Charles Baudelaire - The Glass-Vendor

There are some natures purely contemplative and antipathetic to action, who nevertheless, under a mysterious and inexplicable impulse, sometimes act with a rapidity of which they would have believed themselves incapable. Such a one is he who, fearing to find some new vexation awaiting him at his lodgings, prowls about in a cowardly fashion before the door without daring to enter; such a one is he who keeps a letter fifteen days without opening it, or only makes up his mind at the end of six months to undertake a journey that has been a necessity for a year past. Such beings sometimes feel themselves precipitately thrust towards action, like an arrow from a bow.
The novelist and the physician, who profess to know all things, yet cannot explain whence comes this sudden and delirious energy to indolent and voluptuous souls; nor how, incapable of accomplishing the simplest and most necessary things, they are at some certain moment of time possessed by a superabundant hardihood which enables them to execute the most absurd and even the most dangerous acts.
One of my friends, the most harmless dreamer that ever lived, at one time set fire to a forest, in order to ascertain, as he said, whether the flames take hold with the easiness that is commonly affirmed. His experiment failed ten times running, on the eleventh it succeeded only too well.
Another lit a cigar by the side of a powder barrel, in order to see, to know, to tempt Destwiy, for a jest, to have the pleasure of suspense, for no reason at all, out of caprice, out of idleness. This is a kind of energy that springs from weariness and reverie; and those in whom it manifests so stubbornly are in general, as I have said, the most indolent and dreamy beings.
Another so timid that he must cast down his eyes before the gaze of any man, and summon all his poor will before he dare enter a cafe" or pass the pay-box of a theatre, where the ticket-seller seems, in his eyes, invested with all the majesty of Minos, Ecus, and Rhadamanthus, will at times throw himself upon the neck of some old man whom he sees in the street, and embrace him with enthusiasm in sight of an astonished crowd. Why? Because because this countenance is irresistibly attractive to him? Perhaps; but it is more legitimate to suppose that he himself does not know why.
I have been more than once a victim to these crises and outbreaks which give us cause to believe that evil-meaning demons slip into us, to make us the
ignorant accomplices of their most absurd desires.
One morning I arose in a sullen mood, very sad, and tired of idleness, and thrust as it seemed to me to the doing of some great thing, some brilliant act - and then, alas, I opened the window.
(I beg you to observe that in some people the spirit of mystification is not the result of labour or combination, but rather of a fortuitous inspiration which would partake, were it not for the strength of the feeling, of the mood called hysterical by the physician and satanic by those who think a little more profoundly than the physician; the mood which thrusts us unresisting to a multitude of dangerous and inconvenient acts.)
The first person I noticed in the street was a glassvendor whose shrill and discordant cry mounted up to me through the heavy, dull atmosphere of Paris.
It would have been else impossible to account for the sudden and despotic hatred of this poor man that came upon me.
"Hello, there!" I cried, and bade him ascend.
Meanwhile I reflected, not without gaiety, that as my room was on the sixth landing, and the stairway very narrow, the man would have some difficulty in ascending, and in many a place would break off the corners of his fragile merchandise.
At length he appeared. I examined all his glasses with curiosity, and then said to him: "What, have you no coloured glasses? Glasses of rose and crimson and blue, magical glasses, glasses of Paradise? You are insolent. You d'are to walk in mean streets when you have no glasses that would make one see beauty in life? " And I hurried him briskly to the staircase, which he staggered down, grumbling.
I went on to the balcony and caught up a little flower-pot, and when the man appeared in the doorway beneath I let fall my engine of war perpendicularly upon the edge of his pack, so that it was upset by the shock and all his poor walking fortune broken to bits. It made a noise like a palace of crystal shattered by lightning. Mad with my folly, I cried furiously after him: "The life beautiful! the life beautiful!"
Such nervous pleasantries are not without peril; often enough one pays dearly for them. But what matters an eternity of damnation to him who has found in one second an eternity of enjoyment?

This is the kind of page that I spend way too long looking at:

Wikipedia Demonyms

a rat a tat tat!

Sometimes I can't help but believe that humans will never act in moderation and one day we'll use up everything we have and destroy ourselves.

banana bread

I have watched this video fifty times already.

Baba Yaga

Expect more links to evil piano songs in the near future.

enter

Today I will share with you some interesting web domains:

.ac is the web domain of Ascension Island, which is located in the South Atlantic Ocean.

.ag -- Antigua and Barbuda

.aq -- Antarctica

.ax -- Åland Islands, a Swedish island archipelago in the Baltic Sea

.bj -- Benin

.cx -- Christmas Island

.dd -- East Germany (deleted)

.eh -- Western Sahara (reserved)

.tp -- East Timor (phaseout)

.um -- United States Minor Outlying Islands

.ye -- Yemen

does anyone know...

how i can become a sailor? Do I have to be big and burly, or can I find some other function to perform on the boat? I could be the ship's cook. But I feel like the person in that role always dies in movies, so maybe I should look into something else. Why does it feel like all good sailing jobs took place in the 19th century? I found this website about a guy sailing alone around the world: http://www.sitesalive.com/index.html. (I don't understand linking on Blogger.) But I was looking more into a group of people. I think sailing alone would be terrible. I think the only other person who reads this is Jen.

book

For the last few days I have been consumed by class reading, in particular Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia. Ideology and Utopia is a terrible, terrible book that states over and over again how we need to embrace our biases to create a new sociology of knowledge that will somehow bring us to the truth of reality. Also, the Steelers won, as I'm sure you know. People rioted, I didn't bother participating or viewing in the riots because they're the same every time. W'ever.

bread and tea

I made a delicious loaf of spelt bread. One-fourth of it is already gone, so I will stop eating it. Now I'm drinking tea and listening to Willie Nelson. His voice sounds like a robot.

draught

The Cathedral is cold and windy. I think there is an independent weather system in the building. There must be clouds floating around somewhere.

hello again

I plan on writing in this blog when I don't want to do work. I hope you enjoy it.