tagged by @silverspleen ("Killshot" and "spit in my face" are both so good for real) Ok well I dunno if I have a "on repeat" playlist I tend to keep mine too tidy & specific for that (it is literally mainly just character playlists), but I DID shuffle the entirety of my Soundcloud and that works the same really. I did comb it out a little because I didn't want the list to be entirely from like two artists lmao 1. SWART - Mary X Molly 2. Ashbury Heights - Invisible Man (Electro Remix) 3. Explosions in the Sky - Your Hand In Mine 4. Water Borders - Tread on Me 5. ThouShaltNot - Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses? 6. ThouShaltNot - A Space Between 7. Ashbury Heights - Dark Clouds Gather over Vanity Fair 8. Radiohead - Karma Police 9. Renard / Mayhem - Screech 10. Mareux - Psycho

Don't feel like tagging anyone I'm too eepy.

#talking..or whatever... idk...#music things #music #quizzes fun stuff etc

1 note · View note

nocorpsenocrime · 4 months ago

Text

The Real George Washington was a "Black" Man / Moorish Huguenots / Swart...

youtube

#black truth #Youtube

0 notes

libidomechanica · 7 months ago

Text

The endure ran, head-foremost at then doe both your sight

The endure ran, head-foremost at then doe both your sight? And every one alone, are welcome, well their amazement Deities plastic strength clay, that audit by you: these still increase, to lead, sunk thou wonder vows, but as thought was. Sing mans be all first lullaby now warm which I hopes through the love, that wind my Spectre for panties presence; his moulders about him by though Oppressing is swart stanzas backward chiefe? How many- colour worst but vnfelt into another wrath and when his sing a little was not wiser court and hopes, thy of stored, on Earth’s house between us forth; your light, grace.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #207 texts #sonnet

0 notes

atotc-weekly · 10 months ago

Text

Book the Second—The Golden Thread

[X] Chapter XXIII. Fire Rises

There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of them knew what his men would do—beyond this: that it would probably not be what he was ordered.

Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them—all worn out.

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and unaccountable.

But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasures of the chase—now, found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beautified and beautifying features of Monseigneur.

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if he had it—in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods.

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail.

The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just intelligible:

“How goes it, Jacques?”

“All well, Jacques.”

“Touch then!”

They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones.

“No dinner?”

“Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with a hungry face.

“It is the fashion,” growled the man. “I meet no dinner anywhere.”

He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke.

“Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands.

“To-night?” said the mender of roads.

“To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.

“Where?”

“Here.”

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village.

“Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill.

“See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. “You go down here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain—”

“To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling his eye over the landscape. “I go through no streets and past no fountains. Well?”

“Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the village.”

“Good. When do you cease to work?”

“At sunset.”

“Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will you wake me?”

“Surely.”

The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. He was fast asleep directly.

As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds, rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red cap now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the heap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he used his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account. The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen red cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and hairy skins of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into sores. Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at secret weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he slept with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, trenches, and drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as against this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tending to centres all over France.

The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, the mender of roads having got his tools together and all things ready to go down into the village, roused him.

“Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leagues beyond the summit of the hill?”

“About.”

“About. Good!”

The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-top alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to the sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be need to ring the tocsin by-and-bye.

The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threatened the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went through the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, four heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and all was black again.

But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it were growing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front, picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the stone faces awakened, stared out of fire.

A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were left there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There was spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle’s door. “Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!” The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky. “It must be forty feet high,” said they, grimly; and never moved.

The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire; removed from them, a group of soldiers. “Help, gentlemen—officers! The chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers who looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and biting of lips, “It must burn.”

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary’s part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that post-horses would roast.

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire.

The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy.

Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxes—though it was but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter days—became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys; this time resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below.

Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while.

Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where they had been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned. The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate successfully.

#a tale of two cities #atotc weekly #charles dickens #september 3 #the golden thread

1 note · View note

tupznum · 11 months ago

Text

Percy Jackson inspired snippet...

This isn't actually a story it's just something I made when I was bored and reading a Percy Jackson fanfiction..

《○○○○○○○○♡○○○○○○○○》

"What the fuck was that for!" said a small Centaur by the name of Ganair After being bludgeoned in the back of the head by a stick.

"For that horrible form that's what" said a Older and taller man.

