No Comment, Quotation — September 19, 2010, 5:04 am
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O Beloved, upon this river of wine, launch our boat-shaped cup,
And into this river throw those weeping with envy, too.
Winebringer, throw a cask of wine into my boat,
For without that–for forty days and nights on the open sea–
I will die of thirst.
I am lost in this city and can no longer find the Winehouse door.
Please help me to find that street again where Love resides.
Bring me a cup of wine that is dark red and smells like musk.
Don’t bring me that expensive brand that tastes like money
and smells like lust.
Even though I am drunk and worthless, be kind to me,
And on this dark heart shine the light of Your smile.
If it’s sun at midnight that you desire, throw the veil from
The face of the rose, and you will have all the light you need.
If I die, don’t let them bury me in a dusty grave;
Take my corpse to the Winehouse and throw me into a cask of wine!
Hafiz, if you have had enough of this world and all its violence,
Then take up the cup, and from the inside let this liquid love make peace.
–Khw?ja Šamsu d-D?n Mu?ammad H?fiz-e Š?r?z? (????? ????????? ???? ???? ??????), Ghazal No. 377 (ca. 1370)(T.R. Crowe transl., Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved: 100 Poems of Hafiz, reproduced with kind permission of the translator.)
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Years of consideration preceding the inclusion of the word “phat” in Random House’s 1996 Compact Unabridged Dictionary:
Scientists created crash helmets that stink when cracked and fruit flies to whom blue light smells delicious.
In Belize, a construction company bulldozed a 2,300-year-old Mayan temple to make road fill.
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”
