where the insane histrionics that don't make it into my research notebook live

map of the somme in ink in edmund blunden's hand. written on the back of a hong kong university timetable, circa 1960.

the "but i forget" at the top feels like getting hit with a sack of bricks,,, it was 1960 and this man was still drawing and redrawing these maps over and over, grappling with a past that wouldn't stay past,,, my heart aches for him, he was well and truly haunted

from the diary of ludwig wittgenstein. april 29, 1915.

he hated fighting, hated flying, loved books and was terribly anxious for the war to be over, so that he could get to oxford.

obsessed w the recent trend of plays/documentaries about the lesser-known war poets, it's thrilling to know their stories are finally being told, and by such wonderful actors! (this boy looks precisely like ivor i'm trembling...!!!)

like i'm so glad i live in the timeline where a real actual stage play about charles sorley was written & produced & lovingly made.... like!!! i love my boy! i'm so glad we all love my boy!!!

(guess it's up to me to write the edmund blunden film... 0:-] )

bunny boy! bunny boy! bunny boy!

torn-out notebook page: june 17, 2021

sitting here thinking abt the truly exorbitant amount of money i'm about to drop on the out-of-print blunden biography JUST so i can inevitably draw five billion hearts in the margins.... JUST so i can take five billion notes and write my own biography about him.... one has to admire the ludicrous devotion of it all

to have known blunden is to have known a divine poet.

noooo cornell don't unironically include dulce et decorum est in the design of your first world war memorial as though you actually believe such empty words contribute literally any meaning to the basic meaninglessness of death in war and as though wilfred owen didn't write an entire poem about the subject aha you're so sexy <3