At the Closing of the Year

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope

~ Wendy and Lisa ~

Music

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.

~ Billy Joel ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

For those days when you'd like to throw most of humanity down the drain...

For Me, Too!

For me, the compelling question is the psychological state of his supporters. They are unable or unwilling to make a connection between the challenges faced by any president and the knowledge and behavior of Donald Trump. In a democracy, that is disastrous.

~ Howard Gardner ~

Poetry Friday

Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.

~ W. H. Auden from "Christmas Oratio" ~

Letters to Santa

P.S. Please do not forget the poor.

~ Mary McGann ~

Time Machines

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.

~ Jeremy Irons ~

Mason Jar

Yesterday I went outside
With my momma's mason jar
Caught a lovely Butterfly

~ Weezer ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

[Note: Sainsbury's is a large supermarket chain in the U. K.]

Morning

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~
Postcard courtesy The NY Public Library Digital Collections.

Poetry Friday

Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.

~ Junot Diaz ~



Photo © Nina Subin, courtesy JunotDiaz.com.

Birds!

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

~ David Attenborough ~

Creativity

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

~ Maya Angelou ~

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Life is never all one thing. It bounces around. Certainly, my own life has. Look at Woody Allen's funny movies--all the humor comes out of sad stuff. Sometimes you have to laugh, no matter what life deals you.

~ Tim O'Brien ~

An Easy Trick to Learn!

Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.

~ Tom Stoppard ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ The Monkey's Frolic by Anonymous ~
Published in 1843.

Simply Put

There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.

I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.

I’m guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice--who would ever want to breathe those fumes?

~ Arnold Schwarzenegger ~

Poetry Friday

Just read poetry, love it to pieces,
and enjoy it to the fullest.

~ Lee Bennett Hopkins ~




Photo by Charles Egita, courtesy Harper Collins.

Puzzles

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers "puzzles." I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the "Mona Lisa," it's not like I put the last piece in and go, "I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!"

~ Harlan Coben ~

Art

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

~ Leo Tolstoy ~








Painting by Ilya Repin (1901), courtesy Wikipedia.

Always Have, Always Will

Knitters use knitting to value-add to the world.

~ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee ~

Need a Sweater?

Does anyone not know who this character is?

Sunday's Kat Kwote

But sometimes at dusk when we're driving home
And come on the cats by surprise,
I feel a shiver go down my back
Facing their burning eyes.

~ Elizabeth Coatsworth from "The Two Cats" ~

Photo by Rikki's Refuge.

Interesting Observation

In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nurse to humanity during his entire existence and has held earth close around him, like the little obstetrical toad that goes about with a cluster of eggs attached to his legs.

~ E. B. White ~

Poetry Friday

Humility

Poems arrive ready to begin.
    Poets are only the transportation.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Celebrities Love Their Cheese Logs

Nothing says holidays, like a cheese log.

~ Ellen DeGeneres ~

So Don't Do It

Crying is really bad for your vocal cords.

~ Adele ~

Be of Good Cheer

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.

~ James Russell Lowell ~

Damnably Sentimental

The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental.

~ Thomas Huxley ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Let your children love pussy, pussy loves your children; only kindly point out to them the essential difference between a plaything and a playmate.

~ W. Gordon Stables ~

Timely Thought

As anti-refugee hysteria sweeps many of our political leaders, particularly Republicans, I wonder what they would have told a desperate refugee family fleeing the Middle East. You’ve heard of this family: a carpenter named Joseph, his wife, Mary, and their baby son, Jesus.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus’ birth they fled to save Jesus from murderous King Herod (perhaps the 2,000-year-ago equivalent of Bashar al-Assad of Syria?). Fortunately Joseph, Mary and Jesus found de facto asylum in Egypt--thank goodness House Republicans weren’t in charge when Jesus was a refugee!

~ Nicholas Kristof ~
"The Flight into Egypt" by Giovanni Battista Crespi (1610-1620), courtesy The Athenaeum.

