The Highlight

The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose.

~ Garrison Keillor ~
Graphic courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

My sister grumbles about sharing dedication space in my book with my cat, Perdita. I like cats. People are fine, but, like Ivan Karamazov, I prefer them in the abstract. Most of them are very stupid.

~ Michael Robbins ~

Wake Them Up!

Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines--it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.

~ Robin Sloan from
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore ~

Poetry Friday

The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~
John Singer Sargent painting of Stevenson courtesy ARC Museum.

Literary Tattoo

Photo of Alice in Wonderland quote by never going home.

He Was Right

It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world--it's going to be a game changer.

~ Steve Jobs ~



Photo by Matt Buchanan.

Christmas Greetings!

Courtesy how to build & repair.

Getting Ready!

Note: click on the image for a larger view.
From Christmas: Its Origin and Associations by W. F. Dawson.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Meowy Christmas!

Dance Me

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

~ Leonard Cohen ~

Poetry Friday

Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.

~ A. E. Housman ~
Christmas pudding photo by Turkinator.

Forget Yourself--More Good Advice

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

~ Henry Miller ~

Good Advice for Non-Hoosiers, Too!

If I could offer but one helpful hint to young Hoosiers hoping to better their odds for success in life, I would simply note the importance of thoughtful reading.

~ Richard Lugar ~

Plastics

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

~ From The Graduate ~

Yes, You Can Teach an Old Dog...

You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play.

~ Nikki Giovanni ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Now, Pussy, you must be real good,
       And learn to spell like me;
When I say, "Pussy, what is this?"
       You must say, That is C.

~ R. Worthington, "The Spelling Lesson" from Baby Chatterbox ~

This Sickness...

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

~ Robert F. Kennedy ~

Poetry Friday

Waiting...

I didn't know the full dimensions of forever, but I knew it was longer than waiting for Christmas to come.

~ Richard Brautigan ~
"Hello Santa" stereograph card courtesy Library of Congress.

The Very Latest Fashion

Watch 'em splishin' and a-splashin'
(Do de rubber duck!)
It's the very latest fashion!
(Do de rubber duck!)

~ Guy Smiley singing "Do de Rubber Duck" ~

Guy Smiley courtesy Sesame Street.

Beyond the Picture Book

I certainly think we're going to see more and more graphic novels and more illustrated novels.

~ Charlaine Harris ~

It Is a Pleasure!

Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.

~ Beverly Cleary ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

She dreams she is a tiger fierce
With great majestic claws that pierce;
She sits by the hot water pipes
And dreams about a coat of stripes;

~ Patrick Chalmers from "The Gardener's Cat" ~

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from the state of being.

~ A. A. Milne ~

Poetry Friday

I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying who listens or what they think.

~ Rumi ~
Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Lady Talk

Lady Mary Crawley: "Sybil is entitled to her opinions."

Lady Grantham: "No. She isn't until she is married, then her husband will tell her what her opinions are."

~ from Downton Abbey ~
Photo courtesy MSN UK.

A Lot of People Feel This Way

The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.

~ Charles de Gaulle ~
Photo by Greg Westfall.

Snip, Snap, Snip

The fox sprang ashore and threw back his head.
Snip--half the Gingerbread Boy was gone.
Snip, Snap--he was three-quarters gone.

Snip, Snap, Snip,
at last and at last
he went the way of
every single gingerbread boy
that ever came
out of an oven...

~ Paul Galdone from The Gingerbread Boy ~

Fanciful Shapes

gin·ger·bread
[jin-jer-bred]
noun
1. a type of cake flavored with ginger and molasses.
2. a rolled cookie similarly flavored, often cut in fanciful shapes, and sometimes frosted.

Photo by Diane Mayr taken at Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth, NH.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

This is Mary Jane,
See! she has a saucer:
To her cat she says,
"Give me up your paw, sir.
I've some fresh, nice milk
You will relish greatly."
Pussy then put up her paw;
All this happened lately.

~ K.G. from "Portraits for Little Folks" ~

Wonder

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

~ Albert Einstein ~
Photo courtesy NASA.

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.

Happy Halloween!

Witch and ghost make merry on this last of dear October’s days.

~ Anonymous ~
Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Language

Language was important, sexy, fun, alive, extremely personal, it was like food, you wouldn't just pop anything into your mouth, why would you let anything pop out that hadn't been considered and prepared for someone to enjoy?

~ Jeanne Darst from Fiction Ruined My Family ~

Hurricanes

One thing that does seem clear is that warmer oceans (a la global warming) mean more evaporation, and that likely leads to storms with more and more dangerous rainfall of the kind we saw with Hurricane Irene last year. In addition, a paper published just last month, used records of storm surges going back to 1923 as a measure of hurricane activity. A strong correlation between warm years and strong hurricanes was seen. Thus if you warm the planet, you can expect more dangerous storms.

~ Adam Frank ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Myself and Pangur, cat and sage
Go each about our business;
I harass my beloved page,
He his mouse.

~ Eavan Boland, "From the Irish of Pangur Ban" ~

Welcome, Julian!

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.

~ Louisa May Alcott ~