Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen has produced a fascinating work that has the depth  and inventiveness that tastes as a fine vintage wine. Suppose you are a budding novelist and art lover, and you are transported to an era where you suddenly find yourself in the group of legends such Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso , Faulkner and Bunuel etc.. It would be a dreamlike situation where the thoughts would be tossed to another level when encountered by the minds which has mesmerized every true lover of art and fiction. This living in the 'memorabilia' has been captured by Woody Allen in this surrealist movie. It is a also a tribute to the great city of Paris which has attracted great artists to settle there and produce great works. One of the best movies to watch this year. Watch it with some fine wine and cheese to enjoy it more as I did.  

Three Meetings

From Three Meetings by Vladimir Soloviev

" What is, what was, what shall forever be --
All, all was held here in one steady gaze...
The seas and rivers blue beneath me,
Distant woods, snow-capped peaks.

I saw all, and all was one --
A single image of womanly beauty...
Pregnant with vastnesses!
Before me, in me -- only You.

Radiant One! You can't fool me:
I saw all of you there in the desert.
In my soul those roses won't wither,
Whichever way the day may whirl.

Yet but an instant! And the vision veiled.
The sun climbed the sky's dome.
Silence, desert silence. And so my soul prayed;
While within: an endless celebration of bells!

Full, my spirit filled with strength! But empty, I hadn't eaten for two days,
And my far seeing faded.
Alas! However sensitive the soul,
Famine is no friend, as they say.

Along the Nile I followed the sun's way west
And by evening come home to Cairo.
My soul held tracings of your rose smiles,
While my boots couldn't hide their many holes.

Friends called me fool.
(The vision kept secret, though facts were fessed).
Wordlessly, the general, his soup now finished,
Fixed me with a look, then grandly declared:

“Fellow, reason gives you the right to be a fool.
But best not abuse your birthright.
Neither skilled nor stupid
Can skillfully sort a way through stupidity.

“So, if you're offended
To be thought an idiot --
Then in regard to this whole idiotic incident
Say no more.”

Oh, he was generous with his jibes, but before me
The blue ether still shone bright
And, dispelled by that mysterious splendor,
The sea of troubles drew far away.

---

Still the slave of the vain world's mind,
But beneath rough matter's rind,
I've clearly seen eternal violet, rich royal purple,
And felt the warm touch of divine light!

Triumphing over death in wisdom's light,
Stilling the dream of time from its unyielding flight,
Eternal Beloved, your name is held hid by my utmost plight,
And forgive my timorous song!

Vladimir Soloviev (Russian Poet and Philosopher )

Sigur Ros

What is a Novelist by Kundera

"To the lyric poet. The content of lyric poetry, Hegel says, is the poet himself. Lyricism is not limited to a branch of literature, but, rather, designates a certain way of being…from this standpoint, the lyric poet is only the most exemplary indication of a man dazzled by his own soul. I have long seen youth as the lyrical age. To pass from immaturity to maturity is to move beyond the lyrical attitude. The novelist is born out of the ruins of his lyrical world… Discusses Flaubert's comment that “Bovary bores me, Bovary irritates me…” Complaining that his characters are mediocre is the tribute he is paying to what has become his passion: the art of the novel and the territory it explores, the prose of life…. 

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/09/061009fa_fact_kundera#ixzz1dwXaKiNk

Solitude

There is a wilderness in the air
Which the usual minds cannot bear.
There is a silence which speaks ,
Releasing the joys that peaks.

A conventional mind like a bee ,
Wallows in the vicissitudes of the society.
Getting its spatters of joy  from relations/people,
Which has a tendency to fade with the time.
A real ambitious mind does not settle for such spatters,
He craves for more than happiness,
But where is the holy grail of ‘joy’ to be found.

Not really  in the relations that the world adheres,

Not even in the affairs of the heart that is nice to partake,
Not definitely in the blabbering that the mouth indulges
Not in the glitters of the materialistic world
But only it endears in  the  solitude that few experience.
The real joy  is enjoyed without human interference.
Peak joy for a poet is when the prose speaks to the poet
or when the music  presents itself to the musician.
A state when the mind gets dissolved in the silence
When the  music is not heard
But only when it is.