Written in the 12th century by Farid ud-Din Attar. Discovered at random yesterday.
Till of the mighty Host that fledged the Dome Of Heav'n and Floor of Earth on leaving Home, A Handful reach'd and scrambled up the Knees Of Kaf whose Feet dip in the Seven Seas; And of the few that up his Forest-sides Of Light and Darkness where The Presence hides, But Thirty—thirty desperate draggled Things, Half-dead, with scarce a Feather on their Wings, Stunn'd, blinded, deafen'd with the Crash and Craze Of Rock and Sea collapsing in a Blaze That struck the Sun to Cinder—fell upon The Threshold of the Everlasting One, With but enough of Life in each to cry, On THAT which all absorb'd— And suddenly Forth flash'd a winged Harbinger of Flame And Tongue of Fire, and 'Who?' and 'Whence they came?' And 'Why?' demanded. And the Tajidar For all the Thirty answer'd him—'We are Those Fractions of the Sum of Being, far Dis-spent and foul disfigured, that once more Strike for Admission at the Treasury Door.' To whom the Angel answer'd—'Know ye not That He you seek recks little who or what Of Quantity and Kind—himself the Fount Of Being Universal needs no Count Of all the Drops o'erflowing from his Urn, In what Degree they issue or return?'
You can read the entire piece here or buy it here.
The Conference of the Birds (Persian: منطق الطیر, Mantiq at-Tayr, 1177) is a book of poems in Persian by Farid ud-Din Attar of approximately 4500 lines. The poem uses a journey by a group of 30 birds, led by a hoopoe as an allegory of a Sufi sheikh or master leading his pupils to enlightenment.
Besides being one of the most beautiful examples of Persian poetry, this book relies on a clever word play between the words Simorgh — a mysterious bird in Iranian mythology which is a symbol often found in sufi literature, and similar to the phoenix bird — and "si morgh" — meaning "thirty birds" in Persian.
The lovely Amy Chance and Michael Kanyon have made my day today - we had a very fun shoot and I've learned a lot about blow dryers today. HA. Our model expressed during a cigarette break how much she likes me. My german accent is charming indeed!
We went to see The Cure at the Hollywood Bowl last night and wanted to address a few things to you.
Firstly: we totally appreciate your enthusiasm. I mean who does 3 hr shows with so much gusto?
You even look and dress exactly the way you did in 1987.
Tyler and I were very excited to finally see you live and he even drove down from San Francisco for you so we can see The Cure together.
You were my imaginary friend when I was a troubled teenager and I know that you would have understood how rough life can be and you even dedicated a song to one of my favorite books by Camus.
You have made many amazing songs for us, and we appreciate that, too.
Don't we look happy and excited about the show?
And we were not the only excited ones:
The girlies to my left seemed to have a blast.
Here's my first question though:
WHY 23 Set Songs? And out of all the songs you've written, why this crappy selection?
We liked 2 or 3 out of the main set at the most but we hoped that you saved the good stuff for your encore.
This guy doesn't seem to be very sure of that judging from his expression:
The people behind us froze after the 3rd song and left after the 5th.
The Set List:
1.Underneath The Stars 2.Prayers For Rain 3.A Night Like This 4.The Walk 5.The End Of The World 6.Love Song 7.Sleep When I'm Dead 8.To Wish Impossible Things 9.Pictures Of You 10.Lullaby 11.From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea 12.The Perfect Boy 13.Hot Hot Hot 14.The Only One 15.Push 16.Friday I'm In Love 17.In Between Days 18.Just Like Heaven 19.A Letter To Elise 20.Never Enough 21.Wrong Number 22.One Hundred Years 23.Baby Rag Dog Book
Tyler gave up after song 13 and slept through a couple I believe.
The encores :(13 MORE Songs? WTF?)
Encore #1:
-If Only Tonight We Could Sleep -The Kiss
Encore #2:
-At Night -M -Play For Today -A Forest
Encore #3:
-Love Cats -Let's Go To Bed -Freak Show -Close To Me -Why Can't I Be You -Boys Don't Cry
Dear Mr Smith : Are you still sure that Boys Don't Cry after 3 hrs of this?
Out of 36 songs stretched over 3 hrs you have played one that I love, and the only reason we didn't leave earlier was because of the Hollywood Bowl tandem parking.
But no worries - you'll be our hero always , but in the future we'll stick to our MP3 play list on iTunes. We're more B-side kinda people , ya know .....
We wish we could have seen the Berlin show 2 months ago, but at least we'll have it on video....
I TAKE PICTURES FOR Stern. Max. GQ. Trace. Esquire. Radar. KING.
The Independent. NOI.SE. Highlights.
Oyster.
Inked.
Missbehave.Intersection.CBS.VH1.Lexus.
OF
Daft Punk. Portishead. Gnarls Barkley. Ice Cube. The Klaxons. Saigon. The Lady Tigra. Neon Neon. John Legend. Foetus.
I currently live and work in Los Angeles.
In my spare time I shoot guns and take long walks in the desert.
I take pictures, because there is nothing else I could see myself doing.