Poetry Friday

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

~ Vincent Van Gogh~
"Starry Night over the Rhone" by Vincent van Gogh, courtesy Wikimedia.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Postcard courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections.

America's First Refugees

Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future of the world.

~ James Russell Lowell ~

From a Man Who Himself Became Mythic

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

Dancing

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

~ Charles Baudelaire ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Once upon a time there lived a king who was deeply in love with a princess, but she could not marry anyone, because she was under an enchantment. So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to win the Princess's love. The Fairy said to him:

"You know that the Princess has a great cat which she is very fond of. Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat's tail is the man she is destined to marry."




~ Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont from "Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess" ~

Intolerance = Uneducated

It's an universal law--intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~


Photo courtesy NobelPrize.org.

Poetry Friday

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

~ John Keats ~

Painting

One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.

~ Frank Stella ~
"View of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre" by Robert Hubert, courtesy The Athenaeum.

A Classic

The story being told in Star Wars is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you're in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they're actually not.

~ George Lucas ~

Happiness

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

~ Ingrid Bergman ~

Go Vegetable Heavy!

Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.

~ Bobby Flay ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

There was, nevertheless, some sweetness diffused over that face, but it was the sweetness of a cat or a judge, an affected, treacherous sweetness.

~ Victor Hugo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

In a World Gone Insane

If it is our freedom and joy they seek to destroy, give them not that victory. Against the forces of darkness and terror, love and compassion shall always prevail. ‪#‎JeSuisParis‬

~ George Takei ~
Photo by Joe deSousa.

Poetry Friday

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

~ William Butler Yeats ~





Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Speak Out

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton ~




Photo courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Veterans Day Prayer

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

~ Douglas MacArthur ~

In That Case, Mike, You Need a Cat

Sulley: Hey, Mike, this might sound crazy but I don't think that kid's dangerous.

Mike: Really? Well, in that case, let's keep it. I always wanted a pet that could kill me.

~ From Monsters, Inc. ~

Ukuleles!

There's something about the ukulele that just makes you smile. It makes you let your guard down. It brings out the child in all of us.

~ Jake Shimabukuro ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

No kwote today, just an informative little cat breed video!

Just Open Your Eyes

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

~ Thornton Wilder ~




Photo source: NY Public Library Digital Collections.

Poetry Friday

At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

~ James Fenton ~

Especially If They Move

Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.

~ Walt Disney ~
Business envelop courtesy Wikipedia.

Let Go!

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

~ Joseph Campbell ~

Scary Movies

And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.

~ Anthony Hopkins ~

Role Model

It's not that I have compromised or anything, but it's always been important to me to take good care of myself and be a good example. I'm not much a role model in terms of hair care, though.

~ Patti Smith ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ From The Book of Nonsense (1870), written and illustrated by Edward Lear ~

Happy Halloween!

I bought all of these big, cold, slimy, disgusting pumpkins and tried to carve them, and it was gross, so I had to find something else to do with them. Glitter was life-changing.

~ Jen Lancaster ~

Poetry Friday

Cognitive science now suggests that humans are actually hard-wired to respond to the sort of patterned speech that verse represents. Like the songs of birds or dances of bees--but on a higher level of complexity--poetry reflects the unique cognitive capacity of the human mind and body.

~ Dana Gioia ~
Photo source: Dana Gioia Official Site.

Where the Nurture Is Stronger Than the Nature

Rich, smart parents tend to have rich, smart kids--not because it's genetic but because they can create a home environment and sensory stimulation that lower-income kids often don't get.

~ George Kaiser ~

Unusual Efforts Required

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes." They will say, "Women don't have what it takes."

~ Clare Boothe Luce ~
Image courtesy The NY Public Library Digital Collections.

Where Does Inspiration Come From?

I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It's chicken and eggs. And I said, "I gotta use that one."

~ Paul Simon ~

Art and Artists

I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life.

~ W. H. Auden ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Halloween is rapidly approaching!

[You'd be hard-pressed to find a worse Halloween rhyme than this one! --KK]

Photo courtesy riptheskull.