Tuesday, August 31, 2004
np: woody guthrie - hard travelin': the asch recordings, vol. 3
i had four parents show up: three from my honors class and one from my regular. none of them were the parents i might most need to see. not a surprise.
i am going to go ahead and wholeheartedly suggest that you, dear reader, pick up a copy of all the pretty horses by cormac mccarthy. i can't get over this book. the following are two quotes that left me in such a state.
De dónde viene? they said.
De Tejas.
Tejas, they said. Y dónde va?
He drew on his cigarette. He looked at their faces. One of them older than the rest nodded at his cheap new clothes.
El va a ver a su novia, he said.
They looked at him earnestly and he nodded and said that it was true.
Ah, they said. Qué bueno. And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had power to heal men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted.
And:
I wanted very much to be a person of value and I had to ask myself how this could be possible if there were not something like a soul or like a spirit that is in the life of a person and which could endure any misfortune or disfigurement and yet be no less for it. If one were to be a person of value that value could not be a condition subject to the hazards of fortune. It had to be a quality that could not change. No matter what. Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.
