Sardines

Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.

~ Alan Bennett ~




Photo by cygnus921.

Poetry Friday

I've decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

~ Socrates ~

Puns

A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself.

~ Doug Larson ~

Photo by PinkMoose.

Pizza Logic

For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn't that make overweight the average then? Last month you were fat, now you're average--hey, let's get a pizza!

~ Jay Leno ~

Photo by squidpants.

Music

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

~ Herbie Hancock ~

Photo courtesy the Library of Congress.

Preservation Week

Among collections whose condition is known, 78% of unbound items, 28% of historic objects, and 20% of digital and online files were at risk in 2004.

~ From American Library Association fact sheet, "Why Do We Need a Preservation Week for Collections?" ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote--Happy Easter!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved

Did You Have a Happy Earth Day Yesterday?

The earth is God's bride--she feeds the living and cherishes the dead.

~ Madagascan proverb ~

Poetry Friday

Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott from "Love After Love" ~

The Easter Bunny's a Myth?

It seems like a totally gratuitous myth to tell people a giant rabbit comes round at night leaving candy in a haphazard way around the house...

~ Todd Rundgren ~





Photo by cheekycrows3

Not As Often As People Do!

Remember, even monkeys fall out of trees.

~ Korean proverb ~

Photo by judyboo

Humor

The real cause of the Revolutionary War was probably a difference of opinion on the subject of humor. In such a discussion between Ben Franklin and George III, it would require no prophet to see who would win out.

~ Wallace Irwin ~

Go Outside!

A series of psychological studies over the past twenty years has revealed that after spending time in a quiet rural setting, close to nature, people exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory, and generally improved cognition. Their brains become calmer and sharper.

~ Nicholas Carr from The Shallows~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs.

~ Desmond Morris ~






Image courtesy Library of Congress.

I'll Have Think This One Over...

I think reincarnation is possible. Hopefully, we all get recycled.

~ Christina Ricci ~

Poetry Friday

The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.

~ Charles Simic from "In the Library" ~

Snapshots

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

~ Eudora Welty ~

Everyone Loves the Prom

One out of forty American men wears women's clothing. We've had more than forty presidents. One of these guys has been dancing around the Oval Office in a prom dress.

~ Allison Janney ~

Conviction

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

~ Thomas Carlyle ~

Interesting thought...

No two persons ever read the same book.

~ Edmund Wilson ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Pussycat sits on a chair
Implacably with acid stare.

~ Edward Newman Horn ~

Photo by g0j0

Budget Time

It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.

~ George W. Bush ~

Poetry Friday

And I shall whisper my thoughts and fancies
As always,
From the pages of my books.

~ Amy Lowell from "Penumbra" ~







Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Does This Apply To Ebooks?

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

~ Thomas Jefferson ~

Unstoppable!

Through literacy you can begin to see the universe. Through music you can reach anybody. Between the two there is you, unstoppable.

~ Grace Slick ~

Bewitching Color

With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.

~ Henri Matisse ~

Doll Power!

Now strikes the midnight hour,
         When dolls and toys
         Taste human joys,
And revel in their power.

~ Florence K. Upton ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The spinning-wheel of ancient magic
must never be allowed to stick:
and changing itself into a princess
is, for the cat, a minor trick.

~ Jean Cocteau from "Cat" ~

Corporations Without Conscience

In a rational system, a corporation’s tax department would be there to make sure a company complied with the law, but in our system, there are corporations that view their tax departments as a profit center, and the effects on public policy can be negative.

~ Len Berman quoted in the NY Times ~




Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

I had no athletic ability, I couldn’t play a band instrument and I somehow got the idea that being a poet might make me attractive and mysterious.

~ Ted Kooser ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library

It's a New World...

If I am going to be a writer, earning a living in the era of digital text, I need to understand where the opportunities are. They won't disappear, they'll just be different, and need to be recognized. In the last days of Vaudeville Theatre, they sued Marconi because radio was killing Vaudeville, where you had to pay to go into a relatively small room to listen to music and voice. But it didn't kill music, the outcome was a thousand times more music, making a thousand times more money, reaching a thousand times more people. But in the short term, there was panic.

~ Cory Doctorow ~

Now You Know...

"Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children will burn!"

Do you know how that curious couplet came into use? Its origin is probably this: In England and other European countries, the ladybird larvae,or young,feed principally on the aphides, or plant lice, which infest the hop vines; and when, in spite of the efforts of the ladybird, these aphides multiply excessively in the hop gardens, the usual remedy is to let a fire run through the latter, and thus burn up leaves, plant lice, ladybird larvae, and all. It was their acquaintance with this practice, which, many generations ago, suggested to the children of those countries the warning lines now so familiar on both sides of the ocean.

