James Joyce - The Dead

Out of the dark I hear an Irish woman, quizzical, sneering slightly, crying Beannacht libh as she slips laughingly into the night. There is warm light emanating from a dining hall, two women, both old, can hardly hold back tears as a man trembling makes a speech. Daylight is only a few hours away, mirth and confusion as two men bundle an old musky woman up a carriage amidst a flurry of goodbyes, the carriage fades into the cold dark beneath a laden sky. A woman haunted by a pair of eyes out of a night from her childhood. An ache, long dormant, unspooled by a hoarse tenor mustering unwillingly a song of old, and the uncanny likeness of two nights decades adrift, common in epilogues that fail spectacularly to reconcile.

Before long, it snowed.

A few light taps on the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen, and farther westward, upon the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

From The Dead, James Joyce

Almost at random I picked this up and read it through dinner, for the second time. Almost without needing context, James Joyce comes from the front and still surprises when he surrounds you completely in his night.

Feist and Ben Gibbard, Vashti Bunyan cover

Train Song, released on Dark is the Night, features Feist and Ben Gibbard covering one of my favourite tracks by Vashti Bunyan.


Train Song

travelling North, travelling North to find you
train wheels speeding wind in my eyes
don't even know what i'll find when i get to you
call out your name love don't be surprised

it's so many miles and so long since i've left you
dont even know what i'll find when i get to you
but suddenly now i know where i belong
it's many hundred miles and it won't be long

nothing at all in my head to say to you
only the beat of the train i'm on
nothing i've learnt all my life on the way to you
one day our love was over and gone

so many miles and so long since i've left you
dont even know what i'll find when i get to you
but suddenly now i know where i belong
it's many hundred miles and it won't be long.

what will i do if there's someone there with you
maybe someone you've always known
how will i know i can call and give to you
love with no warning and find you alone.


Feist is rather awesome on her own with her reverb in empty rooms and Ben Gibbard is his usual superfluous self.

My favourite version of the song is still the one Vashti Bunyan released originally on Some things just stick in your mind.


17 Pink Sugar Elephants

i saw 17 pink sugar elephants
sitting under a chestnut tree
i said good morning, pink sugar elephants
but they wouldn't speak to me

each had two eyes but they couldn't see me there
each had 4 legs but they couldn't go anywhere
and so we just sat
that early autumn morning
sun not yet ris' and the magic everywhere

i walked up to one pink sugar elephant
asked why wouldn't he speak to me
but he was a factory made pink sugar elephant
given to children for treats after tea

he had two eyes but he couldn't see me there
he had 4 legs but they couldn't go anywhere
and so we just sat
that early autumn morning
sun not yet ris' and the magic everywhere


Here it feels like Vashti is on some sort of sedative, alone in sunshine. It also makes me think of Vashti and her animals. I guess I can understand why Train Song came up eventually because 17 Pink Sugar Elephants isn't really a song for playing in bars.

Geithner, please.

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

-Winston Churchill

And my good friends
With their eyes on what it takes
I could kiss them
But the bravest make mistakes

Get in solid walls
With the know it alls
Get in trouble with Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow, Sufjan Stevens

you can't be serious

This is what a final year NTU Dean's list student had to say about his university:

I'm amazed at the range of research areas that NTU is investing in, even in relatively unexplored areas such as Science and Humanities. This reflects the daring and forward-thinking mindset of the university.

Just, no words.