He Hit the Nail on the Head!

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

~ Barack Obama ~
It's about time someone put the hawks on notice. --KK

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.

Poetry Friday

You have to keep affirming it, and bringing yourself to it. You have to keep hoping that it will move the mountain.

~ Ntoxake Shange ~
Print by Hiroshige, courtesy Library of Congress.

Archaeology

Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences.

~ Jim Bishop ~

Laugh!

Mirth is the sweet wine of human life.

~ Ward Beecher ~
Image courtesy openclipart.

But, Is It Brain Science?

Like the old Italian saying goes, "It ain't rocket surgery."

~ Nadia Giosia ~

Amen

Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

~ Jennifer M. Granholm ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Correction: Sunday's Kat Chicken Kwote

What have the chickens taught me? If you’re a creative person, you need a creative outlet only slightly less than you need food and water.

~ Doug Savage ~
Many thanks to Doug Savage for making me smile every morning when his Savage Chickens sticky note comes into my inbox.

Love

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.

~ Robert Browning ~




Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Poetry Friday

Poet

To clothe the fiery thought
In simple words succeeds,
For still the craft of genius is
To mask a king in weeds.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Now You Know

CFLs produce light differently than incandescent bulbs. In an incandescent, electric current runs through a wire filament and heats the filament until it starts to glow. In a CFL, an electric current is driven through a tube containing argon and a small amount of mercury vapor. This generates invisible ultraviolet light that excites a fluorescent coating (called phosphor) on the inside of the tube, which then emits visible light.

~ energystar.gov ~

Artists

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.

~ Al Hirschfeld ~




Photo by Carl Van Vechten, courtesy Library of Congress.

Reading

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer ~
Print courtesy Library of Congress.

A Silly Simile

...facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.

~ Dorothy L. Sayers ~
"Free run" by Petras Gagilas.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cat yodeling has many advantages.

~ An Engineer ~

A Realist

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.

~ Bob Marley ~

Poetry Friday

Art must take reality by surprise.

~ Francoise Sagan ~
The painting by Childe Hassam, "Flagstone Sidewalk, Portsmouth, New Hampshire" (1916), courtesy The Athenaeum.

We Are!

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

~ Mark Twain ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The Appearance

A painter paints the appearance of things, not their objective correctness, in fact he creates new appearances of things.

~ Ernst Ludwig Kirchner ~
Kirchner painting courtesy Wikipedia.

Movies

You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people's maps will be the same.

~ Mary Schmich ~




Image courtesy openclipart.

Stretch...

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

~ Joyce Maynard ~
Image courtesy openclipart.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ Henri, le Chat Noir ~

We Have An Obligation

We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we've shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.

We have an obligation to tell our politicians what we want, to vote against politicians of whatever party who do not understand the value of reading in creating worthwhile citizens, who do not want to act to preserve and protect knowledge and encourage literacy. This is not a matter of party politics. This is a matter of common humanity.

~ Neil Gaiman ~

Poetry Friday

I wanted to conform but I couldn't so I wrote my poetry.

~ William Carlos Williams ~
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Mother

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.

~ Victor Hugo ~

What?

I said that if an alien came to visit, I'd be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground to run our transportation. They'd be like, "What?"

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson ~

Priorities

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

~ Joseph Addison ~




Image courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Diversity

For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo.

~ John Ridley ~
There is a long-overdue push to bring more diversity to children's publishing. I recommend spending some time at this site. --KK

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Thinking

If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking.

~ George S. Patton ~




Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

I think this is true for all artists. My senses are very important to me.

~ Sharon Olds ~

Someone's Having a Birthday Today!

Trivia

In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.

~ Charles Lindbergh ~
Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy Library of Congress.

Robots

Robots are interesting because they exist as a real technology that you can really study--you can get a degree in robotics--and they also have all this pop-culture real estate that they take up in people's minds.

~ Daniel H. Wilson ~



Illustration courtesy openclipart.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

She moves in little gusts and breezes
sharp and sudden as a sneeze is.

~ Ian Serraillier from "Miss Tibbles" ~
Photo by ace_alejandra.

Ah, Spring Flowers

Flowers are the expression of the love life of plants.

~ Dain L. Tasker ~

Photo © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Poetry Friday

We read a poem, we listen to a song, and our hearts rise out of our eyes as tears.

That is poetry.

~ Paul L. Thomas ~

Image courtesy openclipart.

Favorite Book

My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.

~ Beverly Cleary ~
Photo by Caleb Roenigk.

The Importance of Not Knowing

A writer is someone who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do...The not-knowing is crucial to art, it is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.

~ Donald Barthelme ~




Image courtesy openclipart.

Happy Earth Day!

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

~ Henry David Thoreau ~

Stress

Stress is our twenty-first century tobacco. As we understand more about stress biology and the impact it has on our lives, we are going to have to wage a campaign to reduce the amount of stress in our lives.

~ Stephen Bezruchka ~
Image courtesy openclipart.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Happy Easter!

Yup!

Writing is thinking on paper.

