The Long and Winding Road

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

The long and winding road
that leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
it always leads me here
Leads me to your door

The wild and windy night
that the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
crying for the day
Why leave me standing here,
let me know the way

Many times I've been alone
and many times I've cried
Anyway you've always known
the many ways I've tried

And still they lead me back
to the long wind- ing road
You left me waiting here
a long, long time ago
Don't keep me standing here,
lead me to you door

But still they lead me back
to the long and winding road
You left me waiting here
a long, long time ago
Don't leave me standing here,
lead me to you door

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

the way of the world

TRAWA

Trawo, trawo do kolan!
Podnieś mi się do czoła,
Żeby myślom nie było
Ani mnie, ani pola.

Żebym ja się uzielił,
Przekwiecił do rdzenia kości
I już się nie oddzielił
Słowami od twej świeżości.

Abym tobie i sobie
Jednym imieniem mówił:
Albo obojgu - trawa,
Albo obojgu - tuwim

Julian Tuwim

GRASS

Grass, grass up to my knees!
Grow up to the sky
So that there won't seem to be
Any you or I

So that I will turn all green
And blossom to my bones,
So that my words won't come between
Your freshness and my own.

So that for the two of us
There will be one name:
Either for both of us - grass,
Or both both of us - tuwim.

Julian Tuwim
(1894-1953)

Translated by Lawrence Davis

as with every other culture we've looked at, poland had its own 'versions' of japonisme, with its own names for it. for the poets, they were called the skamander poets after a magazine of that name that they started.

and, from wikipedia, 'Young Poland (Młoda Polska) was a modernist period in Polish art, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was an effect of strong opposition to the ideas of positivism and promoted the trends of decadence, neo- romanticism, symbolism, impressionism or art nouveau.

'The Polish literature of the period was based on two main concepts. The earlier was a typically modernist disil-

lusionment with bour- geoisie, its ways of life and its culture. Artists fol- lowing this concept also believed in decadence, end of all culture, conflict between humans and their civilisation and the concept of art as the highest value (art for art's sake).'

in other words, in this corner of europe, as in all the others, the fin of one siecle was the beginning of another. and constant thanks to green tea blog for keeping us aware of all this.

(see another view of irina)

cross-cultural studies II

Queen Victoria said: "I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety.

"Feminists ought to get a good whipping.

"Were woman to 'unsex' them- selves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection." 1

During the Edo and Meiji (1868-1912 A.D.) periods, women were considered worthy of a certain amount of education.

Every girl, except those in the lower classes, was trained in the domestic and aesthetic arts.

This education included learning the Japanese written language, the Chinese classics, poetry, music, etiquette, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, calligraphy and painting, and in some areas, dancing.

Such talents were considered suitable for a proper woman and wife. 2

The Tal- mud- ists aver that teach- ing women to read is tiflut “unbe- coming behavior, sexual license, [and] a waste of time.”

The strictures they instituted blocking women from access to reading literacy, the minimum needed for participation in religious ritual was, until the seventh- century and only in Europe, carefully adhered.

Before that time few women in any Jewish population were reading much less writing literate.

Without the ability to record their lives for posterity, including their very much needed participation in holy days such as Passover, the experiences of half of the Jewish people have been and to a large extent continue to be ignored. 3

Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age. 4

throughout time and cultures, the idea that women should be taught to read has been suspect at best. but once again one thing becomes increasingly clear. in japan you really don't need to have red hair to read.

cross-cultural studies

(click)
as one can easily see, the history of pleasure swimming has been pretty much the same in the west and in japan.

only in japan you do not need red hair to participate.

sing in the year

maggie and milly and molly and may


maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)



and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and



milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;



and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and



may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.



For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find in the sea


E. E. Cummings

from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings; Copyright © 1991

(perhaps from all this you can make a perpetual january. at least this year january 1907 seems to fit. i have some mays and i will look for other months. i wonder if we'll ever have a year.)

happy new year everyone.

happy sunrise to you all