Poetry Friday

Poems are other people’s snapshots in which we see our own lives.

~ Charles Simic ~
Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine, courtesy Library of Congress.

Music

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

~ Victor Hugo ~
[Do you think he ever envisioned Les Miserables, the musical? --KK]

Engraving by Émile Bayard (1886).

What Would the Search Term Be?

Bella Swan: Are you going to tell me how you stopped the van?

Edward Cullen: Yeah. Um... I had an adrenaline rush. It's very common. You can Google it.

And the Dog, Too?

Every Time!

Sunday's Kat Kwote

But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.

~ Alexander Pope ~



Photo by pixn8tr.

Hospitals of the Soul

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead.

~ Caitlin Moran ~
Moran's home library, Warstones Branch Library, photo by Richard Law courtesy geograph.org.

Poetry Friday

Th' unfinish'd Poet budded forth too soon,
For what the Morning warm'd; was scorch'd at Noon.

~ Samuel Cobb ~
[Or as the old expression goes, "haste makes waste." --KK]

Photo by Camera John.

Count Your Blessings, Dear Readers

A big part of the problem is the severe degree of poverty for our nation's children. According to UNICEF, among industrialized countries only Romania has a higher child poverty rate than the United States. Just in the last 10 years the number of impoverished American children increased by 30 percent.

~ Paul Bucheit ~

Sometimes You Just Need to Gulp

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

~ Raymond Chandler ~

Dancing Notes!

The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.

~ Robert Caro ~
Chassee diagram from Orchesography by John Weaver, published in 1706.

Dolphins

Dolphins are animals of good omen. It made me happy to have them swimming around the canoe, and though my hands had begun to bleed from the chafing of the paddle, just watching them made me forget the pain. I was very lonely before they appeared, but now I felt that I had friends with me and did not feel the same.

~ Scott O'Dell from Island of the Blue Dolphins ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cats refuse to wear sporting apparel.

~ Dr. Sheldon Cooper ~




They're not all that interested in sports--only as a platform to attain a higher goal. --KK

Photo © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

She Could See Despite Her Limitations

Courtesy MoveOn.

Poetry Friday

An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

~ Charles Bukowski ~

A Truism

We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.

~ David Mamet ~
Photo by She's Not There.

Let's Keep Singing and Dancing!

But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.

~ E. O. Wilson ~

Dip Your Brush!

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
Joseph Turner, "War, the Exile and the Rock Limpet," Tate Gallery, London, courtesy Web Gallery of Art.

Day is Done

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

~ Unknown ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The quote comes at the end of the video. --KK

It Always Comes Back to Education

If the new generation is not given pens they will be given guns by the terrorists.

~ Malala Yousafzai ~

Photo courtesy Mohsin Ali.

Poetry Friday

I liked the portable, comfortable shape of poems. I liked the space around them and the way you could hold your words at arm’s length and look at them. And especially the way they took you to a deeper, quieter place, almost immediately.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

And They'd Be Right!

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

~ John Steinbeck ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Book Reviews

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

~ William Faulkner ~


Photo by Carl Van Vechten courtesy Library of Congress.

Prove This Statement To Be Wrong--Vote!

The largest party in America, by the way, is neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. It's the party of non-voters.

~ Robert Reich ~
Photo taken on voting day, November 2008, © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

The Crux of the Presidential Election

Those who are careless with the truth in smaller matters can never be trusted with important matters.

~ Albert Einstein ~



Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

For while in every other part
      His portly person sleeps,
That bushy tail, with steady wave,
      A ceaseless vigil keeps.


~ R. Worthington, "Don't You Like My Cat?" from Baby Chatterbox ~



Photo © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

We Don't Need a Salesman!

The whole purpose of a campaign is to tell the American people who you are and what you want to do as president, not to hide your policies behind a smoke-screen of counterfeit empathy and deceptive advertising and hope they won’t notice them until you’re elected.

That’s not leadership, it’s salesmanship.

~ Steve Almond ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry's work is the clarification and magnification of being.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Zombies

Zombies are the blue-collar monsters.

~ George A. Romero ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.