M. Gelle Abdullahi > Recent Status Updates

Reading this book for almost a year now. It feels like an academic book, a mix of fun and boring passages. Thirty chapters left. I’ll try to read one a day. I do want to know more.

WAS THERE EVER SUCH a perfect day? That was all he wanted to know,—was there? He grinned at the plane; it looked as impatient as he; it craned forward at the runway, its compact body gleaming, [...]. No, he decided judicially, there really never was such a perfect day. What, never? No, never! What, never? Well . . . hardly ever!

“I’m afraid the similarity escapes me,” Marion said.

“As my grandmother said when the man on the phone asked for Lana Turner, ‘Boy, have you got the wrong number.’”

Nowadays they’re mostly veterans and I guess they get a little older, they don’t chatter so much. Least Gordon don’t. Not that I’d want to pry,

“I see,” said the Dean. He pressed his hands together as though comparing their size.

She was an unknown quantity.

How could they explain . . . The door at the side of the room opened, creating a draft that lifted the pages of his notebook. He turned to see who it was. It was Dorothy. Shock burst over him, hot as a wave of lava. He half-rose, blood pushing to his face, his chest a block of ice. Sweat dotted his body and crawled like a million insects.

There would be suspicion directed at all the men, proof against none.

Across the room there was the whisper of a chessman being placed and an old man’s voice said “Check.”

At times during the day, when a loud voice or the chalk’s screech made him momentarily aware of his surroundings, he looked at his classmates with mild surprise. Seeing their brows contracted over a stanza in Browning or a sentence in Kant, he felt as though he had suddenly come upon a group of adults playing hopscotch.

HE FOLLOWED HIS REGULAR ROUTINE on Wednesday, attending all his classes, but he was no more a part of the life and activity that surrounded him than is the diver in his diving bell a part of the alien world in which he is submerged.

He left the library and the campus, and walked in the direction of the house where he roomed.

“‘Everything was so much trouble, so much bother,' she said of the British musical. 'I suppose it's because as a race we don't like to learn. We don't like to admit that we don't know.. Unfortunately we were very stubborn. We wouldn't learn from the Americans. It's sad, as we might have been better technically.“
—Jessie Matthews, “Chapter 20, Industrial Light and Magic: The Movie Musical”

The producer loved it. Alas, Universal’s studio head hated it. When the producer left for another studio, he asked to buy it back, take it with him. Universal said, no conceivable way. We hate this piece of shit and we are going to keep it forever, thank you very much.

“In 1950 a newborn Anglo-Indian baby in Lahore was christened Gene by his mischievous, Autry-loving older brothers, who had been entrusted by their mum to take him to the registry office and have him named Anthony.”

—Trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created: Hillbilly

We adore parrots and, in fact, they in turn can develop a particular affection for us, but we must recognize them as living beings, and not as living ornaments.
—Paradox

The connection you might feel to a parrot that returns your greetings is not misguided, as it means you are a part of their flock. Macaws imitate our words, but cannot understand them. If they could, they might persuade us to leave them in their trees, and to leave those trees in the ground.

The big picture:

Coral reefs are lifelines for our oceans.
Lining the coasts of a few tropical countries,
they cover less than 0.1 percent of Earth's
surface, but are home to a quarter of all
marine life.

ووجدتني في ميدان لو ذررت الملح فيه لم ينفذ إلى الأرض من هول الزحام.

وغادر الخمار ثملا يترنح، غائصا في الليل الجليل تحت سماء خريف لم يخلُ من وميض نجوم.

ـ يا ويلي، لا يطيق أحدهما الآخر، ولا غنى لأحدهما عن الآخر، فكيف تمضي بهما الحياة؟! مضت على الشوك، وشمل الخلاف أشياء وأشياء.

وتردد ذكر الغلاء مصحوبا بلعن الانفتاح
وذم المتاجرين بأرزاق الشعب!

فقال الأب وأنامله تناجي حبات سبحته القهرمانية التي تلقاها هدية واستغلها لامتصاص القلق

ر. فلم يعبق البيت بنفحة دينية ولو عابرة. هذا هو الجو الذي نشأ فيه عبد الفتاح. ولم تضف إليه المدرسة سوى حكايات تحفظ وتنسى، وألفاظ تشرح وتعرب، وامتحانات يودعها محفوظاته قبل أن تتلاشى

ولم يخرج من عزلته في سهرة التلفزيون حيث تجتمع الأسرة وكأنها غير مجتمعة.

ولا يبدي أي اهتمام بالحياة العامة، مثله في ذلك مثل أبيه وأمه، بل مثل شقيقتيه المهاجرتين مع زوجيهما بليبيا والبحرين. لم يرتفع في ذلك المسكن صوت لتأييد رأي أو معارضة رأي أو إعلان موقف ولا حتى كمتفرجين، فلا مشاركة وجدانية وكأنما ينتمون إلى كوكب آخر.

وانتهى الخريف كما انتهى الصيف من قبل وإن لم ينتهِ في غفلة كاملة. ولا بنفس السرعة. ولكن الليل طال وتلفعت بواكير الصباح بالظلمة وزفرت الأبدان قشعريرة. وتأخر شروق الشمس حتى انقشاع الغمام وجادت السماء بمطرة واحدة.

ـ ألا توجد في قلبك رغبة؟
فقال بحماس: ـ أن يدوم الحال..