Dickens December: Inaugural Edition featuring photographs by Alexey Titarenko

Photographed by Alexey Titarenko.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this.

(A Tale of Two Cities.)

Photo credit again to Mr. Titarenko.

I think of this whenever I crest a hill as I drive through a major city. All the houses along the side of the highway, spreading out in either direction further than I can see — there are people in each of them, and every one has their own story, both the public and the private. It’s so inestimable and mysterious and profound. It’s like a miracle: it makes you sure that with so many intricate personal realities intertwining, this world cannot be an accident, and no one is meant to walk through it alone.

Daily Batman: Hidden treasures of the heart

Art by Shelton Bryant.

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart’s best feelings gather home.

(Charlotte Brontë, excerpt from “Evening Solace.”)

William Blake Month: “A Poison Tree”

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning, glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.

(William Blake, “A Poison Tree.”)

(I was concerned that the photo credits would break up the rhythm and impact of the poem, so I’m putting them down here.)

top: Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme…, aka Female Don Juan, aka If Don Juan Was A Woman (Roger Vadim, 1973).

second from top: Jacqueline Sassard and Stéphane Audran, Les Biches (Claude Chabrol, 1968). Spoiler: one is about to stab the other in the back. Interpret freely and watch for yourself.

third: “Grand Apple Face” by patron saint Sam Haskins. In-camera photo montage before the age of photoshop. Amazing. RIP.

last: “Poisoned with love” by miss- alienation on the d.a.