THE NEST

MAY

When oaken woods with buds are pink,
And new-come birds each morning sing,
When fickle May on Summer’s brink
Pauses, and knows not which to fling,
Whether fresh bud and bloom again,
Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,

Then from the honeysuckle gray
The oriole with experienced quest
Twitches the fibrous bark away,
The cordage of his hammock-nest.
Cheering his labor with a note
Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o’er the loud and dusty road
The soft gray cup in safety swings,
To brim ere August with its load
Of downy breasts and throbbing wings,
O’er which the friendly elm-tree heaves
An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy World drags by
In the old way, because it must,
The bride with heartbreak in her eye,
The mourner following hated dust:
Thy duty, winged flame of Spring,
Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

Oh, happy life, to soar and sway
Above the life by mortals led,
Singing the merry months away,
Master, not slave of daily bread,
And, when the Autumn comes, to flee
Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

Adriane: What?

Rocky: I can’t beat him

Adriane: Apollo?

Rocky: Yeah. I’ve been out there walking around, thinking. I mean who am I kidding, I ain’t even in the guy’s league.

Adriane: What are you gonna do?

Rocky: I don’t know.

Adriane: You worked so hard.

Rocky: Yeah, it don’t matter, ’cause I was nobody before.

Adriane: Don’t  say that.

Rocky:  Now c’mon Adrian,  it’s true.  I was nobody. It don’t matter easy, you know?  Cause I was thinking?  It really don’t matter if I lose this fight.  It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head either, ’cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I ever go that distance, just seeing that bell ring and I’m still standing,  I am going to know for the first time in my life, y’see? that I ain’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

“…Yo te hago el café por la mañana…”

Julieta Venegas – NYC Summerstage 2008

Vin~a del Mar Chile.

I still remember the first time I saw her perform live.  The year was 2002 at the LAMC Acoustic showcase at “Joe’s Pub”  in New York city.  I walked in the packed room in the middle of her first song.  Her voice entered my body through my heart and resonated in my soul so loud that it shook loose every bit of emotion amalgamated with time.   The combination of her physique, her pink guitar and her ever-changing hairdo left an indelible imprint in my memory.

Her album “Plug & Play” is available in Amazon.  The following is a youtube video of her performing “Peligro”.

Though people find Amores Perros harsh and unrealistic, this film is the best “Love Guide” in film.  More specifically, the film is the perfect “Don’t-Do Love Guide”.  Josh Kun wrote an illuminating essay few years back titled “Love in the Time of Betrayal” in which he explained how each character fullfiilled the central theme of the movie. Betrayal.  And he is correct in his interpretation of the movie.

However, like the tragedies of Shakespeare, Amores Perros demonstrates how terrible love can go.  Each viewer should identify with a situation or an emotion in this film.  The wisdom of this movie rests on the corrsosive actions of betrayal to the ones we love.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Nothing much to say. Except that I miss this song. That’s it.

Excerpt from Coach Stringer’s interview
REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL
RETURNS MARCH 10, ON HBO (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT)
It was about time Real Sports covered the Scarlet Knights!