An aphorism about Monday

I am not Oscar Wilde, but I do try to emulate him as much as much as I can and sometimes I do come up with half-decent aphorisms, which I qualify as great unknown lines. Here is one I thought about going to work: "Sometimes on Monday the weekend seems two weeks away." I don't know why, but it certainly felt this way today. I was not even a particularly hard day, just moderately busy. But it felt long and I feel like the week will be long, twice longer than usual in fact. Am I the only one having this perception?

Art, moral and an aphorism

Quick blog post about a controversy and a great unknown line my brother wrote on Facebook about it, very close to Oscar Wilde's aphorisms. Anyway, a ballet dancer from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was sacked because he played in a porn. My initial reaction: so what if he did? It's not like he raped anyone. My second reaction is: shame on the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, it is a wrong decision in so many ways. That said, my brother summed it up in a great unknown line: "Artists aren't there to promote some silly morals. Artists should stay away from morals. Managers should stay away from everything." Worthy of Oscar Wilde, I say.

A new great unknown line

"It takes a strong mind to resist temptation and be virtuous. It takes a genius to turn vice into a virtue." This is not from me, but from my brother, who admires Oscar Wilde greatly and is trying to emulate him with his own aphorisms. I found it on his Facebook wall, of course.

Art crowds

I am officially fed up blogging about Friday treats. They just are so repetitive, they ended up boring me. So anyway, tonight I went to this art exhibition of Fabian Perez, where the artist was. Lovely paintings, as expected, but it was so darn crowded. I saw the artist, but did not speak to him. I didn't want to look like a groupie. I didn't buy a painting either (surprise). It lasted an hour, but it made me discover something: I don't like art crowds. Being there reminded me of a quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray:

"You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse."

I guess there were plenty of people to see, but in the end they remained invisible, hidden by the crowd they were a part of. The paintings looked more alive.

Art, artists and Oscar Wilde

"From the point of view of the form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type."

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

This is from the much quoted Preface. Well, of course. I love Oscar Wilde's one and only novel. It is one of my favourite books. I could write pages and pages, posts and posts about the novel, I usually quote him from time to time, finding it difficult to write much about the whole book now (I did write an essay about it back when I was doing my degree, I got a really good mark). I find this particular quote very close to my own situation as a wannabe artist: I never managed to be a professional musician and I think it is because I lacked the discipline and the rigour. I never went very far as an opera singer either, even though I love to sing opera. I envy opera singers more than I envy other artists, I feel that they have something that I failed to gain. However, while I am far from an accomplished actor, I do find acting easier. I think it is because it is more instinctive as a craft. I envy actors too, but I don't feel the same distance between them and me.

I miss academia

It struck me today: I really miss my time at university, either as a postgrad or as a guy working there. I mean really miss it. I miss it because I don't debate literature at all these days, but I also miss the beat of university life. This was most likely my natural element, a time when not only I could go to bed late, but also work and live on purely intellectual (and often useless) concerns. Teaching literature was the best thing I ever did and the most pleasant thing I ever did professionally. But there were also the thrill of getting in the library (I love university libraries), having a beer and a meal after a seminar in the company of reknown academics, or the seminars/lectures I would attend just for kicks, being a total and unapologetic geek.

I remember during my year in Liverpool attending on a seminar on The Picture of Dorian Gray that didn't even have ten people in it. I popped in out of pure love for Oscar Wilde's novel. I learned little there that I didn't know already, but I was happy to discuss the subject with specialists of the field. I did the same with some history lectures/seminars, which I was formally invited to attend (being a medievalist). I have to confess that I think I preferred the one I attended to just for fun, even though I always find history fascinating.

I haven't done all this since Liverpool in fact, which saddens me. I came close to have a part-time academic job back in 2009, but didn't get it. Money wise I am better off now, and getting the job would have brought a whole deal of little troubles (I would have had to relocate, for one), but there are days I still wish I had got it. I think I was never quite comfortable with teaching in secondary school and below, having to spend time doing discipline and being forced to teach very basic stuff to pupils. But teaching literature, that was something different entirely and I felt like a fish in the water. Oh well, I can still attend seminars for fun if I really want to. I can still play at being an academic.

Quoting Oscar Wilde

Just because I haven't quoted him in a while and because he is one of my favourite writers who wrote one of my favourite novels, I thought I would quote the Preface again:

"No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express anything."

I strongly believed it when I first read it when I was sixteen, I still strongly believe it now.

A great unknown line (from myself)

I am trying with this post to start a new series of posts based on one topic/theme (as I promised here). These posts will be about great lines that I have either heard or said and which I want to leave here to posterity, because I find them quite good (especially mines, as I am terribly vain). Granted, I am no Oscar Wilde, neither do I have his talent for aphorism, but I can sometimes be funny or witty.

So anyway, we were having a barbecue in Liverpool, in one of the few warm and sunny days we had that year. A friend of my housemate had brought a bottle of wine, which she dropped on the floor minutes after she arrived. It shattered, obviously. Then I said:

"I hope that was a cheap bottle."

It made people laugh.

Quoting Oscar Wilde

I thought I should blog a bit more tonight. I don't blog as often these days, I lack the time (and talent?) to write a great post, so I thought quoting a great writer would be an acceptable compromise. As you probably know, in another lifetime I once studied in Reading, where the great Oscar Wilde was imprisoned, an experience which inspired him to write The Ballad of Reading Gaol. I had already discovered Wilde with The Picture of Dorian Gray, which has been one of my favourite novels since I was 16. When I first arrived at Reading, I knew nothing of the place, save that it had a university where I was going to study and that Oscar Wilde had been in jail there. I grew to love Reading, but I always thought the town had something vaguely sinister. I bought The Ballad of Reading Gaol at the end of my first year there. I like It is one of the greatest pieces of poetry I have ever read, something I genuinely love even though I don't like poetry much. It has been much quoted, it is difficult to do it justice by putting here just a few verses. Here is an attempt anyway:

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die."

You can find the complete ballad here.

Quoting Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my favorite novels, and since my brother has written an inspiring blog entry on Oscar Wilde, I thought I would quote Wilde's famous novel:

All art is at once surface and symbol.Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

The Selfish Giant

Found on youtube, an animation movie adapted from a tale by Oscar Wilde, very sweet, and some of the animation was done in Québec so I love it even more. For you to enjoy in three parts while I am out.