The Musings of Alencia Lysander

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down of his soft breast uncurls his coral feet. Creature of the sea, made from the deep, Not its darkness where the hundred monsters Sleep but from a deeper still, where pearls And other jewels their corazón await, A depth so clear, so still, Deeper than the deep, about its treasures Clinging like a sheet, edge upon the edge Of what is seen, a flicker and a sweep. This way to emerge! Royally too evident become And darker darkness radiate, to sweep and fly, Ever in the way things underneath Have shown themselves And wear the world as a wreath, Oblivious to any demand, "Why?" Through the deep purple of the dying heat of sun and mist, the level ray of sun-beam has caressed the lily with dark breast, and flecked with richer gold its golden crest. Gold on gold more gilded, on the other hand, recedes Into a darkness and stillness, leads The mi...

Incarnated among appearances, a voice That like the lazy morning lilts and in me Lingers, under the familiar, invisible And barely audible, a promise or a spell In which is rehearsed the gaiety its tiding brings, A solemn exhortation to rejoice, Where, like the spider's fly, the things Of all this world harbored, what the earth Produces and their elements of birth Entangle me.  Wound up in and by these lives I only can watch raptly as by chariot arrives The sorcerer who keeps within her gallery The forces of her manifest. What worth Will carry me into the ice of afternoon, If through the prism of the morning I can see, Under the endurance of the present, what lacunae, Omens of her rapt appearances, are yet to be, The whistle and the adze, spokes and song, if humanity Unable to endure, unwilling to commune, Is yet too stubborn or too weak to come so near The revelations I prefigure here?

Because they read no books, the villagers cannot believe in labyrinths; The children come the closest when they listen to the priests’ imbroglio, More because the church is warm in winter and in summer smells of tamarind -- And buzzing springs and swerving falls -- than what a soul, if simpatico, Ever could be brought to understand. No distinction between oval and ellipse Can root itself in blameless limbs, and more than any creed a piece of chocolate Is the currency in idle hands. When heedless, unschooled puberty eclipses So sensual an age, blooming hands could not care less to trade a coronet For those still sophistries. Life swings too eagerly towards what the sage decries In time-bound tomes as heresy to notice or escape what it implies.

On crystal days when the air is clear By the mountains ruined in cold The rustics drown themselves in beer While their sheep keep close to the fold.  The young man waits by the sleek hillside; His mind gone to heaven, his soul alone Sings elegies for absent brides While the sun slides through the gloam.  The stars salt an ache that deepens The dark blinds those who cry Pens scrawl the words that cheapen While the crows fly. This time it is only stars and frost -- The world doesn't mind the lost.

I've spent a bit of time recently watching YouTube videos related to the question of what makes something an RPG.  Since studying literary theory in college, I've become skeptical that you can give clean-cut definitions of the various genres.  I think two works belong to the same genre if they are similar enough across various dimensions.  The problem with similarity is that it's vague.  Everything is similar to everything else in some way, just on a general metaphysical level, and once you get to the products of human culture, each of them is much more like each of the others than it is different.  So arguments about genre tend to fixate on arbitrarily selected differences the importance of which are then magnified to the level of dogma. I believe there is no one difference that will always make X a member of genre G rather than genre G'.  The products of culture are descriptively rich, and there are any number of relevant features that make our experien...

I keep waking up late -- 10:30 or 11:00.  My husband gets up at 7:30 every morning to work and asks me to make a sandwich, but I'm too tired.  I end up grumbling at him in bed for a few minutes before he gives up, but I don't fall properly back to sleep until he leaves.  I'm too much awake to fall right back to sleep, but I don't have enough energy to actually get up.  So then I wake up much later and the day's gone.  As I was dozing this morning, I thought of Confucius' remonstrance against Zi Lu for sleeping during the day: "Rotten wood can't be carved.  A mud wall can't be plastered."  What an optimistic view of human nature!  Or at least of education.  But we're stuck in the grooves habit has laid down for us -- which having been laid down, it's very hard for us to switch tracks. As for grooves -- I've learned that the exercise regime I've been trying to lay in place for myself is called "greasing the groove."  T...

He finds that with propriety he cannot write about his own life.  He acts against people, but he would not make those people conscious witnesses of his actions.  He seals himself away from others, both by the barriers he places in their way and by the silence he erects to guard those barriers.  It is the assault of an animal -- the very thought is contained in the action, and the thought is nothing besides, or at least has no other expression than, that action. To the departed: it was a matter of drifting, it was a matter of harm.  The harm became a wound, the wound scarred, the scar is a rift.  I think of it like a gap that fills up with all the hostilities of the world.  It is something radical and diseased, and I want no part of it.  I also would like to be someone else.  There is now what is for me an insurmountable investment of pain required to cross it, so I would rather call it a loss.  But I feel the pain enough to remark it. ...

