Everytime I come here...

[Lavinia]

Everytime I come here, I am completely alone here.
I know that it is mainly because each of us is from a different part of the world. And it looks like there is a new registered member almost everyday and it's great. But still it seems like this is a quiet place. Is there a special time here when people come and meet and talk?

[Tony Obsessed]

I do agree that this forum is quiet at times, but like you've already said it's because we're in different time zones. Whenever Tony posts there's always a frenzy here, but he hasn't been on for a while due to his training for his next role in Wong Kar-Wai's film on Ip Man (Bruce Lee's Kung Fu Master). I hope he comes on again soon though, whenever he has a spare minute.

[D-love]

I feel that way to most of the time. Maybe because I live on the east coast of the US, so many times when I log in I get news and other topics late. Plus I work the night shift at my job 9 pm to 9 am. That makes a difference as well.
_________________
Tony is Grrrrrrrrrrrrrreate

[katwoman64]

Hi Lavinia,
Merry Christmas!

There's a small mistery about your name: are you a Danielle?
Did you choose your nick because you love classic literature, i.e. Virgilo's Eneide?
Hope so, loved to translate, study and analyze that book (studied quite extensively).
A kiss and a hug
Mimma the Monkey Kat

P.S.: I choose my Nick after Tennessee Williams "The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

[Lavinia]

Hi Kat,
my name is Daniela and yes, I chose my nick because of classic literature.
Merry Christmas!!!!

[katwoman64]

Dear Lavinia,
I'm surprised of your love for the classics. I find it unusual.
I mean, in Italy we have high schools with fixed curricula. Mine had a part that is common more or less to all the high schools, and a lot of hours of classes of ancient greek and latin. We studied mostly the grammar of those dead languages for the first two years to be able in the following three years to translate and analyze the body of work of several writers and poets. My husband and daughter frequented the same kind of high school. We have these huge vocabularies. The thing is that we studied not only the classics, but also very intensely italian and foreign literatures. The school is dedicated to this and in the end you can't do without. That's the reason I read nonstop. Reading and re-reading some authors I can say that their fame was well earned.
So yes, I'm happily surprised that someone so far from my country knows and loves the same things that I love.
Kisses and Happy New Year
Mimma the Kat

[Lavinia]

[katwoman64]

Dear Lavinia,
LOL: I told my daughter that you envied us and she asked if you please would like to come here and translate some Teognides for her, to just, you know, feel the pleasure!
I have to say that I didn't feel very lucky at the time. So now I understand why you found Troy so wrong. Omero was a great source of happiness for me. So far today I sometimes think to that "dawn with rosy fingers" or to "the sea of the color of wine (when it is dark)" fondly. I know that reading I heard the sound of the sea under the moonlight and really felt the chill and the hope of a new day at dawn. For the same reason I analyze the language, style and rithm of a story, however it is told. In the end it became part of who I am, of the way I see the world. I find that many of Tony's films have a very solid narrative structure. He's good, but his directors are good too.
Kisses and Happy 2009
Kat

[katwoman64]

By the Way,
do you know what is Helga up to in these days?
I'm starting to think that we have to unite our forces and give her a laptop for a present, so she can write also when she has guests (that is quite often).........
If you hear from her, send my hugs and a Big Happy New Year!!!!
Kisses
Kat
P.S.: a small giambo by Archiloco that I love:
"To play with you, like to drink when thirsty -
- This I need"

[Lavinia]

Thank you, Kat, for this little poem. I love poems. For example I like Catullus' - Carmen 13:
http://rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e13.htm
But I don't know how correct this translation is. As I wrote I love perfumes and this poem by Catullus is often used by reviewers of perfumes, when they write about Miss Dior.
And this is my favourite poem too, it is written by ancient Japanese poet and is used in one book about perfumes to descibe Mitsouko (Guerlain):

"One breath of her perfume and your city is lost.

Another and you forfeit a kingdom."

Happy year 2009
Daniela
P.S. I am sure, Helga is OK. Maybe she is busy to write, but I guess she reads our messages here.

[Safran]

Wish you both a special HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!

Just watche the New Years Concert 2009 with our fantanstic "Wiener Philharmoniker" conducted from Daniel Barenboim !
Let us take their energy and drive - but also the calm, cheerful sentiment
into year 2009 !
Good Luck for our beloved Tony!
Kisses and Hugs and a glass of Champagne
Helga

[katwoman64]

Hi to you both Helga and Daniela,
Happy 2009!
To Helga: the first thing that I do every 1 of January is to get on the tv to see the concert. Have you noticed the small purple thing on the lapels of many musicians? It's a protest sign because, thanks to the crisis, the government reduced the funding for the orchestra.
To Daniela: the carmen is well translated. The most important thing in a translation is to get the same wit and style of the original author, so they did well. I went to look at the text. When you read it you really want to feel the divine scent of Lesbia. Given that we can't, we have to make do with reading the composition in its singular frame of a reversed invitation, with its lively and sincere feeling of frendship at its core, its funny and ironic characterization. In this carmen there is the whole human horizon in which Catullo's life is determined: friends and the woman. Good choyce, well done!
I have a question about scents you can help me with: given that my husband is so sick I feel deprehessed. I find solace in two scents: jasmine and orange flowers. This is because I'm born in Sicily, and these are the oldest memories of a happy childhood. So they never fail to make me feel happy. This last Christmas I had "Armani Code", that is intense in orange flowers essence. I wonder if there are others commercial perfumes with both, jasmine and o.f.. I know that Chanel n°5 has a good Jasmine tone and also Poison of Dior. I look forward to your better knowledge of perfumes.
Now I have to stop to go through my mail because my home is a mess and dirty, so first comes first: cleaning.
Kisses to both
The Cleaning Whiz Kat

[Lavinia]

[Lavinia]

BTW If you want you can write me another little poem like you did before, I love poems.


Langston Hughes - Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

[katwoman64]

Dear Lavi-Daniela,
Thank you for the tips about perfumes. I will go hunting for the testers and try them on one by one. This is really important for me.
I have to say you this: my mother and my daughter share the same naturally scented skin. I don't remember once that I went to kiss them and I didn't feel this divine scent on them. How lucky, don't you think?
I love poems. I loved especially the second that you wrote, "...one smell and you forfeit...".
I love Haikus. They are these short japanese poems, just seventeen syllabs, shared in groups of five, seven and five, mostly directed to individual nature's contemplation. They are difficult to translate because of the metric.
About my "top ten", some are longish, so I need time to copy them. One just as an appetizer, by Shelley:

"Oh! Lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

Kisses & Hugs
Kat