"Don't be so hard on him m/n You know his father only recently let him join, you can't expect him to be a "master" of the sword like you" said a swart woman with curly black hair.

"Yeah what she said you should totally listen to her she's a wise woman" the small Center said.

"Okay don't be a kiss ass now" The woman known as Zuri rolled her eyes And shifted her weight to her Left side.

"Of course I expect him to be at least decent with a sword he's a fucking centaur of crying out loud it's their specialty!" m/n glared at the woman.

"AooOoOuch" Ganair Whind

"Okay now I didn't hit you that hard.." m/n Said.

"That stick was sharp you know" the Centard said

"Ugh fine get over here let me look" the young adult ground.

Ganair trotted over to the male and turned his head away from him lifting his shoulder length dirty Blond hair up.

"Oh fuck" the h/c male said.

"What what is it" the Young Center panicked

Zuir walked over and stood next to the m/n.

"Didn't hit him that hard my ass" she said to m/n.

"Oh shit is it bad!?" Ganair cursed.

"Language, and no. nothing a little glue can't fix" he said

"Let's get you to the medic cabin.." Zuri groaned as she began to walk back to the camp

"What, no!" The Centaur said

" my dad will freak he was already hesitant on letting me join! I can only imagine what he would do if he found out I got hurt on the second day. the second day man!" He said almost panicked

"who says he's going to find out we'll just go and get you glued up and out before he even notices" m/n side.

"You do realize his dad is the head of the medical cabinet" Zuri informed h m/n.

"Well how was I supposed to know that" M/N said bring his hands in the air in defeat.

"What do you mean you didn't know that you go in there like every second week to get your Med refill" zuri stared at him like he had three heads

"I never met his dad all right get off my ass" he said in defense

"my dad only ever works in the Intensive Care quarter so I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't met him" Ganair added in m/n defense.

M/n shook his head

"okay umm Zuri go down to the med cabin and get some disinfectants, raps and some super glue and I'll bring Ganair to my cabin"

"But what if-" Zuri It was about to ask a question but m/n cut her off.

"If they ask us tell them I'm practicing my rock climbing" m/n Said.

"Okayyy" The woman said walking off Her Skirt blowing in the wind showing off the Handmade embroidery on her leggings.

"All right little man let's get Get you to the cabin" He said Giving this small center a noogie.

"Knock it off in a year or two I'm going to be way bigger than you!" Ganair Wind slapping m/n's hand away.

"I don't know dude you're already a pretty small for a Centaur" He teased

"Ugg Let's just get going already.." The Centaur Hurried off

"Quit running you're gonna give yourself a headache there's a gash in the back of your head remember!" M/n yelled quickly catching up to The center.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

#Percy Jackson inspired #not a story #short story #but its not

0 notes

jurjenkvanderhoek · 1 year ago

Text

LEVENSTHEMA IN DE KERN GERAAKT DOOR HAIKU JAN LOMAN

In zijn kunstzinnige uitingen zocht Jan Loman de essentie van het landschap, vooral in zijn haiku raakte de kunstenaar de kern. Tijdens zijn leven bouwde hij aan een verrassend veelzijdig oeuvre. Een oeuvre met een sterk autonome waarde en telkens het vermogen om mens en landschap te doorgronden en met elkaar te verbinden, bodem te geven. In de uitgave "Grensoverschrijdend" blijkt dat eens te meer duidelijk. Het belicht niet de beeldende kunst, maar bevat zijn poëzie in de vorm van de haiku dat tevens een beeldende uitdrukking heeft. In het boek, uitgegeven door Tresoar, heeft Gerhild van Rooij als Lomankenner een aantal van deze 17 lettergreep gedichten samengebracht. Vijftien jaar na het overlijden van de man in 2006 is het een eerbetoon aan deze bijzondere Friese kunstenaar, die op velerlei gebieden het relatief vlakke landschap van Friesland geïnspireerd kon vastleggen en uitdrukken. De uitgave sluit aan bij een tentoonstelling destijds in Tresoar te Leeuwarden en Galerie Bloemrijk Vertrouwen te Aldtsjerk.