~ William Zinsser ~

Poetry Friday

Spider

Spider, you and I are kin;
Our deepest selves we both disburse.
Your entrails into silk you spin,
            And I mine into verse.

~ Paul Scott Mowrer ~

Separating Eggs

This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate the eggs, but it doesn't say how far to separate them.

~ Gracie Allen ~
Image courtesy openclipart.

Wildlife

All over the world the wildlife that I write about is in grave danger. It is being exterminated by what we call the progress of civilization.

~ Gerald Durrell ~
[Note: waaaaaay back when I was in high school, my favorite books were written by Gerald Durrell. Durrell spent his life amongst the wild creatures of the earth, and, some of them just so happened to be members of his family! I highly recommend My Family and Other Animals or any of his other books that you can find.]

Photo by Byron Patchett.

A.K.A. "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is"

The people that are fans of animation are really the people that are keeping the art form of animation alive. If you like cartoons, support the cartoons.

~ Kari Wahlgren ~



Photo courtesy KariWahlgren.net.

Surviving

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.

~ Robertson Davies ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

It is a great many years since she died; but I can see her before me to-day as plainly as if it were only yesterday that I had really seen her alive.

~ Helen Hunt Jackson from Letters from a Cat ~

All the Writers are Nodding "Yes"

Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print.

~ Thomas Moore ~

Poetry Friday

If you have in any way touched the central heart of mankind's feelings, you'll survive.

~ Richard Eberhart ~
Photo courtesy Dartmouth.

Music

Music is only love looking for words.

~ Lawrence Durrell ~

Art?

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

~ Winston Churchill ~

Colors

Colors must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel.

~ Hans Hofmann ~




"Pompeii" © the Estate of Hans Hofmann (1959), courtesy the Tate.

On the Proper Use of the Secret Weapon

Be generous with the duct tape, you know; spare the duct tape, spoil the job.

~ Red Green ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Oh, you poor whisker-wiper, you silly piebald, you starveling mouse-hunter! what has come into your head?

~ from "The Fox and the Cat," in Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories ~
Considering the look on Smudgie's face, I would say murder has come into her head! Photo © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Opening Day!

You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.

~ Joe DiMaggio ~
Yesterday was opening day in Boston. I hope the Red Sox see something wonderful happen this season!

Poetry Friday

Poetry, by its nature, is on a human scale: the medium is one person’s voice. That sense of respect for the individual, built into the nature of the art, has the potential to temper, as well as inspire, leadership.

~ Robert Pinsky ~

Water Before Love

Joshua: Here! Water lily!

Lilia: My name is Lilia.

Joshua: To me you are a lily, and I want water.

Lilia: Joshua. Joshua, I thought you'd never come down.

Joshua: Water before love, my girl.

Lilia: Does it take the whole Nile to quench your thirst?

Joshua: No, just your lips.

~ from Cecile B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) ~

Happy National Poetry Month!

Poetry is a pleasure. It is compact and fast. It can pack emotion into the space of one breath.

~ Robert Pinsky ~
I took this photo from too far away at a performance of "Poemjazz" in Boston, March 2013. Pinsky in in the middle.

Judging a Book

Certainly the truth is laid bare once we start reading (just as the truth about a company's quality is laid bare soon after we hire them), but if anyone doubts how their expectations for a book they're about to read are affected by its presentation, I'd challenge them to examine their initial reaction to a book not with an unattractive cover but with an amateurish one.

~ Alex Lickerman ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes.

~ Indian proverb ~
Photo by Ant Smith.

Destiny

Give destiny a destination.

~ Tomi Ungerer ~
Photo © tomiungerer.com.

Poetry Friday

A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.

~ Edmond de Goncourt ~
This begs to be illustrated with a Marc Chagall painting, doesn't it?

Have an Adventure

Pick up your adventures with Stanley where ours ended. Put him in your wallet.

~ Brian Owens ~

Dogs

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

~ Emily Dickinson ~

How Is That Fair?

One of the mistakes I made was thinking chickens and penguins could sing, just like all the other animals in the "Muppets." But it turns out those animals are not allowed to sing words.

~ Bret McKenzie ~
Photo courtesy Spinoff Online.

On a Merry-Go-Round

When you're on a merry-go-round, you miss a lot of the scenery.

~ Neil Diamond ~
Photo by Russell Lee, courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat owes man nothing. Some experts estimate that there is one homeless cat managing on its own for every one with a home, which makes a total cat population in the U.S. of more than fifty million. That means the largest nonhuman animal population in the nation, short of rodents, whose number is beyond estimate. Eliminate cats from our ecology and, in a matter of weeks, we would be overrun by rodents.

~ Paul Corey ~
[Note: the cats in the image above are from 1642!}

Stupidity

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.

~ Friedrich Schiller ~

Poetry Friday

Since I was a boy I have always longed to hear poems spoken to a harp, as I imagined Homer to have spoken his, for it is not natural to enjoy an art only when one is by oneself. Whenever one finds a fine verse one wants to read it to somebody, and it would be much less trouble and much pleasanter if we could all listen, friend by friend, lover by beloved.

~ W. B. Yeats ~