My Latest Blook

[tariki]

I've spoken before about my Blooks, a cross between a blog and a book, created on free Google blog space and printed off (after editing) in France by Blookup. 

 

My latest is "The Illustrated Notebooks of Dookie" (Volume II)

 

Rather than describe the contents again, here is the "Preamble" that opens the blook:-

 

One of my Blooks that I turn to more often than not is "The Illustrated Notebooks of Dookie". A pretty random collection of quotes and excerpts from all the books that pass through my life. 

My Notebooks are filling up again and therefore another volume of various odds and ends is called for. So this it it. 

Section headings will be as random as the quotes and excerpts,  as often the notes put into the various notebooks are pretty random themselves, resulting in a glorious jumble that will often make no sense as such - but that is the way I like it. Correspondences can follow in life itself, as lived and experienced. As John Keats once wrote:-

I have never yet been able to conceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning.

Which - at least in my mind - is from the same family as Oscar Wilde's:-

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

How do we learn, grow? Through life itself - the hidden ground of love that has no explanation. The love that has no Why. Only Faith is needed, which itself is a gift.

 

Such is the Preamble. As said, the various quotes are very random and as I was quite lax in keeping note of where they came from, many have no citations. Which brings to mind the thought of whether or not the source of the quote makes the words more - or less - likely of acceptance, or agreement; and whether or not it should. Maybe the answer for me is that it "should not, but it does". 

 

There are "Poetic Interludes" in the Blook, 5 in number, some of my favorite poetry. Here is one, by Philip Larkin, called "First Sight":-

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

Not really typical of Philip Larkin, who often wrote of darker themes. So much so that when I first read it the thought of an abattoirs popped into my mind regarding the "surprise" (utterly unlike the snow) But I'm fairly sure that such was not the surprise in Larkin's mind. 

Whatever, the poem this time has brought to mind another entry in the Blook, this from Picasso:-

 

Every child is an artist; the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.

 

......which itself suggests the verse from the Good Book, that "a little child shall lead them" (while the wise are sent empty away)

I'll indulge myself with one more quote from the Blook, this from Nietzsche:-

Belief is for those who do not want to know the truth.

 

A couple of images from the Blook. The cover:-

 

 

And one page, showing a few lines by the Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Bob Dylan, well worth contemplating:-

 

Sadly, I appear to have used up all my attachment space! So will put the image on a second post.

Thank you.

 

 

[tariki]

Here is the one of Bob Dylan:-

 

 

 

Just to add, Bob is at London's Royal Albert Hall in November, appearing with Willie Nelson (and a few others I have never heard of) I'd love to see him "live" but the cheapest seats were £168 and I would have had to stay in London overnight, adding to the expense. So Bob must croak without me as a witness. 

 

😀

 

 

Edited July 30 by tariki

[tariki]

Oh, "Dookie" is another of my many screen names, my alter ego. 

😀

[tariki]

Not now my latest Blook. I now have a Work in Progress, cover picture below:-

 

 

Elvis Costello is only recently discovered by me. I only knew his "Oliver's Army" but he wrote some great lyrics. I now have his autobiography, "Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink" which is proving a good read. It jumps about a bit and its difficult sometimes to trace exactly how old he was, or even where he was, when different episodes happened. 

The title of his book comes from the lyrics of his song "All the Rage":-

Alone with your tweezers and your handkerchief 

You murder time and truth, love, laughter and belief 

So don’t try to touch my heart 

It’s darker than you think 

And don’t try to read my mind 

Because it’s full of disappearing ink 

 

But as I say, he has written some great lyrics and my Blook will follow the track listing of "The Very Best of Elvis Costello", 42 tracks in all. 

 

Just another taster, from "All the Rage":-

The teacher never told anything but white lies

And you never hear the lies that you believe

Though you know you have been captured

You feel so civilized

And you look so pretty in your new lace sleeves

 

"You never hear the lies that you believe" - a good line! But plenty more where that came from. 

Look up the video on YouTube "(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace, Love and Understanding". 

And apparently "Oliver's Army" is some sort of subversive comment on Northern Ireland and it's troubles. 

Anyway, I've downloaded all the lyrics, now I get to the part I enjoy the most, picking out the Images to go with the lyrics. 

Edited August 4 by tariki

[tariki]

On 8/4/2024 at 2:46 PM, tariki said:

 

 

Just another taster, from "All the Rage":-

The teacher never told anything but white lies

And you never hear the lies that you believe

Though you know you have been captured

You feel so civilized

And you look so pretty in your new lace sleeves

Actually from "New Lace Sleeves"