an abandoned chest of roistering literature for the drunk and rampant reader.
Beneath my eyes opens—a book; I see to the bottom;
the heart—I see to the depths. I know what loves are
trembling into fire; how jealousy shoots its green flashes
hither and thither; how intricately love crosses love;
love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart.
I have been knotted; I have been torn apart.
Mother,
Why is the river laughing?
Why, because the sun is tickling the river.
Mother,
Why is the river singing?
Because the skylark praised the river’s voice.
Mother,
Why is the river cold?
It remembers being once loved by the snow.
Mother,
How old is the river?
It’s the same age as the forever young springtime.
Mother,
Why does the river never rest?
Well, you see it’s because the mother sea
is waiting for the river to come home.
Translated from the Japanese by Harold Wright.
I think the sea is a useless teacher, pitching and falling
no matter the weather, when our lives are rather lakes
unlocking in a constant and bewildering spring. Listen,
a day comes, when you say what all winter
I’ve been meaning to ask, and a crack booms and echoes
where ice had seemed solid, scattering ducks
and scaring us half to death. In Vermont, you dreamed
from the crown of a hill and across a ravine
you saw lights so familiar they might have been ours
shining back from the future.
And waking, you walked there, to the real place,
and when you saw only trees, come back bleak
with a foreknowledge we have both come to believe in.
But this morning, a kind day has descended, from nowhere,
and making coffee in the usual way, measuring grounds
with the wooden spoon, I remembered,
this is how things happen, cup by cup, familiar gesture
after gesture, what else can we know of safety
or of fruitfulness? We walk with mincing steps within
a thaw as slow as February, wading through currents
that surprise us with their sudden warmth. Remember,
last week you woke still whistling for a bird
that had miraculously escaped its cage, and look, today,
a swallow has come to settle behind this rented rain gutter,
gripping a twig twice his size in his beak, staggering
under its weight, so delicately, so precariously it seems
from here, holding all he knows of hope in his mouth.
One studio album that stood out to us this year was We Are KING, the debut full-length album that emerged from Minneapolis and LA based group KING.
Nominated for Best Urban Contemporary Artist, this all soul, all female group, has launched itself into the same category as Rihanna and Beyoncé. Two twin sisters, Paris and Amber Strother, and long-time friend Anita Bias, make up the dreamsicle pop-like trio who gathered much of their musical prowess and influence from Prince, which shouldn’t come as a surprise once you hear their music.
It was a tough year, they mentioned at their New Year’s Eve show at the Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis on December 31st, 2016. To lose Prince wasn’t easy when he had been their mentor. They continued to say how Prince’s encouragement to continue writing their music their way was what got them to a grammy nomination. He guaranteed that we would be nominated if we kept doing what we were doing and sure enough we did.
At the New Year’s show I found myself among an intimate crowd of friends and family, and the vibe couldn’t have been more ethereal or surreal. The warm spiritual sounds of synth-pop rose from the stage like tropical vapor. There was so much freshness, vitality, authenticity, and groove in the music. I lost track of time and danced slowly, swaying, child-like. Congratulations to KING for already making beautiful music and for creating a beautiful beginning for their artistry to soar into our ears.
Listen to our favorites:
Native Land
In the Meantime
Find out more at WeAreKing.com & check their tour dates.
Tune in for the Grammys on CBS Sunday Feb 12.
What has been spoiled through man’s fault can be made good again through man’s work. – I Ching
To say about it one thing. No, two. It was a horror. It could not be spoken.
So first there was the problem of recovering speech.
Calling out to it, listening each other.
We looked to the assurances of nature — regular violence, regular relief.
Color splayed before us — yellows, rhythms of red.
Faces and patterns in faces. Patience.
Finally, a word, but not many.
Silence again, longing.
More words but not what happened; words we had already said.
Horror holding, a black hole. Opening a little,
then a little more, then: we could think about the horror: what happened
a kind of speech, but not yet.
It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Closer. Farther away.
It happened, but not to you.
You survived because you were first.
You survived because you were last.
Because alone. Because the others.
Because on the left. Because on the right.
Because it was raining. Because it was sunny.
Because a shadow fell.
Luckily there was a forest.
Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a frame, a turn, an inch, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the water.
Thanks to, thus, in spite of, and yet.
What would have happened if a hand, a leg,
one step, a hair away?
So you are here? Straight from that moment still suspended?
The net’s mesh was tight, but you– through the mesh?
I can’t stop wondering at it, can’t be silent enough.
Listen,
how quickly your heart is beating in me.
– Translated from the Polish by Grazyna Drabik & Sharon Olds
Of three or four in a room
there is always one who stands at the window.
He must see the evil among the thorns
and the fires on the hill.
And how people who went out of their houses whole
are given back in the evening like small change.
Of three or four in a room
there is always one who stands at the window,
his dark hair above his thoughts.
Behind him, words.
And in front of him voices wandering without a knapsack,
hearts without provisions, prophecies without water,
large stones that have been returned there
and stay sealed, like letters that have no
address and no one to receive them.
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Now I must say, without weeping, how much this writer means to me. Ray Bradbury has been the strongest inspiration to me as a writer, or even as a human, persevering through the unimaginative obstacles, and he is the true inspiration for this project of Drunken Library. Bradbury was a novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet. He was a self-educated man, an idea enthusiast, and one who charmed you with such fun and imagination that you felt like a child reborn. Reading Bradbury is like a soft blow of ocean mist after the morning rain has cleared. 
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois and fell in love with reading when he was three years old. He began reading comics and fantasy, then hoped to grow up to be all the characters that he read about. After graduating from Los Angeles High School, he started religiously attending the public library, from which he says that he graduated. The library educated and fulfilled him. He was most successful in science fiction, screenplays, always defending the imagination of the individual.
In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.
Favorite Quotes:
If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you, and you’ll never learn.
Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.
The things that you do should be things that you love, and the things that you love should be things that you do.
Incomplete List of Suggested Reading:
The Martian Chronicles (1950)
The Illustrated Man (1951)
Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
Dandelion Wine (1957)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
I Sing the Body Electric (1969)
The Cat’s Pajama’s (2004) – Collection of Short Stories
Interesting Facts:
His formal education ended at high school; he never attended a college, but a library.
When he was a boy, Bradbury was tapped on the shoulder by the sword of a carnival man and told to “Live forever!” which inspired his works for a lifetime.
Bradbury was afraid of the dark until he was almost twenty years old and he never obtained a driver’s license.
Related Articles:
You can live in Ray Bradbury’s house. . . http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-ray-bradbury-house-20140520-story.html
A fantastic interview to know him better … http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6012/the-art-of-fiction-no-203-ray-bradbury
drunken library 