Door het weglaten van alle overbodige ruis raakt Loman de kern, komt het werk tot de essentie, en spreekt daarom eigentijds aan, blijft actueel. De tijd haalt het werk niet in, het blijft er altijd een stap op voor hoewel de maker inmiddels uit de tijd is. Zijn multidisciplinaire beeldende, literaire werk en vormgeving is derhalve grensoverschrijdend. Het komt over de grens van tijd en ruimte, blikt de toekomst in en heeft aldus eeuwigheidswaarde. Nog steeds is de wezenlijkheid van zijn poëzie van deze tijd, het is modern ook al vergeelt het papier en vervaagt het schrift. Het zet de lezer vast op de plek, met beide benen op de grond, door met enkele steekhoudende woorden het wezen te raken, to the point.

De haiku is de meest beknopte vorm van poëzie, waarin toch evenveel wordt gezegd als in bijvoorbeeld een sonnet is geschreven. Het is een Japanse vinding en omvat grote levensvragen maar let ook op de details van de kleine dingen in het leven. Japanners zijn meesters in het vereenvoudigen van het complexe zijn. Zij raken met een paar woorden en een enkele lijn bulls-eye, een schot in de roos, waar wij een omhaal aan verhaal nodig hebben. Die kracht van dat korte gedicht heeft Jan Loman doorgezet in zijn kunst. De weinige woorden die hij nodig had om precies dat te omschrijven waar het volgens hem om ging, vertalen zich in de mindere lijnen en vlakken die zijn schilderijen en tekeningen kenmerken. Het zijn welhaast logo's van het leven. Merktekens van het landschap. Dat landschap was Lomans' meest belangrijke inspiratiebron. Zonder het te schrijven vulde hij dit in, door elementen weg te laten vulde hij dit aan.

Het door Tresoar uitgegeven “Grensoverschrijdend, de haiku van Jan Loman” is niet afhankelijk van de tentoonstelling onder dezelfde titel in 2021. Deze is immers al voorbij en afgelopen. Het boekwerk kan zelfstandig de toekomst in. Het heeft een bijzondere opmaak met rafelrand langs de omslag. Blauwe bladen waarop de zakelijke informatie staat, zoals het voorwoord van Bert Looper, een beknopte biografie door Gerhild van Rooij en de noten bij en de variaties op de poëzie, waardevolle gegevens. De diverse traceerbare haiku verzameld en vertaald door kunstenaar, auteur en curator Van Rooij staan op witte pagina's daartussen. Iedere blanke pagina heeft een horizontale doorlopende lijn, daar boven in de lucht staat het originele gedicht en eronder op de grond de Friese vertaling. “het koolmeesje laat / in de besneeuwde struik een / zwart twijgje achter --- it blokfinkje lit / yn de besnijde strûk in / swart twiichje efter”. De biografische gegevens zijn kort en bondig, even essentieel als het werk van Loman dat is. Meer spitst Van Rooij zich toe op zijn kunst en dan in het bijzonder de literaire composities.

De relatie tussen landschap en verbeelding is in Friesland hecht en intiem, volgens Bert Looper. Sinds in de 19e eeuw het landschap kenmerk werd van de Friese identiteit hebben kunstenaars zich erdoor laten inspireren. Jan Loman heeft in beeld en tekst de verbinding mens-landschap tot zijn levensthema gekozen. Hij bracht het in beeld of onder woorden. Niet alleen literair uitte zich dit thema, maar vooral ook in schilderijen, tekeningen, aquarellen en tijdelijke monumentale wandschilderingen. Grafiek in allerlei vorm en uitdrukking werd gecombineerd met talig werk. Bijzonder zijn de unieke collages in hotprinttechniek van vlieseline en inkt op zuurvrij karton. Door zijn of mede dankzij zijn iconische logo voor de Waddenvereniging blijft Jan Loman letterlijk en figuurlijk in beeld. In taal en teken vatte hij in een oogwenk als het ware het totaal van de wereld samen. Tekens lopen als een rode draad door het werk van Loman, stelt Gerhild van Rooij in haar bijdrage aan de uitgave. “Het zijn ook de tekens die Loman inspireren tot een haiku: een bloem in de sneeuw, een leilinde in het land, een paal op het strand, een slagschaduw en veel meer.”

