The clamor of the world, that is outside and inside, needs to be quelled sometimes to breathe.

Posted on by Live & Learn

Notes:

  • Cartoon Source
  • Post Title from: Fred D’Aguiar, “Year of Plagues: A Memoir of 2020“: “The clamor of the world, that is outside and inside, needs to be quelled sometimes for poetry to breathe.”

26 thoughts on “The clamor of the world, that is outside and inside, needs to be quelled sometimes to breathe.”

  2. It’s too bad you don’t know German, I just listened to a super podcast about the whale population leading a much better life due to the calm oceans ‘thanks’ to there being no ship cruises with whale watchers in 2020….. THAT has got to be good news for these magnificent beasts.
    And it doesn’t mean that a huge tourist industry us getting killed. It means that those cruises could be ‘arranged’ in a different fashion in order to not disturb the underwater population so tremendously!

    2. guys and girls; I thought to myself: Well, this CAN’T have been taken in German and searched a bit on the gold ol’ internet. Sadly, the best part of the German spoken Swiss podcast (NZZ), namely all of their ‘talk’ (the whales that is!) is missing in those other links I’m gonna spawn on you but the subject is so fascinating and urgent too that I feel I had to make an extra effort:
      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58032702
      https://www.kuow.org/stories/whales-get-a-break-as-pandemic-creates-quieter-oceans
      https://www.pennlive.com/life/2021/08/alaskan-whales-reportedly-happier-with-less-tourists-around.html (possibly a duplicate by another publisher)
      somewhat (very!) technical article on noise levels under the sea with regards to whales and whales watching:
      https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-9-2-3.htm
      a different podcast: https://www.wvtf.org/2021-10-01/humpback-whales-are-bouncing-back-in-alaska-after-a-deadly-blob-heatwave

    3. Lori, I know….. 😉 but then I always was a sucker of the Peanuts. I was even the one that when the internet finally permitted related searches, I bought old series on DVDs which I sadly somehow lost on my latest (and hopefully last) removal (and I blame HH!!!!).

    1. Yes. And More from Fred:

      “There is something to be said for absolutes—absolute quiet, absolute stillness, absolute absence of relativity, absolute isolation, absolute dark, absolute time, absolute primacy of thought.”

      Fred D’Aguiar, Year of Plagues: A Memoir of 2020

  9. I cannot agree with this enough.
    Ironically, for the first time in my life, on this morning’s walk, I listed to Stanley Tucci read his book “Taste”. While I loved listening to him, when I got to where there was too much traffic, I felt like all my senses were being assailed. I realised that, as soon as I got home, I needed to turn everything off.

      1. I just finished chapter 2 and love, love, LOVE it! Just have to make sure I walk in my usual areas because trucks and traffic do not add to the experience…

  10. The first version, the one by the wise Schulz, is the definition of “meditation.” The version by Aguiar adds the word “poetry.” Very different. Meditation takes us to the place with no words and makes it possible for us to hear something besides ourselves.

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