Creative Reuse

Ancient cultures from Egypt to India regularly "recycle" their buildings, sculptures, and objects out of convenience and necessity. Whenever resources become scarce, creative reuse becomes second nature.

~ Garth Johnson from 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse ~

Magic!

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

~ Francis Ford Coppola ~

Image courtesy Open Clipart Library.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

                                  Joy and Love will both be yours,
                                      Minnow, don't be glum.
                                 Happy days are coming soon--
                                     Sleep, and let them come...

~ Elizabeth Bishop from "Lullaby for a Cat" ~

Simple, But True

There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call "the breaks." In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things--read and write--and wait.

~ Countee Cullen ~




Photo by Carl Van Vechten, courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

Laughter is the language of the soul.

~ Pablo Neruda ~

Perfect Tranquility

That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library.

~ Aphra Behn ~

Seven Stranded Castways

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

~ from the theme song to Gilligan's Island ~

An Interesting Thought...

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

~ W. H. Auden ~

R.I.P. Etta James

Sunday's Kat Kwote

To the cats I am mother and lover,
lap and toy, cook and cleaner

      ~ Marge Piercy from "Tracks" ~





Photo by Gerg1967.

Walk the Tightrope

A sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to our steps as we walk the tightrope of life.

~ Arabic proverb ~




Image by Rakka.

Poetry Friday

Freedom lies in being bold.

~ Robert Frost ~

One More Reason For Walking

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

Libraries

Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity, the unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.

~ Vartan Gregorian ~

Change Is Coming

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

~ Alan Watts ~

Martin Luther King Day!

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

~ Mark Twain ~

Photo by Mink.

Shopping

And yet, when we shop too much, we end up needing the services of a psychiatrist! --KK

Image courtesy melvdesigns

Poetry Friday

The dazzling multiplicity of sounds and word choices in English makes it brilliantly suited to be a language of poetry.

~ Camille Paglia ~

Rub-a-Dub-Dubby!

Rubber Duckie, you're so fine
And I'm lucky that you're mine
Rubber Duckie, I'm awfully fond of you.

~ Jeff Moss ~





Photo courtesy Muppet Wiki.

That's About Right...

Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.

~ Author unknown ~

Photo by Sunfox.

We Now Know, And Yet...

I certainly feel that the time is not far distant when a knowledge of the principles of diet will be an essential part of one's education. Then mankind will eat to live, be able to do better mental and physical work and disease will be less frequent.

~ Fannie Farmer ~




Image courtesy Michigan State U. Library.

Have They Done It?

...the presidential candidates need to get out and really meet with real people. They just can’t run media campaigns. They have to get outside of rope lines and go in peoples’ living rooms and kitchens and be able to look people in the eye and answer the tough questions.

~ John Lynch ~

Graphic courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

A cat is a small, some might say fragile creature that was created by God to amuse human beings by being (statistically) ‘perfect’ fodder for YouTube videos and internet image macros, or pictures of cats being cats with superimposed text about being cats.

~ Brandon Scott Gorrell ~

Photo by ceruleansky.

Words Are Power

If we want to take control of our own lives, we'll need to keep taking control of our language.

~ Richard Eskow ~

Photo by Feuillu.

Poetry Friday

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

~ Truman Capote ~

Finnish Education

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.

~ Anu Partanen ~

Our New National Ambassador for Young People's Literature

We’re still thinking in terms of enticing kids to read with a sports book or a book about war. We’re suggesting that they’re missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

~ Walter Dean Myers ~

Photo courtesy WalterDeanMyers.net.

Words

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

~ Winston Churchill ~

A Happy New Year!

Postcard courtesy Puzzler4879.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

As a rule Miss Kitty Cat didn't look at all frightful. Almost always she appeared quite unruffled, going about her business in a quiet way and making no fuss over anything.

~ Arthur Scott Bailey from
The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat ~