posted
As some of you may know, I'm in love with Lord "Alfred" Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses." As I'm in the process of buying an iPod for the holidays, and it allows up to 54 characters of engraving, I'm hoping to engrave one of two small quotes in it. Specifically:
quote:Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
128 characters
and
quote:As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains
101 characters
Do any of you Mac-savvy people know if Apple would allow me to pay an extra $20 or so for an extra line or two of engraving? Surely it can't cost much. I've browsed the Apple website, but it's useless, and to call tech service costs $50 per episode. If nobody here has an answer, I'll call Apple's corporate HQ and work my way through the bureaucracy, but I'm just hoping the damn problem can be solved here.
If I can't go with Tennyson, I might go with Marvell -- but even then, I run into the same problem.
quote:But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.
117 characters
Maybe Poe?
quote:Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
54 characters
quote:And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams — In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.
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Byron?
quote:For the sword outwears its sheath And the soul wears out the breast
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Shelley? Keats? I'm sticking to the Romantics, primarily, since their poetry would go best with the spirit of music -- plus, they're by and large my favorites -- but I'm open to any other suggestions. But if I can't get Apple to allow me more space, which I probably won't be able to, whatever I engrave would need to remain under 54 characters.
God, this is frustrating. I'd need at least double that size for any decent quote.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Eh... It could work by attracting the sardonic-artsy chicks, but making a comment on the melodrama of most engraved quotes isn't really my style. I'm more the cheesy geek who loves his melodramatic poetry.
And, yes, for our slower viewers, I understand that you're correcting my grammar. Grammar Nazi. Or, sorry, Grammatic Nazi.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Except you spend awhile thinking that a sardonic artsy chick is actually an artsy fartsy guy.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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You clearly don't know enough sardonic artsy chicks. Or maybe my lifetime spent in the open and accepting city of Los Angeles is reflected in my interpretation of "artsy fartsy guys."
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Right, and if that symbol isn't meant to inspire thoughts of masculinity, nothing is.
Not very impressive masculinity, to be honest, but at least masculine in the sense that we think Frisco's male.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Oh, so you DO understand what my concept of an "artsy fartsy guy" is. There's two of them right there.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Try shortening the section quoted. "Some work of noble note may yet be done" fits, for example.
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As to artsy-fartsy types, the name of my webpage ("mr youse neednt be so spry") is taken directly from a cummings poem on the subject. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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The only problem, Tom, is that line alone doesn't give the pseudo-gothic, romantic feel that specifically attracted me to these poems in the first place.
By the way, let me compliment you on your website. Especially the poetry section, jesus. I think I'm falling for you. If Christy ever seems not-so-exciting, give me a call, you know what I mean?
(aside: Then I can call Christy myself! Bwa ha ha! Bwa! Ha ha!)
By the way, doesn't the last poem in the Metapoetry section belong in love? And having suggested that, maybe I could yank a line from there...
quote:(and birds sing sweeter than books tell how)
Going through my away messages, I might put in Shakespeare...
quote:I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Hath so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world.
And I another So weary with disasters, so tugged with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend it or be rid on 't.
Damn, I wish I could fit some Don Juan in there.
quote:Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow and of Pleasure And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure
I've been dropping in and out of this page for the past couple hours (hence its disjointment), so I'll post this, then get back to completing it later.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I'd go with Milton - particularly because the first suggestions all sounded like invocations for data loss. I avoid mentioning death, forgetting, or anything that sounds like a shadow or ghost of its former self around my computer. I don't want her to get any ideas.
That's my $0.02 - which won't buy any extra lines of engraving.
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