№ 380. Pluck the Day While It is Ripe

A Bigger Splash by David Hockney  

Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge),
what our destined term of years,
Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore. 
Strain your wine and prove your wisdom;
life is short; should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.
Seize the present; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may.

№ 379. Deep Swedish Strokes: ABBA

№ 378. Adverse Words

Reflections
Antonia Pozzi

№ 377. The Secret Life of Old Songs

This song about rediscovering our old selves and lovers made me smile. I paid no attention to it before until I watched "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" again, this time on Netflix. I actually liked how the movie tied up a lot of almost unrelated elements. Iceland, Greenland and Afghanistan were beautifully shot in wide panoramic format which just underscored the theme of a closeted traveler finally unmoored from the desk job and let loose to the chaos of the elements.

I didn't appreciate the movie the first time I watched it. I probably missed out on the many cultural references and the really stunning landscapes. But seeing it again in high definition and on a very big 70-inch or so screen made such a difference.

Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

№ 376. Theology after Carmina Burana

In this great fiat of the little girl Mary, the strength and foundation of our life of contemplation is grounded, for it means absolute trust in God, trust which will not set us free from suffering but will seift us free from anxiety, hesitation, and above all from the fear of suffering. Trust which makes us willing to be what God wants us to be, however great or however little that may prove. Trust which accepts God as illimitable Love.” ---- The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander

'The Reed of God' depicts the intimately human side of Mary, Mother of God, as an empty reed waiting for God's music to be played through her.

Bento Box:

A friend who belongs to a Catholic religious order posted the passage above.

I thought, it is such a beautiful love letter to God composed by a devotee.

№ 375. The Justice of Returning the Loot

Spoils of War

№ 374. Retiro X

Chungking Express Art

She lip-reads her swift murders
In urban-drenched neon monologues
Stilled as day dream sequences.

She scribbles imaginary boarding passes on tissue-thin paper
Later carelessly thrown away, unread
And melting with the monsoon.

She sleepwalks in tight, greased-up alleys,
Under wiry wigs and stilettos, tipsy with the city's
Chaos, solitary and morbid deadlines.

Like the poisoned city she breathes,
She is livid, resigned and, cruel.

№ 373. Love You for 10,000 Years

In his essay “Time Pieces: Wong Kar-Wai and the Persistence of Memory,” critic Chuck Stevens summarizes Wong Kar-Wai’s approach to film-making perfectly: “Passionate about ideas, possessed by the errant flashes of whimsy and misfortune that haunt modern loves, [Wong Kar-Wai] transforms emotional free-fall into infectious rhymes and deliberate coincidences, willfully missed signals and capricious possibilities for romance.”