Life in the Afternoon | Esquire | FEBRUARY, 1962
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Life in the Afternoon | Esquire | FEBRUARY, 1962
I am living a life of which Ernest Hemingway would be proud – a montage of cold plunges in the sea, gin at noontime, hearty lunches, and languid hours lazing in the afternoon sun.
Moving fast, let alone breaking things, is the last thing on my mind.
Moving fast, let alone breaking things, is the last thing on my mind.
Rebecca • On being a technologist
("JP") added
Rather, I remember a scene from Tolstoy’s War and Peace , one I had not thought of in years. It is a scene wherein a character, Prince Andrei, suffers what is perhaps a mortal wound in the historical “Battle of the Three Emperors” in 1805 while fighting on the side of the Russians against his idol Napoleon:
"What is it? Am I falling? Are my legs giv... See more
Erik Hoel • Vigil
After he judged that his right hand had been in the water long enough he took it out and looked at it. “It is not bad,” he said. “And pain does not matter to a man.”
ERNEST HEMINGWAY • THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA: LIBRARY ROAD CLASSIC
The day before she left, Hemingway tussled six hours and fifty minutes with a 514-pound tuna. When his Pilar cruised into harbor at 9:30 that night, the whole population of the island flocked to see his fish and hear his tale. “A fatuous old man with a new yacht and a young bride had arrived not long previously, announcing that tuna-fishing, of who
... See moreA. Scott Berg • Max Perkins: Editor of Genius
The morning before he died in the final year of his seventies, he drafted a poem containing these lines:
You can’t tell when strange things with meaning... See more
will happen. I’m [still] here writing it down
just the way it was. “You don’t have to
prove anything,” my mother said. “Just be ready
for what God sends.” I listened and put my hand
out in the sun again.
Maria Popova • Yes: William Stafford’s Poetic Calibration of Perspective
You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who. Now you are getting confused in the head, he thought. You must keep your head clear. Keep your head clear and know how to suffer
... See moreERNEST HEMINGWAY • THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA: LIBRARY ROAD CLASSIC
At one time when he was feeling so badly toward the end, he had thought perhaps it was a dream. Then when he had seen the fish come out of the water and hang motionless in the sky before he fell, he was sure there was some great strangeness and he could not believe it.