元和天子神武姿， 彼何人哉軒與羲，  誓將上雪列聖恥， 坐法宮中朝四夷。  淮西有賊五十載， 封狼生貙貙生羆；  不據山河據平地， 長戈利矛日可麾。  The Yuanhe  Emperor: divine, mighty, refined.  His rivals are what men? -- Only Xuan and Xi.  As snow covers men's tracks, he swore he'd cover up his predecessors' shame. In the Palace of Laws before his throne, the Four Barbarians would bow.  To the west of River Huai there had been bandits fifty years -- the wolves that set up shop bore beasts, and then the beasts bore bears.  No more content with hills and streams, they'd occupy the plains -- with long spear and sharp lance they'd vie against the sun. 帝得聖相相曰度， 賊斫不死神扶持。  腰懸相印作都統， 陰風慘澹天王旗。  愬武古通作牙爪， 儀曹外郎載筆隨。  行軍司馬智且勇， 十四萬眾猶虎貔。  The emperor found a wise general, the general called "Du" -- the bandits slashed but didn't kill -- the gods attended him. 入蔡縛賊獻太廟。 功無與讓恩不訾。  帝曰汝度功第一， 汝從事愈宜為辭。  愈拜稽首蹈且舞， 金石刻畫臣能為。  古者世稱大手筆， 此事不係於職司。  當仁自古有不讓， 言訖屢頷天子頤。  公退齋戒坐小閣， 濡染大筆何淋漓。...

元和十年，予左遷九江郡司馬。明年秋，送客 湓浦口，聞船中夜彈琵琶者，聽其音，錚錚然 有京都聲；問其人，本長安倡女，嘗學琵琶於 穆曹二善才。年長色衰，委身為賈人婦。遂命 酒，使快彈數曲，曲罷憫然。自敘少小時歡樂 事，今漂淪憔悴，轉徙於江湖間。予出官二年 恬然自安，感斯人言，是夕，始覺有遷謫意， 因為長句歌以贈之，凡六百一十六言，命曰琵 琶行。 It was the tenth year of  Yuan He . I had been demoted to Jiujiang as Minister of War. Autumn of the following year: I was seeing off a visitor, by way of Pen River, to Pukou. In the boat, at night, I heard someone playing a Pipa. I listened to the music. It was the sonorous rhythm of the capital. I asked after the person. It turned out to be a dancing girl from Chang’an. She had once studied the Pipa with two masters – Mu and Cao. She had grown old and her looks had declined, whereupon she submitted to be the wife of a merchant. Well, I ordered wine and bid her be lively and play a few tunes. The tunes put off her sorrow, and she recounted the happiness of her youth. But now she is a solitary, sallow thing, migrating over the rivers and lakes. I was dismissed from the capital for two years, but held mysel...

Apartment hunting, job hunting, self control, goals.  Lots of things to do -- a half notion of where I want to be -- but no clear path to get there.  Jobs and apartments: I can send out resumes and reply to ads, but there's competition.  For an apartment, I need proof that I can pay out the year.  Now that my husband has income, I have some security -- but how do I convince a land-lord?  I feel like I need to be able to provide everything immediately, or I'll lose the apartment.  And I'm already supposed to have begun hunting. Jobs -- I only have a vague notion.  I'd like to do something that gives me a sense of accomplishment.  Something as structured but varied as school work.  My skill are all abstract.  I have no relevant experience to land me in a particular industry, and I don't know where to go to apply for entry level jobs.  I'm registering with temp. agencies, hoping I'll get a call, hoping it will lead to something. ...

Know what you are.  Live without dreams and without pride.  Do not boast, do not savor your accomplishments.  Enjoy what you enjoy, recognize that you enjoy it, and build that into happiness.  Try to divine from your feelings if you are healthy, and if it is health, thrive -- but if it is not health, make amends.  Nature should show you the way: a sick body makes itself known.  A sick mind is restless. The difficult thing is to establish the proper habits.  Many things that seem impossible at first can become second nature, but you must struggle to make them become so. As for the past, it is not good to dwell on it -- at least as a comparison.  Either you will feel nostalgia when you think on happiness that is now past, or you will feel humiliation at your failures.  The only proper way to think of the past is as a kind of lesson.  If it does not teach you what you should do, it teaches you what you are. Knowing what you are is a...