beauty
“One Hundred Days After Childhood”
Once
It usually happens unexpectedly
You’d just like this all of a sudden see
The river…and the trees, and the girl
And the way she’s smiling…
It seems you’ve seen it all a thousand times
But this time you’re dumbfounded
Suddenly struck
How unimaginably beautiful is this girl
And these trees…this river
And the way she’s smiling…
This usually means
That you’ve been overtaken by love
–my translation of lines from a Russian-Soviet 1975 movie “One Hundred Days After Childhood” — to me the best coming-of-age movie ever made. I first watched it as a teenager, and now thirty+ years later I’m as moved by it as back then. Maybe more.
This movie’s a painting. A poem. A waltz.
It’s on Youtube with English subtitles.
Janey, the Muse
A photograph of Jane Morris by John Robert Parsons, 1868 (via The Paris Review)
“It is likely that no one had ever said she was beautiful … and may indeed have described her as plain or even ugly.”
— Janey’s biographer Jan Marsh
Read about the Pre-Raphaelite muse née Jane Burden, Jane Morris, Janey.
“How lovely…”
“How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
image copyright 2016 Sophie Palmer
A Brilliant Beautiful Mind
“And yet, as always, the springtime sun brings forth new life, and we may rejoice because of this new life and contribute to its unfolding; and Mozart remains as beautiful and tender as he always was and always will be.”
— From a letter of Albert Einstein to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium
Albert Einstein had his 137th birthday on March 14th.
sasha a. palmer 