A soul as big as the universe wants to leave my body

Kim Hyesoon, “Face of Rhythm” from Autobiography of Death (translated by Don Mee Choi)

I wish you were here. The days and nights are beautiful as only autumn can be […] My delight is purely aesthetic, and country bumpkin I am good, industrious, and loving; how long will it be, though, before I break out?

— Vita Sackville West, letter to Virginia, 11 Oct 1927

I remember being surprised at how yellow and how red autumn really is.

— Joe Brainard, I Remember

In the corner of Mommy’s heart, a small black mole lifts its head / It becomes a song. A fabulous solo roams desperately looking for death / A song graceful like the deep autumn night / The endless greetings of the dead.

— Kim Hyesoon, Autobiography of Death

Say autumn. / Say autumn despite the green / in your eyes. Beauty despite / daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn / mounting in your throat.

— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

We’re the types who keep from joining everyone outside, or rather, we enjoy-with-skirmish an autumn sunset’s afterglow, anticipating instead the quick tide of darkness that comes next.

— Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood

The mottled lights from across the other bank beamed on the water, reminding me of Van Gogh's Starlight Over the Rhone. Very autumnal, very beginning of school year, very Indian summer, and as always at Indian summer twilight, that lingering mix of unfinished summer business and unfinished homework and always the illusion of summer months ahead, which wears itself out no sooner than the sun has set.

— André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

Why is there so much ink for writing?

Kim Hyesoon, Autobiography of Death.

JULIE ANN THILMANY, Draining Life Forces: Vampirism in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

I stopped procrastinating and am finally reading Grant's autobiography. A few chapters in, I'm surprised by how readable and relatable they are. Having been raised on Mark Twain, how much influence did he have over the final version? Or are we reading most of Grant's original words?

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (BOOK | KINDLE) really is a great book. It's not always easy to read things written in the 19th Century because the rhythm of the writing is usually so much more formal than we are used to now. But Grant's Memoirs flow really well, and I think anybody interested in the era should have Grant's book at the top of their reading list. I'd especially recommend checking out the annotated edition released in 2017 by Belknap Press/Harvard University Press (that's the version I linked at the beginning of the paragraph). But the beauty of Grant's book is that you don't need annotations because the prose is so clear and easy to read.

As for the authorship, there have been rumors about the part that Mark Twain played in the writing of the book ever since the book was finished literally a few days before Grant died in 1885. And the flames were also fanned by Grant's former military aide Adam Badeau who helped Grant in the early stages of the writing process and was bitter about not getting paid more money, so he also claimed to be Grant's ghostwriter. But while Twain did help with some editing, his major role was in getting the book published in the best way to ensure that Grant's family would benefit financially from its publication. Grant wrote the book because he was broke and dying, and he wanted to make sure his family was going to be okay. Twain didn't think the contract that Grant was about to sign with a publisher to write the book was fair and felt that Grant could make significantly more money selling the book via a subscription service (the original deal was supposed to net Grant 10% of the royalties; Twain's deal guaranteed Grant 70% of the royalties). So the most significant part that Twain played was in regard to the finances, which again was the reason why Grant was writing the book in the first place.

Twain definitely helped Grant with proofreading and literary advice throughout the writing process, but Grant had started writing the book before Twain was involved and had already been writing articles about his Civil War experiences for magazines and serials for a few years. There is a unique voice to Grant's writing style and I think it is clearly recognizable, especially in comparison to how other public figures wrote at the time. So, it's definitely Grant's book. Plus, the Library of Congress still has the original manuscript of Grant's Memoirs (alongside all of his other papers and correspondence) and every page of the book was handwritten by Grant.

•One of my favorite photos in Presidential history is this one of a gravely ill Ulysses S. Grant, who by this point could no longer speak because of the throat cancer that was killing him (he had to write notes to communicate with his family and his doctors), feverishly writing to finish his book at his cottage on Mount McGregor in the Adirondacks of New York:

The photo was taken on June 27, 1885. Grant finished writing his Memoirs on July 19, 1885. Four days later, on July 23, 1885, he died at the age of 63.

colonizing palestine: the zionist left and the making of the palestinian nakba - areej sabbagh-khoury

Did I ever tell y'all that when I was a teen I was trying to write a fan fic about B before he did the LABB murders and I worked so hard on it and I put so much love and heart into it and it was very over dramatic and emo because it was like also a diary. But the thing I did was I made it B writing about himself (he wrote the fanfic) and then I also titled the fan fic "Just Being B". Like why does it sound like a sitcom, on paper reads like a sitcom, but is actually a hard, emotional retell of B's harrowing past and pains and horrors and all these fucked up reasons why he wanted to do the LABB crimes?

Anyway, Beyond Birthday possessed me to write his clown ass autobiography when I was 13 and he really loved doing it.

[ID: Lyric snippets from the song Run Away With Me from The Mad Ones/The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown. Snippet 1: Let me catch my breath/This is really hard/If I start to look like I'm sweating, well/That's 'cause I am"

Snippet 2: "Run away with me/Let me be your ride out of town/Let me be the place that you hide/We can make our lives on the go/Run away with me"; Snippet 3: "Let's go/Anywhere/Get the car packed and throw me the key/Run away with me"

Snippet 4: "Sam, it's crazy but Sam, I'm crazier for you/I have these plans"; Snippet 5: "I'm just saying there might be a life here/A new one as soon as we run"; END ALL IDS]

the whole song is Ron energy to me, but these specific snippets are my favorites

Scary Times

The Grim Reaper increasing in strength My lifetime, shrivelling in length Live slow & thrive strong To God we all truly belong! I love God & God loves me I go to Church & worship Thee After Mass, I feel lighter The Present passes, the Future’s brighter! Living in Black Mirror, in Scary Times Dystopia. I am living it in rhymes!

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It happens to me frequently. You disappear? Yes and then come back. Moments of death I call them.

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

Better to die than to live with pain but when it suddenly stops I feel alone Better to die than to live with pain but when it suddenly stops I can’t remember a thing Better to die than to live with pain but when it suddenly stops I want to die for even death can’t enter this deep inside me

Kim Hyesoon, “Face of Rhythm” from Autobiography of Death (translated by Don Mee Choi)

Somehow a crow enters my body and can’t find its way out/ it hops up hops up hops up

— Kim Hyesoon, Face of Rhythm, from Autobiography of Death, translated by Don Mee Choi

Death is something that storms in from the outside. The universe inside is bigger. It's deep. Soon you float up inside it.

Kim Hyesoon, Autobiography of Death.

Sometimes I forget that not only does Our Flag Means Death exists, and Leslie Jones exists, but the two of them exist TOGETHER???!?! We are fuckin blessed I tell ya what. It’s like getting to eat a beautiful cake and when you cut into it there’s a second, smaller, also beautiful cake inside

a comic about childhood (to young adulthood) fear of death! i tried to make it look similar to anime i fixated on as a kid, especially sailor moon and cardcaptor sakura.

(you can get a physical version of this comic without the watermarks on my etsy btw 😎)

reblogs appreciated, please don't repost, thank you 💖