drunkencynic's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- R (or- a rose by any other word) In the interest of seeing how many entries I can add tonight... Aw, fuck it, who am I kidding- I'm addicted to this damn thing- This is why I call myself drunkencynic. It's after the character Grantaire from one of my favorite books, Les Mis�rables. The drunken cynic. I adopted this alias online when I was much younger and it stuck. The character touched me- he reminds me of me. "Among all these passionate hearts and all these undoubting minds there was one skeptic. How did he happen to be there? from juxtaposition. The name of this skeptic was Grantaire, and he usually signed with the rebus: R. [a play on his name- grand (or capital)- R] Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe anything. He was, moreover, one of the students who had learned most during their course in Paris; ...[he] knew the good places for everything; furthermore, boxing, tennis, a few dances, and he was a profound cudgel-player. A great drinker to boot. He was frightfully ugly; the prettiest shoe-binder of that period, Irma Boissy, revolting at his ugliness, had uttered this sentence: "Grantaire is impossible," but Grantaire's self-conceit was not disconcerted. He looked tenderly and fixedly upon every woman, appearing to say of them all: 'if I only wished'; and trying to make his comrades believe that he was in general demand. All these words: rights of the people, rights of man, social contract, French Revolution, republic, democracy, humanity, civilization, religion, progress, were, to Grantaire, very nearly meaningless. He smiled at them. Skepticism... had not left one entire idea in his mind. He lived in irony. This was his axiom: There is only one certainty, my full glass. He ridiculed all devotion, under all circumstances... He said of the cross: "There is a gibbet which has made a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, and often drunk... Still, this skeptic had a fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither an idea, nor a dogma, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. ...Grantaire, a true satellite of Enjolras, lived in this circle of young people; he dwelt in it; he took pleasure only in it; he followed them everywhere. His delight was to see these forms coming and going in the fumes of the wine. He was tolerated for his good-humour." -taken from here, which in turn was taken from the book, of course. I can feel myself getting weaker. And I was so happy at my strength. I have to share Elana's idea (she's fucking brilliant): "I think you should stab Thomas WITH the van and then mount (not that kind of mount!) him on grill as a warning to his kind, The Royal Screwups." That is the mindset I need to maintain. Pictures of the undiscussed 4th are up. 10:45 p.m. - 2003-07-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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