~ From The New Dominion Monthly May 1871 ~

Photo by aten.

Question: So Why Does He Keep Reading It?

Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

~ Mark Twain ~






Answer to the question above: professional jealousy? --KK

Photo courtesy Rohan@Rohan

I Know What She Means

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

~ Jane Austen ~


Photo by Hil

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Among ashcans. He leaps and lightly
Walks upon sleep, his mind on the moon.
Nightly over the round world of men,
Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry.

~ Ted Hughes from "Esther's Tomcat" ~

Photo by Kristof Borkowski

Lovely!

There are some woods that are like stately sonnets and others of which the truth would best be told in tender lyrics.

~ Helen Hunt Jackson ~

Photo by akahodag

Poetry Friday

This time
        we tap with joy
                on mystery's door

~ Jakushitsu ~





Image courtesy the Library of Congress.

Cherry Blossoms!

though my rice sack
is empty...
cherry blossoms!

~ Issa translated by David G. Lanoue ~

Image courtesy the Library of Congress.

Can't They Be One and the Same?

The truth is more important than the facts.

~ Frank Lloyd Wright ~

Which Can't Happen If We Don't Start!

Solar power is clean, renewable and cost effective, but it also needs time to develop.

~ J. D. Hayworth ~

Image courtesty Open Clip Art Library

Coolidge Knew Who His Best Friends Were

Any man who does not like dogs and want them about does not deserve to be in the White House.

~ Calvin Coolidge ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cats

Cats sleep
Anywhere,
Any table,
Any chair,
Top of piano,
Window-ledge,
In the middle,
On the edge,
Open drawer,
Empty shoe,
Anybody's
Lap will do,
Fitted in a
Cardboard box,
In the cupboard
With your frocks -
Anywhere!
They don't care!
Cats sleep
Anywhere.


~ Eleanor Farjeon ~

It's Nearly Here!

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.

~ Ellis Peters ~

Poetry Friday

That children love to scrutinize things at close range--anthills and animals, grasshoppers and gyroscopes--persuades us that, with a little encouragement, they may care to look closely at poems as well.

~ X.J. and Dorothy M. Kennedy from Knock at a Star ~

I'll Bet!

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

~ Edmond de Goncourt ~

A Blessing--Definitely!

The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, one sometimes forgets which.

~ J. M. Barrie ~

The Very Empty Caterpillar

I'm so pleased that my caterpillar can help to promote healthy eating in the fight against childhood obesity, and I hope The Very Hungry Caterpillar will be a happy reminder for children to grow healthy and spread their strong wings, like the butterfly in my book.

~ Eric Carle ~

Fragile Indeed

Today’s events remind us of just how fragile life can be. Our hearts go out to our friends in Japan and across the region and we’re going to stand with them as they recover and rebuild from this tragedy.

~ Barack Obama ~

To contribute to relief efforts, click here.

Photo courtesy U.S. Navy

Sunday's Kat Kwote

one by one
even the cats come home...
cold nights

~ Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue ~

With prayers for the people, and cats, of Japan. --KK

Photo by nic0

We Will Not Give Up Our Souls!

The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more--something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job--their $19,000 a year job.

~ Michael Moore ~

Poetry Friday

And how exciting it is to find that a poetic language will liberate and not constrain.

~ Eavan Boland ~

It May Not Be Possible!

I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.

~ Barney Frank ~



Image courtesy twitter.com

What Is Art?

Art is the signature of civilizations.

~ Beverly Sills ~

Women's History Month

Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.

~ Elizabeth Janeway ~

Lincoln on Labor

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

How nice to be the gardener's cat,
She troubles not for mouse or rat,
But when it's coming down in streams,
She sits among the flowers and dreams.

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

Photo by kretyen

It Sure Is Troublesome

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

~ Bertrand Russell ~



Photo by Gnal

Poetry Friday

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet.

~ Grace Paley ~

Image courtesy Steve Rhodes

Really?

With a stout heart, a mouse can lift an elephant.

~ Tibetan proverb ~



Photo by revdode

Babar

For over seventy years, Babar has been the most famous elephant in the world—and the most controversial. He has been praised as a benevolent monarch, an ideal parent, and a model of family affection, loyalty, justice, good manners, and civilized living. He has also been damned as a sexist, an elitist, a colonialist, and a racist.

~ Alison Lurie ~

Image courtesy The Morgan Shop