Quotes: Ovid

Your host is of no particular mind to attempt philosophy today, even on the favored topics of the Garden. Perhaps a little more sleep would be helpful, no?

Instead, today I shall spark your thoughts and mine with quotes from one of history’s greatest thinkers in the realms of love and pleasure, Ovid.

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I Knew A Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;   
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:   
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).
 
How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,   
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;   
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;   
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;   
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).
 
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;   
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;   
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,   
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
 
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:   
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.   
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:   
(I measure time by how a body sways).
 
 
(Theodore Roethke)

Surfer On Acid

This morning I got to watch surfers from a beach house, something I could quickly get used to. The title above has nothing to do with them (I’m sure they were all quite sober), but rather for a shot you’ll find in many surf town bars.

The great part about more recent mixological inventions is that even popular drinks tend to have fewer variations than anything even a couple of decades older.

They tend to. This one’s got slight changes depending on where you order it, but really, how much change can there be to a shot? Generally the changes are a reduction in either the juice or the Jagermeister. Balance it just right for you.

Any way you look at it, it’s a tasty little drink with a very silly name.

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Stinger

Some drinks have been mentioned, referenced, and joked about in literature and on stage and screen for most of their history. The Stinger is one such, but a cocktail that very few have had, these days, drinks with mint liqueurs seemingly being out of favor. It’s been in print since at least 1917, and has had an odd variety of opinions regarding it, from popularity as a New York nightcap to upper class connotations to being called “a whore’s drink” in the 1983 movie Gorky Park. The balance of history seems to be in its favor, though.

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since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
— the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

(e.e. cummings)

Southern Comfort Manhattan

The Manhattan, invented at The Manhattan Club in Manhattan in 1874, got named in an apparent fit of uncreativity. It’s made with rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters and a cherry, and is rather different than its more well-known descendant, which we’ll make today.

1874 also marked the beginning of Southern Comfort. Perhaps it was inevitable that the two would meet and blend.

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