Roark both lived and designed by a strict set of rules, he just detested blindly following forms for their own sake. If a pillar serves no purpose, it did not belong on a Roark building. Roark, instead of a counterpoint to what Apps posted, is a perfect example. He went to architecture school and learned all the forms. He could design something using those forms off the cuff (and I believe he did to prove that) but he broke the rules knowing that for his purposes there was a better way, because he was a master of designing for elegant functionality. That is not to say that Apps is or is not an Objectivist, only that if you think Roark stands against his point you completely misunderstood either his point or Roark.
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Not a fan of poetry, persee, but I enjoy good prose and diction. It's funny App brings up form and function.. I think of prose as a far more penetrative form of art than poetry (mainly because it's less ambiguous), and it differentiates itself from poetry because it has no self imposed metric limitations. The verse, stanza and consistency of poetry compromises it's value to me. Or maybe because most of it is reminiscent of a guy with a feather in his cap and green tights. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns. Nabokov, Lolita
Mmm. Nabokov. Inspired. In the same vein of prose cliches, I will mention Melville. Chapter 37, Moby Dick: Sunset. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moby-Dick/Chapter_37 The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out. I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun— slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. ‘Tis iron—that I know—not gold. ‘Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night—good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.) ‘Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad— Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way! The first half (bolded) is written almost perfectly in poetic meter, as Ahab is illumined by the moonlight from the window. The second half (away from the window), as Ahab's anger crescendoes, the meter juts in and out haphazardly, reflecting Ahab's deteriorating patience... This is a prime example of form and function. Specifically, these lines alone blur the boundary between prose and poetry: I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun— slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Beautiful. Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way.
...or spelling ronny, just because you don't understand poetry, it doesn't make it less "penetrating." poetry often expresses its concepts tersely. ambiguity is a part of all great art. you are out of your league here. what happened to you anyway, you used to be funny?
Never really a big fan of poetry, which is a knock on me more than on poetry itself (Mencken not being a fan of poetry either makes me feel better about it though). But a few stood out to me. Some by Byron. This one did as well, and I felt the need to bring it up because no one else has. Mont Blanc by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Spoiler MONT BLANC: LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI I The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom-- Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters--with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. II Thus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine-- Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;--thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear--an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity; Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound-- Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there! III Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.--I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Spread far around and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes among the viewless gales! Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, Mont Blanc appears--still, snowy, and serene; Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracks her there--how hideously Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high, Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.--Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelop once this silent snow? None can reply--all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. IV The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this , the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known. Below, vast caves Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. V Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret Strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy? (1817) http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/shelley.mont
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. - Randall Jarrell
I like Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas and Samuel Taylor Coleridge those are the ones that stuck with me from high school and college
Gary, gary, gary. Can I call you Gabriel? Or just Samantha. I had to take a new direction. The popularity, the fan mail, the reps... it didn't benefit an anonymous figure such as myself. When you're a hotbed of creative talent and raw sexual magnetism, you have to prioritize where you channel that energy. Otherwise you get too much attention from the wrong places. This place simply isn't the platform for that - so I decided to take on a more ambiguous approach without conventional boundaries. Transcending race, time and limitations that everyday humans such as yourself are constantly bombarded with. I've gone underground, baby. I've gone below the surface. It's all part of a little thing called... being the Ronald. Being true to yourself, being true to your roots, and always respecting the game. So don't get defensive when I say this little child's game you call poetry, it doesn't fly with me. Because the daddy's here, and he's not gonna up with your meandering grasp of interpretive art.
Think of it like this. Julio Iglesias. The most intense being of all time - what an effect he has. But for him to truly understand his art, to truly penetrate a soul with his message, he has to understand what it's like to be the every day guy who can only give so much and leaves a lot to the imagination. The guy who can't walk into a room, with the heavens shining down on him, and cause civilization to drop to it's knees. Because when you're living on too grand of a scale, in an ivory tower, you forget about the pleasures and problems of the little man. The smaller things. There would be days when Julio would walk through villages in Spain with a disguise dressed in layman's clothes just so he could observe these every day folk. So his music could transcend social class and elitist entitlement. It's only after understanding this all encompassing picture, after breaking the shackles of ignorance, that the sun can really shine.
Does Ronny always post stupid crap like this all the time and in every post? Nobody got time to read all that crap you are writing. We understand that you want to feel good about yourself by doing all this but can you please take it somewhere else.
Yeah, this is Ronny's schtik. I kind of appreciate it though, it adds to the board's flavour. Without posters like him the Hangout would be much more boring.
Yall should check out some of "BasketballMind"s poetry. He's a contributing member here & and also the one that is battling the progressive eye disease http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=225239 He's re-creating the voices of some of the Klumps/poetry/skit here: http://soundcloud.com/dramakingv3/the-klumps-voices-poetry-by Bernie Mac impersonation/poetry here: http://soundcloud.com/dramakingv3/heavenly-poetry-by-bernie-mac Bernie Mac again/poetry/skit here: http://soundcloud.com/dramakingv3/bernie-mac-with-a-heavenly http://soundcloud.com/dramakingv3/fear-of-rejection http://soundcloud.com/dramakingv3/perception-of-me
ronny, weak, weak comeback, try again please. oh, and i can call you betty, and betty when you call me, you can call me al.
The Experiment by Wisława Szymborska As a short subject before the main feature - in which the actors did their best to make me cry and even laugh - we were shown an interesting experiment involving a head. The head a minute earlier was still attached to… but now it was cut off. Everyone could see that it didn’t have a body. The tubes dangling from the neck hooked it up to a machine that kept its blood circulating. The head was doing just fine. Without showing pain or even surprise, it followed a moving flashlight with its eyes. It pricked up its ears at the sound of a bell. Its moist nose could tell the smell of bacon from odorless oblivion, and licking its chops with evident relish it salivated its salute to physiology. A dog’s faithful head, a dog’s friendly head squinted its eyes when stroked, convinced that it was still part of a whole that crooks its back if patted and wags its tail. I thought about happiness and was frightened. For if that’s all life is about, the head was happy.
