Sane Inside Insanity: AND THERE HE WAS, THIS YOUNG BOY, A STRANGER TO MY EYES...

lunedì, agosto 23, 2010

AND THERE HE WAS, THIS YOUNG BOY, A STRANGER TO MY EYES...

"Piper" Bill Millin, 1922-2010

(ottimo articolo dal Corriere. C'è un milione di video su YouTube, li posterò appena riesco.)

Il confine fra verità e leggenda a volte è sfumato, ma la leggenda ha un suo valore. Posso solo postare quello che ho fatto dire a Millin nel mio romanzo-in-progress "Wall of Sunset" (riletto con le lacrime agli occhi):

Mentre marciavamo sui ponti, lei guardava avanti, ma io guardavo a destra e a sinistra mentre suonavo, per accertarmi che nessuno dei nostri ragazzi mi sparasse. Lei non ha visto come ci guardavano. Quanti di loro hanno trovato la forza per combattere fino a domani, solo perché ci hanno visto marciare al suono di Blue Bonnets? Fra secoli e secoli, in un'altra era, quando noi saremo tutti morti e sepolti, la gente penserà a noi e troverà forza nel loro momento più buio. Come si fa a misurarlo?

Lo so che è strano, ma continuo a pensare alla canzone di Roberta Flack (il video non è pertinente).

"Piper" Bill Millin, 1922-2010

(Excellent article from the Telegraph. There's a million videos on YouTube, I'll post them when I can.)

The border between truth and legend blurs sometimes, but the legend has its worth. I can only post what I made Millin say in my novel-in-progress "Wall of Sunset" (re-read with tears in my eyes):

While we were marching across the bridges, you looked straight ahead, but I was looking left and right as I played, to check none of our own laddies shot me. You didn't see how they looked at us. How many found the strength to fight another day, just seeing us blithely march to Blue Bonnets? Centuries from now, in another age, when we're all dead and buried, people will think of us and gain strength in their darkest hour. How can you measure that?

I know it's strange but I keep thinking of Roberta Flack's song (The video is not relevant).

Killing Me Softly

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I heard he sang a good song
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him
To listen for a while
And there he was this young boy
A stranger to my eyes
Strumming my pain with his fingers...

I felt all flushed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters
And read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right on
Strumming my pain with his fingers

He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn't there
But he just kept on singing
Singing clear and strong
Strumming my pain with his fingers...

Oooh oh oh oh
Lallala la lalla la
Strumming my pain with his fingers...

QUOTES

Heart shall be bolder,
harder be purpose,
more proud the spirit
as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter
nor mood waver,
though doom shall come
and dark conquer.
(The Battle of Maeldon, translated by Tolkien)

He who has a treasure, or a demon in his heart, cannot hide it. (King Theodoric the Great)

I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.
(Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio)

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever. (Hannibal Lecter)

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai 'Ngaje Ngai', the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. (Ernest Hemingway)

Would I embarrass you? Yes, it is possible. You see, I... I am crazy. I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites. Like my appetite for patterns. Perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream. (A Beautiful Mind)

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands,
father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold,
the light that brings the dawn,
the horn that wakes the sleepers,
the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night Watch
for this night and all the nights to come.
(GRRM)

Never criticize a person until you walk a mile in their shoes (Atticus Finch)

A warrior for peace is no less a warrior (General Korrd, unwittingly reminding of Yitzhak Rabin)

What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter. (Sirius Black)

Whatever makes a soldier sad will make a killer smile (Leonard Cohen)

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't. (John Coffey)

Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feel - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! (Starbuck)

I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. (Charlotte Bronte)

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? (Karen Blixen)

Do not you recognize me, Dumas? I am the rearguard of the Grande Armee. I have stood at Kovno, and thrown the last muskets in the Niemen. I am Marshal Ney. Give me a bowl of soup. (Attributed to Michel Ney).