Poetry Friday

But at last in the thousand elegies
The dead rise in our hearts,
On the brink of our happiness we stop
Like someone on a drunk starting to weep.

~ Galway Kinnell from "Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock" ~

Print courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Almost Gone...

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne ~
Photo by sachman75.

How Odd

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Hauntings

What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.

~ Mary Shelley ~







Portrait by Reginald Easton, courtesy Wikipedia.

The Rule Regarding Hot Beverages

Sunday's Kat Kwote

"A dainty look..." If you practice, you should be all set by Friday! --KK

Cold Calculation

It seems that those spreading panic about Ebola, ISIS and the southern border hope that their new rhetoric will reinvigorate an old tactic: racial dog whistling. It has never been bigotry amid politicians that drives this, so much as the cold calculation that stimulating racial panic can win votes.

~ Ian Haney López ~
[This should be horrifying to all voters, especially here in NH where we have a candidate for Senator who is only running by way of cold calculation. (Can't win in MA, so I'll run in that hick state to the north.) He is now using the old dog whistle, "...we have a border that’s so porous that anyone can walk across it. I think it’s naive to think that people aren’t going to be walking through here who have those types of diseases and/or other types of intent, criminal or terrorist." Save us from the cold, calculating, maniacs who run for office to satisfy their greed and need for power! --KK]

Poetry Friday

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

~ Ernest Hemingway ~








Photo courtesy Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

How True!

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

~ H. L. Mencken ~

Opera

No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

~ W. H. Auden ~








Photo courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Time Capsules

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like.

~ Alfred Hitchcock ~
Image from Time Capsule website.

The Creator of Barbie Explains...

They were using the dolls to project their dreams of their own futures as adult women.

~ Ruth Handler ~
Image courtesy Mattel website.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Unlike us, cats never outgrow their delight in cat capacities, nor do they settle finally for limitations. Cats, I think, live out their lives fulfilling their expectations.

~ Irving Townsend ~
Illustration by Arent van Bolten from the early 1600s, courtesy The Public Domain Review. Even then, cats had visions of conquering the world!

It's Up to You

Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.

~ Lady Bird Johnson ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country. It has no energy crisis, possessing a potential that will last as long as the country. Its power is equal to that of any country in the world.

~ Richard Eberhart ~

Dictionary Day!

Language is power--we understand that words can move us to tears or laughter, inspire us to great deeds or urge us to mob action. Dictionaries are the democratization of that power, and the more words they contain, the more democratic they are. The dictionary is a gigantic armory and toolbox combined, accessible to all. It reflects our preoccupations, collects our cultural knowledge, and gives us adorable pictures of aardvarks, to boot. And it does all this one word at a time.

~ Erin McKean ~

Fungi

The world depends on fungi, because they are major players in the cycling of materials and energy around the world.

~ E. O. Wilson ~
Photo by Phil Parsons.

Movie Acting

Movie acting suits me because I only need to be good for ninety seconds at a time.

~ Bill Murray ~




Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

On Columbus Day

American culture is not about experiencing our shame, it's about denying it. It's been that way our whole history.

~ Chris Jordan ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Not exactly a kwote, but cat-related nonetheless.

It's All About the Money

Unsustainable consumption, population pressure, poverty and environmental degradation are intricately linked, but this is appreciated neither by development economists, nor by national governments who permit GDP growth to trump environmental protection in their policies.

~ Partha Dasgupta and Ramanathan Veerabhadran ~

Poetry Friday

I think if a poet wanted to lead, he or she would want the message to be unequivocally clear and free of ambiguity. Whereas poetry is actually the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.

~ Billy Collins ~

Create Happiness!

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~

Edgar Allan Poe

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

~ Edgar Allan Poe ~




Portrait of Poe courtesy Library of Congress.

Always There for Company

Toad talked big about all he was going to do in the days to come, while stars grew fuller and larger all around them, and a yellow moon, appearing suddenly and silently from nowhere in particular, came to keep them company and listen to their talk.

~ Kenneth Grahame ~
Photo by David Snelling.

Be Happy!

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

~ Martha Washington ~




Currier & Ives print courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

One of Scarlatti's compositions bears the title, The Cat's Fugue (at least in modern editions) and the story goes that a stroll on the keyboard by Scarlatti's cat gave the master the subject to the fugue...

~ Carl Van Vechten ~


[I listened to a number of interpretations on YouTube and I found that this one enabled me to visualize the cat on the keyboard. --KK]

Who Doesn't Like to Play?

The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.

~ John Cleese ~
"Baby at Play" by Thomas Eakins, courtesy The Athenaeum.

Poetry Friday

The mind wraps itself around a poem. It is almost sensual, particularly if you work on a computer. You can turn the poem round and about and upside down, dancing with it a kind of bolero of two snakes twisting and coiling, until the poem has found its right and proper shape.

~ Marge Piercy ~




Photo by Thomas Hawk.

Why?

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~
Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

You Know, Fringy Stuff, Like Music, Art, Libraries

Our public education system--being a system--inherently strives to be efficient and in doing so, chops out all the "messy bits." It's this very "fringy" stuff that is required for innovation.

~ Peter Reynolds ~