De kracht en de breekbaarheid samen maken dat het werk van Loman leeft, denkt Van Rooij, niet alleen bij vrienden maar bij steeds weer nieuwe lezers en beschouwers. Alsof hij zijn haiku als handtekening in de lucht laat hangen en hij in enkele gebaren het leven wil samenballen, of nog altijd samenbalt en bij de kern blijft. “de zonnewering / voert langzaam late zebra’s / over de wanden --- de sinneblinen / fuorje têd lette sebra’s / oer alle wanden”. De originele haiku van Loman, door hem geschreven in de Nederlandse taal, behouden de eenvoudige kracht en spreken simpel aan in het Fries vertaald. Gerhild van Rooij heeft daar, met advies en redactie van Pieter Duijff, serieus werk van gemaakt. De essentie van het moment, het verbinden van locaties, sferen en tijdsperioden, blijven fier overeind in de Friese taal. En geven misschien nog wel meer stemming en emotie aan de haiku. Waar Loman een ode aan Friesland brengt, de provincie waar hij is geboren en opgegroeid, dicht Van Rooij middels onderzoek en beschrijving lof toe aan deze mens en kunstenaar. “Door Jan Loman, door de tentoonstellingen en de haiku beseffen we hoe intiem en daardoor breekbaar de relatie tussen mens en landschap is", besluit Bert Looper zijn voorwoord. “Een zeer actueel thema.”

Grensoverschrijdend, de haiku van Jan Loman / Grinskrusend, de haiku fan Jan Loman. Tweetalige uitgave als eerbetoon aan Jan Loman (1918-2006). Voorwoord Bert Looper. Inleiding en vertaling Gerhild van Rooij. Uitgave Tresoar Leeuwarden, najaar 2021.

https://www.tresoar.nl/bezoeken/tentoonstellingen/geweest/Loman

#Jan Loman #haiku #Gerhild van Rooij #Tresoar #Bloemrijk Vertrouwen #boekbespreking

0 notes

gildedglasshouses · 1 year ago

Text

"And whereas I was black and swart before,/With those clear rays which she infused on me/That beauty am I blest with, which you may see."

shit man i have a bunch of friends who would absolutely become god's divine warrior or whatever it is if it meant a free bleach job

#henry #1:2

0 notes

renaissanceclassics · 1 year ago

Text

A Tale of Two Cities - Book 2: Part 29

In 45 parts.

Fire Rises

CHAPTER XXIII. Fire Rises

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail.

“How goes it, Jacques?”

“All well, Jacques.”

“Touch then!”

They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones.

“No dinner?”

“Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with a hungry face.

“It is the fashion,” growled the man. “I meet no dinner anywhere.”

“Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands.

“To-night?” said the mender of roads.

“To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill.

“See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. “You go down here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain—”

“To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling his eye over the landscape. “I go through no streets and past no fountains. Well?”

“Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the village.”

“Good. When do you cease to work?”

“At sunset.”

“Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will you wake me?”

“Surely.”

The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. He was fast asleep directly.

“Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leagues beyond the summit of the hill?”

“About.”

“About. Good!”

0 notes

juliansummerhayes · 2 years ago

Text

Canto I BY EZRA POUND And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward Bore us out onward with bellying canvas, Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller, Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end. Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean, Came we then to the bounds of deepest water, To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever With glitter of sun-rays Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven Swartest night stretched over wretched men there. The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place Aforesaid by Circe. Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus, And drawing sword from my hip I dug the ell-square pitkin; Poured we libations unto each the dead, First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour. Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads; As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods, A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep. Dark blood flowed in the fosse, Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides Of youths and of the old who had borne much; Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender, Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads, Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms, These many crowded about me; with shouting, Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts; Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze; Poured ointment, cried to the gods, To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine; Unsheathed the narrow sword, I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead, Till I should hear Tiresias. But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor, Unburied, cast on the wide earth, Limbs that we left in the house of Circe, Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other. Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech: “Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast? “Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?” And he in heavy speech: “Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe’s ingle. “Going down the long ladder unguarded, “I fell against the buttress, “Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus. “But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied, “Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed: “A man of no fortune, and with a name to come. “And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.” And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban, Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first: “A second time? why? man of ill star, “Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region? “Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever “For soothsay.” And I stepped back, And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus “Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas, “Lose all companions.” And then Anticlea came. Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus, In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer. And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away And unto Circe. Venerandam, In the Cretan’s phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite, Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, orichalchi, with golden Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. So that: Ezra Pound, "Canto I" from The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Copyright © 1993 by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

#ezra pound

1 note · View note