Yasmin came over last night as my guest for my college's Guest Night. We had a four-course dinner at hall and then an afterparty where we were one of the few people dancing. We both wore jumpsuits and took a ton of photos!
This morning we had breakfast at Vaults and Garden and even though it was a bit of a rush in the end because Yasmin rebooked her train so that she wouldn't miss her flight back to Geneva it was still fun. I got a vegan breakfast (in part because I didn't actually enjoy last night's dinner and wished I'd taken the plant-based option for it instead) that included avocado toast and these giant beans and really big mushrooms.
In the afternoon I had an interview for the position of Editor at The ISIS for next term. Then I wandered around Jericho and saw this bookshop that sells new books for £3. They also have old books. I found this collection of poems called Les yeux d'Elsa by Louis Aragon, published in Geneva in 1945, with some tiny moth-bitten holes on the pages. It has a lot of poems by Aragon about how enamoured he is by his wife Elsa and it's so romantic.
Les yeux d'Elsa
Tes yeux sont si profonds qu'en me penchant pour boire
J'ai vu tous les soleils y venir se mirer
S'y jeter à mourir tous les désespérés
Tes yeux sont si profonds que j'y perds la mémoire
À l'ombre des oiseaux c'est l'océan troublé
Puis le beau temps soudain se lève et tes yeux changent
L'été taille la nue au tablier des anges
Le ciel n'est jamais bleu comme il l'est sur les blés
Les vents chassent en vain les chagrins de l'azur
Tes yeux plus clairs que lui lorsqu'une larme y luit
Tes yeux rendent jaloux le ciel d'après la pluie
Le verre n'est jamais si bleu qu'à sa brisure
Mère des Sept douleurs ô lumière mouillée
Sept glaives ont percé le prisme des couleurs
Le jour est plus poignant qui point entre les pleurs
L'iris troué de noir plus bleu d'être endeuillé
Tes yeux dans le malheur ouvrent la double brèche
Par où se reproduit le miracle des Rois
Lorsque le coeur battant ils virent tous les trois
Le manteau de Marie accroché dans la crèche
Une bouche suffit au mois de Mai des mots
Pour toutes les chansons et pour tous les hélas
Trop peu d'un firmament pour des millions d'astres
Il leur fallait tes yeux et leurs secrets gémeaux
L'enfant accaparé par les belles images
Écarquille les siens moins démesurément
Quand tu fais les grands yeux je ne sais si tu mens
On dirait que l'averse ouvre des fleurs sauvages
Cachent-ils des éclairs dans cette lavande où
Des insectes défont leurs amours violentes
Je suis pris au filet des étoiles filantes
Comme un marin qui meurt en mer en plein mois d'août
J'ai retiré ce radium de la pechblende
Et j'ai brûlé mes doigts à ce feu défendu
Ô paradis cent fois retrouvé reperdu
Tes yeux sont mon Pérou ma Golconde mes Indes
Il advint qu'un beau soir l'univers se brisa
Sur des récifs que les naufrageurs enflammèrent
Moi je voyais briller au-dessus de la mer
Les yeux d'Elsa les yeux d'Elsa les yeux d'Elsa
Almost as romantic as Having a Coke with You by Frank O'Hara:
Having a Coke with You
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
Then I went to a café and read the first chapter of Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I really like so far. I paid twice for my latte (after sitting at the café for an hour I had forgotten that I'd paid when I ordered, so left some money on the table) which was absolutely devastating but I got over it. I walked back through University Parks, where different sports teams were having practices or matches. I saw the quidditch team near the end of their practice and it looked really fun –– people running around with sticks between their legs (that they managed to keep there without their hands)! I might join the team next year. It seems quite chill, but maybe I'm just assuming that because I can't imagine anyone who plays quidditch taking themselves all too seriously!
On my walk home I also saw a lot of flowers in bloom, and a little girl being taught how to ride a bike.
It's absolutely freezing today (my hands were cold even in gloves) but the sunshine just makes everything wonderful!
Update: I got a call in the evening from the chairman of OSPL saying that I've been selected for one of the two positions of Editor. Really excited for the coming term!!!
