billy blogs

twenty four / male / san francisco, ca / oregon episcopal school '05 / university of notre dame '09
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Varanasi

He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

‘Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging; You are not those who saw the harbour Receding, or those who will disembark. Here between the hither and the farther shore While time is withdrawn, consider the future And the past with an equal mind.

T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages

I have to believe that something deeper is involved, and that behind most dreams of a simpler Constitution there lies a basic human hunger for the certainty and control that the fair reading model seems to promise. And who has not felt that same hunger? Is there any one of us who has not lived through moments, or years, of longing for a world without ambiguity, and for the stability of something unchangeable in human institutions? I don’t forget my own longings for certainty, which heartily resisted the pronouncement of Justice Holmes, that certainty generally is illusion and repose is not our destiny.

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, in his commencement address this year at Harvard University.

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

David Foster Wallace - “Federer as Religious Experience”

That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

Rilke

This is Water 

If there were an anthology of the best commencement addresses of all time, this would most definitely be in it. David Foster Wallace at Kenyon, 2005. 

(an interpretation of a botched once-in-a-life-time photo)

Emily flashes across the stage like eager lightening, a composite blur of black robes, blonde hair, smile and outstretched hands. Collegiate Dragon, fiercly excited for the prize, long sought, hard and well earned. 

Matt D’Annunzio @ Romtoms

Matt D’Annunzio @ Romtoms

Ed & The Red Reds 

Last week I was dubbed an “aggregator” by my brother Ed. Well, in honor of him, I’d like to aggregate the shit out of his music, which I heard tonight at rontoms. It was nice to have a concert personally tailored to my every whim/desire, and it’s even nicer to have such a talented and wonderful older brother.

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

For ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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